Hello lovely readers!! I have finally returned from my travels, and I have been working so very diligently on the new HearingTest website so that it would be perfect and ready to launch this week. Well, despite shunning the outside world and working on it all weekend, it is not yet perfect, but it is ready to launch. I must admit, I am launching it a bit earlier than I had intended, but I can’t help it. It is SO much easier and more fun to use than this one. Sad but true. I adore wordpress, and if I had used any other blog platform to start this blog, I probably would not have kept it up this long, nor seen a strong future in it. But this blog has truly inspired me, and so I am moving to it to its own domain, and I am bringing the wordpress software with me! I hope you like the new site. It needs work, maybe even a lot of it, so I will be tweaking all kind of things in the next 2 weeks until it is just right. Soon it will be just like this one, with more features to play with. I apologize to everyone who has to switch to the new feed – that is the one real drag about moving. The new address will require new bookmarks and new feeds, so please change the ones that you use. I will continue to add the teaser posts here, until everyone has had a chance to find the new place. I will also be mentioning the new place in every post until I feel that everyone has seen the news. So, sorry about the redundancy.
Get the Early Bird’s view of the new site:
http://www.musicnewsculture.com

Just don’t forget that it’s in Beta mode for the next 2 weeks! And please let me know if you encounter any problems. Thank Jah I am doing this now, while HearingTest is just a baby! I can’t imagine what a pain in the arse this would be if I had a super well-established blog…

Thank you so much for reading HearingTest! Please keep reading on the new site! It will only get better and better!
Much respect,
~Molli Fire~

This message is so important that I have decided to repost it with some extra information. SaveNetRadio.org has declared a Day of Silence for internet radio broadcast on Tuesday June 26th. The stations that participate will give listeners only a taste of what it will be like after July 15th if the increased royalty rate is upheld. Stations that go silent will likely include Pandora, Live 365, Yahoo LAUNCHcast, and MTV Online, and NPR member stations. These stations, plus others like AccuRadio, Radioio, Digitally Imported, Rhapsody and many more would be seriously impacted by retroactive royalty increases equal to 50-300% of the station’s current revenue income. In Rhapsody, Pandora and Live365’s cases, the increase would also penalize their multiple channels platform, causing rate increases equal to more than 1000% of their current revenue. 1000%! According to the RAIN (Radio And Internet Newsletter):

Webcasters will be alerting their listeners that “silence” is what Internet radio may sound like on or shortly after July 15th, the day on which 17 months’ worth of retroactive royalty increase payments are due to the SoundExchange collection organization under the terms of a recent Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decision.

Read more about the situation on the RAIN website and check out SaveNetRadio.org for more options of what you – the listener, the musician, the dj, the webcaster – can do to help.

LINKS To Contact Your Congress

US Senators Home Page
Write Your Representatives Page

DO ANYTHING THAT IS WITHIN YOUR POWER TO SAVE NET RADIO!!

Please spread the word, copy and save this image and use it on your own blog. Tell all your friends. Write to the US Congress using the links above. If you can think of other ways to get involved, please share them in the comments here…

This report has been submitted to DIGG and Reddit. Please add your support to either.

REDDIT THIS!

SaveNetRadio.org has declared a Day of Silence for internet radio broadcast on Tuesday June 26th. The stations that participate will give listeners only a taste of what it will be like after July 15th if the increased royalty rate is upheld. Stations that go silent will likely include Pandora, Live 365, Yahoo LAUNCHcast, and MTV Online, and NPR member stations. These stations, plus others like AccuRadio, Radioio, Digitally Imported, Rhapsody and many more would be seriously impacted by retroactive royalty increases equal to 50-300% of the station’s current revenue income. In Rhapsody, Pandora and Live365’s cases, the increase would also penalize their multiple channels platform, causing rate increases equal to more than 1000% of their current revenue. 1000%! According to the RAIN (Radio And Internet Newsletter):

Webcasters will be alerting their listeners that “silence” is what Internet radio may sound like on or shortly after July 15th, the day on which 17 months’ worth of retroactive royalty increase payments are due to the SoundExchange collection organization under the terms of a recent Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decision.

Read more about the situation on the RAIN website and check out SaveNetRadio.org for more options of what you – the listener, the musician, the dj, the webcaster – can do to help.

Look at the left sidebar here at HearingTest for 2 links for contacting your Senators and Representatives in Congress. The lins are under the title act!

