VIDEO: Jus Like Music on Intruders.tv

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I was recently interviewed by the guys over at Intruders.tv. As you’ll see from the above video, they ask me about the history of Jus Like Music, my thoughts on music blogging and where it is heading. There’s also some info on the upcoming Jus Like Music & Apple Juice Break present: Oscillations compilation, which I mentioned yesterday.

More info to come on Oscillations shortly, but for now, enjoy the video. Oh, please excuse my unruly barnet!

mp3: J Dilla – Reality TV (feat. Black Thought)

Track Of The Week: Exile – The Sound Is God

As I write these words I realise more and more that the title of this piece should have just been Album Of The Week. I’m talking bout the new release by Exile called Radio. Out recently on Plug Research, this masterful instrumental hip-hop album strikes a chord on many, many levels. I first heard Exile’s work via his track In The Night 22 from 2007’s From L.A. With Love compilation – I was totally addicted to the track and am still greatly fond of it now. Hence I was keen to hear this new LP, Radio.

The specific track I’ve picked out is The Sound Is God. Hard-hitting tight beats intertwined with such levels of arrangement exhibiting uncanny amounts of musical depth. On the surface it’s an absolute banger – but delve a bit more and there is so much contained inside. Minute samples and sounds, exquisitely built into one spine-tingling hip-hop composition. It will shake your bones whilst simultaneously caressing your soul – and it’s undeniably Exile, trademark material for sure.

mp3: Exile – The Sound Is God

Although with a distinct amount of variance, the whole LP contains that trademark Exile production technique. It doesn’t bare comparison with many contemporaries as such things are irrelevant beyond the fact that Exile creates boundary pushing instrumental hip-hop with an MPC sampler. I was actually surprised to see comments on another site from people claiming Radio to be a “Donuts wannabe”, if anyone in all seriousness thinks Radio is anything like Donuts, then they really don’t know what they are talking about. That’s a totally ludicrous thought. The theme of Radio is, obviously, radio and between tracks (i.e. intros and outros) there are cut ups from radio samples and also thought provoking dialogue, but there’s nothing to compare with Donuts other than the aforementioned hip-hop and MPC parts. If everyone that makes music using lots of samples and an MPC is automatically going to be accused of biting J Dilla, then we better all call it a day right now. So naive – even Exile’s MPC techniques are completely different to Dilla’s, sane ears will tell you that from the get go.

Anyway, rant over. Radio is a top, top LP and you need to buy it now, seriously!

Well Planned Randomness

Hello. Software eh? I cant 100% be certain that my current state of anguish is the fault of one last.fm, but all I know is that my iTunes was fine, then I had to upgrade the last.fm software. I re-opened iTunes afterwards and my library was empty, all playlists gone, all podcasts gone, it basically looked like a fresh install of iTunes. Don’t worry, the actual mp3s were still on my computer, but still a major pain in the arse having your library wiped. On a similar note I’d heard bout lots of problems with the new iTunes (version 7, until this point I was still using 6) – tales of lagging, skipping, and general failing. I was planning to hold off installing it, but I figured things couldn’t get much worse after my library incident. Anyway, I installed v7 and honest to god, it has been fine. Maybe they fixed the issues?

So this new iTunes, if you hate lots of big graphics and unnecessary menu frameworks, don’t bother with it – use foobar2000. If the aforementioned qualities leave you drooling over your keyboard, go for it! They have this new cover browser feature, the idea being that it feels like you are actually flicking through your own CD collection… well it doesn’t, it’s a totally useless feature, but it does look good and we live in a world built around attractive aesthetics, so indulge. Only thing I had to do to get this new feature to work was go through my library and replace all the tiny artwork with versions around 400 x 400px, this was so they didn’t appear pixelated in the cover browser view. Essentially this new version of iTunes was created to support the new feature of downloading tv shows and films from the iTunes store. Aside from that it leans more towards the user that has nothing but full albums on their pc, so if you are one of those people with thousands of single tracks, you might find the new features frustrating.

It’s amazing how quickly ‘we’ become attached to mod cons, I mentioned a couple of months ago that when MySpace went down for a whole day the worlds population of teenagers were having synchronised anxiety attacks, well to be honest, and maybe just for a minute, I felt practically numb when I saw my iTunes library had been wiped. Imagine how I’d feel if I lost 10,000 tracks?! Even just the thought of how much time it would take to rip a lot of music from CD all over again makes me feel ill. Still, and I failed to mention this before, the new iTunes has an option to backup your whole music collection to CD or DVD, and if your collection is bigger than one DVD iTunes will create a series of discs for you. I will be using this feature!

