Noise Throng Double-Feature?

I spent the entirety of President's Day (yesterday) updating long-time (entering tenth year) pet-project Noise Throng. That's not really the point of this post, but there are new archival recordings available there for interested parties.

Today two DVDs, both ordered while psyching myself up for said updates, arrived. I just realized that they essentially define the envelop of the Noise Throng catalog - from sampling/unapologetic copyright infringement to sheer, psychedelic, endurance-test noise. I also realized they'd make a terrific double-feature: People Who Do Noise followed by Copyright Criminals. Here are their respective trailers.

People Who Do Noise


Copyright Criminals


Enjoy.

See What Made My Twit List

Upon realizing that my posting here has decreased while it has increased on Twitter, I'm experimenting with displaying said Twitter feed here, in the right margin. I may find a better solution, but think this will help keep some fresh content churning here - even if it isn't longer-form content (like, more than 140 characters).

Full disclosure: I have some apprehension about linking my Twitter feed here, as I feel like I post more randomly there. Of course, I also still giggle when people say "twit" or twit-related puns when trying to sound smart...

Foul Play Giant

I've always had a bad taste in my mouth from the folks who gush over the work of Shepard Fairey. And now I'm snickering to myself that his legal counsel is abandoning him after it was revealed that he lied about which source he stole from / traced over for the Obama Hope poster.

Fairey represents a lot of what I don't like about the art world - arrogant double-standards. His work is entirely derivative if not outright stolen, which in itself is not offensive to me. There's nothing wrong with appropriation when proper attribution is given. Yet he continually passes himself off as original, and profits from creativity that simply wasn't his - without giving proper credit where it is clearly due. In fact, he outright lies about his sources. And Fairey is clearly lying for the sake of his own celebrity and profit, not for the sake of art.

I've always insisted that the work that put him on the map, Andre the Giant has a Posse and the resulting Obey work, were obviously inspired by John Carpenter's They Live - which starred a pro wrestler and featured subliminal outdoor advertising messages that read "obey" (among other Big Brotherly imperatives). Too many coincidences.

Given that it's now common practice to sue musicians for sampling even small portions of someone else's work without permission and/or payment, Fairey deserves to be held responsible for his actions. It's clear that his primary concern is being a celebrity; perhaps his ego prevents him from being honest about his work, his process and his tremendous debt to pop and fringe culture that preceded him and all of his sordid merchandising.

Fairey is complicit in the ugly corporatization of celebrity - at the expense of honesty, integrity and authenticity. It pains me that only the Obama poster is drawing this fact into the public discourse.

In B-Flat Two-Point-Oh

Check out in Bb 2.0. It's the result of a collaborative video/music (okay, multimedia) mixing project. It goes at least one step further than Kutiman's "Thru You" by putting the controls at your fingertips.

Spotted via Create Digital Music.

Skinny Puppy's American Memory

Favorite author / occasional email pal Douglas Rushkoff, while guest-blogging at BoingBoing, posts today about American Memory - which features the music of Skinny Puppy (well, Ogre and Mark Walk as OHGR).

Rushkoff may perform with the group when this tour stops in NYC. For those of you around these parts, watch for The 2008 OHGR DTour (supporting Ogre's new solo effort, Devils In My Details) at Double Door on Sunday, 30 November [tix].

I wish it was at a better venue, and not on a Sunday night, but might have to go check it out anyway. (Hopefully the club isn't the same death-trap it was in August when it flooded twice during the Melvins show.)

It Takes A Nation Of Monkeys...

Last night, Analog Monkey Video tipped me off to some freshly released work of theirs. Particularly this three-part piece (1, 2, 3) on Public Enemy while in town for an appearance at the Chicago Cultural Center and another at Pitchfork Music Festival last month. E and I took photos of the Cultural Center event, but I haven't posted pics yet. Mine don't compete with the videos, frankly. Seeing PE talk about how they made their music -- music I have listened to regularly since it first came out -- was inspiring. After E shared with me his extra ticket to the group's performance at Pitchfork Fest, I went home and stayed up for hours tweaking my own music, inspired to see "live" the music that taught me about sampling some twenty years ago.

And cheers for Analog Monkey Video. They've been at this a while and it looks like it's starting to pay off. As E points out, you can spot the crew in the mirror in the third installment of the also-recently-released Daytripping with Brandon Cox series (also on P4K.tv).

