So when you reach into the bag and pull out the wallet that says “Bad Motherfucker” on it, you could pretty much hand it to any one of the guys in this video. This looks like a whole heck of a lot of fun to play, and these guys are burning it up. Thanks to Ketogah for the link!
They are known in their native Romania as “Taraful Haiducilor”. Roughly, this means “band of outlaws”, but “taraf” is also the traditional name for a group of lăutari (traditional Romanian Gypsy musicians). “Haiduc” or “haiduk” is a word of Turkish origin which means “outlaw”; in Romanian it has a rustic or archaic connotation. Most of those who know the band in the Western world know them by way of French-speaking areas, where they are known as “Taraf de Haïdouks”, since French lacks a genitive case. read more…
Here is a lovely animated video for Canadian artist Patrick Wilson’s The Great Escape. The song is an understated tune which reminds me a bit of Nick Drake, or a less flamboyant Antony and the Johnsons, and the black and white distressed animation seems to capture the mood perfectly.
My pal Jason sent me a few links to some mash up type stuff, similar in vein to some older Negativeland. This stuff is really cool and it is great to see it is still flourishing in the underbelly of our deteriorating society. Prepared to be overloaded.
Pleix is a group of Paris based interactive artists. They produce and share ideas and films using 3-d graphics and film in general combined with some great electronic music. Check out these creative videos. “Birds” features music by Vitalic, and lots of flying small dogs, and neon! “Sometimes” is an interesting 3-d composite which seems to show a process of deconstruction and reconstruction with audio from Kid606. Thanks to Ketogah for this link.
Is this an optical illusion, is this a midget? NO! it’s a normal sized man attempting to rock out on a guitar designed specifically for Shaq! Well it COULD be designed for Shaq, however this guy does a good job of rockin’ it, despite being vertically challenged.
I have one of these air synths, and I sort of wrote it off as a bit too limited…of course due to my lack of imagination. Check out what Carlos did with his! He hard wired it to a custom built guitar body. Back in the day seeing some guitar players used duct tape to add effects pedals to guitars for easy hand access, but this really adds a variety of wahwah and other fun experimental sound options…watch out spinning corpse of Jimi Hendrix!
It’s argued that it is part of the collective music unconscious. you have definitely heard the beat…now get the back story in this comprehensive recording.
It is a pretty exciting time to be alive as a musician. there are some really fun software developments maturing into great potential instruments. The Nintendo DS game platform with it’s touch screen interface is a small yet potentially amazing gadget that is starting to offer a bunch of great music programs. Check out Electroplankton! This is an audio interface basically programmed with different species of Electroplanktons that you manipulate with the pen stylus to create different sound patterns. Second check out the new DS Jam Sessions from Ubisoft. This one lets you configure a guitar which you strum with the pen stylus…how fucking great is that for long plane rides!
Electroplankton demo video showing what each set of plankton do-
One more thing…just because these are cool it does NOT mean they are a rock n’ roll replacement for the guitar. I submit this as proof. Look how not cool you will look trying to play along with your bandmates. I assume the reason this guy did it was he was having a REAL hard time competing with the apparently band mandated facial hair his comrades are sporting.
What seems like a million years ago I used to perform in a noise/performance art duo known as Livestock. We had a few quite memorable performances in Tucson AZ and then the performance artist half moved off to California. I state this only as an indication of my long term love for simple noise. Never at that time did I imagine one day to view a video of basically a noise workshop. This circuit bending demonstration by noise mad scientist Ben Goldstone is pretty hilarious to watch…however if there is a next time, hopefully the camera person will invest in a tripod.
John’s out on tour now, and he’s really a lot of fun live. He seems to fly just under the radar of alternative mainstream, possibly because a lot of the content of his songs is pretty gruesome? All that really means is you still have a chance to see him at smaller more intimate venues in your town. Check out this video of him performing what looks like an after the show encore for some lucky fans in a parking lot. Does anyone know if this is Modified in Phoenix?
Nikki Oh Nikki-
Here is an MP3 of probably still my favorite song of his “Pale Horse”-
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John is extremely generous with his music, here are a bunch of MP3’s for free…so go see him and buy his merch at the show.
John Vanderslice- Mp3 page