Peter Gabriel Creates Amazing DJ Booth With His Old CDs and Cassettes

by Leonora Oppenheim

from http://www.treehugger.com/

All images by author

Now that we live in the digital age, the question has often been asked: "What in the love of music do we do with all our old formats?" Yes, all those cassettes, CDs, VHSs and their horribly non-recyclable jewel cases that are still aimlessly floating around our lives. What can we do with all that plastic? Peter Gabriel, he of pop super group Genesis, founder of Real World Records and the WOMAD festival, found a fantastically funky solution recently when all his cassettes and CD cases were used to create a DJ Booth at WOMAD.

Discotastic plastic
Gabriel's collection of cassettes, old CDs and VHS covers were all assembled into a sleekly curved DJ Booth in the San Fran Disco bar, which kept festival goers dancing late into the night. All that plastic piled high did a fab job of reflecting the disco lights and glitter ball. We particularly liked the ever changing coloured strip of LED lighting cutting a dash through the middle of the booth, lending it a suitably flashy air. We're not sure if the individual cassettes and VHS covers were glued together, but the whole layered brick-like construction looked pretty sturdy. We weren't about to try knocking it over to find out.

We think there's great DIY inspiration to be found in Peter Gabriel's DJ booth design. Though there probably aren't too many of us with a music collection large enough to make a structure of this size. Time to relieve some of your friends of their useless jewel cases, perhaps?

Dematerialised Music Saves on Carbon
Interestingly, Peter Gabriel is well known for being a pioneer in digital music distribution, founding one of the first music download services OD2. Did you know that the dematerialisation of music saves masses of carbon emissions?

Leave No Trace
In keeping with his long held interest in human rights Peter Gabriel has always made sure that WOMAD is a showcase for ethical and environmental causes, as well as extraordinary world music. Almost all festival stalls use or support fairtrade and organic goods, there are segregated recycling and compost bins throughout the site and everyone is encouraged to collect their plastic glasses with the 5p per returned cup incentive.

It's amazing how seriously the kids take the cup collecting to earn their pennies. Tall towers of plastic glasses wobbling through the crowds that obscured their tiny couriers, became a familiar and entertaining sight over the weekend. Apparently, one group of kids managed to collect over 400 cups. Impressive!

Transparent Waste Management
This year we liked WOMAD's new policy of opening up their recycling yard to the festival goers, so everyone could see the waste accumulating over the weekend. This transparency was an effort by the festival organisers to improve on the 36% of onsite waste that was recycled last year. We've yet to hear whether this was a successful strategy or not.

Popular Ethical Brands on Site
We also spotted some of our favourite ethical brands in the arena. Ecover were helpfully handing out washing up liquid samples, Pachacuti were supplying stylish head gear, Pants To Poverty were flirting in their underwear and Frank Water was back refilling everyone's water bottles for free.

Pedal Powered Architecture
But wait there's more, we haven't even started on the pedal powered excitements that were going on over at the Roots Architecture stage. The efforts of the amazing volunteer architects and designers over the WOMAD weekend deserve a post all of their own - so watch this space.

The Top 10 Best Albums of 2010

By Joseph Oliveto
from http://beatcrave.com/2010-12-16/the-top-10-best-albums-of-2010/

It’s often said about any popular art form, be it music or movies or literature, that what’s being produced today pales in comparison to the classics. Well, while we here at BeatCrave certainly reserve a high degree of reverence for what’s come before, we also know it’s foolish to make a blanket statement like that when there’s so much good music being released these days. Say what you want about the commercial hype machine forsaking quality in favor of sales; that’s been a part of the business since the days of Elvis, and although it’s true that record companies would probably rather find the next N’Syncbefore the next Pixies, that doesn’t stop good albums from slipping through the system.

Don’t believe us? Give these 2010 releases a listen and see if you haven’t changed your mind…

10.) American Slang by The Gaslight Anthem

After grabbing some mainstream exposure with their previous album, The 59 Sound, these working class Jersey boys fulfilled the potential it implied by releasing the strongest disc of their career. Full of Motown melodies, classic rock’n roll guitar, and heartfelt lyrics, it’s perhaps the best piece of Americana since The River.

