So, uh, the musical world was just rocked, I guess.

Yeah you remember a few posts back when My Co-author said that the weirdest collaboration had been made? It’s right here if you need it.

I admit that it is a strange combination. But It is not the strangest by a long shot. So what is the strangest combination? Well, of course I’m not counting fan made mash-ups like in my last musical post. So only counting a real collaboration like the Matt and Kim video?

Jack White, Guitar player for The White Stripes (Song) with Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Rappers of Insane Clown Posse (Song(Naughty Words))

What? why?

… Oh, and Mozart.(Song) I almost forgot that one. Jack white, ICP and Mozart.

The song they are performing? Leck Mich Im Arsch Which roughly translates to Lick my ass. That’s a real Mozart song too. Mozart did that sort of stuff.
So what is the result? This is it! (Naughty words)

Now I’m not going to lie, that is absolutely terrible. But what’s more important is Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Why?

What?

Why Jack White? Why ICP? Why any of this?

Why?

Is it ironic? Is it free press? Is it just for fun? Jack White knows what he was doing right? Do ICP know what they are doing? Who’s idea was this? What is happening?

Anyway, if you have any opinions on what this is, why it is or anything else feel free to comment because I’m at a loss.

 

Musical Monday 9: Mix and Mash!

I was going to write this one about a small time Canadian jazz artist, but then I started listening to other music, ah well.

Musical Monday # 9: Mash-ups

What’s better than one good song? Two good songs. At the same time.

Yep.

Mash-ups are an interesting thing. Most of the time they are put together because the creator feels like the two tunes were work well together, other times it’s set up as a this vs that and  some times it’s just to make a funny phase out of combining the titles. Actually most times it’s that last one or just to match up the least likely songs.

But still, the results are pretty amazing.

Skip these if you hate rap unconditionally and will never even try to expand your musical palette because of your preconceived notions:

This is awesome:

Warning: Naughty words

This is just silly:

Alright back to non rap stuff

Here’s a notable video since this is probably one of the only mash-ups performed onstage. It’s a mix up of Brick House and Houses of the Holy by a band called Dread Zeppelin. Dread Zeppelin is Reggae cover band of Led Zeppelin led by a 300 pound Elvis impersonator and I could probably do a whole post on them but this is all they’re getting for now.

And one more for the road.

That’s all for now folks.

I might make a follow up post to this one day..

 

Starbucks, the Internet and Compassion or Everybody is an ass and nobody wins.

Woohoo, looks like I’m going to write my first opinion piece.

Starbucks, the Internet and Compassion

or Everybody is an ass and nobody wins.

Gather around and let me tell you a tale of kindness, curiosity, malevolence, charity, skepticism, surprise, greed, underhandedness, vindication and closure.

But what did we learn?

Oh wait I jumped the gun a bit.

How it all began:

We start with the first character: Jonathon Stark.

Jonathon Stark had a wonderful idea. Some would call it idealistic, others would call it inspiring. He got a Starbucks card and made the information publicly viewable online. The idea was that anybody could take money from the card to buy a coffee, but anybody could also put money into the card. Thus Began the story of “Jonathon’s card” or “Give a coffee, get a coffee.”  The idea was to inspire acts of kindness in a “social experiment”

For a while this actually worked. People were getting free coffees, but money was going back into the card just as often as it was going out. Jonathon himself had put in over 100$ into the card and many others were doing the same.So a bunch of people started a money pot for coffee and were actually using it for the intended purpose. There was always money in the card, despite the odds.

Then the inevitable happens:

Our second major player is a man named Sam Odio.

Sam Odio looked at this “Social experiment” and decided it wasn’t interesting enough for him. He was bored by the idea of  relatively simple experiment that had gone over smoothly and decided to spruce things up a bit by making a script that would detect whenever money in the card went over a certain threshold. he would then move the money from the public card to his card. Using this method he could drain money from the card without bringing it down to zero. He Worked at this for one afternoon and managed to get himself $625 from the giving public. Enough money, as Odio himself points out, to buy an iPad.

