After seeing the results of my Dada album cover yesterday, Dreamgirl decided she wanted her own band.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present the world premiere of Xel-Há…
Now, judging purely by the look of the albums, what kind of music do you think our bands play? And even more importantly, who opens for who?
Ladies and Gentlemen, punks, drunks, and skunks, bow your heads and throw up the horns for the hardest of the hardcores, the newly crowned kings of kink and rulers of rock, whether you like it or not, here comes ATG5!!!!!
OK, maybe not the catchiest name for a band, but check out our latest album cover:
Random musical fun from the one and only Accordian Guy…
Via David Janes, here’s a little Dada album cover exercise. You can come up with an album cover for a hypothetical band by doing the following:
Here’s what I got: the Wikipedia entry for “hematoma block”, the quote “It is hard work, but there is happiness in it.” by the creators of the game Animal Crossing: Wild World and this photo by Emmanuel Smague. Based on these results, I made this album cover:
Look out, Nine Inch Nails, I just out-moped you!
More of that kind of music that makes people go “what the heck is that, and where you do find this stuff??”
Xeni Jardin: 
(1) A Belgian DJ named Typsy Gypsy (half of the Balkan Hot Stepsoundsystem duo) has uploaded a srsly kickazz 2-part mixtape set featuring a wide array of Balkan, Gypsy, Raï, and Klezmer beats — all over 150 bpm — that will make you go hopa.
Link to the referring blog (‘T Nieuwe Werck), which posts direct MP3 links and a detailed tracklist so you can go out and buy some of this great stuff after you’ve tasted it.
A quick exploration of Typsy Gypsy’s MySpace page leads to two even more recent mixtape uploads, which are part of a regular podcast transmission: check out “Balkan Bangers,” July 26, 2007, Link to part 1, Link to part 2. Check out the Beastie Boys mix on that myspace page, too.
Subscribe to the podcast here: iTunes Link.
(2) In a similar vein, here’s a mix set featuring “Sinti- and Roma (/ -inspired) tunes, ranging from Paris to Bucharest and several places in between.” Link.
(3) While you’re at it, here’s another sweet download — flowing Spanish-language rap over dance beats: Link.
(Balkan stuff via Blentwell / all of it thanks Brendan!)
Update: Schobbejak of the T Nieuwe Werck blog where we found this stuff says:
Thank you for your post on boingboing.net. The Typsy Gypsy mix is one great mix! And you can also tell people that there will be another typsy gypsy release soon!
I always love to hear what gets other people’s toes a’ tappin’… especially interesting people like Mr. Wheaton, who is in all honesty one of my favourite people on the internets.
As long as I can remember, my friends and I made mix tapes for each other. We’d grab stuff off the radio, record each other talking, tape tracks from records, and even grab stuff off the television.
A few minutes on the Internets revealed that I was not unique at all in this activity, which is as unsurprising as it is totally awesome.
I found myself in an empty house this weekend, and I became inspired by a midnight viewing of Videodrome to audio hijack some dialog from the film, drop in some of the weird audio I’ve scraped off the tubes in the last couple of months, and put it all together just like I did with those magnetic tapes so many years ago.
The audio levels are not as equalized as I’d like, but that’s the way it was back then, too, so try to think of it as part of the charm, instead of an annoying technical failing on my part.
There aren’t any show notes for this one, because we didn’t bother to make show notes back in the old days. There are some titles embedded in the file, though, so you can imagine that they’re scrawled on the TDK cardboard insert in blue Bic pen.
This was fun as hell to make, and I hope you like it. If you can spare a mirror, I’d be most grateful, because the file is quite large to preserve the audio quality.
Download radio_free_burritos_mix_tape_volume_one.mp3
TRT: 32:30
Filesize: 29.6 MB (Yep, it’s all music, so it’s huge, even encoded at 128).
I’m hanging my head in shame as I write this… I don’t mind letting a few half-written posts build up in my list, stuff that I’ve bookmarked to put up and talk about when I get some free time, but there are some rather date-sensitive topics that one should really stay on top of.
