Come party with us this Sunday night as EPIC FU continues its Living Room Series with a Live performance by Paul Dateh & Ken Belcher. They'll be performing songs from their brand new EP, The Good Life, as well as giving away signed copies to a lucky few! I'll be hosting and taking questions from the live virtual audience - so make sure to drop by. Anything can (and will) happen!
Date: Sunday, November 8th, 2009
Time: 7pm PST
Place: YOUR living room! Meet us virtually at live.epicfu.com
Since first appearing on the music scene two years ago, singer and violinist Paul Dateh has gone on to garner millions of views on the web as well as national exposure on television and in print. Now, Dateh has teamed up with guitarist Ken Belcher to create "The Good Life" - a concept record that offers a fresh and original take on acoustic urban folk music.
"The Good Life" is a seven-song EP that follows the life of a man living out his adulthood. Classic, well-known stories of finding happiness in each moment and the search for love are presented in new ways with Dateh's pure voice and lush string harmonies while Belcher punctuates each sentence with the soulful strumming of his guitar.
In preparation for this release, Paul Dateh and Ken Belcher have been touring throughout the United States performing to sold-out crowds while also continuing to build a solid following online. The duo will also be making their first one-month tour in Japan starting in November.
We're getting ready to leave for Austin, Texas, the site of the biggest party of the year, also known as the South by Southwest (SxSW) conference! It's a convergence of film, interactive, and music panels, discussions, and parties that always has amazing people attending and interesting new things to find out.
This year we're excited to be partnering with PBS! We will be producing a series of interviews with filmmakers, online video people, and social media experts as part of our involvement with PBS Engage. If you're going to be in Austin, come by and say hello at the PBS interactive social media and video studio!
ELK, an electro-trip hop duo from Helsinki, describe their music as electronic beats and sounds with a twist of northern twilight. Their debut album, Elktronic, was released this past August and their music video for Spanish Eyes is quite powerful. It tells the rather dark story of human trafficking and how one particular woman's destiny falls into the wrong hands.
The Young Punx are a London-based duo of electronic musicians on the cusp of the mashup/fusion scene - they are known to blend a variety of musical styles in their work, including rock, disco, jazz, and classical. They seem to have a great sense of humor and a Banksy-like appreciation for pop culture.
[ Via: (cross-posted to OMGRICK) ]
Lucas Gonze is an innovator in the social media space. He was the founder of the first web-based music playlist Webjay, which became the model for modern music sharing sites like Last.fm and iLike. Webjay was subsequently bought by Yahoo in 2006 and then sadly discontinued. Perhaps it was ahead of its time.
During his time at Yahoo, Lucas was the Director of Product Management in their music division, where he created the awesome Yahoo! Media Player and led the lineup of streaming media players, including Launchcast.
San Francisco held a huge three day concert event in Golden Gate park called Outside Lands. Over 60 artists performed with headliners including Radiohead, Tom Petty and Jack Johnson. I was lucky enough to be there and although I froze the whole weekend (I'm not used to SF weather), it rocked! My favorite part was watching Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. His songs take me back to all sorts of times in my life. And he still knows how to put on a show!
A new element to this concert was Crowdfire.net. Its a new site that wants to give you somewhere fun and cool to upload your concert pix and vids.
A few months ago, I posted an interview Zadi did with two of the people behind the chiptunes documentary Reformat the Planet. This week Pitchfork.tv is streaming the full length version of the film. Definitely check it out!
Reformat the Planet is a documentary about the "chiptunes" music scene and its premiere event -- the annual Blip Festival in New York. Chiptunes music is inspired by video game and computer soundtracks of the 80's and 90's -- when music was synthesized in real-time by a sound chip capable of only a limited number of sounds.
Rick decided to spin up a little "Guess the 80's movie and artist" game for us to play last week. Final scoreboard after the jump.
This week we're spotlighting several members' videoblogs on MIX. First up, ksawyer does a weekly music round-up show called New Sound Now. In this first episode, he showcases some great music videos, sources for free music, and discusses the usefulness of artist videos. I love the video he features from the Raveonettes, the chorus from "Dead Sound" has been stuck in my head since. ksawyer also fosters some thought-provoking discussion on censorship.
