Building a Vinyl Scrobbler (1 of ?)

I started using Last.fm in 2006 to log the songs I listened to, and was so in love with the data aggregation I'd write "what I listened to this year" posts to close out each year (like this one). For almost as long, I'd been wanting a way to auto-log the records I listened to - I dreamed of making the time to learn about and play with Shazam's API to get a version of vinyl scrobbling working. Fast forward twenty years, a lot of experimenting with Claude Code, and a successful personal project (also music related: a search bar for metal bands), and I finally got to work. I know vinyl scrobblers have been built a few times by now (like here, here, and here), but figuring out my options and building one very personal to me has been most of the fun.

After some time researching, I had three broad options:

1. Log via audio recognition: So, turns out Shazam doesn't actually have an API, but there are similar APIs I could have either hooked up to an always-on mic, or trigger by pressing a button, holding my phone near the speaker, and waiting for match. I didn't like either option - creepy or too many steps, respectively - so this one was out pretty quickly.
2. Log via sensors: Waving a record by a sensor could log an album as I put it on. This one would feel the most magical, but would involve putting an NFC chip in every single jacket of my (now medium-sized) collection, which would take hours of setup time.
3. Log via barcode: The most physically clunky, but fit my most immediate need - start scrobbling quickly. As I tweak the setup, I could continue scrobbling and invest in the NFC solution in the longer term.

Aside - I have to give a shout to this very cool "year in music" writeup I found in my research. I found it via one of the open source projects - Vinyl Scanner - that one goes the NFC route, complete with a microcontroller built into a custom "now listening" shelf, for the ultimate magic scrobbling experience. The repo even includes instructions/schematic for building the shelf!

Ok, onto the proof of concept. My plan is to scan the barcode on a record when I take it out to spin, and a Raspberry Pi will look up a match from my Discogs collection, and log the album into an Airtable database.

I also wanted to build a search UI for manual lookup, in case I had a record with no barcode (many of my old 7-inches), or for some reason it didn't find a match. I also wanted to start using it while all my hardware was still arriving, so I started with the software-first.

I added another feature to the flow: My favorite Discogs app feature is the randomizer - shake your phone and it shows you a random item from your collection to put on (I use this all the time to be reminded of records I don't typically reach for). I decided to build this feature right into the lookup UI, so I could randomize and scrobble in just two clicks.

The magical part happened when I loaded the collection UI from my localhost - I wasn't convinced I needed to fetch album art for everything I owned as Claude Code suggested, but when I loaded the page, I gasped out loud when I saw all my records in a grid, staring back at me. Truly a magical moment.

And so far, it works! I've been scrobbling vinyl all weekend.

So excited to start doing my own Wrapped-style analysis on my vinyl habits - either manually like I used to with Last.fm, or by throwing the data into a tool like Hex to see what patterns it notices.

Part 2 to come when I get the hardware hooked up - it's finally arrived (I can't wait to share the Pi case I found), and I'll hopefully work on it in the next week or two. 

Building a Metal Search Bar (1 of ?)

Metal Archives is like a wiki for heavy metal, and I use it for exactly one thing: looking up bands. I do this exclusively on my phone from either record shops or shows - the site isn't responsive, so I end up trying to tap on what feels like a 3 pixel high search box on the very top right of the screen.

A search bar for ants.

After struggling with this for years, I finally tried to fix it fore myself in the smallest way possible.

What I wanted

A page with only a giant search bar on it that I could use 1. on my phone; 2. from anywhere: it would query Metal Archives and return the band's subgenre(s) and location. That's it.

Fast forward through a couple hours with Claude Code. The project half failed: Metal Archives has no public API and sophisticated enough bot detection that blocked all my searches, leading me to hit a wall for the "from anywhere" part of my use case. 

What did work

I did get a proof of concept working on my WiFi, and set it up to run automatically and be accessible from my phone any time I'm at home for quick lookups. Along the way, I learned about everything from proxies and anti-bot systems to serverless functions and headless browsers. 

It works!

