Colorado-based glitch duo Pretty Lights have put a new track up on their website ahead of their forthcoming album, Passing By Behind Your Eyes. The track is called Sunday School and it is solid. Check it out, and cop it from their site, www.prettylightsmusic.com.
This track is called Hide & Seek, by Imogen Heap. It's not new, but it's beautiful and kind of genius. I first came across it a couple years ago. Listen to it, because it's the base for the next two tracks I'm about to talk about.
Turns out that tool is Jason DeRulo, and he's not a tool at all - the track is actually pretty dope. Musically I can hear a lot of Knock You Down by Keri Hilson, which is another R&B track I happen to rather enjoy.
When I heard Hide & Seek, I knew it was ripe for a remix, but for some reason the idea of sampling it never crossed my mind. The DeRulo track does a pretty decent job of it though, I feel. Peep it for yourself and see what you think.
I'll be spinning this Saturday night at Rock Island Live. Come check it out. 2-4-1s!
My friend @jlcs621 said I should post a tweet a day recommending music. How about a blog post instead where you can give it a listen? I'm making no promises about a post a day, but this is a better venue.
Jill wanted relaxing house, so I'm thinking Progressive House and Lounge style tunes.
First up is BT's new track, Rose of Jericho. I like the Adam K & Soha remix. After the departure that was This Binary Universe, this track marks a return to the progressive trance and house styles that he's better known for, and his musical genius shows through in this one. It sounds like the old BT, which makes me happy. The track takes a few bars to build, so stick with it.
Chill and Lounge might also be right along the lines of what Jill is looking for. The tea and crumpet eating redcoats over at Hed Kandi (now a part of a little outfit you might have heard of called Ministry of Sound) put out a number of annual collections of great sub-genres of house music - lounge, chill, disco, etc. Here's an older track, but one of my favorites from their Serve Chilled compilation from 2006.
I had another post lined up, but the news about DJ AM requires at least a mention. The man was a genius. The art of DJing and the world in general is a poorer place without him.
RIP.
(I promise, this is music-related. Bear with.)
Sad face. Today is the last day that the children's show Reading Rainbow will air on PBS stations. The show aired for 26 years and earned 24 Emmys. It premiered in 1983, stopped production in 2006 when funding ran out, and today the PBS contract expires, so they can no longer feed it to local affiliate stations.
I'm sad about this. This show was just as much a part of my childhood as Sesame Street and Mister Rogers (which, by the way, are the only two childrens shows with a longer run than Reading Rainbow).
But there's more to it than just being sad. I could get really angry about this. Part of the reason the show ran out of money is "a shift in [the government's] philosophy of educational television programming" during the Bush administration. I'll paste part of an article from washingtonpost.com, which mostly quotes NPR.
A Friday morning NPR report noted the show's conclusion and aired comments by John Grant, director of content at the show's home station, WNED in Buffalo. Producers were unable to secure the several hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to renew the show's broadcast rights, Grant said.
Why? According to NPR:
Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading -- like phonics and spelling.
Grant says that [the Public Broadcasting Service], [the Corporation for Public Broadcasting] and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read -- but that's not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do.
"Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read," Grant says. "You know, the love of reading -- [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read."
In the report, a PBS official acknowledged the shift in reading philosophy from "how do we get kids interested?" to a focus on phonics.
For a jog down memory lane, check out the old school theme song:
And now, check out this fun rework courtesy of 8-Bit Betty:
Thank you, LeVar Burton. The show will be missed.
This year at Wakarusa we were fortunate enough to catch a pretty dope electronic act out of Fort Collins, CO called Pretty Lights. I've been dropping a couple of their tracks into my sets lately, and rocking them out in the car and the office quite a bit.
Here's a couple of my favorites:
And their live performances are pretty sick too:
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