To carry on with the Friday giveaway that I started last week, here are several songs to share. They were released earlier this year (2009), and I’m sure you’ll enjoy:

M. Ward - Jailbird (Hold Time)
Laura Gibson - Come By Storm (Beasts of Seasons)
Beirut - The Akara (March of The Zapotec and Realpeople Holland)

Having just watched the 80 minute presentation introducing Google Wave, I must say that my mind is blown. If you haven’t watched the presentation or heard of it yet (it was introduced yesterday), Google is presenting Wave as an “online communication and collaboration tool.” With that said, watch the video and prepared to be stunned.

Imagine combining Facebook, email, instant messaging, threads, Twitter, Google Docs and Maps, and Wikipedia… all in the same application in a browser, and cranking it to eleven. But that description doesn’t do it justice, really.

So without toying with Wave yet (it’s not open to public testing), here are several reasons that I foresee Wave being important to the world of music:

Agencies will use Wave to communicate with the media, design press releases, and develop plans with record labels.

Artists will use Wave to plan tours, communicate with fans, edit riders with venues, and share media files. Since Wave will be fully functional on the iPhone, bands will be able to update their sites or track their latest waves while on the road.

Bloggers will use Wave to communicate with agencies, bands, and readers. Teams of writers will edit their articles in real time, and embed them onto their blog when it’s ready… and then communicate with their readers as people respond. I imagine that Google Wave will change the face of blogging in an unprecedented way.

Music consumers will be able to communicate with artists in new ways, share media with their friends, and find music news quickly. The translation tool will enable fans to chat with people across the world without a language barrier to stop them.

Once Wave applications are developed (developers have several months to get them ready), users will be able to add extensions and plugins to make Wave even more personalized and powerful. You can be sure that developers will create astonishing plugins that will integrate Last.fm or Hype Machine with Wave. This will bring new meaning to the share button.

While people have been talking about Twitter and Facebook changing the way people access information, this will REALLY change things. Artists, agencies and bloggers will all be striving to have an article, announcement or media file “hit the wave,” as it spreads quickly to millions of users, bringing a flood of traffic to their website. Wave will make media extremely viral.

Mouthful of Bees have followed up with The End with a self-titled full length, was releasing it on Afternoon Records two weeks ago. Their debut album was an attention grabber, handing them Minneapolis’ “Best New Band” in 2007, and reached #38 on CMJ charts.

Check out Micky’s Bed from Mouthful of Bees… we’re thoroughly impressed!

Mouthful of Bees - Micky’s Bed

“Before embarking on their next album in the spring of 2008, the band decided to enlist the help of friends Simon Larson and Patrick Swanson for new songs and ideas. In the following months of often-grueling recording sessions, a newer, quirkier and more sophisticated sound evolved, complete with tricky time signatures, complex harmonies and a larger, more fully-orchestrated sound. When all was said and done, erased accidentally and done again, Mouthful of Bees had created, what else, “Mouthful of Bees,” 12 diverse tracks of lush, strange, rockin’ pop.”

You may be familiar with Jeremy Barnes, but indirectly. Think Beirut and Neutral Milk Hotel. Several years ago he moved to Europe to record as A Hawk and a Hacksaw with Heather Trost. Barnes is a phenomenal accordian and Trost plays the violin beautifully.

Housle is an intriguing short film featuring A Hawk and a Hacksaw, released today on Youtube:

“After witnessing the theft of his precious violin by a strange masked instrument thief, an old violinist is led on a chase down ‘the rabbit hole’ from the abandoned factory that had served as his private concert hall into a surreal forest where masked musicians stand as the gatekeepers to another life.”

YouTube - A Hawk And A Hacksaw: Housle (Prague, CZ).

Luke Temple began to gain attention when he released his first two solo albums with our friends at Mill Pond Records. His vocal style brought accolades from Sufjan Stevens and Ben Gibbard. Late in 2008 Temple formed Here We Go Magic, signed to Western Vinyl, and released their self-titled album this spring. The new venture is gaining momentum, attracting support from the major music blogs and an upcoming tour with Grizzly Bear.

Timed perfectly with the Grizzly Bear tour is the release of a Daytrottersession, and My Old Kentucky Blog’s Laundro Matinee live session.

