Prince is a remarkable musician, and a huge influence on my own personal creative wanderings, and so it was a pleasure to stumble across this documentary of his early years and rise to super-stardom available to stream below. With my not being born until his career was well underway, it is great to hear some stories of the recording and experimenting processes of the first few LPs, as well as the various reports of regional Minnesota acclaim, lagging global sales, hometown influences and willingness to use technology in new and wonderful ways.

The pint-sized pop starlet first crossed my radar around the time of the Purple Rain movie and soundtrack. Who was this flamboyant, motorcycle-riding, wailing purple person? Was he P-funk or rock? Was he black or white? Was he male of female? His music did everything to muddy the waters further, and thankfully he embraced his own unique flair for many many albums to come.

This documentary not only goes into the background on Prince’s own singles and albums, but also his songwriting skills for other artists. Sinead O’Connor’s epic ballad ‘Nothing Compares 2U’ and The Bangles hit ‘Manic Monday’ are both part of his wealth or work, and further display the depth of his writing.

Be it the stripped-back sparse tension of ‘Kiss’, the power and drive of ‘Purple Rain’, or the pure fun feeling of ‘Raspberry Beret’ and dozens of others, Prince simply “stole the 1980s”, and in my opinion, deservedly so.

Watch the full documentary here.

by Lee Jarvis.

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Chicago Battle of the Bands 2010 will be at two venues; Redline Tap and Metal Shaker. 2010 will be bigger and better than last year – at this year’s Battle of the Bands you will not just battle it out for prizes, you will have an opportunity to make some money! There will be 91 bands in 13 nights. (Last year we had 77 bands in 11 nights.) The battle will be open to ANY rock formats. Be part of Chicago’s largest battle of the bands. There will be $8,000 in prizes from Studio time, Music Video, photography for your PR Kits and of course the title of Chicago Battle of the bands 2010. There will be 1st-3rd place winners, and the Grand prize winner will also receive major recording time.

The battle will be from June 4th-22nd. Every Friday-Monday and ONE Tuesday Night June 22nd,
There will be 91 bands in this battle. The finale will be Sunday, June 27th! *make sure to save this date if you apply!

HOW TO ENTER:
(more…)

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I came across a lot of new rock / dance / electro funk punk / etc bands last year. Not that they were always new bands, but often new to me. There’s also a couple of more established bands who are threatening to get back together or released their first material for a few years.

With that said, I thought I’d make a shortlist of several artists that I’d love to see perform live in 2010, with a little help from Lala. Having received a lot of coverage with their recent buy out from Apple, I thought I’d compile a streaming playlist from their site, and must say I found the process simpler and more fluent than I remember from last using their system. Here’s to hoping that Apple help make the brand profitable and they continue providing a useful service.

And so, onto my rockin playlist – featuring music from Kings of Leon, Jet, Kasabian, The Strokes, The White Stripes, Silversun Pickups, Muse, The Prodigy, Foo Fighters and Soulwax.

Enjoy!

Lee Jarvis.

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A few weeks back, I attended a Tour Smart crash course weekend (please do read that post after – lots of great info!), and at the end of the last day we were treated to an acoustic set by Chicago based The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir.

The name doesn’t really give anything away; no British police force themed-costumes, and certainly no gospel choir in sight as they were setting up. The band were a great mix of rock n roll sound and great lyrical content, from melancholy to laugh-out-loud funny, and they topped off a great weekend. Here is a short video for a song called Wicker Park, which was written by members Mary Ralph and engineered by Mark Yoshizumi.

Opportunity School – Wicker Park from sygc_love on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, last week the exciting young artists were involved in a bad road accident, resulting in most of the members being hospitalised and their van and all equipment destroyed. It was announced yesterday that all 2009 tour dates have been cancelled, and that the Halloween show at Sub-T is now a benefit for the band. We’ll have details on more benefits next week.

From the press release: “Alison Hinderliter, Jay Santana, and Ethan Adelsman were all released from the hospital last night with minor injuries. Elia Einhorn was held overnight with injuries to his head and neck, and is expected to be released tomorrow. Mary Ralph has a broken pelvis and collarbone, and will probably be moved to a hospital closer to home. Mark Yoshizumi was airlifted to Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn last night with injuries to his head, back, and neck. He is in serious condition, but making progress.”

If you want to help the band with the extensive costs of this accident, you can donate simply via paypal – follow this link this link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=8469029, or if you would like to purchase any of their music, all the info you need is here http://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/and-horse-you-rode. You can also help by passing the news on to friends / contacts.

Regular updates will be posted at the band’s label blog Bloodshot Records

The Music Jobs team send our best wishes to the whole band.

Lee Jarvis

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Independent artists benefit from a more level playing field; MTV Networks creating opportunities in music.

MTV and Harmonix are to launch the Rock Band Network later this year. The Rock Band Network is a platform that will allow bands to upload their music for review by the Rock Band game creators, and possibly available as part of the game’s store, tapping into the wealth of publicity and revenue created for musicians by the Rock Band brand.

The system was devised in part to help expand the content available to the gamers, something which the limited staff was struggling to find the time to provide. And so recording artists will have the opportunity to add to the 700 tracks already part of the program by taking the stems from their original masters and creating MIDI tracks for each instrument, before sharing it with the Rock Band Network community.

Here is a short video from the people over at Joystiq, explaining the idea and the process.

There’s also a lot more detail at Billboard if you want to get into the bones of it all.

So, exciting times! Yet more ways for independent artists, studios, labels, bands, managers and many more music professionals to create their own successes, and find work in the music industry. Best of luck!

Lee Jarvis.

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