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Nothing To Worry About

[ Add A Comment ]Posted on February 23, 2009 by admin in Music

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

Uplifting video for the song “Nothing To Worry About” from Peter Bjorn & John’s upcoming release Living Thing

If you’re having a rough day, play the video at left, and I guarantee you’ll have Nothing To Worry About. You may have already seen the disturbingly uplifting video for the song from Peter Bjorn & John’s upcoming release Living Thing, but you may not have realized that the crazy Japanese rockabilly breakdancers featured in the video do this every Sunday in Yoyogi Park next to Harajuku Station in Tokyo. More on the history of the shenanigans of the Takenoko-zoku (bamboo shoot kids) can be found here, and if you haven’t listened to Peter Bjorn & John before, you might start with their 2006 release Writer’s Block, in which they prove that you can capture the Decemberists‘ fan-base without being a bunch of pretentious smartypants. Read the rest of this entry »

Elbow Room Only

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on October 31, 2008 by admin in Music

Friday, October 31st, 2008

You’ll need some sharp elbows to queue up in my music collection…

If you care about me, stop introducing me to music I like. I’m rapidly running out of time and hard drive space. The other day, a friend sent me a link to some British band’s web site, asking me what I thought. I think my remark at the time was something like “it’s a good thing their web site’s so pretty, ’cause they’re a fugly bunch of fellows”. After giving their music obsessively repeated listens, I now officially retract anything unkind I’ve ever said about Elbow. Their newest release, The Seldom Seen Kid, is one of the solidest recordings I’ve heard in a while. Elbow somehow manages to maintain a fairly consistent “downtempo” vibe without actually sounding gloomy. Singer Guy Garvey’s voice is often compared (legitimately) to Peter Gabriel, but their style on this recording meanders from prog-rockish to jazzy to almost Brechtian, and the lyrics are simply brilliant. The video at left, for the song One Day Like This, captures one of my favorite feelings – staying alive and enthused in the face of the mindnumbingly mundane – with brilliant simplicity.

More Uncanny Valley: Bobblehead Einstein Robot

[ Add A Comment ]Posted on October 16, 2008 by admin in Technology

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

Relatively peculiar

One of the newest residents of the Uncanny Valley is the almost-macabre Einstein-headed robot in the video, left. There’s a strange set of ironies going on here: the uncanny realism of the face (it’s made of “Frubber”) ; the eerie motion of the robot body; the weird bobbling of the head…all combined with the idea that one of the greatest minds of the 20th century is reduced to a mumbling marionette pitching a product. The Albert HUBO, as it is called, is a product of the Korea-based Humanoid Robot Research Center, a research group that seems to be playing a little bit of catch-up with Honda’s Asimo. The welcome video on the HuboLab site is unintentionally hilarious; an Einsten-headed robot speaks with a carefully suppressed, but obvious Korean accent.

Why We Link

[ Add A Comment ]Posted on September 17, 2008 by admin in Editorial & Opinion

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

The made-for-TV version of Clemens Kogler’s video “Le Grand Content”

A cool video was making the rounds yesterday with the title “Why We Drink”. It’s a sort of hip, 2.0, 3-D video absurdist Powerpoint explanation of life. Made me smile, anyway. The original video is at left, or on the creator Clemens Kogler’s site with the title “Le Grand Content”. I love his summary, in which he explains that it “…examines the omnipresent Powerpoint-culture in search for its philosophical potential. Intersections and diagrams are assembled to form a grand ‘association-chain-massacre’, which challenges itself to answer all questions of the universe and some more. Of course, it totally fails this assignment, but in its failure it still manages to produce some magical nuance and shades between the great topics death, cable tv, emotions and hamsters…” As a courtesy to our American viewers who can’t handle the ponderous, European art-house, four-minute director’s cut, there’s a shorter (two minute) version here, re-titled “Why We Drink”.

Coldplay – The Hardest Part

[ Add A Comment ]Posted on July 24, 2008 by admin in Editorial & Opinion

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

Coldplay gets their big break on 80′s morning show “Attitudes”.

Actually, the hardest part is watching this video all the way through. Harold and Maude, eat your heart out, here come Spencer and Barbara. As a friend of mine said: “This is like watching synchronized swimming, but without the water”. It’s getting harder and harder to separate fact from fiction on the web; this is either a clip from an 80′s show call “Attitudes”, or an elaborate scheme by Coldplay to get some exposure. Decide for yourself…

View full-size video on YouTube here.

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