travis johnson

Rachel and I went to see Vampire Weekend this past Tuesday in Portland. The show was short, but great. We had a spot right up front near the stage. They played most of their songs off their album and did a couple that they’ve recorded a few other places. It was a little difficult to get tickets, but well worth the trouble. My favorite song from the show was probably Walcott.

Vampire Weekend - Walcott

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Tags: Music, vampireweekend

I am so excited for tomorrow night. After a few days of scouring craigslist for tickets to tomorrow’s Ryan Adams show in Salem I finally found three pretty good tickets. Believe it or not, I’ve never seen Ryan in concert. I had a couple opportunities when I was in grad school, but couldn’t bring myself to miss class.I didn’t even realize Ryan was coming to the area until I was looking for some of his music on The Hype Machine and saw Salem, OR listed as an upcoming tour stop. I immediately tried to buy a couple tickets online but they were all sold out so I then checked all the online resale sites without any luck. Finally last night I struck Gold. While up in the middle of the night fixing some DMX issues, I checked craigslist and found what would eventually be my seats to the show - and pretty good seats at face value, too.I’ll definitely provide a recap and photos tomorrow.

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Tags: Music, ryanadams

I’ve been following more and more mp3 blogs lately and really been getting interested in having my own. There are three prominent online music services I use:

1. Pandora
2. The Hype Machine
3. Blog Remix

A combination of the three services would be perfect. I like Pandora because it discovers new music for me. I like The Hype Machine because I can find music given a band or song title. And I like Blog Remix because it is a really cool app. They all have their drawbacks too, which I won’t go into now, but will “announce” that to further investigate the world of online music, I am creating a new mp3 blog: Mechroboticon. I am interested in good music, obviously, but also the technology that helps the discovery and exchange of good music.

When setting up Mechroboticon I decided to write a super-simple Wordpress plugin to wrap the Yahoo! Media Player JS code. I created this because I’m still using the default WP template and didn’t want to have to put the player js in the footer of each template I decide to try out. Making a plugin simplifies an already super simple process.

Get the Yahoo! Media Player WP Plugin

Disclaimer: This plugin isn’t being endorsed by Yahoo!. Even though I am an employee of Yahoo!, I wrote this plugin as just some random guy. Let me know if you have any questions about the plugin.

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Tags: Music, Wordpress

These dudes really rock!

Angels of Destruction

Check out more of their stuff over at The Hype Machine.

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Tags: Music

Wyclef was recently on MHD with his Yahoo! Music/Live Sets performance and it was a great show. I really like the format of the Live Sets, but most importantly I like the artists they bring on (except Rascal Flatts - I won’t be DVR’ing that one). I feel a lot like Hansel describing his respect for Sting when I talk about Wyclef, but I do like his music and have especially been liking If I Was President lately.

And for those of you that don’t get the Hansel/Sting reference, you need to watch Zoolander until you have memorized every line. Here’s the specific line:

Sting. Sting would be another person who’s a hero. The music he’s created over the years, I don’t really listen to it, but the fact that he’s making it, I respect that

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Tags: Music

A few weeks ago I wrote about Pandora and how it was great for listening music. I have since come across a site I like even more. It’s called The Hype Machine. The Hype Machine aggregates posts from music blogs and makes the music available with search. For instance, searching for Ryan Adams right now returned his rendition of Summer of ‘69 (I would just like to point out that Ryan Adams is covering a song by Brian Adams). Besides providing a great service, The Hype Machine has a pretty slick interface making it easy to listen to all the music on the page. Give it a try.

Also, I realize this is sort of a weak post, but I had to get something in for the month. I have posted at least one thing every month since I started blogging all the way back in August 2003 (I actually started before then but lost all the great posts).

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Tags: Music

Yesterday Cam told me that Ryan Adams and the Cardinals were playing a live concert on MHD. I quickly set the DVR and got home from work today with the Yahoo! Music/Nissan Live Music Set ready to go. It was only half an hour, but it was awesome. Seeing Ryan Adams play in HD is the only way to go. If you have MHD, you definitely need to check this set out (it’s on all the time).

In other Ryan Adams news, he’s got another album coming out next week (believe it or not!).

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Tags: Music, ryanadams

I’m getting pretty excited for the Arctic Monkeys to come to Eugene this Friday. They’re playing at 9 pm at McDonald Theatre. Check out their song Fluorescent Adolescent below and then I’ll see you there!

Fluorescent Adolescent

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Tags: Eugene, Music