What The Folk?

by Bob Boilen

This weekend, we'll webcast and broadcast music from the Newport Folk Festival.

There'll be good music there, but folk music? The lineup includes Jim James, M. Ward, Brandi Carlile, Cat Power and Cowboy Junkies, to name a few.

The definition of folk music has long been an issue at this festival, but never more than now in my opinion. It's easy to trace a line from Guthrie to Dylan to Cash, but how do you get to Trey Anastasio?

When I worked in a record store, we'd have fiery debates about the folk section. You could walk into the store one day, and the entire Neil Young section would be moved from rock to folk; same with Randy Newman, who one day could find his stuff in the jazz section, then back to folk, then to rock.

Folk long ago went from being traditional music to introspective music by singer-songwriters. So these days, a Conor Oberst record would easily find itself in folk bins.

So what of folk music? A few weeks ago, I spent a week at the Swannanoa Gathering in the mountains of North Carolina playing Irish music -- music you learn by listening to someone play. That's the oral tradition. It is alive and doing rather well. You might find a fiddler from Chicago like Liz Carroll writing tunes that get picked up and played in the pubs of Ireland.

So who are the folk musicians these days? Kimya Dawson? Devendra Banhart? Fleet Foxes? Joanna Newsom? Panda Bear? Trey Anastasio?

1:31 PM ET | 07-29-2008 | permalink

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David Lee Roth Meets The Beatles

by Robin Hilton

A few weeks ago, someone sent me a leaked clip of David Lee Roth's isolated vocals to "Runnin' With the Devil." It had been circulating on the Web for months, but my younger, cooler friends had failed to get it to me sooner. It's pretty hilarious, if only for the final 15 seconds of screaming.

But now comes the real treat: You beautiful, creative people with far too much time on your hands have mashed up David Lee Roth's vocals with The Beatles' "Drive My Car."

Sure, it's blasphemy to Beatles fans everywhere. But you know what? They sync up remarkably well. This has sparked the imaginations of others, of course: Here's David Lee Roth mashed up with AC/DC's "Highway to Hell."

This, of course, left me wondering what other songs would work with David Lee Roth's vocals. The first one I immediately thought of was Free's "All Right Now." Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend" might fit, too.

What do you think? If you have any ideas, or know how to do a mashup, take a stab at it, post it somewhere, and give us a link to it.

4:42 PM ET | 07-24-2008 | permalink

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Top 5 iPhone Music Applications

by Robin Hilton

I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't want anyone to think I was an iHole (see Carrie Brownstein's blog post), but a couple weeks ago, when Apple released the new iPhone G3, I joined all the other fools who stood in line for several hours, waiting to buy one. It was so worth it.

The coolest thing about the iPhone isn't the Web or the email, or the fact it's also an iPod. It's all the programs and applications it'll run.

I assumed that most of the programs would be boring, work-oriented apps, like a day planner or some sort of "organizer." There are those, of course, as well as plenty of games. (I recommend Texas Hold'Em.) But the real mind-blowers are the music applications, available in the iTunes Store. At the risk of sounding like a shameless shill for Apple (I can't reprint what my editor called my endorsement), here are my Top 5 favorites:

1. Beatmaker: Beatmaker turns the iPhone into a Digital Audio Workstation. In other words, it lets you load audio clips into the iPhone and mix them together to make your own music. It's got a drum machine and lots of samples pre-loaded. You can loop effects. Watch this video to see it in action.

2. Band: This is a collection of virtual instruments: a couple of drum kits, a keyboard, bass, electric guitar. There's even an audience to give your music some applause. Apps like this one and the others listed here are possible because of the iPhone's incredibly elegant, touch-sensitive screen. Tap the keys on the screen to play piano, or the drum pads to lay down a beat. I've read that some people are recording entire songs using only the iPhone.

3. Pandora: Billed as "a new kind of radio," Pandora sends you a steady stream of music based on your own tastes. Tell it you like the music of Sparklehorse and it'll play songs by similar bands. Hit the "info" key and it'll even give you a short explanation for why it picked a song. For example: "We're playing this song because it features basic rock song structures, extensive vamping, major key tonality, electric rhythm guitars and many other similarities identified in the Music Genome Project." You can rate the song with a thumbs up or down, which allows Pandora to better determine your tastes.

4. Guitar ToolKit: This is a set of essential tools for any guitarist. It's got a tuner (it uses the iPhone's built-in mic to listen and tell you whether you're in tune), a chord finder (scroll through more than 260 chord diagrams), a metronome, and "tuning tones," a set of harmonic tones to tune your guitar if you play by ear.