Twas the middle of May when I reported that Leyode would be coming out with a new album on Prefuse 73’s label Eastern Developments. Today I have much more information about the release, Fascinating Tininess, which came out last week.

Tracklist for Fascinating Tininess:

01. Intro
02. Sophie

Music For Robots has a great review of the album.
Eastern Developments
Fascinating Tininess on Amazon

Previously On HT

Leyode ft. Savath y Savalas On New Album

This week was only 7 days long, yet I have 11 excellent posts to rewind today! It’s been a great week for music news! Before I get right down to the nitty gritty, I want to throw out a juicy tidbit of info that I have been mulling over. For awhile now, I have been wanting to move this site to its own domain. It needs to happen at some point, and I want to do it before this site builds up too far. The only huge difference you will notice by coming to this site, is that the posts on the front page will be teasers. You know, the kind that cut off after a paragraph and you have to click the “Read More” to see the entire post. Well, clicking that read more will take you to the full post on the new site. All other buttons on this site will remain active, with internal links pointing to the new site. The biggest difference for RSS subscribers will be that you might need to subscribe to a new feed so that you can continue to get the full posts in your email or feed reader. I will post an announcement when the feed changes.

So just be watching for the switch! And with that out of the way, on to this week’s REWIND! Just remember, this is by no means all the posts for the week. This is merely a roundup of some of the better stories that deserve to be highlighted. The biggest news stories of the week often do not get mentioned here. To see the rest of this week’s news, simply head to the home page and work your way backwards through time. Either way you choose your adventure, HAVE FUN!

My absolute favorite post of the entire week is about the Young@Heart Chorus:

Rockin On Heaven’s Door

These senior citizens are not just sitting around waiting for senility. They are actively embracing it with Rock N Roll attitude! If you look at nothing else this week, definitely watch the video on that post….

Righteous Hip Hop From Rawkus Records

This post brings us all the way back to the beginning of the week, but I wanted to feature it right away. Mr. J Medeiros has taken a detour from his work with The Procussions and has completed a solo album, Of Gods And Girls. It’s not due out until July 16th, but I will be interviewing Mr. Medeiros on Tuesday. I would be happy to include any thoughtful questions from you, so use the comments box under that post if you have any. Read that post, then ask questions, see? This is your big chance! I will post the interview results on Wednesday or Thursday.

Replicating Bjork

Bjork is a universe unto herself. I imagine her as having her own language and her own technology that she runs on faerie magic. I have thought of her making faeries dance on electronic circuits and the result of their dance steps is what we call Bjork music. Well, an article written by her tech director of 10 years, Alan Pollard, completely dispels this notion. She uses all the same fancy hardware and software that other majors in the music industry use and it’s his job to fit it all onto her laptop for tours. If you like to read about that kind of thing, click over to this post for a great profile on the backend of Bjork’s mischief. Also in this post is a link to Dummy mag which is a brilliant color glossy magazine that you read online. It has a mess of great artists featured, and one of them is Bjork looking especially impish, and well, 5 years old. Check it out if you like all things Bjork.

Manic M.I.A.

M.I.A. is still an epileptic’s worse nightmare. She launched an updated website design that probably physically hurt the person who made it, yet has valuable information contained within. Maybe just wear your stunner shades to view it. The big M.I.A. news this week is her new “Boyz” video complete with its own behind the scenes footage. Jump into this post to watch the videos. In the Bjork post ^^ it’s announced that M.I.A. will open 2 Bjork concerts- the ones in Nimes France.

Rockin Fratellis Retain Self-Respect

The Fratellis turned down Golden Balls Beckham in a bold move to retain their self-respect. The result won them the respect and adoration of many newly-impressed fans… Fratellis 1 Beckham 0

Beastie Boys Returning To Root Down

The punk/jazz thing was a return their roots, so this is back to the b-boy thing. Either way, the Beastie Boys have announced a hip hop revival and a small US tour. The rest of the summer will see the trio switching between drums and drummachines. Maybe it’s a midlife crisis thing. US tour dates behind the jump.

Rockin Robot Flick

Speaking of coming to the US, Daft Punk’s android movie, Electroma, will finally be screened in N. America. Unfortunately, not many places will host the rare, short film. LA and Miami are the only US stops. Miami? Jump in to see more info plus a teaser video.

Reduce Reuse Recycle and ROCK!

