Music Meridian

There's been all kinds of speculation and rumors about The Police reuniting this year. Well, the New York Times breaks the first story I've read that isn't a rumor....The Police will be playing at The Grammy's.

The Police, who leapt from the British punk scene to become one of the world's biggest rock acts before breaking up in 1984, will reunite for a performance to kick off the 49th Grammy Awards on Feb. 11.

Awesome! Please tell me this will turn into a full-fledged tour. This could be the highlight of the summer concert circuit.

I've just written to Congress, alerting them to the PERFORM Act, which would cripple digital radio receivers and stick DRM into most streaming Internet radio music. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has all the details. Maybe you should contact them too.

Check out this article on EFF's homepage, and if you're so inclined you can send a letter to congress through their site.

Thanks.

This has been a pretty great half-year or so of Frank Zappa releases. There was Trance-Fusion. There was 4-CD Making of Freak Out. And now.....

The Frank Zappa AAAFNRAA Birthday Bundle!!

For those unaware, AAAFNRAA stands for "Anything At All For No Reason At All".

It's available only at iTunes. It includes 4 unreleased live versions of Frank Zappa songs, plus tracks from Dweezil, Ahmet, Moon-Unit and Diva!

You can see the full track list details, including recording dates and the musicians who played on the tracks here and fire up the iTunes store if you wanna buy it.

I'm grabbing my first listen now, and the live material totally smokes!! I hope they make more exclusive online releases like this in the future.





Tuner, a great band featuring current King Crimson percussionist Pat Mastelotto, is starting up a new contest. They offer a drum-less track on their website off of their forthcoming CD and allow people to add their own drum/percussion parts! Winners would have a chance to have their version included on a Tuner EP!! You can rest assured I've already downloaded the track and will be working feverishly to create my masterpiece.

Read the full instructions below and download the track for yourself!

---

Would you like to drum on a TUNER tune? The crazy idea is: before we actually release our new record 'pole' we let interested folks add drums to a track from the album.

Here's the deal...

Participants:

We offer a drum-less version of the track '11-11' as a free download (see link below).

Drummers, programmers, producers, etc. are asked to add their drum and/or percussion parts to the song. For now only for rhythmic additions, please.

Feel free to pass on the news about this. Get your friends involved in creating the coolest drum part for 11-11.

In late March we'll set up a page (on www.tunerband.com) where participants can register and upload their mix.

Pat's original drum track will remain undisclosed until the release of the album. It's your opportunity to take the creative position of Pat.

There is no deadline to submit a version. If you want to send us your version in 2011, fine.

You are allowed to give away your version for free. Commercial use is prohibited, unless we and our management come to a mutual agreement with you. Please get in touch if you have any ideas. Also, before you make your version available via file sharing or similar routes, let us have a listen first.

NO REMIXES! This is not a remix contest! The structure of the piece HAS TO stay intact. NO EDITS! NO ADDITIONAL INSTRUMENTS other than drums and percussions!

If any version blows us away, and if the creator agrees, we will ask for multitrack files of the drums and will mix and release it as an official TUNER track on a future EP.



It is OK to download the track and to listen to it. It's a chance to maybe get a closer peek at the architecture of the song. Find out how TUNER's music works on a harmonic and melodic level. Maybe you know some friends that would like to add their drum parts to it? :-)

Check back to our site throughout the year for a collection of different drum versions of 11-11.

For those who are curious about the original version: It will get released on CD and as a download in the first half of 2007.


BTW, the original tempo of the song is 180 bpm (it feels more like 90 bpm, really), but maybe you'll work in a modulated meter like e.g. 60, 120, 240 bpm.

We hope you'll have fun! Let's see where this takes us all...

Pat & Markus

p.s.: Download the file from this link.

p.p.s.: '11-11' is the longest track on the album. It's written by Markus Reuter & Pat Mastelotto and features Laura Scarborough on vibes, Pamelia Kurstin on theremin. Spoken word by Pat. Bass, guitars, keyboards and counting by Markus. Mixed by Fabio Trentini and TUNER.

Posted By: Phil Plencner
at 1/17/2007 8:36:00 AM

Permalink | Category: Prog | Comment On This Post | Reader Comments (0)

Alice Coltrane: John Coltrane's widow, and an amazing artist in her own right. She has passed away at 69.

Here's an article.

Alice Coltrane Dies At 69

Her beautiful music will certainly be missed here at Music Meridian HQ.

I got a pre-release copy of the new album by The End called "Elementary".

I can't think of a more apt name for this album. They have stripped their style down to basics. Sounds like straightahead hardcore now. Very disappointing.

You can hear a couple of the new tracks on their myspace page ('Dangerous' and 'Animals'). Those songs are probably as good as the album gets....so it's pretty bad.

I yearn for the days when they were a totally crazed tech-metal band. It really wasn't that long ago. "Transfer Trachea Reverberations from Point: False Omniscient" came out in 2002. That album totally rules and I'm going back to listen to it now and think back to the Good Ol' Days.

'Elementary' comes out on Feb. 6th.

Wanna see one of the greatest Jazz Fusion bands of all time totally rip it up? I can't believe this kind of thing used to be shown on TV. Feast your eyes on "Duel Of The Jester And The Tyrant" by Return To Forever (unfortunately split into two parts)





Al DiMiola and Stanley Clarke are totally smoking on this thing!

---

How about something completely different and totally over-the-top?? Here's San Francico's Black Metal/Free Jazz assult Ettrick joined live on stage with Weasel Walter (Flying Luttenbachers etc) and Moe! Stiano (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum etc). Certainly not for the faint of heart. At one point all four of them are playing drumkit!!!







File this one under the WTF file.

Amazing drummer Terry Bozzio will be joining Korn for at least one studio album and tour.

Read all about it here

I'm speechless. Say it isn't so, Terry!

Here's something interesting. A new music download site launched this week called The FuMP (The Funny Music Project). You can check it out here:
http://www.thefump.com/

Cool concept. A collective of funny/parody musicians, including The Great Luke Ski, Worm Quartet and others have teamed up to offer a free mp3 every few days. There's even an RSS feed so you can keep updated when new songs are posted.

The free mp3 is 128k (low quality). In addition you can buy a high quality (192k) version for 99 cents. You can also subscribe to the FuMP for $9.99 per month, which gets you all the high quality music plus a compilation CD with all the tracks with extra bonus material.

I think this is a good system for small independent artists and I'll be following this closly to see how well they do in the coming months.

As a new years resolution, I got a membership to the local YMCA. I went this morning. I discovered that Magma's "De Futura" is a perfect song to play on the iPod while running the track. It sets a nice pace, and gets you in a nice running groove.

Vander should consider exploiting this in some fashion. Everyone else can have their stupid song in a Nike ad, why not some Zeuhl?