Something for my Cello playing friends to aim for – the beatboxing kicks in at 1:08.
Maybe he should get together with the beatboxing flautist for a bit of a duet.
This guy’s name is Kevin Olusola. Here’s his official website.
Love this. Mostly because it’s banjo. Partly because it’s Mario.
See also The Cleverlys playing some Beyonce.
It’s almost a year since I discovered the wonders of Jacob Aranza’s Backwards Masking Unmasked. If you’ve missed the anti-rock paranoia of those heady days, here’s a “sermon” for you.
If there’s one truth I’ve learned in my time on the Internet it’s that people will be at least 25% meaner behind a keyboard. Unless they put their real name to what they’re writing, but even then they’re probably 10% meaner because so much of communication occurs outside the words we use.
But this is just hilarious.
David Foster Wallace is considered by many to be one of the written voices of his generation. His essays regularly (and posthumously) appear in lists of the best essays ever written. He wrote some books. Including a book called Infinite Jest.
Somebody posted the first page of the book to Yahoo questions asking for “feedback”… hilarity ensued.
“This needs some serious work… your writing is not formal… it is written in informal language that imitates the qualities commonly believed to be characteristic of formal language.
I recommend checking out “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk and E.B White… that should help to clear a few things up.”
And another:
“You know your story needs more work, so you don’t need anyone to tell you what you already know.”
And another…
“No discernible voice/tone in this writing. Rambling descriptions. I, frankly, do not care where each and every person is seated. I don’t care what shoe you’re wearing.
If you take out all the unnecessary details, you’d be left with about seven words.”
Something similar happened on Flickr, when a photo by the pioneer of photo-journalism, Henri Cartier-Bresson, was put up in a “Deleteme” thread – where “good photographers” comment on the work of budding photographers by voting to save or delete the photo.
In this case this photo was roundly condemned, and advice was distributed to the photographer (for some reason this photo has been flagged as inappropriate and you have to log in to Flickr to see the thread)…
Here’s the photo.
Some of the comments:
“hard to tell at this size but is everything meant to be moving in this shot, all seems blurred”
“so small
so blurry
to better show a sense of movement SOMETHING has to be in sharp focus”
“This looks contrived, which is not a bad thing. If this is a planned shot, it just didn’t come out right. If you can round up Mario, I would do it again. This time put the camera on a tripod and use the smallest aperture possible to get the best DoF. What I would hope for is that the railings are sharp and that mario on the bike shows a blur. Must have the foreground sharp, though. Without that, the image will never fly.”
There are a couple of things going on in these situations for me – one is the idea that an artist’s name or reputation is enough to turn something substandard into something that people will describe as a “masterpiece,” while the other is that there’s a big difference between being educated and believing you’re educated – all these “experts” on both forums are assessing these works based solely on their own personal preferences developed by their own environment and experience.
Those two examples of this phenomenon at play – Dunning-Kruger meets the internet forum meets modern art – came from Kottke.org, and remind me of this little story, where Joshua Bell, one of the world’s most famous violinists played one of the world’s most expensive violins (with a $3 million plus price tag), at a train station, and nobody noticed. This was an experiment conducted by the Washington Post and covered in this story.
In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run — for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look.
It was all videotaped by a hidden camera. You can play the recording once or 15 times, and it never gets any easier to watch. Try speeding it up, and it becomes one of those herky-jerky World War I-era silent newsreels. The people scurry by in comical little hops and starts, cups of coffee in their hands, cellphones at their ears, ID tags slapping at their bellies, a grim danse macabre to indifference, inertia and the dingy, gray rush of modernity.
The Washington Post piece points out the truth underlying the responses to the written works of David Foster Wallace, and the picture by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Context is king. Art requires a frame. Something to point out why people should sit up and take notice, this is the only truth that keeps the doors of the Gallery of Modern Art open – a frame provides a point of reference.