I’m actually just jumping all over the past with this REWIND, in no particular order. Here is some particularly great news for NYC: Brooklyn Vegan has teamed up with Solar 1 to create this year’s Citysol event! July12-15th, you can learn how to be more green, qualify for free beer, rock out to wicked bands like Les Savy Fav, and check out super cool art installations. Jump to this post for more info on this excellent event that is entirely solar and biodiesel powered. A big thank you to Brooklyn Vegan for participating!

Restriction Free Music!

EMI is still turning the music industry and RIAA upside down with its DRM-free catalog. In addition to the Apple iChoons store and Amazon’s upcoming music venture, EMI have now added their restriction-free digital downloads to PassAlong which also oversees online stores such as fyi. The best part is that PassAlong will carry 320kbps mp3s which is a higher bit-rate encoding, which means a higher quality download, and better product.

Retired? Not yet!

Wiley is having quite a retirement party, and there is no sign of it slowing down any time soon. His send-off album is out now, and I bet it’s already had some subwoofers working overtime! He has a new video out now for the song “Mistakes” and is having a record release party in London this week. So, I have 2 links instead of one for this last installment:
Grime and Dubstep Parties – which includes some Mary Anne Hobbs curated events, Skream, Vex’d, Ben Sharpa & Konfab, and many more. Plus, the Wiley retirement party I mean record release party with JME, Boy Better Know types rollin deep.
“Mistakes” video – the latest off of Playtime Is Over.

A’ight, that’s all folks. Jump in and have fun. Fresh news comin atchya tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

This week’s news is brought to you by the letter R

Young@Heart rocks! I saw this article on yahoo news and I thought it was going to be some kind of “senior citizens find reason to live through rock n roll” but I was quite wrong! It turns out that the 23 elders that comprise the Young@Heart Chorus are putting an all new edge on some of rock’s biggest hits.

Elaine Fligman of the Young@Heart Chorus giving it her all:

The morbid messages in some of rock’s great anthems takes on a serious tone when sung by those toe-ing the line between here and the afterlife, while teen-age dimentia becomes hilarious when belted out by the well-senile. Take for example -

“My future is static / It’s already had it.” — Steve Martin, 79, singing Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenia.”

Or contemplating life and death with the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” I had never heard of them before today, but apparently they are international stars and tour around the world. They have even performed for the king and queen of Norway!

Under the direction of wheelchair-bound Fred Knittle, the Young@Heart Chorus is trying to record a full length album of such covers, tentatively to be titled Rockin’ At Heaven’s Door. HAha! I LOVE it! These seniors rule, and if you aren’t convinced, then I am just doing a poor job representin. Check out the full story on yahoo news.

Y@H with “I Want To Be Sedated” by the Ramones:

Glastonbury music festival descends upon the English countryside on Friday June 27th. The full lineup is absolutely insane, I can see how this is the biggest rock festival in the UK. Over 200 bands fill the lineup, and a press release states that over 177,000 people are expected to attend! Since I can’t possibly fit the full lineup here, I’ll give you one serious tease instead. In addition to the many stages already announced, I just discovered today that BBC Radio 1 has added their own stage to the festival. The additional lineup includes Tigerstyle, JME, and Ben Sharpa.

BBC Radio Stage Added To Glastonbury:

Friday 22 June

3:00 Jag (BBC Asian Network)
4:00 Tigerstyle (BBC Asian Network)
5:00 Riff Raff (BBC Radio 1)
6:05 Broke’N'£nglish (BBC 1Xtra)
7:10 Riz MC (BBC Asian Network)
8:15 JME (BBC 1Xtra)
9:20 Breaking The Illusion (BBC Radio Humberside)
10:25 Tor (BBC 1Xtra)

Saturday 23 June

3:00 Ben Sharpa (BBC Radio 1)
4:00 How’s My Pop (BBC Radio Lancashire)
5:00 New Cassettes (BBC Radio Northampton)
6:05 OK Tokyo (BBC Radio Berkshire)
7:10 The Ting Tings (BBC Radio Manchester)
8:15 Headliners (BBC Radio Sheffield)
9:20 The Neon Plastix (BBC Radio Sheffield)
10:25 The Ripps (BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire)

Sunday 24 June

3:00 Cate Le Bon (BBC Radio Wales)
4:00 Sam Isaac (BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester)
5:00 Eugene McGuinness (BBC Radio 1)
6:05 Rose Kemp (BBC Radio Bristol)
7:10 A Silent Film (BBC Radio Oxford)
8:15 Doll & the Kicks (BBC Southern Counties Radio)
9:20 Pint Shot Riot (BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire)
10:25 Radio Luxembourg (BBC Radio Cymru Wales)

More info on the BBC Radio Introducing Stage.

