Archive for June, 2011

Throwback Thursday: Stevie Wonder’s “Maybe Your Baby”

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Brought to you by Cashmere’s own, Anthony, today’s Throwback Thursday is taking you back a couple decades:

I’m a Prince fan. A HUGE Prince fan. However, with the second anniversary of the King of Pop’s shocking death, I took a moment to reflect on his impact to the musical world. Little did I know that once I ran through his catalog of music, I would discover an amazing artist who I highly underrated: Stevie Wonder.

Yes,  I know how blasphemous it is to say. But I didn’t have a true appreciation of Stevie Wonder’s music  as I found his lyrics to be lacking. As I read through his Wikipedia page, I discovered just how diverse and influential this “musical genius” truly was.

Enter, “Maybe Your Baby.” I’ve seen this song title many times, but dismissed as popcorny, early-70′s, Motown homogenized sound. Boy was I wrong. From his 1972 album, Talking Book, Stevie crafted a masterpiece with the clavinet keyboard that would become his signature sound. (For reference, think the opening chords of “Superstitious”, THAT’S the clavinet sound).

The lyrics were not what I expected either. Instead of the silly love song that I was quick to label it, “Maybe Your Baby” is a haunting song of betrayed love (“Maybe your baby done made some other plans”) that somehow morphs into a powerful, somewhat upbeat dance track. There’s a tinge of psychedelic synths and bass that’s addictively hypnotic.

Go ahead, give it a listen and try not to put this on your rotation.  And for reference check out the live performance of this song by Steve Wonder.

Planking Goes Viral

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

Does it get anymore ridiculous or dangerous than this? Planking, the act of lying down in horizontal corpse-style positions, which was brought to life in 2006, is back with a mean twist: Social Media.

People are submitting and sharing photos of themselves posing onto preferred sites such as Facebook, Twitter & YouTube. The more public, the better. The larger the group, the better. No location is out of bound when playing this game.

Unfortunately, some people are taking extreme risks to stand out and have died in the process. Could that be the attraction? Social Media’s most dangerous game has went viral and may have some of your favorite celebs putting there arms up and laying down like its a robbery!

Check their posted pictures below of Slim Thug, Flavor Flav, and even Justin Bieber getting in on the planking phenomenon!

Cashmere’s Visual Production Department goes on Set for Snoop

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Today’s post is brought to you by Cashmere Visual Production Department member, Ashten:

Yesterday, the Visual Production Department trekked out to Atomic Studios in East Los Angeles to shoot a number of projects for Snoop Dogg. We started the day with a photo shoot for Colt45/Blast. Our project manager, Kosta, live streamed the shoot to all the Snoop fans.

After the photo shoot, it was time for the visual production team to get up-and-ready for the GGN (Double-G Network) video shoot. The shoot went well. We had tons of celebrities stop by including: Andy Milonakis, Dom Kennedy, Kendrick Lamar, The Rej3ctz, and David Banner.

New Gadget: SHORT++

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Today’s technological find is brought you by the Cashmere Crew’s own, Grace Park; all 5 foot, 2 and half inches of her:

I’m short. Not short as in “that’s cute”, but short as in my neck hurts when I talk to people. So when I came across SHORT++, a robotic shoe that is controlled by an iPhone application, I thought it was genius.

It can be controlled real-time through your phone while you interact with the tall “others” and though it’s not much of a fashion statement, it might be nice to look someone in their eyes, not the bottom of their chin once in a while. The application looks extremely simple and easy to use.

Here is a video of how it works! And for more  information and videos visit adimarom.com!

Throwback Thursday: Atmosphere – “Modern Man’s Hustle”

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Today’s Throwback Thursday selection, brought to you by Cashmere’s own, James:

Today’s Throwback Thursday post goes back to 2002 with Atmosphere’s “Modern Man’s Hustle”. Should you exclaim “But James! This song is less than 9 years-old!”, I would reply, “I’m an 80’s baby. That’s a third-of-my-life ago.” Plus this became one of the most influential records in my producing/songwriting development.

In the early 2000s, I had just discovered that underground, backpacker sound (Def Jux, Rhymesayers, Uncle Howie, etc).  Late again, I know.  I had never considered rap music that reflected the experience of the common man, the blue-collar guy with a day job, the guy that doesn’t always get the girl. It was the first time I heard rap music devoid of grandeur, of conspicuous spending, and of women who faint at the sight of bling.

I instantly fell in love with this record. It was unpolished in a unique way. Its rough edges reflected the very essence of underground rap music. I have no idea where the sample is from. But can you hear the sleigh bells on the 8th notes? Behind that crunchy snare and kick. SLEIGH BELLS? That’s a page from the indie rock playbook, straight up!

Hulu to become Yahoo!Hulu?

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Say goodbye to Hulu as we know, as many tech sites are reporting that Yahoo! has made an offer to buy online video streaming site, Hulu. Currently, Hulu has not issued a public statement on whether they are interested in selling or not, but with Yahoo! moving toward a content company model, it makes since for the technology company to acquire the 27 million monthly visitors the site generates for it’s streaming television service.

