Ben has been engaged to deliver the keynote address at the 2010 Nashville Recording Workshop + Expo, an important recording and music industry conference in his adopted hometown. The event, to be held March 5 and 6 at Belmont University, is co-sponsored by the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business and the Audio Engineering Society, Nashville Section. The conference will feature sessions on instrument miking, arrangement and recording, producing demos, acoustics, and roundtable discussions, as well as equipment manufacturer and industry exhibits.
Folds music in Apple iPad video
Apple Computer, which today confirmed its long-suspected intentions of making a tablet device, now known as the iPad, is using Ben’s cover of the Cure’s Inbetween Days in the promotional video for the new product. Ben is a faithful Mac user himself. His music has been used previously in Apple promotions, and he has made his celebrity playlists and exclusive tracks and interviews available on Apple’s iTunes music service.
Haiti aid album
Paste Magazine has organized a collection of downloadable songs available for donations to Haiti Relief. The effort is called Songs for Haiti. Included in the collection is Bitch Went Nutz, along with tracks from over 200 artists.
The Sing-Off Finale
Ben will perform on the live finale of NBC’s “The Sing-Off” Monday night (December 21, 2009), in which one a cappella group chosen by viewers will win $100,000 and a recording contract. Besides Ben, the show will feature performances by Natasha Bedingfield, Smokey Robinson and vocalese master Bobby McFerrin, and fellow judge Shawn Stockman will rejoin his Boyz II Men bandmates for a reunion performance.
Exploding entertainment dollars!
On the first night of The Sing-Off on NBC, Ben was definitely impressed by The Beelzebubs, the singing group based at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. Ben also liked the SoCals on the strength of their performance of Queen’s Somebody to Love, particularly the high note hit by one of the singers. As we all know by now, Ben is a big supporter of a cappella music, and blogged after Monday’s episode that groups such as these need to avoid the temptation to use Autotune and other production aids (as in “some producer with computers”) because “it literally costs no money to sing with a few other people so I figure when the economy totally shits they’ll be king”. The only problem: He’s not excited to have to shop for clothes for each night.
Update: Ben’s posting his observations on the show to his website rather than blogging. Tuesday night had some rousing performances of classics and “guilty pleasure” songs that had Ben asking “Pass me the dramamine!”. The show is giving Ben great exposure. He’s been a guest on many late night TV shows, but he hasn’t had this much prime-time TV air time ever. And the exposure is great, too – The premiere of “The Sing-Off” gave NBC its strongest rating in the 18-49 demographic all season with an estimated 6.9 million viewers overall. Night two was up 13 percent in adults 25-49 over night one, with 6.95 million viewers overall. Night three dipped a bit, to 6.6 million.
2009-12-14
