A MacJams Primer
In order to satisfy requests coming from the vast audience for this blog i.e. David, I'm putting together a "starter" list of what I consider some of the best home-brewed music MacJams has to offer. These are in no particular order and are taken from my "Favorites" list on my MacJams artist page.
I Love My Mac by Daphna (Daphne Kalphon). A must for Mac users. Apple should use this as their theme song. The song is going to be included on the next (I think) MacAddict CD.
A Hundred Million Times by rmaclema (Richard MacLemale). Doesn't have much posted on MacJams, but his first album, "Florida Songs" is available through iTunes and he is currently working on his second album.
Stars on My Ceiling by pgreenstone (Peter Greenstone). One of the finest tunes on all of MacJams and my personal favorite. Peter is about to release his first album through Simig Media Records.
American Plain by atwood (Tom Atwood). This is a breathtakingly beautiful orchestral work in four movements (large file). Tom also has a CD, Songs from the American Plain, available from The Lost Records, which is another independently produced record label started by several MacJammers.
The Unquiet Grave by Rebsie and Mandoliquent (Rebsie Fairholm and William Shaw). Rebsie and Mando, both together and separately, do some great traditional and modern British folk music.
Superhero by cjorgenson (Christopher Jorgenson). Since so many of my friends just love poetry, they'll really dig the spoken word tracks available on MacJams.
Fernvale by Nolan. One of the first tunes I came across on MacJams. This song mainly uses altered GarageBand loops, but the rest of his music is mostly him and his guitar. Sounds very much like Neil Finn.
With Words Let's Take Them Down by mikkinylund (Mikki Nylund). Mikki is one of my all-time favorites on the site. It's hard to get a representative song from his catalog because he is very diverse and very prolific. Like me, Mikki has a great appreciation for punk and new wave. Definitely check out some of his other stuff.
The Blue Elephant Song by dane (Dane Obuchowski). Fairly new to MacJams and only has a few songs, but what he has posted is very impressive, especially for a 19-year-old. Sounds like he could hold his own against Ben Folds.
Doing the Eggshell Walk by jiguma (Neil Porter). Neil is from Australia and has a very smooth, folksy sound and some incredible lyrics. We origonally discovered one another because our site names are so similar.
This is just a small sampling to get anyone interested started. All songs on MacJams are available for streaming and download. You can sign up to be a member of MacJams whether you post music or not. Membership allows you to use features such as voting, commenting and chat.
Enjoy!
New music!
It's been quite a while since I posted anything about new music on MacJams. I have a number of new or fairly new tunes posted. If you get a chance, stop in and take a listen. Here are some links:
My MacJams artist page
Songs:
Stone/Southern Boy
Eye to Eye
Feeling Good Today
These are just ones I've posted in the last month or so. And while you're on MacJams, check out other artists on the site.
Support Independent Music!
The more I read about stupid things the music industry is doing and the more I hear the increasingly crappy offerings from said music companies, the more I am thankful for independently produced and self-produced music.
Two things have really made me think about this recently. The first is the whole fiasco caused by Sony placing spyware on its music CDs, opening up computers (Windoze) to hackers. Supposedly, the move was to prevent piracy. As an offshoot of this, I have bought at least one Sony CD which wouldn't even play on Macs and couldn't be ripped to an iPod, so there was $15 down the tube!
The second is greed. As CD sale continue to slump and on-line purchases start to level off, the music industry is considering raising the price of on-line downloads. There's a way to get back those who are either not buying music because of the price or not buying music because of the quality. And raising the price is sure to convince those already pirating music to give up getting it for free and start paying.
Almost two years ago, Apple Computers released a music recording program called GarageBand. Now, I've gone on and on about this program before. It basically allows you to have a fully operational recording studio on your computer. It's easy to use and gives you the ability to produce professional-quality digital music with nothing more than your computer or with as much audio equipment as you want to plug in. It's mainly for beginners to the recording world and hobbiests, but there are plenty of people out there who use it to its fullest potential and make very good, professionally produced music. GarageBand is the "little brother," if you will, to the professional-level recording software Logic.
GarageBand and other easy-to-use or fairly-easy-to-use programs have spawned a whole new wave of musical hobbiests. These are people who might have toyed with recording at some time in the past, but grew frustrated with the time and effort that it took to make one recording. In college, I used a firend's Fostex 4-track recorder, adrum machine and bits of audio equipment we had collected over the years. Setting everything up would take several hours. Recording tracks, several more hours. The basic tracks for one song would take the better part of a day. Mixing was another story alltogether.
Shortly after I got GarageBand and began learning how to use it, I discovered there were a number of places on-line where people were featuring their own musical creations. One of them, MacJams, was the place where I decided to start posting my own music. At MacJams, I discovered many diverse and talented artists from around the globe, most of whom were using Macs to make their music.
For almost two years, MacJams served as an on-line community for featuring homemade music. Now, the creators of MacJams have created Simig Media Records which is a record label featuring independent, self-produced music. The first two offerings are by two very talented long-time MacJams members Tobin Mueller and Peter Greenstone. Tobin is a multi-talented individual who has not only written a lot of great music on MacJams, but produced a number of other musical works and does a lot of work with children. Peter, who I've written about before on this site, is a computer artists who has worked on a number of movies, video games and other projects. Music is his "hobby" and he creates some spectacular stuff.
The unwillingness to change is going to destroy the established music industry. The industry is lethargic and monolithic. It goes by an outdated business practice and doesn't foster new, origonal talent or new, origonal ways of thinking. MacJams, Simig Media Records and the people producing their on homemade music are definitely the wave of the future. They may never break the back of the music giants like Sony, but they have found a way to thrive. They have adapted to new technology and they are unfettered by lack of imagination. These artists are putting out works that don't have to go through the filters of producers, engineers and executives who distill raw talent in to lifeless, boring pablum acceptable to Clear Channel or the other commercial radio chains. The worst places like MacJams has to offer is usually more interesting than the best modern radio (or MTV - if they decide to play some music, that is) has to offer.
I know I'm a big fan because I'm part of the movement, but I also know a good thing when I hear it. Simmig Media Records, MacJams, and those other efforts to get independent, self-produced music out to the world will succeed not just on the talent of those making the music and running the businesses, but because those of us who are involved in making our own music will put our effort behind the endeavors and make it a success.
