The DMM Roundup: 2009

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Electric Touch, nelo, and Billy Harvey are all playing shows at SxSW!
Check out the dates for each band:

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead:
3/20 THE ONION (with The Thermals, Ra Ra Riot, Cut off Your Hands) The Radio Room - 508 East 6th St, Austin, Texas, 5:00 PM (45 Min Set)
3/21 THE AGENCY GROUP (with Other AG roster acts, Including Yelle, Octopus Project) Emo's Main Room - 603 Red River St, Austin, TX, 8:00PM (40 Min Set)
3/21 SPIN SXSW CLOSING PARTY (with Superdrag and Late of the Pier) Smokin Music - 504 Trinity, Austin, TX, 2:50 AM to 3:20 AM

Electric Touch:
3/14 Austinist Presents: Local Music is Sexy 7 Austin, Texas
3/20 SXSW - FREE ADMISSION! The Viper Room @ Rusty Spurs Dance Hall & Saloon Austin, Texas
3/21 SXSW - Stubb's w. PJ Harvey, Razorlight, Third Eye Blind & More! Austin, Texas

nelo:
3/17 Austin Airport Stage
3/18 SxSW Showcase - Antone's

Billy Harvey:
3/18 9pm St.Davids Church SXSW Showcase 304 E.7th St. (between San Jacinto Blvd & Trinity St)
3/19 10pm The Amsterdam Full on Billy show!! 121 W.8th St (corner @ Colorado)
3/20 3pm Jovitas RajiWorld show 1617 South First St. (in the very cool South Austin area)
3/22 4pm Blu Cafe Bar Lounge 360 Nueces St. (bluaustin.com)

The Best Radio You Have Never Heard -Podcast
http://www.bestradioyouhaveneverheard.com/podcasts

Prior to creating and launching “The Best Radio You Never Heard,” Perry Bax was a DJ in broadcast radio and at Chicago’s legendary Metro/Smart Bar. In his role as sound engineer, Perry mixed many local Chicago shows, as well as touring with artists including Stabbing Westward, Black Uhuru , Depeche Mode, Killing Joke, and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. With days free when gigging in Chicago, Perry took up residency in record retail working at one of Chicago’s legendary independent record stores.

Perry was an early advocate of podcasting, and now boasts loyal listeners around the world. BRYHNH is an 80 minute long free music download compilations which feature intriguingly mixed rock and rock-based music from a variety of artists that in other contexts might be considered incompatible. Genres, rhythms, moods and artists are seamlessly blended together to produce listening experiences you can only dream about finding in traditional radio. BRYHNH includes favorites and new discoveries from both familiar artists and those you wish you’d heard before, downloaded twice monthly free to your computer or iPod. Ranked #7 in The Digital Podcast Top 100 Podcasts for 2005 and the #2 Classic Rock Podcast from about.com in 2007.

Digital Music Marketing: Your interest in music started early. Was there a particular influence you can point to that really jump-started this?

Perry Bax: Not unlike millions of youth around the world, the fuse was lit on a Sunday night in 1964. Just prior to that I had distant older cousins who had a 45 of The Beatles “Twist and Shout” with "There's A Place" as its B-side, by Vee-Jay Records on the Tollie label that I played on a loop for a weeks stay a their house. I was counting the days to Ed Sullivan when they were scheduled to appear. It was all over after that. My young aunt then got a U.S. copy of the LP of Meet The Beatles, which I played ad nauseam until I flattened out the grooves.Shortly after that I would wait for the crews at the “high school and up” rock shows as a 7th grader, too young to get in, convincing the roadies to let me into the show in exchange for helping them load in and out. All of the crews were amazed I would be there for load out, holding up my end of the bargain. My neighbors learned to ignore when another truck pulled down our street and hairy, grizzly, roadie dudes would unload my Schwinn from the back of the truck and give me hugs and soul shakes (high fives weren’t invented yet) when they dropped me off at home at 2:00 AM, as the crew guys would never let me to ride my bike home at that hour. After entering high school, I took over control of the dances and concerts and made a name for myself by booking, promoting and handling the production for a Styx concert at my school when I was 15. That sort of cemented my reputation and opened a lot of doors.When the movie Almost Famous came out, my phone rang off the hook.

