Author Archives: Emilio Pérez Miguel

La Medio Siglo (Uruguayan Independent Artist)

Posted on by

"Altos Con Rulos" By La Medio Siglo

It’s official: humankind is ending on the 15th of March, 2012, and the world will be left spinning like a loony balloon. Well, Facebook is going to bite the dust right there and then. Which for quite a handful of people is roughly the same thing. They won’t be able to spy on their exes, they won’t be able to insult others indirectly, they won’t be able to tag people in insalubrious pictures… they will have to learn to do without all that. Like my reclusive namesake in robes of white once wrote, “How dreary—Marbles—After playing Crown”.

Me? Since I’m a very balanced sort of fellow, and as calm as a fruit stand in New York, I won’t miss any of the things listed above. I will, however, miss befriending young bands there. My, the number of “musical” friends I’ve got easily offsets my “real life” friends. And my “real life friends” count seems to be dwindling, too. Last week, my two BFF (that’s “Best Friends Forever”, in case you don’t listen to Taylor Swift) said they were going to buy pizza, and they never came back! Sigh…

Well, I guess I’ll have to soldier on. And hold onto the remnants of the day, celebrating all these truly motivated bands I’m still getting to know through the Winklevoss twins’ main claim to fame. The most recent one is La Medio Siglo [The Half-Century], a Uruguayan unit that plays a very energetic mixture of rock and funk.

The band is made up of the communal mystique of Paul Higgs (guitar, vocals), Thomas Bate (guitar), Pablo Deferrari (bass) and Manuel Souto (drums), and its first EP has just been issued. It’s titled “Altos Con Rulos” [Tall And Curly], and it’s available for free on La Medio Siglo’s official website.

Leaving aside the title track (which is just a spirited way to start proceedings),
the EP has got four songs where teenage staples are articulated over music that is muscular and very well-written, with exciting dynamics and histrionics. I recall that the first time I chatted with Paul Higgs (the band’s guitarist and singer) my first remark upon listening to one of the cuts on the EP (which they were recording and mixing back then) was “Shit, you guys have got quite a swing!”. I actually said that aloud as I was typing the words down, and I swear I sounded as earnest as Samuel L. Jackson when he went “Snakes in the motherfuckin’ plane!”. Continue reading →

Spotify Has 1.4 Million Users In America

Posted on by

It’s been four weeks now since Spotify launched in the US, and statistics are beginning to surface. Just last week I told you about these songs being shared more recurrently by users of the service. Well, now I’ve got something even yummier for you: the actual number of people who have signed up for the service.

According to All Things Digital, Spotify has captured the eardrums of no less than 1.4 million American users.

“Wait, what’s the deal?”, I hear you say. “Facebook has got more than 700 million users! That’s a tiny drop in the ocean!”

To that I can answer categorically “No, it’s not”.
Just to put things in perspective, Rhapsody has 800,000 registered users. And it took Rhapsody 10 years to get there. So, Spotify is doing things right so far. Specially when we take into account that out of these 1.4 million users, 175.000 have bought a subscription. That’s a conversion rate of approximately 12 %.

If Spotify manages to keep the momentum going, one year to this date it should have hit 20 million users. And if the conversion rate remains the same, about 3 million of these are going to be paying for the service.

Nogeno – Free Pages For Artists

Posted on by

Name: Nogeno
URL: http://www.nogeno.com

Nogeno is the latest site to be released that makes having a profile page where to promote your music an absolute piece of cake. Thanks to Nogeno, just any musician can have an active presence on the Internet, and include everything from a short bio to a calendar listing his every upcoming date. And all the songs he has recorded so far, of course. He can stream these online by way of the provided player, and also sell them for good money. Any musician who uses Nogeno can start generating a direct income, without A & R men getting in the way of what is rightfully his.

A Nogeno page can be created in a breeze, there’s just nothing technical to do or handle – such is the beauty of sites like this and Onesheet. All you have to do in order to get started is sign in using your Facebook account.

And note that if you already have a Bandcamp or a MySpace profile then you can have all your data imported into Nogeno, and be up and running within minutes. In no case will you have to pay anything – Nogeno is free, and (by the looks of it) will remain like that for good.

The Most Shared Playlists On Spotify

Posted on by

Now that Spotify is firmly established on American soil, it’s time to see exactly the kind of music that people are not only listening to but also sharing through it.

This infograph (from ShareMyPlaylists.com) sheds some light on that subject. It basically highlights these songs that have been featured on the largest number of Spotify playlists so far.

Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” is on top with a whooping 7567 total shares. And the second and third place are taken by “Like A G6” (Far East Movement) and “Sexy Bitch” (David Guetta and Akon).

