« Older Entries |

The Virtue of Shellfishness: Weebl’s Greatest Hits

[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 7, 2013 by admin in Music

Thursday, February 7th, 2013

Do the surreal creations of Cyriak, SecretAgentBob, and Weebl constitute a genre? Who cares. Watch hours disappear as you watch clip after one minute clip.

Somewhere in the surreal realm between the audiovisual creations of Cyriak (who brought us cows & cows & cows, Baaa, and Welcome to Kitty City) and the musical animated storytelling of SecretAgentBob (who brought us Charlie the Unicorn and Ferrets) lies the repetitiously brilliant creations of mr weebl (we’ve included a few of these videos below). Is this a genre? I can’t decide. The musical portions of Cyriak and Weebl’s clips seem to reside somewhere in the microgenres of Bitpop or Chiptune, but to be honest, I decided to stop keeping track of microgenres ten minutes after I first heard the term back in the early nineties. So we’ll just let these offbeat creations be what they are. We’re focusing on Weebl today, because in spite of having the largest volume of work of the three on line by far, I personally didn’t know who he was until today, when I ran across Shrimp Glockenspiel. Why are internerds so shellfish with their clever links? Once I paid a little more attention, I quickly realized I was familiar with his NSFW Amazing Horse and Narwhals; I just didn’t realize he had such a huge body of work. You’re likely to either love Weebl (British flash animator Jonti Picking ) or hate him. His 200+ YouTube clips have received tens of millions of views, but his TV ad for Yell 118 247 Directory Heaven earned him the honor of sixth most irritating ad of 2009. Which I guess is actually a positive assessment when discussing TV commercials. Below are what I’d consider weebl’s “greatest hits”. If you actually like the music itself, he has hundreds of tunes on Amazon, and a ton of apps on iTunes as Weebl’s Stuff Ltd . More clips below. Read the rest of this entry »

Living Sisters’ New “How Are You Doing” Video Directed By Michel Gondry

[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 6, 2011 by admin in Music

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

If The Living Sisters’ voices sound familiar, it may be because one third of them are provided by Inara George of The Bird and the Bee.

I’ve said this before, but I wish I had more time to listen to all the amazing new indy music  that’s been flooding the market the last few years. Then it wouldn’t take a torrent of links flooding the web talking about a new Michael Gondry music video (see below) to get me to notice a cool band like The Living Sisters. I hadn’t heard of them until yesterday, but like most anyone with ears would be, I was immediately struck by their uniquely witty harmonies. They sort of reminded me of The Roches (who, unlike The Living Sisters, are sisters), not because of their sound, but because of the quirky vibe. And The Living Sisters’ voicing sounded familiar too, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. And then it hit me. Well, it didn’t actually hit me – I had to read this LA Weekly piece from last year to learn – that the reason that something about the voices sounded so familiar was because exactly one third of them were being provided by Inara George of The Bird and The Bee, who we touched on a few weeks ago. I guess on top of needing to listen to more stuff, I should follow up better on the stuff I already am listening to as well. So I don’t have much more to say about The Living Sisters, because until I finish downloading the album Love To Live from Amazon in a few minutes, I’ve only heard previews and watched some YouTube clips. I included a live one below, which proves pretty effectively that Inara George doesn’t need the autotune that seems so pervasive in The Bird and the Bee recordings. These ladies have amazing voices. Or maybe an amazing voice; at times the similarity of their timbre makes them sound like one person singing along with a Theremin…

Read the rest of this entry »

ADD & Digital Indignation – Frontline’s Digital Nation & Web Video

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 31, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

I don’t know why I wrote this piece, you’ll only read 28% of it. And Frontline’s cool new show “Digital Nation” debuts against “Lost” on Tuesday, so you probably won’t watch it.


