20th Dour Festival

4 days, 200 bands, 6 stages

This is a first! A big first for me actually. I read my weekly Google Reader and came across Dour Music Festival. So I thought, this would be a blog post to read about, but then as I read the first couple of sentences and come to realize that this event itself has been sold out for 3 years!! It was even sold out a few days earlier last summer. At the Dour Festival in 2007, there was a total of 144,000 people attending the event for over 4 days. With that amount, 32,000 slept in the camping site, 23,000 people showed up a day early and 15,000 people were turned away each day. Which is a first time in history.

Every year, Dour comes up a unique group of line ups. There had been times where 28 different countries came to this festival. The festival has already intrigues 1,255,000. This year the festival will be held the 3rd weekend of July (July 17th-20th) in Dour, Belgium.

Below is a picture of the line up of the Festival. I would usually type it out but theres sooo many that I think the picture would be just fine. You’d think Coachella had it going on (no offense to Coachella, you guys are dope.) but Music Festivals in Europe, pretty much carries the music festival torch. I'm looking at this list and am wishing I had a passport to check this out. Theres acts like Goldfrrapp, The Teenagers, Mystery Jets, Boys Noize, Bone Do Role and Voofoo Glow Skulls. And theres a lot more acts than this. Too many to fit this little blog and flyer itself.

Heres the link to the ACTS and the site to get MORE INFO ON Dour Festival 2008 as welll as the ones in the years before.

PITCHFORK MUSIC FESTIVAL ‘08

This years’ line of Pitcfork Music 2008 is finally complete It will be held July 18-20th at Chicago’s Union Park. And from the looks of it, you’ll be getting a lot of indie smashers and a couple of hip hop acts as well. In my opinion, it doesn’t seem like a very exciting line up to me. Usually with 3 day music festivals, theres usually a couple of artists you like on one day, none the next and maybe a couple on the other. But that’s just what I notived with most music festivals. Others may differ. The only real exciting acts that caught my attention with Pitchfork was the first day July 18th presenting “Don’t Look Back” with Public Enemy, the second day with Vampire Weekend, Fuck Buttons, and No Age, then the finally day with Ghostface & Raekwon, and Cut Copy. Not good enough for me to go all the way to Chicago to see it. It seems like a good experience though. But for those who are interested heres the rest of the line up:

Friday, July 18th:
Pitchfork Music Festival and All Tomorrow's Parties present "Don't Look Back"
Public Enemy performing “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back”
Sebadoh performing “Bubble and Scrape”
Mission of Burma performing “Vs.”

Saturday, July 19th:
Animal Collective
Jarvis Cocker
The Hold Steady
!!!
Vampire Weekend
Dizzee Rascal
Fleet Foxes
Caribou
Jay Reatard
Titus Andronicus
No Age
Atlas Sound
Extra Golden
Fuck Buttons
Elf Power
The Ruby Suns
Icy Demons
A Hawk and a Hacksaw
Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar

Sunday, July 20th:
Spoon
Dinosaur Jr.
Spiritualized
M. Ward
Ghostface and Raekwon
Les Savy Fav
The Apples in Stereo
Boris
Dirty Projectors
Times New Viking
Cut Copy
Bon Iver
Dodos
Occidental Brothers Dance Band International
King Khan & His Shrines
El Guincho
HEALTH
High Places
Mahjongg

Tickets are on sale now! 3-day passes are $65, 2-day passes for Saturday and Sunday are $50, and individual day passes (obviously Friday) are $30.
Heres the link to where you can order the passes right in your own home, library, class, office or wherever you usually go on the computer.

BLK JKS

A Pleasant Sound to Hear:


FADER TV: Open Bar With BLK JKS from The FADER on Vimeo.

Not too loud, not too soft. Very mellow and just down to Earth. What you just heard and saw was BLK JKS (Black Jacks). BLK JKS is a group from South Africa. They have a mix of Afro-Jazz, tribal rhythms and beats as well as what they call “funk rock. They were on The Fader #52: Africa Issue. They stopped by and did and acoustic set of “Molalatladi” in The Fader Open Bar episode and new series filmed at the Heathers in East Village. To get more information and/or to listen to more of BLK JKS check out their blog and their myspace.