Odio did not use the money to buy an iPad though. it’s a Starbucks card after all, so you can only use it for buying coffee and other things, which is exactly the point of the shared card anyway. But He also did not use the card for coffee…

The plot thickens:

Once Sam Odio got the money and it was secured he wrote a blog post about the exploit entitled “How to use Jonathon’s Card to buy yourself an iPad” He then went on to explain that he was going to see the card information on eBay.

What? For his own personal gain? No, he was going to donate the proceeds to charity based on the premise that “There are more important things we should care about than buying each other coffees”

Well he has a point, I guess. Perhaps this was undermined slightly when his brother, Daniel Odio, put 625$ back into the card.

Another point that Sam Odio made was that other people had likely been doing the same thing and they were probably doing it more right after he made the post. These people were not doing it to make a point and give money to charity though, these people were just doing it for personal gain.

Of course, there’s a twist ending:

Enter character 3, Andrew Hetzel

Andrew Hetzel found out about this whole business and was skeptical.

A man starts up a “social experiment” with the intent  of showing the kindness of strangers in a franchised coffee shop. Of course this kindness was centred on spending money at Starbucks and not just being kind. Coincidentally, in addition to showing off how wonderful Starbucks customers were it also featured a new method of payment Starbucks was introducing. As a final point, the experiment was mostly successful and there was always money in the card. Many, many reporters and newspapers flocked around the story like screeching vultures over a really compelling display of human nature a cow or something.

If you think that the above description sounds like a Viral Marketing strategy, then you are not alone. Andrew Hetzel made a blog post examining the link between Stark and Starbucks. He supposed that although Jonathon claimed he was not working for Starbucks, he was working for a company that was employed by Starbucks.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Starbucks had such allegations levelled at it. This blog uses a frightening amount of phallic metaphors to suggest that several years back, Starbucks was using a viral marketing scheme that involved “The kindness of strangers (at Starbucks)” and “Giving (money to Starbucks)”

So the question remains, Is this a viral marketing campaign?

I guess this is the denouement:

Jonathon released a reply to Andrew. in it he claims that not only is he not affiliated with Starbucks, he is deeply hurt by the insinuation that he was. If you can scroll down you can see hives of screeching loyalists jumping to defend their glorious mega crop Starbucks and their new messiah Jonathon while they pounce on Hetzel. Ok Jonathon’s statement itself seems rather convincing but I’m always inclined to disagree with something when a large number of people comment on something in an annoying fashion. This is why I no longer care about the environment.

Anyway, Starbucks released an official statement and Mobiquity released a statement. I’m not linking either of them, so just take my word for it when I tell you that both of them said they were not involved with Jonathon or each other.

So was Jonathon a viral marketer? There’s a very good chance he wasn’t, however, he still set up a marketing campaign for Starbucks that one a lot free publicity, it’s just a matter of whether he was payed for it.

So at this point a lot of people jumped all over Hetzel and claimed he was  a jerk for even showing skepticism at the thing, I suppose also implying that we should take everything (especially from giant corporations) at face value. This blog even says that Hetzel should apologize because he hurt Jonathon’s feelings. I’m not even going to bother mentioning that blogger’s name because that is one of the most smug and smarmy posts I have ever seen. The blog also reacts with such shock at the idea that, get this, a company is using the internet(!) in an underhanded marketing strategy.

A conclusion:

Well, after a brief struggle with eBay’s selling restrictions, Odio is Selling the cards he owns for charity. He’s written a few posts about the aftermath of the whole thing which you might want to read. Unsurprisingly, a number of people hate him now as well.

Hetzel made a recovery post proclaiming that he could be wrong but he would “wait and see” which, translated, means that he’s probably wrong but he won’t admit it ever. Since his blog doesn’t really matter, everybody will likely forget about him.

Starbucks has decided to shut the whole thing down. From a legal standpoint they could have done this at any time but decided to do it now because everything imploded. Don’t worry, Starbucks still has a hugely devoted fanbase.

