Category: Music

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Theresa Andersson Plays “Na Na Na” in Her Kitchen

Theresa Andersson plays all the instruments and does vocal looping on the fly as she sings “Na Na Na” in her kitchen.

Theresa recently recorded her newest album in her kitchen. The record was produced by Swedish singer-songwriter/producer Tobias Froberg (Peter Moren’s upcoming solo album) and mixed by Linus Larsson (Peter Bjorn and John, Mercury Rev.) Theresa played all the instruments on the album except for a duet with legendary New Orleans producer and composer Allen Toussaint (The Meters, Dr. John, The Band, Elvis Costello) and a duet with Norwegian singer Ane Brun.

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Weezer’s Pork and Beans Music Video

Mmmmmmm, Weezer’s new memelicious music video Pork and Beans is the best meme inspired creation ever.

Shot May 7-10 in North Hollywood, CA, this video features a cast of, well, many! And what a cast! An amazing group of well known “Youtube celebs” was tracked down and flown in so they could do their thing(s) with the Weezer men. Its pretty much impossible to properly describe what went down, so just have a look!

I particularly liked it when Rivers Cuomo embraces the “Leave Britney Alone” guy. If anyone was ever overdo for a hug, it’s Chris Crocker.

Update: Wired’s interview with the director.

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Air Guitar Nation

This summer my family is holding their once-every-five-year reunion out near Mountain View, just on the eastern cusp of the Rocky Mountains. One of the things we’ll be doing is rocking out with a music jam. Not everyone in my family plays an instrument, so I suggested that those not playing should bring their air guitars. I figured just about everyone can play the air guitar, but it wasn’t until I saw the documentary, “Air Guitar Nation” did I truly know the depth and potential of the invisible instrument.

AIR GUITAR NATION is the feature documentary about the year that air guitar swept America – from New York to Los Angeles and then all the way to northern Finland. AIR GUITAR NATION chronicles the birth of the US Air Guitar Championships and the personal journeys of those talented contestants who are vying to become the first World Air Guitar Champion from the United States. Every August, the Air Guitar World Championships bring thousands of fans all the way to Oulu, Finland to see the world’s best air guitarists battle it out for 60 seconds of mock stardom. For years, the USA was missing in action. Enter the first official US Air Guitar Championships. What starts as a friendly contest above a New York strip club becomes a battle of naked ambition played out on the national and, ultimately, the world stage.

Here is a short clip from the movie, please enjoy as C. Diddy gives the most amazing air guitar performance you’ve ever seen:


[C. Diddy Air Guitar Nation – YouTube]

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The Whitburn Project: 120 Years of Music

Using data from the Whitburn project, Andy Baio of Waxy.org just wrote an extensive entry about one-hit wonders and pop longevity.

For the last ten years, obsessive record collectors in Usenet have been working on the Whitburn Project — a huge undertaking to preserve and share high-quality recordings of every popular song since the 1890s. To assist their efforts, they’ve created a spreadsheet of 37,000 songs and 112 columns of raw data, including each song’s duration, beats-per-minute, songwriters, label, and week-by-week chart position. It’s 25 megs of OCD, and it’s awesome.

Did pop songs stay on the top 40 charts longer in decades past? Were there more one-hit-wonders in the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s? He’s done some great parsing of some really big data sets, and the results are very interesting.

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Ganstagrass

Ganstagrass

Ganstagrass: When bluegrass and HipHop collide.

Introducing block rockin’ honky-tonk, New American music for the 21st century, built with love in a little studio, hand crafted, running on inspiration and imagination and duct tape, calling on the spirit of Gram Parsons and Otis Redding and KRS-ONE and Dolly Parton and Nina Simone and Willie Nelson and Missy Elliott and Johnny Cash, to write about what we feel and play what our hearts tell us, because to make it happen is reason enough, and to share it with the world is all the reason you need, because we tell the truth with music and the truth is beautiful.

I’ve listened to the first few tracks and though I’m not a big hip-hop fan, the mixes are fun in that, “Hey, who knew those two seemingly incongruent genres would work so well together?”

Some lyrics may offend: You can take the gansta out of the Rap but he’s still going to swear like a pirate.

The Download link and the Artist Link.

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Beatles Remastered

Kelli owns pretty much every Beatles album ever released, so when I decided to fill the gaps in my own digital Fab Four collection, she made it easy for me.

On Sunday while perusing the magazine rack at Chapters we came across a Rolling Stone article that may have me once again, updating my collection. It’s a short paragraph about a Beatles fan (or fans) who have created a fantastic do-it-yourself reissue of all of the Beatles recordings using a record player and original vinyl albums.

The Beatles’ albums came out on CD in 1987, but fans have long complained that the early digital technology used to remaster the recordings left them sounding hollow and thin — and that the official remasters are way overdue. That’s where Purple Chick comes in — a secretive fan (or group of fans) who has been quietly remastering classic discs like Revolver and A Hard Day’s Night, and releasing the digital files for free online. How is this possible? The Beatles’ CDs sound so bad that carefully digitized tracks from pristine vinyl copies are noticeably better — with crisper highs, a fuller soundstage, and more realistic reproduction of instruments and voices.

Check out Purple Chick Six plus three and the many megaupload links he’s posted for some of the highest fidelity digital recordings of the Beatles, ever.

I’ve compared them myself; the DIY remasters are noticeably different and in some cases better, but in at least one instance, (In My Life – Rubber Soul) the new file had the same audio in both the left and right channels, where my previous version was in true stereo. So your mileage may vary.

Also note, the files are in the open source format .FLAC and will need to be converted before they can be played in some players. (Audacity can do it).

Not Purple Chick, but 6plus3… Sorry about that Paul, and thanks for the clarifications in the comments.
Continue reading “Beatles Remastered”

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The Luc Tuymans Experiment

Much along the lines of a famous musician being ignored while busking, how will people react to a famous artist’s painting (which might sell for millions under normal circumstances) when it is found in the street?

Klara.be did an experiment with Luc Tuymans. What if you take art out of its usual context and expose it in the street?

[Luk Tuymans Experiment – YouTube]

Perhaps the emphasis of how important Luc Tuyman happens to be goes on a bit long, but I’m a sucker for social experiments, so waiting for the actual experiment is worth it.

(via)

Silvie says: “I noticed that Nissan made a funny spoof of this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpXrt5wRPWE“

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Guitar Noise Podcast

Guitar Noise PodcastI just subscribed to the Guitar Noise Podcast. In the first episode, managing editor David Hodge goes through some of the basics of strumming. If you’re just learning the guitar, as I am—my parents gave me a guitar over the holidays, then I recommend you check it out.

I hope that, as they get a little more familiar with the technology, they will take advantage of dividing their podcasts into chapters and then show relevant “artwork” such as a JPG of the strumming pattern or chords that they want you to hit. But as it stands now, it’s still a great example of using podcasts for teaching.

(Yes, I realize in order to use chapters the podcast needs to be in AAC format instead of mp3, but as an iTunes user, it’s a trade-off that works for me. Perhaps they could have two streams, a normal podcast and an enhanced m4a version.)

Feed link.

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Knitted Animation Music Video

This amazing music video by Director Simon Laganière, for the Quebec duo Tricot Machine, uses artwork of entirely knitted yarn to animate each frame. (A tricot is a plain, warp-knitted cloth of any of various yarns.)

Over 700 unique knitted pieces were created for the video by designer Lysanne Latulippe of the fashion label Majolie.

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