Diplo's foray into New Orleans bounce music has pioneered not only new territory for him as a producer - but also in the virility of TwitPics and Instagrams of women worldwide putting booties and legs up for a chance at a split second of RT fame.
Go to twitter and look for hashtag #expressyourself or just follow @diplo on twitter if you want to see some international ass.
Haven't enjoyed Diplo's latest sounds? Its definitely a song of summer 2012. Cop "Express Yourself" here.
British electro rock band Viva City are hitting up the left coast of the states for a handful of rocking shows for Brit Week, including tonight at The Viper Room, tomorrow at Saint Rocke (5/10 - Tuesday) and Thursday at Silverlake Lounge.
I saw them once before at Viper Room, where I was wildly impressed and danced my ass off an unexpected amount. I'd strongly urge anyone who is a fan of a raucous UK band that can throw down to consider checking out one of those shows - especially the first two considering that SUPERGOOD is giving away free tickets to shows at The Viper Room and Saint Rocke. All you have to do to be considered for one of those giveaways is send an e-mail to contest@supergoodmusic.com with the name Viva City and the venue you'd like to go to or comment on our SUPERGOODMUSIC facebook page, or you can tweet @vivacityuk @theviperroom and @supergoodmusic in the same tweet. FYI, you must follow @supergoodmusic to win the twitter contest.
Check out their video for "Brother" that was posted last week -
You can learn more about the band on their website here. Their debut album, Phobia, was released last month by Vert Records.
Local resident Travis Tatum Mills may not yet be on your radar, but that will probably change soon. And he might already be if you've heard of the artist T. Mills. The 21 year old hip-hop-R&B-electropunk hybrid phenom is already a force on the internet and, after seeing one of his performances, I can attest that he is one on stage as well.
The Riverside, CA child sites influences from Wu Tang Clan to Blink 182 to Bone Thugs N Harmony - to recent additions to his playlist like Rusko and Wiz Khalifa. Embracing his multitude of tastes, T. Mills has already reached to a multitude of markets. In 2010, T. Mills could be seen all over the place - from his release of the "Ready, Fire, Aim!" EP to Bamboozle to the Warped Tour tohis constantly growing online presence.
Earlier in 2011, I witnessed T. Mills headline and sell out an all ages show at The Troubadour. Not only were teenage girls grabbing for the pierced young hearthtrob's crotch on stage, they lined up to the edge of Doheny and Santa Monica at the end of the show screaming for a photo opportunity. Mind you, they'd been invited by the artist to do so after the show. He took the time to embrace each one of his fans willing to wait in the line while their parents waited outside to pick them up...
With plans to release a mixtape in April featuring production from J Hawk, Matt Squire, Colin Munroe, Hit Boy, The Stereotypes and more - T. Mills won't be resting anytime soon. Plus, with over 46,000 Facebook likers, where he happens to be giving away a free mp3 - http://www.facebook.com/ilovetmills?sk=app_4949752878 - almost 22,000 twitter followers http://twitter.com/#!/search/%40ilovetmills and over a million views on MySpace - his identity is going to keep penetrating the internet. With a swagger lick a rockstar for and songs like "Just My Luck" coming too - his hybrid-pop sounds will probably begin and keep penetrating your head too...
If you're anywhere close to having your finger on the pulse of the music industry, by now you have certainly seen OK Go's cute video for "White Knuckles." If you haven't, you'd be wise to view it, not only because it is clever and entertaining, but because it begs the question - why did EMI ever let a band as creative as OK Go out of their contract? And for what reason(s)?
On March 10, 2010, about 2 months after the initial release of Of The Blue Colour of the Sky, OK Go's third album which features "White Knuckles", EMI and Capitol cut ties with the band. If you've ever seen the band's music videos, especially "Here It Goes Again" and "This Too Shall Pass (Rube Goldberg Machine version)," both of which were released before the band cut ties with EMI and Capitol, you may have already asked yourself that question.
Although the separation was allegedly on good terms, rumors circulated that the rift concerned disagreement with the label regarding viral distribution of their videos. After viewing the recently famous "White Knuckles" video, which allegedly was played close to 3 million times within 24 hours of release on youtube, who can blame them? With a track record of videos that clearly have viral potential, why would a band ever willingly restrain themselves from taking advantage of their own viral capacity? Especially when that viral capacity is monetizable.
If a record label wants to own that viral capacity or prevent an artist from using their viral capacity as a vehicle for distribution, the record label should pay the artist for the right(s). I imagine (hope) a company would be willing to do it. How valuable would it have been to PetCo or PetSMART to have the exclusive right to host the video for a day? A week? A month? To have their banner in the background or have the video open with Presented By INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE? If the companies weren't willing to pay for it before, I'd guess they'd be willing to drop loot on the sequel video once they got wind of these viral numbers. It will probably happen. Companies already sponsor tours, mixtapes, etc.
On a side note....if someone at PetCo or PetSMART is reading - I'm suggesting you sponsor an OK Go concert where they try and execute this music video live. Have it stream on UStream. People will pay to tune in if it is marketed. Believe me. People watch the West Minster dog show in droves...and this could be like the West Minster Dog Show on drugs with live music. Dogs high-fiving (or pawing?) musicians? Seriously.
But, the real point is that the record company had the upper hand and could have controlled the viral music video market all along. EMI being the label in this case. The record labels owned the master sound recordings that are in these music videos., although they were re-released by Paracadute Recordings. Why couldn't the record company (EMI) build infrastructure to host videos like OK Go's? So that the millions of views happened on the label's site, where the label could benefit from the advertising and increased usertime spent on that site? The record company could have run ads for other products in the side bar to make additional income of the traffic being generated from the music video.
The record company could have even hosted contests inviting fans to make their own videos and one lucky winner would get the entire catalog of OK Go records and a meet and greet. The contest could have easily required that you have purchased the "White Knuckles" track because how can you make a music video to a track you don't actually have a copy of? Or submit a music video in a contest to the record label that owns the sound recording of the song in the video without legally owning a copy of the track contained in the video? Would you be dumb enough to send in a video with a bootlegged track attached to it, essentially admitting to your copyright infringement? The contest may have even required the videomaker to buy a physical copy. Rather than take advantage of these golden opportunities to use the viral music video market to prop up physical sales of OK Go records (and possibly other records), the major record labels (or at least EMI) allegedly resisted OK Go's desire to go with viral video and the rest is history.
OK Go's willingness to embrace viral culture represents the new regime of DIY artists. With a track record of the most "favorited" music video in YouTube history ("Here It Goes Again") and "This Too Shall Pass" before parting ways, it was going to be hard for OK Go to one up themselves as independents. But, they did. The virility of "White Knuckles" and the internet frenzy it inspired metaphorically slaps EMI and Capitol in the face and basically says "we knew what we were doing."
