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Kings Of A&R is digging Northern Room, and from the looks of the comments at their site, they’re not alone. It’s super cool to see people responding to a project that we believe in and played a part in building.

If you can’t make it to New York this week for CMJ, check out the latest news directly from the band :

“As most of you know, Northern Room is going to New York City this week to do a showcase at the CMJ Music Marathon. These timeslots are difficult to get, and are a fantastic opportunity for us. Normally, we would just be asking for your support and prayers, but — thanks to a last-minute offer from amiestreet.com — you have the opportunity to see our show live, through the magic of the internets!”

Head over to Northern Room’s page at Amie Street and click on the ‘Videos’ tab… you’ll be able to watch a live feed from their showcase at Arlene’s Grocery tomorrow, October 17.

More from the band :

Bill Wyman absolutely nails it with his Moby Quotient - The Art of Selling Out.

Using the criteria Disconnect, Sacredness, Origins, Reputation, Wealth and Time he offers a definitive formula for determining if an artist has, indeed, sold out.

Of course, I still maintain :

It’s easy to say you’ll never sell out when no one’s making any offers.

And we’re on record with an opinion of Moby’s recent offerings.

Full story at the Washington Post. Thanks, Hypebot. [dh]

This fall has brought a flurry of activity to the Northern Room camp.

Not only has their music been placed in recent episodes of online serial dramas such as LonelyGirl15 and The Facebook Diaries, they’ve spent the past couple of weekends here in Burst HQ’s Studio A putting the finishing touches on masters for their new CD, Last Embrace Deluxe Edition, and they’re headed to New York City next week for a coveted slot at CMJ 2007.

Northern Room performs October 17 at Arlene’s Groceryin NYC

Borrowing the name from their debut EP, Last Embrace, this new release features all of the songs (6) from that EP as well as the 4 songs that I produced for their Only Seconds EP.

They’re also including 3 bonus live acoustic tracks, a previously unreleased tune from the Nashville sessions for Last Embrace, and a music video for the atmospheric and dynamic title track (see below).

Here’s a full track listing for Last Embrace Deluxe Edition :

1. We’re on Fire
2. Galaxy
3. For All These Years
4. Dutch Radio
5. Stars of God
6. Last Embrace
7. Waiting
8. Let Me Out
9. Everyday
10. This Wreckage

BONUS MATERIAL :

live acoustic

11. Last Embrace
12. A Witness
13. We’re On Fire

previously unreleased

14. Home

PLUS the music video for Last Embrace

Of course you’ll want to grab a copy of their new CD (right?!)…

Good news : It’s included with advanced tickets to their concert at Milwaukee’s Historic Turner Hall. Billed as the “biggest Northern Room show yet,” it promises to be a great time with a few surprises as the evening goes on (including a full gospel choir!).

See Northern Room live at Historic Turner Ballroom on November 2

Advance tickets are a mere $7 ($10 at the door). Seven bucks for a disc chock full of good music and one of the hottest concert tickets in town?! Can’t beat it. Grab yours here.

If you can’t make it to New York for their performance at CMJ on Oct. 17, you will be able to catch a live stream of the show courtesy of Amie Street.

If you can’t make it to Milwaukee for their show on Nov. 2, check out Kramp & Adler’s morning show on 102.1 (or streaming on their website), where Northern Room are the featured guest that morning.

Of course, the entire Northern Room library of music is available here at Burst Labs for select commercial licensing opportunities.

Congrats, guys… it’s fun watching great things happen for great people. You’ve been working your butts off and it shows. All of us at Burst are happy to say “we knew you when.” [dh]

Apologies to Dylan on the post title, but we are definitely attempting to navigate some fast moving waters these days.

Trent Reznor & NIN are the latest to bolt the music industry as we know it, joining Radiohead on the front lines of the assault on Business As Usual in the music industry.

From the NIN homepage today :

Hello everyone. I’ve waited a long time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. Exciting times, indeed.

We’ve previously posted the Burst Labs take on Radiohead’s experiment, and today’s news from NIN is part of the same Indie Artist Hype Machine with almost no relevance to your up and coming band or artist. Without major label machinery over the past two decades helping both NIN and Radiohead get to the pinnacle of success (at least where a rabid fan base is concerned), they wouldn’t be able to embark on this brave new venture.

You have to applaud creative thinking in the music business wherever you can find it, if for no other reason than to support genuine creativity in an industry so devoid of it in recent years. I’m fully aware of the depths to which a label can go to destroy a band’s art and credibility, and to milk every last cent out of their recoupable expense accounts, but for an artist who has clearly reaped the benefits of being signed as a major label recording artist you have to wonder if Mr. Reznor had thought through the possible alternate meanings of his lyric “Will you bite the hand that feeds?” [dh]

One of our favorite up and coming indie bands, The Farewell Circuit, have been hard at work playing shows this past summer and gearing up to record their next batch of songs. We had a blast pulling their debut EP together (you can hear some before and after tracks at my producer site), and - line-up tweaks notwithstanding - they’re getting ready for their next few steps (writing, showcasing, yadda yadda…).