Glastonbury Partial Lineup:

Friday 22nd June 2007

Bjork
Arctic Monkeys
Spiritualized – Acoustic Mainline
Aliens
M.I.A.
Kasabian
The Fratellis
Bloc Party
Amy Winehouse
Gogol Bordello
Arcade Fire
Squarepusher
Rufus Wainwright
Super Furry Animals
Bright Eyes
Modest Mouse
Hot Chip
Maccabees
Mum Ra
Hold Steady
The New Pornographers
Tokyo Police Club
Neds Atomic Dustbin
Tarantism

Saturday 23rd June

Steven Marley with guest Damian Marley
Iration Steppas
Fat Freddy’s Drop
Daddy G
Mad Professor
Vexd
Scotch Egg Band (Drumize)
Shitmatt
Bong Ra
The Killers
The Kooks
Ganga Giri
Paul Weller
Paolo Nutini
Lily Allen
Dirty Pretty Things
The Pipettes
Iggy And The Stooges
Editors
Maximo Park
Gruff Rhys
Babyshambles
Klaxons
CSS
The Long Blondes
The Twang
Get Cape Wearcape Fly
Patrick Wolf
You Say Party We Say Die
Holy Fuck
Four Tet with Eat Your Own Ears DJs
!!!
Ozric Tentacles
Bonde Do Role

Sunday 24th June

The Who
Kaiser Chiefs
Coldcut
Manic Street Preachers
James Morrison
Marley Brothers Present The 30th Anniversary Of Exodus
The Chemical Brothers
Vitalic
Carl Cox
Pendulum Live
The View
The Go! Team
Pete Doherty
Mika
The Rakes
Get Cape Wear Cape Fly
Coldwar Kids
Mark Ronson
The Horrors
Noisettes
Aqualung
Eatstatic
Dub Pistols

For the entire lineup go to the Glastonbury site.
BBC also has a feature-packed page to keep you fully informed right up to the day of the fest itself.
Here is another article that discusses the details necessary to pull off an event of this size, like the £1mil “super fence” built last year to keep out fans who didn’t have tickets. Previous fences were not capable of keeping out thousands of fans who jumped in…

LINKS

JME on mice bass
Ben Sharpa on mice bass
BBC Radio Glastonbury page
Glastonbury Festival website

Related Music News On HearingTest

Tigerstyle
Sharpa, JME, live shows, grime and left field events
M.I.A. Opening For Bjork In France

Perhaps you recall, waaaaaaay back at the beginning of April, I reported that Solar One and Brooklyn Vegan had teamed up to organize an FREE weekend-long event for NYC. At the time, they were still looking for volunteers, including bands, to help out. The people of NYC responded and the result is an awareness raising, green energy, arts, and music festival that will be completely powered by solar power and bio-diesel generators! Today Brooklyn Vegan announced the lineup and other goodies one can participate in during the weekend of July13-15th. For example, you can bring your energy bill to the event and switch on the spot to a green plan with ConEdison. In return you receive credit for free beer at the concert! Or, simply bring a mug and get $1 off beer! These folks know the right language to speak when talking about improving the environment!
Here is the digs from Brooklyn Vegan:

Brooklyn Vegan & Solar One present Citysol:

A FREE SHOW on SATURDAY JULY 14 (1pm-10pm) in NYC w/
LES SAVY FAV (!!)
Land Of Talk (previously announced)
O’Death (yeah)
The Besnard Lakes (previously announced)
These Are Powers (ex-Liars)
The Budos Band (funky)
Frankpollis (starring Jackson)
plus a very special performance from OCDJ
(Dance Party until the solar goes out!)

@ Solar One at Stuyvesant Cove Park – located along the East River between 18th and 23rd Streets. Solar One sits in the north end of the park, near the 23rd Street entrance and the Gulf Gas station.

Righteous! There is so much excellent information to discover, it would be difficult to reproduce all of it here, so go over to the BV and check it out:

Brooklyn Vegan Presents Citysol 2007
The Citysol page on the Solar One website

Previous Citysol News On HearingTest:

Citysol Seeks Bands-Aid on HearingTest

Bjork! Bjork! Bjork! Dang nothing happened. I thought maybe I could conjure up the faerie queen. Well, she’s probably to busy right now to be conjured. She’s still touring and doing all kinds of press.