I also ended up finding an unofficial API (Metal Archives themselves don't have a public one), and reached out to Metal Archives to make sure they'd be okay with me using it for personal purposes. But if this is the end of it, I'm still happy I finally went for and built this: a small thing I've wanted to exist for years, and a satisfying use of a Saturday morning.

What I listened to in 2012.

Looking at my Last.fm charts is one of my favorite things to do - especially at the end of a year. Even though I know what I listened to (because, well, I listened to it), there are always some surprises that come from near-comprehensive data aggregation. If you had asked me what I listened to the most in 2012, I would have said new wave - I had my Depeche Mode Pandora station on almost every single day. But: That stuff wasn't aggregated. Only one related artist made it on - I guess when I'm deliberate about an artist or album, things turn out a bit differently. Maybe it's because that Pandora station perfectly captures the aesthetic, memory, or gestalt of some intangible thing that can only be accurately presented as a collection of songs. Anyway, here they are: my top 10 listened-tos of the year.

10. Two Wounded Birds. This was solely based on their song I Think The World Of You, which I heard playing in TopShop over the summer. It is the most beautiful epitome of moody Brit surf you will probably ever hear.

09. The Veronicas. This one really surprised me. I only play two of their songs, but I play one of them to absolute death. It's called 4ever, and is probably one of their more popular ones. I don't know much about these girls, except that this song was the theme of one of the most fun nights I had in grad school, involving my friend Carrie, wigs, a new bar, cherry vodka, sweater creatures, and the sound of McDonald's wrapper crinkling in the depths of my half-asleep consciousness as the sun rose.

08. The Hundred In The Hands. They came out with a new album this year I believe, but I still couldn't stop listening to their previous one. So moody and good.

07. Michael Jackson. What a surprise! He surprised me last year as well.

06. The Ramones. I got really into Bowery history this year, which had me tearing through dozens and dozens of Ramones tracks. I also bought a black motorcycle jacket at around this time a year ago, which drove me to them even more.

05. Metric. Surprise, surprise. I think they're still my top listened-to artist since I opened my Last.fm account in 2006.

04. Pet Shop Boys. I was introduced to some really stellar tracks of theirs through that Depeche Mode Pandora station, and I had those on repeat many a day.

03. Metallica. My favorite band of all time, which may sound weird to some but make perfect sense to others. This year, Orion was on heaviest rotation. If you're ever in a bad mood and have to go walk somewhere, put this on.

02. April March. My favorite discovery of the year. In 2010, I became totally obsessed with yé-yé. A friend spun her English version of Laisse Tomber Les Filles (Chick Habit) at a metal bar one night (I don't know, it worked), and I was hooked. I know it was in a Tarantino movie, but I have yet to see it. Chick Habit (the song and album) got the most plays of the summer. It's fantastic. Also fun fact: She was once an animator for Ren & Stimpy. What.

01. The Faint. They came back in a big way this year for me. This is the band that has probably made the most songs that I have played on repeat for hours and days, dancing around like an idiot. (Exhibits A, B, C, and D).

For more cowbell:
What I listened to in 2011 (blog post)
What I listened to in 2010 (Flickr)
What I listened to in 2009 (Flickr)

Shingai Shoniwa

I was having a conversation today about what my top 5 male and female singers were. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, but I'm pretty sure Shingai Shoniwa (half of The Noisettes) would be on my girl list. Atticus is one of my favorite songs ever, but I hadn't seen this live version on SPIN until tonight.

Hopefully this is needless to say, but that nearly moved me to tears. Enjoy.

What NYC looks like in post-rock.

I just saw this 3-minute homage to NYC on NYC Digital's Tumblr.

It's a beautiful video, but the thing that struck me in particular was the soundtrack – I've usually only heard very sweeping, epic, performed-by-an-orchestra songs backing videos like this (like Philip Glass in the Scorcese AmEx spot I linked to last week). This time, post-rock. I sifted through the comments and found out it's by a band on the West Coast called Dredg. Gives the swelling a slightly different, determined feeling. Very cool.

What I listened to in 2011.

Happy New Year everyone!

