"Viktor Tsoi is alive"! "Цой Жив"!

Leningrad, USSR (1981 – 1990)

Кино́ (“Kino”, Russian for Cinema or Movie) was a Russian rock band headed by Виктор Цой (Viktor Tsoi). They were one of the most famous Russian new wave bands of the 1980s.

The band was formed by Виктор Цой, Aleksei Rybin and Oleg Valinskiy in the summer of 1981 in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia) as a punk rock band Garin i giperboloidy (after a novel by Aleksey Tolstoy, Giperboloid inzhenera Garina, published in English as Engineer Garin and His Death Ray). A year later the name of the band was changed to Кино (often written in uppercase: “КИНО”).Since rock music was considered “anti-Soviet”, Кино, like other rock bands, performed only in semi-underground clubs and at musicians’ apartments (so-called “kvartirniks”).In the summer 1982, Кино’s first album 45 (according to its length in minutes) was recorded together with the musicians of the band Аквариум. The album was slowly distributed via underground channels and gave an apparent fame to the group.

The first real hit was the album Noch (Russian for Night) released in 1986; the six songs from the album were included in the Red Wave: 4 Underground Bands from the USSR compilation disc released in the U.S. in 1986.

Due to the beginning of the Perestroyka era the band came out of the underground, and the 1988 album Gruppa krovi (Russian for Blood Type) together with the movie The Needle starring Виктор Цой brought the band to the pinnacle of populatity.

During the next two years the band released another album and did shows abroad and in the USSR, attracting enormous audiences, until August 15, 1990, when Виктор Цой died tragically in a car accident near Riga. The tape with the vocal track for the new album survived the accident. The album was completed by the rest of the band and released in 1990 without a title, though it is always cited as Chornyy albom (Russian for “Black Album”) since it had a completely black cover.

The band’s popularity in the Soviet Union was so extraordinarily high that after Tsoi’s death many fences, rocks and walls in the whole country were covered with the words “Цой жив!” (“Tsoi is alive!”) and “КИНО”. Writing these words became a kind of a memorial ritual among the fans of the band and even now new writings appear from time to time.

Most Кино’s songs were written by Tsoi and carried the ideas of freedom, as well as profound thoughts about life, death and love. The band is to Russia as Led Zeppelin is to the UK, or Jimi Hendrix is to the U.S.

José González - Swedish artist, In Our Nature

Gothenburg, Sweden (2003 – present)

José González was born in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1978. In 2003, he released his debut album, Veneer, in Europe. The album has since been released in the UK, on April 25, 2005, and in the United States on September 6, 2005.

The song Crosses, from Crosses EP and the later Veneer, appeared on the finale of the second season of the popular American television comedy-drama The O.C.. His cover of Heartbeats (also from Veneer) was used in a popular Sony BRAVIA TV commercial featuring coloured bouncing balls in San Francisco.

top tracks - Heartbeats
Love will tear us apart
Crosses

Bob Dylan - "All I can do is be me, whoever that is."

Duluth, Minnesota, United States (1941 – present)

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, United States) is an American musician, poet and artist whose position in popular culture is unique.

Although his career began in 1959, much of Dylan’s best known work is from the 1960s, when he became an informal documentarian and reluctant figurehead of American unrest. Some of his songs, such as “Blowin’ In The Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, became anthems of the anti-war and civil rights movements.


Bob Dylan......

"Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem."

Yippee! I'm a poet, and I know it
Hope I don't blow it

Bob Dylan is a natural mystic. I believe that much of what Bob writes comes from places inside of him he doesn't fully understand. He deals in prophecy and spiritual areas that make his music and words and the way he performs so compelling. He appeals to things common to all human beings. As his former producer Bob Johnson said: "God didn't just tap him on the shoulder--he kicked him in the ass!!"
Bob Dylan was put here on this earth at this time to head people in the direction of truth. There are many great songs and great songwriters but not many are annointed like Bob Dylan is.

Radiohead - modern alienation

Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom (1986 – present)

Radiohead are an English alternative rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire. The band is composed of Thom Yorke (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, beats), Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboard, other instruments), Ed O’Brien (guitar, backing vocals), Colin Greenwood (bass guitar) and Phil Selway (drums, percussion).