For starters, Danny, Geoff, Evan and DJ will be interviewed on Kramp & Adler’s morning show this Friday morning October 5th at 9:30… on the dial at 102.1 in Milwaukee. For those outside the region, or if you just dig the non-terrestrial-broadcast-thing, check out the 102.1 website for a live stream, and make friends with the hosts at Kramp’s myspace page.

TFC will also be playing at the Miramar Theatre this Saturday, October 6th, for Snapdragon Fest. We do like our festivals in Milwaukee, but we’re not sure you’ve ever had an opportunity to take in this much shoe-gazing, parent-loathing emo or petulant and frenetic ska in one weekend. Of course we dig Snapdragon Records… we rep some of their artists for music licensing opportunities at Burst Labs.

And the boys are headed to Nashville for an October 17th showcase with a few major label affiliates after building on the connections that their new guitarist, DJ, brings to the team (he was a member of This World Fair, whose song Don’t Make Me Wait was featured in the thriller Disturbia).

Be sure to check out all of The Farewell Circuit’s songs that are currently available for licensing at Burst Labs, and wish them luck at the Farewell Circuit myspace page… or head over to Third Shift Recording Co. and buy a copy of their debut EP (or grab your favorite song at iTunes). [dh]

In the wake of the Radiohead announcement that they would leave it up to the consumer to decide how much to pay for their new album, “In Rainbows,” I went to their website to pre-order it.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a semi-fan of Radiohead. I think they’ve made some great albums (The Bends, OK Computer), as well as some criminally overrated albums (Kid A, Hail to the Thief). I buy a lot of music, both from physical retailers and online. I have not, as of yet, heard any of the tracks that have leaked.

As I navigated through their website and added “In Rainbows” to my cart, I was presented with the choice.

How much did I want to pay for the album?

The website uses Euros as its currency, but for simplicity’s sake, I’ll use American Dollars. There was an immediate instinct to type “0.01,” as I am a cheap bastard (though, in reality, there is a 93 cent surcharge added to your purchase). Then, I thought, “well, it would cost me 10 bucks on iTunes.” Of course, on iTunes, the majority of the profits from that sale would go to the label. Radiohead being without a label, I cut it in half. $5 of cold, hard profit in exchange for an album’s worth of music. I couldn’t help but think that sounded like too little to pay for the results of months of creative and physical labor.

It led me to the question, and the brilliantly executed point that Radiohead has made… What is music worth?

It’s a pretty relevant and salient question to ask in the industry Burst Labs makes its farthings in. When someone will throw a few GarageBand loops together, call it a music bed, and find someone to unload it on at a bargain-basement price, doesn’t it devalue the work of those of us that are staring through our jeweler’s loops, trying to make our work as legitimate and genuine as we can?

When Moby can empty the trash folder on his PowerBook onto a website and call it a “free production music catalog”, how do you compete? Because, I mean, it’s Moby… basically saying “this music has no value to me.”

So now, I sit in front of my monitor wondering how much of money I should give to Thom Yorke & Co. The thing that mystifies me is that the decision is so hard. Record prices are arbitrary, conjured up by what the market will bear, and in this case, the market has the ability to say “I want to pay next to nothing for your hard work,” which would be a travesty.

I have no answers, and I still haven’t decided how much to pay.

Feel free to discuss below. [ms]

For the recording geeks among us :

The new Sept/Oct 2007 issue of Tape Op has feature on Bob Paquette Sr.’s Microphone Museum, located right here in Milwaukee (that’s right - it ain’t just Les Paul and Liberace… heh).

Paquette’s 840 page compendium on microphone history is as complete a guide as exists, so if you’re into the kinky stuff like pre-60s tube mics, ribbon element technology, and RIAA curves, be sure to check it out.

There’s more gear porn and info at their site.

Having had the privilege of being inside the sonic sanctuary at Select Sound Service, I can attest to the level of detail (nay, anal retention) and commitment to thoroughness and quality. Paquette sums up his attitude in the Tape Op article :

A famous concert pianist… [Ignace Jan Paderewski] said, “If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience knows it.” There’s the problem I have with [some] of the people I hire. They think that once they finish [a project] they’re done [learning]. They don’t even read the magazines or try to keep up. You’ve got to stay ahead.

An inspiration, certainly, and advice we apply every day at Burst. Our musical obssessions and voracious appetite for production ideas and recording knowledge drive us week in and week out while writing, playing and producing new tracks for our production music catalog.

