Essential Music Apps For 2012

To help ring in the New Year, I have decided to start off 2012 with a list of some of the apps that I like to use to help me discover great music. There are countless music apps all over the iTunes App Store (sorry Android users), but here are some of my personal recommendations.

A Man of Technology and Music

It's obvious to see the legacy Steve Jobs has made in the field of technology. There will be no other innovator like him. Still, I never realized how influential he is until I scroll through songs of my 160 GB iPod. It was then that I understood how important he is to the world of music. Even he believed that music is part of everyone's life.

He may not be a musician or a songwriter, but his technological concepts reshaped the way we view music. With a click of a button, a DJ can access his entire music library in the palm of their hand. Music lovers can enjoy 160 GB of their favorite songs wherever they go. Aspiring musicians and songwriters can easily create new music with the help of their MacBook Pros (look up Garage Band). These are only a small handful of ways he has helped innovated music.

We would like to acknowledge his countless efforts in the advancement of technology as well as the wonderful gift that he gave to the evolution of music.

We can't thank you enough, Steve Jobs. You will surely be missed.

Ladies Choice

For as long as I have known him, my good friend Joel Barber has always been a devoted music fan. With an expansive music palette, he has listened to a variety of records. He's one of the few people that I can always count on in discovering new music. But other than music, another one of my friend's passion is comedy. In fact, I've had the privilege of listening to his long-awaited comedy album, Ladies Choice. The album is available to listen and download via his Bandcamp website. It's a great and absolutely funny record. Some of my favorite bits are "Wine and Cheese Party", "My Luck With Women" and of course my personal favorite, "The Field Goal of Sex". It is a comedy record worth recommending for music lovers and comedy fans alike.

In honor of the release of Ladies Choice, I have taken the time to talk to Joel about music, his favorite albums and how an idea can spark a joke. All of these are his personal words.

I grew up on soul/R&B. There was some hip-hop, but during the early 90’s my folks hid those kind of albums from me. I didn’t get heavy into hip-hop until I was in high school when I had money to buy my own music, then I brought all those albums my folks tried to hide from me. I was a latchkey kid who had cable so I watched MTV religiously in the mid to late 90’s. I was hooked to MTV 2 when it came out; it was nothing but music videos from bands I had never heard before I was in heaven. I remember one day seeing videos from the Clash, English Beat and The Specials, my mind was blown. At the time I thought Ska was this thing created in Orange County California by the band No Doubt, I was in middle school at the time and my music knowledge was little to none, please stop laughing at me. Back then I just soaked up whatever MTV or BET played that I thought sounded good and wasn’t Hanson or The Spice Girls. If I didn’t fit a band on TV, it was the radio, back then and I might be wearing some rose colored glasses, but radio stations had a more diverse playlist, you didn’t hear the same ten or fourteen songs every hour. Maybe because my music knowledge was so limited at the time, but in the mid to late 90’s early thing sounded so new and different, now I listen to a band and I can either hear their influences or worst think of five other bands that do that band’s sound better. God that sounds jaded, but today’s sound doesn’t really sound that innovative to me. I can’t remember when was the last time I found a good band via MTV, BET or the radio, most of the artists I really like I find through blogs, friends, internet radio or worst tv commercials. Every time I find a band through a commercial I always feel like I showed up to the party late and missed the good part.

Does music inspire the way a joke is written no, but it does spark a memory or idea that leads to a joke. What usually happens is I’ll be out with a friend and a song will come on, we will talk about the song or I’ll hear a line that sparks a memory. I share that memory with my friend; if they laugh I start thinking about how I can turn that into a joke. When it comes to my stand up I let that grow naturally, it’s rare that I sit down with pen in my hand and say let’s write some stand up. Every time I try write a joke about a song, I always feel like someone has beat me to the punch, when I do address music in my material I try to focus on the culture around it instead of the art itself. I have a joke where I talk about how I wanted to be a rapper when I was young, but since I grew up in what you would call the suburbs I would need a gimmick and that gimmick would be rapping as Mr. Peanut, the Planters nuts mascot. The whole bit is about how I want to wear a hat, monocle and walk around with a cane, say boastful things about myself with a really annoying hype man behind me.








Influential albums

Roll With The New by Chris Rock: Chris Rock is my all-time favorite comedian, hands down. I don’t remember how I got this album, if it was my mom or I who brought it, all I remember was getting it my freshman year of high school. I played the crap out of this album, I would play the whole album two or three times in a row, each time listening for a different thing like subject matter or how Rock carried himself each time I would found something new. I think almost for a year back then every one of my mixtapes featured a track from this album.

Paul’s Boutique by The Beastie Boys: This album was my gateway to music nerddom. They sampled so many people and so many classic records on this album that if you tried to recreate something like this today you would go broke before you got to a fifth of the samples. I spent a few years trying to at least hear most of them. I got turned onto some really good music that way. This album also made me step up my pop culture references, I figured it they name dropped them in a song they must be important. When I used to freestyle rap, which was a very short summer in high school where I learned that I can’t rap, I found myself biting a lot of rhymes from this album. No one knew I was jacking lines from this album because they didn’t get the references. I don’t condone a biting rhymes or jokes reader, that’s why I stopped before it got out hand.

They Might Be Giants (S/T): their self-titled debut album, if you want to understand me and my style of comedy just listen to this album. This album is full of so many beautiful and funny songs about dark things. I took that idea of saying or exploring dark themes in upbeat comical tone and ran with it. The funny thing about this album, I didn’t really like it the first two times I heard it, I had ordered the wrong album by mistake and I gave it one final listen before I was going to sell it to a used cd shop. I played the song “Number Three”, a song about a musician who only has two songs in him who has just written a third and the confusion that it has given him, it hits during the middle of the song they were talking themselves as artists, being creative and selling out. The song could have been bitchy, but instead you get this get look at humorous look at selling out when you have run out of ideas. Thing about this song that really trips me out is that its third track on the album, implying that they had run out ideas by song three themselves. This album is full of clever jokes like this.