5. Shazam: Ever hear a song somewhere and wonder what it is? Hold your phone up to the song in question: Shazam listens and tells you what it is. Once it knows, Shazam lets you tag the song as a favorite, gives you a link to buy it from iTunes, and, if available, provides links to YouTube videos of the track. In my test, Shazam got nearly every song I played right. The only one it couldn't figure out was an atonal ambient piece by Sigur Ros. In the words of Gomer Pyle, "Shazam!" (That's right. I went there.)

When you're all done making music, finish it off with this tasty virtual beer:

Do you have an iPhone? Have you made any music with it?

Is there an application or program you'd like to have on the iPhone for NPR Music?

10:40 AM ET | 07-23-2008 | permalink

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It's Official: We're Somebody!

by Robin Hilton

Well, we're all pretty excited here at NPR Music these days. Earlier this week, we learned that we've been nominated for an Emmy, specifically for our Project Song feature.

The category we've been put in is a mouthful: "New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming: Arts, Lifestyle and Culture." Who knew?

If you've not seen or heard it, we're proud of Project Song and think it's a cool feature. We give artists access to the NPR studios and two days to write and record an entirely new song. To help get them going, we give them some photographs and words to mull over. In the end, they pick one photo and one word, like "distortion," and turn them into music. Project Song documents this creative process.

The specific episode nominated for an Emmy is the one we did with the Washington, D.C., pop band Georgie James. I was really blown away by what the band managed to come up with in two short days. At one point, it looked like the band -- a duo featuring John Davis and Laura Burhenn -- wasn't going to pull it off. But in the 11th hour, the two got a sudden creative boost and recorded an amazing song.

So wish us luck on the Emmy. Bob and I plan to do each other's hair and wear matching gowns to the awards ceremony.

Here are the other nominees in our category:

40 Years of Respect (Detroit Free Press)

Dubai: Night Secrets (PBS Frontline/World Rough Cuts)

Moscow's Sex and the City (PBS Frontline/World Rough Cuts)

The First Ones, by Jake Paltrow (The New York Times Magazine)

TV Free Burning Man (Current.com)

On Being (Washingtonpost.com)

12:17 PM ET | 07-17-2008 | permalink

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Old Music Tuesdays: Focus

by Robin Hilton

A friend I can usually count on for Web links to the absurd oddities of the world recently pointed me to a truly bizarre progressive rock group from the 1970s called Focus. I don't know how to describe the music of Focus other than as "Yodel Rock."

Focus is from Amsterdam and formed in 1969. The group was (and still is) fronted by Thijs van Leer, a classically trained pianist and flutist (he's the one sitting at the keyboard, looking possessed in the video). I say "is" because, after nearly 40 years, the band is still together and still putting out albums. Its most recent was a 2006 LP called Focus 9: New Skin.

Focus has gone through a number of lineup changes and split up in 1978. There were a handful of reunions in the '80s and '90s before Focus officially re-formed in 2000, with van Leer back at the helm.

The song featured in the video above, "Hocus Pocus," was actually a pretty big hit. It reached No. 9 on the U.S. pop charts in 1973 -- a stunning achievement for a decidedly non-commercial, non-pop, and flat-out strange piece of music. This was at a time when songs such as Diana Ross' "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and Bread's "Make it With You" were topping the charts. How there was ever any room for something like "Hocus Pocus" is beyond me.

Here's a recent photo of Focus with its current lineup. That's Thijs van Leer in the glasses.

3:44 PM ET | 07-15-2008 | permalink

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Current Pet Peeve: Trigger Happy DJs

by Bob Boilen

A live concert can be transforming. Take Fleet Foxes for example. They turned The Black Cat, a nice, large, black-boxed venue, into a gorgeous, timeless, cavernous space.

But the moment -- I mean the second the band left the stage -- the club DJ cranked up the P.A. and played The Moody Blues.

Now I like the Moody Blues. But I hate when this happens. I want to savor the show and keep the mood close to my heart. But then boom! I mean, what's the point?
Where's the harm in some silence -- a chance to talk with friends and share some smiles and thoughts.

I'm not giving The Black Cat a hard time here; they're great people. It happens in every club and most every show I've been to lately.

Does this bother anyone else, or am I just a grump? Are there other things that bother you more when you see a live show?

2:48 PM ET | 07- 9-2008 | permalink

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Old Music Tuesday: Sebadoh

by Robin Hilton

I feel like I'm getting a second chance to live through the '90s. It's not just my hearing Weezer for the first time; it's all the reissues that labels have been dropping on us: Beck's Odelay, Air's Moon Safari, and Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville are a few.

Now comes a new reissue, this time from Sebadoh: a 15th-anniversary edition of the band's 1993 classic Bubble and Scrape.