I think this is my third year putting one of these together, but my first time doing anything with it beyond posting on Flickr. Here (from my last.fm charts) are the 10 bands/artists I listened to the most in 2011 --



1. Manu Chao. I think this has a lot to do with seeing Drama Mex last year, which put me in the mood to listen to energetic music in Spanish a lot.

2. The Hundred in the Hands. I discovered this band a few years ago, actually, but somehow failed to do anything about how amazing I thought they were until this video ran around the Internet.



3. Daft Punk. This is 100% because of the Tron:Legacy soundtrack and the remix album.

4. MGMT. I was never curious enough to listen to them until I heard their album Congratulations playing in a store. So strange and good.



5. Michael Jackson. I was actually surprised to see him on here!

6. Twin Shadow. I first heard his album on a train to a small town in Switzerland last March; the music matched what I gazed at from my window perfectly.

7. The Amplifetes. Per this post, do everyone a favor and listen to them. Phenomenal.

8. Mark Ronson and the Business Int'l. One of the only spillovers from 2010. It's just so good.

9. Crystal Castles. This was one of the only bands I had on my phone for most of last year, which explains why I listened to them so much. Also, more 2010 spillover - I love that 2nd album.

10. New Order. No explanation needed.

My top 10s for 2009 and 2010 are sort of similar, featuring my top artists of all time like Blonde Redhead, Metric, Morrissey and Mew. 2011 was markedly different, especially with the bands that were in heaviest rotation. I'm really terrible at seeking out new music most of the time, but I guess the stars just aligned. So happy that The Hundred in the Hands, Twin Shadow and The Amplifetes are in my music library.

What was your favorite music in 2011?

Dollar Note

First it was the Barbican exhibit of zebra finches playing guitars, and then the antique pistols that mechanical birds come out of and dance around. I don't know why birds used in technology always make me happy, but they do. The latest is better to me than pistols or guitars –



It's called Dollar Note, by Robert Gligorov. Apparently there are two white uprights standing back-to-back, and the perches in the birdcage attached to the top touch random keys on the pianos. When the birds jump from perch to perch, the respective notes are played.

I'd love to see and hear the thing IRL, it's beautiful. (via today and tomorrow.)

Dance Friday.

It is Friday morning, and I'm exhausted. If you are feeling similarly, here are two dance pop videos that will serve both as eye and ear candy.

Tiger Love: Gio Gio



I've been looping this all week at work. Not sure why the imagery of sliding around in raw egg makes me feel less bleary-eyed, but whatever works, right? It also reminds me of this milk-pillow-fight video by Para One.

The Amplifetes: Somebody New



How nobody I talk to knows about this band is beyond me. They have made me dance more than any other band has in the past 3 or 4 years, and are probably my favorite discovery of the year; I don't understand how they're not through-the-roof famous. If you heard the song first, you'd never think that the lead singer looks like this a well-dressed Brooklyn lumberjack. Brilliant.

On muscle memory and piano playing

I took a trip to visit my parents a few weeks ago, and they surprised me by having my upright piano tuned. Halfway through a 30-minute stretch of playing bits of assorted songs, I realized something: I was on autopilot. I was daydreaming, staring off into space, and playing Yann Tiersen.

Now, this isn't necessarily a strange thing, because I've been playing for a long time and don't always have to pay conscious attention to every single note. But usually when I play Tiersen's work, I at least have to be partially thinking about what bit of the song comes next. On my upright, I didn't at all.

The reason I had such a hard time with this was: I didn't learn his music on my upright. I learned it on my digital piano. Shouldn't any song come more easily to me on the piano on which it was learned? This seemed like some sort of bonkers anti-state-dependent memory at work. I mulled the topic of muscle memory around in my head for a while, and finally dug into Wikipedia a little today to help with some rough thinking:



I realize that there is a lot of research already done around fine motor memory, the psychology of music performance, etc. But this is where my thinking-out-loud-for-fun brain took me.



