3 posts tagged “little dragon”

Such a nice night for mid-November at the 400 Bar. Athletes in Slacks (myspace) warmed up the crowd with their laidback loungey harmonizing sound that only two keyboarders and a guitarist can produce. The band claims all their songs are about love, except later on their hour-long set, they introduced a song about hating two guys from New York. They did finish strong with a cover of INXS's "Never Tear Us Apart", and that's what really matter.

The first time I heard about Swedish band Little Dragon, was in January. Ceji was really into them. Since we generally like Swedish bands here, I did try and keep up with their whereabouts. As it turns out, they're in the middle of their tour through the US to promote their sophomore album, Machine Dreams. Although the band's been here already, they confessed last night that this was their first time in Minneapolis.

They didn't do Ceji's favorite "Recommendation" song, but I though hands-down their best song played was "After The Rain", complete with an amazing ending.

From what I heard from their live set, their new songs seems to drifts from the R&B and Jazz influence to more electro and beats. I think the combination works well for them, especially since I like their big beats/electronica sound.

Little Dragon

So one thing I should point out is that singer Yukimi Nagano's dance moves looks very martial and yoga-like. She's often doing this tough smirk and her fists in boxing stance. It's as if she's saying, "bring it on". The way she dances and handles herself, she seems like she was born to be an entertainer.

I've been to a lot of shows lately, and I can tell you that this was one of the best shows yet. They're heading their way to the East Coast, so definitely check them out. If they're not heading through your city, you should check out Machine Dreams, out now on Peacefrog Records.

 01/04/2009 10:55:00  ♥ written by vu ()

Subscribe to our show at gcast.com (RSS).

This was a lot of fun. I had promised Ceji that it would not take more than 15 minutes of her time, but we ended up taking much longer than expected. Perhaps there will be an imminent part twoer.

I ended up taking out about 20 +/- minutes, to keep the podcast consistent. I felt that the iPhone talk didn't belong with the music-related theme, so added it as a bonus at the end of the podcast. So listen to the end for about 5 minutes of iPhone/iPod love.

Featured song of the podcast is Little Dragon's "Recommendation".

Taking a break from her moving day, I present to you:

CEJI
invisiblesparks.vox.com ♥ ceji.weheartmusic.com
Among some of the more interesting thing on our chat is that Ceji was named after Ciji Dunne of the soap opera Knots Landing. Like most television serial, "whodunnit" are big draws for ratings (think "Who Killed J.R." or "Who Killed Mister Burns" and you get the idea). Well the big cliffhanger for Season 4 was a fast-raising starlet singer Ciji, who showed up, taking most of the spotlight and then ultimately murdered for the cliffhanger at the end of the season.

Incidentally, the actress Lisa Hartman, came back in the next season as Ciji's doppelgänger, Cathy Geary.

Other things we talked about:

• Looking back at 2007, yes, 2007.
• Radio Milwaukee, Radiohead, Havana, etc
• Music discover, back in the day
• Our love for 120 Minutes and Matt Pinfield♥ (the clip I used was the parody of "Pat Minfield" for "120 Midgets")
• Travis and Belle & Sebastian
• T.I.'s Paper Trail, Fleet Foxes, Little Dragon

 01/02/2009 20:25:08  ♥ written by vu ()

For those wondering if I'd died and/or retired: no.  Just been relaxing and enjoying the days off with the various two-day Holidays we've been experiencing. I've been writing everyday for two years now and I guess it's taken some tolls on me. Part of my strategy for this year, 2009, is that I will be doing less reviews and probably more towards per my request, as I really cannot handle the overwhelming music submissions.

The weekly podcast will probably be less-than-weekly because of my schedule. I'm hoping to have on old friends in future shows, particularly Ryan who is still missing in action (although I did catch up with him recently when he was home for the holidays). Also, having said not-so-weekly, I did just wrapped up a recording session with Ceji. The podcast will be out this Sunday, but if you're already subscribed, you may get it in your feed sooner.

Among the music she's listening to, she highly recommended Little Dragon. When I found out that singer Yukimi Nagano was Swedish/Japanese, I immediately thought of Maia Hirasawa. Kudos for the bicycle bell on Little Dragon's song "Recommendation".

Also, just a quick shout-outs to some links/mention of W♥M in the blogs: KPerfetto thinks we're one of the places to discover new music. Yay!

We're also getting a ton of Twitter requests, thanks to Ariel and recently a post from Gulf Coast Bands:

As you can see, Twitter is a very powerful tool if taken advantage of and used correctly. It is in my opinion, that every band and musician should have a twitter for their fans to follow. It’s free and the possibilities are endless on who can spread the word about your work. Check out some links below to other people using twitter.

Music Bloggers & Podcasters & Zines
twitter.com/weheartmusic

I've been trying to follow you back. However, if you're over abusing your twitterness (like posting 30 messages in 30 minutes, you are so removed). I'm also not convince about twitter, right now that 140-character limit is ridiculous and if you follow over 20 people, it's completely and utterly useless.

So, I was snooping around the Facebook, I still don't really use the service so it was a shock to me that we have 76 fans - shocked that 76 people accidentally clicked on the 'become a fan' button. Anyway, I think you may have to be an admin to view the breakdowns, but between women vs men - the girls are winning with 62%. Our demographic is the sweetspot of 25-34 year olds (which I will be leaving this age group very soon as I'm a very old man).

We now see about 50/50 digital submissions vs physical CD/mailouts. At the rate it's going, I would hazard digital distribution will be more than 75% by the year's end. Which I'm fine with, but I still ♥ old compact discs.

Other trends I've started to notice is that more people I know are starting to drop their cable bills in favor of just watching television via the internet. I think this is great news, considering that I've been doing this for a while and dropping over-the-air altogether last year.

One service that I've been testing out is Playon. The program is still very beta, I've experiences freeze-ups and "data corruption". When you're watching a serial television show, that's upsetting as it's not like you can skip to the next episode. It's also cool to be able to watching hulu or netflix via my ps3, but it's lame that I have to have a computer to stream the media. I may think about purchasing something like a Roku box if/when it is able to stream hulu and other media sources.

So that's about it for now. Hope 2008 was good for you, and here's to 2009.