Blog Round-Up – Aloe Blacc, Beirut, Field Music, the bird and the bee

Here are a few links from around the web today that I will definitely be checking out:

Analog Giant posted a new song by DJ Day featuring Aloe Blacc and a new Stacey Epps song from Stones Throw Records.

Brooklyn Vegan has “I.C.E.” — a new Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra song. (Fans of TV on the Radio should definitely check it out.)

Covert Curiosity posted Arizona and My Party from the new Kings of Leon album Because of the Times, which is scheduled for an April 3rd release. Mr. Curiosity says it’s decent, but not great. That fits pretty well with the early critiques I have heard. Still, I am looking forward to hearing more of it, and looking forward to seeing the On Call video # worked on a few weeks ago.

Free iTunes Downloads has a link to the new k-os single “The Rain.” k-os is a hip-hop artist from Ontario.

Idolator posted a couple of Los Lobos songs from The Town and The City. I really like Los Lobos. I saw them live at ACL fest a few years ago, and they were really great.

I Guess I’m Floating has a Beirut demo, entitled “Interior of a Dutch House.” As you all know, I am a huge Beirut fan, so it’s great to hear something earlier than Gulag Orkestar. Check out my earlier Beirut posts here.

Instrumental Analysis has three Jeff Buckley songs from Grace. Because I listened to Tim Buckley a lot as a kid, I have always loved Jeff Buckley.

Lifehacker posted 12 iTunes scripts I am excited to use. The scripts do everything from removing dead tracks (the ones with little exclamation point) to automating adding lyrics (without using Sing That iTunes on the dashboard).

Noise for Toasters has three songs from Field Music’s Tones of the Town, one of my favorite albums of the year so far, and the video for She Can Do What She Wants.

So Much Silence has a review of the bird and the bee. I have really enjoyed them lately, and I will get around to posting about them at some point.

Austin Sound has a track from Austin band The Carrots, who I originally heard via The Voxtrot Kid.

 

Rebuilding iTunes

My iTunes had been crashing since Saturday.

Sunday and today, it crashed every 50 seconds.

I spent 90 minutes on the phone with apple care and they had me move my library to my desktop, restart the machine and then reimport everything using “add to library.”

It took a while, but it worked. The key was to move my old library file into the new file so I preserved my ratings, playcounts, etc. (At least the ones iPodRip gave me back from the iPod).

When I had originally imported my files from my backup, some of the music was corrupted and it affected my new library.

First time I have ever encountered this particular problem, and I am glad it was so easily fixed.

 

The Good, The Bad and The Queen – Free iTunes Download

The iTunes Music Store is offering a free download of The Good, The Bad and The Queen’s single Herculean.

GBQ is the new Damon Albarn “supergroup” featuring bassist Paul Simonon from the Clash, guitarist Simon Tong from the Verve, and “Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen.” The album is produced by Dangermouse.

Click here for the download: Herculean
.

EMI is offering a special Dangermouse remix here, but the download is not working for me.

I have been following Albarn’s career from Blur through Gorillaz and his Mali Music album, so I am excited to hear more.

 

iTunes Software Plugin – iConcertCal

iConcertCal is an iTunes plug-in that integrates a concert calendar into your iTunes, so you will know when and where artists in your iTunes are playing in your town.

It works in the visualizer menu, so it is there when you want it and disappears when you don’t.

See Lifehacker for more information.

 

Amy Winehouse – Free iTunes Download

Click here to download Amy Winehouse’s You Know I’m No Good from the iTunes Music Store: You Know I’m No Good.

 

Smart Playlists

I currently have 4,340 songs in my iTunes. That means, I build a lot of playlists, primarily smart playlists.

The playlists range from the simple 4 star and 5 star lists to songs I have tagged in groupings (like live, cover, night, mellow, best of 2006, etc.) and in comments (from whom I received the music, like a cd from my dad or a colleague, a promo from a label or distributor, or from which blog I was introduced to the band or the song).

I sort things by genre a little more specifically than I should. I have 154 genres listed because I sort songs by genres and sub genres. For example, I have 10 different acoustic genres because I found that dumping everything into the same acoustic catergory meant that I missed hearing the song in the original category (like Acoustic/Britpop or Acoustic/Soul).

I learned a new technique from Merlin Mann, the hipster pda inventor and productivity guru (and old school chum). In his article on Music Only playlists, Merlin suggests building all of your smart playlists off of a defined Music only playlist. I also use this strategy but I expanded “Music Only” to remove music I do not want to hear randomly shuffled as I walk around the lake: if the genre contains “demo” or “client,” it’s kicked out. (All of my clients are also tagged in grouping as “client” so some make it into regular rotation.)

My most often played playlist is “Night.” This is a list that we listen to nearly every night either through the stereo in the bedroom or through our own headphones. The list starts with “Ruler of My Heart” by Dirty Dozen Brass Band and then plays jazz and soul: D’Angelo, Stevie Wonder, Erykah Badu, Angie Stone, etc. My top 12 most played songs all appear on this list.