Archive for the ‘Song Reader’ Category

Song Reader Tumblr and Requests

Thursday, December 6th, 2012

So I am making a public request for musicians, famous and otherwise, to cover songs from Beck’s Song Reader project.

I have been collecting them at whiskeyclonenet.tumblr.com which is easily searchable by song titles, artists, instruments, tags. I am greedy and want to hear more!

1. How can I help?

You can help by creating something, anything, inspired by a song in Song Reader. If you do this, please let us know at computergirls (at) whiskeyclone.net–if you email it in I’ll post it as soon as possible.


2. Why should I do this?

I don’t know, it’s fun?

I have no idea what Beck’s expectations are for Song Reader. Maybe to have some people sing some songs or whatever. Or we, as a group, could blow his mind–have famous musicians, talented artists, creative souls, all build off of these songs.

If you’re a musician, I can assure you that Beck fans are loyal music lovers, and if we like you, we’ll remember–we’ll buy your album, go to your shows, watch your stuff.

3. What about songreader.net?

Well yea don’t forget that. Our tumblr here is easier to sort through, but the official site will get you more hits/views. And it’s only usable with YouTube or Soundcloud, while Tumblr can be just about anything.

4. I’m not sure what to do.

Email me or tweet me @almostaghost and I’ll help. If you make videos, but aren’t a musician, I’ll try to connect you to some musicians who want a video for their cover. If you want to take photographs inspired by a song, that’d be great–within limits of course, I won’t just put up a picture of your dog because you call it “Why Did You Make Me Care?” If you want to create a recipe or magic trick or whatever, go for it. I am not a musician, I can’t participate; but I can help to organize and make this awesome.

Go!

I may update this post if I think of more FAQ points I want to make.

I plan on reaching out to famous musicians, or friendly ones anyway, and see what they want to do. If anyone knows anyone who might be willing, let me know! Let’s talk this up and make stuff happen.

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Beck news update

Friday, November 16th, 2012

Hi Beck fans!

So a lot has been happening, and as I like to every so often, thought I’d recap.

1. Song Reader: this comes out in a few weeks. I’ve seen a bit more of it than has been released so far, and I assure you, it’s very entertaining, even if you’re not a musician. You can start using songreader.net and get a preview copy of one of the songs, and start uploading your versions (if you use Youtube). If you don’t want to use Youtube, you can always send Soundcloud or mp3s or any other non-musical things to us computergirls@whiskeyclone.net and we’ll put it on our Song Reader tumblr: whiskeyclonenet.tumblr.com.

2. Beck’s final “mini-tour” of 2012 is almost over, he’s been doing a handful of shows in Australia this week. He mentioned in an Australian interview that he hoped to go back out some more in 2013, with his band (JMJ, Smokey, Roger, Joey). (PS. Beck, please give that band a name.)

3. Production work: Beck continues to be a music producer. He did a couple of songs with Dwight Yoakam for his new album, also assisted Bat For Lashes in getting her album straight (though he only ended up adding to one song on her final album). I’ve heard he’s working with Jenny Lewis and a couple of others.

4. His own work: In some Australian interviews, Beck indicated again he wants to finish the album he began in 2008, but never finished. (Think this was Rococo but maybe a different one.) He said he just has to find time between all his production duties. Otherwise, there’s no news here. I was hopeful that a new album would synergistically be released at around the same time as Song Reader, but seems not. More patience!

5. Whiskeyclone: Also, I’m adding all the song titles from Song Reader into our database, whether or not Beck actually wrote music/words for them. (There’s a lot of titles in the art. You’ll see.) Just wanted to play along, like they’re legit Beck songs, and I hope people create them! Watch the tumblr! But I do realize that this will make the giant list of songs on AlmostAGhost completely unwieldy (if it wasn’t already). I’ll get that re-organized soon into a more readable list! Sorry. Also hope to redesign the home page soon, have a cool Song Reader-inspired idea for it.

Anyway, enjoy Song Reader and be sure to share all your recordings/writings/art that are inspired by it!

Posted in Beck, News, Song Reader | No Comments »

Song Reader – sort of a new Beck album soon!

Wednesday, August 8th, 2012

So, Beck.com and McSweeney’s just announced this morning Beck’s new album.

And while it is a new album: there’s no Beck on it. That is, the whole thing is being released as sheet music, so that the “listener” can create their own songs. 20 brand new Beck songs given to us, without any music/recordings by Beck. I’m still getting my head around this idea, and I’m sure more will become clear as we go. (Though it is probably a good bet that Beck will drop some of his versions at some point somewhere.)

But for me, as a Beck fan, who lacks in music ability, I may be slightly out of luck here. But I do look forward to hearing different people attempt to do their versions of these songs. To that end, I created a tumblr here:

Whiskeyclonenet.tumblr.com

For which I can host/stream all the Song Readers out there who create their own cover versions. Hopefully it can be a nice place for people to hear this stuff. (This is also can be used for your versions of the 3 video game songs if anyone wants to email those in: computergirls@whiskeyclone.net ).

I think this could be fun, and hopefully a lot of musicians participate, from lo-fi amateur to famous to different genres to huge fans to whoever.

More to come…

Posted in Beck, Song Reader | 3 Comments »