I’m Randi. I’m the new media intern, and my jobs include being awesome and keeping track of our fantastic bands online, among other things. I’m a junior audio production major @ Ithaca College, which is the lesser-known college in Ithaca, NY - home of Cornell. Ithaca is known for hippies, gorges (our town slogan is “Ithaca is Gorges!”, cold weather, and weird festivals like Applefest & Chilifest (both delicious).
((this is me!))
Like Jen, I get to share things with you that I think are really cool. Weirdly enough, we have pretty much the same dream job. I want to work as a music director/supervisor too… the person who puts music into advertisements, movies, etc. If that doesn’t work out, I’d like to work in A&R - the person who gets to discover new music. So… to start my venture into A&R, I’m always looking for unheard of bands to fall in love with. I like pretty much every kind of music… except opera. I just have no idea what they’re saying and their high-pitched voices scare me a little.
Now, to help you discover music, here’s a really cool website I found recently – http://hypem.com/ Hypem makes your life so much easier if you like finding new bands too, or you can search for an artist you like and see what they have on them. They basically search TONS of music blogs for free music, and post it online (or if you don’t feel like downloading them, there’s a music player on the bottom that plays all of the posts on that page). It’s a pretty fantastic way to expand your music knowledge!
Alright… I have to run to class (oh, the joys of being a college student). I’ll be sure to update again soon with more great music-related things for you guys to check out!
Hello everyone, it’s Yawen here. I handle the website’s back-end stuff: maintenance, updates, development. I also handle some design needs, like making show fliers! I recently enabled comments, so feel free to click on that link located at the bottom of each entry. Jenn & I are planning a re-design this fall, so stay tuned. Any suggestions or general inquiries specifically about the website should be sent to me: yawen [at] mushpotrecords [dot] com.
Moving on to music! Today I discovered a desktop application called Blog Remix. Combine today’s blog mania + digital mixtapes and what do we get? An idea similar to Hype Machine, a neat integration of music blogs. With Blog Remix, we are able to choose from a wide variety of blogs and furthermore, add our own, giving us more control over music selection. It’s also an easy way to browse through music blogs. Once the blog is chosen, we see one panel displays the actual blog entry, and the other (on the right) shows a list of streams available on the blog. Lastly, just like Hype Machine you may add the songs to a “mix”. The feel of it is akin to a streaming radio with a multitude of specialty channels. I especially like the less disruptive cross-fade between songs. Otherwise, it’s a lightweight concise application. I’ve downloaded this to both a PC and a Mac. No difference I can easily spot, although on my Mac it was slow and at times songs could not be played or be loaded properly. Still, I would keep my eye out for further developments - after all, this is only in its early stages.
Hi friends,
I’m Jen. I’m excited to be a new addition to Mushpot and I hope to do some awesome things besides eating cheese with Jenn and Yawen. Licensey things! I am not planning on boring you too much with lots of words. The goal is to share with you some things I think are cool. Today, I’ll start with a video. But first, some backstory: As long as I can remember, I have always been interested in how music fits with film, TV, commercials, etc. For a long time, my dream job was to be a music supervisor for films- even before I knew that’s what it was called. On long road trips with my family, I would decide which song would be best if that part of my life would be a scene in a movie- more important of a decision than which actress would play me in said movie. I would watch TV and movies and imagine different songs being played at certain parts and sometimes, strangely enough, I would turn off the volume and play my own music. So, when Jenn approached me about helping out with licensing, it seemed like an obvious place for me.
Okay, so the video. This video is 2 years old but I still think it’s pretty sweet. It’s actually an HP commercial for the iPod. In it, there are a number of different types of dance scenes with music accompanying them that seems contradictory to what should be there. My favorite of these scenes might be break dancers dancing to a bluegrass song called “Orange Blossom Special.” Agoraphone worked on the music selections and posted an article about the process. “‘It wasn’t about being opposite, it was about being delightful,’ says [Beth] Urdang of the spot’s original purpose.” Besides being delightful, it made me think a lot about different places for types of music. I was once at a really poppy show and my friends and I were perplexed to see a guy head-banging and fist-pumping. “What’s the deal with the rocking out?” we wondered as we bouncily twisted about between hand-claps. We felt it was unnecessary to be so hardcore. But maybe for him it was “delightful!”
Anyway, I have said too much for one night. Here’s the video! I don’t know how to embed videos because I’m silly so here’s a link. Enjoy! I hope to talk to you soon but next time I promise not to be too wordy!
Mushpot Records is an independent and underground music label interested in releasing twee, pop, electronic, IDM, acoustic and lo-fi artists as well as alternative and theme-specific children's music compilations.