“Developed over a two-month period of stream-of-consciousness recording in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Luke’s self-titled debut under his new moniker Here We Go Magic is a remarkable departure from his signature singer-songwriter material.  Luke recorded the album at home using analog synths, a cassette 4-track, and his trusty SM-57 mic, coloring the sound with warmth and creating textures you want to wrap yourself in.”

Here We Go Magic - Tunnelvision

(more…)

Detroit’s garage-pop group, The Decks, are released Breath and Bone today. The first half of the album was recorded at Ghetto Recorders (White Stripes), while the second half were recorded with Eddie Gillis, Jack White’s brother. RIYL dirty and gritty garage rock.

“The Decks formed back in 2003 after being inspired by bands ranging from local legends like The Stooges, all the way to 1950’s surf kings, The Ventures. They also draw from the sounds of The La’s, Sleater-Kinney, Black Lips, Velvet Underground, Television and Neil Young. The Decks have seen a shake up in the line up since their inception, but have solidified as Alex Glendening (lead vocals, guitar), Hank Wolfe (bass), Maria Nuccilli (drums, vocals), and Molly-Jean Schoen (guitar, vocals).”

The Decks - Skeleton

The Decks - What You Said

Barsuk Records has a knack at finding bands that click with the indie crowd, and The Wooden Birds are no exception. Led by Andrew Kenny (who has been a guest artist with Album Leaf and Broken Social Scene, and his band The American Analog Set), The Wooden Birds released their debut, Magnolia, on May 12th. Four artists join Kenny to round out the live act.

The Wooden Birds - The Other One

Speaking of live acts, The Wooden Birds is touring this summer with Other Lives:

WED, MAY 27, 2009 : Pheonix, AZ @ Modified
THU, MAY 28, 2009 : Los Angeles, CA @ Spaceland
FRI, MAY 29, 2009 : San Diego, CA @ Bar Pink
SAT, MAY 30, 2009 : Visala, CA @ Cellar Door
SUN, MAY 31, 2009 : San Fransisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
TUE, JUN 2, 2009 : Vancouver, BC @ Media Club *
WED, JUN 3, 2009 : Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge *
THU, JUN 4, 2009 : Seattle, WA @ Chop Suey
SAT, JUN 6, 2009 : Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court *
SUN, JUN 7, 2009 : Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge *
THU, JUN 18, 2009 : Lawrence, KS @ Jackpot Saloon *
FRI, JUN 19, 2009 : Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry *
SAT, JUN 20, 2009 : Chicago, IL @ Schubas *
SUN, JUN 21, 2009 : Clevland, OH @ Beachland *
TUE, JUN 23, 2009 : Cambridge, MA @ TT The Bears *
WED, JUN 24, 2009 : Brooklyn, NY @ The Bell House *
THU, JUN 25, 2009 : Philadelphia, PA @ North Star *
MON, JUN 29, 2009 : Atlanta, GA @ The Earl *
THU, JUL 2, 2009 : Houston, TX @ Walters on Washington *
SAT, JUL 4, 2009 : Austin, TX @ Stubb’s BBQ w/ Explosions in the Sky & The Octopus Project
* with Other Lives

Before the internet embraced social networking sites and Web 2.0 standards, being a fanboy meant finding ways to bring up your obsession during every meal, handing out flyers to promote events, and wearing the same t-shirt every day until there were one too many holes worn into the fabric.

Now that it’s the 21st Century, here are ten fanboy weapons:

Ping.fm - Many of us have a dozen accounts on different  social networking sites. To avoid a headache of keeping up on every account, try using web apps such as Ping.fm. By providing your login info to Ping.fm, you’re able to update all of your sites at once. If you’re so inclined, you can update your statuses via email, text messaging, instant messenger, or via the iPhone app. So whenever your favorite band, blog, or object of affection has a new update, you can quickly share it with your large circle of friends by updating one site: Ping.fm.

Post links on Facebook - Facebook provides several ways of posting content to your profile. The most straight forward way is to click “add: link” under the status update bar. Copy and paste the link, and edit the information that it automatically pulls from that link. You can cycle through the image until you find the right image, edit the title of the link by clicking on the title, and edit the description. Add a comment too about the link by writing something in the status box, then click “share”.