DMM: I would say your show leans classic rock with a solid progressive mix.Would you say this is accurate? Classic Rock is a very popular radioformat. What are listeners going to hear on BRYHNH, that they've never heard on the radio?

PB: I’d say it’s more a mix of classic and a touch of progressive, with a leaning towards modern. I play a lot of new music by classic artists and loads of classic tracks by new artists. For instance last year there were new records by Todd Rundgren, AC/DC, Eagles, Steve Winwood, and Joe Jackson just to name a few. But then there was new stuff from current artists like Death Cab For Cutie, The Youngers, Sky Cries Mary, Wil Deynes, My Morning Jacket, El Ten Eleven and geez, a ton more.And there is the multitude of covers of classic tracks done by modern artist who were probably still pooping in their diapers when the original songs were recorded.Sprinkle in songs by artists that you will never hear on commercial radio and it’s precisely what you will hear on the show. One of the things that radio just doesn’t (or can’t) do anymore is have a sense of eclecticism. The way I mix in (both contextually and technically) new and old tracks by established artists and newcomers makes eclectic work. I just give people a lot more credit intellectually than I think is given by today’s media programmers. One important thing to note is that unlike most music podcasters, I am licensed by ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC which gives me the ability to go beyond Pod-Safe music choices to mix those new and indie music choices in with the established artists and give them a context that people are comfortable with.In as far as my progressive leanings, it’s my guilty pleasure. I hope the listeners are somewhat enlightened and entertained by it. Some I know roll their eyes and grin and tolerate it, as they know it’s sort of my “dirty little secret.” And I certainly know better than to overdo it.

DMM: In your opinion, what separates Classic from Oldies? (For example, the release of Led Zeppelin I was 40 years ago January 12th. That's pretty old, yet we think of it as a Classic)

PB: Everything that is classic is generally old. Not everything old is classic. Classic is something that has legs and lives on in perpetuity.People still buy records and see live shows featuring Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart. I would certainly consider them classic as opposed to oldies. Whereas oldies get pigeonholed into novelty songs, theme party soundtracks, summer music festival music, wedding mixes and state fairs appearances.

DMM: What decade, period or movement really stands out for you?PB: I’d say the 1970s in as far as artist discovery beyond the typical British Invasion stuff I listened to with everybody else in the 1960s. The advent of FM Underground gave you a different path to follow in that those artists were getting airplay that didn’t exactly follow the mainstream. That was certainly the source of my progressive foundation and live music addiction. We literally went to an arena sized show every week it seemed. You could afford it with ticket prices at $6.50 and a .35 ticket service fee. I recall in 1973, I think, Led Zeppelin tickets were the first to crack double digits at $10.00 and there was such outcry and whispers of boycott! I would also have to say the 80s as well, but for a different reason. Although I was very young working in the music biz in the 70s, it was in the 80s that I really put my musical resources into motion professionally (record retail, radio, club spinning, live engineering/mixing, tour and production management) so I was very involved with that scene as well.

DMM: What are a few of your favorite newly discovered bands? PB: Well the artists I mention above certainly, plus I have played great stuff from Two Loons For Tea, Id Guinness, Electric Touch, Anemo, Twelve34, nelo, and Greta Gaines. Those getting a little more attention now include Adele, Feist, and Duffy. For the sake of conversation, I don’t understand a truckload of Grammys going to Amy Winehouse

DMM: One thing I've noticed listening to your show is the impeccable mixing and transitions. How much of this has to be a conscious effort and how much comes naturally from your DJ'ing and engineering experience.

PB: It’s sort of half and half. It really comes instinctively but my technical experience in mixing and spinning allows it to actually happen. It’s especially interesting going from the “hands on” analog world to digital on the computer where you have 100 frames per second accuracy and more importantly, the ability to go back and get it right. In the clubs or on the air if you mixed a train wreck, it wasn’t going away. And on the computer, I mix as much with my eyes as with my ears. That surprised even me in the beginning.But it is paramount with the diverse material I am playing. You can’t play stuff from such disparate artists without interesting segues. And when you do have that great mix, you can pull off eclectic. I have had people that work in major market radio listen and say “did you just go from Eminem into Rush and made it work?” Or my favorite head shaker is Johnny Cash into Sarah McLaughlin into AC/DC. Paraphrasing Frank Zappa: “You can’t do that on radio!” But when it’s done right, you don’t get that jarring effect bouncing all over the musical map that one might expect.

