Have you ever seen the movie Badlands? You know how the Martin Sheen character hangs out in these Voice-O-Graph personal recording studio booths and makes these records detailing how he met his teenage girlfriend and embarked on a killing spree? Or, say, have you ever been subjected to crappy mall-recorded tapes of your girlfriend and her middle school pals doing lame dance moves and lip-syncing to a Paula Abdul song? Well, if you ever felt envious of these brushes with fame, these recordings for posterity, these kind-of-self-produced shots at the big time, well now you’re in luck! (Except for hopefully without the statutory girlfriend or the swath of murdered South Dakotans.)

That is, now that the greatest of American dreams — to be able to walk into a shopping mall and cut your demo — will once again be available to a diverse cross section of humanity! Thanks to Studio One Media, you don’t have to be Britney Spears or Boyz II Men to walk into, say, the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall in Phoenix (where the service is debuting) to lay down some smooth vocal grooves. Hell no! As long as you got money, you got access to 3,000-5,000 songs from EMI Music Publishing’s roster and the chance to make music videos, audition reels, or any kind of personal message, which can then be uploaded to the web. It’s called mystudio.net, and it’s how I plan on auditioning for the next season of Paris Hilton’s My New BFF... assuming there is a next season. I think they’re only on episode three right now, NOT THAT I KNOW. If you are a lucky resident of California, New York, Nevada, or Florida, keep an eye out for your very own Studio One Media outlet to make an appearance, with possible other locations in the works.

Brian Eno has always been more of an AV dork than a rock star. He began his career as “technical advisor” to Roxy Music, he created all those wonderful system sounds for Windows 95, and recently he collaborated with fellow musician/dweeb Peter Chilvers for the soundtrack to the evolutionary escapades of the video game Spore . Don’t let all of his sexy-glammy photos from the ’70s fool you; the dude’s a Nerd with a capital Nerfherder.

The latest dorky addition to Eno’s extensive résumé is Bloom, a music making application for the iPhone created with Spore collaborator Chilvers. According to Wired, the app has two fairly self-explanatory modes, Listen and Create. Listen employs a generative music algorithm to play an off-the-cuff composition, while Create lets the user, you guessed it, create the sounds themselves. When the user taps the screen, a reverb-riddled note sounds and a bluish orb expands then eventually dissipates on the point of contact. The same spot will produce the same note if pressed again, so the program isn’t just a randomly placed series of tones. As with most instruments, the higher up the screen, the higher the note, and vice versa.

The program is also polyphonic and can either generate set tonal patterns or freeze user-generated patterns for easy riffing. It even employs state-of-the-art Etch-a-Sketch technology that lets the user delete their work by giving their iPhone a good shake. Compositions cannot be saved on Bloom, but that’s just as well. I don’t need my already irritating iPhone-having friends shoving their mobile in my face every time they make a minimalist masterpiece. Then again, I’m probably just jealous of them because this application looks really cool. Stupid friends and their stupid expensive phones...

In other Eno news, don’t forget to check out his latest collalbum with David Byrne Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (TMT Review). And here’s one last bizarre Spore video to cap this thing off. God bless us, everyone.

Attention band geeks, comp majors, and idealistic grade school music teachers with ’70s hairstyles everywhere! Get ready to flip-on the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 9th and rejoice! NoteFlight, a flash-based service for composing, editing and sharing musical scores online — which is also, I might add, free to use if you sign up for the beta version — is here to spruce up that lonely ivory tower of yours. No Faustian pact with the devil required!

Once you’ve registered for that free account, you can truly let your questionably-legitimate esotericism run (relatively) wild! Shame and embarrass the tiresome, life-ruining work of those great, consumptive Romantic composers by dragging notes onto a music staff to create scores, playing them with your computer’s keyboard, editing the notes with the click of a mouse, and sharing them with others within the site’s database using a simple URL! You can even embed a finished score right onto your cloyingly doting ‘Rachmaninoff Rules!’ fansite if you’d like. Then, wherever fellow geeks, er, devotees encounter your score, they’ll be able to play it back as if they were on the main site, even if they don’t have an account. This video does an every-good-boy-does-fine kinda job of explaining the site’s basic features. All you have to do is sign up, bone up, and wham-bam! You’ll be shitting-out hits like Shubert shit-out lieder.