[I like Pitchfork so much better when they're not over-writing music reviews.]

The Whole Hog, In A Pig's Eye

In her book PIG 05049, Dutch artist Christien Meindertsma chronicles over three years of an art / research project, an investigation on what happens to a pig after it has been slaughtered. Specifically, the book highlights 187 products made from one pig - and BBQ isn't necessarily on the list. Today's post about it on We Make Money Not Art is enlightening. Here's the gem quote that got me reading the whole thing:

Over three years, the designer tracked the products made from parts or even tiny particles of pigs. Her quest led her to a tattoo artist, dentist, farmer and weapon specialist. She discovered that the skin, bones, meat, organs, blood, fat, brains, hoofs, hair and tail of the pig are used in no fewer than 187 products: shampoo, medicine, munitions, cardiac valves, matches, desserts and bubblegum, beer and lemonade, car paint and brake discs, pills, bread, etc.

You know you want to know more. So here's a little more from the same post:

After slaughter, bits and pieces of the Dutch pig travel around the world. Gelatin from its skin ends up in liquorices and gums, and even cheesecake and tiramisu. In the weapon industry the gelatin is used as conductor for bullets. Pork fat is one of the ingredients of, amongst others, anti-wrinkle cream and shampoo, information that producers are not too keen on admitting. The glue made from pig bones makes matches sturdier and porcelain is manufactured from its ashes. Protein from pig's hair contributes to making bread soft. Every part of a pig is either eaten or processed. Should anything be left over, it is converted into green electric power.

I am certain the vegetarians and vegans among you will be interested to know about all the pork-oriented products you're not eating but using regularly. Read more here, while I go satisfy this sudden taste for bacon...

[Photo via We Make Money Not Art]

"Fascinating."

When I was earning my journalism degree, CBS was considered the grandparents' network. Well into my professional career, CBS was still seen as struggling to shake off that reputation... their first sign of success was a little reality show called Survivor. Eight years later, CBS may be poised to become more relevant, to more people, than its Viacom sister network MTV.

This post started as a video I wanted to share (below), a video attributed to CBS. Apparently there's a division of CBS called EyeLab. The group's purpose is nebulous, according to their "about" blurb. In fact, there's nothing about what I'm about to share with you here, though there has been a smattering of press coverage for the past year or so. Regardless of the vague self-description, a few of their promotional videos are becoming successful in the much coveted "viral" way.

It all started with this drawn-out "supercut" of Caruso's cornball one-liners that open every episode of CSI Miami. It wasn't created by CBS, but it wasn't removed for copyright infringement, either. In fact, the creator is cited by CBS as the inspiration for EyeLab.

Fast-forward about a year and there's this one, an "official" EyeLab production, which promotes the DVD set of the remastered original Star Trek television series: DJ Spock. That's because CBS Home Entertainment is using its big sister television network to help move more units. We have CBS Digital to thank for the enhanced digital effects in the remastered series, too.

It'll be interesting to see if a group within a big conglomerate like CBS will be able to sustain the scrappy and nimble approach of folks like stewmurray47. I doubt stewmurray47 had a bottom line to worry about, committees to deal with, advertisers to keep happy, or investors and stockholders to appease. That said, it's kinda cool that CBS started a division that gets to jam the company culture... but I'm sure the fun little videos are just a small part of their job.

It'll also be interesting to see if this mash-up approach to promotion carries into CBS's forthcoming record label, which we should hear from early next year.

Home Studio Interview with Portishead's Adrian Utley

Music Thing points us to Sonic State's three-part interview with Portishead's Adrian Utley. With his daughter in his lap, Utley discusses the making of Third from the comfort of his home studio. Plenty of gear porn and shop talk for you, my fellow music geeks.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


Previously on PYLB: Third, Finally.

Meeting The Walrus

I've traditionally stayed away from most things having to do with The Beatles -- partially because I always thought they were a bit too corny too often, and partially because I felt they already had more fans than they needed -- but this is one of the few exceptions: I Met The Walrus. The video's description does it more justice that I would do in paraphrasing...

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it.

I can't imagine what it's like for Jerry Levitan to see this interview animated and go on to an Oscar nomination for best short. The animation is brilliant, but I'm sure the subject matter has a little to do with the over-flow of attention as well.