Comment threads are the new forum - Since most social networking sites allow you to comment on almost everything, comment threads are becoming the new forum. Post a controversial topic on Facebook and you might have 80 comments by the end of the day (though the longevity of a comment thread doesn’t compare to the old fashioned forum). If you want to promote your obsession, utilize the comment threads.

Ask blogs to write about your obsession - Bloggers are always looking for something to write about. If you have a favorite band that you want to promote, figure out which blogs would be the most likely to help your cause. If you’re helping a band, search Hype Machine for blogs that have covered similar bands. Since each blog typically has thousands of readers, you can raise awareness in a specific niche rather quickly by prompting a handful of blogs.

Twitter is the new distributor - It may take several days before a search engine has crawled a website and added a new post to their database, and taking time for things to appear in a search result. Twitter is instantaneous. By tagging your updates (using # hash tags before a tag), your updates are immediately available on websites such as hashtags.org. Posting a link to an mp3 and tagging it with #music is one way you can help raise awareness.

Remixes and Mashups - More and more people are realizing the importance of remixes and mashups. In a way, it hands the reigns of influencing culture back to the average person. Try creating a remix of a song, or create a mashup with a video and a song. You might be surprised at the number of views it might attract on Youtube.

Wikipedia - Have you noticed how well Wikipedia ranks in a Google search? If your favorite band or blog doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry, create one for them! Otherwise, help out by keeping an entry updated… just be sure to reference everything.

Tumblr - If you enjoy scoping the internet for articles about a certain topic, yet you don’t want to start your own blog, consider creating a Tumblr page. Tumblr aims to help you post content from other websites. You can copy/paste RSS feeds from websites and add them to Tumblr, so every time that website writes a new post, Tumblr automatically adds it to your page. The bookmark link gives you the power to tumble a story with one click.

iPhone and Facebook applications - You may not be a programmer, but chances are you know one. Programmers are always looking for ways to hone their skills, so why not team up and create an app to spread your love? An iPhone app can be as simple as pulling an RSS feed from a page… or a Facebook app could stream the latest posts.

Old methods are still valid - Not everyone is on the web like you are, so please don’t stop taking it to the streets! T-shirts are still walking billboards, and people still enjoy paper flyers. Posting something on Facebook, and then wearing that T-shirt the next day may spark a conversations with your friends that start with, “I saw that post yesterday…”

The last two years have been involving for Sigur Rós fans. A full length, a movie/documentary, an EP, tours and other treats. Adding to the mystery of this band was a side project called Riceboy Sleeps. What first began as a 48 page picture book by Jón þór Birgisson (vocalist and guitarist for Sigur Rós) and his partner, Alex Somers. They followed this with art exhibits, videos… and then an instrumental on the tremendous Dark Was The Night (Red Hot Compilation).

Riceboy Sleeps - Happiness (Dark Was The Night)

Happiness, the track that fits nicely with the compilation, “was neither finished nor mastered when the deadline came around.” Jónsi and Alex acted quickly to complete the track, along with eight others, and are poised to release Riceboy Sleeps on July 20th.

The official press release has this to say about the album:

“Played solely on acoustic instruments in Iceland (and featuring long-time string collaborators amiina, as well as the Kopavogsdaetur Choir) and then endlessly toyed with on solar-powered laptops in a raw food commune in some far corner of Hawaii, ‘Riceboy Sleeps’ has a suitably, uh, ‘organic feel’ to it; the wave-like lapping of its tidal flow buried beneath analogue hiss, crackle, pulse and distortion; the creaking of rigging and sometime indeterminate falling delicately over; and, on ‘howl’, ruminative animal chirrups, grunts, snorts and purrs.”

Riceboy Sleeps tracklisting:
happiness
atlas song
indian summer
stokkseyri
boy 1904
all the big trees (video)
daníell in the sea (video)
howl
sleeping giant

Sara Lov is debuting her album on Nettwerk, and has a stop motion video for her first single, A Thousand Bees. The video uses over 4,000 photos, directed by Noah Webb. I must admit I’m a sucker for stop motion, and I think you’ll enjoy the animation they use in this video.

YouTube - Sara Lov - A Thousand Bees (video).