Pogo

Guess what, I'm actually back!!! I have a ludicrous amount of spare time this semester with high speed internet available so expect updates to be weekly or bi-weekly for sure. And I have to celebrate my return with an old favorite that I'm sharing here for the first time: Pogo.

I could gush endlessly about this amazingly talented musician but I'll try to keep it reasonable. He's a very hard man to pidgeonhole considering that the closest genre he fits is Dance/Electronica but it doesn't even fit that. In simplest terms, he is sampling audio from any number of great movies and creating a wonderous amalgamation of seemingly abstract clips and fragments. And before that starts getting really confusing, here's an example using clips taken from the old Disney version of "Alice in Wonderland" (his most popular piece)

He can be a bit of a hard sell for those that find his music hard to get behind but the rewards of the music itself far outweigh any complaints that I can comprehend. His tracks have sampled a wide variety of films (mostly "family" films) including classics like Mary Poppins, Hook, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Up, Toy Story, Harry Potter, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, The Sword in the Stone, and many others that I will never know. The music has a strange way of invoking emotions and memories of the movies while still remaining distinct. The actual music behind the "lyrics" is amazing as well (the bass beat to Alice had me addicted for weeks.) The videos themselves are works of art as well. But the best part of the bargain is that nearly all of his music is free!!! His profile on LastFM contains four free EPs containing most of his music including a album dedicated to Alice in Wonderland. Most of the rest of his music can be found on his website or on the youtube pages for the individual songs. And because I'm just sharing the love, I'll post some of his best tracks below. Enjoy!!!

UPDATE: I realize that I did a poor job at really linking you to the other tracks not on last.fm so here are two real links to "Expialidocious"and "Upular." Some of the other links I've used have dried up but look around and you will find them.

His newest song made from Toy Story, sponsored by Pixar!!

His song from Up, also sponsored by Pixar

His song sampled from Hook, which Sony tried to sue him for...

And finally a real world mix made for he made for his mother on Mother's Day. Sweet...

Tips to Finding Your Own Free Music

I wanted to do this from the start to let you search reasonably for your favorite bands without cheating. I sort of have a list of what and where to check if I want music from a band and I thought you might appreciate the advise.

1st stop: Band's website

Always a great place to start. Find out more about them, check the media or songs or albums section for possible mp3s or other fun goodies, and check the news sections that will sometimes have links to other websites that might have music.

2nd stop: Band's Record Label Website

Not many people try this but either the band's website or a quick wiki search will pull up all record labels they have worked with. Lots of labels will offer free music from their bands as a promotional tool. One of the general rules usually is the bigger the label, the less likely to find free music. If they are owned by a company like Sony or Warner or something similar, move on.

3rd Stop: Purevolume.com

Probably my favorite site for music discoveries! Tons of bands have profiles through purevolume and a lot offer free music as incentives. The site even has a chart feature for bands offering downloads (signed and unsigned). Word of caution here though because sometimes fans make profiles and upload music for download that is completely illegal. Tips to find the real deal: if labeled "Pro" at the top (if they are professional), labeled "On Tour", has an actual band description or a decent picture, links to the real band site or itunes. These are definitely safer bets but it can still be hard to tell...

4th stop: Band's Myspace or Facebook

Myspace has closed its mp3s for download but that doesn't mean that some artists won't still find ways around that. A lot of bands will offer special promotions or pre-releases to fans through myspace or facebook and occasionally even twitter so consider adding them.

5th stop: Various other music hosting sites

There are tons of other sites out there like Shockhound, Jamendo, Stereogum, Amazon's free mp3 section, LastFM, Soundclick, and others. Some of these sites might require membership. I'll update as I find and remember more...

6th stop: Google search

The reason this is so far down the list is the temptations are too great and the searches usually too broad. Warning!!! Do not open any sites with mp3 in the name or anything involving torrents. These are mostly completely illegal!! Because google has modifiers be sure to put a - in front of any word that you don't want popping up. I would suggest adding it with the words lyrics and torrent.

Enjoy these tips to finding your own music. If you find anything good, tell me.