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Brainwashed podcast.

MTV was cool when it was putting on stuff like this. (Quicktime)

Stevie Washington, the angry youth!
Born to die!
New York's New York
The turn of the century
All crime!

Ever hear of disc rot? You wanna see the pile of CDs I have that have degraded to the point of non-playability? Its not disc rot, and I'm not sure what it is, but I even have a bunch of CDs that have developed random pin-holes while sitting in their cases after I ripped them to MP3. They are now unplayable. I've never been able to track down a cause, but I spot checked a few friends collections (who also ripped them long ago and don't use them any more) and they are starting to see the same thing on some of their older CDs.

The next Pink Floyd, right here: http://www.brainwashed.com/lpd/

Definitly. I got into that band the same way. Many CDs that I own I originaly burned from a friend or downloaded via p2p. Once I fell in love with them I bought them. Some of the great bands I got aquainted with (and bought at least one if not several of their CDs) because of p2p:
-Lightning Bolt
-Manitoba
-Godspeed You Black Emperor
-Acid Mothers Temple
-The Brian Jonestown Massacre (they give away ALL their music for free on their site).

Though none of these bands are on labels which are members of the RIAA. Maybe that's the one reason they're so aggresive about downloading - if consumers have equal access to all music, they lose their traditional market advantages over indie labels.

I have a bunch of CDs from the LAYLAH label that are rotting. The label has acknowledged this, and its disc supplier offers a replacement plan for discs that are still in print. specifically reissuing CDs that are known to rot. Mine still play, so I haven't tried to replace them yet. I own about half the CDs on their list.

Were Teddy Ruxpins still around when Enter Sandman came out?

Reminds me of at a place where I worked they had a toy singing Christmas Tree. I can't stand Christmas Music for personal reasons, but to make a long story short I really wanted to put in a tape of Current 93, especially their gothic folk music stuff. (Not as much for the spooky noise. Falling Back in Fields of Rape might be appropriate.)

Never did it. Would probably get me fired. Example Lyrics. I particularly like Hourglass which has accoustic guitar, flute, chello, violin, and really intense vocals.

I really like Godspeed You Black Emperor! for much of my daily task music. It's complex, instrumental, yet hard enough to prevent me from completely dozing off. As well their music is in long-form compositions of ~20 min or so divided into individual movements so you can just put on an album and allow yourself to wash in and out of it. Not to everybody's tastes though.

This movies features music by one of my favorite post-rock bands Godspeed You Black Emperor!

Theirs cds might be a bit hard to find since they boycott the standard corporate distribution scheme.

Find their cds, buy them and prove those RIAA suckers we don't need them!

Ages ago (1996-ish) there used to be a site that would give you a list of recommended artists based on a list of yes/no questions about other artists...firefly.com I think it was called and I can't find it any more. These days I usually get new music via word of mouth on p2p networks and mix tapes. Yes, I still listen to tapes.

A boycott wouldn't do much because almost no one would bother with it. Instead, try having a day or a week of protests - picketing outside theaters, chain record stores (Best Buy, Tower, Virgin, HMV, et al). That would be great because it's actually somewhat realistic and unlike simply not buying things, it sends a clear a direct message to the companies that people are pissed off at them, while it also educates consumers who don't know any better.

Of course you could always try buying indie music as well, though some have major label distributors, you can always find others.

and encourage non-commercial trading of live performances of their shows. A given venue they are playing at may not permit taping, of course.
Some links if you're unfamiliar with the Dots:
fall 2002 north american tour dates so you can go tape :),
The Official Live LPD Archive, roughly 30 live shows complete, over much of their twenty-year history
LPD official website
(Not an affiliate of any kind, just a fan)))

There's so much good electronic music from the 70's and 80's, like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle. Check them out! (Especially Nag! Nag! Nag! by Cabaret Voltaire)

Coil is a long time favorite. A good introduction would be the Unnatural History compilations and Time Machine. (Time Machine is _very_ ambient, and brilliantly simple.)

For the harder stuff, I'd listen to Skinny Puppy(Worlock and Tin Omen are classics), Frontline Assembly and Klinik.

And of course, one of the greatest bands ever, DAF (Deustsche Amerikanische Freundschaft.) Look for Der Mussolini, Verschwinde deine Jugend and Sex unter wasser on your favorite p2p network.

Meat Beat Manifesto is another brilliant band, once found on the brainwashed site. (A big "thank you" to the people who maintain that site.)

