Stray Hawkeye

A cool, bass-y Franken-instrument made by Diego Stocco, created by combining a piano, an electric bass, a guitar, a cabinet, a chimney (really), and, you know, whatever else was laying around that day:

Apparently it’s an original composition, but I couldn’t help but think of Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode.  I’m not the only one, someone else mentioned it in the comments on the video (on the Vimeo page, which unfortunately isn’t embed-able so you get youtube above) and Diego replies:

A friend of mine, fan of DM, told me the same.
I know some of their music, but I wasn’t thinking about that song. I was inspired by the hours of western music I’ve heard in films, it’s that kind of triplets “horse galloping” pattern you hear in the “bunch of bad-ass cowboys going to place x to fix the situation” kinda scene : )

Which I makes me sort of wish I knew how to do 3-d computer animations and such to be able to make the scene that goes with that.

For some reason it also makes me think a bit of the general vibe of Cowboy Bebop, though that admittedly usually has more horns – perhaps the general Western vibe.

Also, things like this are why I oscillate wildly between thinking I’d really like a really little place in the city with minimal stuff, and (where this comes in) a few acres of land next to a junk yard somewhere out in the country where I could hack together things like this without bothering people in the next apartment (a large reason why I don’t play my tuba more).

I’m not usually much of one for bluegrass, but I really, really like this song by the semi-local (Duluth) band Trampled by Turtles (which also ranks up there for favorite band names):

Trampled By Turtles-Wait So Long from Justin Gustavison on Vimeo.

Also one of the few times I think actually like the band better after seeing a video of them.  It’s rare, because usually it seems to ruin something seeing a music video with the one “official” interpretation of the song, but here I kind of like it.  It fits just well enough to not break the image of them I had in my head from the music, while at the same time making me think a bit more about it and leaving things open.

I especially like the interlude around two minutes in and the lyrics right after it:

And your heart goes on like a frozen freight train
You know that I help you if I can
But I’m just a raindrop in a river
Just a little itty-bitty grain of sand

Really like the “Welcome home” t-shirt too.

I’m not really sure what to say other than, Lazy Town + Lil Jon = the reason the internet was invented. NSFW.

From the files of what the holy fucking bloody hell what were they thinking, comes Green Day the Musical.  No, really.  They made a musical from the album American Idiot.  Now, you may be saying to yourself, “self, I suppose I could see where that might have the vague potential to not be profoundly terrible.”  But then you’d see this clip from Letterman…

… and realize that it somehow manages to makes you feel the need to simultaneously laugh hysterically, cry, and just tilting your head to the side and say, wait, wasn’t April 1st like a month ago?  Is this a rerun from then?  Maybe?  Please?  No?  Shit.

It’s like they tried to collide the awesomeness of Rent and the awesomeness of Green Day and somehow it formed an awesomeness super nova which then collapsed into this complete black hole of suckage that landed squarely in New York and was somehow confused for a musical and placed on Broadway.

And yes, it does actually exist (warning, it starts playing a loud video automatically upon loading, as if you hadn’t already suffered enough).

How have I not posted this before?

Pure Morning by Placebo has been stuck in my head a lot lately (standard grumble here about not being able to embed the video, and having a good song with an entirely unrelated / eh music video).  And it’s occurred to me that it would make a really good, if a bit odd, song for stripping.

In thinking about that, another song in the same genre came to mind – Pets by Porno For Pyros (really ignore that thought if you feel the need to watch the video while listening to it, as it kind of picks up on the vibe, but in a freakish female body builder way):

Any thoughts for other good, though non-standard (ie, no “I Touch Myself” by The Divinyls, or “Pour Some Sugar On Me”, or “Wild Thing”, etc), songs for stripping?

Another really good, relaxing, mellow song that’s been stuck in my head lately. Love the use of horns and strings.

Perhaps it’s just because I’m a big marching band geek, but this video (youtube) is about 8 shades of awesome (though grumble gumble about not being able to embed it).

Also, at 2:23 – hell yeah bass, go sousies.

Via a link on a friend’s facebook page.

I’ve decided that posting this around New Year’s is now a tradition as well:

Also, you know what I’m looking forward to about the New Year’s Eve celebrations next year?  Seeing how they’re going to make those stupid plastic eye glasses where the frames are in the shape of the year out of a 2011.  Maybe everyone will have to ring in the New Year with only one eye open and the whole celebration all around the world will be pirate themed.  Happy New Yarrrrrr!

