Crash The Super Bowl With Kina

So I have been trying to rotate a video artist with every two musical artists but in light of this special day, Super Bowl Day, I wanted to spot light someone who has a very special connection with the Super bowl. Kina Grannis was the winner of the 2007 Dorito’s Crash The Super Bowl Contest. This was a contest that was held to find a musician and allow them to play an original work during one of the commercial slots of the super bowl. To generate publicity for herself Grannis was one of the first seriously self promoted musical artist on you tube. She preformed a new song every week for months to encourage people to vote for her, many of which are still available on you tube. Once Grannis won the contest she preformed a clever, but what many found to be an under whelming video “Message from your Heart.”

It was a shame that she hadn’t had a better song selection because she has a lot of wonderful material, but as the mantra goes "song selection is everything." Some of the material Kina creates will probably leave you wanting, but much of her work is simply brilliant. This dichotomy is one of the things that makes Grannis such a special artist, she’s unconventional, willing to experiment, and doesn’t let herself become overly transfixed on a singular style of music. She is one of the most prolific musicians I know of, which goes a long way for me in illustrating her own fascination with music. The first song I came across was “Strong Enough” and instantly made me a fan. (you can jump to :41 to skip her introduction)

Most of Kina’s you tube videos you can catch a sampling of her vivacious personality. She has an infectious joy of life that comes across in her videos and even more evident when she performs live. She tours quite frequently across the country and well worth the opportunity to spend a night out relaxing and getting to meet her if you have the chance. You can find a listing of her tour dates on her website kinagrannis.com 

One of her most popular self written songs is a beautiful song called “Stay Just a Little” (you can jump to 1:18 to skip Kina's silliness, personally I love silliness)

Kina Grannis signed with One Haven Music Records in December of 2010, but I present her because the majority of her work has been independently released and she has three self produced albums which you can find Kinna Grannis ITUNES  You can find out more about Kina Grannis at kinnagrannis.com If you like Kina let your friends know or better yet send them a link to More w/ Less.

Acknowledgments

WOW!! It’s February already, hard to believe we are a month into 2011 already. I wanted to share More W/ Less progress with those of you who may be curious. More w/ Less has exceeded my expectations in its first month. The website has had 170 views this month now averaging over 40 viewers a week, not bad from word of mouth. I wanted to acknowledge a few of the websites that have been the source links that the viewers have come from.

http://movie-ozone.com

http://pingywebedition.somee.com

http://goallineblitz.com

legendrealms.com

www.facebook.com

ourworldgus.blogspot.com

http://blogspot.com/

The month of February I have decided to try submitting to some Web Directories for some additional exposure.

I also wanted to acknowledge those that have taken the time to view the blog. I hope you have found some things that have entertained you. I’m going to try to start including more bands and sketch comedy after Valentine’s Day and hopefully this will help the material on the website have a more diverse appeal.

David a Love Song

David Choi is one of the most successful, prolific, well known self-promoted musicians from you-tube that you have probably never heard of. He is ranked as the 6^th most popular musician on you-tube and has a popular song vocalizing his love affair with you-tube.

David’s trademark gravelly voice that he skillfully weaves into silky smooth tones has made him a master at the art of the love song. If you’re a sucker for a good ballad then you just might want to be one of David Choi’s 600 thousand subscribers. Listen to what David has to say about love

Beyond being a very talented musician David also is quite an accomplished producer and with the assistance of Wong Fu Productions has produced a couple of very nice high quality videos that have gathered over 3 million hits

If you like David Choi then subscribe to his you-tube, buy his songs from David Choi ITUNES and tell your freinds about his Music; or better yet send your friends a link to More w/ Less and let me tell them about great artists I've found on the internet.

You don't know Jack

Straight Jack is an unsigned alternative band based out of Chicago. They excel at taking big band, jazz and blues rhythms and creating new sexy sounds and poetry. I was lucky enough to see them when visiting a friend few years back and was really impressed with their song LUSH

Straight jacket is an 8 member band and usually overflows most of the stages they command. The lead singer is named Amber, but unfortuantly i don't know her full name.  They had there own website but it has been down for about six months hopefully they are still together because when they play they set the stage on fire.

Click on the strightjack link to find out more straightjack If you like straigh jack let your friends know or better yet send them a link to more w/ less.

In The Begininng

So a few weeks ago a friend of mine posted a link on a forum. This link was to a creative show called Journey Quest. This was the inspiration for more w/ less. Journey Quest is created by Zombie Orpheus Entertainment; reading their mission statement and their ideals on self distributed and fan supported content got me to thinking about things that I like to watch and admire on the internet. I had thought about doing a blog for sometime, but the idea of espousing intellectual pontification I found over done, however, the idea of sharing entertainment with people attracted me a great deal. So with my inspiration from Zombie Orpheus Entertainment and the use of their fan supported/ self distributed logo as my new mantra I decided to share hidden works of art I have found. Journey Quest is wonderfully hokey, fun, and outlandish series of short films that are a mixture of the Guild and Monty Python.

If you enjoy Journey Quest you can find the rest of the episodes at http://www.journey-quest.com/

They are completely fan supported so if you would like to see more send them a few dollars and please let your freinds know Journey-Quest or better yet send your freinds a link to more w/ less 

Sam Hart

I have never been musically inclined or followed music much, although for some reason I have always seemed to have very intimate (emotional speaking) friendships throughout my life with extremely musically talented people. I say this as an introduction to my own experience with music or lack there of (I’m not sure which) and to describe my own tastes in music, which tend to be erratic. I like things that I simply find well done.

This rambling has a segue into our next artiest Sam Hart. Sam is a singer, songwriter, musician that is hard to define. He has a beautiful voice and sings songs from quirky Adam Sandlerisk to Irish ballads. What first impressed me about Sam is that he is the first artist that I have know to write a Lullaby, and it impressed the hell out of me. Not only was it quite good, but simply the … well I can’t think of an appropriate word, but I was impressed by him desiring and creating such a piece of art.

I can’t say that his music is ever going to be top 40, indie dance, or to everyone’s liking, but for me at least he’s simply fun to listen to. His most well received song is one he wrote about Mario Kart.

Currently Sam Hart doesn’t have any albums out, although he says he is working on putting one together. You can follow him on Twitter or find his music on you tube. A shout out to the super hero fans, Sam has a funny little song about a villian turning to the side of good.

So if you like Sam Hart tell your friends or better yet send them a link to More w/ Less.

Ana Free

Ana Free is the stage name of Ana Gomes Ferreira, a self distributed singer, musician, songwriter and performer from Portugal who has had a series top 5 hit singles across the pond. You can find some of her songs HERE. Ana calls her fans the Free World, which makes me chuckle as I find it kind of clever. Ana has quite alot of good songs and you can find a lot of her raw acoustic versions on you tube.The one I feature today I chose because of the high quality video (although my quality is not so good)..

This next video isn't on of my favorite songs by Anna but you get a good sense of who Anna Free. She just gives you a sense that she's one of those people that is fun to be around.

Anna gives a great interview where she talks a little about her You-Tube experince and realizing that she could have a career as a performing artist. I think it's a very important interview that can help understand the experience associated with most all the artist that are/will be presented on More-w-Less.





You can find more about Ana Free at Ana Free. If you like her Music then let your friends know, or better yet send them a link to More w/ Less.