As I said, my mind went to muscle memory first. At the base level, once someone has played the piano enough, they can play any piano. Quite literally "Like riding a bike." But something I recently read in Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand – that all pianos have their own personalities, tones, and feels – had me thinking about particulars. There's a reason why, even though I know how to ride a bike, I've always nearly broken my neck when attempting to ride bikes with bullhorn handlebars, yet felt like I could ride the ones with riser handlebars in my sleep. More than just muscle memory for the act of piano-playing, it was THIS piano (my upright) that I spent the most time with; THOSE keys, with their particular width, spacing and weight; THAT bench's distance from the ground and piano itself.

The other circle in that chart, state-dependent memory, represents that piano's environment. It's in the same place in my parents' house that it's always been in – off of the kitchen and under the Verona painting. Also, I'm much more used to the feel of the house I grew up in than I am in an apartment I've been renting for just 2 years (on top of that: my digital piano is in its 5th environment, or apartment, by this point).

So, muscle memory is how pianos can be played interchangeably. And the particulars of muscle memory with a side of state-dependent memory – that piano in that position of that house – is what made my playing the most fluid. Here's another way of looking at it:



I can play almost any instrument with a basic piano keyboard setup – from an accordion to a Schroder-style toy piano. But I'm not very good. I'm better with a proper piano – either acoustic or digital. By "proper," I mean all 88 keys that are weighted. Next comes any acoustic piano. As awesome as brands like Casio and KORG have gotten at simulating acoustic pianos with their digital versions (I have a Casio, and I love it), there is just no substitution for the feeling of hitting a key that subsequently makes a tiny hammer hit a string. And finally, my most familiar piano. This is why I think it doesn't matter at this point which piano I actually learned a song on: I'll always be better at it on that one upright.

For your supplementary fun:
Muscle memory (Wikipedia)
State-dependent learning (Wikipedia)
A page on sight-reading and memory (from The science & psychology of music performance)
My favorite Yann Tiersen-related video ever: Dave Thomas playing La Noyee on accordion

Some music about rhubarb.

I've been making mixes for a few years now, but this is the first one I put together with the intent of sharing with a bigger set of people. Also, usually I make one to immortalize a big-deal-something – there is one for the trip I took to Japan in 2008, for example. This one had a much more desultory inspiration: rhubarb.



I went to Seattle twice over the past month. Each time, I could not pick up a single menu without seeing rhubarb featured as an ingredient somewhere. I ate rhubarb preserves on steel cut oats, rhubarb compote on doughnuts, rhubarb juice/extract in a cocktail... you get the idea. It was so strange to me that I asked a server if it was in season, or if Seattle was just particularly nuts about rhubarb. It was mostly the former, coupled with the fact that rhubarb is grown locally in that area.

Tokyohanna - Rhubarb XXVIII1 by tokyohanna

So there you have it. I got a very strong set of audio associations to mirror the different forms all of this rhubarb took, and it turned into 32 minutes of music that matches the taste perfectly in my head. There's a bit of a tart kick, a drowning syrupy layer, and something else that I can only describe as feeling like the end of a very long dress train. Enjoy!

Sing For Hope's Pop-Up Pianos 2011: A Preview

I got a text message from my friend Marc yesterday morning, saying he was painting an upright piano downtown and that I should visit him. He was working in a huge corporate building, so I was prepared to see him painting a piano all by himself in a cavernous lobby. When he led me through the door to his work space, I was standing in a room filled with pianos – uprights, baby grands, and grands – all hand painted.









If you live in New York, you might remember that there were 60 pianos placed all over the city for a couple of weeks last summer. Well, it's happening again this year, brought to us by Sing for Hope – an organization that brings artists together to volunteer their time for the benefit of the local community (schools, hospitals, etc.). This particular initiative is called Pop-Up Pianos, and will run from June 18th until July 2nd. Their vision is "that all New Yorkers – from Rockaway to Riverdale, Stapleton to Sunset Park – have access to the arts." Watch this trailer of sorts --



Here are shots of Marc's --







Fucking beautiful, no? Also stunning: Here are two of Chris's (one of Marc's best friends, and a friend of mine as well) --









(See the rest here.)