For more on the ‘recording geekery’ tip (a term we use quite affectionately) :

If you haven’t seen Les Paul : Chasing Sound yet, find it and savor it. Tivo it. Netflix it.

Here’s Stevie Wonder performing Superstition live in the studio… 1973.

Here’s Rick Rubin in studio with Jay-Z making ‘99 Problems’. Rick’s been in the news lately, you know. Check it.

Here’s a documentary on Steve Albini… but don’t call him a producer.

And here’s a list of the Top Ten Recording “Mistakes” found on commercially released records. [dh]

The new Maritime CD is set to drop next month and we’ve got a sneak peek for music supervisors and producers who haven’t received a pre-release copy.

Dare we call them indie darlings, but hey - when you’ve had members of The Dismemberment Plan, Promise Ring, and The Arcade Fire grace your songs, you’re bound to attract some indie blog love.

from the Pitchfork review :

“… unrepentant and finely executed…”

“Davey von Bohlen’s melody bobs and weaves around the guitar-less verses, and I’ve never heard the lyric ‘freaks come out at night’ sound quite so innocuous. But this one’s all about the chorus, coming on so strong it takes a few listens to find out how sweet it is, with reaching, swooning vocals that cement von Bohlen as the star here.”

Here’s two songs recorded and mixed right here at Burst HQ by Stuart Sikes (Cat Power, Cerys Matthews, The White Stripes, Modest Mouse), who handled the music production duties on this new set of killer tracks :

Maritime - For Science Fiction


Maritime - Guns Of Navarone

When they were working in Studio A back in April, Davey confided to us that this felt more like a rock record, more like themselves than their previous effort, harder hitting, with more hooks… and they were ecstatic with the results at that point. I have to say, after hearing the completed disc, mission accomplished… can’t wait to see what’s in store for these very talented - and super kind - hometown heroes.

Thanks to Flameshovel Records, who brought you Maritime’s previous - and critically acclaimed - We, The Vehicles. Their latest release, Heresy and the Hotel Choir, is out Oct. 16. [dh]

Marcel Marceau is gone. Here’s the obit at NYTimes.

In memory, a musical tribute from Burst co-conspirators M. Robertson and J. Richter, performing as This Train (a project I mixed over a decade ago - can hardly believe it!)… here’s ‘Mimes Of The Old West’ :

This Train - Mimes Of The West

[dh]

For some reason my initial visit to Coudal.com is burned into the browser history of my brain. It may be due to the fact that the person who introduced me to the website/firm/brand, Jon Mueller, is someone I like and respect (his intro was something akin to “click around and try to tell me what they do”). But I suspect it has more to do with the fact that long after my first foray into the world of Coudal they’ve consistently delivered a fun (and occasionally quite useful) experience in a crowded online world.

Recently, in conjunction with Portland’s Draplin Design Co., they’ve launched their latest ‘CP Thing’, Field Notes.

3, 48-page, 3.5″ X 5.5″ notebooks (and a couple of surprises… a pencil, a pen, and a Fleet Vehicle Identification Symbol System sticker).

A simple idea, brilliantly executed. And not only an extension of their brand, but the type of item that somehow captures the imagination of those of us who enjoy ideas that are sublime in their detail and thorough in their implementation.

When produced with such passion, a brand becomes music.

It’s a level of detail that we strive for every day here at Burst Labs and The Burst Collective… whether it’s recording low-bitrate samples for our vintage video game soundtrack collection (Degenerate Gamer), hiring legit mullet-sporting lead guitarists for our tribute to 80s hairbands (Blind Allegiance), or recording members of Johnny Cash’s band for our vintage gospel songs (Southern Fried Gospel)… we hope to inject an authentic and genuine passion for the tiniest of details in each of our productions.

So, anyway, yup… we ordered a set of Field Notes. They arrived yesterday.

I’ve spent the better part of an hour today grabbing photos, uploading files, typing this post. What is it about certain brands that elicits passionate cult followings?

Check out the pic of the Field Notes pen sitting in our compressor rack. No, it doesn’t have any practical purpose. Just thought it looked kinda cool.

I do have actual plans for my Field Notes set, to be sure. I delivered one of them to Studio A at Burst HQ for us to use in documenting our recording sessions. The grid paper printed on the pages will come in quite handy for studio layout details, and the mini ruler along the edge of the back cover will help us measure tight microphone placements that we may need to repeat for a client someday :

The second book is headed for my car (along with the Fleet Identification sticker), where I’ll record business travel mileage.

Of course, as a songwriter and producer I’ll be keeping the third Field Notes by my side at all times, ready to jot down details of a pre-alarm-clock dream or an inspired lyric or melody.

I’ll have to grab another 3-pack for shoddy sketches (Practical Application no. 5), big ideas/insights (no. 11), and my last will and testament (no. 30), all great ideas included inside the back cover.

Keep up the inspiring work, guys! [dh]