December brings with it cooler temperatures and visits from old friends and extended family. This December in particular will be chalk full of some of Hip-Hop’s old friends and extended family. Actually it should be HUGE. Rumors have it that Eminem has a new album (possibly titled Empack) dropping. There has also been a leak of the track list for Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3. On which Em is said to be contributing some work. Throw in Dr. Dre and 50 Cent into the mix and December 2008 will be looking more like December 2001.

Muxtapes, Favtapes and of course good ‘ol Mixtapes. All seem to be the norm of the form of spreading music more and more nowadays. None more so then the always time-consuming and consummate good time Mixtape. No genre has embraced this more than Hip-Hop and it’s Djs. Even the MCs are using MIxtapes to promote full lengths now, as record companies are a pretty much a thing of the past. Promotion has gone back to the streets as it was in the begining. Self-produced tracks, remixes and mash-up opuses of large lengths are more prevelent now with ProTools readily available and no real need for hard copy distribution. Just cut a track, upload it to a file sharing site, alert the bloggers and release it. Read More…

Muxtapes, Favtapes and of course good ‘ol Mixtapes. All seem to be the norm of the form of spreading music more and more nowadays. None more so then the always time-consuming and consummate good time Mixtape. No genre has embraced this more than Hip-Hop and it’s Djs. Even the MCs are using MIxtapes to promote full lengths now, as record companies are a pretty much a thing of the past. Promotion has gone back to the streets as it was in the begining. Self-produced tracks, remixes and mash-up opuses of large lengths are more prevelent now with ProTools readily available and no real need for hard copy distribution. Just cut a track, upload it to a file sharing site, alert the bloggers and release it.

We were in the office early today at eargoggles and went to the keyboard straight away. Started poking around the internet and found some sleepy-good-time music. From the land of Carson Palmer and WKRP come The Spectacular Fantastic. While their name might be grandiose or an overstatement of ridiculousness, their appeal is rooted in reality. It is a soothing sound bright with life and promise that will slow down the weekend and bring some smiles to the rainy days in the coming Autumn months.

Eryka Badu; love her or hate her she is good. Damn good. She has inspired many an artist, been a muse for others, and even started her own sub-genre. Ms. Badu’s influence in the music world universe stretches way farther than her out-stretched fist fighting off the oppression of her doubters. There is a good ‘ol American Love Story involved.

Ahh Autumn….when the weather tempers a bit, the leaves turn to the vibrant oranges and yellows (or so we hear out here on the West Coast), and indie music feels right or better. Snug. Like that sweater you have buried in that drawer full of your cold weather clothes. With the onset of Autumn also comes the end of the Summer Concerts. Well, my friend, fear not. eargoggles favorite Death Cab For Cutie has come to the rescue.

Whew!

A couple of us herre at eargoggles just got back from pretty much the best place in the world–at least to us. Costa Rica! With little, or no contact, to and/or with the World Wide Web for just under two weeks it was a little hard to merge, or Cedo al paso,  over the pass and onto the Information Super-Highway without double-checking our mirrors. Luckly, whilest we were away, we had some others watching the goings-on in the online world of music and brought us up to speed. For the most part. There is only so much reggaeton one can handle before even the Eagles sound okay!

A little re-cap of this week’s musings

• David Letterman’s Band Leader, Paul Shaffer, bought James Brown’s medical bracelet for $32,500 in a recent auction.
• Ratatat remakes an old Paul Simon Classic video into this.
• Britt, from eargoggles’ annual favorite Spoon, remixes last year’s “indie” favorite Fiest. 
• Snagfilms launches and gives mad exposure to what should be truly watched. Documentaries.
• “F” Muxtape. Turntable Lab reminds us that mixtapes are still where it’s at.
• eargoggles made it through 14 of 15 innings of the longest All-Star Game EVER. We heard that the American League won. Now the Angels will have home-field in the World Series!

Here’s what’s on for the rest of this week on all your beloved Television Sets! –Check out Austin City Limits!!

Well it’s hot out there! I mean HOT! So, we here at earggoles did some research and came up with what else is gonna be hot this Summer. Below are quite a few, a lot, of Summer releses from bands you know and some you will. Some are LPs, some digi-LPs, some DVD, but all should be worth your while. Enjoy! and look out for the releases of Malendars….

capital records building

So, Los Angeles has approved the building of a new development near the almost iconic Capitol Records building. The condo development, planned for 6230 Yucca Boulevard, was part of some big hubbub earlier this summer. EMI–along with the everpresent Hollywood preservationists–worried that the act of constructing the building, including the planned underground parking garage, would damage the acoustics know for their “Magic Properties.”