First of all, I've never been in the midst of so many pianos before (there are 88 this year).* This – along with (1) Knowing exactly what these pianos in various stages of transformation were planned for; and (2) That I've been playing for 24 years/pianos have great significance to me – made yesterday afternoon the most overwhelming thing that has happened to me all year.

Be on the lookout come June 18th; on that day you'll be able to see which artist's piano is where on the map on the site (Marc is hoping his goes to Coney Island). You can also follow them on Twitter for news. Man, I haven't felt this strongly about a local nonprofit in ages. Sing For Hope, this is going to be awesome.

-

For more (all over the place) perusing:
A piano-related video I made a while ago
A crazy discussion on major & minor key on AskMeFi
Antiquated Giant, a mural Chris painted a couple of years ago
Beyoncé's new Run The World (Girls) video – Marc painted a bunch of the posters in the background

* Coincidence that there are 88 keys on a piano, and 88 pianos this year? I don't think so ;)

Shark Ridden Waters

Neal is on an aesthetics roll lately; he recently sent me this video for Shark Ridden Waters by Gruff Rhys* --



It sounds like a boppy version of Iron and Wine, with a hint of 70s. Similar to Joanna, I'm mostly taken by the video itself - it's shot beautifully and features this French actress Roxane Mesquida, whom I embarrassingly know nothing about. She is pretty captivating, and reminds me a little of Parker Posey (at least in this video). The whole thing blends the absurd, pretty and wistful seamlessly, which doesn't seem like an easy thing to do. Well done.

The inspiration for this album (Hotel Shampoo) is really interesting; in this bit he talks about it while setting up a domino-style layout of hotel products he'd collected from 15 years of touring. Cool stuff.



* Gruff Rhys was once the frontman of Super Furry Animals, which Neal also introduced me to years ago.

The Teenagers - Made Of

Here's another touch from the recent music past; a Teenagers track that came out a few (to several, woops) months ago, but I only heard it yesterday. It's fantastic, and you can totally hear how they've grown over the past couple of years.

The Teenagers - Made Of by tokyohanna

The sound is fuller than I've heard from them, and it makes me feel simultaneously like I'm flying a plane through a laser-filled tunnel, and feeling like I'm the only person smiling in the middle of a packed dance party. And just because it is very cute, here is a preview video of the track I found on their MySpace page, which makes me smile even more:



I can't wait to hear the rest of this album they're working on and catch them on their next tour. Enjoy!

American Trash

I've lately been very music- and lifestyle-nostalgic for 2007. A visit to GBH.tv did the trick - check out this video for American Trash by Innerpartysystem --



As GBH put it, this is what it would look like if Adbusters made a music video. Pretty spot on, with the rough cut-out and overlayed mostly-pessimistic, sometimes-political text. The aesthetics also mildly reminded me of some other stuff I saw at MoMA last week - a bunch of hilarious posters from Guerrilla Girls, who are these gorilla-masked (I see what they did there) feminist artists who formed in the 80s and appear to be going strong today. Anyway, enjoy. It made me want to go back to the Dafterparty in the middle of the day.

Little Comets - Joanna

I am going to show you a music video that my friend Neal sent over. It's the debut single of a new band called Little Comets, and it's called Joanna. Already off to a good start, right? ^_^



Isn't that one of the most magical things you've ever seen? The colors and lights and scenarios remind me of what I see in my head when I read The Elephant Vanishes or After Dark. It reminds me a lot of how I used to feel in 2007, which is interesting because the album was mixed by the same dude who worked with MGMT.

There's not a lot out there about Little Comets yet, but I loved this line from their Wikipedia page: They are described to play 'kitchen sink indie' music, citing Debussy, Roald Dahl, Ella Fitzgerald and Paul Simon as influences. That might make some people's eyes roll out of their heads and out the door, but I was in a good mood.

Kinda Vampire Weekendish, no? Which also makes sense given the Paul Simon influence, I guess. Take a listen; what do you think?

