Category: Art

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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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Music

Stairway to Heaven in 101 Versions

Stairway to HeavenWFMU’s Beware of the Blog presents Stairway to Heaven in 101 different versions. There’s Foo Fighters, Frank Zappa, Camper Van Beethoven, and Dolly Parton, just to hint at the veritable cornucopia of selection.

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family Photography

What We Australi-Are

Three years ago my brother moved down under to live a year on a work/travel visa in Australia. He got some great photos at many famous Ozzie locations including this one at Uluru (Ayres Rock) that he’s selling on iStock photo:

Jumping at Uluru

He messaged me yesterday to let me know he found out it’s being used in a political ad created by Paul Andersen and Adrian Elton, This is what we Australi-Are. The video is the winning entry in a contest to create television ads that promote a better, fairer, more progressive Australia. A friend of his from London recognized him.

Update: I guess the photo is no longer for sale. The Aussie government now requires a release for photos of Uluru.

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Music

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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Art

Refacing American Tender

Flickr user Joe D! posted this great set of modified currency. Right now he’s posted 74 of them, but he says he’s going to add more.

Here are three that I liked:
Refacing American Tender

Refacing American Tender

mRefacing American Tender

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Art Music

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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ethics Photography

UK Photography: Is it a crime?

photography is not a crime

A security officer in Middlesbrough did not seem to realise it is legal to take pictures of people when on public land.

Flickr user i didn’t mean to go to Stoke posted his photo and story about this security guard in the process of detaining him and a friend for taking photos in the outdoor, pedestrianized area of Middlesbrough, UK.

I don’t know how traumatized the guy was after being detained but I hope some good comes out of it as people learn that there is nothing illegal or unethical about street photography.

His friend captured some video coverage of the incident.

Moments later as i walked away this goon jumped in front of me and demanded to know what i was doing. i explained that i was taking photos and it was my legal right to do so, he tried to stop me by shoulder charging me, my friend started taking photos of this, he then tried to detain us both. I refused to stand still so he grabbed my jacket and said i was breaking the law. Quickly a woman and a guy wearing BARGAIN MADNESS shirts joined in the melee and forcibly grabbed my friend and held him against his will. We were both informed that street photography was illegal in the town.

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Photography

Grass Fire

A grass fire near Lethbridge’s English Oaks subdivision broke out around 4:45pm yesterday. When firefighters arrived, vinyl siding on the southern-most home was warping under the heat of flames that were about seven metres from the residence. Firefighters ran their hoses through the inside of one of the homes nearby to put down the blaze.

Grass Fire

The southern-most residence was the only home with direct fire damage.

Here is a set of my photos from the scene.

Categories
Art

Elephant Self Portrait

This elephant is simply incredible! I wonder if he came up with the design himself or if he was taught it and that’s all he does. Either way, WOW.


[Elephant Painting – YouTube]

This particular “artist” appears to be an elephant called Hong who lives at the Maetaman Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai, Thailand. An article about Hong published on The Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project (AEACP) website notes:

Two years ago, Hong began painting with her mahout, Noi Rakchang, and has steadily developed her skills. After learning how to paint flowers, she moved on to more advanced paintings. She now has two specialties. One is an elephant holding flowers with her trunk, and the other is the Thai flag. An elephant with so much control and dexterity is capable of amazing work. Just for clarification, with these realistic figural works, the elephant is still the only one making the marks on the paper but the paintings are learned series of brushstrokes not Hong painting a still life on her own.

We are sure that as Hong continues to investigate her artistic side, her paintings will become even more beautiful.

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Art

SXSW 2008 Podcasts

SXSW LogoOver the last few years I’ve been secretly dying to attend the annual new media festival in Austin, TX known as South by Southwest.

My trip to Punta Cana this year took precedence but alas not all is lost because the fine folks at SXSW are releasing podcasts of all the Interactive panel sessions over the coming months. They’ve already got a few of them up.

Subscribe to the SXSW Interactive podcast feed.