Lotus In The Bliss
Posted by Spoonypony on YouTube. Not sure how I got to this video, but I dig. Good stuff, man.
Moon Taxi — “Common Ground”
Cool song form the Nashville–based quintet.
Jerry, Bob & Phil — “She Belongs To Me”
Here are three of San Francisco’s finest performing Dylan’s classic.
Free piano lessons anyone?
Learn to play the piano here at The Virtual Piano. Pretty cool, huh? Of course you won’t get to play a monstrosity like Liberace is playing above.
Wolfgang’s Vault to add more concerts for download
I was just recently on Wolfgang’s Vault streaming a vintage Stephen Stills show from 1974 and enjoying it immensely. I then thought, ya know, I’d like to purchase this show, but it wasn’t available for download. Well, now it seems that this will be an option on the site.
DETROIT (Billboard) – The once controversial Wolfgang’s Vault, which has amassed the largest collection of licensed streaming live recordings on the Internet, is about to make a treasure trove of those concerts available for downloading.
Beginning November 3, the site will add more than 1,000 titles from 919 artists to the approximately 500 that are currently available for purchase from the site’s Concert Vault section, Bill Sagan, CEO and founder of Wolfgang’s Vault LLC and its parent company, Norton LLC, told Billboard.com. (more…)
R.I.P. — Bob Moog (1934-2005)
Inventor of the Moog synthesizer and theramin, Robert Moog (rhymes with vogue) died of brain cancer on this date in 2005. The first rock album to feature the Moog was The Doors’ Strange Days, the recording of which began 42 years ago today as well. Click here to read Joel Cummins of Umphrey’s McGee discuss Bob Moog and working with the theramin and synthesizer. Here’s the recently released Moog guitar.
Sony Walkman turns 30!
I remember my dad getting the model above, that was released on the market in 1980. I used to crank his Guess Who, Beatles and Smokey Robinson tapes. Good times. Here’s a little info from Wiki:
The original blue-and-silver Walkman model TPS-L2 went on sale in Japan on July 1, 1979. In the UK, it came with stereo playback and mini headphone jacks, permitting two people to listen at the same time (though it came with only one pair of MDR-3L2 headphones). Where the Pressman had the recording button, the Walkman had a “hotline” button which activated a small built-in microphone (the Pressman), partially overriding the sound from the cassette, and allowing one user to talk to the other over the music. The dual jacks and “hotline” button were phased out in the follow-up Walkman II model. (more…)
Yuto Mizakawa — “Free Bird”
Look out McLovins, here comes Yuto Mizakawa and he’s rippin’ it up on his take of Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”:
Daft Punk/Adam Freeland — “Aer Obama”
In celebration of our 44th president, Barack Obama.
Description from YouTube:
The following is a mixed-media stop motion music video and celebration commemorating the election and inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of these United States. Audibly showcasing Adam Freeland’s remix of Daft Punk’s “Aerodynamic” and the imaginative stylings of forward thinking toy artists Dalek, Bill McMullen and Kubrick to name just a few.
Cool Stuff — MUTO by BLU
Someone just sent this thing to me and it’s really amazing. Urban artist BLU is the subject here and his work is called MUTO. Check it out:
Wolgang’s Vault App for iPhone and iPod Touch
From Wolgang’s Vault:
Concert Vault for the iPhone gives you free access to the world’s largest collection of live concert recordings right in your pocket. Brought to you by Wolfgang’s Vault, Concert Vault for the iPhone and iPod Touch lets you listen to the Vault’s latest additions, most popular concerts, and any of our radio stations playing hundreds of songs from thousands of concerts spanning the 1960s through today.
New to Concert Vault? No problem — register for free right on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Already a Concert Vault user? Even better — all your playlists and favorite concerts from our website play right on your iPhone so you can enjoy them anywhere.
We offer full support over WiFi, 3G and EDGE connections on the iPhone, and WiFi on the iPod Touch, with advanced automatic bandwidth detection and stream adjustment
The Warr Guitar
Warr Guitars is a company that manufactures the Warr Guitar, which is a musical instrument developed by Mark Warr that looks very much like a standard electric guitar, but can be played with two-handed tapping techniques, like a Chapman Stick, as well as strummed and plucked. Traditional bass guitar techniques, such as slap and pop, pizzicato and playing with a plectrum (pick) may also be used. Because of the placement of the strapholders, the instrument may be played in a more upright, Stick-like position, or horizontally, like an electric guitar.
The instrument may be strung and tuned in a variety of ways. It may be built with anywhere from seven to fifteen strings. The strings may be arranged such that the lowest is in the center of the fingerboard or the lowest string is nearest the player. The fingerboard may be fretted, fretless, or a combination of the two. The instrument is built with custom-designed Bartolini magnetic, piezoelectric, or a combination of these pickups. If piezo pickups are used, onboard MIDI electronics may also be added, to allow the player direct triggering of Roland or Axon synths from their instrument. The neck is constructed of multiple, quartersawn laminates of varying thickness. Instruments built with ten or more strings have two embedded, dual-action truss rods and dual 1/4″ outputs. Learn More by clicking here.
