the guardian

Spotify apps

2 December 2011

It was a matter of time before Spotify opened their platform to third parties. As a way to extend and become the de-facto music platform for pretty much everyone around the globe. We won’t deny it’s one of our preferred music streaming platforms, and if you start adding some great services to enrich the music experience, then you’ll find yourself sticking around the Swedish platform more time than you could imagine.

Think about it… if you’re one of those who tended to visit pitchfork for the “best new music” section, or read The Guardian’s critics every week, then go back to Spotify and see if they have it… well… there’s no longer the need to get out of Spotify. Or say you wanted to use the great recommendations from last.fm (Spotify somehow attempted to recreate  with their overview & related artists sections), you just simply add the app as if you were adding a playlist to your left menu.

reading the reviews from Spotify is handy
reading the reviews from Spotify is handy

For the launch they’ve partnered with some big names (Rolling Stone, Songkick, Fuse, Soundrop….), some of those other great programs and sites that create your musical universe. As you can imagine the apps choice will get bigger & bigger… although we must say that as Spotify doesn’t have the rights to stream every single piece of music in the planet… well… half of those Pitchfork or The Guardian reviews aren’t directly accessible from the platform.

Pitchforkmedia
Pitchforkmedia

 Still, it’s a great start to open the platform and keep attracting users… now all they have left is to enable publications like us embed our own spotify players on-line. More info this way.

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Modern Toss 7

28 September 2011

And after Issue 6… comes issue 7!

The most disgustingly irreverent Brit humor from the past decade (Mick Bunnage and Jon Link) is back to a new print edition of Modern Toss. Once again partly funded by the advanced subscriptors, Mick & Jon bring the most grotesque and rudest situations they could imagine of into town, and because we’re in need of serious shit to counterbalance the excess of omnipresent happy psychedelic pop we highly recommend you go for it. It’s only £6 after all.

And as there are no public plans of bringing their Channel 4 series back Modern Toss need other revenue sources, that’s why they’ve recently started collaborating with The Guardian to “give their take on the big happening of the week”… each Saturday, good enough while we wait for issue 8… and we expect maaaaaaaaany months ahead of us before such rudeness becomes available & makes kids cry again. Cheers Jesus yeah!

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London Lives ’11 competition

26 May 2011

After 2010 comes 2011 and another edition of “London Lives”! So same procedure, same possibilities (less prizes, no Bronze medalists this year? booo) but different sponsoring art company (don’t worry the big two: The Guardian & Network rail are still here).

North Port Sanction by Nigel Cox, last year's Silver Medal

The attractive thing about this competition once again is the possibility to have your work (if winner of corz)  on display in the new south entrance of London Blackfriars station.

London Happy Hour by Ashley Cecil

Prizes prizes? Similar to last year…

Gold medal
• The winning entry will be digitally reproduced and installed in the new south entrance of London Blackfriars station for a year + a further copy of the artwork will be buried in a time capsule to celebrate the opening of the new south entrance of the station
• £1,000 worth of art materials from GreatArt and a £500 voucher
• A boring commemorative certificate

Silver medal
• £750 worth of art materials from GreatArt and a £250 voucher
• The also essential commemorative certificate

Bronze medal
• £400 worth of art materials from GreatArt and a £100 voucher
• An exciting commemorative certificate!

We wouldn’t be telling you this if we didn’t thought it’s a good way for your London-related art to get outside your basement… and win some nice things. On the other side the level of last year’s edition was pretty high with a very diverse range of artworks (you can see some of the submitted pieces & winners here). Hopefully this year will be just as good.

Skittles, Blackfriars Bridge by Ed Gray

All 100 shortlisted entrants will be invited to exhibit their original framed artwork at Bankside Gallery from 9-18 September 2011. All works will be then offered for sale although a 50% comission + VAT goes to the Bankside Gallery & Cancer Research UK.

Go on! Give it a go! It’s free to submit!! Conditions, submission page, judging criteria, info & all that jazz @ The Guardian. You only have until July 24th btw!

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