Faked Potatoes Mixcast No. 010

This post is a chronological trip and homage to Punk music, and the doors that it opened. This Mixcast takes a trip, starting in 1973 and ending up in 2010, this Mixcast is about my love for the Punk music and ideals that changed the world of music forever and continue to inspire today. Artists featured this Mixcast are:

• Search & Destroy by Iggy and The Stooges
• Digital by Joy Division
• Can’t Find My Mind by The Cramps
• Nothing for You by T.S.O.L.
• House of Jealous Lovers by The Rapture
• Not That Social by The Von Bondies
• Reactor Party by Shitdisco
• Jams Run Free by Sonic Youth
• Hologram World (feat. Karen O) by Tiny Masters of Today
• Big Bad Mean Mother Fucker by Girls
• Monongah, WV by Weekend

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Mumford & Sons, or The Mainstream Music Machine

(via @martyzylstra) The story of the week is not Amos Lee entering the chart with an anemic sales total of 40,000. That’s like seeing your name in print in the newspaper. All your homies call you up thrilled and the following day you’re forgotten. Ditto with Cake. These are not bad stories, the fans come out and support these acts, they can make a living playing music. But they’re never going to go platinum. They’re never going to blow up like Mumford & Sons.

Could it be the Hot AC play? And there’s been adult radio spins, but there are barely any adult radio stations.

We could debate all week long what’s fueling Mumford’s sales, but the fact is Mumford & Sons’ “Sigh No More” sold 31,000 copies this week to place number six on the SoundScan chart. They’re almost at 750,000 copies. And number 10 on the 2010 chart was Ke$ha, with 1,143,000 copies sold.

In other words, in the world of recorded music, Mumford & Sons are SUPERSTARS!

Katy Perry’s vaunted “Teenage Dream” has sold barely over a million. Despite being on the chart for 22 weeks. Then again, Mumford’s been on the chart for 49. You see it takes that long to build.
And building is the story.

It’s no longer about the peak. The Black Eyed Peas are going to headline the Super Bowl this weekend on the downswing of their career. Not because they’re decades beyond their moment in the sun like the classic rockers, but because their latest album, “The Beginning”, is the beginning, of the E.N.D. It’s over. It’s like everybody in America looked at each other and said THESE GUYS SUCK! In a world searching for meaning, the Peas are meaningless. It’s hard to party all the time when you’re broke and don’t have a job.
When that happens, you’re looking for something more soul-fulfilling. It turns out Top Forty radio is not king.

Most of those Top Forty acts, which do sell singles on iTunes, can’t tour for shit. Whereas Mumford sells every ticket. Then again, Mumford underplays and undercharges. What a concept! Create a frenzy, get everybody talking about you!

In other words, your friend says he’s going to the show. Do you want to come? You debate. The Ticketmaster charges, the lame opening act, you’re gonna pass. But when your friend is going to the show of an act you’ve never heard of, and is foaming at the mouth about it, and you get excited and want to go too and you can’t get a ticket you’re frustrated and ask yourself WHAT IN HELL IS GOING ON HERE?
What is going on here?

The media is driving towards a cliff of its own device. The record labels and the movie studios and the newspapers and magazines and TV stations are in cahoots, believing it’s still the nineties, when hype is everything and it pays to be mainstream.

You know how you become mainstream today? By driving in the complete other direction and doing something so different, so unique, so ALIVE that the public is drawn to it.

Mumford doesn’t need the usual suspects. It’s just the music. That’s enough. Acoustic instruments, no beats, HUH?

You can decry the Internet. But it’s the Net that breaks these new acts. Because the mainstream, if it cares at all, cares last. People are looking for something new. And they’ve found Mumford & Sons…

WHO’S NEXT?

(via Lefsetz)

The Thomas Beale Cipher

There’s a lot of striking moments in Andrew S. Allen‘s “The Thomas Beale Cipher“, a film based on a true legend of the famous unsolved code.

The film contains 16 hidden messages that hold clues to the characters’ secrets. Eight are fairly easy requiring only a close eye. Six are moderately difficult using various encryption methods. Two are extremely difficult requiring a genius mind to decrypt. Delicious textures—herringbone fabric and washed-out wood—mixed with grainy whisps of wrapping light, I get lost in the motion of the movie and at times drop out of the storyline. Don’t take that the wrong way, it’s not that the story doesn’t work for it, trying to undress the process is always something I let get in the way of a plot line, leaving me often lost and somewhat uncertain at the end of a lot of movies.

Presented by Short of the Week as part of their new “Short of the Week Presents” program, featuring short films that have never been online before and help to coordinate their digital launch.

Secure Facebook by Enabling HTTPS

Facebook recently announced that they’re adding full HTTPS support for the site, to keep you protected from attacks like Firesheep. The feature’s finally rolling out, and you should probably do yourself a favor by watching this video and even giving this article a quick read.

Young Galaxy – We Have Everything

‘We Have Everything’ is from the forthcoming YOUNG GALAXY album, Shapeshifting, out Feb 8th in North America on Paper Bag Records and April 11 on Smalltown Supersound in UK/EU.

Artist: Matthew Lyons – Push it Backwards

I was certain I had posted about Matthew Lyons before, but I can’t find anything in my blog. I apologize, it’s almost embarrasing. Anyway, Lyons (who was only 23 the last time I checked, maybe 24 now at the most) has this particular style that I assumed must come from a steady, weathered hand and not someone two years my junior.

His latest venture, a comic called Push It Backwards is consistent with everything he does, meaning it’s awesome. The story he tells here (the pages you can read) is peculiar and wonderful, be sure to check out the process piece he did for ISO50 last year.