Will Smith is no Alan Arkin

If I may humbly venture into Booze Movies territory for a moment...



I am entirely uninterested in seeing Hancock, but I can't help but pick up the gist of this film from recent mentions it's gotten online. Will Smith plays a washed-up drunkard of a superhero. The IMDB entry for this film shows one comment that ponders, "Hancock has the kind of premise that you wonder why it took so long for someone to put it on the big screen."

No need to wonder; it hasn't taken that long. We've already seen this premise in big-screen format. And I'm not making the weak comparison to Last Action Hero that some folks are making. Twenty-five years ago, it was a film called The Return of Captain Invincible, starring Alan Arkin and Christopher Lee. Did I mention it's part musical, too?

Check it out. You can own the DVD for the same amount it'll cost for just one ticket to see Will Smith's latest vehicle in a theater. Neither one is a great movie, but imagine how informed you'll sound when you can bust Hancock for ripping off an Alan Arkin movie from a quarter-century ago.

"On To Something" Coming Soon

Music Thing links to a trailer for the new Raymond Scott documentary On To Something, produced by Scott's only son, Academy Award winning cameraman and editor Stan Warnow.


Documentary Trailer for RAYMOND SCOTT: ON TO SOMETHING from Stan Warnow on Vimeo.

If you're not familiar with the innovative genius that is Raymond Scott, odds are you'll recognize his music - courtesy of one cartoon or another. If you've had the pleasure / displeasure of living with me in the last ten years or so, you know that the only way I can watch professional sports for any duration is with the broadcast's sound turned down and Reckless Nights & Turkish Delights playing loudly instead. (Try it; it's especially great with basketball.)

See also:
Manhattan Research - Book / 2-CD set detailing Scott's early, hand-made electronic instruments - which he often used in commercial work. This collection includes a collaboration with pre-Muppets Jim Henson and notes about the room-sized computer Scott used to essentially generate a click track.

Soothing Sounds For Baby - a three-part series of tone-poems designed to lull your little ones to relaxation, using instruments Scott created himself (in the lab featured in Manhattan Research, no less). Minimal, ambient music with a pop sensibility, years before Brian Eno or Kraftwerk.

Tuning In This Week

It's been an interesting week for music. Well, for the kind I pay attention to...



My Bloody Valentine played a warm-up show at a small London venue last week. Wired's Listening Post points to MP3's of the show (sounds like they were recorded in the room, not off the board). This tease of what's to come around Chicago in September might not be enough to make us forget that the much-anticipated MBV re-issues are delayed (again) because Kevin Shields is allegedly still writing the liner notes. Maybe he should have started those sooner.... like, in 1991?




Another bit of mixed disappointment came from Illegal Art this week: the new Girl Talk album. See, I paid for this album months ago as part of a four-release deal the label offered (I did it mainly to secure a copy of the Steinski retrospective). Well, the Girl Talk album, Feed The Animals, was delayed. Then released for free earlier this week. Hmpf! So in six weeks when the CD arrives (a schedule that still baffles me), I'll be long-since tired of an album that I legitimately downloaded yesterday. Girl Talk told Pitchfork that he pushed the release (wait, it was delayed... how can he call this a push to release it early? WTF?) because of the timely samples he's using, admitting that they'll be stale by the time the CD is pressed. Well, why bother pressing a CD at all, dude? And why ask me to pay for it several months before you're going to just give it away? You could have refunded me the purchase price, given me store credit at the label store, and made a better fan of me. Instead, I feel a bit swindled. I suppose I asked for it, but it's probably the last time I bother to buy Girl Talk's collage of what amounts to random preview clips of everyone else's songs in no apparent order. First listen: it's cute. Second listen: I think I could have done this better myself.




Things got better this morning when I was greeted with an email from Amon Tobin regarding his new online store. In addition to an official release of his soundtrack for Taxidermia, there is a slew of freebie content - live mixes and DJ sets mostly. There's also a feature called This Month's Joint, which is a new track available for purchase (MP3 or WAV) every month. This will help me keep my fix of Tobin until his Two Fingers collaboration is released. Nice. This guy is one of my favorite recording artists, and has been a big inspiration on my own recording endeavors.