In other news, a compilation CD of John Peel’s favourite tracks between 1977 to 1987 is being released. The compilation will be called John Peel – Right Time, Wrong Speed: 1977 – 1987 and it is due out on 9th October. It will be a double CD featuring such artists as; Buzzcocks, The Cure, The Jam, Joy Division, Cocteau Twins, The Smiths, Grandmaster Flash, and The Fall.

More news on the Mercury Prize, nothing to do with Arctic Monkeys this time! Apparently a Mercury Prize for kids is being launched to coincide with National Music Week. School pupils will get to decide between ten British acts from varying genres, then the winner will be announced on 31st October after the National Music Week (16th to 20th October). The incentive, organised in tandem by the Government and the music industry, is to encourage better music education in schools.

This week expect a review of Ty’s soon to drop album Closer, I think it will be a good read, so don’t miss it. Thanks to all the people that have read my recent reviews and left comments on them, I appreciate it. I’m still on the job hunt – if anyone out their wants to employ me, please give me a shout! But once things calm down a bit I’ll try and get some more interviews arranged. Plus it’s only two weeks till the Parklife festival, so I’ll do a write-up of that, let you all know just how good Coldcut, Cut Chemist, and Mix Master Mike were! For now I will leave you with something interesting, and please bear in mind that I’m not a fan of country music, but sometimes you cant ignore certain angles on genres…

Lambchop – Cracker
>> download <<
This download is a sample of the music only and must be deleted from your computer within 24 hours of downloading. This download link will expire on 30th September.

Useful links:

• last.fm website
• Download – iTunes 7
• Foobar2000 website
• Ty MySpace page
• Lambchop MySpace page
• Download – Lambchop – Cracker

Monday, Monday

So, in some sort of ironic twist it turns out my rant the other day was rather popular. Cant entirely tell if that was cos of the mp3 I put on there, or if word did genuinely spread bout some cracker having a moan! But either way, people were clicking buttons out there.

You may have heard of the stencil graff artist Banksy, well Mark B sent me a link to a story on Banksy’s latest stunt – although I’m not sure why it took the BBC nearly three months to write about this… “Paris Hilton targeted in CD prank”. Basically Banksy altered the artwork for the new Paris Hilton CD and put his ‘doctored’ copies (500 of) in about 40 stores nationwide in England. Here’s the front cover (take note of the sticker)…

You may notice that Paris’ breasticles are on show, but more interestingly the sticker has been altered with some pretty amusing fake song titles. The inner parts of the sleeve have been totally altered too, you can see the pics at The Gossip Rag. Some people really slag off Banksy, but the way I look at it is that he is extremely creative and has a great sense of humour – no-one ever died as the result of a Banksy stunt – I’m glad for his contributions, makes life a little less boring. Plus Paris Hilton is a dickhead and her music sucks! God, and you thought I was gonna be adult about things!

In what has been labelled by some *cough*NME*cough* as “breaking news”, Pete Doherty (of continuous tabloid drug exposé fame… oh and some singing) has avoided a jail term. The judge has deferred sentencing till December as Pete has been a very good boy at rehab – watch this space… or not.

Whilst we’re on the subject of NME, they’ve launched a campaign to find out who threw the bottle at the lead singer of Panic! At The Disco. They want to hear from anyone that threw crap at My Chemical Romance too. Supposedly it is for an upcoming feature as throwing bottles at people is a serious issue. Oh, also if you’re an emo kid that’s ever got a slap for your poor taste in music or dress sense, then they want to speak to you too. Oh the humanity.

Mos Def got arrested at the MTV VMA awards the other night. Something to do with being disorderly whilst performing his track about Katrina, that slags off Bush and co. They were asked to wrap it up, then when they didn’t the police started arresting members of his entourage, and then him. He was released shortly afterwards, but I wish they’d have arrested the organisers of those awards instead – I watched bits of the show, it was crap. Highlight was that band OK Go prancing about on treadmills. Still, I’m sure everyone was eager to see who would win the Best Ringtone award, hmmm.

Enough of this trivial drivel (don’t try to say that when you’re drunk), allow me to share a track I think you should might like…

Damien Rice – Creep
>> download << TRACK RE-UPLOADED!
This download is a sample of the music only and must be deleted from your computer within 24 hours of downloading. This download link will expire on 11th September.

Now, unlike the other day, I do actually know for sure that this Radiohead cover is by Damien Rice! I wonder how many more covers of Creep I could possibly find?

Before I forget, RIP Steve Irwin – a tragic loss.