For starters, you can find a fabulous interview with Bjork in the amazing online magazine Dummy Mag. It’s a virtual magazine that you actually turn the pages of. I love these tree-free magazines! Her interview is on page 66, but you might not want to skip ahead. There are articles/interviews with Bonde do Role, Justice, Maccabees, Dizzee Rascal, Skull Disco and more with lots of big glossy looking photos. Surprisingly it loads super fast. I need to learn that trick. Must be a flash thing.

Over on the opposite side of the web (literally, from zmag.co.uk to apple.com) Alan Pollard profiled the technical arrangement of Volta for Apple Pro. Alan Pollard has an insider’s perspective as Bjork’s technical director for a full 10 years. He must be pretty good at his job. He’s in charge of the technical aspects of her music, and is especially important to her on tour. In this feature, he talks about how he packs the entire faerie kingdom into a laptop (lemme guess, a MAC laptop) and the details of how to make all her mechanization work seamlessly with her human performance. It’s a stellar read for studio and gear buffs.

M.I.A. Opens For Bjork In France

And, If you are able to catch her 2 shows in Nimes France in August, you will also get to see M.I.A. when she opens for Bjork at these 2 shows!

LINKS

Dummy Mag
Bjork Tech Profile
Bjork website
M.I.A.

All The Bjork News

Bjork news and reviews on HearingTest

Straight from the mouths of hot babes:

We’ve got the garbage oh yeah we do, dumped into five songs to encourage bad listening habits. YYYs would love to heat up and bother you at a loud volume, so please help us help you and seek out our new tunes? Some of you may know a few of these songs, we’ve been terrorizing with them at our shows for years, Rockers to Swallow, Down Boy, 10X10, WE GUARANTEE YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD THEM LIKE THIS BEFORE, nor have you heard them ALL. We deliver them to you with a snarl this July accompanied with new videos all shot in the dark at a very intimate show we threw last month. We cannot tell you how EXCITED the three of us are to drop this music in your laps, our mouths water at thought of you listening to RTS (ep’s first track) in your car stereos. Summer nights are made for this shit. This shit IS IS made for summer nights.

xx,
YYY

yeah yeah YEAH!
I am actually WAY more excited about this than if it were new material, because, sadly, oh I hate to even say it – I didn’t like “Sealings.” The song that they contributed to the Spiderman 3 soundtrack. I find it too glossy, way too commercial. I fear where this trio is going musically. (And I hope to blame it on something done post-production so they can fire that guy and get back to sounding real) But old material? HELL YEAH!

More Info About Is Is:

From Yeah Yeah Yeahs mice bass-

THE EP
Songs for the EP were written in 2004 in between touring behind their first record Fever to Tell.
Written amidst one of the most turbulent and emotionally unstable periods in YYYs history, for whatever reason the angst that colored that point in time translates erotically into a sexually charged body of songs. On their choice of producer, Karen O intones; “Nick Launay was the natural choice having produced PIL Flowers of Romance, collectively a favorite between us. I put that record on and want to stuff my mouth with raw hamburger meat.”. Is Is is an expression of similar sordid energy, the rawness is unavoidable and good for you too!

THE FILM
YYYs have captured all this excitement in the EP recordings. In fact, they love playing them so much they’ve made a special live film to accompany the EP with co-directors KK Barrett (Sofia Coppola films) and Lance Bangs (video director – Sonic Youth, Nirvana and producer of Director’s Cut series of DVDs – Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham). Recorded in night-vision at Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn on 7th May, the band played 2 sets that night to just 100 lucky fans each time – the first for a mixed audience and the second for females only. There will be 2 filmed versions of lead track Down Boy – one live, and one to EP audio.

Is Is TRACKLIST:

1.Rockers to Swallow
2.Down Boy
3.Kiss Kiss
4.Isis
5.10×10

Some of these songs were previously available on the “Tell Me What Rockers To Swallow” live DVD. “Down Boy” is a demo version that appeared on a limited edition split 7” single with Liars in Japan and Australia.

The EP will be available on CD, double gatefold 7” vinyl, digital download, and a special USB stick. All formats will include all 5 tracks – “making this a special, non chart-eligible, release.”

U.S. DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have signed on to play the Download Festival on Saturday, August 18th.

DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL 2007
Tweeter Center for Performing Arts
885 South Main Street, Mansfield, MA 02048

More YYYs Tour Dates

Aug 4 LOLLAPALOOZA Chicago, Illinois
Aug 5 VIRGIN Festival Baltimore, Maryland
Aug 18 Download Festival 2007 Mansfield, Massachusetts

Yeah Yeah Yeahs Links

Yeah Yeah Yeahs site
Yeah Yeah Yeahs mice bass
Is Is CD on Amazon.com only $6.49!
Tell Me What Rockers To Swallow DVD on Amazon.com

Get More Yeah Yeah Yeahs:

YYYs news on HearingTest

PassAlong, a digital media company based in Tennessee, has announced a deal with EMI to sell the music company’s entire digital catalog DRM-free.

The bonus of this agreement with PassAlong, is that its stores will offer the tunes as 320kbps mp3 format – a higher bitrate than the 128 and 192kbps bitrate that is currently offered by many online stores, including iChoons. This means that downloading a 320kbps mp3 that is free of the DRM restrictions will sound nearly as good as a cd and be even more versatile. You can play DRM-free tracks in any portable player, you can move it from one machine to another, regardless of platform, you can burn a cd of it and play it anywhere. Heck, at 320kbps you can even dj that shizzle to a slammin dancefloor and it will probably go over great! Of course, music of any format only sounds as good as the speakers its played on, so many may never hear the difference between a high quality mp3 and a cd or vinyl copy. The bigger/better the soundsystem, the more of a difference you will hear…

iChoons has plans to offer the premium quality downloads for 30 cents more, and Amazon will likely also offer the premium quality tracks when it launches its digital music store this summer. PassAlong passed the buck on how much it will charge for the higher quality tracks, stating that price is decided by the individual retailers.

LINKS

News from Reuters.
EMI
PassAlong music stores
for your entertainment stores – Trans World Entertainment’s audio/DVD/video game store. Part of the PassAlong media company.

More About DRM-Free Music:

All posts about DRM and DRM-free music On HearingTest

Brrrup! Another sizzling Wiley video! Feel the beat drop in “Mistakes.” This tune is heartfelt and dare I say with conscious lyrics. Reminds me just a likkle bit of Dizzee’s “Brand New Day” from Boy In Da Corner, when he was still under Eski-boy’s wing.

“Mistakes” video in high quality mov format

or watch it from youTube:

Wiley also released Tshirts today with his name sprayed in white across the chest. They would sure look hot on some fellas. Get one from the Ninja Tune Shop. And, yes, Wiley is even playing the Dour Festival in Belgium on July 13th. I still need a ticket to that if anyone has an extra! (I also need a plane ticket if anybody has a wad of bills they want to donate! Just email me.)

Also on the Big Dada horizon, they have a 10th Anniversary album coming out called Big Dada Best Bits. It’s scheduled for release in September and I will have more details on that over the summer. In the meantime, check out Big Dada’s download page. There are even some FREE mp3s on there. For you.

WILEY LINKS

Eski Space
Wicked likkle Wiley player that you can embed on your blog/myspace/MOG/ what have you. Plays Wiley videos and songs!
Big Dada website
Download Playtime Is Over From BLEEP.com
All things Wiley on HearingTest

Welcome to the premier edition of HT-Rewind! Issue 001!

The Greatest Hits from the first week of June:

Drones Of The Dour – Sunn O))), Wolf Eyes, Wolves In The Throneroom, Merzbow, Weedeater Shows

Sunn O))) announced a string of West Coast US shows with the incredibly talented Wolves In The Throneroom bringing furious black metal along and Southern Lord label mates Weedeater. Sunn O))) also announced that they will play the Super Sonic Fest in UK alongside Mogwai and Miasma, as well as the Dour Festival with previous tour mates Wolf Eyes plus Merzbow and Wilco.

Sunn O))) To Release Oracle On Vinyl

Sunn O))) also announced that they will be releasing Oracle on vinyl. Brainwashed got a hold of the cd and has reviewed it with samplage.

Digitized – Bob Marley’s Exodus Gets A Futuristic Release

Exodus turns 30 this year, and to celebrate Island will be reissuing the entire album on USB stick, Micro SD, deluxe cd, cd, and vinyl. The first 3 come with video footage of Bob Marley and the Wailers performing live in London in 1977. The vinyl will be reissued as an exact replica of its first release.

Dope New 50/50 Video From Wiley!

