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Top 5 Gift Ideas For The Music Geek On Your List

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Syndicated from Yahoo! Music Blog: As Heard On…

When it comes to holiday shopping, many of us freeze at the mere prospect of trolling a mall with hundreds of others in search of that perfect and unique holiday gift. Particularly when it comes to tech toys, why scour the shelves when we can make our purchases online at the last minute instead? I don’t know about you, but I love shopping in my PJs – and have the items delivered directly to my doorstep!

Whether you’re shopping at home or in the mall, for yourself or someone else, here are five ideas guaranteed to satisfy the music lover in all of us.

1. The Portable Player, a.k.a. The Boombox

If you’re looking for a dock for your iPod or iPhone, the On Stage IV from JBL is your match. The portable speaker system plays music from your device while simultaneously charging it. It travels easily and packs a punch for it’s small size.

If you can hold out until January, TDK is back in the game with the TDK Boombox, an excellent reinvention of the classic ghetto blaster. Both a two and three-speaker option will be available (the third speaker hosts a dedicated sub-woofer!). The boombox comes with USB support including input for a USB stick, AM/FM radio, and RCA, minijack, and ¼ inch inputs. Settings have illuminated touch controls with two oversized aluminum knobs for volume and radio tuning support. How cool is that!?

However, if you prefer to keep it real with an authentic ghetto blaster, never fear! EBay has an excellent selection spanning different styles and decades.

For some, it’s more important to ditch those bulky D batteries and play it green. The recycled boombox makes an excellent stocking stuffer or gift exchange item (and it ain’t too shabby at $18 a pop).

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The Return of The Society

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The Society Global, originally based in N.Y.C. and Toronto with new outposts in L.A. and Miami, is a social club for creatives of the world.

Acting as social editors, the leaders of the organization aim to provide exposure for the arts on an international level by delivering exclusive cultural events of the music, literature, and cuisine varieties.

The Society kicked off a new series this month entitled The Society Living Room Concert Series. Presented by Johnnie Walker, the series aims to present up and coming bands to attendees in an ultra-exclusive, intimate setting.

The series began in NYC with Black Taxi, and continued on the left coast two weeks ago with a special performance by Silverlake’s Family of the Year.

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Miro and the Enabling of Community Media

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One of my favorite online video platforms to emerge in the last few years is the open-source service Miro.

Formerly known as the Democracy Player, Miro is an Internet tv application developed by the Participatory Culture Foundation.

I’m a big proponent of open-source.  It drives innovation by allowing developers to build on each others’ work,  and makes creating and sharing content easy for everyone (and to support the service, you can adopt a line of code. How clever is that?!).

You can imagine how stoked I was to find out about  Miro Community, an ancillary service created for publishing videos.

Dubbed “The easiest way to make a video website”, Miro Community provides groups like local media organizations and schools with the templates they need to create their own video-based experience.

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Mixtape: Samples from Kanye West’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”

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All the samples used in Kanye West’s new album.  Also contains a selection of snippets from the album itself.

Part 1

Comment #1 – Gil Scott Heron
Woods – Bon Iver
Lost In The World (feat. Bon Iver) – Kanye West
Think – Lyn Collins
Soul Makossa – Manu Dibango
Afromerica (Power) – Continent No. 6
POWER – Kanye West
21st Century Schizoid Man – King Crimson
Iron Man – Black Sabbath
Hell Of A Life – Kanye West
She’s My Baby – The Mojo Men
Stud Spider – Tony Joe White
It’s Your Thing – Cold Grits
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Part 1: Samples from MBDTF [ 51:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Part 2: Samples from MBDTF [ 43:35 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Interview: Shoot The Image

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Although Shoot the Image is a band of the new millennia, their story began the old-fashioned way–on a drunken night out with friends.

After being floored by their future lead singer’s voice at an after party, the friends put together some initial demos in Pro Tools. Through MySpace, they connected to their future producer Boz Boorer (Boorer is most known for his work founding the new wave rockabilly group The Polecats, and later for his work as a co-writer and guitarist with Morrissey).

The MySpace connection eventually led to the recording of their debut album with Boz, deep in the mountains of Portugal.

Below, the band discusses recording off the grid, finding inspiration in lost places, and their unexpected dream collaborator!

1. Wow, how cool that Morrissey guitarist Boz Boorer produced your debut. How did you initially link up? What was it like working with him?

Believe it or not, we initially got in touch with Boz Boorer through MySpace by sending him band and film recommendations.  This began a dialogue that carried on over the course of a year.  We booked a show at the 12 Bar Club in London England and invited him to come.  To our surprise he actually showed up.  We ended up hitting it off and he invited us to record at Serra Vista Studios in Portugal.

Working with Boz was amazing.  He really understood how to bring out the best in our band and the songs.  Serra Vista Studios is located deep in the mountains of Portugal, no cell phone or internet service meant no outside distractions and full attention paid to recording.

The work days were long but laid back and fun.  We had a ton of laughs, ate great food, drank great wine and made an album.  Boz and his wife Lyn were fantastic hosts.  What more could you ask for?

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