Here are some pictures of BLK JKS, one includes a picture with Neptunes and N.E.R.D member Pharell Williams. The picture was taken at the Levis'/Fader fort where a N.E.R.D performance as well as a BLK JKS peformance had tooken place.
Just think, if these two were to collaborate on a couple of tracks..that would be sooo DOPE!!!

Pharcyde Reunion after 10 years!

On a blog post on the fader, it speaks on the reunion of the Pharcyde after 10 years! If some of you are not familiar with the Pharcyde here’s a little history:

The Pharcyde are a hip-hop/rap/new wave group with a twist. Or how others call it “alternative”. They have history that started to get public notice in 1991. The group hails from South Central Los Angeles and included artists Imani, Slimkid3, Bootie Brown, and Fatlip. Their first DJ was DJ Mark Luv and their producer was legendary J-Swift later known as J Dillar formerly known as Jay Dee.
Their first album “Bizarre Ride II: The Pharcyde” was released during the Gangsta rap era where critics considered “refreshing” due to its humor and jazzy production. Songs included “Passin’ Me By” and “Otha Fish”. “Bizarre Ride II: The Pharcyde” is an arguable one of the best albums out in hip-hop. But based off drug problems, members wanting to go solo, creative differences, and many disagreements each member slowly started to drift away.
In recent years Imani and Bootie Brown began performing again still as Pharcyde. Nearly 10 years later the original group, are finally coming back together on this summer’s Rock the Bells tour.
Here’s a link of an interview done by Evan Shamoon in The Fader website.

Reflecting Writing Assignments:

1. Getting Started: In the beginning, I knew off the back the multi-media project was going to be a challenge for me since I was sick and missed a lot of class time. But after going to office hours and speaking to the professor on what I needed to do to catch up had helped me a lot.
Some of the things that I expected with this project was to grow a better knowledge of multi-media because that was my main focus for this semester. I wanted to learn how to make a webpage, blog, do audio, video and get familiar with the Adobe family (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign).
I feel that accomplishing these expectations will help me a lot especially since this is a field that I want to go onto when I finish school. Working with the online media is always something that I’ve wanted to do and be a part of but I didn’t know too much about it. I know by taking one class that I wont make me a genius at webpage designing but it will get me started. It will help get an idea that I can run with, practice and use it in other classes to help me grow a better understanding of it and become more knowledgable.
This project is a lot different from doing the in-class lab projects because I’m doing it at 9 in the morning where I am half awake and would rather be in bed than reading blogs. Also, I’m the kind of person that is not very well on being creative with doing things on the spot. I’m more of a spure of the moment person and like to do projects similar to what we do in class on my own time. Plus, I’m easily distracted so I do better on things when I’m alone and its just me, my music, and the computer. Which is another reason why I decided to work on this project alone instead of teaming up. I like to do things on my own pace, and I feel that I can for sure get things done if I work on projects like this by myself.

ART WORK CONTROVERSY

NEWS: CRYSTAL CASTLES CAUGHT UP IN ARTWORK CONTROVERSY

WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE PICTURE ABOVE, WHAT DO YOU SEE? DON’T THINK, BUT GIVE ME YOUR FIRST INITIAL REACTION TO IT. IS IT SOMETHING POSITIVE OR SOMETHING NEGATIVE?

NOW READ THE ARTICLE BY CLICKING THE FOLLOWING LINK:CLICK


SO BASICALLY THE CONTROVERSY OF THIS PAINTING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH A BATTERED WOMAN AKA MADONNA WITH A BLACK EYE. THE MAIN CONTROVERSY HAS TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT CRYSTAL CASTLE HAS BEEN USING THIS ART PIECE DURING THE SHOW AS A BACKDROP, T-SHIRTS & OTHER TYPES OF MERCHANDISE WITHOUT PERMISSION. IN THE BEGINNING, WHEN THEY FIRST CAME OUT CRYSTAL CASTLE WHICH INCLUDES ALICE GLASS AND ETAN KATH THEY FOUND THIS ART PIECE ONLINE AND THOUGHT IT WAS INTERESTING SO THEY DECIDED TO PUT IT ON THEIR T-SHIRTS. THEY DID THIS IN HOPES OF FINDING OUT WHO THE ARTIST IS. THEY HOPED THAT THE ARTIST WOULD CONTACT THEM AND THEY CAN GET IN CONTACT OF WORKING TOGETHER IN MORE PROJECTS. BUT INSTEAD, TREVOR BROWN TOOK LEGAL ACTIONS. HE CLAIMS IN WHICH CRYSTAL CASTLE ADMITS THAT THEY DIDN’T GET PERMISSION TO USE THE ART PIECE BUT ALSO HE WAS ALSO PROMISED A REMUNERATION (SALARY) WHICH HE HASN’T RECEIVED. CRYSTAL CASTLE CLAIMS THAT AFTER FINDING OUT WHO THE ARTIST WAS THEY TRIED CONTACTING HIM NUMEROUS TIMES BUT NO RESPONSE.