Resurrection by Common: This album had a great impact on me growing up. If Beastie Boys made me step up my pop culture references then this album made me step up my figurative language game up. After hearing this album I knew if I wanted to stand out I would need to creative, I couldn’t just make fart noises or use a funny accent, I would have to put some serious thought into my material. This album has everything I want my material to have clever wordplay, humor, personality, and a feeling that it can stand on its own that you don’t need the author to get the full effect. When I was developing the track “My Luck with Women/ My First Apartment” on Ladies Choice I was definitely thinking about this album.


Keep Your Eyes Ahead by The Helio Sequence: I don’t know much about this band, I found them through Pandora, but the shuffle on my ipod made me a fan. Their song, “Back to This” came on Pandora and I was hooked, I love the drums on it. I hear those drums and I just rocking along to the music, almost if I’m chanting the words. “Back to This” was a serious self-esteem booster during a very long period of unemployment, but I kind of ignored the rest of the album. It wasn’t until my ipod randomly shuffled to this song, “Lately” while I was washing dishes a few months back, that I became a fan of the whole album. This album could be called emotional, not an emo kind of way more of a facing ones fears kind of way, but at the time I needed it, I was dealing with a horrible break up and mourning the death of a friend, it was good to hear feel good music that didn’t feel like a motivational poster. I like to put this album on now in moments where I don’t know what to do next life wise, it helps me clear my mind and help me get back to being me.

Ladies Choice is available for download for free through the Barber Comedy's bandcamp site. You can also follow Joel Barber on Facebook and Twitter.

Music of Entourage

One of my favorite shows on TV is Entourage. For those that are unfamiliar with the show, the story revolves around Vincent Chase and his group of friends as they make a name for themselves in Hollywood. Vincent is an up-and-coming movie star known for his good looks and charming personality. His best friend, Eric "E" Murphy is his manager and manages his career. Vincent's older brother, Johnny "Drama" Chase was a former actor trying to make his way back into the limelight after some failed stints on TV and a couple of misdemeanor charges. Vincent's other friend, Salvatore Assante, better known as "Turtle", works as personal assistant and driver. To round up the gang is none other than Vincent's agent, Ari Gold. He's considered as the super agent of all agents and helps Vince land roles in big name films. As the show progresses, their lives and the situations they encounter get more complicated. But in the end, they always stick together for each other and that their friendships never falters despite the challenges they face.

One of the things that I enjoy about Entourage are their celebrity cameos. There were countless celebrity appearance throughout the series. In honor of their eighth season, which is also their final season, I decided to look at some of my favorite music celebrity cameos from the show.

Mandy Moore
In Season 2, Vince landed the leading role in James Cameron's superhero film, Aquaman. Besides, the Navy Seal training he had to endure for the movie, the biggest challenge that he had to face was working with co-star, Mandy Moore. Based on the show, they had fling while working on her film, A Walk To Remember and it did not end on good terms. Vince tries to convince himself that he's over her, but the moment she walks back into his life, he knew he was only kidding himself.




Kanye West
Toward the end of Season 3, Vince's highly anticipated film, Medellin is premiering at the prestigious Canne Film Festival. The guys arrived at the airport and found out that there were no available flights to go to France. Fortunately for them, Kanye West and his crew were heading overseas and offered them a lift on his private plane. My favorite moment was when he told everyone that he was going to fly the plane himself. The look on the guys faces were priceless. Momentarily, he told he was just joking around and told them to kick back and enjoy the flight. One of the funniest scenes on Entourage.




Eminem
In the final episode of a topsy-turvy Season 7, Vince was high on cocaine and decides to crash a party at the hotel he was staying at. At the party, he was stirring up trouble and was even making some crude remarks to actress Minka Kelly. When Eminem tried to calm Vince down, he became more hostile and started picking a fight with the Detroit rapper. Before long, a fight broke out. Johnny Drama tried to get his little brother out, but he was unable to do so. Vince went to the hospital with some busies and minor cuts, but if anyone had seen the show would know he had bigger things to worry about than that.




U2
Johnny Drama is huge fan of U2. During Season 2, Ari Gold gave him tickets to watch the band live in concert on his birthday. Amazing concert footage was featured on the show with the guys in the audience. I don't know how the producers on the show were able to pull this off, but it's a very nice touch. Plus, it looks like an awesome music video.




Vincent Chase & Johnny Drama
Okay, I admit this does not involve any music celebrities, but this is one of my favorite moments on Entourage. It features Vince and Drama singing Frankie Valli and The Four Season's classic song, "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" at a young girl's sweet sixteen party. Vince has a pretty decent singing voice, but Drama stole the night in this memorable scene.




The eighth and final season of Entourage has just premiered this past Sunday on July 24th. It's been a great run and I can't wait to see the show end on a high note. For those that have never seen the show, I suggest you Netflix Season 1-7 and start catching up.

Pop Punk's Not Dead

That phrase (see title) is written across Jordan Pundik's, lead singer of New Found Glory, shirt proving that the genre is still alive and strong. The song "Don't Let Her Pull You Down" their new single from their current album, Not Without A Fightis my favorite track on album. You can watch the video below which is homage to classic zombie horror movies. It is pretty awesome.

I highly recommend their latest effort. It is one of the best albums of this year and it really shows why these guys are highly regarded as one of the most influential bands of the genre.