Angus & Julia Stone performing "Just A Boy" Live at 3630 Festival, Shepparton on the 13th March 2010

 

Angus & Julia Stone performing "Just A Boy" Live at 3630 Festival, Shepparton on the 13th March 2010

ViddyJam is a cool new web app we’ve been playing with tonight; we liked it so much, we thought we’d share it with you.

This app gets a starting point from you — an artist and a song — and extrapolates (using data from Last.fm) to serve a continuous stream of music videos from YouTube. It’s a lot like Pandora, which lets you create artist-inspired Internet radio channels and stream music based on those settings.

Just like Pandora, ViddyJam will occasionally serve you a video that’s less than fitting; but also like Pandora, you can skip the songs you don’t like — and you can keep skipping until you hit a song that fits your mood perfectly.

Better yet, ViddyJam can stream only music videos from your favorite artist. It can even stream a single song of your choosing, pulling from the many versions that may be available on YouTube. Finally, you can also choose to upload a playlist of your own. Just go into iTunes, export the playlist of your choosing and click to upload it to ViddyJam.

The app has a pretty interface that recedes gracefully as videos play and emerges when you need navigational or other controls. When videos are playing, all controls — even the YouTube player — disappear completely. You only see the various links and buttons when you mouse over the screen.

From within the app, you can create favorites for later “jamming,” and you can review your history of jams. You can also buy songs on Amazon or iTunes.

One of the things we like best about the app is that it’s beautifully ad-free. In that sense, it seems less like a startup product and more like a hacker’s side project (the hacker in question being serial entrepreneur Ben Bryant, who decided to show ViddyJam to the Hacker News community tonight); given the fact that it’s streaming copyrighted content from other sources, it’s unlikely the creators will try to capitalize on it any time soon.

ViddyJam is simple and good-looking; it’s fun to run in the background or on a spare monitor; and it would probably be a hit at parties. Give it a spin and let us know what you think in the comments.

 

Here is the latest single taken from The Living End’s album “White Noise” The track is called “Raise the Alarm” You can listen to it using the player below, and if you really like it you can Download the track here.

 

 Zach Gill is notable for the fluid motion he exhibits while playing. An animated pianist, he rarely stops moving in his trademark jellylike, swaying way. His piano stylings ranges from haunting (Shapeshifter) to upbeat and controlled-substance induced (Wasting Time) to mythic sounding (Barbeque). He is a notable accordion player. On Jack Johnson's DVD release A Weekend at the Greek, Gill joined Johnson onstage during the song Belle. That song, combined with another song, Banana Pancakes, are part of what is referred to as The Accordion Set. Gill also plays the melodica. He played one during Jack Johnson's Live Earth set. He is currently featured on a song with Jack Johnson and Matt Costa called Let It Be Sung and he recently collaborated with singer/songwriter Aimee Mann on a song called At the Edge of the World. This song is the opening track for the Paramount Pictures release Arctic Tale He also wrote The Sharing Song in the Imagine Entertainment, David Kirschner Productions' animated film "Curious George" featuring the the voice of Will Ferrel, Drew Barrymore and the music of Jack Johnson. Gill's latest album with ALO called "Roses and Clover" is available on Brushfire records and the band is touring in North and South America, Europe, Japan and in support of it. Gill's solo debut, Stuff, was released July 28, 2008 via Brushfire Records. The album features guest appearances by Steve Adams from ALO, Tristan Prettyman, Merlo and Adam (his Jack Johnson bandmates). The first single from the album, Family, features Jack Johnson on drums and appeared in the movie "Baby Mama" with Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Greg Kinnear.

 

'Watch Me Disappear' is the title track from the follow up to the bands 2006 breakthrough, Moo, You Bloody Choir. Which of course spawned the all-encompassing single 'One Crowded Hour'. Recorded in New Zealand with US producer Joe Chiccarelli (The Shins, White Stripes, Beck) and mixed in LA, Watch Me Disappear is set for release October 11.

Springing largely from a driving bassline, the five minute track is uncharacteristically bare for the band. Not to mention positioned amongst their "best set of songs to date". Explains Glenn Richards on the band's site:

"Funny track, wholly written with bass and drums not unlike a lot of the Dark Satanic Mills EP. Quite distinct from the rest of the album structurally. Thematically a return to the Eden subject previously explored in the Sunset Studies track 'There is no Such Place'.

However, in place of trembling dilettante, now find shivering buccaneer on last voyage, minus sea legs. Driving on Paradise? Or one way ticket to Narragonia? You decide, (or don't!)"
- Augie March songwriter Glenn Richards

Apologies for not posting much new music lately but here is a song that I have been really enjoying lately, Feel free to download it, the link is below.

Emerging in late 2006, Bird Automatic began to play shows and record homemade demos. Since then, they've sure been busy, touring with the likes of The Shout Out Louds, Art Brut and The 1990s! Bird Automatic's sound is a marriage of Light Electronica with elements of Post Rock and Indie-Pop.

 

Recently I have discovered a great new website called Animoto. The site makes it very easy to turn your favourite photo collections into music videos. All you do is upload your photo's and music, and the website will do the rest. Below is an example of what you can achieve, these photo's were taken on our holiday last year to Noosa and Dreamworld on the Gold Coast. The music is a song called "A little bit of feel good" by Jamie Lidell.