Musicina Blender

Peter Gabriel- My Body Is A Cage.

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:05:35 -0800

Peter Gabriel- My Body Is A Cage.

"SW: What music have you been listening to today? Did you like it? MC: Miles Davis, In a Silent Way...."

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:12:48 -0800

“

SW: What music have you been listening to today? Did you like it?

MC: Miles Davis, In a Silent Way. Did I like it? Do I like air? Coffee in the morning? How bad do I need it, is the question.

”

- Writer Michael Chabon talks about music with the Seattle Weekly

Dave Brubeck - Autumn In Washington Square. A lovely and...

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:33:00 -0800

Dave Brubeck - Autumn In Washington Square. A lovely and haunting melody, recorded quite a few years back, from Jazz Impressions of New York.

Ahmad Jamal - One. A classic from the 80’s. Totally in the...

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:37:00 -0800

Ahmad Jamal - One.
A classic from the 80’s. Totally in the groove.

I LOVE THE TENORI-ON!

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:24:26 -0800

I LOVE THE TENORI-ON!

Kate Bush Meets The Borg - from her brooklyn apartment; a...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:46:12 -0800

Kate Bush Meets The Borg - from her brooklyn apartment; a remarkable performance from Emilie Simon

"The greatest mystery of life, Father Powell explained, isn’t death. It’s life. “Life is..."

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:29:16 -0800

“The greatest mystery of life, Father Powell explained, isn’t death. It’s life. “Life is exceptional”, he said. For all the fecundity of nature, it is surrounded by death. Far as we can tell, everything we see when we look to the heavens is dead as a gravestone. Yet it inspires the living. “Life”, he said, sounding like an old rabbi, “is the mystery”.”

- Father John Powell (via Doc Searls)

Via Bruce Warren. My first bigtime radio gig was a Music...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:28:00 -0800

Via Bruce Warren. My first bigtime radio gig was a Music Director position at KKSF/San Francisco from 1987-90. (My first encounter with major record label jive). This is a pretty weird promotional video for A&M Records; Rick Moranis is a bit over-the-top here, but not as much as you might think.

somevelvet:

The record/music industry circa 1988.

Hour Four - An amazing piece of ambient sound mixed with field...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:43:00 -0800

Hour Four - An amazing piece of ambient sound mixed with field recordings from media artist Tomas Koner (via Undomondo)

Together - Ray Barretto—laying down a big funky groove. ...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:09:00 -0800

Together - Ray Barretto—laying down a big funky groove. From 1968.

Jay Smooth on lyrical skills and making money.

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:03:00 -0800

Jay Smooth on lyrical skills and making money.

New remix from Royksopp. Taking samples from Gustavo...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:35:26 -0800

New remix from Royksopp. Taking samples from Gustavo Santoalalla. Cool.

Fela Kuti

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:29:43 -0800

Fela Kuti

“Fish” by Mr. Scruff. One of the weirdest little...

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:17:49 -0800

“Fish” by Mr. Scruff. One of the weirdest little ditties I’ve heard in a while.

Nat King Cole - It’s Kind of Lonesome Out Tonight.

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:17:00 -0800

Nat King Cole - It’s Kind of Lonesome Out Tonight.

Mashup in 5/4: Take Five Meets The River Man

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:14:00 -0800

Dave Brubeck vs. Nick Drake: Take Drake

There aren’t many tunes that have their rhythm is 5/4 time. These two are probably the most well-known—The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s 1959 recording of Take Five; and River Man, from the late British sing-songwriter Nick Drake, recorded in 1969.

I’ve got a supplentary source for each tune as well—pianist Brad Mehldau’s solo recording of River Man, from a 2003 concert in Japan; and Grover Washington, Jr’s version of Take Five, from 1992.

With help from my trusty Ableton Live software, here’s the mix.

(Mashup art by RichLost)

Seal vs. Dylan: Beginnings On The Watchtower

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:45:00 -0800

Beginnings On The Watchtower (Musicina Blender mashup)

These two songs are not only in the same key, their tempos are only a couple of bpm’s apart. I’ve been wanting to mix “Watchtower” because it is one of the few Dylan tunes that actually has a straight-hard beat through the entire tune. The Seal tune came to mind recently when my wife and I cut the rug on a Friday night and spent a few hours in our living room dancing to all kinds of stuff. Man, I remember when that first Seal disc came out. It was one of those discs that everyone seemed to be playing, whether you were at a party, a friends house, a bar, or the radio. You couldn’t escape it. And it was great!

This mashup is so damn good, I’m flabbergasted. DJ Earworm...

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 07:53:00 -0800

This mashup is so damn good, I’m flabbergasted. DJ Earworm is the man! Here, he blends Tom Petty’s Free Fallin with Beyonce’s If I Were A Boy. Beautiful. Go to his site for more.

A Marvin Gaye Samba

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:18:00 -0800

Marvin Gaye vs. Celso Fonseca - I Heard It Through The Samba (Musicina Blender mix)

I recently saw an amazing YouTube video of Marvin Gaye singing an acapella version of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”. I recorded the audio part of the video, and set out to find a way to put a different instrumental spin on the tune. And like my previous mix of Ryan Adams’s Wonderwall, the answer was found with the sounds of Brazil.

Celso Fonseca is a guitarist, singer, composer, and record producer, and has played with just about every significant Brazilian artist, from Gilberto Gil to Bebel Gilberto. His voice is quite similar to Caetano Veloso and his guitar playing has the similar style of Baden Powell. His first U.S. release, Natural (2003), features a cool instrumental called Buteco, which is the basic instrumental track under Marvin. In previous versions of this mix, I also included the original keyboard hook from “Grapevine”, but upon further listening, it came across as a bit too obvious, so I took it out. The end result is a totally new musical arrangement.

This tune was mixed on my laptop in a small apartment about 50 yards away from the ocean in the beautiful village of Hana, on the east coast of Maui in the Hawaiian Islands. An exquisite place!

A Train Ride Into The Bowels Of Your Imagination

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:15:15 -0800

Simon & Garfunkel - A Sound-Poem On the Underground Wall (Musicina Blender Mix)

Here’s a tune that still grabs me after 40 years. (Like most Baby Boomers attending college in the late 60’s, S&G were in high rotation on the dormroom turntable). The song is a quick sketch, and portrays an introverted, aspiring graffiti artist, trying in the simplest way possible to “make his mark”. The tune ends with the killer line, “To seek the breast of darkness and be suckled by the night.”

For this mix, I used the live 1970 S&G recording of the tune, mixed with a few bars of Pat Metheny’s “Last Train Home”, blended with a hodgepodge of field recordings that I’ve collected through the years. Trying to provide an ambient context to the lyrical Paul Simon-penned folk tune.