Hulu, founded in March 2007,  is owned by NBCUniversal, News Corp. (Fox) and The Walt Disney Company with funding by Providence Equity Partners. Hulu.com lets users access ad-supported television, movie and web content for free. A monthly subscription service called Hulu Plus is also available for use on multiple platforms.

While Netflix has moved into its online video streaming market, Hulu a profitable business model as with the Huffington Posts stating that revenues for 2011 are expected to approach $500 million, compared with the site’s $260 million in revenue from 2010.

GROUP by House of Legend

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

For a couple of years, we’ve been enjoying flash mobs everywhere, whether they were in an enormous train station or in a tiny mall. GROUP, developed by Aaron Siegel and Larry Legend, took it to a new level, incorporating an iPhone app.

This project gathered New Yorkers to the corner of Broad and Wall Street today at 12:45 PM EST to create a droning sound together through the GROUP iPhone app. The great thing about this is that people did not have to take the time out to practice together and that each phone made a different sound to harmonize.

Check out the intro video below and visit the House of Legend website.

Intro video:

Van Jones’ Green Dream Deferred

Monday, June 20th, 2011

What would the Green Movement look like if Van Jones were still in the White House? The League of Young Voters Education Fund via their media outlet 99Problems.org put that question to some of today’s political thinkers including: Dr. Cornel West and AllHipHop.com’s Chuck Creekmur.

Check out 99Problems.org to read the very poignant article today. Keep up with the League online on Facebook and Twitter.

Lil’ Mama Partners with Snoop Dogg for “NY NY LA LA”

Monday, June 20th, 2011

Lil’ Mama has teamed up with the big homie, Snoop Dogg, for her hot new single, “NY NY LA LA.” Mixing East Coast bang with West Coast slang, Lil’ Mama’s brand new single is a funky old school jam that gets  a verse from the West Coast’s own, Snoop Dogg.

“Snoop is like family. He really embraced me. That’s my guy right there,” Lil’ Mama told Rap-Up.com. “It’s always a pleasure and he’s really busy, as far as music is concerned, so for him to take the time out to work with me on my record was an absolute pleasure.”

Preview the single below and keep up with Lil’ Mama Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube!

CASHMERE TECH WRAP-UP

Friday, June 17th, 2011

PRESIDENT OBAMA TO START TWEETING FROM @BARACKOBAMA

As Barack Obama’s 2012 Presidential campaign starts gearing up, his social media networks have been taken over by his campaign staff, as well as himself.  Ever since Obama’s twitter account has become active, his tweets have come mostly from his White House staff, but with next year’s campaign tour is quickly approaching, the President himself will begin posting his own tweets, signed with a “BO” at the end.  His 2008 campaign was centralized around Facebook, and from all indications, 2012 will be pushed heavily in 140 characters or less.

Read the full article here

PANDORA GOES PUBLIC, WITH A GREAT FIRST DAY ON THE NYSE

Investors flocked to the New York Stock Exchange release of Pandora, the online streaming radio website.  Pandora (P) sold at $16 a share on Wednesday, well above its anticipated price of $10-$12 per share.  After large technology companies such as LinkedIN did very well in their initial sale, investors were eager to get a hold of the recently public shares of Pandora.  Selling a total $234.9 Million in the first day, Pandora sold about 9 percent of its total available shares.  With recent successes of tech stocks, there was a pent up demand for Pandora to be released, and only time will tell how it compares to the larger firms such as Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Read the full article here

TWITTER AUTOMATES LINK SHORTENING

Twitter has recently announced that its web app, Twitter.com, will now be automatically shortening all links down to a reasonable 19 characters.  Marked by its shortening code “t.co”, all links will be shortened down to a specific link ID, with an abbreviated look at where the link is taking you.  Other shortening services like Hootsuite and Bit.ly will still be available, especially with their advanced analytics, but you will now see all tweets with links from Twitter.com looking very similar.

Read full article here

TURNTABLE.FM HITS MUSIC FANS WITH THE NERDY APPROACH

Turntable.fm has launched a website that allows users to congregate in music rooms, with chosen “DJ’s” playing songs from their uploaded playlist for everyone else to listen to.  The DJ’s will take turns playing tracks that are either uploaded from their own libraries, or searched for in the turntable.fm library.  Other users will have a chance to vote on the tracks as being “lame” or “awesome”, which gives the DJ’s points.  If a track becomes too “lame”, it stops playing and the next DJ is loaded up.  There is also a chat function that allows all those in the room to comment and discuss the music.  With the ability to create custom rooms with all your friends or coworkers, it appears that a little more of the work day will be spent on another networking site.

Read full article here

FACEBOOK BUILDING PHOTO-SHARING APP

In a move to attempt to keep driving a majority of the social networking through its own site, Facebook is reportedly in the process of developing its own photo-sharing app.  With big start-ups like Instagram and Color gaining popularity with their apps, Facebook could be feel their market share is being threatened and may be taking steps to keep control of the social sphere.  Look out for more information to come out in the coming weeks, but we know that there is something in the works.

Read full article here