• How High Was the Anticipation Level? 5/10
• How Well Did it Pay Off? 7/10
• How Well Did it Improve on Past Work? 6/10
• Combined Score: 18

Buy it on Amazon.com!

9.) Speak Now by Taylor Swift

She may sing about the kind of idealized adolescent love that isn’t of interest to anyone outside of theTwilight crowd, but love her, hate her, or only know about her because you have a teenage daughter, Taylor Swift is undeniably talented. And she’s only twenty!

• Anticipation Level: 8/10
• Pay-Off: 7/10
• Improvement: 4/10
• Score: 19

Buy it on Amazon.com!

8.) Congratulations by MGMT

You could be forgiven for being disappointed with this follow-up to Oracular Spectacular. Not a single track on the album was as immediately accessible as “Kids.” Still, gotta give the band credit for going the In Utero route and trying to do their own thing. However, they may be trying too hard; they wrote a song called “Brian Eno” to appeal to hipsters and prove they’re not sell-outs, whether they’ll admit it or not.

• Anticipation Level: 8/10
• Pay-Off: 7/10
• Improvement: 5/10
• Score: 20

Buy it on Amazon.com!

7.) Brothers by The Black Keys

If you even once tuned your radio to an alt-rock station during 2010, you heard this band’s “Tighten Up.” They’ve been around for nearly a decade and it was about time they hit it big. We doubt they’ll change their blues-drenched style now that they’ve had a taste of success. Look at that picture. That is not what sell-outs look like.

• Anticipation Level: 4/10
• Pay-Off: 9/10
• Improvement: 9/10
• Score: 22

Buy it on Amazon.com!

6.) Recovery by Eminem

When he’s wasn’t calling out any other musical artist who isn’t him in remarkably juvenile ways–he’s never been as clever or insightful as his fans claim–Eminem’s early career involved endless self-analysis and claims that he was a changed man. This is basically more of the same, but his rhymes are as catchy as ever and the track “Love the Way You Lie” expresses a genuine sensitivity that his earlier work only hinted at.

• Anticipation Level: 9/10
• Pay-Off: 8/10
• Improvement: 7/10
• Score: 24

Buy it on Amazon.com!

5.) This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem

We might as well call it revolutionary simply because this is the first time in a long time that “dance music” has also been “good music.” Rumors abound that this is the last release for LCD Soundsystem, and seeing as it may be the best, it’s as good a place to stop as any.

• Anticipation Level: 8/10
• Pay-Off: 10/10
• Improvement: 7/10
• Score: 25

Buy it on Amazon.com!

4.) The Suburbs by The Arcade Fire

It doesn’t have any of the “we’re not sure if music can change lives but we’ll sure as hell try” urgency that made the song “Wake Up” an instant classic, but the melodies are memorable and the band sounds like they’re still willing to explore. It’s hard to go wrong with this group.

• Anticipation Level: 10/10
• Pay-Off: 8/10
• Improvement: 8/10
• Score: 26

Buy it on Amazon.com!

3.) Contra by Vampire Weekend

This unclassifiable band of Columbia-educated music geeks may dablle in just about every obscure genre imaginable, but it all comes down to one thing: pop. And we’re not talking about bland, cookie-cutter teeny-bopper pop. We’re talking about “you’ll be humming along to these tunes even if it’s the first time you’ve ever heard them” pop. Few bands can craft hooks as skillfully and consistently as theseguys.

• Anticipation Level: 10/10
• Pay-Off: 9/10
• Improvement: 8/10
• Score: 27

Buy it on Amazon.com!

2.) High Violet by The National

The worth of a band can often be measured in whether or not another band could take their place. Based on that principle, The National proves to one of the best bands in years. Baritone vocals and layered arrangements blend together resulting in an album of pure musical bliss, the best yet from this band. They’re finally getting the attention they deserve and left Letterman grasping for the right words when they performed on his show earlier this year.

