Music

Sea-Tac Airport Featuring Musicians in PSAs

Ben Gibard of Death Cab for Cutie, one of the featured PSA artists © msnbc.com This past weekend, Sea-Tac International Airport launched a series of new airport PSAs featuring all Northwest-based musicians. Travelers were greeted with messages such as this: This is Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains reminding you that smoking is allowed on the [...]

Website Streaming City “Soundtracks”

Vintage radio © CubaGallery Find yourself pining for the familiar soundtrack of your city while you’re out of town? Do you often miss the sound of a city you once called home? One website is making it possible to enjoy the authentic audio stylings of New York, Montreal, Chicago, and San Francisco. You Are Listening [...]

A Musical Tour of Southern U.S.A. – Planning a Road Trip to 3 Must-Hear Cities

Three of the U.S.A.’s most important musical capitals are within 10 hours of each other in the deep Southern states: Nashville’s the spiritual home of Country and Western, Memphis’s the soul of the blues and planted the seed of rock ‘n’ roll and New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz.

File Under ‘Good to Know’: Iron Maiden Has a Custom 757, and the Band’s Frontman Flies It

We’re late to this news right alongside Jaunted: Yes, this airplane totally exists and yes, we feel kinda late to the news since it’s actually been tooling around the world since notorious heavy metal band Iron Maiden customized an Astraeus Airlines Boeing 757 in 2008 to fly around on their world tours. It wasn’t until [...]

Music Video of the Moment: Cornershop’s ‘United Provinces Of India’

A great new track and beautifully shot video to boot. Love it. More via Cornershop.com.

Bizarre Culture: A Taste of Genuine German Entertainment

I love Germans. In particular, their unabashed fondness for strange entertainment. Case in point: What the bajeesus is going on here?

The BoomCase: A Vintage Suitcase-Turned-Boombox (for the Domesticated Traveler)

One day I’ll settle down in a nice two bedroom flat with expensive cookware, basic cable and a poodle. When that day comes, I like to imagine that my pad will be sufficiently decked out in tasteful, distinctive, travel-inspired furnishings. Parisian wallpaper, vintage globes and maps galore, and a well-stocked airline bar cart in the [...]

“Big Jet Plane” Is an Ode to Everyone Who’s Ever Dreamt of Escape

To anyone who’s ever dreamt of escape from the mundane – a mundane job, mundane relationship, what have you – Angus and Juila Stone’s Big Jet Plane is an ode to you. The video perfectly captures fleeting, hopeful glimpses in the life of a retail worker (played by the incredibly beautiful Emily Barclay) who dreams [...]

Singing in Cambodia: Mike Doughty Explores Phnom Penh, Battambang and Kampot [Video]

Mike Doughty‘s latest music video, (You Should Be) Doubly (Gratified), is a 3-minute exploration of some of Cambodia’s most scenic spots, including Phnom Penh, Battambang and Kampot. Check it:

Photo of the Moment: Rocking at Roskilde Festival, Denmark

Stand by Me – Song Around the World [Video]

Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World from Concord Music Group on Vimeo. From the producer: From the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music”, comes the first of many “songs around the world” being released independently. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic by musicians [...]

High Culture on a Low Budget: London’s Royal Opera House Student Standby

Flora Hall at London’s ROH © moakb £10 will barely get you into a movie in London, but it will get you into one of the most famous (and most exciting) opera houses in the world. And before you start to think nosebleed seats, horned helmets, and lots of sound barrier-breaking high notes, consider Covent [...]

Bizarre Culture: Bulgarian Butchers Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ [Video]

It’s tragic enough when countries around the world feel the need to adopt some of the U.S.’s worst pop culture exports. But this fellow covering Michael Jackson’s Bad just takes Bulgaria’s version of American Idol to a whole new level. A very, very scary level. Ouch. Needless to say, he didn’t make the final cut.