I'm not sure how I ever missed this band. I actually did have friends who listened to and loved Sebadoh. I may have heard some of Sebadoh's music at a party or in a bar and not realized it, but I never owned any Sebadoh and couldn't have told you anything about it.

When I saw the Bubble and Scrape reissue come in a few weeks ago, I set it aside in my "I-should-hear" pile. NPR Music producer Stephen Thompson noticed the CD and told me to check out the opening cut, "Soul and Fire." He said it was one of the mopey anthems of his college years -- played over and over again on a cassette as he cruised between school and his part-time job at the I-94 Dairy Queen, where he wore a hairnet and dreamed of being a rock star.

Okay, I made that last part up. But I took his advice and cued up the first track. I figured it'd be a little background noise for whatever work I was doing, but I soon found myself motionless, staring off into the distance, absolutely transfixed by the song. When it was all over, I hit the back button and listened again -- in fact, I probably listened to that song 20 or 30 times in the week that followed. I later played it for a roomful of friends who all reacted the same way.

The rest of Bubble and Scrape is just as mesmerizing. Even if you already own the album, the reissue is worth getting: It includes an astounding 15 bonus tracks, including an acoustic demo version of "Soul and Fire."

I'll put this album on my shortlist of the year's best discoveries, even if I should have found it years ago.

Listen to "Soul and Fire" from Bubble and Scrape:

4:08 PM ET | 07- 8-2008 | permalink

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Best CD Poll Results and Rallying the Fan Base

by Bob Boilen

Our poll on the best CDs of the year (so far) sparked a lot of listening and discussion. For me these polls are about discovering what others love and what I've never heard. For some, however, it's about winning. That was certainly true for fans of several bands, like Panic at the Disco and Death Cab For Cutie, who marshaled their forces to vote en masse for their favorites.

Panic at the Disco put out a good record this year, and for a while they were in the lower end of the top 20. But less than a week before the polls closed, a banner went up on their MySpace page encouraging fans to vote. The website said, "they need your vote to help take the lead!" Within a few days, Panic at the Disco had almost 6,000 more votes than anyone else.

I'm wondering how you feel about this type of campaign. Forget about who did it. Think of your favorite bands of the year and imagine that they launched a get-out-the-vote campaign.

At the end of the year we'll ask you to do this again -- to vote for your favorites for the year. We want our poll to be credible. So tell us what you think:

Is this the best way to get a cross section of listener opinion?
Should we keep poll the same?
If not, how should we change it?

Thanks, and take a look at this list and catch up on your listening!

12:32 PM ET | 07- 7-2008 | permalink

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About a Song: Everything In Its Right Place

by Bob Boilen

So here's how this works: I give you the lyrics to a song and you tell me what they mean. It could be what it means to you or what you think it means for the writer, in this case Radiohead's Thom Yorke. The song is "Everything in It's Right Place," the opening track from Radiohead's Kid A, one of music's most brilliant songs.

What do you think:

Kid A, Kid A, Kid A, Kid A
Everything, everything, everything, everything
In its right place
In its right place
In its right place
Right place

Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon

Everything, everything, everything
In its right place
In its right place
Right place

There are two colours in my head
There are two colours in my head
What is that you tried to say?
What was that you tried to say?
Tried to say, tried to say
Tried to say, tried to say

Everything in its right place

And here is one fans video interpretation of the song.

4:19 PM ET | 07- 3-2008 | permalink

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Band Name Generator

by Robin Hilton

A while back I was trying to think of a name for my band. I don't actually have a band. I just play music at home by myself.

The Robin Hilton Experience felt a little too grand. Robin Vomit sounded more like a punk band than the quiet recordings I do at home. I tried to go with something completely random like, Styrofoam Nancy, or an absurdly long name like, If Rash Persists Discontinue Use. But nothing felt right.

Eventually a friend came to the rescue with what I thought was the perfect equation: Take a food and add it to an animal. I immediately thought of Sandwich Cat. "Sandwich" is just a funny word and "Cat" always works well with band names.

This equation was a gold mine: Milkshake Koala. Taco Monkey. Spaghetti Rhino. The possibilities seemed limitless.

My love affair with food and animals soon ended, however, when I discovered an online machine that'll generate band names for you. It's called, appropriately enough, bandnamemaker.com.

The band name generator will spit out a list of titles for you on its own -- Manic Anvil, Paranoid Rainbow, and Painful Coma are some of the ones I got -- or you can give it an optional set of words to include. When I typed in "Robot" it gave me: "Robot Purse," "Robot Confederate and the Drunk," and "Robot Holiday," among many others.

Give it a shot and see what you come up with. Post your favorites here or tell us what some of your favorite real band names are.

11:43 AM ET | 07- 2-2008 | permalink

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