There's so much good electronic music from the 70's and 80's, like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle. Check them out! (Especially Nag! Nag! Nag! by Cabaret Voltaire)

Coil is a long time favorite. A good introduction would be the Unnatural History compilations and Time Machine. (Time Machine is _very_ ambient, and brilliantly simple.)

For the harder stuff, I'd listen to Skinny Puppy(Worlock and Tin Omen are classics), Frontline Assembly and Klinik.

And of course, one of the greatest bands ever, DAF (Deustsche Amerikanische Freundschaft.) Look for Der Mussolini, Verschwinde deine Jugend and Sex unter wasser on your favorite p2p network.

Meat Beat Manifesto is another brilliant band, once found on the brainwashed site. (A big "thank you" to the people who maintain that site.)

There's so much good electronic music from the 70's and 80's, like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle. Check them out! (Especially Nag! Nag! Nag! by Cabaret Voltaire)

Coil is a long time favorite. A good introduction would be the Unnatural History compilations and Time Machine. (Time Machine is _very_ ambient, and brilliantly simple.)

For the harder stuff, I'd listen to Skinny Puppy(Worlock and Tin Omen are classics), Frontline Assembly and Klinik.

And of course, one of the greatest bands ever, DAF (Deustsche Amerikanische Freundschaft.) Look for Der Mussolini, Verschwinde deine Jugend and Sex unter wasser on your favorite p2p network.

Meat Beat Manifesto is another brilliant band, once found on the brainwashed site. (A big "thank you" to the people who maintain that site.)

There's so much good electronic music from the 70's and 80's, like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle. Check them out! (Especially Nag! Nag! Nag! by Cabaret Voltaire)

Coil is a long time favorite. A good introduction would be the Unnatural History compilations and Time Machine. (Time Machine is _very_ ambient, and brilliantly simple.)

For the harder stuff, I'd listen to Skinny Puppy(Worlock and Tin Omen are classics), Frontline Assembly and Klinik.

And of course, one of the greatest bands ever, DAF (Deustsche Amerikanische Freundschaft.) Look for Der Mussolini, Verschwinde deine Jugend and Sex unter wasser on your favorite p2p network.

Meat Beat Manifesto is another brilliant band, once found on the brainwashed site. (A big "thank you" to the people who maintain that site.)

Some hints to get you started: First start to read "The Wire", which is not "Wired" (go to The Wire). It's a magazine that knows what happens from month to month. Subscribe, get the subscribers-only CDs they send you, find out what you like, and explore. Don't listen to people who tell you that Trance is the big one these days, or that their old heroes have defined your listening future.

Buy samplers with different artists on it. One that fits the topic is Electronic 01. Try also the Click'n'Cuts compilation series.

Go to festivals like Sonar, Ars Electronica and Mutek, or at least find out what's hot there.

Follow as many leads as you can, be open-minded.

Check out special interest web shops and sites like Brainwashed, .

What you will find is probably that European, especially German, and Japanese artists are pretty much top of the line these days, but that this keeps changing. My most used line at Sonar this year was "We can see that, at least they're German".

Oh yeah, and the recent "Wired" article about electronic music was about five years out of date.

Noise, all.

Having said that, I'd also like to say that I hate the term "electronica", as it really only describes the range of electronic music that MTV and MuchMusic dare to tell you about, and doesn't even hope to cover a wider range of electronic music that doesn't necessarily include techno.

Here are some electronic artists with a bit more diversity:

Genesis P. Orridge (Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV)

Kraftwerk

Brian Eno

Laibach

Nash The Slash

Coil

David Thrussel (Black Lung/Snog/Soma)

Pieter Bourke

Boards Of Canada

David Kristian

cEvin key (Skinny Puppy/Download/The Tear Garden/and more...)

Brian Eno

Merzbow

CPI/DXM

Tribes Of Neurot

Lab Report

Thighpaulsandra

Atari Teenage Riot

Now that you've got a real place to start, find out who the artists you listen to collaberate with, and who they are influenced by, and listen to their music too. You'll discover a whole new world of electronic music that mainstream music outlets will probably never even hope to tell you about.

Having said that, I'd also like to say that I hate the term "electronica", as it really only describes the range of electronic music that MTV and MuchMusic dare to tell you about, and doesn't even hope to cover a wider range of electronic music that doesn't necessarily include techno.

Here are some electronic artists with a bit more diversity:

Genesis P. Orridge (Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV)

Kraftwerk

Brian Eno

Laibach

Nash The Slash

Coil

David Thrussel (Black Lung/Snog/Soma)

Pieter Bourke

Boards Of Canada

David Kristian

cEvin key (Skinny Puppy/Download/The Tear Garden/and more...)