The Sea and Cake: Weekend

Late this year I got a recommendation for The Sea and Cake's most recent album (which is actually 2 years old). I hadn't really thought about them since I was in graduate school, so I was excited to have a listen. I'm not through hearing the whole thing yet, but so far it's a bit more poppy than their usual chilled-out sound. It's pretty fantastic. I came across this video a few weeks ago and wanted to share. I'm not the type to miss the season I'm not in, but it's one of the most perfect music videos about summer and that carefree, young feeling that I've ever seen.



I started reflecting on this past summer in New York, which was filled with bike rides, barbecues, record stores, balconies, brunches, Brooklyn, bloody marys, and World Cup games (lots of good things seem to start with the letter B). It made me smile and want to listen to Mark Ronson and The Beach Boys as well, which I listened to a lot. Enjoy! And give the rest of Car Alarm a listen.

From The Turtles to 1800s Organs

Tonight I had the intense urge to listen to You Showed Me by The Turtles:



I was compelled to Google "circus organ" after thinking that one never sounded so nice as it does in the opening notes of this song. And I found some really cool pictures:


[source]


[source]


[source]

This type of organ – called a calliope – was wheeled around by traveling circuses in the late 1800s. They work via steam (what?) passing through pipes (what??). Here is an old ad for one from 1874:


[source]

The calliope is kind of distant cousins with the train whistle (which makes sense now, steam and all).

Calliope mechanics evolved a bit over time: First they were played via a series of pins on a metal cylinder (like in a music box). Then there were organ keys, and a person played them (like in that ad, above). Then things went back to rotation-based systems with rolls of paper, and resembled player pianos.

I suppose I've only heard "good" versions of what a calliope sounds like, because apparently it's impossible to keep in tune, can be heard from a mile away (no volume control), and the notes' sound depends on how hot the steam is.

Here's a video of a riverboat calliope; you can see the steam flying out of the pipes:



EDIT: I just received an email from Zachary saying that he played this very calliope on the Delta Queen in the 1980s, "When I was about 5 while traveling down the Mississippi River on a riverboat trip that included a visit to the real setting of Mark Twain's work." Amazing.

And here's a video that came up when I searched "circus organ" on YouTube. The sound is different from a calliope, but I wonder if the vast world of 1800s organs gets mixed up easily since it still came up in search results. A quick Wikipedia search helped me figure out that this is a fairground organ, which is (it turns out) different. These were found around fairs and amusement parks, and if you play this video with your eyes closed, it will make perfect sense. Though, don't listen to this if you're not in a good mood, because you will want to throw your shoe out a window.



Randomly falling into a rabbit hole like this one at 1am makes me realize how many other insane things I don't know about yet. Jeez. I could easily spend another 2 hours researching different types of organs from the mid- to late-1800s (there are dance organs and street organs too; which of these sounds the most like a baseball game?).

Three songs

Music is a huge part of my life, as it probably is for a lot of people. I'm thrilled about how often I hear something that I instantly love because I'm the type to play that song exclusively, over and over for 2 weeks straight. But it isn't very often at all that I am blown away enough to stop what I'm doing and listen to the whole thing with my jaw on my desk. This usually happens about once every year and a half, but I guess I've been lucky lately because we just hit time number three for 2010. Just want to share these three very different songs with you. Maybe you'll like them too, if you haven't heard them yet.

Hot Chip: I Feel Better
I first heard the Bonnie Prince Billy remix of I Feel Better on RCRD LBL, and loved it. My friend Lucy sent me the original, and I wanted to jump out the window. I went home that night and transcribed the entire thing because I wasn't satisfied simply listening to it. Yes, people are sick of autotune by now, but I don't know if I ever will be. It can be used in a ton of different ways, and this way is spectacular. I kind of hate the video because it violates the image that the song put in my head originally, and it's a slightly edited version. And all I need is the magenta of the audio (but click on that link if you're curious and in the mood to be creeped out by an endearing bald man).