I posted this video last year around Christmas time too, and I think I’m going to make it a tradition.  I still really like this song, and love the performance of it.  I think it fits the season and time of year well, and it’s just pleasantly calming for me in a time of year that can have a lot of stress.  So, here you go, Imogen Heap singing Just For Now:

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Also, due to travel, holidays,  job stuff, generally taking a break, excessive bowl game watching in one last binge of college football before The Long Painful Months Without College Football, etc, etc, I’m going to be mostly AWOL from posting for the next couple weeks – somewhere between sporadic and non-existent until early to mid January, and then should resume the standard “most every weekday when I remember and can find some spare minutes” posting pattern.  Til then, just keep watching the above video in a loop.  It’ll make you feel better.

I’ve been resisting posting the Muppets singing Bohemian Rhapsody video, as it’s been posted everywhere, so instead, here’s a link to a post on Kottke with a few other Muppet videos.

And, while we’re on Rhapsodies and silliness, here’s Victor Borge doing Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 on piano

Via Ovablastic.

I’m presenting these in the order that I found them, not because it makes more sense that way, but because it makes slightly less, and then you can share in the somewhat befuddled but interested discovery process.

I came across this video on Boing Boing:

And it’s sufficiently addictive (catchy song, amusingly random, cute girl, probably all of the above) that I watched it a couple of times.  I eventually decided (a couple of days later with it still stuck in my head) that I was going to figure out where it came from.

So, I eventually figured out that there’s a game called Plants vs Zombies that you can play the first few levels of online for free.  It’s an okay game, a decent time waster, but nothing too spectacular.  But once you play it for a while, the song starts making more and more sense (still not lots, but more at least).

So, even more eventually (at least a week, maybe two, since watching the first video, as I played the game on and off 5 minutes at a time in the evenings until I ran out of free levels) I watched the video on youtube, and in the related video section was this, which sort of made it all come together:

A while ago I went to a performance by the Minnesota Orchestra where they showed an old Charlie Chaplin movie, and played the score to the movie as it went. (Side note- the Minnesota Orchestra is doing it again with another Chaplin movie in early January.  I’d recommend it.  It’s fun.)

It was really cool not only because it was a live performance coupled with a great movie (City Lights is awesome, highly recommended), but because it’s also the way silent movies were originally shown – with a live musician either performing the score along with it (often on just a piano), or completely improving a score for the movie as it played.

I also remember that at some point even longer ago, I saw something on TV about old movies, and I believe one of them was a Charlie Chaplin one as well, where they were saying that it’s a bit hard to restore a definitive version of the movie, because it was originally produced with 4 different scores, any one of which could be played with the film, and each one of which had a very different tone and style, each giving the whole movie a very different feel.

So, here’s my idea for the more cinematic crowd out there. I’d like to see a website called Four Score (intentional pun on Lincoln’s speech) where a film maker produces a modern silent movie, and then releases it to the website. Any user (or possibly a select group of preselected composers, up to you) can then submit a score / sound track for the movie in the form of an mp3 to be played along with the movie. The best four are voted on, and the 4 different versions of the movie are then released on the site. I would tend to imagine this would work best with shorts, maybe in the 5-10 minute range, just so people would be willing to watch the different versions, and so the idea of coming up with a score for them would be at least somewhat within reach of the average user.

A variety of covers where the cover is done in an entirely different style from the original, with funny/great results:

• Jonathan Coulton – Baby Got Back (originally by Sir Mix-a-Lot)
• Richard Cheese – Down With The Sickness (originally by Disturbed)
• Mat Weddle – Hey Ya (originally by Outkast)  – That one’s easily the best stand alone song of the bunch, even if you’ve never heard the original version, the cover is great.
• Decadence – Bitches Ain’t Shit (originally by Dr Dre)  – That one’s actually a cover of a cover.  Ben Folds covered the original, and this is an a cappella cover of that version.  I’d love to see a version of this done in a Gregorian Chant style.

As a bonus update to this previous post, I found a version of Max Raabe’s cover of Shaggy’s Angel on some Japanese (??) site, here.

In case you’re interested in more about which bands have covered what, Cover Trek has a pretty lengthy database of who has covered what, and lets you find links between different bands, though I would note spelling really counts.