Archive for the ‘All of The Rest’ Category

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Scarce Sounds

by Ben Westermann-Clark August 22nd, 2008

Marq Vanderlaan’s Scarce Sounds

Hello. My name is Marq Vanderlaan and this is a new Grooveshark exclusive blog series called Scarce Sounds. Grooveshark’s song library is big, but doesn’t have everything. I travel the world hiking jungles, climbing mountains and following the sacred legends to discover music few have ever heard. Then I post it on Grooveshark. You may ask, who am I and why do I risk my life? I’ve been asking myself those same questions. Some call me crazy, but I can’t image doing anything else.
Last week a new uncontacted tribe was discovered near the Brazil-Peru boarder. Photo images and more about this new tribe can be found at http://www.survival-international.org/news/3340. Their passion and mystery fills each photograph.

Who are these people? What kind of music do they make? Every culture in the world makes unique music that defines them as a people. If I could hear their music, I could dive into their souls and discover who they are. I rushed to the airport to board the first flight to Lima, Peru. It’s been 8 years since my last trip to Peru–last time I did a piece on Machu Pichu.

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From Lima I caught a bus to the base of the Andes Mountains.

The rugged mountain terrain made traveling slow, but 3 days later I was at the edge of the rain forest with my cassette recorder and a Quechuan guide named Acquefrita. The plan: a week’s hike to the heart of the rainforest to record the music of this previously unknown tribe for the first time. Trying not to make actual contact, for my modern world diseases would kill them; I let the mountains echo their music. This was what I heard:

Undiscovered Music…

So what title does one place on this song? A song that has been playing through these forests for millennium by a tribe whose name is still unknown. The only thing I could think to call it was a scarce sound.

Don’t be taken an advantage of,
Marq Vanderlaan

In Case You Haven’t Heard…

by Ben Westermann-Clark August 20th, 2008

Grooveshark Autoplay is here! We’ve been working hard to bring you some cool updates to Grooveshark, to help make your listening life a little less lonely. With Autoplay, you can pick any song you want to listen to, click the Autoplay-gear-button, and we’ll keep serving up songs that we think you’ll like so you can sit back, relax, and focus on all that work you’ve been putting off until after lunch.

Like the last time we made some upgrades to our MySQL database, I wrote a little song to share some of the fun of Autoplay with you guys. I hope you like it! Be nice :)


Grooveshark Autoplay from ben westermann-clark on Vimeo.

Also, if you want to read the lyrics, check ‘em out:

I was feeling pretty down
listening to Allison Krauss or something,
Then my love came to town,
took my browser, and got me jumping

‘Cause we all believe there’s something out there for you
but you can’t always find it if you don’t know what to choose

Autoplay is a way to find music you don’t know
and you might be surprised when music’s in your control

Give a smile,
give a frown,
you can vote them recommendations down

We ain’t got all the answers–just 5 million songs
which are pretty good chances

We’ll be more right than wrong
‘Cause you can have your say
I know what I’m gonna do at work today…

Autoplay is a way to find music you don’t know
When you do, you can save favorites and come back for more

GUITAR SOLO!!!!!!!!

I don’t want to be sure
but I want my say
I know what I’m gonna do at work today…

Autoplay!

UPDATE: Happy!!

by Ben Westermann-Clark August 18th, 2008

Earlier this morning, we were fortunate enough to receive a bunch of great coverage from some of our favorite blogs on the new feature we just launched: Grooveshark Autoplay. Thanks to some totally unrelated weirdness with our search function, things kind of went haywire for a couple of hours, causing the site to be down temporarily.

Good news–we’re back up! Everything should be smooth from here on out, and we’re insanely thankful for everyone’s response and support. You can keep track of updates by checking me out on Twitter, as I’ll be posting status updates and giving shout-outs to our friends all day.

If you need anything, of course, let us know! And I’d love to hear your thoughts on Autoplay.

UPDATE: Grooveshark + Autoplay + Screwiness

by Ben Westermann-Clark August 18th, 2008

We’re working on fixing some issues with searching in Grooveshark right now. A surprising number of people are here in the office at 9 AM on a Monday morning, so we should have all the problems brushed aside pretty quickly.

If you notice anything particularly wonky, let us know! We love you!

With the Good Comes the Bad

by Ben Westermann-Clark August 14th, 2008

We’ve been working hard to bring you guys some cool new features, and some of them are finally (almost) ready! As much as we’re all night owls, we’re going to have to take down Grooveshark between the hours of 3 AM and 9 AM EST, this coming Monday, August 18 in order to prepare for the updates we’ll be making.

Nothing will be permanently damaged, deleted, or unavailable, but if you feel withdrawal from all the music your heart desires, we’ll be back soon! Here are some ideas of ways to pass the time, should you start feeling the urge for a music fix:

Bathe your cat
Call your cousin to see how the new husband is working out
Update iTunes (since I know I haven’t done that in a while!)
Do your taxes (anybody else file for an extension?)
Tweet at me!

Anybody else got ideas for ways to pass the music-free time?

Intermittent Hiccups This Morning

by Ben Westermann-Clark August 12th, 2008

If any of you noticed Grooveshark being a little bit under the weather earlier this morning, we went through a bad case of hiccups that may have interrupted your streams for a couple of hours. Any long delays in streaming or songs that just wouldn’t play at all were caused by this–but good news! Everything is back to normal now.

We’re sorry for our growing pains, and we try to do everything possible to keep your ears happy. More and more of you are swimming with the sharks, and our aquatic hearts beat strong under layers of cartilage in gratitude for all you guys do.

And if you’re still mad, here’s a video tribute to Kirk Cameron.

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