And Jonathon Stark is doing well. He now has a legion of followers who will defend him at a moments notice and depending on whether or not that was gold card, he may be recieving 1 free drink for every 15 drinks bought with his card. Keep in mind of course that somebody made 625 dollars by just skimming the card for 5 hours.

My thoughts:

So what did we learn?

Well we learned there are a surprising amount of coffee themed blogs that’s for sure.

Oh and we learned some other stuff. I’m bad at making transitions so here we go.

In my opinion this was one of the best social experiments of all time. Not the actual experiment about buying coffee or something, but the whole thing that developed around it. This turned into a fascinating read and perhaps the best thing about this? No one was right.

Actually that’s probably more depressing as well. But you see here on the internet, perhaps in real life as well, everybody is an ass

Who is an ass and why?

Let’s start with Sam Odio. He’s a very tricky case. What he did was probably legal, because when Jonathon set up the card and said “Use this for coffee” there were no restriction on how much a person could take. He filled up his own cards with money, which is admittedly not Jonathon told him to do but words aren’t legally binding. If you throw your money on the ground and tell people to use it to buy coffee, don’t be surprised when it ends up being used on drugs or charity.

But is he an ass? Yes. there is no doubt that he is an ass. regardless of whether or not you agree with him, what he did was asinine. People had their own little system set up and he destroyed the whole thing. Way to go.

Next up, Hetzel. Is he an ass? Well skepticism alone is not something I would condemn as asinine, but you could make the case that his mistrust of other people and stubbornness on the issue at hand both make him asinine. Yep.

Finally, Jonathon. This is a difficult one. If he was a viral marketer, then damn he was the biggest ass of all. In the increasingly likely case that he wasn’t he may still be an ass if he is getting the free coffee off the backs of strangers. Otherwise, not really a huge ass, but perhaps misguided.

Oh wait I have one more: The legion of screeching fans. these guys were the biggest asses. They when absolutely berserk on  anybody who disagreed with their notions and have even threatened Sam Odio, which is just not cool.

So who wins? Nobody, nobody except for Starbucks and starving African children. I guess this means that this is one of the few times I can say “A bunch of white people were all jerks to each other on the internet  and the only people that benefited were starving Africans.”

I feel like I still have some unspoken thought so let’s get this out of the way.

I think at the end of all this, I like Sam Odio the most. Or at least more than others. You see, I’m not entirely sure what the whole thing was with the Card anyway. As far as I can figure, a bunch of wealthy white people put money into this card that was later used by other wealthy white people to pay for a coffee they could easily afford. A Starbucks coffee mind you, so it was an overpriced luxury item. I don’t know why this was even considered a charitable display of human kindness in the first place.

I guess the next bit would be to look at the dynamics. I assume that most people that bought a coffee did not put money back into the card, or if they did, I’m not sure what the point was since you ight well have just bought your own coffee. So if you look at it in that sense, tons of people were taking more money out of the card then they were putting in. Other people were probably scamming the system before Odio was as well.

There are two differences between Odio and those people

1) His brother but the same amount of money back in the card  meaning there was no net difference on the card.

2) He wrote a blog post.

If he never did step 2, then nobody would have cared or threatened him.

Finally, I think that his final point, that there are more important things to care about than buying coffee, is correct.

Now not that I think that Jonathon’s experiment wasn’t worthy in itself, it was. For a case like this you don’t need to pick sides, simply put, I think everybody was right and wrong in their own ways, but I felt like Odio wasn’t being given enough credit.

Alright, I am getting very tired of talking about this issue and by the time it is posted I’ll be in Montreal, so form your own opinions.

Also, Abi, feel free make addendum or minority report or something.

 

Musical Monday #8 The 80s (also the late 70s and the early 90s) (One Hit Wonders)

It’s been a while I’m sorry!

 

I’m a bit pressed for time so I’m gonna rush this one let’s gogogogogogo

 

MUSICAL MONDAY #8: ONE HIT WONDERS

 

This was the first image when I searched 'One Hit Wonder' so I'm putting it here.

The 80s were a different time. There were no bands that made music in a conventional sense, instead, every musical group made exactly one song that they were famous for and they dissappeared off the face of the earth. Well, usually not before pushing out a few other songs that would have minimal success but not ever really be remembered.