Radiohead released their first single, “Creep,” in 1992. The song was initially unsuccessful, but it became a worldwide hit several months after the release of their debut album, Pablo Honey (1993). Radiohead’s popularity rose in the United Kingdom with the release of their second album, The Bends (1995). The band’s textured guitar parts and Yorke’s falsetto singing were warmly received by critics and fans. Radiohead’s third album, OK Computer (1997), propelled them to greater international fame. Featuring an expansive sound and themes of modern alienation, OK Computer has often been acclaimed as a landmark record of the 1990s.

Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001) marked a change in the band’s musical style. Radiohead incorporated experimental electronic music, Krautrock, post-punk and jazz influences into their songs, dividing fans and critics, but they remained popular. Hail to the Thief (2003), a mix of guitar-driven rock, electronics and lyrics inspired by headlines, was the band’s final album for their major record label, EMI.

GY!BE - One note timeless, came out of nowhere...

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (formerly punctuated Godspeed You Black Emperor! and abbreviated to GY!BE, GYBE, or just Godspeed) were a Canadian post-rock band based in Montreal, Quebec. Formed in 1994 in Montreal, Canada, the band has been highly influential within the post-rock genre. Working with orchestrated arrangements, the nine-piece group created tracks with wide dynamic ranges, a highly evocative use of instrumentation and sounds and uncompromising long form compositions. Their engrossing use of art and visuals in both album packaging and live performances creates an enigmatic aura. Godspeed You! Black Emperor took their name from a little known 1976 Japanese black-and-white documentary by director Mitsuo Yanagimachi, which follows the exploits of a Japanese biker gang, the Black Emperors.

They are most commonly classified as post-rock, but are just as well recognized outside any established scene and take influences from a range of styles including progressive rock, post-punk, classical music, soundtrack composition and the avant-garde. Each release usually consists of an entire piece divided into movements, mostly between 15 and 25 minutes, sometimes eponymously specified in the liner notes.

GY!BE, althought formed around 1994 with three members, had as many as fifteen members but tended to have a core group of nine. Their instrumentation varied with the lineup but the music is mostly based around electric and bass guitars, as well as a string and a percussion section.

One of the Most Influential Man in Music History

(1958 – 2009)

Michael Joseph Jackson (born August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana, died June 25, 2009 in Los Angeles, California), often referred to as The King of Pop, is the biggest-selling solo artist of all time, with over 750,000,000 sales. Jackson is an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and double inductee to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. His awards include 8 Guinness World Records, 13 Grammy Awards, and 26 Billboard Awards.
An icon of showbiz, a freak that everyone loved, a king on stage where his wicked ultra ego manifestations burst artistically; augmented by some of the most original and captivating dance moves you’ll ever see.

Thanks MJ, for all the good memories.

Passion Pit - Electro indie attack

Passion Pit is an electronic band that formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States in 2007. They consist of Michael Angelakos (vocals, keyboards), Ian Hultquist (keyboards, guitar), Ayad Al Adhamy (synth, samples), Jeff Apruzzese (bass, keyboard) and Nate Donmoyer (drums). Passion Pit was a vocab word used in a class Mike took in school. It’s a slang word for a drive-in movie theatre where kids used to go to make out. 2007-present

top tracks-Sleepyhead
Little Secrets
The Reeling

Interesting facts about music-"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." —Aldous Huxley

Whistles and flutes around 25,000 years old have been found at Upper Paleolithic sites of the Aurignacian Period.

The first recorded use of the flute, clarinet, oboe, and trumpet was in ancient Egypt.

The first pipe organ was made by Archimedes in 220 B.C.

The longest hymn is Hora novissima tempora pessima sunt; vigilemus by Bernard of Cluny, which is 2,966 lines long.

The earliest known example of musical notation was found on a clay tablet in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), dated to around 1,800 B.C.

"Old King Cole" was a real person. Coel was a fourth-century British prince who is said to be the father of St. Helen, who was the mother of Roman emperor Constantine. Coel appreciated music, which may be why the nursery rhyme makes mention of "his fiddlers three".

The Gregorian chant was named after Pope St. Gregory I.

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687), the first documented conductor, was the first musician to use a baton. It was a heavy, six-foot-long staff that he pounded on the ground in time to the music. One day, at a concert to celebrate the king's return to health, he accidently stuck the staff into his foot. He developed gangrene and died.

Before the invention of the mechanical clock in the 14^th century, the most complex machine was a pipe organ in the cathedral in Winchester, England. It was installed by Bishop Aelfeg around 950 A.D. It had 400 pipes, and 70 men were needed to operate the 26 bellows.

Only one person walked with Mozart's coffin from the church to the cemetery where Mozart was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave.