“When you play for ticket-holders,” Bell explains, “you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I’m already accepted. Here, there was this thought: What if they don’t like me? What if they resent my presence . . .”
He was, in short, art without a frame. Which, it turns out, may have a lot to do with what happened — or, more precisely, what didn’t happen — on January 12.”
Fascinating stuff.
Pop Chart Labs have put together a comprehensive guide to musical hairstyles…
And turned it into a shirt. Which you can wear.
This is clever, and one of my favourite songs. Thanks largely to Fight Club.
Here’s his version of Nirvana’s Lithium.
He promises more regular videos here – and the fun on this one starts about a minute in.
I’m in a bit of a bind. I’m starting to think “this song is great, but it needs more banjo” and I’m worried that means I’m turning into some sort of yokel.
First it was Gomez (embedding is disabled on this one)…
Then Mumford and Sons…
Then Boy and Bear…
Now it’s Fleet Foxes.
Am I broken?
These two clips, by the maker of the Billy Joel cacophony I posted last week, features the first five seconds of every number 1 song since number 1 songs have been charted. Or something.
Five Seconds Of Every #1 Pop Single Part 1 by mjs538
Five Seconds Of Every #1 Pop Single Part 2 by mjs538
Soundcheck it. Via BoingBoing.
Seen the ad for the Skoda Superb? It’s, well, superb.
It features a bloke by the name of Petr Spatina. Who is very clever.
He’s good. But this guy, Robert Tiso, might just be better.
This doesn’t sound as nice, but it’s also pretty cool.
So my dalliance with crappy pop and boy bands didn’t last all that long. I graduated to crappy Australian guitar angst driven teenage rebellion just a year later. Actually, the move was probably happening earlier than that.
Regurgitator’s Black Bugs, Spiderbait’s Calypso, Massive Attack’s Teardrop, and Custard’s Music is Crap were all on my radar around the same time (1997-98).
But for me, 1998 is the year of The Living End. Heroes to a generation of Australians. Now an incredibly tight live act replete with double bass. Well. They’ve always had a double bass. They haven’t always been that tight live though. Judging by the clips I sorted through on YouTube (the official film clip for this song has had embedding disabled by request).
I think I scored the Living End’s debut album with a CD voucher I won at school, or maybe it was a birthday present. I remember hanging out in my room listening to it while reading Redwall, by Brian Jacques. Those were the days.
Words can’t express just how excited I was to be hanging with the cool kids, musically speaking, when I discovered the Living End. Though my frenemy, Sam Conway (who tried to put out the Olympic Torch with a fire extinguisher) made it clear to me that the cool kids had moved on from the Living End about the time I discovered them. In hindsight there was probably some causation there, not just correlation. Better yet. The Living End could be turned up to 11. Which was especially useful when my family decided to pull up stumps and move to Brisbane.
Other notables from the year included this little number by Grinspoon.
Though, for a while, I had merged Green Day and Grinspoon, in my head, and was adamant that I really liked the band Greenspoon.
And of course, there was the Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony. Performed here with Coldplay, because, well, that’s kind of cool.
Everybody has a musical awakening story, and a musical skeleton in the closet. Despite my relatively awesome beginnings, my life in albums almost went off the rails in my first year of really liking music. My sisters and I used to watch Rage on a Saturday morning. And before I’d really discovered the magic of radio we used to make mix tapes by holding the tape recorder up to the speakers.
One of the songs on high rotation on Rage in that year was Hanson’s Mmmbop. Still a catchy little number. Even if Taylor does look remarkably feminine.
My sisters were hooked. This album was on high rotation in our house. All the time. I know all the words to all the songs. My middle sister bonded with her now husband when they sang some Hanson songs together after church one night, their “recessional”, or whatever the song at the end of the wedding ceremony is, was another Hanson song, and at their wedding reception I used the song Madeleine to draw people’s attention back from their conversations to the original proceedings (that’s my sister’s name). Anonymity lost.
