http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2010/mar/17/chatroulette-ben-folds

ChatRoulette piano player

Play it again, ChatRoulette

Hooded pianist entertains strangers on webcam service ChatRoulette – could he be Ben Folds?

It’s what ChatRoulette was invented for – so a chap in a hoodie at the piano can make up songs about whatever you are doing – immediately! The keyboard guy clearly knows his stuff, and fortunately wasn’t required to make up a song about anything too, you know … un-family friendly. The voice, the piano skills, and those big glasses prompted speculation that it could be none other than Ben Folds, formerly of Ben Folds Five fame and now just plain old BF. The piano man later denied he was Ben Folds, according to reports. But he would say that wouldn’t he? Looks familiar?

It does sound a lot like him, but there are bits where it couldnt be him either… Makes me almost wish I had a webcam.. Almost.

Oh Courtney oh how love thee..

New video from OK GO!

Which is so completely cool its not even funny.

Just hope they dont have a case of the Weezer syndrome where the videos make the band…..

this just came through via twitter:

@nineinchnails: ? http://www.nin.com/?id=96673

which is a link to this:

aHHHHHHH new music sooooooooooon!!!!

and no it not pop… lol.

Florence + The Machine’s album Lungs. Its so beautiful and Im so mad it took me over a year to sit down and really listen to it. Im ashamed to admit it took ‘Dog Days Are Over‘ to be used for the promo of the network debut of Slumdog Millionaire on Channel 4 back in January to make me pick the album up. Totally and utterly in love with it. Beautiful.

I love my chicks with guitar thing. If you love Kate Bush or Grace Slick, you will adore Florence and the Machine…

Oh and if you still doubt her, check her collaboration with Dizzie at the Brits in February

‘Samantha’ As performed on Jonathan Ross on Friday night.

Makes me excited if theres a new record out. Even if its without Melissa and Eric

Im not a huge Pink fan (well LOVE the colour, but not so much the singer) and just saw a video of her performance at last nights Grammys and Im in awe of her.

She did this ALL live.  Amazing. No lip synching, no help from ‘backing vocals’ etc. A straight performance.

“When I do it [on tour], I don’t have lights above me. Tonight, there were lights above me, so it almost went into a strobe thing, and I actually did get a little turned around. I thought … I was going to fall on my nude butt. But I worked it out. I would say that no one ever has another excuse to lip sync.”

Amazing. She totally gets loads more of respect from me (and maybe ill venture to listen to more of her music…..) Plus its pretty beautiful to watch. Very Cirque du Soleil-esque…

I know Perez Hilton isnt the source of all things reliable, but he just posted this little bit of interesting information:

http://perezhilton.com/2010-01-23-kings-of-leon-get-new-deal

And it’s almost unheard of!

Kings of Leon have left Columbia Records for Warner Brothers where they will be paying to record their own albums!

The band will pay half the recording costs from their own pocket and in return have more control and get a bigger share in the profits.

“Kings of Leon are one of the few bands on the planet who have enough heft to negotiate such a favourable deal,” said a source. “It is virtually unheard of but it shows how keen Warner Brothers were to have them on their books.”

Normally, artists are given an advance from the label, which they have to pay back along with profit sharing.

Good for you, KOL!

Posted: January 23, 2010 at 10:40 am

Which is quite interesting.

Is this how artists will have more control over their work (and hopefully still pushing boundries without the labels intervening in a bad way?) giving the artist more freedom without fearing the album wont sell. Also leaves more responsibility with the artists instead of the labels. Really they’re only needed for distribution and publicity needs and thats really about it.

Reminds a wee bit of Becks deal with DGC/Geffen and how hes allowed to make a record with any label and they have to release it. But that was back in the days of Grunge and main-streaming of the US indie scene. Deals like that were thought to be no more. For that brief period from about 1991-1994 artists (well at least the ones that were filed under ‘Grunge’) had lot more freedom and less restrictions with what they could and couldnt do. After all being signed to Columbia or DGC wasnt most bands first label, just one that could get the CD/LP out on time.

There was a point to this post and ive seem to have lost it.

Hes kinda been on a sabbatical for me. I dont know, maybe it was the whole releasing too much new material at once. Maybe it was the bad taste left in my mouth when I saw him play the Manchester Apollo back in Nov 2007. Either ways its been a while. Im slowly starting to re-listening to him again and just rediscovered a track off Easy Tiger called ‘Two’ Its simply beautiful.

It takes two when it used to take only one

Simply beautiful….

(BTW what prompted me to re-listen to that track in particular was it was in the background of a True Blood Season 1 episode I was watching)

One of my all time faves. Enjoy