Day and Night Digital | Irish Independent

Irish artists turn to crowdfunding

As wallets tighten and money is less available to artists for creative projects, Irish musicians and filmmakers are turning to online funding as a way of creating the capital required to make their art.

Sites like Sellaband, Kickstarter, Slicethepie and Pledgemusic have given people in the arts a new way of appealing to fans directly. Each crowdfunding project has different incentives depending on your level of investment: from receiving a production credit to a pre-release download to private concerts to revenue shares – if you’re a fan and you have spare cash, chances are there is something you can get out of it beyond satisfaction.

Since crowdfunding began, it has seen a fair mix of success and failure. Public Enemy were forced to concede that their original $250,000 asking price was too high. Now, nearly 11 months later, the band have raised 80% of their re-adjusted $75,000 price. Duke Special’s Pledge Music finance-raising efforts for three new albums earlier this year received 129% of its asking more modest total.
(more…)

Band of Blogs: Snow Patrol mashup, Sacred Animals, Jay-Z & Kanye’s surprise EP and more

Sacred Animals
Recalling the timbres of Bon Iver and Thom Yorke, Sacred Animals is a solo project from a mysterious Wexford man whose debut EP Welcome Home deals in fanciful and feral piano-led ballads.
http://sacredanimals.net

Wild Nothing – Golden Haze
A genuine three and a half minutes of ’80s dream pop made in 2010 by Virginian Jack Tatum, Golden Haze is the perfect soundtrack to dancing around your room doing that dance from The Breakfast Club.
Listen at Pitchfork

Kanye and Jay-Z’s surprise EP
Watch The Throne is an impromptu five-track EP from two of rap’s big players with appearances from Bon Iver, Nicki Minaj and Rick Ross. Check Kanye’s Twitter for MP3s.
http://twitter.com/kanyewest

Snow Patrol mashup

Galway bootleg artist Phil Retrospector mixed Jimmy Ruffin’s What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?’ with Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars. P Diddy saw it and put it on his blog. Now, you can hear it too.

Entire band discographies distilled into a single tweet & other links

• You can now get your ashes pressed into vinyl when you die.
• Music discovery in 2010 vs 1990.
• Entire band discographies distilled into a single tweet.
• Hipster Dinosaurs FTW!
• How to fix Dublin transport by a German.

10 classic games reborn on the iPhone & other links

• The nominations for the Irish Web Awards are open.
• The 25 most disturbing movies ever.
• 10 classic games reborn on the iPhone.
• Sometimes a product in reality is not what it shows on the box.
• The best sci-fi toilet graffitti ever?

Videos of The Week: The worst cover version ever, Cee-Lo, The Last Exorcism & Spike Jonze short film

The worst cover version ever
Sweet Child Of Mine is a song which is often-covered never equalled. NOTHING could be worse than this Brazilian version. In fact, not much is worse than this full-stop.

Cee-Lo – F**k You
The voice of Gnarls Barkley has had his heart broken but rather than wallow in sorrow, Cee-lo’s raising his middle finger to the former partner. The typographic video received over a million views in four days.

(more…)

Sites of the Week: Facebook Places, Shuffler.FM, Dublin Milkman

Facebook Places
The social network giant revealed its challenger to location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla last week.
http://www.facebook.com/places/

Shuffler.FM
The latest music blog aggregator sends you on a journey of the blogs in question while playing the song in a handy player. Your path is chosen by genre.
http://shuffler.fm

Dublin Milkman
Make Sunday that little bit easier and get your papers, milk and Bretzel Bakery bread delivered to your door.
http://www.dublinmilkman.ie

What’s your Wu-Tang member name & the best links this week

• A designer’s minimal take on a collection album sleeves.
• 30 popular Irish tweeters.
• What’s your Wu-Tang Clan member name?
• Only Photoshop can bypass a little thing called time and help put together a series of impossible couples, including eh… Veronica Lake and Vanilla Ice?
• Why Back To The Future is oh so wrong.

The 50 greatest vocoder songs & other great links

• The 50 greatest vocoder songs.
• Bands with terrible hair – a chart.
• Vintage social network adverts.
• Photos from World War II photoshopped into their modern locations.
• Kanye West’s tweets as New Yorker cartoons.

How Twilight can ruin your life & other links

How Twilight can ruin your life.

Google is drunk.

20 weird and goofy facebomb photoshops.

Photos from the early 20th century in colour.

Photos from the American air guitar championships.

Band of Blogs: Beat Connection, Adebisi Shank, Clare Maguire, The Knocks

Beat Connection
Coming to our ears via their free download debut EP, Surf Noir is eight tracks of jangly electro dreamy dance music out of Seattle. It’s summer distilled.
http://beatconnection.bandcamp.com

New Adebisi Shank track
The first sample from Wicklow’s Adebisi Shank second album This Is The Second Album Of A Band Called Adebisi Shank, International Dreambeat is pure rainbow rock made of polychromatic guitars and sunbeam rhythms. The album is out on August 20th.
Listen at Nialler9

Clare Maguire
Described as a “big-voiced Birmingham belter” by Dublin blogger The Bubble Boy, Claire Maguire certainly has soulful chops. Check out her new single Strangest Thing, as recommended by Neon Gold. One to watch.
Listen at The Bubble Boy

The Knocks
This NYC producer duo started off with remixes of The Temper Trap, Ellie Goulding, Katie Perry and Passion Pit. Now making original tracks, their sound is pop aimed at the dancefloor with a strong emphasis on electro fun.
http://theknocks.muxtape.com