Useful links:

• Banksy website
• Mark B MySpace page
• Download – Damien Rice – Creep

3 and a Half

Three and a half months of blogging, and what have I learnt? Funny you should ask, this is something I was thinking about yesterday. I’ve gone from nothing to something in quite a short space of time. I started this blog as something to do, particularly whilst FIZIKZ was still down (and it still is) – but as with most new hobbies I pick up, I just went along with the flow and enjoyed the journey it took me on. If you don’t run a blog, there are a few things you should know; bloggers can check detailed stats on who visits them and why, bloggers can see who is linking to their own blog, and bloggers can also register their blog with directories and aggregators to help gain traffic.

When I first started, like I say, it was merely a hobby, and generally somewhere I could share the details of my discoveries with the bigger world. But curiosity and progression are just part of the human condition, so naturally I was eager to see what my stats were doing. At first I was just pleased to see 30 hits a day, but quickly that number grew. To cut a long story short, I saw my stats peak recently during the hype of the new DJ Shadow album, where my review was the number one returned link on Google for the search “DJ Shadow The Outsider Review” – I was getting about 1000 hits a day. However, that did indeed die down… right down. But I was glad to see this peak and crash (for want of a better word), it enabled me to rationalise and remember why I write this blog.

Essentially there are a few things you can do to ensure you have a popular music blog; register with as many directories as possible, swap links with as many other music blogs as possible (preferably very popular ones), check (and register with) aggregators like elbows and Hype Machine to see what people are searching for and what people are talking about. That last point is a particular point I’d like to focus on. If you go to Hype Machine now and check the popular tracks link you will see that Justin Timberlake and The Rapture are popular with the readers, but I use the term ‘readers’ very loosely. Essentially people use Hype Machine to find free mp3s, the chances of anyone actually reading what the blogger writes is probably slim – alas of course I am wondering if anyone is reading this right now?!

To make your music blog popular just regularly post up free mp3s of the latest big thing, or unreleased tracks from an album that isn’t out, but is highly anticipated – this isn’t a free tips column, it’s very much tongue in cheek observations. I’ve seen how the stats react on my own blog when I’ve posted up tracks from The Knife or Outkast – but post up some obscure Eastern European nu-jazz and the stats stay low. There is a simple answer really; people search for popular stuff, if your blog has it, they’ll come and get it. But this goes back to what I was originally saying about rationalising. I’m at the point now where I don’t care about the stats anymore, I just remind myself why I started the blog – it was to share with people the music I like, not to give people the exact stuff they’re looking for. Maybe that sounds selfish, but hey, it’s my blog and if just a few people a day actually read what I write, rather than just steam on in, grab the latest Justin Timberlake mp3 and go, then I’m a happy chap.

I read an article by a music critic/journalist the other day, he was stating that the regular music critic is now a rare breed, what with all the music bloggers etc… He summarised by saying there was still a place in the world for the old skool journos, but where he said that the blogger now has control and can command huge traffic on the net to reach a large readership, I’m not so sure I agree in whole. Essentially these bloggers can harness traffic, which in turn could earn them revenue – so from a marketing perspective it is a very viable situation that could easily prosper, however from a quality stand-point I think it is poor.

We shape our own communities and trends – where all people want is free mp3s and they don’t care what you’re writing, the writers often end up following suit. They chase stats and hits, so why bother typing a bucket load of opinions and info, when all you need to do is post up that Justin Timberlake mp3? No extra effort required. I’m not here for a witch hunt, but one of the Hype Machine’s current most popular tracks (AKA: been commanding lots of traffic) is a JT track that is accompanied on the blog entry by three sentences. Three sentences, an mp3, and a bucket load of traffic. It’s not essentially the bloggers fault per sé, he (or she) probably never promised to be comparable to Dickens, but through posting up something that a lot of people are looking for, they’ve gained hits galore. But essentially nor is it Hype Machine’s fault either, they provide a good service and cant control what people search for – such is life.

This whole conundrum answers itself, people search for popular things (enter vicious circle theory here), so traffic is generated in that manner by the masses. But, I’m not particularly bothered by the stats… remember?! So, in all sincerity, I’m sorry if I sound at all bitter, I genuinely don’t mean to – I’m just explaining and rationalising (mainly to myself) how this ol’ music blogging business works. Anyway, if anything, I should be commanding a nice little niché in the market, seeing as 95% of music blogs are about indie rock and I prefer some hip-hop and electronica! How bout I finish up this ultra-rant with some irony and post a track from an artist a lot of people will be searching for?!

Radiohead – Creep (Acapella)
>> download <<
This download is a sample of the music only and must be deleted from your computer within 24 hours of downloading. This download link will expire on 9th September.

Useful links:

• elbows aggregator
• Hype Machine aggregator
• Download – Radiohead – Creep (Acapella)