Brian Eno

Merzbow

CPI/DXM

Tribes Of Neurot

Lab Report

Thighpaulsandra

Atari Teenage Riot

Now that you've got a real place to start, find out who the artists you listen to collaberate with, and who they are influenced by, and listen to their music too. You'll discover a whole new world of electronic music that mainstream music outlets will probably never even hope to tell you about.

Having said that, I'd also like to say that I hate the term "electronica", as it really only describes the range of electronic music that MTV and MuchMusic dare to tell you about, and doesn't even hope to cover a wider range of electronic music that doesn't necessarily include techno.

Here are some electronic artists with a bit more diversity:

Genesis P. Orridge (Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV)

Kraftwerk

Brian Eno

Laibach

Nash The Slash

Coil

David Thrussel (Black Lung/Snog/Soma)

Pieter Bourke

Boards Of Canada

David Kristian

cEvin key (Skinny Puppy/Download/The Tear Garden/and more...)

Brian Eno

Merzbow

CPI/DXM

Tribes Of Neurot

Lab Report

Thighpaulsandra

Atari Teenage Riot

Now that you've got a real place to start, find out who the artists you listen to collaberate with, and who they are influenced by, and listen to their music too. You'll discover a whole new world of electronic music that mainstream music outlets will probably never even hope to tell you about.

Having said that, I'd also like to say that I hate the term "electronica", as it really only describes the range of electronic music that MTV and MuchMusic dare to tell you about, and doesn't even hope to cover a wider range of electronic music that doesn't necessarily include techno.

Here are some electronic artists with a bit more diversity:

Genesis P. Orridge (Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV)

Kraftwerk

Brian Eno

Laibach

Nash The Slash

Coil

David Thrussel (Black Lung/Snog/Soma)

Pieter Bourke

Boards Of Canada

David Kristian

cEvin key (Skinny Puppy/Download/The Tear Garden/and more...)

Brian Eno

Merzbow

CPI/DXM

Tribes Of Neurot

Lab Report

Thighpaulsandra

Atari Teenage Riot

Now that you've got a real place to start, find out who the artists you listen to collaberate with, and who they are influenced by, and listen to their music too. You'll discover a whole new world of electronic music that mainstream music outlets will probably never even hope to tell you about.

nobukazu takemura "sign" EP. A 2-CD EP, with the 2nd CD containing the awesome animated video for the song "Sign".

Anything by Matmos (like the new live album or "A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure"...made entirely from samples of plastic surgery.)

Almost anything by The Orb (UFOrb, Cydonia, Orbus Terrarum, Toxygene are all excellent) and Orbital's "the box" EP or "Snivilisation" albums are best (although everything except their new one is top-notch). If you EVER get a chance, catch Orbital live; it is an experience not to be missed. They headlined Lollapalooza for a reason (same year as Tool, too.)

"Stay Down" or "Virus With Shoes" by 2 Lone Swordsmen

"Fear of Fours" by Lamb

check some of the online resources like lomechanik.net and consider downloading some tracks from soulseek or a similar service.

As far as a lot of the Warp artists go, their Peel Sessions stuff is GREAT! (aphex, autechre plaid all come to mind). Warp used to be fantastic but has recently been putting out SHIT (Gallo's album comes to mind).

Avoid Josh Wink like the goddamn plague (ditto Moby). Also, check out Autoplate Records a free web-only record label. Some good stuff for free. :)

Seriously!

Try some Coil, Converter, Synapscape, Winterkalte, Needle Sharing, etc.. and that's just modern stuff!

(I'm a big experimental fan, if you couldn't tell)

Tabbed (or windowed) browsing, a search box (deafulted to google, but you can change that,) in every window, skinnable, a hotlinks/bookmarks folder with stuff that's actually usefull and gestures; in addition to that you can magnify or resize the entire page...not just pictures or text, but the entire page (sometimes it looks like ass, true, but it comes in usefull when you're tired of looking at really small letters...can't tell you the amount of times I've set /. to 140% and sat a few feet further away from the old 19" monitor.

Opera has definitely made my browsing a much better experience. I happily shelled out 40$ today (even though I've been using the free version for like four months or so, I have been too broke to consider paying real $$ for software that is *quite* functional even with the ads....and a note about that: none of the ads were annoying blinking neon sex ads, either. In fact, if i recall correctly the last ad i saw before I payed up was an ad for User Friendly.

