Everyone is busy with eulogies these days about this guy. What a true artist he was, how popular, what a glorious career, what an icon.

My ass.

I don’t give a monkey if this guy released Thriller, or popularized the moonwalk. And yes, I am super-familiar with his career, since I was a huge fan of his in the ’80s and early ’90s. Everyone who knew me during high school can attest to that. Even saw him live once, at a concert in Germany (and made a big fuss about it to my then-fiance to go see MJ live). Many times I had fought with my father for the TV’s remote control for me wanting to watch.

What concerns me instead is his reported $200-$400 million debt he leaves behind. That’s what’s bugging me. His current estate and future sales will pay for part of this debt, but it won’t be enough to pay it all back. Naturally, his children — and their children — will have to work all their life to payback their father’s careless overspending. Unless MJ’s girlfriend, Tinkerbell, allows for a miracle to happen, these children will never be free. Update: Reader Steve says in the comments that in the US the kids won’t be held responsible paying off that debt. Let’s hope that’s how it’s going to play out.

Some will say “separate the man from his art”, but in this case, the man has more impact to me than his art. I am sorry to say, but this debt is the only “legacy” I see Jackson leaving behind. Its effects on his children are so powerful in my mind, that overshadows everything else he accomplished in his life and career. I can’t stand listening to his music anymore because of the person he became (and no, I don’t even count the pederasty allegations). He let himself to get hooked on drugs, became careless about his spending, and on top of all that, he wanted children! What for? As new puppies?

The usual argument against all this is “but he had a hard star-child life”. Well, that’s all bullshit. He had TWENTY+ years to SORT OUT his psychological problems. Thank God, during the ’80s he had enough money to employ top-shrinks to help him out. So putting that “child star” argument over and over, is weak after a few years. He has absolutely no excuse. Neither he, or his close family for not reporting his addiction/psycho problems to the police to not allow him to take custody of his children (that’s what responsible people should do, even if they end up alienating themselves). Then again, after watching this, I don’t believe that anyone in his “family” ever gave a shit about MJ.

So let him rot in hell. Spare me the eulogies that the internet and TV is full of (I can’t even escape iTunes/Amazon’s top-10 lists). My only hope is for a way out, for his children.

My new favorite band, The Rosebuds (a married couple from Raleigh, NC). I bought most of their music last night. If you like what you hear, support the band too!

Legal mp3 downloads from the band, to taste more of their great music:
- Life Like (my rating: 5/5)
- Leaves Do Fall (5/5)
- Get Up Get Out (5/5)
- Blue Bird (4.5/5)
- Kicks in the Schoolyard (4/5)

I watched “Babel” tonight. All I can say is “wow”.

This is one of the best movies I have ever watched in my life. It kept me on the edge of my seat — and it’s one of the very few movies that are able to put me in that mode. The cinematography was amazing, the performances, direction, and storyline too. I found the depiction of the various places extremely authentic — and that was the key for me.

If there was one thing that should have been done better, was the Japanese story and its loose connection to the other stories (while a great story in itself, it felt a bit out of place in conjunction to the others). But other than that, the movie is thrilling! Rent it!

There was an article the other day about the majority of the most influential rock bands being mostly British: Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Sex Pistols, Iron Maiden, Oasis and of course, U2 (actually Irish). The US has only Nirvana, Metallica, and to a lesser degree, Pearl Jam and Guns’n'Roses, to show off at that level. US has many more big bands collectively, but few stand out as much as the British ones.

In fact, if I was to pick the most important bands in the past decades of rock, it would look something like this:
60s: Beatles, Rolling Stones
70s: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd
80s: U2, Iron Maiden
90s: Nirvana, Metallica

Now, here’s the interesting thing: I can’t find for the life of me a single band for the current 2000s decade that I personally find important and influential. Green Day, Coldplay, and The White Stripes are coming close, but no cake. Green Day are just alt.punk (heard it all before), Coldplay are more pop than rock, and The White Stripes sound just like a more modern version of the Led Zeppelin. But none of these bands actually offers a new, fresh, and innovative sound like any of the bands I mentioned above.

