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Tag Archives: rock

Gimme Shelter

I’ve always been more of a Beatles guy than a Stones guy, but respect where respect is due, “Gimme Shelter” is a classic. It’s on my mind because Dangerous Minds posted the isolated tracks, and they’re a lot of fun. It’s fascinating to hear the separated vocals, guitars, bass and drums. The Youtube videos containing [...]

The Choice Is Yours

There’s a commercial on TV right now featuring a bunch of CGI hamsters that reacquainted me with this Black Sheep classic. I knew the song better as the one that goes, “You can get with this or you can get with that.” Thank god for Google, otherwise I wouldn’t know anything about anything. This is [...]

Music theory for beginner guitarists

Most beginner guitarists start by learning the same fifteen chords, usually called the “standard fifteen.” I’ve also heard them called the open chords because they make use of open strings and are thus easy to play. For fingerings, have a look at wikipedia or any book on beginner guitar. You can also see this handy [...]

Hey! Wait!

Let Us In Revival Revival vs Nirvana mp3 download, ipod format download Vocals and guitar by Barbara. Additional guitar, controller synth, 808 programming and sampling by me. Contains some salty language. This continues our recent push into mostly original rock material about Barbara’s complex romantic life. The sample comes from one of my favorite Nirvana [...]

Drum machine programming

I wrote a general post about what makes a hot beat hot. As a followup, here’s how to program some generic patterns and a few famous breakbeats. The basic unit of dance music is a sequence of sixteen eighth notes, two measures of four-four time. Drum machines like the Roland TR-808 represent the sixteen eighth [...]

Copyright Criminals

This PBS Independent Lens documentary on sampling culture is a good one, and you can watch the whole thing on Youtube. Their resources and links page includes my Biz Markie blog post. Thanks Beautiful Decay for posting the videos. Part one:

Bitter Sweet Symphony

One of the biggest copyright failures of copyright law ever is the The Verve’s song “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” The distinctive string sample comes from an orchestral arrangement of “The Last Time” by The Rolling Stones. Doesn’t sound much like the Verve, does it? Here’s the Andrew Oldham Orchestra‘s version, the sample will jump right out [...]

Dancin’ On The Ceiling

Here’s Revival Revival’s arrangement of Lionel Richie’s classic “Dancin’ On The Ceiling.” Ohhh What A Feelin’ Revival Revival vs Lionel Richie vs Michael Jackson mp3 download, ipod format download Vocals, guitar and bass by Babsy. Beats, loops and production by me. The beat is from “Billie Jean.” We love this song. Here’s the original.

The Beatles were an electronica band

Why are the Beatles still so cool? By which I mean the late Beatles, Revolver onwards. I like Please Please Me as much as the next guy, but it isn’t why the Beatles are cool now. No, I mean the last few records, especially Sgt Pepper, the White Album and Abbey Road. If any of [...]

His name is Prince, and he is funky

Hip-hop artists love Prince. Like them, he blends drum machines, live jazz-funk musicians and samples of other songs.