So I present to you a bunch of 80s songs

Most of these are like the my grade average, some punchline about the 80s I need to leave soon let's get through this.

Uh, blah blah blah blah synth pop, I love 80s music blah blah blah this is just an excuse for me to write a quick music post blah blah blah.

Ok here are my criteria for One Hit Wonders

1. The song in question must have been very popular for a period of time.
2. The song must be vastly more popular than all their other works.
3. More people should remember the song than the band
4. The band may still have made other hits, but those hits must not be the main thing the band is remembered for.
5.  I will probably screw this up at least once put I’m seriously pressed for time so alert me in the  comments and I’ll attempt damage control when I get back.

Ok I think we’re good let’s do this!

ok technically the guy who made this was well known for like two really popular songs but damn it I’ve already screwed this whole thing up! Augh!

Here’s his other one:

I just wanted to show I lot of 80s music and I needed a reason  but ok it’s too late let’s do this

This is what I’m talking about, these guys made this song and had exactly one successful song later but let’s be fair nobody remembers “Pop goes the world”

What can I say, this was certainly a one hit wonder.

Some people might dispute me putting Gary Numan on here but they can write their own blog with a couple of followers so here:

Also, not really the 80s but he was ahead of his time.

These guys are like the definition of one hit wonder.

They made this huge hit and never broke the top 20 until they re-released this song. Wow!

Ok let’s get a couple more!

Here’s another two hit wonder:

BOOM! we’re almost done!

Ok so here’s a 70s one

So remember how this video was about the 80s?

Here’s a song from the early 90s

I can’t even name another song that these guys did, I even forgot what their name was. It’a right there in the video and I don’t even care, THAT’S HOW ONE HIT WONDERISH THESE GUYS ARE!

Peace out!

 

I have a blog post coming in a few days so see you then.

 

 

 

 

Why is Rango so awesome‽

Now I know this blog is supposed to be about books and more frequently, music, but I’d like to talk about a movie for a second.

Specifically, Rango.

You might not know it yet, but you need this movie. Also, despite the cover, this movie is not called

I love animated movies. I really enjoy them, but one of the problems with animated movies is that they are often made for children and this can boil down the experience. This is not always the case, for instance, Pixar respects their audience and understands that just because they are young, they don’t need to dumb down a movie. As a result, I firmly believe that Pixar the consistently best film studio today.

Still, there seems to be something missing. A film for children can still be good, but it is still limited in what it can do.

The makers of Rango avoid this issue by not making a movie for children, a fact they apparently forgot to tell their marketing team. I’m being dead serious here, Rango is not a film for children. I’m fairly surprised it got a PG rating in this day and age to be honest. So, it’s a bit like Who Framed Roger Rabbit in the sense that it isn’t made for kids but they’ll watch it anyway.

And I envy what memories they’ll have when they’re older.

So we’ve established who the movie isn’t for, so who is it for? Rango is for people who love movies. More than anything else, this a movie for the movie lover. Well, People who like Western movies at least. I suppose if for some ungodly reason, you don’t like westerns, you may not enjoy Rango. It would also help if you’ve seen lots of movies, because this film makes a lot of references. It certainly isn’t integral, but the more movies you’ve seen, the better.

My my, who is this and why does he have the same shirt as the main character?

So what is Rango about? Basically, It’s about a rather dashing chameleon who calls himself Rango. Yep, I just explained nothing. Alright, It’s a movie about a small town in the desert that is in a complete drought. They are running out of their water reserves and are in need of a hero when our titular hero shows up, dazed and confused.Through a complicated series of events, cool things happen. Yeah, you still don’t understand, do you? Go watch the damn movie. It explains itself better than I do.

One aspect of movies I don’t normally think about that really stood out to me was the soundtrack. Composed by Hans Zimmer, who apparently makes the soundtrack for one fourth of all movies, the soundtrack is absolutely amazing. To give you an idea, Hans Zimmer has composed the soundtracks for The Lion King, The Pirates of the Caribbean Series, The Dark Knight Series, Sherlock Holmes, Inception and more than 100 other movies.