Croatia’s Strangely Beautiful ‘Sea Organ’

Not unlike the U.K.’s Singing Ringing Tree, this sea organ in Zadar, Croatia is an experimental, public art and architectural installation. Mounted below a series of large marble steps, ocean waves push air through thirty-five perfectly tuned sound tubes creating random, but oddly beautiful “music”. Well … I think so at least. Sort of reminiscent [...]

Beatles Themed Hotel Opens in Liverpool

The first hotel in Liverpool dedicated to its four most famous hometown lads, opened recently with a grand flourish. The hotel, appropriately named the Hard Days Night Hotel, features Beatles themed suites, a yellow submarine jukebox, and Beatles memorabilia galore. Rates for its 110 rooms start at $340 a night. For $1,300 a night, you [...]

Bizarre Culture: Danse la Poutine, Quebec [Video]

© Wikipedia For those not in the know, poutine is: … a dish consisting of French fries topped with fresh cheese curds and covered with gravy and sometimes other additional ingredients. The freshness of the curds is important as it makes them soft in the warm fries, without completely melting. It is a quintessential Canadian [...]

Gotta Pee? Finland Introduces New ‘Texting Toilets’

Authorities in Finland have cracked the secret to preventing vandalism in public toilets. Last month, the Finish Road Administration authorities put into place a system that allows travelers to access toilets by SMS text messaging the number given on the door of the public toilet. There are instructions on the doors to toilets and shower [...]

Soothe Your Road Weary Soul with Last.fm’s Music-on-Demand Service

Nothing sets the mood for a road trip or all-night train ride like a kick-ass soundtrack. Today, the blogosphere is all atwitter – and rightly so – with the latest news from Last.fm: As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website. Something we’ve wanted for years—for [...]

Finland’s Shouting Men’s Choir

The northern Finnish town of Oulu has been described as ‘Just like Geelong, but colder and with more fish.’ It is home to, among other things, the World Air Guitar Championship. It is also the birthplace of the Shouting Men’s Choir: thirty men in black suits, yelling. Finns, by and large, are quiet people. Silence [...]

Remembering John Lennon: Still Imagining Peace

Close to 27 years after his death, John Lennon has been immortalized in a work of art designed by Yoko Ono and installed in Reykjavik, Iceland. The art work called the Imagine Peace Tower comprises a wishing well from which a tall tower of light shoots out to touch the sky. The surrounding ground bears [...]

Music Map: Find Out Who’s Listening to What and Where

With Gracenote.com’s Music Map you can zoom in on countries around the world to find out what folks are listening to. I’m not entirely sure how this is useful to travelers, other than to determine the rather eclectic musical tastes of locals in the countries you’re planning to visit. Let’s take a quick tour, picking [...]

Free Soundtrack Music for Your Travel Videos (Courtesy of Moby)

Download free music (courtesy of Moby) for your travel films and documentaries.

One Year of Spanish: Linguistic Laws of Attraction

1000 Wines points us to One Year of Spanish: “Nothing impresses the senoritas like a well-conjugated verb.” Indeed.

A Song For Road Trippers: Satellite

I’m happily ignorant with regard to pop music or just about anything found on broadcast radio. But I haven’t been able to get Guster’s Satellite out of my head for the past week. It’s a great road tripping song and the video’s sweet to boot, albeit a bit vertigo-inducing.

A Bittersweet Song Punctuates A Perfect Weekend

K had the last six full days off; me – the last five. I’ve been working full steam ahead since I can remember and K’s been juggling two jobs and night school since October of last year. This weekend was the best time we’ve spent together in recent memory. I proudly shirked my blogging duties [...]

Marilyn Manson Is Still Alive?

This is only marginally related to travel. Via Jaunted: [I]t turns out that scary rockstar Marilyn Manson paints watercolors, enough of them to create an exhibition that opened in a Cologne gallery this week. Which I couldn’t care less about, but it brings to mind two things … One: Marilyn Manson is still alive and [...]