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Music Supervisor Cheat Sheet (June/July 2008)
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So, here’s the deal. I, by nature, am a lazy person. Given the choice between driving 50 miles for $200 and sitting in one place for $5, I will gladly chill with Mr. Lincoln.
Combine that with all of the changes and increased workload here at Burst, and you get an “I didn’t get around to this post last month” salad. So, in deference to you, dear readers, I will be making this post 2x better than the last Music Supervisor’s Cheat Sheet (which, I’ll be honest, I wrote on the crapper).
Onward and upward!
Suburban Kids with Biblical Names - “Funeral Face”
Ok, so this is a no brainer for the indie-centric music supervisor. Imagine Vampire Weekend fronted by a guy who sounds like a cross between Jens Lekman and Stephen Merritt (he of Magnetic Fields and Volvo commercial fame). Did you just get a little turned on? No? Well, then you need to find a new line of work.
The Voluntary Butler Scheme - “Trading Things In”
Ramshackle, Elephant 6-aping, and ridiculously catchy. This track says to your consumers “We don’t take ourselves TOO seriously.” Your customers will then respond “The fact that you used this song for your commercial makes me want to buy your product instead of your competitors.” Which is, you know, kind of the idea.
Sam Sparro - “Black & Gold”
Aside from this track being inescapably cool, it would probably serve you best if the product you were shilling was mainly comprised of the colors black and gold, and if your core audience were metrosexual, club-going hipsters. I’m looking directly at you, generic energy drink that wishes to crack Red Bull’s hold on the caffeinated alcohol market.
Munk - “Live Fast Die Old (Ed Banger Allstar Mix)”
I just really want to hear that freak-fest synth line on broadcast television. Honestly, I have no idea what the phrase “Live Fast, Die Old” could work for… the Lincoln Town Car, perhaps? Somebody use this one, for me.
Blitzen Trapper - “Furr”
OK, so hear me out. What the Discovery Channel needs is a show about a baby that is given up at birth to a family of wolves, who raise it as their own. It would totally be better than “Meerkat Manor,” and that show pulls, like, millions of viewers a week (I’m sure there’s research somewhere to support this). This song was made to be the theme song of that show.
Creaky Boards - “Songs I Didn’t Write”
For the uninitiated, here’s the back-story :
Coldplay lands the song “Viva La Vida” in an iTunes commercial. A band called Creaky Boards makes a stink about Chris Martin seeing them perform a year earlier, and then lifting one of their melodies. The internet is fired up for 10 minutes, and it all ends in a weary “meh.” What better move for Microsoft to make than to license the Creaky Boards’ song for a Zune commercial? It’s perfect, it’s a way for Microsoft to go to bat for the smaller indie band while Apple courts the stadium fillers. NOT making moves like this is something Bill Gates would do. Steve Ballmer, you’re in charge now, step up to the plate and hit this bastard out of the park!
OK, so I lied, that was only like 1.5x better than the last MSCC. [ms]
Ben says:
7/3/2008 -I’m not going to be able to get that idea turned into a show for you, but big thanks for introducing me to Blitzen Trapper. That’s a great song.
jen says:
8/6/2008 -you’re worthless and have no expertise in music. who the fuck do you think you are?
Matt says:
8/7/2008 -Jen,
My name is Matt Smith. I am 29 years old. I was bon in Appleton, WI. I started taking piano lessons in kindergarten, because my parents made me. I hated it for a while, but after a couple years I started to love it. I wasn’t a prodigy or anything, but I was ok at it. In middle school I started learning the bassoon, kind of because I liked how dorky it was. I started hearing the bassoon in some of my parents old pop records, like “Tears of a Clown” by Smokey Robinson and “59th Street Bridge Song” by Simon and Garfunkel.
In high school, I started getting interested in jazz, took some lessons at the conservatory, and played in a quintet on weekends. Improv was a new world to me, getting to make stuff up instead of reading it off the page.
I also took up guitar, actually learned by buying one of those wall posters with the chords on them. I was starting to get tired of bassoon, because the parts you get in high school very rarely diverge from “oom-pah” stuff, so I started recording the half-hour of practice my parents made me do every day. Once I had 4 or 5 practices recorded, I would just play them on my stereo so my parents would think I was practicing, and I would read, or draw, etc. That was my first real foray into recording.
With my guitar, I started doing rudimentary multi-track recording by playing into one boombox, then then playing into another with the first one rolling. God, those recordings were horrible! It definitely stoked my interest in the area, though.
After high school, I kinda meandered around a little bit, not really sure what I wanted to do. I DJ’d at the local college radio station for a while, but that didn’t really suit my personality. I finally went to college in Stevens Point (a little town just about in the center of Wisconsin) as a music major, but quickly lost interest, because I wanted to compose, and the college would only allow me to focus on performance.
I finally decided to follow the engineering route, and my wife and I picked up and moved to Florida so that I could go to Full Sail. I had a pretty good experience there, and learned a lot (gonna be paying for it forever, though).
After I graduated, I moved back up to Milwaukee, and took a job as an intern at The Burst Collective. I did that for a while, but since it was unpaid, I had to stop and get a paying job. I was working as an office temp when Burst called and offered me a job.
I started as an assistant engineer, but I soon proved that I was capable of composing. It’s a pretty great job, I get to use my love of music and (apparently) marginal knowledge of music to write songs that get heard around the world.
I also get to write this blog, in which I post (hopefully) amusing and somewhat informative blog posts. If one of these Music Supervisor Cheat Sheets helps 1 person discover a new band, and maybe gets that band a placement in an ad somewhere, awesome. If the music isn’t your cup of tea, well, whatever, don’t listen to it.
So that’s me in a (large) nutshell!
Tell me a bit about yourself, Jen, I’d love some music recommendations, or maybe even an elaboration on your comment.
Hope to hear from you!
Matt
Daniel Holter says:
8/7/2008 -I think Matt has appreciably answered your question, “who the fuck do you think you are?”
Now, Jen, who are YOU?
I’m sure your illustrious background and visionary musical opinions are legitimized by some high office or papal authority, right? Maybe you’re a board member of the International Commission On Musical Snobbery. Please enlighten us, dear Jen.