So the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic and sets the mood perfectly, I have never remembered enjoying the soundtrack to a movie more. It is also pretty rare for me to look up the soundtrack to a movie after I’m done watching it but I can assure I’m listening to the background music as I write this. If you want to get a little taste of the soundtrack Here’s the credit music and, WARNING: This next clip is from one of the coolest scenes in the movie and I would hate to spoil that for you, This.

Also, this happens very early on.

Visually this movie is very impressive. The studio that made it has never made an animated movie before, but they’ve made plenty of realistic visual effects. This isn’t something I would normally say, but I love the art design. It’s difficult to describe, but everything works very well. The set pieces are all effective and visually interesting and then there’s character design. Oh good lord, the character design. It’s incredible, one of the things I like is how every character isn’t some pristine, cutesy animal, but they are all very dirty matted and mangy. I think it’s a rather bold step to do that when making an animated movie. But really, it’s a visual thing, you have to see the movie to really get the art design.

The acting is also very effective. Johnny Depp is very good in this movie, I really feel his carries character quite well. You could argue that it is ironically one of his most human performances despite being a lizard. Other people with superb voice work in this film include Ned Beatty and Bill Nighy. One thing that really helps the actors is the way it was filmed. All the actors were dressed as their characters and acted out the scenes in a little play version of the movie which was filmed from dynamic angles and used as a base for the animation. Yeah, this section is pretty short but what can I say, everybody acted well in this movie.

So what I like most about this movie is that it takes risk. it’s an animated movie that adults and teenagers will like more than children. It’s an animated movie that has ugly characters. Arguably it’s metafiction, which is a dangerous genre. It is what it is and spends most of it’s time referencing other movies. But it is incredible. There’s something to it that I can’t describe, what makes Rango so awesome. I describe some things though. Like for instance, there is a character named Rattlesnake Jake and he is a giant rattlesnake with a Gatling gun for a rattle, this alone should nullify all complaints about this movie.

Why are you still reading this? Go watch the movie!

So to recap:

• Plot – 6/10
• Execution – 8/10
• Graphics -10/10
• Sound – 11/10
• Risk taking -10/10
• Gatling guns – 10/10

Total score: Why is this Movie so awesome‽ Are the bats exploding? Holy shit!

From the Peanut Gallery:

(( are you even a fan of westerns? What John Wayne movies have you seen? (I find this a valid way to gauge levels of western film fandom)))

[Ridiculous as this may seem, you don't need to watch a John Wayne movie to enjoy a good western. Just lots of Brisco County Jr. and like, Tombstone or something.

BTW, You will love this movie. It may or may not have been made for you.]

(you’re quite right, that does seem ridiculous. John Wayne IS Western. Anyway, the reason I haven’t seen Rango yet is because of Johnny Depp. I mean normally that would be good for a movie but I was just suspicious. It looked like he had too much fun making it.)

[And that drove you away?

I also reject the idea that John Wayne is all there is to western, there's also Clint Eastwood and if you don't like Clint Eastwood there's a chance I can't be friends with you anymore]

 

Musical Monday 7: Lemon Demon / Neil Cicierega

Alright, this is slightly pointless because my readers has already admitted that he has listened to Lemon Demon but whatever.

Musical Monday #7: Neil Cicierega / Lemon Demon

Art!

You should probably already know who this guy is. I’m saying this because I can guarantee that you have seen something this man has made. There is a pretty high probability at least. What I’m trying to say is that you have seen the popular internet series Potter Puppet Pals Or perhaps The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny then you’ve seen his work.

But that is just a small portion of what Neil Cicierega does. I have recently come to an understanding that about 30% of things on the internet is actually made by a much smaller group of people than you think. Neil Cicierega is one of those people.

It's a good thing the internet exists otherwise this kid would get beat up, like, every day

This guy made a band, called it Lemon Demon and then made music. That’s pretty much the story.

Music:

Probably my favourite song is the first one.