Oh, yeah, there are also rumors flying about a leak of eight tracks off the much-fabled Guns-N-Roses album Chinese Democracy. If you're into that kind of thing.

R.I.P. Albert Hofmann, LSD Inventor

Albert Hoffman Autograph, originally uploaded by strikerr.

What's left to say about this man that isn't already being said by the likes of BoingBoing and Wired? His research was influential on a lot of people who were influential on me. Especially during my college years. Nuff said.

Hoffman was 102 when he died, just ten days after the 45th anniversary of Bicycle Day. While those numbers will surely inspire fits of numerology amongst fans of psychedelics, I'm inspired to pick up a copy of LSD: My Problem Child in his honor.

Dr. Hofmann Stencil, a graffiti tribute spotted in Lisbon last year by yours truly.

Orchestral Meltdown

I never find out about these things with enough time to coordinate a trip to see them. But this sounds cool. Massive Attack and the 45-piece Heritage Orchestra are recreating Vangelis' original soundtrack for a rare one-off screening of Blade Runner: The Final Cut.

Incidentally, a slimmed down 35-piece Heritage Orchestra is playing a show of Amon Tobin covers on May 3. Tobin protege Bonobo DJs as part of the 180-minute event, too. Judging from the preview tracks on the orchestra's site, it's going to kick major orchestral ass.

If any of you attend either of these events, kindly return here to share the details.

Untooned

Pixeloo does an awesome job of untooning animated characters. Here's his rendition of Homer Simpson, and his follow-up post on the source material used to make it. Click the image to view larger.

[via BoingBoing]

Profanation

Praxis is one of those super-groups with an evolving cast of heavily decorated recording artists. The kind that manages to continually defy genre boundaries with extreme prejudice. Praxis had a fairly significant influence on me (mostly because of Transmutation, Sacrifist and their contributing artists), which is why I'm typing this post right now...



I'm listening to Praxis' new album, Profanation, currently available as a Japanese import (or a .zip file here). It's Bill Laswell with the likes of Bernie Worrell, Mike Patton, Iggy Pop, Serj Tankian, Brain, Rammellzee, Otomo Yoshihide, Killah Priest, and of course Buckethead. It's interesting to hear what happens when musicians from such varied backgrounds hook up with a prolific guy like Laswell. Interesting to me, anyway. Take a listen and decide for yourself.

Lucky Enough

My grandfather, perpetually representing the Irish side of the family, used to tell us:

"If you're lucky enough to be Irish,
you're lucky enough."

That's the approach I've always taken toward St. Patrick's Day. I'm dealing with Irish blood running through my veins every day of my life - I don't feel the need to make an obscene novelty of my heritage for one day every year.

[I don't run around with the Polish flag tied to my back like a superhero's cape on Pulaski Day, either. Nor do I do anything particularly German during Oktoberfest.]

A lot of St. Patty's Day tradition is distorted anyway. Did you know that blue was the color originally associated with St. Patrick? Only through the phrase "wearing of the green" did the common practice of wearing green (instead of a Shamrock) become the tradition.

Color is not the only bastardization of tradition on St. Patrick's Day. A properly poured Guinness, not cheap beer dyed green, is the appropriate drink. Or a good Irish whiskey. Think about that before you help support the "drunk Irish" stereotype this evening.

If you're lucky enough to be Irish at all.

We call that "sampling", Hillary.

Well, sampling may not be the preferred term in political circles, but that's basically what it is.

If Deval Patrick doesn't have a problem with it, why should anyone else? It's not plagiarism if it's used with permission, whatever it is. Beside that, Hillary hasn't exactly written all her own material. Is she implying that she utters nary a phrase that's been uttered by anyone else in the history of mankind?

Folks might not boo her if she were a little more "with the times". And maybe not such a divisive bellyacher, when her political career seems predicated on her husband more than her own merit. (Total pot-shot added to justify use of this image.)

[Image sampled from The Carpet Bagger Report]

Guitar (NOISE) Hero

Wandering through Wired's blogs over coffee this morning, I didn't stop on anything until I found this on The Underwire. As soon as I think of a name for the band I want to be in with Scopeboy, I'm emailing him. His Tesla-coil guitar, my chopped-up samples... it could be the kind of sweetly hellish noise that makes men weep. Wicked.