This is it, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Judging for the Tr3s “Unplug With Juanes” Competition closed at noon on Tuesday, January 17, and since then the competition judges and Juanes himself have been hard at work listening to all of your entries. At the end of the day, it was a tough call and a hard-fought battle, but only one entry could prevail. So join us in congratulating Emanuela Bellezza, whose knockout rendition of “Fotografía” was an undeniable hit with the judges and Juanes alike. Emanuela has less than two weeks to prepare for the performance of a lifetime in Miami Beach. Check back to the OurStage magazine for our exclusive coverage of her Tr3s Presents: “MTV Unplugged with Juanes” performance with Juanes.

The Good

Jim Carrey’s daughter Jane auditions for American Idol

Jim Carrey’s daughter Jane auditioned for American Idol this week and made it through to Hollywood. Now, before you cry nepotism, Jane works as a waitress. And she has a decent set of pipes. And she made J-Lo feel old. So we’re loving her. Listen to Carrey sing “Something to Talk About,” and hear what her pops has to say about her in the clip below.

Vanilla Ice goes indie rock with acoustic “Ice, Ice Baby”

He’s still milking the “Ice, Ice Baby” thing. Will it ever stop? Yo, we don’t know, but at least he’s doing it with some degree of irony. Watch Vanilla Ice win the hipster contingent over with his acoustic cover of his famous track. It’s actually really funny.

The Bad

Etta James public viewing and funeral scheduled this week

The world lost a great musical icon last week when singer Etta James passed away in Riverside, California, from complications stemming from leukemia. She was seventy-three. A public viewing is being held today at Inglewood Cemetery in Inglewood, CA, followed by a private funeral on Saturday. The Rev. Al Sharpton will preside. James’s family has requested that donations be sent to the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization that seeks to preserve R&B music. R.I.P.

Jay-Z’s 40/40 club shut down for health code violations

After a $10 million renovation, Jay-Z’s 40/40 club in Manhattan reopened to great fanfare last Wednesday, only to be shut down the next day by the Health Department. The New York Post reported this week on all the violations, and it’s enough to make your stomach turn. Rancid raw chicken wings and raw shrimp, mashed potatoes left out on the counter, and a worker mixing salsa with his bare hands. Probably after riding the subway. Ruin your breakfast by reading about it here.

The Ugly

Steven Tyler “sings” the national anthem

The nation got a treat this week (opposite day) when Steven Tyler stepped up to the mic to perform “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Ravens and Patriots playoff game on Saturday. If you’re angry at your ears and want to do them harm, listen to his performance below.

Kanye West and Soundgarden clash at Big Day Out Festival

We all knew that sooner or later Yeezy would be back in the headlines for bad behavior. This time he not only pissed off his fans for starting his set forty-five minutes late, he also pissed off Soundgarden for doing a loud soundcheck during their set. Chris Cornell had some choice words about the people responsible for the scheduling gaffe, which you can read here. Or, check out West’s performance of “All of the Lights” to remind yourself why we put up with him in the first place.

Miscellany

• “Man or Muppet” gets Oscar nod
• Springsteen announces US tour
• Sum 41 cancel tour due to Deryck Whibley’s back injury
• Conor Oberst fights to support Omaha anti-bias bill
• Britney Spears conservatorship is lifted
• Aretha Franklin breaks off engagement
• Demi Lovato is a Twitter quitter
• Diddy starting Revolt music TV channel
• Jason Derülo recovering from broken neck
• SWV is back with first album in fourteen years
• Kid Cudi gets stage rage in Melbourne
• Rihanna gets her knucks tatted
• Miike Snow and Lykke Li team up for “Black Tin Box”
• Mary J Blige tweets about Oscar snub
• New Fiona Apple music on the way

Here on BandAids, we’ll explore ideas, innovations and inspirations in band promotion. Making killer tunes is only half the battle; in order to find and keep fans, you need to think of yourself as (cringe) a brand and put some thought into marketing yourself. Since many people will hear OF you before they ever HEAR you, first impressions are a really big deal. Put some care and effort into what you put out there—things like good design, pro-level photography, and a variety of merch offerings could persuade a lot of potential fans to give you a shot, while conversely a poor visual identity may turn people off before they even hear your music, or a lack of swag to give out/sell at shows means fewer people remember you in the morning. Here, we’ll present you with tips to help make sure that doesn’t happen.