Digital Nation Debuts Tuesday On PBS

Given the fact that according to this article you’re only going to read at most 28% of this page, I wonder if I should write less so you’ll read the whole thing? That sounds like an attempt at a humorous paradox, but it’s actually not; the fact is that according to this chart from the same article, users spend only 4.4 seconds more on a web page for each additional 100 words. So I better get to the point. This week PBS is airing a special edition of Frontline called Digital Nation, which explores how the Internet, texting, blogging, social networking, and other aspects of the “digital lifestyle” are impacting our lives. This is a topic that’s been very much on my attention-deficient mind for a few years. Although there are few solid scientific studies on the topic, I believe that as well as whatever benefits we derive from the technologies in which we’ve immersed our lives, these same tools have also caused perceptible changes in attention span, basic courtesy, and memory for many people. You almost certainly have noticed that more and more often, you and your friends can recall a film or book, but can’t recall the director, actor, author, or a major character. And who hasn’t found themselves sitting in a group of people that seem more intent on proving they have to “be somewhere else” digitally by texting, phoning, or checking a web account of some kind. Given the word count of what I’m writing, I lost you 140 words ago, but if you find this topic of interest, you might also find this TechCrunch article about what we watch and how we watch it interesting. It highlights things like how in the early 50′s, 30% of American households watched NBC during prime time, and how today that number has dropped to 5%, with other networks fairing about the same. Most of the remaining video content consumed is watched on the web, and in ways that may surprise you. This fact will almost certainly be relevant to the long-term viewership of Digital Nation; it debuts Tuesday directly opposite the season premiere of “Lost”. Read the rest of this entry »

Trent Reznor Drives More Nine Inch Nails In The Coffin Of Old-School Music Business

[ Comments Off ]Posted on December 30, 2009 by admin in Music

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

What comes in 1080p high definition video with 5.1 surround sound, spans 3 continents, 4 languages, and takes a team of dozens – including 5 specialist teams and a network of thousands – a total of 12 months to complete? That would be The Gift, which is 3 DVD’s worth of NIN concert video assembled [...]

What comes in 1080p high definition video with 5.1 surround sound, spans 3 continents, 4 languages, and takes a team of dozens – including 5 specialist teams and a network of thousands – a total of 12 months to complete? That would be The Gift, which is 3 DVD’s worth of NIN concert video assembled from source material released by NIN, professionally edited, and color corrected and authored. To be clear about this, the amazing thing about the project is that it’s not an official NIN release; this was assembled primarily by rabid and obsessive fans. Back in January of this year, Trent Reznor joked (see original text here) that a “mysterious, shadowy group of subversives” had somehow gotten their hands on 400 GB’s of raw HD concert footage and that it may be out there on the internet somewhere. Well, the fans took the cue and worked with NIN crew to create what appears to be some mind-blowingly high-quality concert material. And the cost? Unbelievably, it’s free. They’re even soliciting people to provide free physical DVD’s to technophobes that are incapable of figuring out the download options! We mentioned last year how Trent Reznor had ingeniously brought us back into the fan fold with his gift of “Ghosts”, but this video material may really take the concept of “free” as a marketing tool to new heights. You be the judge. The YouTube clip below is promising; we’re downloading the torrent as this article is being posted, so will probably do a follow up next week. Read the rest of this entry »

New Release From Swiss Band Yello Due October 2, 2009

[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 17, 2009 by admin in Music

Monday, August 17th, 2009

You may know of them because of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Twix commercials, but Yello has been around since the late 70′s.

Some of you may only know of the band Yello from the use of their song Oh Yeah (original video below) in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Twix commercials, but the duo has been churning out innovative music since the late 70′s, and have gleefully prostituted themselves more than Moby during that time (see a long list of placements here) You might think you’ll know what to expect when you throw on a recording by a Swiss band comprised of two guys named Dieter and Boris, but the band Yello has always managed to skirt expectation just enough to keep their sample-based sound fresh over nearly three decades. Part of the reason their music holds up is that although they use sampling extensively, they don’t sample other people’s music, they sample their own and edit it into elaborate compositions. They also maintain production values on par with say, Trevor Horn or Quincy Jones, and program with the sophistication of Kraftwerk. I personally can’t wait to hear their new collection “Touch”, slated for release October 2, but I guess I’ll have to; although the track “You Better Hide” will premiere in the Swiss science fiction movie Cargo (see an early look at the movie here if you speak Swiss) on September 24th, there are otherwise no pre-releases or leaks available as of this writing. For more interesting background on Yello, visit their refreshingly functional Flash-driven site or Planet Origo.  A new Yello release? O-o-o-o-h Yeah…. Read the rest of this entry »

« Older Entries |