DMM: Can you tell us what's involved in the production/pre-production of a BRYHNH show? What kind of equipment set-up do you use?

PB: In the two-week show cycle, I keep an ear open for interesting news items that might give me a funny sound bite for the opening. I might use a movie quote that references something in the news or grab an actual live news report bit. That may stimulate a theme that could run from just one song, or maybe through the whole first set. Even though the show is perceived as music based on a theme all the time, it probably isn’t (although there are a lot of layers in what gets played and in what order and that could be both musical and contextual at any moment.)I keep a folder of music for the next show that I add to all the time. Think of it like a game plan a football coach might have. Out of 250 plays they have in the playbook, they have 75 in that game’s game plan, and may use 20. It’s from this group of songs that I will begin to start thinking about the show, but more often than not, when building the show, it takes on a life of its own and it’s nowhere even close to that initial game plan. Some friends of mine call me Rainman when I do the show, because they are positive I am like “out of body" and have actually no idea how I do it, but in the end, I know that there are exactly 246 toothpicks on the floor.I work on a Mac. I am sort of a Mac cripple in that I don’t know my way around Windows at all which I am slightly embarrassed to admit. After I do any editing work on the tracks (which I would do in Sound Studio 3) I load the .aif files (.aif files are the equivalent to .wav files in the Windows world for those of you playing along at home) into Jam by Roxio (which is now discontinued, its features rolled into Toast after version 8) where I adjust levels and get the order the way it needs to be. I create the crossfade manually in Jam, actually pulling songs on top of each other at the seam and using manual fade control bars (I have no idea what to call these things) to tidy them up as needed.Once the music and edits are in order I’ll go back and do the talking bits and add them in. At that point I convert the entire show to a Sound Designer II disc image. That file is nearly 700 mb. That file is then converted to 128 kbps mp3 in iTunes where the ID3 tags are added as well as the corresponding photo embedded. It gets uploaded to my web host and is ready to go. Then I build the web page entries and come up with something witty for the text and it’s time for the wrap party.In as far as gear, nothing special. Mac G4, a zillion external HD’s (mostly Western Digital) Denon A/V amp with M&K speakers (I mix in 5-channel stereo which is pretty weird, go figure.) Throw in a circa 1970’s Shure SM58 (sentimental value and still sounds pretty good) with a Tascam US-122 preamp, a Technics SL-1200 MK2 turntable and a bottle of really expensive tequila and it’s a rock show.

DMM: Who and where are your listeners?

PB: My listeners are by percentage from the U.S., the U.K, Canada, Australia, and every European country and then smattered around the world including Greenland, South Africa, Russia, United Arab Emirates and as of late Tunisia.The listening audience is mostly older, 30+ and the common thread I hear most often is that they are people who had given up on music. They’d lost track of the music scene while getting married, having demanding jobs, raising kids and having little regard for what was available to them by way of the airwaves. Then suddenly they find The Best Radio You Have Never Heard and I am getting emails that they are back to buying music again and hearing their favorite artists, old and new tracks, plus all this new stuff by new bands that they want to know where they can go out and buy it. One listener described the show as “getting your favorite food and eating your vegetables as well.” Meaning getting to hear his favs as well as being introduced to new music by artists he’d never heard (or appreciated) before, new and old, in a pleasant, painless manner. Wait, wasn’t that just how radio used to be? It’s hard to break new artists, but put into a context that combines new and old in an intelligent fashion is akin to getting your nutritional balance, all on a nice 80-minute plate every two weeks.

DMM: Do you see Podcasting as an effective means to expose and break bands? Any thoughts on the future of Podcasting?

PB: Break new artists? Sure, but not any individual show in isolation. Labels and management can coordinate exposure across a critical mass of relevant shows and generate momentum. One of the realities of podcasting is that like most things on the Internet, it is highly fragmented – meaning many shows, but no individual show has a large enough following to effectively break an artist on its own.As a medium, podcasting is one of the newest tools for breaking artists. Seems the artists themselves are embracing it and trying to connect to podcasters. The early users have discovered it and consume it regularly. The general public needs to catch on now.But podcasting still remains such a scary concept to the average person. Even fairly computer literate people. The technology is not really explained anywhere in a mass media sort of way so people are still intimidated. They fear the commitment of a subscription, even though they can listen without a subscription. Or fear that they aren’t technically savvy enough to do it.Once people can embrace the notion that a podcast is just an .mp3 and listening to one is no different than “audio TiVo” then it should be “all systems go.” But until there is a big breakthrough to the masses, it will fly below the radar. It’s still massively misunderstood.