Creative Custom Merch: Part 1

At your shows, your merch table can be the difference between breaking even and a big profit. A little creativity with your offerings can go a long way towards upping your sales. Yes, CDs and t-shirts are important, but when all the bands are offering them, how do you stand out? Here are some ideas to help make your corner of the table the center of the action:

Continue reading ‘BandAids: Creative Custom Merch, Part 1′

Every day, somebody once told me, deserves its own soundtrack. So, according to Hollywood, does nearly every film. But unlike the old days when the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack became as popular as the movie, and films like Dirty Dancing and The Big Chill had soundtracks so successful that they spawned sequels, movie music rarely scales blockbuster heights anymore.

On the Billboard 200 album chart for the week ending January 21, Hollywood only had two albums in the Top 40—the soundtracks for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. So did Florence and the Machine!

Unless the music is linked to the TV series Glee, chart traction is no longer guaranteed, not even for songs from the biggest blockbusters. Bruno Mars scored one of the few big movie hits of recent years with his Twilight Saga track “It Will Rain” (No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100), which, astonishingly, was the first chart hit launched by the massively successful vampire franchise.

Nowadays, the studios and indie houses seem to use all of the best music in the movie trailers anyway. Better to hear a familiar pop song (say, Florence and the Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over”) selling a Julia Roberts rom-com (say, Eat Pray Love) than to have to sit through the millionth comic-relief/release oldie sing-along just as the main characters are triumphing over plot-driven (and driving) conflict.

Maybe I just don’t see as many mainstream films as I used to back when Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane Keaton had their I-will-survive moment in The First Wives Club while singing “You Don’t Own Me,” but thankfully, the number of soundtrack sing-alongs have been waning in recent years.

Still, despite the dearth of hit soundtracks and Motown karaoke moments, music is alive and well in the movies. Here’s how it’s being best put to use these days.

1. To Wake Up Moviegoers: The Constellations‘ “Perfect Day” in Horrible Bosses. Not that anyone needed to be roused from slumber during what was a surprisingly smart and spry comedy, but for those who did doze off and missed the sight of Jennifer Aniston wearing next to nothing, this 2010 track (watch the video here) was the perfect wake-up bomb.

2. To Illuminate the Action”: Desire’s “Under Your Spell” in Drive. Just in case you didn’t get that Ryan Gosling was digging Carey Mulligan in Drive (and the film didn’t exactly, um, drive that point home before deciding that he would die for her), this song’s opening lyric—”I don’t eat/I don’t sleep/I do nothing but think of you“— told the entire love story in under twenty words. More than any film in my recent memory, Drive merges sound and vision so brilliantly that I don’t think the movie would have been nearly as effective without its perfectly placed music.

3. To Reflect the Action: Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in Melancholia. Who better than the man who wrote an entire opera cycle, Gotterdammerung, devoted to the twilight of the Norse Gods, to provide the backing track for a movie about the end of the world? I’ve always imagined that something by the nineteenth-century German composer would be playing in the background, via some invisible loudspeaker in the sky, when the end of days rolled around.

4. To bring on the waterworks: The National’s “About Today” in Warrior. If you weren’t moved, at least nearly driven to tears, by the family drama or the opening strains of the National’s 2004 track, cued right after the brothers played by Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton re-bonded in the mixed-martial-arts ring, then check the space where your heart should be. There might be something missing.

5. To score an award—or at the very least, a Top 40 hit: Madonna’s “Masterpiece” in W.E. Its Top 40 prospects are grim, but the song Madonna wrote and sung for her second directorial effort is already a Golden Globe Best Original Song winner. Unfortunately, this is the end of its road to the Oscars. To be eligible for a Best Original Song Oscar nod, a tune must be composed specifically for the movie and appear in its body or be the first song that plays when the credits roll. “Masterpiece,” alas, was the second credits tune. By saving the best for last, Madonna killed her Oscar chances. Better luck next film song!

Just when you think Phil Vassar has filled his tour schedule to the brim, he adds even more appearances including several for charity.

The Lynchburg, VA native who cut his music biz teeth as a songwriter—penning such beloved tunes as “Right on the Money” by Alan Jackson, “For a Little While” by Tim McGraw and “I’m Alright” by Jo Dee Messina— has been recording his own songs for more than a decade with such Billboard hits as “Carlene,” “In a Real Love” and “Just Another Day in Paradise.”  But Vassar—who’s currently on the Girls with Guitars and a Piano Man Tour with Sara Evans, LeAnn Womack, Sunny Sweeney and Joanna Smith—also makes plenty of time for charity.

