vosotros: music for you-all

we’re here.

My computer is out of sauce, so I thought it was about time to rock some good ol’ fashion phone blogging… I’ve been back in the States for a little over a week now. I had a swell time in Dublin - drinking more Guinness in 4 days then I’ve probably had my whole life up until that point. Some exciting music happening over there (if you’ll be in New York in a few weeks, definitely stop by the Irish showcase at CMJ).

• Have you seen Shazam? It’s the much talked about iPhone app that can identify what song is playing by recording a short clip and sending it off to the Shazam mothership for analysis… impressive stuff. But get this - Shazam is keeping data on what is being shazamed! A friend of mine in London told me about a new Shazam-chart in the UK showing the most shazamed songs … and apparently a+r folk have started using it to spot unsigned talent - a very cool intersection of music, culture, and social media in my opinion. But how valuable can this data be if Shazam can’t even recognize masunday ….

• In other news, I spotted my first euro taco truck at a market in London! A valiant effort - but it remains pretty clear to me that TZONE would crush daddy donkey in a cookoff. I bet you 10£ Señor donkey hasn’t even heard of Suadero … But in his defense, the European market probably isn’t ready for those flavors …

COMING SOON: Harold EP, guest bloggers, vosotros goes to CHINA…

to the royal you-all:

•Sunday eve saw the second installment of the september Learning Music residency at Tangier…and as juan’s previous post indicated (see below), LM was joined by Vosotros, Tom Brosseau, and Bobb Bruno.  It was a spirited night of music making…we (Z.A.C.H. and I) aka Vosotros, aka aguacate cacahuate (avocado peanut), kicked it off with a completely improvised bass/assorted drum duet that slowly turned into taking requests (I sang “I started a joke” by the Bee Gees, and “Peanut butter toast, and American Bandstand” by Low) which then became members of Obi Best and Readers coming up and singing stripped down versions of their songs…t’was fun. Then Tom Brosseau went on solo and serenaded the audience with a dream about Dave Grohl, followed by a enthusiastic set of Learning Music, and followed by the one-and-only Bobb Bruno.  The Bunny plays guitar! Get ready for his sotros debut to drop!

•I was (naturally) so pumped up to get the newest Erykah Badu record, New Amerykah pt.1, the day it came out. And I was even more pumped up when they announced there was a remix contest of an unreleased track called “real thang”! I was so pumped up that I made three remixes! So I submitted-but then, there was no response (the contest ended 4/30), then the deadline was extended till 7/30, now no response. Bogatron. So I decided to post them. Here you-all go.

Betty Davis-esque remix:
real thang betty davis

Do the Right Thang (contains samples of “how long it takes to know” from the lazy susan):
do the right thang

Bollywood Thang:
bollywood thang

•Finally, two weeks ago I had the pleasure of performing at Inara George’s annual musical tribute, where 20 artists perform 20 songs by an artist. This year honored david bowie, and I joined Chuck Wadhams/kirby/zander schloss/& mikey g to cover Sound and Vision!
Anywho, after that night I decided to check out Bird and the Bee, a project of Inara’s…they’re really great…and naturally ended up on youtube…and found perhaps the greatest music video ever made…Polite Dance Song! (directed by eric wareheim from Tim & Eric)

ok. bye.
gaib

I’m headin to Dublin this weekend to attend the Hard Working Class Heroes Festival. Not only will I get to see over eighty Irish bands in 3 days, I’m honored to be representing vosotros as an international delegate at the festival. I’ll be speaking on a panel about innovative music companies plotting “alternative routes” and participating in some mentoring sessions with local artists. I leave this afternoon and I’m getting pumped up. After the festival, I’m going to London to eat massive amounts of kebab and explore some opportunities to bring vosotros to you-all overseas. Stay tuned….

In other news, I want to give a massive shout out to Cord Phillips, an incredible recording engineer and close friend of vosotros. Cord engineered the current #1 song on the country charts - “Do You Believe Me Now” by Jimmy Wayne. ¡Boo yaaaaa! Cord’s tearin’ it up on the Nashville studio circuit right now, so hit him up if you’re looking to do some work down there. [He's also a good candidate if your Twisted Sister cover band is looking for a drummer].