MPlayr – Listen To Music Charts On Your Browser

Posted on by

Name: MPlayr
URL: http://www.mplayr.com

MPlayr is one of the best ways to stay abreast of what is being played on some of the most representative music charts the world over. On this site, you can tune into the US and the UK music charts, and learn what sounds are trending there. And I mean it – the site lets you do more than just read a list of songs ranking in either territory, it actually lets you listen to them online. That can be done directly on your browser. You won’t have to download anything, and you won’t have to pay anything either.

What’s more, the site has a chart devoted to iTunes. Again – you can see what’s hot in there, and listen to it straight in your browser.

Other meritorious aspects of MPlayr include letting people look up both new and old songs and have them played on the fly, and letting users create playlists they can then share with all their friends on Facebook (the one service which is used for signing in). Continue reading →

Month In Review – July 2011

Posted on by

More Uruguayan artists than you could shake a stick at were featured on MusicKO this month. These included Andrea Deleón Santos, Casablancas, ELSANTOREMEDIO and Closet. The videos for “Decidir” (Andrea Deleón Santos), “Please Don’t Be Like Me” (Casablancas) and “POU” (Closet) were all listed on the blog as the month ran its course. And the download link for ELSANTOREMEDIO’s first album was made available on this post.

I also managed to cover a good range of web apps and sites for musicians/music lovers on July. In order of appearance, these were LYRICSnMUSIC, OneSheet, Jazz Cypher and Fuse Trade. And as far as interviews were concerned, I did the digital equivalent of sitting down for a chat with Anton Naumovets from PitchImprover and Chris from Jazz Cypher.

And if you’re looking for an outright chance to relieve some tension, then check Incubattle out. By jingo, these Incubus folks do know how to promote an album!

Chris (Jazz Cypher) – Interview (Part 2)

Posted on by

This is the last part of the interview with Chris, the founder of social networking site Jazz Cypher. Here we talk about his whole musical background, and these artists he enjoys more.

And this link will take you to the first part of the interview (the one where we talk about Jazz Cypher itself).

 

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

 

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

I’ve always been interested in music. Always into hip hop. Never an over-the-top jazz fan.

Are you in a band yourself, or have you been in a band in the past? Is there a clip on YouTube or elsewhere we could watch?

No, I don’t play anymore but I used to play the drums.

Musical likes and dislikes? Favorite artists?

Primarily hip hop and R & B, but I can appreciate great music from any genre. Continue reading →

Chris (Jazz Cypher) – Interview (Part 1)

Posted on by

Today I bring you the interview I had the pleasure to conduct with Chris from Jazz Cypher, the social network for jazz lovers and performers reviewed last week on MusicKO.

So, what goes into creating a social networking site for musicians? Read on to find out…

 

Chris (Jazz Cypher's Founder)

Full Name: Chris
Age: 33
Website: Jazz Cypher
Position: Founder

 

PART I

THE WEBSITE

Tell us a little about your website. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

My father is a jazz pianist, and I am in the technology field, So together we decided to build a site aimed to fuse together Jazz Music with a fully scoped social networking platform.

Registered member can create profiles, and create posts, join groups, or simply use the site as an interactive rolodex to find and contact new jazz musicians in the area. It provides musicians and jazz enthusiasts a unique networking gateway at their fingertips.

What was the original launch date?

July ‘11

What has been the response so far?

Great – although we need to kick promotion into high gear.

What features can we expect to see implemented in future revisions?

Chat and possibly, Vendor Partnerships. Continue reading →

The First Foot Controller For iPad Is Here

Posted on by

If iPads are not many a musician’s best friend, then they might just become it right now. Available for guitar, bass, electric violin and keyboard players, this new StompBox by Griffin can effectively turn anybody’s trusty tablet into a shredding machine.

StompBox is defined by its creators as “a programmable multi-functional foot controller that enables virtual guitar effects”. This foot controller is used in conjunction with Frontier Design’s iShred LIVE app, and it lets musicians switch effects with their feet without having to take their hands off their instruments. Using iShred LIVE, the individual foot switches can be assigned to implement (and control) all the effects one wishes to apply.

The kit comes complete with a special cable for simultaneous guitar, PA, or amp connectivity, and a cable that goes straight into the iPad.

On a side note, this StompBox also works with teleprompters. Users are enabled to control text scrolling and related presentation functions with their feet. So, that’s two birds down with the same stone. Or with $ 99 – that’s how much the whole kit retails for.

100 Different Musicians Cover Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog”… In The Same Video!

Posted on by

100 Different Musicians Cover Led Zeppelin In The Same Video... Does The Song Remain The Same?

How many good Led Zeppelin cover bands do you know? One? Two? Three, maybe?

Well, now you can take that number up quite a bit – to one hundred, no less.
Israel-based producer Ophir Kutiel (better-known as Kutiman) has assembled the ultimate Led Zeppelin cover fest by stitching together 100 different cover bands (and individuals) in the same video.

Sounds quite intriguing, huh? Well, the results hold together admirably well.

Check the finished piece. The song is “Black Dog”, from “Led Zeppelin IV”.