"Making music is not a solitary pursuit — nearly everyone who works with music eventually wants to share it," stated NoteFlight founder and presumably fruitless comp. student Joe Berkovitz. "As both software creators and musicians, our team knows how painful it is to share notated music online today. That’s because most musical applications treat the Internet as an afterthought: they’re geared to saving your music on your hard disk, not to sharing your music with other people." Software creators and musicians?? Man, these guys probably know how painful a lot of things are!

But seriously folks, NoteFlight plans to launch a paid version of the service eventually, although certain features will always be free to use. Apparently, if you sign up for the beta, you get grandfathered in and won’t have to pay later to register. Which is good, because if you’re excited by this product, odds are you’re poor as hell.

If this story wasn’t so sad, I could have run with a very lame Vacation plot crammed full of Clark Griswold’s fish-out-of-water hijinks. But because robbery is never funny, and because touring is never relaxing at the best of times (especially when you are far from home and reliant on limited travel possessions for your job and sanity), this news is just plain devastating and depressing. Last week, Chicago noise addixxx Pelican got four bags of belongings stolen from their rental van in Rome while out sightseeing. (The band is currently touring around Europe with Torche.)

I’m pissed when someone steals one of my popsicles from the freezer at work, so I can’t even imagine how shitty it must feel to lose a bunch of personal and professional items. There are always many worthwhile causes vying for your hard-earned money, but if you happen to be particularly flush with extra pocket change this week, donating a few bucks to Pelican would produce a significant karmic rebound. Here’s the statement from the band:

Our otherwise excellent tour of Europe hit a severe stroke of bad luck this week. Two days ago we had a spare half hour to spend in Rome before heading to the venue, so we decided to go see the Coliseum. We parked nearby and went to take a brief twenty minute walk around the area. When we returned to our van we found that it had been broken into, despite being parked on a major street in broad daylight. Four bags were stolen, the contents including computers, passports, wallets, ipods, our soundguy’s microphone collection, and, most devastatingly, a number of personal journals and two portable recording devices containing hours of song ideas that are now lost forever.

The calculated loss of this theft is several thousands of dollars. Unfortunately our band only earns us a very meager living and some of us are already in the hole from years of trying to make a living as musicians. This incident therefore poses a devastating loss and puts us in a very compromised financial position. Although we realize that there is a worldwide financial crisis going on, if there are those of you who have the means and desire to help out our gratitude would run deeper than words could express. We’ve set up a Paypal account at the address pelicanrobbed@gmail.com. Anything you can offer, even simple condolences, would go a long way. Thanks so much for reading.

Remaining dates:

10.06.08 - Stuttgart, Germany - Club Schocken * 10.07.08 - Paris, France - Glazart * 10.08.08 - Tourcoing, France - Le Grand Mix * 10.09.08 - Vitry-le-François, France - Orange Bleue * 10.10.08 - Cologne, Germany - MTC * 10.11.08 - Brussels, Belgium - Ancienne Belgique * 10.12.08 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Waterfront * 10.28.08 - Mt. Clemens, MI - Hayloft 10.29.08 - Columbus, OH - Ravari Room 10.30.08 - Buffalo, NY - Tralf Music Hall 11.01.08 - Allston, MA - Harper’s Ferry 11.02.08 - New York, NT - Bowery Ballroom 11.03.08 - Milford, CT - Daniel Street 11.04.08 - Philadelphia, PA - North Star Bar 11.05.08 - Washington, DC - Black Cat 11.06.08 - Harrisonburg, VA - Blue Nile 11.07.08 - Charlottesville, VA - Outback Lodge 11.08.08 - Raleigh, NC - The Brewery 11.09.08 - Atlanta, GA - The Drunken Unicorn 11.10.08 - Jacksonville, FL - Jack Rabbits 11.11.08 - Gainesville, FL - Common Grounds 11.13.08 - Tampa, FL - Orpheum 11.14.08 - Orlando, FL - The Social - Anti*Pop 08 11.15.08 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Culture Room 11.17.08 - Memphis, TN - Hi Tone Cafe 11.18.08 - Louisville, KY - Uncle Pleasant’s 11.19.08 - Chicago, IL - Subterranean 11.21.08 - Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon 11.22.08 - DeKalb, IL - House Cafe

* Torche

Sure, Nick Cave may look like a tweaked-out, undependable drifter these days, but let me be the first to assure you that, despite what that garish mustache would have you believe, he’s actually pretty all-about commitment these days. Take, for instance, his second work of fiction, The Death of Bunny Munro, which he will be “committing” to paper in the coming months.