• Anticipation Level: 7/10
• Pay-Off: 10/10
• Improvement: 10/10
• Score: 27

Buy it on Amazon.com!

1.) My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West

Kanye West seems absolutely incapable of keeping his mouth shut. Luckily for us, half of the time that is because he’s delivering unparalled songs to the masses. He’s got massive ambition and the talent to match. Few artists aim this high and far fewer hit their target. Readers, will let you have your comments, but we just want to say that Kanye West had one of the best albums of all time.

Or at least the year.

• Anticipation Level: 10/10
• Pay-Off: 10/10
• Improvement: 8/10
• Score: 28

Die Antwoord $O$ album cover revealed

By: Sean Bonner
From: http://www.boingboing.net/

Many Boing Boing readers are familiar with the South African rap rave revolution known as Die Antwoord. A series of posts here earlier this year helped catapult them from relative obscurity to center stage, bright blinding lights and all. Xeni blogged about them after her friend, photographerClayton Cubitt, was hipped to them by a pal of his who assisted on a Capetown video shoot which resulted in this.

A month later, on their first trip to the US, Xeni and I had breakfast with Ninja— we talked about their crazy-fast rise to internet stardom, and he tipped us off that they were in the process of signing to Interscope. A few months after that, while I was at a friends birthday BBQ in Brooklyn, Ninja phoned me with a proposition. Xeni had told him about my previous life as a designer in the music industry, and they wanted someone who "got it" to help them design their upcoming album, $O$.

I accepted in a second, and we started brainstorming right then, on the phone. With some amazing photos Clayton shot as the base, we quickly arrived at a very clear vision of what the album would look like, including some costuming elements by another artist and friend, Gary Baseman, whom I'd introduced to the band after randomly bumping into him at Coachella and learning he was a fan as well. (full photoshoot credits here)

I spent the next month working on this while in Paris, and have been dying to show off the design ever since. Today, the band debuted it on their website with a countdown to October 12, 2010 as the US release date. Since the cat is out of the bag, I thought folks here would like to see it right away.

In addition to this just being a really cool story of fans and artists coming together, it's been super fun to work with such a collection of creative and inspiring people. Looking back on the photos from that first morning when I met them, it almost seems like destiny.

Global release dates coming soon, as well as a whole new host of tour dates. In the meantime I can tell you, I've heard the album—and it's amazing.

In The Studio - Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here Documentary with Redbeard

From: http://www.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/

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North American syndicated radio show InTheStudio celebrates the 35th Anniversary of PINK FLOYD's Wish You Were Here!

Producer and host Redbeard uncovers differing opinions among bandmembers David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason & the late Richard Wright on what the true state of PINK FLOYD's health, as a band, really was as early as 1975.

Listen as Gilmour, Waters, Wright and Mason discuss life after The Dark Side of the Moon and how the success of that album impacted their professional and creative lives.

In addition, hear a rare full interview online with the late Rick Wright on what Wish You Were Here meant to him.

This show airs this week on more than 55 stations in the U.S. & Canada.

To find out where to listen on the radio, visit In The Studio website or listen online here.

The Batman Begins soundtrack just got better

Author: John

From: http://thechive.com/

Thanks to Ben Dillon who sent this in, “It took two years of listening to this soundtrack before going to bed every night before I noticed.”
We checked the actual play list and it’s legit.

Larger version here.

Ronnie James Dio's Greatest Album Moments

ranker.com — For about a 10 year period from the mid-70s into the mid-80s, Dio fronted prime years of 3 of the greatest metal bands to ever walk the earth. Ronnie Dio recorded quite a few records in a long career, but these are the only 10 you need to hear unless you are a die-hard fan.

Click here for the full article including videos: http://www.ranker.com/

100 Obscure and Remarkable CD Covers

100 truly remarkable, beautiful, yet obscure CD covers that capture both a buyers attention and the essence of the music.

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