Some will say that the decade is not out yet, and so I haven’t felt their impact to new artists just yet. But I don’t believe that this is the case here. I really don’t see any grass root innovation in rock anymore. The last one was in the early ’90s. Since then, the UK hasn’t had any new big bands, and USA just plays the “maintenance game”. I feel that I have heard it all before.

Let me be clear that there are bands out there that ARE innovative, bands like the Cloud Cult. But I can’t outright call them influential, since only few people know their existence. Even MGMT, who do sound different and have a major contract, only have had moderate success in the grand scheme of things.

I would go as far and say that most of the 2000s is governed by that folk indie-rock sound, like the Iron & Wine, The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes. Problem with this is, by being mostly indie (both as a genre, and as a business model), they don’t reach a lot of people — especially not worldwide, like any of the bands of the previous decades have done. Most of Europe couldn’t care less about folk-sounding indie rock, for example. And yet, they were taken as with a storm by the Nirvana!

So, what’s wrong with rock? Why this decade hasn’t produced brand new sounds to inspire the generations to come? There are two schools of thought about this, from two different people that I will indirectly quote below:

1. Eric Earley, the singer/songwriter of Blitzen Trapper (a band that plays ’70s-sounding folk rock), said in an interview a few months ago (sorry, can’t find the link back) that everything that can be done with rock is pretty much already been done. For him, it doesn’t matter if something sounds modern or not, only thing it matters is if the song is good or not — no matter the sub-genre.

My take: If that’s true, then why people don’t buy old, traditional songs anymore? I know for one, I can’t stand them, and I even realize that some of them are actually good. And, is it enough for an artist to rehash something others did 30 years before him?

2. My husband, Jean-Baptiste, a software engineer, and someone who doesn’t believes in stumbling blocks. He is a problem-solver at Google — that’s his job. JBQ believes that there are always new possibilities, and new things to invent. For him, there will always be that open-minded musician that will surprise us all with a completely new sound, when we least expect it.

My take: if that’s true, why this decade had not had a single major Rock-God band? What if there is indeed a finite number of rock genres and melodies that can sound good to the human ear?

Finally, my opinion: As most of the times when I present controversial food for thought, I think the truth lies somewhere in between. I believe that you can only re-invent something so many times before it still feels old. At the same time though, music software gets more powerful and allows for more experimentation and research: this allows for previously independent genres of music to merge, blurring the limits of what is rock and what is not (e.g. MGMT’s electro sound). Adding to this the upcoming death of the entertainment industry at large, there will be fewer people choosing the profession (although this might prove a good thing, since too many cooks…).

The pessimist in me believes that “rock” (and music as something more important than just a random song playing on the background while eating dinner) had a golden era between 1960 and 2000. We are currently living towards the decline of the multi-billion industry and the highly innovative musical times. I know that for some people this is something that they can’t grasp since they grew up with this status quo, but I can tell you that priorities do change in society faster than you think. Music will never die, but our investment level in it can change dramatically on different times of the human history.

Look no further!

After spending over a month hunting for the best pieces of (legally free) music online, I have now compiled a top-100 with the best of the best promotional tracks for you! I sampled over 4,000 songs from official label sites, band sites, promotional & serious music magazines sites. I ended up downloading 500 songs, and below I present you my top-100 (in my own music taste, of course). To save you the trouble, 95% of the music below can be classified as “alternative”. I wish more bands would offer 1-2 free mp3s per album for promotional purposes, as the idea totally works (and an editorial on the subject).

Disclaimer: No songs are stored on this server, and no copyright infringement is intended. The sole purpose of this article is informational. I did my best possible to make sure that the songs linked are legal, stored on official sites or on music/promotional sites that have the required distribution rights. If you represent one of the labels or artists found below and would like me to stop linking to your songs for some reason, please contact me.

Now, back to the meat. Have a careful listen on my No 1 song. You will either “get it” and fall in love with it, or you will outright loathe it (since it’s pretty experimental). The rest of the songs are much more conventional, and definitely “catchy”. If you like some of the artists below, don’t forget to support them by buying their music. Anyways, happy listening!