But for me, it was perhaps a darker musical year. One week my attention turned to Video Hits after Rage. I remember it like it was yesterday. This song came on. Some guys were walking into a haunted house. The music started. There was thunder. And then there was boy band magic. And some sort of werewolf.
I got on my pushbike and rode down to my sisters’ netball games on the other side of town. In Maclean, NSW. So not far. The song playing over and over in my head.
Am I original? Yeah.
Am I the only one? Yeah…
I saved up my pocket money ($2 a week plus mowing money in those days). And one day, on a trip to the Gold Coast, I think Pacific Fair. I had a look around Toys’R’Us. And a couple of other shops. And then walked into Big W. And came out a changed man. If not for that moment I would not have been bullied at school for a whole year, for thinking that the Backstreet Boys were cutting edge and awesome. I read the liner notes, and most of them thanked Jesus. So they were Christians too. And back then, at the age of 13, I thought Christian music was pretty cool. In fact, a year later, a Christian band called Aroma opened my eyes to rock (listen to the song Maggot here). And from there… well, you’ll have to wait until 1998’s post.
These were the only videos I could find easily and embed…
If I recall, there was a certain very good friend of mine (I won’t name – but he blogs and I’ve linked to him heaps, and he likes Pixar) who borrowed my CD and also enjoyed it.
I was born BCB. That is Before Colin Buchanan. So I was raised on a diet of ABC for kids music. This meant Don Spencer, Peter Combe, and those CDs that came out numbered. They had the timetables songs and stuff like the song about the boys who put the powder on the noses of the ladies of the harem of the court of King Caractacus.
Here are some YouTube trips down memory lane…
Apparently Peter Combe now plays pub gigs for people who grew up listening to his music.
Then there was Don Spencer, now Russell Crowe’s father-in-law.
Oh, and who could forget Joe Dolce’s On Top of Spaghetti
And Ross Higgin’s Monster Mash.
I did eventually grow up. And, perhaps more important were my trips to mum and dad’s CD shelf. I grew up with Paul Simon. I’d play Graceland whenever I could, and I have pretty early memories of the lyrics to Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer running around in my head. And Dire Straits Brothers in Arms album was another favourite.
But, perhaps the longest lasting musical memory, is the Motorcycle Song, by Arlo Guthrie (from his Best Of).
I was cleaning up my iTunes yesterday, getting rid of duplicates and rubbish that I downloaded back in the heady days of Napster. Monty Python sketches are better on YouTube anyway. Especially performed by 419 scammers who have been scambaited.
Like this one.
Anyway. I digress. I was feeling a little nostalgic as I deleted dross and re-listened to some tunes I hadn’t listened to for a long time. So I undertook a little exercise. I tried to match an album to every year of my life. It wasn’t necessarily limited to an album released that year. It was more about finding an album that defines my memory of a year. It wasn’t even necessarily an album I owned. In one many cases in the early years I picked albums belonging to my parents (some I have since either pinched from them or purchased) It was fun. Sometimes I couldn’t split a couple of options. Here’s my list. I’m going to turn these into a bit of a series of posts. Because I can. Feel free to join in – comment with your musical memories.
The early years
Year by year
Sometimes all-caps are ok. King of Limbs is out early. Get it. Got it. Good. Lets talk (in the comments).
Slight language warning on this one… sadly it’s the line that made me choose this song to accompany this post.
“You want me, well come on and break the door down.”
Here’s my liveblog of the first listen to King Of Limbs (a title that sounds a little bit like a Stephen King novel):
Track 1: Bloom
Opens with weird rhythm. By the middle of the track the beat is starting to sound a little like raindrops on a tin roof or something. Not as listenable as early Radiohead, but typical of anything post Hail to the Thief (and by that I mean In Rainbows and Thom Yorke’s The Eraser. The raindrop effect is a little emphasised towards the end where the sound is dramatically similar to actual rain. Albeit electronic rain.
