W♥M (Archive)

W♥M Updates (September 2008)

Love Psychedelico - Standing Bird Love Psychedelico The Valley Girl's swanky new hair

I can't believe September is already here.

Appearing tomorrow at the Temple Bar is Love Psychedelico, who we've previously mentioned a few times on W♥M.

It's too insane, this band sold out the 14,201 seated Nippon Budokan in Japan - several times, I might add - and the lucky people in Los Angeles gets to see them in an intimate setting.

Find out more details about the gig on our news.w♥m and their official (US) and myspace.

Also, tomorrow I'm supposed to be around for a free show at the Acadia Cafe to see singer/songwriter Leerone. I believe earlier tomorrow she will also be at Station 4 in St Paul for the "Concert for Change Festival". The republican convention happening in St Paul is just coincidental.

You can find details of her other appearances on her website or the 'space.

One last announcement: many of you probably don't know that I am a closet comic book fan. I am the creator of the almost-ten years george-perez.com and I got the announcement that Perez was involved in an auction to help save and preserve "the Superman House". It's all over the news, but I thought I'd mention it here as I feel strongly about it. You can read all about it on ordinarypeoplechangetheworld.com

By the way, the most interesting item in the auction is a hand-written draft of Neil Gaiman's upcoming book. It's currently at $530, way above my budget.

In actual W♥M news: the podcast is going strong!! Stronger than ever.

I'm pleased to announce the re-appearance of former W♥M writer Valley Girl on this Sunday's podcast. Now that I've embarrassed her, I can guarantee another awesome dudecast.

Also, I have just added radioexile.com to news.weheartmusic.com. If you have a blog and/or website and would like to be on our link roll, just send me an email.

 

 

 

W♥M #11

OH! Also, as a favor, I 'investigated' wordpress using a free version via weheartmusic.blogsome.com. I spent a lot of time looking its codes and I can tell you that if you ever want to customize your WP blog, you will need to really understand how CSS works. CSS have really replaced the original html, in my opinion. It's very flexible and it's also easier to understand.

My first impression is that it's half-manual and half-automatic. WYSIWYG doesn't always work, even with some of the best plugins... and if you really want to do make splashy posts, you still need to hand-code things (much like how I compose all my posts prior to putting it on vox).

I also like the ability to create users and "comment approvals". There's a lot of cool stuff, but you know, for new users, I would have to recommend them to check out vox and sites.google.com. I'm not afraid to admit that WP is too complicated.

OH2!� Watch my crappy video!� The music at the end is by Dylan Champagne, which I will be reviewing soon-ish.

 

Search Box!

UPDATE 9/4/08 8:40pm: People have complained about the vox search - I will admit it's not the best (I think it doesn't index anything older than 6 months).� So starting today, you will see a box on the very low/right of the sidebar.� The search also search W♥M News and Press Release, as well as any future websites in the WHM family.� I have tested out IE and Firefox and even Chrome, but if you are having issues, please let me know.

Also, as a special bonus, is a drop-down menu of current writers.� Clicking on a name will take you to their articles. If you're still active, send me a note and I will add your name to the list.

UPDATE 9/6/08 8:53am:

 

Current Staff������������VDerekSoupDaveAndrewSallyLaraEmeliaChristopherJasonDrewAppplesValley GirlRyanSarah

�

How to add Google Custom Search to your blog
1. Create a Custom Search via google.com/coop. This will be great if you have multiple blogs and/or websites. Unfortunately that also means duplicate results if you cross-post same articles.

2. Copy and paste this code into your blog's main page. On vox, the sidebar width is only 150pixels, so you may have to change the "size" to less than 15. Change "Search" to "Go" if you want to shorten the submit box - however this box is not necessary (the return/enter key should work just as well).

<form action="http://www.google.com/cse" id="cse-search-box">
<input type="hidden" name="cx" value="[YOURCUSTOMGOOGLECODE]">
<input type="hidden" name="ie" value="UTF-8">
<input type="text" name="q" size="40">
<input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search">

How to emb audio on your blog
One of the nice thing about vox, is that it allows anyone to emb media on any website that allows embedding.

Click on any audio and there is an option for "emb", which admittedly DEFAULTS to autoplay=true. You must change this to false.

If you're not too crazy about the 500 pixels (too large), you can change all "500" to "320" or "200". There is a small hack for 150 pixels, but you must "wi" in place of "pi" after 150 for the image and it will work. This probably won't mean a whole lot to any of you unless you start using the embed feature on your blog.

Another hack you might want to check out is to just place the "mediaURL" to your own MP3. Have fun and ask me if you're still having trouble setting up any of these for your blogs.

I have added our latest podcast on the sidebar, just click on the play button and it will automatically play.

 

Links: weheartmusic.com news.weheartmusic.com

This is Love Psychedelico

Love Psychedelico - Standing Bird Love Psychedelico Discography [Jan 2001] The Greatest Hits [Jan 2002] Love Psychedelic Orchestra [Feb 2004] Love Psychedelico III [Feb 2005] Early Times (compilation) [Mar 2006] Live Psychedelico (live album) [Jun 2007] Golden Grapefruit Read More Love Psychedelico http://weheartmus... We also discuss what's in store for the future: including some release of obscure Stax Records an...

Love Psychedelico is about to make their American debut with This is Love Psychedelico on one of my favorite record label, Hacktone Records.

I've previously mentioned them before, but to brush up, they are basically two people: singer Kumi and guitarist Naoki Sato. The band's been around since 1997 and have sold over four million records in Japan and even sold out the 14,201 seated Nippon Budokan several nights in a row, so this band is pretty massive.

Unlike typical bubble gum and manufactured J-Pop (usually centers around really cute young groups of girls or boys), this band is very 60s and 70s style rock n roll. I also have to point out that they sing in both English and Japanese, but their English lyrics makes sense and add function to their songs.

Love Psychedelico - Lady Madonna Love Psychedelico - Last Smile This is Vudelico

 

With the exception of "Fantastic World", Hacktone's This is Love Psychedelico does a fantastic, for a lack of a better word, collecting 12 tracks from their first three albums.

I love their early work from The Greatest Hits ("Lady Madonna", "Your Song", "Last Smile", "These Days", and "A Day For You"), which seems more drenched in classic 60s rock. Take that amazing guitar repeating riff from their debut single, "Lady Madonna", which only adds to the groove as Kumi sings.

I am including "Standing Bird", which opens up the album Love Psychedelic Orchestra as well as this latest American compilation album. The guitar playing makes up in hooking you in, despite teh few English lyrics that appears on the second half of the song.

Since they seem to really be into love and peace and into art as well, I thought it would be nice if I drew a portrait of the two - based on their wallpaper.

Still not convinced? Head over to their American website, thisislovepsychedelico.com, as they have the entire album streaming. This is Love Psychedelico is out on May 20^th on Hacktone Records, you can pick it up at any record store, including Amazon.

Links: thisislovepsychedelico.com lovepsychedelico.net myspace.com/lovepsychedelicous hacktone.com