“We’ve done more shows [in the past year] than I think we’ve ever done,” said Vassar who last year released Noel, a holiday CD and has several more projects in the works.

If his recent schedule is any indication, this year may well be even busier. Consider that, despite his regular tour schedule, Vassar has just announced his fourth annual Phil Vassar Benefit Concert for Miller Home for Girls on April 4th and 5th in Lynchburg. The home, as the name indicates, is for four to twenty-one-year-old girls who are not able to live with their families.

“Miller Home has been near and dear to my heart for many years, because they do so many great things to help young women,” said Vassar who is donating 100 % of the proceeds from both concerts to the Miller Home.  ”I can’t wait to get home to play some music and support this wonderful organization.”

Many of the charity shows by Vassar are in support of the military and for its members. When asked about the time and effort such concerts take, Vassar is quick to point out how much the shows mean to him.

“I moved offices recently and [found] some of the emails I received and some of the letters,” he said. “I sat down in my garage and read them and realized some of this stuff I had never seen before, which is something I hate. A lot of them were from military guys, writing me after they’d seen [a show]. Some were by guys who wrote ‘I’m sitting in a fox hole and listening to one of your songs and it is so great to hear your stories. Those songs mean a lot to us.’ Reading those letter really gets to you. They mean a lot to me.”

Tickets are currently on sale for the April 5th show, and tickets for the April 4th Acoustic Show go on sale February 6, 2012.  All tickets can be purchased at Miller Home of Lynchburg, 2134 Westerly Drive or by calling 434-845-0241 during regular business hours.

Find out more about Vassar and his upcoming performance on his Web site.

Here at OurStage, we recognize the time and patience it takes to humanize an otherwise “blocky” MIDI protocol. If done right, DJs, producers and digital masterminds can synthesize incredible soundscapes of textures and colors otherwise impossible. Due to their techy nature, it’s been a rough ride for “society” to determine whether these electronic artists are actually “musicians” or “musical engineers”. Whatever you choose to call them, they’re making music that people of all tastes seem to dig. Therefore, Electropolis is dedicated to inspiring your musical evolution by providing original editorials about the latest buzz within the e-music world. See ya in the studio!

Arpeggiators…if you’ve never seen or heard of one, it’s simply a device that plays a sequence of ascending or descending notes, at a particular speed, within their chordal structure. However, many artists throughout the electronic music culture debate their use kinda like a game of tug-o-war. On one side of the rope, many argue that using randomizers and arpeggiators replaces the compositional challenge of making music. In contrast, the other end argues that these devices simply provide textures as the DJ works on other aspects of musical dynamic. Regardless of what side you’re on, arpeggiators and randomizers are commonly used in popular trance and techno music. For example, Darude’s “Sandstorm” is probably the pinnacle of the techno genre.

Continue reading ‘Electropolis: How to Create a Customizable Arpeggiator’

Ever wish your life were like a movie? That you could walk down the street and have perfectly appropriate music playing all the time?

Here at SoundTrax, our goal is to provide you with weekly music that is specific to an event or mood. No genre limitations, no time-period restrictions, just great music. The order of the songs selected is equally important to the content itself in our opinion, so more often than not, this blog will be presented in the form of a playlist.

As the weather takes a turn for the worse here in Boston, I find my taste in music changing as well. Tempo begins to slow, euphoric bustling arrangements give way to introspective and sparse recordings, and themes shift towards the darker end of the spectrum. So throw on your favorite pair of headphones, slip on some mittens and brave the cold, gray January skies with these tunes:

SoundTrax: City Lights & Snowy Nights from OurStage on 8tracks.

“Codex” by Radiohead
Radiohead have been the kings of introspective rock music for years now, and “Codex” is no exception. The slow, steady pacing of the song provides a sense of safety to an otherwise haunting track.

“Wonderwall” by Ryan Adams
Adams’ cover of Oasis manages to take a stereotypical ’90s rock track and turn it into a beautiful, bare-boned love song. The perfect track to listen to as the sky blackens and the first bit of snow coats the ground.

“Hold On” by Angus and Julia Stone
As the pace quickens, your feet start to fall in line with the subtle shuffle of drums. Hold on, you’re not quite through this storm.

“Temptress” (Tyler Stone’s Forbidden Fruit Mix) by Sutro
Our very own Sutro provides you with this sultry track. With simple yet striking production, and vocals that absolutely drip with sex, this song should warm your insides.

Continue reading ‘SoundTrax: City Lights & Snowy Nights’