PJH Studios

Category: Music

Pop, rock, alternative, classical, indie, folk, lo-fi, any thing with a tempo and a beat and some rhythm

  • The Modest Mouse cruise

    Earlier this year, Modest Mouse headlined a cruise. Stereogum attended, and delivers a story not only about the cruise, why bands do these, but how the concept of a floating concert at sea came to be.

    How do they decide which artists to approach about headlining their own cruise? It’s “a mixture of science and art and just gut,” Cuellar explains. “As a promoter, that’s probably the hardest part. I think you ask any promoter and it’s all gambling.” He says it’s less about finding acts that can headline arenas worldwide and more about finding ones with an extremely engaged fan base. There’s a big difference between asking your fans to kill a couple hours with you in their hometown versus investing the time and money to spend several days trapped on a boat together.

  • De La Soul Tiny Desk Concert

    So good.

  • Recent music recommendations

    here’s a list of recent albums. I’ve enjoyed so far this year.

    • deathcrash – Somersaults: chill, mellow indie rock that makes you want to sit on the porch with a good drink and watch the trees sway in the wind
    • cootie catcher – something we all got: catchy melodies, jangly guitars, good harmonies
    • Joyce Manor – I Used to Go to this Bar: 20 minutes of punk bliss
    • Willow – petal rock black: eclectic, jazzy, avant garde rock
    • Geologist- Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights: electronic post rock, probably good for driving n a highway at night
    • The Gorrilaz – The Mountain: a deep, immersive soundscape with eastern music/ Indian instrumentation
    • Shaking Hand – Shaking Hand: a throwback to the early days of 90s emo when the focus was on earnest lyrics & instrumentation instead of screaming and nasally vocals

  • Small time at home, big time in China

    UK indie bands play to modest crowds in their home country, but play to tens of thousands in China.

    Swim Deep’s first gig in China, in 2014, was bizarre: we had arrived in Hong Kong to discover that the venue was an Italian restaurant with all the tables and chairs pushed to the side. But on the mainland, we’ve mostly encountered ultra-modern spaces like those Dyer and Day enthuse about. And like them, we find our audience numbers in China often far surpass what we’d expect to find at home. In September 2019, our biggest UK festival show took place at 110 Above in Leicestershire, in front of a crowd of 500. A few months later, we played to 10,000 people at sunset on the main stage at Strawberry music festival in Guangzhou; we were the only UK act on the bill.

  • Worldwide music dashboard

    If you like music and dashboards, charts, and numbers, here is a very detailed dashboard of the music throughout the world.

  • Defying roller coaster tycoon gravity

    YouTuber, Tube Cody, created a video of a pair of roller coasters in Rollercoaster Tycoon synchronized to Wicked’s, Defying Gravity. Stick with it until at least a 2 1/2 minute mark.

  • Setlist.FM changing concerts

    Setlist.FM has been around quite a while. For music in concert nerds, it’s an awesome way to follow an artist as they tour. And it’s changing how artist put together their setlists.

    For musicians who regularly change their set list, it allows them to check what they last played the last time they were in particular city or the night before. For those that stick to the same set for an entire tour, it’s encouraging a little variety and exposing artist don’t change the set list from night to night.

    honestly, if you are a big production – like Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, the setlist really can’t change all that much. But if you’re just a band or an artist with instruments and some lights, why can’t you change every night?

  • Lost albums

    Steve Hyden goes long on lost albums:

    These are the three kinds of “lost” albums I am interested in:

    1. Albums that remain unreleased, either by artist’s choice or record-label maleficence.

    2. Albums that were unreleased for a time but then came out after they achieved iconic
    “lost” status, to the point where even now they still seem “lost” even though they technically aren’t anymore.

    3. Albums that might not actually exist.

  • Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman and MJ Lenderman broke up. Then she had to record a love song for him

    Karly Hartzman wries an essay about her breakup, yet having to record a love song. It’s full of lyricism and captures a certain feeling.

    I filled my Marvin the Martian cup with tequila on our neighbors’ porch next door. While swaying on the wooden porch swing, I ate collard greens with pork-jowl bits that my bandmate Xandy brought to the party. I nursed several pieces of homemade cornbread.

  • Everynoise, the music genre explorer

    Everynoise, the music genre explorer. You click a genre and get a sample. Selections skew electronic, but still fun.