This video is pretty good:

This song is very nice:

I’ll leave you with this one last song:

In case you’re wondering, the video is unrelated and is from a webcomic made by somebody else. Consider this foreshadowing, because there will be a post about by Wednesday.

 

Musical Monday 6: Rally Round the Früvous Flag! [Moxy Früvous]

Whoops, I guess I missed one.

Let’s not dwell on the past.

Although to make up for it, you’re in for a whopper this time.

Episode #6: Moxy Früvous

Ladies and gentleman, I introduce to you the international Orchestra!

Some of you knew this day would come; You see, Moxy Früvous is and basically always has been my favourite band. Oh sure, I had favourite songs before but this was the first band. It was a gradual process, first there was one song of theirs I liked, but I often listened to the album while in the car with my family so I’d hear the other songs. So of course, I discovered there were other songs of theirs that I liked. Some more than others but I grew to like more as time went on. In childlike manner, I remember figuring out which songs I liked so I knew how to listen to the album. When I grew older, I gave some attention to the slower paced songs which I had ignored in my youth and I pretty much like the whole album now.

Funnily enough I remember lending it to one of my friends once with a post-it note list of the song I liked as a child attached. In retrospect this was not a good idea.

In terms of actual background to the band there’s this. They were one of most popular indie bands in Canada. In fact, they were the second indie band to get a song at the top of the Canadian charts (The first was The Bare Naked Ladies by a few months) They released their first tape in 1992 and made music constantly until 2000. When I lent my friend that one Album I erroneously told him that they only really made one album before disappearing. They made more than that, but I had only heard one album at the time.

That said, that one Album was Bargainville and it’s hard to see them making something better than that.

And in case you’re wondering what the name is all about, they deliberately picked a name that had no meaning and was difficult to remember. That’s the extent of the story. The name doesn’t mean anything , but that didn’t stop people from asking about or stop them from answering. The answer was never the same of course.

I think this is them

Finding their stuff on YouTube is not for the faint-hearted. of all the artists I like, they’re stuff is not the hardest to find (I’ll get to them later) but it is the oddest.

You see, there’s every type of video with their music. There are official music videos fit for the radio, recordings of TV shows they performed on, shaky, poor quality videos from live shows, weird alternate/early versions of the songs you’re looking for, videos comprised of movie clips, slide shows of varying quality, Videos with a single unrelated image, a completely unrelated video that uses the music as poorly chosen background music and one video that requires some strange YouTube wizardry.

So most of the music is there, but watching the associated video may not be advised.

I suppose I’ll cut the chit chat and give you the music.

So here’s their most famous, the second indie song to reach the top of the Canadian charts and probably the first Quasi-Acapella song to reach the top as well.

Here’s one of my personal favourites. Also check out this “great” music video:

I find Laika to be an under appreciated song. Check it out:

This is another (really strange) version of the song

Important: to listen to the previous video you need to change the quality to 240p then play the video and it will play fully even though the track bar will only read 14 seconds.

I actually never heard Splatter Splatter until recently, but it is stuck in my head so here it is:

They do depressing songs as well!

Side note: they were actually commissioned for this song, so the first few lines about trying to write a song are not fiction.

Speaking of depressing songs, check out this awesome piece of work:

Now, at some point in the distance past, this was supposed to be blog about writing and books and stuff like that so I’m going to end on a silly song about authors because I don’t you want to be too depressed at the end of all this.

Now hopefully at the end of all this you’re a fan (We call ourselves Früheads) with some new music. So go forth and spread this, for The Früvous Quill must not die! Realistically, there probably won’t ever be a reunion tour so this is the only way to keep the music alive, but the really optimistic part of me wants to believe that if enough people demand it they’ll give in, just like the Beatles. (…Wait)

So to recap, Everybody should listen to Moxy Früvous and if there if there ever was a Moxy Früvous reunion tour I’d be like, the first one there.

 

 

Musical Monday #5 – Voltaire

I’ll go straight into it this time.

Episode 5: Voltaire

Apparently I love Artists with difficult to define genres because here’s another one!