In my humble, meager, half-assed defense, I left for a two-week vacation the day before, and purposely didn’t even crack open my computer for at least the first 3 or 4 days. I’m only now digging back into my older unfinished posts from earlier in the summer when I came across this wonderful little tribute to a piece of unforgettable musical history.
(I am going to adjust the post date in Blogger to put this where it should have been, we’ll just keep this whole 5-weeks-late business between us, ok? Cool.)
Cory Doctorow: 
It’s Canada Day, the day that marks the anniversary of Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867. We Canadians celebrate it with days off work, beer, and fireworks. It’s like July 4, without the revolutionary overtones.
There is no more potent symbol of Canadianness than the National Film Board of Canada’s musical short, The Log Driver’s Waltz: more than Leonard Cohen’s groans, more than Dan Ackroyd’s rampant toryism, more than “timbit” jokes about Tim Horton’s tragic car accident, The Log Driver’s Waltz defines Canada for its expatriate thirtysomethings. Just singing a few bars of this in a crowded space is enough to flush the crypto-Canadians out (Canadians are like axe-murderers, we look just like regular people) in throaty voice. It’s even more reliable than stepping on everyone’s foot until someone apologises.
Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians, both domestic and expatriate.
As a bonus be sure to catch this unforgettable punk cover from Midget Militia. Link
Update: Here’s another version, performed by Captain Tractor — thanks, Heather!
Gotta see it to believe.
YouTube – Back Got Back – Gilbert and Sullivan Style
Xeni Jardin: 
BoingBoing buddy extraordinaire Gareth Branwyn says,
When my wife and I first saw Spinal Tap, we laughed so hard, several people around us got up and moved. We laughed pretty much from the moment that Marty DeBergi entered the first scene, in his USS Ooral Sea cap, till the credits rolled. We’d both been involved in rock and roll and it was just too spot on for its own good. So, seeing that there was a new Spinal Tap short, a sort of “where are they now?,” in advance of their reunion at the Live Earth Concerts, I was hoping for similar dumb-funny fits of giddiness.It didn’t disappoint. The vid opens on the set of Marty DeBergi’s new film, “The Hills Have Eyes with Macular Degeneration.” Hoping to get the band back together for Live Earth, Marty seeks out the members, now not talking to each other. Nigel is a ranch hand on a miniature horse farm, David runs a hip-hop production company, called Back Alley, in a former colonic irrigation clinic. Derek talks to Marty from a rehab center, via webcam, where he’s being treated for Internet addiction. Marty, the affable lunk, manages to get the band talking again and to agree to reunite for the benefit.
If you’re a Tap fan, you’ll likely get as big a kick out of this as I did. Wonder who the drummer will be at Live Earth? Too bad Mick Fleetwood has thus far defied the band’s drummer curse. He’s still with us (as far as anyone can tell), but no word if he’ll mount the exploding drum stool for the upcoming shows.
I just got on this musical bandwagon, you ain’t locking me out that easy!!
I haven’t run into any problems with accessing Pandora yet, but I’ll be keeping this in my back pocket just in case.
Of course if the RIAA down in the ‘States has it’s way, Pandora and every other web radio station will either shut down or be turned into Clear Channel Clones in a few days anyway…
As you may have heard, beloved music-streaming service Pandora just pulled the plug for listeners outside the U.S. Web 2.0 blog franticindustries shows you how to put it back in.
The solution: Use a proxy. The author lists eight different options, some free, some costing a few bucks. The winner appears to be Public CGI Proxies, which randomly chooses a public proxy server. Just enter the Pandora URL and wait a few seconds while it routes you through an available server. You might have to try a few times to land on one that works (I did), but it’s well worth the effort if you woke up this morning suddenly unable to feed your Pandora addiction. —Rick Broida
Remember when Abraham Lincoln died by being hit with a Care Bear Stare after colliding in the air with Jackie Chan while attempting to pole-vault onto Optimus Prime?
I was reminded today of one of the greatest geek songs ever written, “Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny“.
Extremely catchy. I’ll have it in my head for the rest of the day for sure. But it’s worth it.
Don’t mess with Mr. Rogers.
~~~~~
Listening to…
Work Blog