SO IT’S A BUNCH OF HE SAID/SHE SAID MUMBO JUMBO. NOTHING IS FREE ANYMORE. AND YOU BASICALLY HAVE TO BE CAREFUL NOW A DAYS ON WHAT YOU USE, PRINT, DISTRIBUTE, PRODUCE, QUOTE FROM, ETC. NOW A DAYS CAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW THERE WILL BE SOMEONE OUT THERE YOU MIGHT ANGER. AND IF YOU DO KNOW THAT WHAT YOU USE, IS SOMETHING ORIGINAL, GET PERMISSION AND GET IT IN WRITING WITH A COPY IN HAND. PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS FIND A WAY TO SUE SOMEONE, A LOT OF TIMES ITS JUST BECAUSE OR THEY CAN, PUBLICITY REASONS OR FOR THE MONEY, WHICH ALWAYS CAUSES NEGATIVE HOSTILITY WITH PEOPLE. CRYSTAL CASTLE CLAIMS ALSO THAT TREVOR BROWN IS MAKING IT PUBLIC ON WHAT HAPPEN BECAUSE OF PUBLICITY REASONS, WHETHER OR NOT ITS TRUE OR NOT, WHO KNOWS, CRYSTAL CASTLE SHOULD OF GOT PERMISSION. AND IF THEY WERENT SURE HOW TO FIND THE ARTISTS, THERES MANY DIFFERENT WAYS TO DO IT THEN PRINT IT OUT ON EVERYTHING THEY PROMOTE AND MAKE PROFIT OFF IT.

AND BY THEY WAY…HOW DOES MADONNA FEEL ABOUT THIS? I WOULD BE PISSED IF MY FACE WITH A BLACK EYE WAS PLASTERED EVERYWHERE AND HAD NO IDEA ABOUT IT.

Permission To Use Music

In Pitchfork:Today, I came across "John, Yoko, Ben Stein, Killers: Creationist Controversy". It speaks upon a documentary called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" is about the cause of intelligent design, that proposed "alternate" theory to Darwin's whole evolution deal-- and a theory which, to many, is just "fancy speak" for Creationism. This documentary will hit theatres April 17th and will be narrated by Ben Stein the biggest mano-toned person in America or pretty much the face of this Earth (clear eyes...woooow.)


The controversary comes in their choices of music pieces they use in the documentary. Throughout the documentary you hear John Lennon's "Imagine" repetively and The Killers "All These Things I've Done". Expelled had received permission from The Killers and the label to use their song but the Expelled filmmakers had admitted that they did not receive permission to use "Imagine " for their film. But they also stated the use was "momentary" and thus protected under the First Amendment.

Media sources are questioning The Killers motives in wanting to use their song in the movie as well as Yoko Ono "selling out".In response, Ono's lawyer said that she wanted to "explore" other options with the copyright infringement.

In my opinion, music is music. Music is like breathing air or drinking water. It's something that shouldn't be worth any value. Or actually any materialistic value. But speaking in business terms, people need to make their money. No matter what people say, you need to find your way to survive in this world. Especially in the economy now, which is raising soo much.
And I feel if The Killers want to give permission to have their song plalyed in this documentary, that's their decision. And whatever Yoko Ono wants to do, let her do it. "Imagine" is as I call it "a precious song" and it should be handled properly. When others use it in theor work but use in an incorrect format which takes away the meaning of the original artist, yes; it can make people angry. But hey, its America..what else can I say? People will raise that First Ammendment flag as high as they can until someone shuts up.