Eski Boy makes a smokin video for “50/50″ from his upcoming Playtime Is Over and HearingTest has the links to a crystal clear mov format. It positively sparkles, and comes rumbling out of the subwoofers! In addition to the vid, the sweet fellas over at Big Dada have sent us a link to where you can get your own Wiley player. It’s sweet too, I wish I could show you here, but WordPress does not allow embedding of players other than a few like yT. But trust me, go check it out, it has the video for “50/50″ plus audio for “Gangsters” and “Bow E3″. It’s a clever likkle device -
www.bigdada.com/wileyplayer/

December ATP – Portishead, Aphex Twin, Earth, Julian Cope And More

Yep, all those folks are on the lineup. What isn’t obvious from the beginning of this report is that the second part features an album review by Julian Cope for one of the most amazing dark ambient metal bands – Sacrificial Totem. The album that Cope reviewed is Hurqalya which can be found on Katabatik. All fans of ambient noise, ambient metal, and atmospheric sonic storytelling should definitely check this out. Katabatik releases albums and hosts concerts with bands who create unique sonic experimentations. Their catalogue ranges from experimental electronica to IDM to ambient, metal, ragtime, and glitch-core. Definitely a fine resource of music.

NME Offers Free White Stripes Record In Magazine This Week

A limited edition red vinyl picture disc of “Rag And Bone” from the White Stripes’ upcoming Icky Thump was included in this week’s issue of NME. More info and pictures in the report.

Download – Matt Shadetek Releases His BBC Mix

MO FIRE! MO BASS!! Bo! This mix is the shizzle! If you haven’t already, go get this mix NOW! Killer tunes, mostly original stuff and remixes from the likes of Matt Shadetek, Drop The Lime, Plastician etc. Originally mixed for BBC’s Mary Anne Hobbs show, this is the first time its been available for download, and it’s FREE! If you like what you hear, show your love and buy some vinyl and keep it spinning!

Glen E Friedman Releases Fugazi Photos

Another fantastic picture book from the super talented Friedman. This report has links to where you can find other books by Friedman on Burning Flags Press.

Blue Scholars Video For “Back Home” From Bayani

The song rules, the video rules. Go check it out. It’s about bringing our troops home to their families where they belong.

Dragons Exist And So Do Ninjas

Ninja Tunes found a rare master tape from 1970 of psychedelic surf rock by the Dragons. Dennis Dragon is known for his work composing soundtracks for 1970’s skate films, surf films, ski films, and more. This is such an epic story of the Dragon Brothers and how they were just too far ahead of the music business in the 70’s. If you read nothing else, read this. Okay, maybe just this, Shadetek, and Wiley.

Whew! What a week! And this is just the highlights! ENJOY!

This week’s news is brought to you by the letter D

It is my goal to make HearingTest the best damn site on the WWW for music news and culture. One way is by providing as many resources as possible for obtaining music in a Fair Trade style. Here you find links to DRM-free music, stores that are recommended by the artists themselves and, whenever possible, links to purchase directly from the artist who created the tunes. I am researching more ways to bring the music directly into this site for you to preview. It’s my nature to constantly analyze this site, looking for ways to improve upon it. Currently, my biggest concern is your interaction with the tools here. I want to make this site easy to navigate, with fun things to explore. You can find news from other sources in the sidebars to keep you up to date on more stories than I have time to write about. Every post includes video and streaming audio when available to listen to the music being discussed. There is also the boombox of tunes in the sidebar and the Listen page at the top. My latest satori was to create more regular weekly features in addition to the constant stream of news. To this end, I present -

Hearing Test -REWIND!

This will be a weekly roundup of all the best stories that were reported here during the last week. It seems that there are so many stories that get reported on HearingTest, that many of the best ones get buried quickly to the bottom of the page, then the next page, etc. So to highlight the best news of the week, I will be compiling headlines (with links) into a single post every weekend. This is a pretty common practice in blogging, but I am just starting to get to the place with HearingTest that I can offer this kind of cyclic feature. This will also provide a platform to let you know of any big changes or new toys to fiddle with on site that were implemented during the week.

Well, on that note, I will start compiling this week’s best stories for the first installment. And don’t expect the latest Paris Hilton gossip to make it into the weekly roundup. You can find that anywhere (and everywhere) on the web. Instead, you will find only quality news that maybe got buried underneath the big news. On days that have extra time, I will also try to supplement the week’s stories with additional info, updates, and/or more audio, video to complement what was already posted.

