April 2010 Archives

We take a break from the usual List Addicts Fridays to make way for some amazing stuff from Buffetlibre.

If you haven't heard the news yet - Buffetlibre and Amnesty International Catalunya has teamed up to form the first music atlas on the web. Called PEACE - it's a project that unites artists from all over the globe in support for Amnesty International. The site offers a compilation of over 180 unreleased songs from your favorite artists from different parts of the globe. As a sampler, we've got a couple of songs posted here from the compilation from The Antlers, Patrick Wolf, Crocodiles, Plushgun and our own favorite, Ra Ra Riot.

The 180 song compilation can be downloaded after making a donation to Amnesty International Catalunya and the collected money will be used for Amnesty International’s investigation and action campaigns aimed at preventing cases of Human Rights abuses around the world. Starting from 5 euros, you can get the full compilation, info sheets about the artists (for all the music geeks like me out there), as well as a chance to win tickets to some of the major music festivals around the globe. I've included a full list of artists right after the jump, and you can also go straight to the PEACE site to know more about it.

Just because I'm craving for some Kick-Ass -  Chloe Moretz, Clark Duke and McLovin in The Soft Pack's new video of Answer to Yourself is our Video of the Week.

I am a Lucky Soul fan. Indeed I am.

From the first time I heard 'Lips Are Unhappy', I instantly got hooked - all the more with a full listen to their debut album The Great Unwanted. Ali Howard's sweet soothing vocals, partnered with 60's style upbeat soul, was the just the right combination that felt like drinking fizzy lifting drinks to remedy a drowning heart. So imagine how elated I was to know that the group was releasing another full length, and that I had the chance to get a Q and A with them.

For today's Fresh from the Post, Lucky Soul's Ali Howard talks to us about the band's new album A Coming of Age, shares one of the singles off their new album, as well as a new Lucky Soul video -

To ease in to the new week, we start with our new-ish weekly post  - We (heart) album art. 

And to further reiterate that yes, this is a database - we've got 16 albums featured that have one common theme. For this week, it's one of mankind's top favorite things to exploit: animals. We here at The Indie Music Database, love animals (especially ones of the corgi kind) and it's no surprise that our favorite indie artists love them as well. So don't be shy to click away, album animals need love as much as the real kind too.

On our late Fresh from the Post this week, we have Brooklyn based band All Night Chemists.  

All Night Chemists is fronted by NYC musician, engineer and producer Len Monachello   He's one of those play-20-instruments-well-and-also-engineer-while-having-a-sandwich kind of guys. He plays almost every instrument on the band's new album 'Meet Me Again' and has written, produced and performed almost every song himself.

We had a chance to get a Q and A with Len to talk more about his music, sample a couple of songs and marvel how Sesame Street can actually be a significant influence in music - 

Ack! Another new weekly thing! I don't know why I torture myself in putting up weekly recurring posts even though I rarely post them up on time. But this one you'll love (I hope!). Though it may not seem so, we are actually an Indie Music Database (hence the db search section at the top). As I work towards getting our database beefed up, I encourage you to browse through the many artists on the site by this weekly album post. If you guys are anything like me, album covers always pique my interest whether or not I know the music of that particular artist - so what better way to get to know some of your indie artists than through their own album art. 

This week's theme is a single face in every album - may it be the artist's own, or some random person's. So go on, clickety-click, if you want to find out more about these interesting mugshots.

To anyone who's ever cared to read the About Us section of this site, you would know that part of the reason why I made this site was for my son Paolo - who loves indie music, as well as surfing on the net. Another cool thing about him is that he's autistic. When I say cool, I don't mean to take autism lightly here - believe me, we've had our ups and downs with his condition, but to borrow Dr. Temple Grandin's words (who's a famous autistic person herself), it's also a gift.

Autism, to define it briefly, is a neurological developmental disorder that affects a person's social and communication skills and, to a greater or lesser degree, their motor and language skills. It manifests differently from one individual or another - since it is a spectrum disorder, so some may be on the lower end of the spectrum (non-verbal, extreme difficulty with motor skills) or on the higher end (highly verbal, but still laking in the social and communication skills department). 

In films, one of the more popular portrayals of an autistic person would be from the 1988 film "RainMan". Dustin Hoffman (who won an academy award for it), actually based it on the famous savant from Utah, Kim Peek. Not to generalize that all autistics are savants though  - my son does struggle with grade 2 math - it's a nice movie to see if you want to get an idea of how the autistic brain works. Also, if you haven't seen it yet, another excellent film is the HBO movie based on Temple Grandin's life - who which I was quite relieved to know, also had great struggles with math as my son did (as her science teacher would explain, she was more of a visual thinker, and math, like language, is quite abstract).  To note, for new movies released about people with autism, I wouldn't care too much for Adam (released last year) - it's more of a date movie and a new version of Say Anything than anything else -  only replace John Cusack with an autistic Hugh Dancy. A few minutes into it, my husband had to stop from watching, since it portrayed a man with Aspergers, struggling on his own, his parents dead and him just recently being sacked from his job -  the nightmare of most parents with autistic children.

I'll stop with the movies here, since it might be a list for a another time. So to move on to today's List Addicts Fridays, and in honor of April 2 being World Autism Awareness Day, I present a couple of songs that Paolo has marked as his favorite at one time or another (apologies, if I've listed some songs in other lists on the site before, my son does love to go here and click on stuff). To note, some of these songs have made my ears bleed - as the non-neurotypical boy that he is, Paolo loves to listen to things over and over and over again - 

You've probably been living under a rock if you haven't heard of Merton, the funny piano improv guy on Chatroulette. I wanted to put his first video up as Video of the Week the minute I saw it because : one, it's hilarious and two, it's music, and funny music to boot. But then I figured, since everybody's probably seen it, it would be a better idea if I had something else with it...like maybe a Q and A. So in the off chance that I could get some information about the mysterious piano improv guy, I send him a message on YouTube :

Love your video. Can I feature it on our site with a Q & A? P.S. How many pervs did you encounter?  I admit, I'm kind of scared to try it since I tried a similiar video chat eons ago and the first stranger I got pointed the camera straight at their balls. Got me scarred for life xoxo Cristina.

Elated, I receive a message back from Merton the same day :

Honestly, if you go on ChatRoulette, you are very likely to see some balls. On behalf of the male half of the species, I would like to apologize.Yes, that would be great to have a featured video on your site. I am also happy to answer some questions or provide some (true) background info.But I want to protect my anonymity for now, so I don't want to give my name or very specific details about my life, etc. - Merton

I happily send my questions in. I waited. The video went on to get 4 million hits. A few weeks later, just when I thought I wouldn't get a response, I got this in my inbox. Here now, is my Q and A with Merton, the ChatRoulette Piano Improv Guy -