1. Cloud Cult – The Tornado Lessons
2. Fleet Foxes – Mykonos
3. Cloud Cult – Everybody here is a Cloud
4. Blitzen Trapper – Gold for Bread
5. Band Of Horses – The Funeral
6. Jane Vain and the Dark Matter – C’mon Baby Say Bang Bang
7. Tokyo Police Club – Nature of the experiment
8. Loquat – Swingset Chain
9. Midlake – Roscoe
10. Wiretree – Big Coat
11. Matti Paalanen – Here comes the rain
12. Blitzen Trapper – Furr
13. MGMT – Time to pretend
14. Malbec – Pictures In Magazines
15. People in Planes – If You Talk Too Much
16. Seabird – Rescue
17. Peter Bjorn & John – Let’s Call it Off
18. The New Frontiers – Black Lungs
19. Sin Fang Bous – Catch The Light
20. The Coral Sea – More Than You Know
21. Rock Kills Kid – Paralyzed
22. Blitzen Trapper – Wild Mountain Nation
23. The Verve – Lucky Man
24. Great Northern – Houses
25. Longwave – No Direction
26. Ag Silver – Can’t You See
27. The Hives – Hate to Say I Told You So
28. Ratatat – Wildcat
29. Paper Route – Empty house
30. The Postal Service – Such Great Heights
31. The Strokes – Last Nite
32. Aberdeen City – God Is Going To Get Sick Of Me
33. Ag Silver – Now Or Never
34. Blitzen Trapper – Crushing the Wheat
35. Alibi Tom – Fire
36. Anberlin – A day late
37. Anna Ternheim – To Be Gone
38. Aqualung – Brighter Than Sunshine
39. Band Of Horses – No One’s Gonna Love You
40. Barcelona – It’s About Time
41. Beat & Path – Goodbye beautiful day
42. Malbec – Home
43. The Sounds – Painted By Numbers
44. Early Day Miners – All Harm
45. Blind Divine – Something Magical
46. Seabird – Let Me Go On
47. Bloc Party – Signs (Armand Van Helden Remix)
48. Bowerbirds – In Our Talons
49. Cage the Elephant – Tiny Little Robots
50. Calexico – History of lovers
51. Chad VanGaalen – City of Electric Light
52. Chance – Independent
53. Cloud Cult – When Water Comes to Life
54. Bat For Lashes – Horse and I
55. Blonde Redhead – 23
56. La Rocca – This Life
57. 13ghosts – Beyond Door
58. The Whip – Trash
59. Art In Manila – Set The Woods
60. Asobi Seksu – Thursday
61. Malbec – World Cup
62. The Coral Sea – In This Moment’s Time
63. El Goodo – Feel So Fine
64. Elk City – Los Cruzados
65. Faunts – Memories of places we’ve never been
66. Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal
67. Living Things – Let It Rain
68. Longwave – There’s a Fire
69. The Starlight Mints – Inside of me
70. Orenda Fink – Bloodline
71. Panic at the disco – The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide
72. Malbec – Story Of A Broken Heart
73. Cold War Kids – Hang me up to dry
74. Morning State – Oh Yeah
75. My Robot Friend – Robot High School
76. Halomobilo – Shallow
77. Band Of Horses – Is There a Ghost
78. The Rosebuds – Get Up Get Out
79. Station Victoria – All In Your Head
80. The A-Sides – Diamonds
81. The Raveonettes – Dead sound
82. Ben Skoglund – I Won’t Tell
83. The Cloud Room – Hey now now
84. The Comas – Come my sunshine
85. We Are Wolves – Fight and Kiss
86. Woodhands – I Wasnt Made For Fighting
87. Peter Bjorn & John – Young Folks
88. The Rantings of EVA – Infrared
89. Danger Is My Middle Name – Heroes and Underdogs
90. David Vandervelde – Jacket
91. The Republic Tigers – Buildings & Mountains
92. The Rosebuds – Leaves do fall
93. Quiet Company – Seal My Fate
94. The Voyeurs – Things People Say
95. Portugal. The Man – People Say
96. Vanderveen – Weekend Full of Weekends
97. We Are Scientists – Inaction
98. The Submarines – You Me and the Bourgeoise
99. Deshead – I Meant To Remember
100. The Rosebuds – Life Like