Some demonstrations:
Apple — New iPods
Yesterday at Apple’s “Let’s Rock” conference in San Francisco, the company announced a whole slate of new additions for iTunes and iPods. On the iPod front, the non-touch versions will find the 80GB models upgraded to 120GB, but the 160GB model is being discontinued. There’s also a new style iPod nano, an aluminum, monolithic-looking device that was called “the thinnest iPod ever.” You can still load photos and videos, but now you can view them horizontally on the nano in the new “landscape” mode, which also allows it to do the Cover Flow. It’ll be available in a whole rainbow of colors (except white) starting today. On the iTunes front, iTunes 8.0 will be available today, which introduces an in-window sidebar called “Genius,” which is like a smarter Party Shuffle with a hint of On-The-Go and and Pandora thrown in. Also, for fans of NBC, Apple and the network are once again friends, meaning you will once again be able to view your 30 Rock on a seven-centimeter screen soon. And last but not least, Apple have finally altered their in-ear headphones, with two drivers in each bud. Says Steve Jobs: “They finally got it right.”
Moogfest 2008
To honor and commemorate Bob Moog and his groundbreaking achievements, several renowned keyboardists and longstanding Moog users will gather on Monday, October 13, 2008 at The Hammerstein Grand Ballroom in New York City to participate in Moogfest.
Here is your opportunity to play at Moogfest 2008 along side the leading MOOG players including Bernie Worrell (P-Funk), Aron Magner (The Disco Biscuits), Jamie Shields (The New Deal), Joe Russo (Benevento/Russo), DJ Logic among many others!
Click here for more info.
Here’s the new Moog guitar:
Here’s our previous post.
Smashing Pumpkins — Tonight, Tonight
The Smashing Pumpkins video for “Tonight, Tonight” was inspired by George Meillies 1902 silent film, A Trip To The Moon. The song was released on their album, Melon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. Here’s some info from Wiki:
The video, which debuted in May 1996, begins with a group of people celebrating the launch of a zeppelin to the moon. Tom Kenny’s character kisses Jill Talley’s character’s hand as the two enter the zeppelin, which is lifted off the ground by people dressed as sailors using rope and a pulley. The zeppelin approaches the Moon, which has a face like the Moon’s face in A Trip to the Moon. Shots of the band performing in similar, turn-of-the-century attire using older, acoustic instruments are interspersed. The two characters jump off the zeppelin and fall on the Moon’s surface. Suddenly, several hostile humanoid aliens appear, surrounding the couple. Jill Talley’s character defends herself by hitting a few of creatures with her umbrella, which vaporizes them, but the two are trapped and tied. The two form a plan, and then break free of the ropes and attack the aliens with their umbrellas. The couple escapes on a rocket similar to the one in A Trip to the Moon and land in the sea, where a merman sends them back to the surface in a bubble.
I just noticed something on watching the video again. The boat is name the “S.S. Mellies”. Mellies was the director of “A Trip To The Moon”.
Here’s the Pumpkins video:
Here is “A Trip To The Moon” narrated from the original script in English:
Neutral Milk Hotel — In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Allmusic‘s review of the album:
Perhaps best likened to a marching band on an acid trip, Neutral Milk Hotel’s second album is another quixotic sonic parade; lo-fi yet lush, impenetrable yet wholly accessible, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is either the work of a genius or an utter crackpot, with the truth probably falling somewhere in between. Again teaming with producer Robert Schneider, Jeff Mangum invests the material here with new maturity and clarity; while the songs run continuously together, as they did on the previous On Avery Island, there is a much clearer sense of shifting dynamics from track to track, with a greater emphasis on structure and texture. Mangum‘s vocals are far more emotive as well; whether caught in the rush of spiritual epiphany (“The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two and Three”) or in the grip of sexual anxiety (“Two-Headed Boy”), he sings with a new fervor, composed in equal measure of ecstasy and anguish. However, as his musical concepts continue to come into sharper focus, one hopes his stream-of-consciousness lyrical ideas soon begin to do the same; while Mangum spins his words with the rapid-fire intensity of a young Dylan, the songs are far too cryptic and abstract to fully sink in — In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is undoubtedly a major statement, but just what it’s saying is anyone’s guess.
Here is Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum performing, “The King Of Carrot Flowers”:
Rolling Stone — 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time
Liverpool’s lads take home 4 of the top ten (of course). Link to story.
Nothing too surprising here, but here’s the top ten:
1. Sgt.
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
2. Pet
Sounds, The Beach Boys
3. Revolver,
The Beatles
4. Highway
61 Revisited, Bob Dylan
5. Rubber
Soul, The Beatles
6. What’s
Going On, Marvin Gaye
7. Exile
on Main Street, The Rolling Stones
8. London
Calling, The Clash
9. Blonde
on Blonde, Bob Dylan
10. The
Beatles (“The White Album”), The Beatles
(Taken from a 2003 issue.)
Moog Guitar — Demonstration
Very interesting video on the Moog guitar. With Lou Reed, Vernon Reid and Fareed Haque of Garaj Mahal.
Read about Dr. Robert Moog here.