DMM: You’re based in Chicago, IL USA - is Chicago your hometown? There's been a lot of focus On Chicago lately with our new president being from there. Can you tell us a bit about Chicago? Geography, location, size, industry, history or whatever?

PB: Yes, Sweet Home Chicago is my hometown. Chicago has always had a colorful rep internationally, whether it was for its association with Al Capone, or its nickname, the Windy City, which, by the way, has nothing to do with the weather (no windier here than anywhere else) but more for our politics and our blowhard politicians and their hot air, who have been making a lot of headlines lately.Chicago is right on the shores of Lake Michigan, which makes for a really cool skyline, with the waves practically bumping up against the skyscrapers. Chicago is a great architectural showpiece, with classic buildings from Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, Frank Lloyd Wright and other notable architects.Chicago is also known for its diversity. Irish bars on every corner, practically, and more Poles living here than anywhere else, outside of Poland itself! Chicago is a great restaurant town, whether you’re looking for anything from great pizza to outstanding steaks, and everything in between. Chicago has a history in its stockyards which has evolved into a continuing love affair with beef, be it a prime rib eye, or a juicy Italian beef sandwich, covered with peppers and spicy giardiniera. It’s also the home of McDonald’s international corporate headquarters.There is so much going on here, music of course, theatre, museums, opera, etc. Lollapalooza has set up shop here for the last few years and has more to come. Legendary if ill-fated sports teams, with obsessively loyal fans – the Bears, the Cubs, the White Sox, the Blackhawks… and now, a viable bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Chicago is the home of Second City, a great breeding ground for comedic talent, and a source for shows like Saturday Night Live, etc. Ironically, Chicago proper was surpassed in population by Los Angeles, but still is called the Second City by much of the world. Visitors to this city are always impressed and surprised by the warmth and friendliness of the residents.And while the people are warm, Chicago is not known for warmth this time of year. We can get a lot of snow, and a lot of cold weather. True Chicagoans don’t mind though; we figure it keeps a lot of the riff-raff out, those people who don’t have the backbone to make it through a Chicago winter. I’ve always thought our weather is a filter, and that with more temperate conditions, we’d be overrun and overcrowded. As it is, Chicago proper has just under 3MM people, and the greater Chicago area has more than 10MM residents.Visitors to the city should know that it’s pretty easy to find your way around. The whole city is set up as a grid, so addresses are consistent along that grid, with the downtown intersection of State and Madison streets being “ground zero” – the center from which North, South, East and West are calculated. For that, we can thank Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, who, as legend tells us, kicked over a lamp that started the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, practically burning the city to the ground, and creating the opportunity to rebuilding the city with an urban planning mindset. Almost the entire lakefront continues to be open parkland, part of Daniel Burnham’s original vision when he contributed to the city’s plan.I could go on and on about Chicago… but I’ll stop now. I have a show to work on.

For more information or to download the show, please visit:

http://www.bestradioyouhaveneverheard.com/podcasts

iTunes Link
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=151723527

The DMM Roundup

Friday, July 31, 2009

August 2009

Thursday, July 23, 2009

The Compulsions: Track of the Day!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Electric Touch in the Big Apple!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

iMix Playlists

Thursday, June 11, 2009

New Releases from DMM

Holler, Wild Rose "Yarn" and Greta Gaines "Live at Eric's" out Tuesday 6/16

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Google Wave Preview

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Electric Touch - Rolling Stone and Heineken (Live Like a Rock Star)

Thursday, May 21, 2009

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead -- live, loud and distorted on Pandora

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead -- live, loud and distorted on Pandora

Friday, March 13, 2009

Holler, Wild Rose! - Yarn Tour Spinning Now

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

DMM Bands @ SxSW!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

...Trail Of Dead has a featured playlist on MySpace!

Friday, February 27, 2009

nelo to release one new single each month through July!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Spin Magazine gives Trail Of Dead Four Stars

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Scrapomatic on Mountain Stage

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Down The Wire: Interviews Perry Bax - TBRYHNH Podcast!

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