This reminds me of the main character’s school assignment in Vernor Vinge’s sci-fi novel Rainbows End which doesn’t seem all that sci-fi in 2010:
SpiralTruth
Just another post-modern quest for meaning.
Browsing the archives for the sounds category.
Yes, despite his tough stance on marijuana and other drugs, Slick Steve Harper really just wants to get high with a little help from his friends. Congrats to the guy for getting up on stage and singing a song. That ain’t the easiest thing to do. But could he have picked something more contradictory? Hopefully he made sure to secure all the rights for performing the song and posting it up on YouTube. Wouldn’t want to piss off any of those record companies that he’s helping to impose draconian copyright laws on everyone.
The thing that bothers me the most about this performance, though, was that Rahim Jaffer was nowhere to be seen. That guy knows how to party, and I bet he could have helped on the harmonies.
Here’s something cool I just noticed on Chris Cornell’s site. You can hear the song on his site. The lyrics are written by one of his fans, Rory Dela Rosa. Now before everyone gets too jealous about how cool it must have been to write a song with one of rock’s most talented singer/songwriter’s, you should know something about Rory. In April, he lost his six year old daughter to cancer and then he got handed his own cancer death sentence a few months later. As much as I dig Chris’ stuff, I’d take life over collaboration in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, Rory doesn’t have the choice.
One of the coolest things about being an artist is that you get to record parts of you that will live on past your physical death. I’d say the belief I have in that is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a religion. It’s no small comfort to know that people will have your poetic best to remember you by. Hat’s off to Chris Cornell for taking the time and helping to make something beautiful out of such awful circumstances.
Great. Just what drummers need. Check out the BBC article on a study from Chichester University that scientifically proves that your drummer is not lazy, no matter how lazy he might seem. In fact, he’s probably the fittest guy in the band, provided he consistently does at least a 90 minute session on the skins every day or so.
Looks like the RIAA is dropping the policy of suing individuals who share music online in favor of one that cuts off their internet access after repeat violations. Before you say, “That’s fair,” consider the importance of Internet access today. Consider also that, unlike Cory Doctorow has suggested before, the reverse (cutting off the Internet access of companies who make repeated spurious copyright claims) would be met with outrage from the same people who support such a system. Finally, consider that this creates a situation where the RIAA is effectively allowed to pursue vigilante justice. So, what we’re really saying is that, when big business deems it acceptable, we can strip citizens of basic rights (i.e. the right to free speech in a communication channel that has permeated every aspect of our lives) without the use of our legal system. Read more here.
Or perhaps instead of trying to destroy everything that doesn’t fit the RIAA’s perception of reality (file sharing, the internet, our basic rights, etc.), they could just change the way they approach the business of making money off of music. I hate to invoke Orwell, but the similarity is too obvious to resist.
Brian Toder of Chestnut & Cambronne is the lone voice of reason within the article, which almost makes it sound like the RIAA is doing everyone a favor, when he says this: “People like to share music. The Internet makes it so easy. They have to do something to change this business model of theirs.”
Being a guitar player, I’ve been sort of reluctant to succumb to the whole Guitar Hero thing. I don’t know whether it’s the years of practice reduced to six colored buttons or the fact that it’s sometimes a lot more fun than actually playing an indie show, but something about it just makes me want to break down and cry. All those wasted years.
After all, in the game you have crowds and reliable gear and awesome stages and… did I mention crowds?
Anyway, I have recently been lured into playing a song or two (cough, cough) and I started wondering if someone had made something like this for the piano. A pianist actually plays keys as opposed to strings, so Piano Hero would be closer to the real thing than Guitar Hero by default. Turn the complexity up a bit more by having your game “controller” fitted with a full 88 keys, and voila: your very own electronic piano teacher!
Enter Synthesia:
The video above is from Sean at hdpiano.com, and it uses a FREE software app that you can get for Mac or PC at www.synthesiagame.com.
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Oh God. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Paris Hilton (to be more specific, whoever wrote this song for her) is actually kind of witty in this video:
But you know, I bet Paris knows that the First Amendment doesn’t guarantee freedom from the press, and that would mean she’s just a little more capable than the current VP on the Republican ticket.
Stereogum reported last week that U2′s Bono is going to be writing 6-10 Op-Ed pieces for the Times in 2009. Pay: $0. I know a lot of people get annoyed with Bono saving the world and all, but I think it’s pretty cool that the guy gets involved in basically everything. So now he get’s to add NY Times writer to his resume. Sweet.
I’m still not sure exactly what it is about country and western music that makes me want to puncture my own eardrums every time they’re assaulted by it. Perhaps one of the reasons is the boastful ignorance that some of its mascots, such as Hank Williams Jr., display in songs like “McCain – Palin Tradition”:
Here’s an interesting analysis of his lyrics by Chris Rasmussen at The Pitch, Kansas City.
The part I found most interesting, however, was the accusation that Bill Clinton was to blame for the current economic crisis. Now, just using some pretty straight forward reasoning, you’d wonder how anything that was put into policy eight years ago would be able to turn into such an economic snowball without George Bush and his cronies noticing. Yes, Dubyah did look pretty surprised when he made his announcement that there was suddenly a crisis and that there would need to be a bailout… but come on! That said, I haven’t yet heard of a President that didn’t make mistakes, so perhaps Hank’s hyperbole had some basis in reality? I liked this analysis, which seems pretty balanced. It recognizes some policy decisions made by Clinton that made the conditions for the crisis possible. But it also recognizes the abuse of those policies over the last 8 years that made these problems what they are today.
It’s a classic right wing argument, the same sort of argument that would blame school shootings on Marylin Manson albums. There’s no question that you can find dark and violent themes in Manson’s music (he would argue, of course, that this is simply a reflection of our violent age), but when do the parents, the schools, and various members of society that were involved in a misguided kid’s life start sharing some of the responsibility for how he was raised? Perhaps Manson himself put it best: “Raise your kids better or I’ll be raising them for you.”
Verdict? Williams’ lyrics are trite and have only a tiny foothold on reality, but we’ll likely be hearing them quoted by die-hard right wingers with the same fervor as they quote passages from the Old Testament for at least another couple of weeks.
I remember seeing the video for Club Thing and thinking, “Oh, this guy’s an R&B artist.” It was shades of Justin Timberlake. A pretty cool song, but nothing more amazing about it than that. Then I did a little research and found that he was doing all of that with an acoustic guitar and a few pedals, including a loop pedal (which I then had to run out and buy!)
Here’s a link to the music video.
And here’s what it actually looks like when he performs it live:
I saw Yoav back in May and he’s as good live as on this video. It’s like the guy’s a machine. I’ve seen people look like real asses with a loop pedal. You’ve got to be really precise. I also like the lyrics to this one. It combines the darkness and edginess of the club scene with more traditional singer/guitarist songwriting (a genre which, along with rock, has lost a lot of its true edge lately in my humble opinion).
Thanks to John for pointing me to this particular video!