Category: Reblogging

Reblogging Update: LCD Soundsystem, Broken Social Scene, more.

Here are a few recent pieces that have run elsewhere on NPR Music:

— First Listen: LCD Soundsystem, ‘This Is Happening’

— First Listen: Broken Social Scene, ‘Forgiveness Rock Record’

— Make Music With Your (Wait For It) Shoes
A new ad campaign from Nike shows musicians making music with samples triggered from their kicks.

— Regina Carter: Tiny Desk Concert
Edited the video for this one.

— Jakob Dylan, Neko Case, Kelly Hogan: Tiny Desk Concert
Co-filmed and edited the video for this one.

— Wye Oak: Tiny Desk Concert
Co-filmed and edited the video for this one.

Reblogging Update: Antlers, Besnard Lakes, more

Here is yet another post highlighting some links to a few things I’ve contributed to over at NPR Music:

— The Antlers: Tiny Desk Concert — Helped shoot and edited\produced the video for this beautiful set.

— Laura Veirs: Tiny Desk Concert — Edited\produced this video of a very preggers Laura Veirs. Great, warm show.

— Song of the Day: The Besnard Lakes: Filling The Room With Sound

— Sparklehorse Singer Mark Linkous Remembered — Helped put this page together and selected all the music.

— All Songs Considered blog: Dorks Gather For Listening Party — In which I am mentioned and briefly talk about the RPM Challenge.

— Culturetopia Won A Gracie Award! — This is a weekly arts and entertainment podcast I produce and it really is quite great. Check it out if you haven’t tuned in.

Reblogging: Recent Pieces on NPR

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a round-up of recent works I’ve played a part in at NPR Music. So here we go with a hail of bullets:

— Exclusive First Listen: Gorillaz, Plastic Beach

— Abaji: Tiny Desk Concert: This is the first video I’ve actually shot for NPR. I also edited the video and produced the page taboot.

— Song of the Day: Yeasayer: Tightly Wound And Dance Friendly

— The Gun Show: A Winter Workout Mix. Here I just sort of helped direct the photographer a little for this photo shoot. Then found myself playing the part of surly trainer. Yes I get paid for this.

— David Rawlings and Gillian Welch: Tiny Desk Concert

— First Listen: Massive Attack, Heligoland

— Low Anthem: Tiny Desk Concert

— First Listen: Beach House, Teen Dream

— First Listen: Charlotte Gainsbourg, IRM

— Elvis Presley At 75: Songs We Love

— In Memoriam: Musicians We Lost, 2000-2009. I did a majority of the building, researching and producing of this multimedia interactive page which was part of our End of Decade coverage. Looks pretty great I think.

— Def Jam’s 25th Anniversary: Songs We Love. In which I discuss LL Cool J.

— In Memoriam: Musicians We Lost In 2009. I was one of the main producers and researchers for this amazing interactive feature we did as part of our End of Year coverage.

Interactive: Musicians Remembered

This year seemed to have an incredible amount of important figures pass away, more than most years it feels. And music was no different — including Michael Jackson, Jay Bennett, and shockingly Vic Chesnutt, who died on Christmas Day.

So as 2009 winds down, there’s still more to cover at NPR Music, including the fairly slick multimedia interactive of musicians who died in the last year. I played a big hand in putting this sucker together, from gathering songs and editing all the music clips to hunting down photos and general assembly.

Check it out here.

Best Cover Songs Of 2009

Over at NPR Music, we’re wading through 2009’s best music: the best albums, songs and miscellanea from the past year. It’s admittedly obsessive and music geeky, but hey, that’s what it’s all about.

My main contribution to our coverage is a round-up of the year’s best cover songs, a genre that I can safely say is one of my favorites. This year seemed better than most with an outstanding number of great compilation and tribute albums featuring a wide array of cover songs. Take a look at the list — including my favorite ongoing project, Beck’s Record Club — and see Youtube videos of all my song choices here:

Judging By The Cover: The Best Cover Songs Of 2009

NPR Song Of The Day: The Clientele, ‘Harvest Time’

Some time ago — way back in October — I thought the new record by The Clientele, Bonfires on the Heath was durn good, so good so that I wrote a review of it for NPR Music’s Song of the Day. I even compared the band to a Polaroid picture. Then we got distracted with end of decade coverage, end of year coverage and a mountainous heap of other work. And I forgot I had even written this. Well it’s live now. And the song “Harvest Time” still sounds pretty good to me. Very “fall” sounding. Take a listen and read the review here: The Clientele: Pop On A Polaroid

Continue reading NPR Song Of The Day: The Clientele, ‘Harvest Time’

Tiny Desk Concert: Lightning Dust (and more…)

Over at NPR Music, I continue my reign of recent Tiny Desk Concert videos that I’ve helped put together. This week, is Lightning Dust, who put out one of my favorite albums of the year, Infinite Light. This video is infectious thanks to the wonderful harmonies of the two female singers, presumably sisters.

Take a look below, and read my little write up here on the website.

Also on NPR Music today, I contribute to the Take Five series’ Top 10 Jazz Records of 2009 list as part of our end of year coverage. Here I write about one of my favorite guitarists, Nels Cline — notably of Wilco fame — who put out a great jazz/rock/folk/minimalist album Coward.

Another Minor Project I Was Tangentially Involved With To Shamlessly Plug

Late last Friday I was asked by a member of NPR’s Multimedia team to come watch a video project they were working on and find some background music to match. All I knew ahead of time was that it was to be about “driving.” As I was envisioning road trip songs I soon realized it was about driver safety and clearly folky ditties weren’t going to fit.

After watching once through, we determined that the music should be something in the realm of electronic music, percussive and repetitive to propel the narration and visuals but not be overly busy either as to detract… and definitely not acoustic instruments if we could help it. I went back to my desk, quickly scanned through my collection to compile a short playlist of songs that fit those qualities.

We wanted something like Moby, but not Moby, not that distinctive that might distract the viewer. On my list of choices was a nice mix of mellow electronic and atmospheric music: Atlas Sound, Mum, Manitoba (now Caribou), Four Tet, The Books, Brian Eno, Benjamin Biolay, Stereolab.

After playing through all of my choices, we finally settled on a version of Nick Drake’s “Cello Song” performed by The Books and Jose Gonzalez from the awesome Dark Was The Night compilation from earlier this year. I quickly looped the intro a few times and then cross-faded it into the ending of the song.

You can check out the final results below:

This video is intended to be an introduction into a week-long exploratory series about driver safety. You can see the rest of the series, with more infographics, radio pieces and photo galleries here.

Tiny Desk Concert: Bowerbirds

Way back in July, I invited one of my more recent favorite groups Bowerbirds to perform at the NPR Music offices for a Tiny Desk Concert.

Many, many (MANY) months later, after getting buried in an almost insurmountable backlog and actually having the raw HDV tapes go missing for a few weeks, the video has finally gone live, produced and edited by yours truly. This is my second real foray into video editing, but I think the video looks pretty good.

Check it out below and read my short write up at NPR Music here.