In contrast to Mozart, who by his death at age 35 had written 41 symphonies, Johannes Brahms did not publish his first symphony until he was 43 years old.

The shortest national anthem is the Japanese national anthem, which is only four lines long. The longest is the Greek national anthem, which is 158 verses long.

Hungarian musician Franz Liszt received so many requests for locks of his hair that he bought a dog and snipped off patches of fur to send to admirers.

Mendelssohn left the score for his A Midsummer Night's Dream overture in a cab, and was able to rewrite every note from memory.

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain all died at age 27.

Because the middle finger on each hand was considered too short, Ignace Jan Paderewski, the famous Polish pianist, composer, and statesman, was told by a teacher that he could never expect to be a competent pianist.

The largest musical instrument in the world is the organ in the Municipal Auditorium, in Atlantic City. Designed by U.S. senator Emerson L. Richards and completed in 1930, the organ has 33,112 pipes ranging in length from 6 millimetres to 19.4 metres.

While bagpipes are today identified with Scotland, they date from ancient times and may have been introduced into the British Isles by the Romans.

Tchaikovsky suffered from many mental breakdowns and neuroses. He believed that his head would fall off, so when conducting an orchestra he would hold his chin with his left hand.

The world's shortest opera is Milhaud's The Deliverance of Theseus, which was first performed in 1928 and is only 7 minutes 27 seconds long.

After attending the first performance of Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro, the Emperor Joseph II's only comment was "Too many notes".

American composer John Cage (1912–1992) composed a work in 1952 entitled 4' 33", which consists of four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence.

A 1964 piece of music written by avant-garde American composer Lamonte Young is called "The Tortoise Recalling the Drone of the Holy Numbers as They Were Revealed in the Dreams of the Whirlwind and the Obsidian Gang, Illustrated by the Sawmill, the Green Sawtooth Ocelot, and the High-tension Line Stepdown Transformer".

The American Film Institute has named composer John Williams' score for Star Wars as the greatest film score of all time.

The largest drum ever made was 12 feet in diameter for the Boston World Peace Jubilee of 1872. It weighed 600 pounds.

Originally, the first line to Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" was "I'm sitting by a pool in Beverly Hills dreaming of a White Christmas." A friend suggested to him that he drop the reference to Beverly Hills, and the song went on to become the most commercially successful song ever.

Mozart had a significant role in the development of the modern piano, as he had expressed approval for Johann Andreas Stein's 'Viennese' mechanism. Mozart's piano had been made exactly according to Stein's specifications.

The first hydraulic organ was built by Ctsebius, a Greek mechanic, in the third century B.C.

The first composer who tried his hand at setting an opera to music was Francisco Bamirino, an Italian artist. The piece to which he affixed the charms of a melodious accompaniment was "The Conversion of St. Paul," which was brought out at Rome in 1460.

Pink Floyd - Psychedelic drug to the soul

Pink Floyd was a psychedelic/progressive rock band formed in Cambridge, England in 1965. Pink Floyd is one of rock’s most successful and influential acts, having sold over 300 million albums worldwide. The band’s classic lineup was Roger Waters (vocals, bass), David Gilmour (vocals, guitar), Rick Wright (organ, keyboards, vocals) and Nick Mason (drums).

Top tracks-Wish you were here (tab, chord)
Comfortably Numb
Money
Another Brick in the Wall
The Great Gig in the sky
Brain Damage

Gibson

The Gibson Guitar Corporation, of Nashville, Tennessee, USA, is a manufacturer of acoustic and electric guitars. Gibson also owns and makes guitars under such brands as Epiphone, Kramer, Valley Arts, Tobias, Steinberger, and Kalamazoo.Company founder Orville Gibson made mandolins in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in the late 1890s. He invented archtop guitars by using the same type of carved, arched tops found on violins. By the 1930s, the company was also making flattop acoustic guitars, as well as the first commercially available hollow-body electric guitars, which were used and popularized by Charlie Christian. In the early 1950s, Gibson introduced its first solid-body electric guitar and its most popular guitar to date—the Les Paul.

Alternative rock and indie-pendent freedom

Emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. Alternative rock consists of various subgenres that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980s, such as grunge, Britpop, gothic rock, and indie pop. These genres are unified by their collective debt to the style and/or ethos of punk rock, which laid the groundwork for alternative music in the 1970s. At times alternative rock has been used as a catch-all phrase for rock music from underground artists in the 1980s, and all music descended from punk rock (including punk itself, New Wave, and post-punk).