Track 2: Morning Mr Magpie
Guitars. Actual guitars. Possibly looped on something computeresque. It sounds like a proper song. Robyn says it sounds like they put an ADHD kid on the drums. Better than Bloom. I reckon. Sounds like a bit of theremin in the background. Guitar riff at one point reminds me of one of my favourite Radiohead songs. I Might Be Wrong. Though, I might be wrong.
So far it sounds like the album is set in a creepy garden.
Track 3: Little by Little
More guitars, slightly Beck-like drums. A little bit acoustic. Moving closer towards “radio single” territory. But still not quite there. Still a bit of weirdness. Sounds like some of the instruments are kitchen implements.
“Little by little, by hook or by crook… I’m such a tease and you’re such a flirt”
Very layered. I like this one best of the three. So far. I think. So does Robyn.
Track 4: Feral
Almost immediately reminds me of Like Spinning Plates. But, Like Spinning Plates performed by a DJ having some sort of fit.
This album, so far, is probably the love child of Amnesiac and In Rainbows. Neither of which are my favourite Radiohead albums – but both of which have their place. I liked it better when Radiohead were angsty loners desperate to be loved. Not self-assured loners determined to be weird.
Track 5: Lotus Flower
Robyn asks “have you played much Radiohead to me” – I have to confess “not much, but I’ve played a lot more of their old stuff than their new stuff” – because it’s true. I’d much rather play the stuff that I don’t have to explain liking than the stuff I do. We sing their old stuff on SingStar. That’s not going to happen with this album yet. But this song is nicer. Possibly single material. It’s not going to get the Sports Tonight airplay that Muse does – I think suggestions that Muse are a wannabe Radiohead are long since dead.
This song is much, much, nicer. Almost pleasant. Robyn says “they all sound the same”… this one is Bjork meets Sigur Ros.
You can watch the official clip for Lotus Flower on YouTube (which to me suggests this is the single). Thom Yorke dances like a crazy man.
When you click through to watch that on YouTube it only has 310 views. So you feel like one of the early, special, few. But it has more than 5,000 likes. Methinks something is amiss.
Track 6: Codex
Some keys. Nice. And wind chime sounds. More keys. Space age keys. A little haunting. And then an Oasisesque lyrical opening. Yorke’s voice almost sounds like Liam Gallagher in that song he did with Death In Vegas (Scorpio Rising) {youtube link}… for about a second. Robyn says “this one belongs closer to the realm of music. I really like it. Best track so far.
Track 7: Give Up The Ghost
We’re back in the garden. Birdsongs. Acoustic guitar. With rhythmic slaps. Closer to the category of “easy listening” than anything else so far. Lilting and haunting. Ghosty. Which I guess fits with the title.
Track 8: Separator
Hard to define. Much less sonically busy than the other tracks. Perhaps more optimistic.
“If you think this is over then you’re wrong”
One can only hope that they are talking about their career.
Summing up: This could well be a horror album (like a horror movie) – not a horrible album (though there are people who think that horror movies are by nature horrible). The title, and the tone of the first few tracks, is, as I mentioned, a little Stephen King. As is the graphic on the album website.
It’s a challenging album – full of the stuff that makes people not like Radiohead, but also showcasing why it is that they’re a polarising force and the verdict isn’t unanimous. Yorke’s voice is enthralling. They have the ability to create a mood and a reaction like no other band I’ve ever heard. Unless “fairy floss pink” is a mood – in which case U2 is blessed with similar abilities.
When the final track clicked over in iTunes and “My Iron Lung” started playing – I’ve got to admit – I miss the old Radiohead. But the new Radiohead is still better than 90% of the music being produced these days anyway. So I’ll stick with what they’re giving rather than sticking with nothing at all.
The King of Limbs reminded me of the only Stephen King book I’ve actually read.