I can see how a user of Moz (and I have all 3 browsers on my machine, and I use all 3 regularly (although I really only use IE for windows update and on the rare occasions in which Opera does not render a page well. So far, this is the only page i've come across that doesn't render well.

Give it a try for a week before you knock it, it's way better than IE and at least as good as Moz (although I like it tons more than Mozilla, personally.)

the previous poster is right on the money.

digital music, yes, but not even remotely close to idm (the ilk of aphex twin, autechre, squarepusher) or glitch / clicks'n'cuts (the likes of oval, pan sonic, ryoji ikeda, alva noto, stilluppsteypa, vladislav delay).

to me, lowercase sound means composers like bernhard günter or (sometimes) francisco lópez or most of the output coming from the trente oiseaux label.

this can be difficult music even to ears used to such artists as the hafler trio or john duncan.

lowercase sound is definitely not ambient or muzak -- it is not music for airports. quite the opposite, it requires intense, focused listening and long attention spans. otherwise, you won't get anything from it (actually, you won't even notice it -- it's often softer than the buzz of your fridge).

but... if you're willing to make the effort to understand the underlying structure, beauty can emerge, as rewarding as a painting by marc rothko or a radio play by samuel beckett.

--
If you don't believe in free speech for your enemies,
you don't believe in free speech at all.

some bands do this with their live music -- unfortunately it's almost always one of the many jam bands, (like phish, medeski martin & wood, et al) but some other bands -- including electronic acts, like Coil vary their live performances of pieces GREATLY -- to the point where it might even be called a different song.

Frank Zappa did something quite similar with is bands: he would use hand signals to change a performance of a piece and make a rock song into a reggae song or a jazzier piece or what-have-you. In some ways, John Zorn's "game pieces" use this same method of improvisation (although Zorn's "games" really are games: there is a competition and winners are picked at the end of the performance.

the computer is gradually becoming the instrument itself.

Gee, considering much of my CD collection has been computer music for almost a decade, I'm glad to see a mainstream article about it!

Computing machines have been used for music for quite some time. Other posters have mentioned the software like Reaktor, Absynth, FruityLoops, Max/MSP, Reason, etc, etc. Here are some random artists you can check out:

Richard Devine Uses Reaktor on several computers to create complex industrial electronic beats. His stuff is pretty unbelievable when you listen close to all the detail. He's written music for Nike ads recently so he's fairly accessible.

kid 606: An up-and-coming laptop punk. He's written silly stuff and serious stuff too and done at lot for the live electronic scene. He pretty much uses only Reaktor on a laptop as well. Look for the track " Catstep/My Kitten/Catnap Vatstep DSP Remix By Hrvatski" on your favorite music-sharing service, off his "Down With the Scene" album, you won't be disappointed! Or at least you'll laugh at the singing robot voice.

Autechre are the masters of abstract electronic music (imho). For the past few albums, they've slowly gravitated toward generative music (i.e., write a program to write the music). They use Max/MSP and other stuff (not entirely computers all the time). Their last album Confield is very abstract and almost unlistenable. But fascinating.

Taylor Deupree and his 12k label from New York are into the minimalist side of things, very minimal electronic noise, very art-school stuff. Some of 12k's stuff combines very well with the noise a computer makes, which I like to play when working so that my computer's fan noise is "remixed". Pretty cool if you're into the abstract. They use all sorts of software for their art.

Another Electronic Musician is a guy in the California scene who makes nice unpretencious (sp) electronic beats with Reaktor and other stuff.

Grooves magazine is one of many independent magazines on electronic music. If you see an issue at your local leftfield bookstore, flip through it. They review music software too.

There's plenty of academics into electronic music too. Paul Lansky is one off the top of my head. Several music schools have electronic music programs that use a lot of this software too (Berkeley uses Reason I believe).

So, there is a pretty huge scene for electronic music. There are plenty of young musicians who have chosen the laptop as their primary instrument, and don't even think twice about it.

Some of my current faves (from a bunch of different genres) include:

• As someone else mentioned, Radiohead is simply phenomenal
• Sigur Rós
• Death Cab For Cutie
• Godspeed You Black Emperor!
• Pedro the Lion
• American Analog Set
• Dashboard Confessional
• Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Further Seems Forever
• In more of the singer/songwriter style, there's Glen Phillips and Matt Nathanson

As you can see in the links, they link to notbreathing.com . Not Breathing is an awesome band. If you *ever* get a chance to see them, do it. They have a small flock of cute firedancer girls that tour with them (afaik - they were there for a couple shows at least). It was one of the most intense shows I've been to (and while completely sober).

