Do you ever find yourself surrounded by music connaisseurs that go on and on about the latest trends, news, and releases, while you lost track of everything ever since Kanye called Taylor Swift a ‘bitch’, with or without her permission to do so, which resulted in a celeb fight? Worry no more! Rockstone is happy to provide you with a weekly update on important music related news, so you can steal the show at every party with facts, figures and abundant namedropping!
Injection to fix hearing damage
We all know you should wear earplugs when visiting festivals and even when hitting the club. Not sexy, but essential for keeping your hearing intact. Because once you’ve suffered the damage, it’s irreversible. The hair cells in your ear are the ones being damaged and essential for hearing. They will die when you grow older, but also if you’re exposed to loud noise and won’t grow back. Sounds (pun unintended) gloomy, right? Well, this might change in a few years!
A Dutch company (Audion Therapeutics) discovered that you boost your stem cells to recovery, when you add certain other substances (it’s really technical tbh) to it. Meaning the hair cells will recover, like you’re hearing. This has been tested on mice for now, but the next step is to try it on humans.
To add the substance for recovery, an injection will pierce through the eardrum to make sure it reaches the right place. This happens three times. After that you will be tested to see if it worked and if everything went well. Also, they’ll test your balance, since your vestibular is in that area as well. If this is successful, this injection needs to happen once in a while for ‘maintenance’.
For now, keep on using those earplugs, because not only does a needle piercing your eardrum sounds creepy, the research is still going. Beginning of 2017 will show the first results, while the research is probably finished in 2018.
Plans to play first record in space
And who other than Jack White’s Third Man Label can come up with a plan like this one? They’ve made triple-decker records, built a record store on wheels, actually dropping vinyl from the sky and so on. So it’s not weird that the next stunt is their biggest one test: attempting to play the first phonographic record in space. Therefore, they need a custom built turntable suitable for space, which they’re already working on. It’s called ‘The Icarus Craft’ and will be attached to a high-altitude balloon. Thereocrd they will be playing is a gold-plated master of their 2010 single ‘A Glorious Dawn’ by Carl Sagan. It’s the label’s 3 millionth record pressed.
Literal launch parties will be thrown on July 30 at both Third Man locations in Nashville and Detroit featuring live bands, exclusive merchandise, limited edition gold vinyl copies of the Sagan record, and more. The Icarus Craft will be on view at the Detroit location, and the record itself will be in Nashville. Both parties begin at 11 a.m, and the pre-recorded launch will screen and stream online at noon. (Source: Pitchfork)
Don’t Pokémon and concert
If you’ve missed out on the Pokémon hype you’ve been living under a rock. Zombie apocalypse-like situations are happening in the streets, with loads of 20-somethings following their phone in a quest to ‘catch ’em all’. It even goes so far to the point where people forget that there might be an A-list celebrity (Beyoncé) next to you and you wouldn’t even notice, becuase you’re catching a Snorlax. It happened as you can see in the video below. This kind of infuriated Rihanna to the point where she spoke out against the hype at her concert in Lile, France.
“I don’t want to see you texting your boyfriends or your girlfriend. I don’t want to see you catching any Pokémons up in this b*tch!”
Amen.
Dutch Burning Man: Where The Sheep Sleep
Black Rock, in the dessert in Nevada turns into a crowded self-sufficient festival every year. Over 60.000 people travel to the hottest place to listen to music, exchange stuff, watch/do arts, dance and so on. In the end, they set fire to a huge doll, hence the name Burning Man. We’ve all heard of it, we’ve all at least (drunk or not) discussed ‘we really have to’, but never did. Or if you followed through, good for you! Now, Europeans are one step closer to experience the ultimate freedom that comes at a Burning Man festival, because the same concept is being launched in the secluded nature reserve of Kootwijk, The Netherlands. It’s called ‘Where the Sheep Sleep‘ and is onviously sold out already. The concept is thriving on the Burning Man success. So while it probably is a no go for 2016, you can sign up for membership and get a chance to go next year!
Soundcloud gives creators an ‘album’ option
When SoundCloud started creators shared their work track-by-track. Over the years, the platform evolved to enable playlists. Today, they added another way for creators to share and listeners to discover SoundCloud’s massive catalog of music with the addition of Albums.
If you’re a creator, log on to your profile and mark any playlist you’d like to move to the album format. This will organize any collection of tracks into Soundcloud’s new “Album” section on your profile, and allow it to be discoverable via search. We hope “Albums” offers yet another way for you to share and showcase your work on SoundCloud. (Source: Hypebot)
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