Cave’s previous foray into fiction was, of course, 1989’s And the Ass Saw the Angel, which, conveniently enough, is currently available in two special editions via Black Spring Press. In rather typical Cave fashion, this new endeavor traces the fortunes of one man and his son on a road trip around the south coast of England following the suicide of his wife. Sure, it sounds rather bleak, but remember that you’re talking about the man who made even “not getting laid” sound completely badass last year.

The world rights for the book have been acquired by publishers Canongate, who have “committed” to a release date of September 2009 for Cave’s creation. Canongate is planning a multimedia launch for Bunny Munro, which will consist of both an audio book (also narrated by Cave himself, kids!) and an e-book, which will both launch simultaneously. In addition, a signed and numbered limited edition will also be available, as well as a special e-book version combining Cave’s narration with an original "soundscape."

"Nick is one of the great forces in contemporary culture — not just an outstanding musician and singer, but also a superb writer, be it of lyrics, screenplays, music scores or novels," says Canongate publisher/managing director Jamie Byng. "This novel is going to shock and amaze a lot of people." See, I told you he was dedicated... how many books have you written, published, narrated, and soundtracked in the past year? Cuz if it’s any less than one, you already look shitty by comparison!

But wait, he’s not even done yet; heck, he’s barely even broken a sweat! Along with his fellow Bad Seeds, Cave is also “committed” to both headline and curate All Tomorrow’s Parties’ inaugural ATP Australia festival, scheduled to take place January 9-18, 2009 in, you guessed it, Australia. Caves ATP Australia will stage shows all across the island/commonwealth/country/continent and will include such indulgences as he and the Seeds see fit, including (and this is just preliminary, mind you):

Spiritualized, Silver Apples, Michael Gira, Fuck Buttons, Afrirampo, Harmonica, James “Blood” Ulmer, the Saints, former Go-Between Robert Foster, Laughing Clowns, Bridezilla, the Necks, Primitive Calculators, Rowland S. Howard, the Stabs, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

And all of this while you’re struggling to make a simple dinner reservation for your parents this weekend! Maybe you should look into growing one of those mustaches after all.

It’s been talked about for years now. Four years to be exact. However, this week, the prayers of legions of jam fans and ex-Deadheads were answered: Legendary jam pioneers Phish announced plans on their website to play three nights at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, VA. The shows, scheduled to take place March 6-8, would be the band’s first since August 2004, after playing their final string of shows at a farewell festival in Coventry, VT.

But, actually, this is sorta routine for them. The band broke up before in 2000, amidst allegations that their operation had just become too big and complex. However, they quickly reformed in 2002 to the delight of fans and critics alike. But only two years later, the group announced their second breakup.

Nonetheless, I, personally, plan to make March a personal health month, dedicated to Phish and am curious when their third breakup will be.

According to The Kingston Trio’s official website:

We have lost one of the finest singers and entertainers the world has ever known. Nick Reynolds passed away Wednesday, Oct. 1st at 10:05 p.m. A dear friend, a wonderful man, father, husband...there will never be another like Nick.

Nick had been in the hospital in the ICU for several weeks, and tonight the family made the decison to take him off life support.

Bob Shane says that from the day he met Nick in college in 1954, they were brothers, and Nick will be with him for the rest of his life.

Our heartfelt feelings go out to all of Nick’s family and many friends and fans.

 The Kingston Trio official website
 The Kingston Trio blog
 Nick Reynolds Wikipedia entry
 Nick Reynolds IMDB entry
 Rolling Stone article: "Kingston Trio Founding Member Nick Reynolds Dead at 75"

Whoa, dude! Surf’s up! Yes, the Joy Division/New Order nostalgia wave is growing even stronger in force thanks to the revelation that former manager Rob Gretton’s band-related notebooks will soon be published in handy paperback format, guaranteed to add that extra touch of "cred" to any bookcase. The book, entitled 1 Top Class Manager, has a UK release date of October 7.