I just stumbled against a band called Art in Manila, for whom their label give away 2 free mp3 samples. I heard the songs, I liked what I heard, and went to iTunes to check the rest of their songs. I liked 4 more of their songs via the iTunes preview, which I purchased. Looking around for more info, I found that Orenda Fink is their singer. I checked her 2 free promotional mp3 songs, and I also liked what I heard. So I ended up purchasing one additional song from the singer’s solo album (”Blind Asylum”). Snooping a bit more, I am now looking at the O+S band, which is the singer’s latest project and they also have 2 free songs. If I like what I hear again, I will be buying once more tonight.

Moral of the story: 1-2 free mp3 samples (e.g. your 4rd or 5th best song) of your album should be given away for promotional reasons (and make absolutely sure you have tagged them correctly). However, this will only work if your songs are actually good. If you only have 1-2 good songs in the whole album, then you should get another job anyway.

Update: Bought a song from O+S too just now (”Lonely Ghosts”).

“[Lost]It’s going to be one of the last huge television shows in terms of size of cast and scope of production… Given the fact that network television is changing, it may be one of the last great rides of this kind of big epic storytelling.”

This is what the resident director/producer of Lost, Jack Bender, said to journalists recently. Of course, I know all about TV going back to being episodic (and cheaper, as the whole entertainment industry is getting sized down), but this just sucks every time I read it anyway.

I just want my EPIC shows back! I want complexity!

I can’t stand country music. However, I like Blitzen Trapper, a lot. The “Trappas” sound country at first listen, but they are not exactly it. They are somewhere between ’70s folk, country, americana, bluegrass, and rock all mixed together. There’s even a bit of electronic in there! They are known as the band that can’t be placed musically in any genre. And yet, I would never consider their music and give them a fair chance if it wasn’t for a single song that I happened to stumble upon about two years ago: Sci-Fi Kid.

The song somehow strikes a cord with me as I am a huge fan of science fiction (although the lyrics also feel like it’s all about drugs). It represents the more alternative rock side of BT (which I prefer). I wish I could direct the music video for that song.

Sugar’s got a space ship tripping over dusty stars
Keen cars, living large, playing big guitars
Hackin’ in, making holes, and it’s not so hard
It’s just a extra part in a kid like me
Me
A Sci-fi kid like me

Since that song, I purchased most of their music, and I enjoy most of it. I still can’t easily get used to the songs that use the banjo and the harmonica, but overall, I love most of their tracks. And of course, having such a weirdo, multiple-personality (musically) guy as a front man, helps. He has peaked up my curiosity.

Watch below their biggest hit so far, the music video for “Furr”, and download one of my favorite songs of theirs, the rare “Crushing the wheat”.

Maestro is a nice short movie, shot with a Canon HV20 and a Twoneil’s 35mm adapter. The plot: a young musician stifled by the modern day schooling system tries to find his way to make his mark. HD version & download here.

I had a great time at Cafe du Nord tonight, watching the Malbec live giving a great show. A very energetic band with melodic songs. I chickened out at the Cafe’s rules to not use a real camera but only cellphones, so I had to use JBQ’s Android phone to capture the following pictures and video. It was great meeting for real and talking to Mark, Malbec’s drummer — and also a great HV20/HVX200 filmmaker. Download Malbec’s latest EPs for free.

View official music video for this song

The Malbec were great, so were the local Loquat. Their singer sure can sing loud. I was positively surprised to see Loquat using two HV20 videos (downloaded from Vimeo) through a projector. Nice to see that our little community’s hobby proves useful to some people out there. I won’t say whose videos they used, I’ll keep that a secret.