Folk rockers Delta Rae recently worked in studio A with engineer Aaron Keane on their 6 song ep. Singer songwriters Eric Holljes and brother Ian wrote the material, while sister Brittany and Elizabeth Hopkins also sing. Drummer Steven Coffman was tapped to play drums on the recording, while the band members handled other instrument duties. The band has a unique sound, partially Gospel, partially acoustic Folk but all Soul. Another interesting note, Eric Holljes co-wrote the song “Cooler than Me” with Mike Posner, which is currently #6 on the Billboard charts. Check out tour dates and news athttp://deltarae.com/

Virtual Heroes recently called on Blazing Music + Sound to provide music, sound design, and dialog for NASA’s  Astronaut: Mars, Moon and Beyond, an ambitious, educational massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) aimed at sparking young people’s interest in science and math. Blazing teamed up with Virtual Heroes in the past on a number of games and interactive learning products all powered by the Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games.

Bree Newsome, a recent graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, brought us her advanced production film for a final mix and HDCam layback. “Wake,” her 21 minute drama, was shot in her native North Carolina and explores Southern Gothic tradition. Our contribution to the film included leveling dialogue tracks, finessing sound effects, and balancing music and dialogue. “Wake” premiered in New York at the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television’s First Run Film Festival, and went on to win awards in production, art direction, and acting. It was a wonderful project and we congratulate her on her success. Bree will be heading to Cannes next, where “Wake” will be screening in the Short Film Corner.

http://www.firstrunfestival.com/awards#ug_awards

http://www.firstrunfestival.com/films/detail/106?browse=title&letter=wWake

SXSW 2010 was my second time at the festival or is it a conference? It’s difficult to know. On one hand there are thousands of music and film events… Festival. On the other hand there are dozens of amazing panel discussions… Conference. Confival, Festerence? Any way you slice it, there are not many better ways to immerse yourself in the Arts and big ideas in one week.

This year I had the great fortune to go to the entire conference. Interactive, Film and Music. By far the panel discussions at the Interactive conference were the most engaging. Panels on Open Science, The Digital Divide, Informational  Graphics and even the interactive key note by Daniel Ek of Spotify were remarkable. Most of the panelists were very smart and their scope was surprisingly varied. Other panels of interest included discussions on music licensing, remixing/ mash-up culture and a great music key note by Smokey Robinson. His advice for people entering the music business, “Keep your feet on the ground and grow some thick skin”.

Twitter helped to make the interactive panels truly dynamic. Each panel would have a hash tag and those at the conference (and also off-site) would add commentary, ask questions and post links relevant to what ever topic was at hand.  By following along on Twitter I was able to widen my view as well as identify people who had unique perspectives and then meet up with them later for more in depth discussion. Very cool.

I had a hard time fitting films in to my schedule and was only able to see a few.  The stand out is Thunder Soul, a truly wonderful doc about the Kashmere high school band and it’s leader Conrad O. Johnson. This was a wonderful story about how one teacher can make a huge impact on children’s lives. I had the great fortune of seeing the 28 piece band play the night before I saw the film. This film/ band is a must see.

I saw some 40 odd bands that week. There were many highlights. Raphael Saadiq, Kashmere, Freelance Whales, Craze, Bisco Smith, Eisley, Daniel Martin Moore with Daniel Sollee and my favorite of the week was definitely Brooklyn based band Hurricane Bells. They have an unusual indie rock sound mixed with a powerful soulful rhythm section. I saw them at a venue too small to accommodate  the bands huge crowd. I would suggest checking them out if you get the chance.

Twitter feeds to check out, there are loads of good links. Check them out soon as the feed will eventually disappear.
Open Science #opensci
Digital Divide #digitaldivide
Daniel Ek key note #tuesdaykeynote
Informational Graphics #infographics

Links:
information graphics
http://nowsourcing.com/2010/03/17/social-media-infographic/

Open Science:
BirdSource.org
Scienceforcitizens.net
galaxyzoo.org

Thunder Soul
http://www.cinematical.com/2010/03/14/sxsw-review-thunder-soul/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/recsradio/radio/B000FVGLDY/ref=pd_krex_listen_dp_img?ie=UTF8&refTagSuffix=dp_img

Hurricane Bells
http://www.myspace.com/hurricanebells

IntraHealth International’s Special Projects and Partnerships Advisor Heather LaGarde asked me to help with an exciting remix project to benefit ‘OPEN’, a new initiative created to address the most critical issues in Africa by putting the latest open source technologies directly in the hands of health workers. Great cause right? Before I knew what she wanted of me I agreed to help out. Then she told me how Youssou N’Dour was donating a song including the individual musical elements for the project. Artists such as Peter Buck of REM, Duncan Sheik, Hawke, NAS and others would remix the song and the results would be offered for free, with an option to donate, to raise awareness for OPEN.  I was very excited to be part of such a great project.

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