But what exactly can one expect to find in said cred-boosting paperback? Well, you can find diary entries, posters, studio notes, and to-do lists, compiled by Gretton’s widow Lesley from over 20 of his original notebooks relating to his time with the bands. Chronicling the period from 1978-1980, 1 Top Class Manager shows the metamorphosis from Joy Division to New Order through documents like a list of possible new band names considered in the wake of Ian Curtis’ death. Pick your favorite from the names unveiled in a recent NME article, names such as Arab Legion, Sons of God, Radical Jesuits, and Man Ray.

The book also includes anecdotes like the wacky time Joy Division threw eggs at then tourmates The Buzzcocks and the time when Curtis et al. released LIVE mice during the Buzzcocks’ set! As of this date, no info has been released to corroborate reports of a wild slumber party on the same tour where Bernard Sumner and Pete Shelley played light-as-a-feather, stiff-as-a-board, but I’m sure 1 Top Class Manager will have the scoop.

Continuing an awesome event from last year and hopefully creating a new tradition that carries over to neighborhoods the world over, The Flaming Lips are heading the “March of 1000 Flaming Skeletons.” The band is asking fans to participate in the October 25 event taking place in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Make sure you stop by The Flaming Lips’ website to order the necessary items to be a flaming skeleton, and make sure you read the safety precautions, because no matter what costume you wear, even skeletons can catch on fire.

Last year’s event was described by The Flaming Lips as a “spectacle celebrating the mysterious, the supernatural, and the otherworldly.” That just sounds great, especially knowing it was helped put together by the guys who gave you The Soft Bulletin. Sign up now, and make it to the “March of 2000 Flaming Skeletons.” And when you run into Wayne Coyne — which you will, because no one lives in Oklahoma — you can congratulate him and the band for being nominated in the Official Rock ‘n’ Roll Song of Oklahoma competition that the panhandle state is holding. Say hi to Starlight Mints, too, who will also be making an appearance (thanks Cameron Buchholtz!).

And finally, as previously reported (TMT News), Christmas on Mars is finally coming November 11 on DVD! Here are the remaining screenings:

 Columbia, South Carolina: The Nickelodeon, October 3-5
 Moline, Illinois: Nova 6 Cinemas, October 5
 Atlanta, Georgia: Plaza Theatre, October 8
 Peoria, Illinois: Reynold’s Cinemas at Landmark, October 10
 Naperville, Illinois: Nova 8 Cinemas, October 11
 Austin, TX: Alamo Drafthouse, October 11 *
 Nashville, Tennessee: The Belcourt, October 17
 Dallas, Texas: Landmark Inwood Theater, October 17-18
 Whitewater, Wisconsin: Theatres of Whitewater, October 17
 Lake Geneva, Wisconsin: Geneva 4, October 18
 West Bend, Wisconsin: Paradise Theatre, October 19
 Madison, Wisconsin: The Orpheum, October 21-24
 Waterville, Maine: Railroad Square Cinema, October 23
 Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Brattle, October 31-November 9
 Omaha, Nebraska: Film Streams / Ruth Sokolof Theater, October 31
 Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Cinematheque, November 8-9
 Columbus, Ohio: Landmark Gateway Theater, November 14-15
 Denver, Colorado: Landmark Esquire Theatre, November 14-15
 Hartford, Connecticut: Real Art Ways, November 21-23
 Minneapolis, Minnesota: Landmark Uptown Theatre, November 22

* 35mm showing, with Wayne Coyne! (Thanks Corey Higgins)

According to a press release:

Aaron Fuller, lead singer of the Misfits-inspired punk band Plan 9, died late on Monday night in San Francisco from a motorcycle accident. While traveling home, Fuller went off the side of an overpass then died on impact. The accident is still under investigation by police who are unsure of the exact cause.

As one of the original members of Plan 9, Fuller was known for his incredible stage presence and vocal range.

Fuller’s family has stated that they "want Plan 9 to continue because that is what Aaron would want." The band has not yet commented.

Plan 9 thanks all their fans for the emails and messages, and sends the family of Aaron Fuller their deepest sympathies.

 Plan 9 MySpace
 Nickel & Dime Records
 Blabbermouth Article: "PLAN 9 Singer Dies In Motorcycle Crash"
 YouTube video: "Plan 9 Misfits tribute band"