You Have A Voice Here

At the same time, I am thinking about other weekly features that I can start to include. Let me know if you have any ideas, or have thought of something you really wish this site offered. My next bright idea is something along the lines of offering a rotating Best Mix Of The Week which can get refreshed every weekend. I guess we’ll both see what comes next. Hit me up in the comments with any input you have. I LOVE feedback! If you don’t see your comment right away, I will try to wrestle it away from the hungry spam bots that manage the comments sectors. Non-spam comments should show up right away.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy the new REWIND!

Molli Fire

Fans of surf rock, Beach Boys instrumentals, and late 60’s psychedelic jazz, may I please have your exquisite attention for a moment. I have some big news for you…

“Here’s a little story, I got to tell, about 3 bad brothers, you know SO well. It started way back in history, with Doug, Daryl, Dennis, and Donn Landee….”

It begins with the story of the Dragon brothers, which reads like the Lords of Dogtown for psychedelic surf rockers. In the late 60’s, Doug, Daryl and Dennis Dragon lived, surfed, and rocked in Malibu California. Donn Landee, a high school friend of Dennis Dragon, was working as a recording engineer at Sunwest Recording Studios in Hollywood. The Dragons would sometimes go to the studio to record tracks in the wee hours of morning after finishing a gig in LA. This story is so good, I need to let the original author tell it:

They call the sessions “Blue Forces Intelligence,” find themselves layering their instruments in new ways, adding deep, bassy vocal lines and then ramming them up against falsetto harmonies, adding organs and space age sound effects, recording spirituals and pop and crazy rock opera. The effect is increasingly spacey and weird, but also funky – a missing link between new directions others are exploring in jazz and soul as well as rock music.

Unfortunately, the suits at the West Coast offices of the major labels aren’t ready, complaining that they don’t hear a hit. After shopping the record, now called just “BFI”, for a few months, the boys become disillusioned and focus instead on their session work. They all end up working in the Beach Boys’ backing band. Doug moves to Hawaii, tours Australia. Dennis becomes a successful record producer. Daryl hooks up with Toni Tennille and experiences international chart success as “The Captain”. The Dragons’ “BFI” is forgotten.

In addition to this surf album, Dennis Dragon also composed the soundtracks for skate movies and ski movies…

Jump on 37 years. Strictly Kev/DJ Food, influential mixologist and designer for Ninja Tune and obsessive record collector – picks up a new batch of vinyl from a record dealer he knows. In amongst them is a 500-run private pressing of the soundtrack to a surf movie called “A Sea For Yourself”. On it is a track called “Food For My Soul” by a band called the Dragons. Kev being a fan of all possible food-based puns and currently putting together the mix for his new “Solid Steel” mix cd for Ninja, drops the needle on the groove.

What he finds amazes him – a true psychedelic original from a band he’s never heard of. Using his extensive contacts in the world of vinyl mania, he manages to track Dennis Dragon down. He emails him, asks him if he can include “Food For My Soul” on the mix. Sure, says Dennis. There’s a whole album of the stuff if he’s interested. Dennis checks. Donn still has the master tapes. He converts them to mp3 and emails them to Kev. Kev is blown away. He forwards them to Ninja Tune. Ninja Tune think it’s a scam. But then they listen. And they listen again. And then, after nearly forty years sitting on a recording engineer’s shelf, Ninja Tune decide to release “BFI”.

I was so entranced by this story that appeared as a humble press release in my inbox today, that I had to just quote it directly. I rarely do this, but this was just too good.

“And moral of this story is: keep your master tapes. Whatever you do, keep your master tapes. “
-James from Ninja Tune

Boy is that the truth! The question now, is ARE YOU READY?

BFI, recorded by The Dragons in 1970, will be released August 27th 2007 by the one and only Ninja Tune! “Food for my soul” was included on both the full length album, Solid Steel Presents DJ Food & DK: Now, Listen Again! and the limited edition Now, Listen Again! 7″ promo record which were both released in April of this year. Check the Ninja Tune Store for copies.

Ninja Tune And Dragons LINKS

Ninja Tune – ultra cool website that features all the Ninja’s allies: Big Dada, Solid Steel, Coldcut…
Ninja Tune music$pace
Dennis Dragon Page in the Composers Index of Soundtracks

Soundtracks by Dennis Dragon include:

Hal Jepsen: surf / skateboard films:
“Super Session”
“Go For It”
“A Sea For Yourself”
“We Got Surf”
“Skateboard Madness”
… etc.

Other films:
“Winter Equinox” (ski film)
“Spinnin’ Wheels” (skateboard film)

Warren Miller Productions, Hollywood, Ca / (ski film):
“Steep and Deep”