Also, there are lots of groups within the "Intelligent Dance Music (IDM)" scene/genre (some info here) that do a lot of the same fiddling about with gear and various other things. If you look, you'll find a large amount of scientific minds making electronic music these days.

Really, these are tech geeks who like to think differently (just like you guys do), but instead, they produce music when they "hack". I recently saw Matmos (at a Bjork concert) connect some kind of mic to a bird cage and proceeded to *PLAY* the bird cage as if it were an instrument. And it made pretty sounds! I've also spent time watching Lexaunculpt play with MAX so obsessively that there's no way that someone could NOT call that being a computer geek.

Don't stop at carrionsounds.com! There's lots of great music out there!

disclosure: i like pop. i liked it when i was a teeny bopper in high school, i like it now. the beatles' music will always be good -- but for the most part, it will also always be pop.

the other "musical camp" i see forming is very isolated anti-marketing disenfranchised music. (there's also the variation on this, like radiohead or REM, who seem hate the public eye, but haven't tossed in the towel yet. i like to think of this as 'pseudo-disenfranchisement'). but take most electronic music these days, as an example. there's a big-ish market for it, but very few artists have stepped up to the plate and said "yes, i will gladly sell my soul for millions and millions and millions of dollars." (moby perhaps being the most annoying exception, imo.) most fans of electronic music that i know feel as if they're the only ones, or at most, part of a small group. the you go to an orbital show and --hey presto!-- there's 4000 people in your city who you would never have guessed listened to electronica. there's bands that have intentionally avoided the lure of major-label success (cf. the amazing band Godspeed You Black Emperor! whose songs' blatant anti-corp. attitude should be an adbusters.org pep-rally theme). but they're well known...they're just not ubiquitously famous like, say, Brittney.

i do have a point: the advent of technology (and ubiquity thereof,) has made good music by good musicians easier to make and distribute. if you like death metal, you join a death-metal mailing list and you'll have access to a fucking worldwide network of people who have similar tastes...some of which will invariably be making some of that music themselves.

most musicians i know couldn't give the tiniest shit about being famous; and most would content themselves with making enough money to pay for expenses, equipment, etc.

so, for the most part, they'll give it away, or at the very least, sell it to you for very cheap prices. (e.g., mp3.com, or selling via home pages, etc. i've seen people going from doing this to releasing stuff on indie labels, which may not pay for that new-giant-organic-living-breathing-LCD-monitor, but will certainly ease the pressures off the artist personally.)

this is not to say that the major labels will all die overnight; i doubt that they'll ever die. but the people who give a shit about the music they listen to -- and however much the latest teen hit sensation(s) shake body parts, they're never going to write anything with the meaning of any 60's or 70's rock song -- will slowly fade further into the margins (they just don't make classic rock like they used to...) until several things happen:

A) major labels try to market pseudo-classic-rock(or your favourite non-mainstream style of music) and fail miserably.

II) online music services die (well...napster, anyway. USENET and gnutella won't ever really die.) the good thing about this is that indie labels will thrive again.

thirdly,) everyone will give up watching TV, attend live concerts, read more, think independently often, and not blindly follow what they see on TV.

well, I can dream.

-d.
--
Slashdot: When News Breaks, We Give You The Pieces

TVT is also notorious for fucking over Coil, the post-Psychic TV project of John Balance and Peter Christopherson. Coil never got royalties from their seminal album "Love's Secret Domain," and since TVT owns the distribution rights, this fantastic recording is totally out of print and changing hands at $40 a pop on eBay.

TVT also somehow managed to distribute Autechre for Warp Records (a UK label). Now, thank god, Autechre is distributed by Nothing...

--alex k.

I believe Kranky, Constellation and spinArt are independent and not members of the RIAA. Constellation (Canadian) has Do Make Say Think and Godspeed You Black Emperor. Kranky bands include Low and Pan American and I think they're the American distributor for GYBE. spinArt is home to the Poster Children and The Wedding Present, among others.

I am totally in love with the idea of 'perfect' digital media being forced to rot. I'm sure some of you have heard of the 'disc rot' problem with some Laser Discs and CDs. This coating technology means I can produce time-based art. With some experimentation, you could tweak the error-correction of the DVD and get different effects and artifacts as the disc starts to die.
I have always sought out the imperfections of digital media to make art from it. Now I will have a tool to take this idea even further.

This would also be popular with artists who wanted to make work available to fans that was 'ok' but that they feel wouldn't do them justice if it was a permanent record. Coil's Song of The Week Mp3 experiment would be a good example.

... the industrial pioneers!