Voltaire is oddly defined as Folk-Victorian-goth-dark-steampunk-cabaret. This may seem confusing but on closer inspection it is still kind of confusing. Really, if you listen to some of music you’ll sort of understand.

I mentioned before that Voltaire is not the only pangenre artist I’ve featured (Ok technically Voltaire isn’t pangenre) Tom waits is of course is the other. I think the two artists are interesting to compare. They are similar in some ways but I can’t put those into the words. But the one thing I find interesting is how they have completely different voices. Tow Waits has that rough rugged voice but Voltaire’s voice is incredibly smooth but somehow just as impressive in almost the same way. Actually I would love to hear what it would sound like if they switched some of their songs.

Perhaps I should get to the music, eh?

This first one was written for a popular cartoon show The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy so it might seem a bit odd.

 

 

 

…And now presenting your first

Tertiary Tuesday Edit-in Addition

Here are two more for fun:

 

Musical Monday – Maggot Brain

[This post is late because I am terrible at scheduling posts even though it's been ready for a week]

Uhg. I set up Musical Monday to feature good music, not whatever you guys have been putting out here. (Hey… Matt & Kim may be terrible but… um….. okay I can’t refute that… I’m done butting in here. Admin out.).

Looks like I took a vacation that was a bit too long. Let’s see if I can pull this back with something cool enough to make up for the previous episodes of MUSICAL MONDAY.

Episode 4: Maggot Brain

Musical Monday normally works under the assumption that I show a series of videos made by one artist but this time all I’ve got is one song. That’s okay, because it is awesome enough to make up for it.

No no, actually listen to it.

There we go.

Well, if you actually listened to that whole thing it is. It’s a long song and it takes a while to complete so, if it’s still going, perhaps you can tab out somewhere else and enjoy a nice reading of Wikipedia. Maybe you can play a muted flash game to amuse yourself. I find that listening to maggot brain improves my concentration in games like Multitask.

Now, the hypothetical questions being asked by my hypothetical readers are: “Can this be more awesome?”  and “Are there going to be more videos?”

The answer to both of those is a resounding YES!

Meet my friend, the Electric Violin:

Damn, what a violin!

And meet the Violin’s friend, Lili Haydn:

She probably deserves more credit than the violin

So yeah, this is just silly padding, I’ll give you the final video and then retreat to my cave for a week.

 

Musical Monday! Tom Waits [NEW FEATURE!]

Currently my head is overflowing with ideas for musical posts, but I don’t want to make too many of them too soon so here’s the plan:

Every monday (Or every other monday or whatever mondays I damn well feel like) I will post a collection of music ripped from my bookmarks or just my personal prefrence. I will do this until I run out of unique music to post. If she wants to, my co-writer can get in on this action.

I’ll probably be posting music from nearly every genre and I’ll keep the music intresting but I’ll also venture into well known stuff from time to time. I should have enough music to last me well in to the summer. The idea is that hopefully I’ll be able to introduce some music to my readers (Yes, both of you!)

So that said, welcome to episode 1 of Musical Monday!

Episode 1: Tom Waits

How do you even start to describe Tom Waits? I’m not sure, but I’ll give it a go nonetheless.

He’s the kind of guy where 80% of his pictures on google image search are in black and white and most of them have cigarettes or booze in them. He’s a man who has recorded whole albums with instruments found in junkyards. He’s difficult to place, his genre of music is hard to define and he himself is an oddity.

Probably the most important think about him is his voice, it’s been described in many ways, but it’s essentially like if gravel had a voice.

I’ve had a post about Tom Waits floating around the drafts bin for about a month now so it only seems appropriate to line this up for the first installment of this series.

Well, that and the fact that his music is incredible. Seriously, it is all incredible. Here are a few of my favourites:

For some other good songs of his, check out anything else this man has ever done. Seriously, Tom Waits alone has probably made music that suit the tastes of 40% of the earth’s population or more. In fact, I don’t think I can even cover him in one post. In all likelyhood I haven’t even picked his best songs. Once Again, you should seriously look this guy up, I’m not sure where to start but maybe you could try this, this, this, this, or this.