Finally, John Wood’s Learning Music continues their residency at Tangier this Sunday. Joining Learning Music will be vosotros cohort Bobb Bruno, Tom Brosseau, and …. vosotros. plus … the show is FREE if you know the password …. “your glasses match your hair”.

see you-all in a few weeks…. johnG

Sunset Junction is this weekend … and lucky for me I live 1 block away!  And lucky for you-all, vosotros will be making three (count it –> 3) appearances around the festival.  In celebration of their 2 year anniversary, the fine folks at Found Gallery will be hosting thirteen free performances throughout the weekend - including Sunday’s lineup of all cover sets.  In addition to our doubleheader at Found, check out vosotros at El Cid on Saturday at 4pm!!

buenos tardes a vosotros-

•Mooey Moobau tonight!!

The third installment of the Obi Best residency at Tangier is tonight, and Mooey Moobau will be performing alongside Readers and (naturally) Obi Best.  I would describe Mooey’s music as David Byrne meets Picasso.  It’s wild! Joe is a super-talented, super-creative cat. He is also a noted speech pathologist. His most recent record, entitled “All Murmur of Our Mother’s Waters” is a sonic journey and definitely worth checking out.  Order it here!!!

And stay tuned for a mooey moobau/vosotros collab affectionately refered to as moosotros…

•First Bass!

Last October, Vosotros was hired to score a short film about a young bass player and Chicago Cubs fan, and her audition for a prestigious music school. Naturally this movie hit close to home personally (bass! Chicago!). And little did we know that the creators were submitting the short to festivals all around the U.S.A.!!! And now we’ve been nominated for an award!!

DC Shorts Film Festival- we are nominated for best song “Zoom!” register here and vote for us!!!

until then, you-all.
gaib

Our friends at Creative Commons launched a new website today with LA-based dublab.  I didn’t understand exactly what they were doing when I first read about it - but I just spent some time on the site and it’s definitely worth checking out.  Into Infinity is an online art + music exhibition based upon circular canvases (the ‘eye’) and audio loops (the ‘ear’).  They distributed 12″ paper circles to a number of visual artists and commissioned some musicians and producers to create 8 second audio loops.  Hit refresh on the exhibition page to see a new circle and listen to a new loop.  There are download links for the sounds and images - all of which are licensed under a CC Attribution-Noncommercial copyright license, meaning that you are free to share and remix them for noncommercial purposes.

“Sampling, remixing, and repurposing other people’s work has resulted in some of the greatest art of our times,” says Eric Steuer, Creative Commons’ creative director. “With this project, we want to make the statement that this sort of creativity should not only be legal, but also explicitly encouraged.”

If you’re not familiar with Creative Commons, visit their website and get to know them a little bit.  We’ve been supporting them since we started vosotros - and I continue to believe their ideas are shaping the future of music on the web. [CC interview with vosotros, Feb 2008].

Tomorrow at 10am gaib leaves for the 2008 Harold residency, on the Jeffers tree farm in Chesterville, OH. While there, gaib will be collaborating with 30 artists and musicians on a new split Harold/Vosotros project TBD. goodbye gaib, he has gone to the woods…

if you haven’t used pandora, give it a try …. it’s a free online radio service that builds stations based on your listening preferences - their team of “senior music analysts” wade through thousands of records each month and add selected songs to the music genome project - using over 400 criteria, each song is categorized based on a number of factors designed to get at the “musicological elements of a song” - these criteria are used to hone in on your listening preferences.  here’s how it works –>> you type in a song or artist that you enjoy and pandora builds you a playlist of artists from the database that share similar criteria … here’s the cool part - the player will always explain why a song was chosen … and you can vote a song off the island if you’re not feeling it and the station will adapt accordingly.

i was excited to discover that a handful of tracks from the lazy susan have been added to the genome.  noelsson schmoelsson was tagged as “featuring jazz influences, heavy use of vocal harmonies, acoustic sonority, intricate melodic phrasing and use of a string ensemble”.  this gave me a lot of faith in the service … these guys are really taking the time to listen.  next I created a station around “PB&J … and g” … and I think gabe would be happy to know that they played me a T-Pain song because of its “modern r&b stylings, electronica influences, a subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rhythmic syncopation and extensive vamping.”  anyways, check out pandora - type in one of your favorite artists - and see where it takes you…

in other news, learning music continues their monthly residency at tangier tomorrow night at 10pm.  they’ll be playing for the next 3 wednesdays - go see this band!!!

:: John G (jay gee AKA J GILLA)