A new site for showcasing music has come to our attention. You can vote on music as you hear it. Simple enough. Seems to be mostly Indie stuff. Worth a listen, click on the logo.
I still like SOMA FM for all around best new music. Also StillStream for general free weirdness. Erin likes LastFM on her iPhone.
Canadian band Fear Zero
Ok these guys aren’t local to Redding, but a friend told me I should check out the video below. The guy can shred. Plus he has a cool accent, eh.
Octane – Fear Zero from Ken Mason on Vimeo.
They do more than shred. They have some catchy tunes and a new CD to promote. Check out the free download of radio friendly “Breathe Again” and you’ll see what I mean. Caution: this tune sticks in your head. The band link is HERE. I like what I’m hearing, they got me moving. I expect good things for them. Rock oot, eh!
Natalie MacMaster at TED
A few sample MP3s from Beyond the Portal
As promised yesterday, I am posting a few sound snippets from our new CD. Please enjoy, and if you wish to purchase directly from the artist, you can do so HERE, just as soon as we can get a Paypal button put up.
Our new music CD is released!
Yay! Yesterday, Craig Padilla received the first shipment of our new CD Beyond the Portal.. This his being distributed worldwide on the Lotuspike Label, via Spotted Peccary records, an artist run label. We’re pretty stoked!
We celebrated with champagne we had been saving for the occasion light beer. Yay! Hope to have some samples up soon (of the music, not the beer).
I should point out that this CD was the collaborative efforts of 3 artists. Missing from the picture is Zero Ohms, who lives in Memphis, and was unable to join us in Redding. Hoist one for us, Zero! Our thanks for your fine work.
Redding rockers InnerWorkings
HERE is a link to this Redding rock band’s MySpace page. These are some straight ahead rockers, and they have some music samples uploaded for you. It looks as though they’d like their music to go in a more progressive direction, and are looking for a keyboard player, if you know anyone. “Hardest working band in the dirty 530.” Interesting motto. Fun to read through their blog posts too. Best wishes, you guys. Keeping a band together is difficult.
More electronic music from Sensitive Chaos
My friend and fellow planetarium musician Jim Combs plays in the Atlanta area (mostly) as Sensitive Chaos. He also plays in collaboration with other folks, and leads the music festival there, City Skies. If you’ve been enjoying some of Craig Padilla and my music posted here, you will probably also enjoy Sensitive Chaos. You can buy music and CDs at the website, but even better, you can sample very long pieces at no cost at the secret webpage. Shh. Its a secret webpage. There’s more than 13 hours of recordings available there. You can drop some money in the digital tip jar too, just like listening at a venue. Check it out. Add some nice longform MP3 tracks to your iPod, at whatever you’d like to pay (think starving artist). Thanks Jim! Play on.
Planetary conjunction
Okay this might not look like much here, but it was visually stunning yesterday evening just after sunset. The crescent Moon, lined up near Venus and Jupiter. I got out my camera and tried to capture the majesty, without much success.
Here’s the moon using the 200mm lens on my real estate camera. The conjunction was pretty spectacular in real life, but if you missed it, you’ll just have to use your imagination, perhaps. Using my telescope, you could plainly see several moons of Jupiter lined up in the same plane as the Earth’s Moon. And Luna herself was amazing with the light giving sharp detail to the massive craters. It was a nice evening for stargazing. I bought this 4″ Meade Newtonian reflecting telescope from an unemployed mortgage broker for $50 (no joke). Too bad I can’t hook the camera up to it (yet).
Appropriate to the setting, we have a rare live recording from the Schreder Planetarium of Craig Padilla’s Night Rain, originally from the album Eye of the Storm. This was recorded under the stars, under the dome a few years back. This 7 minute piece features a pyrotechnic guitar solo by Al Mires, now proprietor of Palo Cedro’s Music Max music store (Remember to shop locally folks). And Craig plays acoustic electric guitar here, no less. I think this recording was released only as a cassette prior to this, so I hope you enjoy it.
Solar Fields
This video showed up in my e-mail the other day. I don’t know if it’s authorized, but it’s nice. It says the music was recorded Freitag (German for Friday) Nov 14. Solar Fields is a European music artist with whom I have a slender connection. Craig Padilla and I were invited to appear on a compilation CD from 2002 called the Fahrenheit Project on the French label Ultimae. Craig and I submitted a track from Beyond Beta, and Solar Fields contributed a track called Outlined surfaces. Since then I have followed the music vicariously, and find that we are very much in the same vibe. I see that the Fahrenheit Project #1 is now out of print, and that’s a shame. It was a very tasty compilation. The Ultimae label is run by Vince and Sunshine from Lyons, France, self described “panoramic people” in their newsletters. I hope we meet someday. Terrific people, great music, all across the sea. It’s always surprising to me that we seem to have a fan base in Europe.
I see their website has a review among several of the Fahrenheit compilation, in which our ambient beatless track is described as “not dreadful.” Ouch! Hee hee. I guess it could be worse.
Cheap gas, film at 11
I ran across this intrepid reporter getting video of the cheap $2.12 gas at Arco yesterday. Never thought I’d see that again. Later I went by there after he’d gone, and they had dropped it again to $1.99. That news video didn’t last long! Send out the reporter again.
This tune titled Indian Spirits is another piece from our live series at the Schreder Planetarium, as promised yesterday. It features Craig singing. Here’s the lyric sheet: “Ahhhhhh.” Hee. Well maybe it’s Uhhh, not exactly sure about that, it’s been a long time. Anyway I enjoyed hearing it again today, and I hope you like it too.