France Gall: Poupée De Cire Poupé De Son
I heard this one off of Niotillfem's French Spotify playlist. I stopped working and listened to it 3 times in a row; I couldn't tell at first whether it was a girl or a very young mischievous boy. Then I looked up France Gall and it turns out she was part of a huge musical movement in the 60s called yé-yé. I had heard of it before, but didn't know how influential of an explosion it was. It mostly involved young girls singing about boy stuff in an intentionally innocent way. I don't know what the song is about, but I do know that Serge Gainsbourg wrote it and that it's been covered all over the place (Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene are just 2 of the bands who have).



Mark Ronson x Ghostface Killah: Lose It (In The End)
Some of this album gives me a slight golden oldies feel, but I may be the only one. The song has a good intro, a great beat, and an extremely catchy verse. Almost reminds me of the Four Seasons (it's less than two and a half minutes long, too). He throws in that effect that sounds like you're singing into a fan, and Ghostface swoops in nearly a minute in (similar to how he does in his version of You Know I'm No Good with Amy Winehouse). I smiled the whole time I heard this song for the first time, and it's my favorite on this album (Record Collection; I bought the whole thing after previewing on Spotify and I suggest you do the same. Also check out the final track).



Hope you enjoyed. I might stitch together a playlist that features songs that have affected me similarly in the past; I wonder if it will have a good flow or just sound like a complicated mess. Anyway, has this happened to you this year? What song(s)?

VAMPS

A couple of weeks ago, Ryan from New York-Tokyo sent me a press release for a Japanese rock band that is playing this weekend. They are called VAMPS, and I'm kind of upset that I already have tickets to a different show that night because from the looks of them, they are pretty much the epitome of my idea of what Japanese rockstars are like.





The guys' names are Hyde and K.A.Z, and from what I understand they each had years of being in other bands under their belts before deciding to form VAMPS together. It's hard to find much else about them other than the other bands they were in before, but apparently they are a big deal and sell out all over the place. One look at their MySpace page shows that they have 17,579 friends and six pages of just fansign photos, which is really endearing. And watching this album teaser really makes me sorry that I can't make it:



I know, right?

This is their first world tour, and if you live in NYC you can catch them at Roseland Ballroom this Saturday the 9th. Get your tickets here and let me know how it is!

Penny Sparkle

A few weeks ago, I opened my email to find this:



If the text is too small, it was basically tickets to see Blonde Redhead kick off Fashion Week at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. And for those who don't know, Blonde Redhead is my most favorite band. How good Gilt City is at curating special packages like this should be a separate post entirely, but to give an idea, $80 would get you:

• A ticket to the (very small) show
• An advance copy of their new album, Penny Sparkle (scheduled for release a week later (today))
• An hour of open bar prior to the show (sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery and Tequila Avion)
• A reserved area at the after party
• Two immediate digital downloads of tracks from their new album

This is pretty much insane. Plus, the entire thing was to happen on the eve of my birthday, so I hesitated very little on getting two tickets.

All in all, I loved it. They have this kind of synced magic between the three of them that just kind of works. At one point all they could hear was fuzziness on their ends, and they weren't wearing ear pieces, yet they were still all exactly on beat with each other throughout.

Forgetfulness left my camera at home, but I did get two kinda neat shots with my phone that actually fit the sound of Penny Sparkle really well:





It wasn't until the next day that I got to take a good look at the CD. It's the nicest packaging I may have ever seen from something that doesn't get a lot of attention at all anymore; I can't wait to see what the vinyl looks like.







As far as the album itself, I got to sneak a listen a few days before the show, and it's beautiful. It's very different from the previous two or three releases, and at first I wasn't really sure at all what to think. But you know how sometimes you give a new album a couple dozen spins, you warm to it over time, and in the end you grow to adore it? The process was expedited with Penny Sparkle in a strange way that's never really happened before with any other album. The very next time I heard it, I was really into it. By the third time, elated. By the fourth, inseparable. I actually noticed the spikes with each listen. If 23 was like drowning in a goldish shimmery haze, Penny Sparkle is like drowning in a silvery brushed vapor (which I realize doesn't sound VERY DIFFERENT AT ALL, but trust me). I am not sure how else to describe it except please give it a listen. Here's a link to one of my favorite tracks off the album on The FADER, Not Getting There.