I heart Devo. McDonalds is being sued for unauthorized use of the trademarked helmet on some stupid toy, designed of course to sell crappy food to children, the McDonalds business model.

“They didn’t ask us anything. Plus, we don’t like McDonald’s, and we don’t like American Idol, so we’re doubly offended.”

Devo- Devo vs. McDonalds

Devo from 1977!

If you like dark gothic country filled with fire and brimstone, you are no doubt familiar with the amazing talent that was 16 Horsepower. The haunting voice of David Eugene Edwards will send shivers down your spine, and at least force you to ponder your existence. They were a notoriously great live band and here is a bit of evidence to support that claim. The video is from the Pinkpop fest in Netherlands in 2000. I could not find any info on the excellent violinist…anyone know who she is?

Sixteenhorsepower- Officially dead website
Woven Hand (Edwards post 16HP)- Official? Website

Jack Conte blew a few minds with his Radiohead cover a while ago, and he’s been busy apparently preparing some original material. He proves he can also compose a pretty decent pop song, and of course bust it out in the one man band “video song” format.

Here are a couple other fun “video songs”.
Martin Dosh-

Lasse Gjertsen-

The author of this amazing piece James Houston claims “It doesn’t sound great, as it’s not supposed to. “, I respectfully disagree…it’s beautiful and I enjoy it more that the original! It’s a little slow to get going but hang in there…it’s pretty damn cool.

The band performing Radiohead’s Nude…

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Guitars (rhythm & lead)
Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer - Drums
HP Scanjet 3c - Bass Guitar
Hard Drive array - Act as a collection of bad speakers - Vocals & FX


Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

The next time you have an extra 6k lying around you might want to pick up one of these Moog guitars. It is pretty amazing, and Lou certainly seems sold on it. The guitar has unique sustain and muting features which allow you to create some really amazing soundscapes. What sets the Moog guitar apart from other guitars? I’ll let their marketing team explain-

-The first and most basic difference is that the Moog Guitar is able to MUTE the strings, actually physically stopping the strings’ vibration.

-The Moog Guitar in the FULL SUSTAIN mode is more powerful and responsive than anything on the market. The Moog Guitar also has governors on every string that prevent excessive buzzing. It is a very strong and even sustain on every string, on every fret. The Moog Guitar can sustain full six-note chords easily.

-When in any mode (Full Sustain, Controlled Sustain, or Mute) you do not have to sacrifice one of the pick-ups for the functionality of the innovations. This means there’s always sound coming from both pick-ups. The ability to pan mute and sustain control between pick-ups (with the included foot pedal) is the source of Harmonic Blending.

-You’re always in control of the Moog Guitar. When Controlled Sustain is engaged, you pick and choose what strings are being given energy (by playing them!), without having to mute the other strings with your hands. There is no spill-over of energy to unwanted strings.

Moog Guitar- Official website

I’ve never been a huge Weezer fan, it’s not that I don’t think they are good at what they do…they obviously are, it’s just not what i am interested in. That said however, they are doing something really awesomely cool right now. Traveling around and getting together with groups of local musicians to play their songs and others. They put out a call for 200 musicians in Portland…where pretty much everyone is a musician, and it seems it went swimmingly. Apparently the idea came from Rivers Cuomo’s mom…in case you were wondering, i might argue he stole it from the Boredoms…but I won’t. Here are a few videos that have surfaced recently.

Weezer and the Portland posse plays Radiohead’s Creep-

Some random Portland footage-

Sure it looks cool, and it costs like $1200…but what can YOU do with it! It appears the wise Yamaha people marketing the Tenori-on instrument have dropped a few of them on some of the music communities experimental pioneers, and videotaped the results. Here are a few videos featuring some of the results. It will be interesting to see what happens as people start hooking this up to external sound sources and such as demonstrated in the video over at CDM.

Jim O’Rourke-

Fourtet-

John Herndon (Tortoise)-

More videos and info about the Tenori-on- Official Site

Well I am proud to say that for a short while I played in a band with the great Eric Royer. He is one of the most talented fellas I know, and here is a pretty nice little documentary about him. Eric plays as a one man band, incorporating numerous guitar machines he has constructed himself. He was just starting this when we both lived in Tucson, and it has come a long ways, as you’ll see in the video.

Eric Royer- Guitar Machine
Eric Royer with Caliche Con Carne- The Great Cyclops
Eric Royer- NPR story

My friends Jesus and Susan live in the small beautiful town of Sebastapol California. Sebastapol has a few celebrities, but the most important to us is the enigma that is Tom Waits. Whenever I visit we are of course inclined to play the part of unobtrusive hopeful stalkers. One time in the natural foods store we spotted him, trying to mind his own business and do a little shopping…I won’t continue this story, because it ends in an embarrassing moment for our dear friend. We’re not sure if Mr. Waits even noticed us, but it’s hard to imagine he didn’t as we’re definitely not a subtle bunch. Then there was the time Jesus almost ran him down as he was jaywalking…Well anyway he’s a marked man who is embarking on a new tour. For this monumental event he has created a fun video to promote this event (he’s also a damn fine actor). Tom is a musical icon who has mastered his craft and managed to evolve his twisted style over the years to remain both interesting and relevant in the music world. Bone Machine remains one of my all time favorite albums, I felt he really struck gold there, stripping down his sound to the barest of elements and creating a real raw beast of a record. The recent stuff hasn’t lived up to that one as a whole for me, but I’m sure Tom still has a few tricks up his sleeve for us.

Tom Waits- Official Website

It’s really unfortunate that Metallica’s bass player died in that bus crash…as opposed to the rest of the band. It seems like they have just been de-evolving into primordial sludge ever since. During their heyday I’ll admit I was more interested in punk rock, but I still liked what they were doing along with their somewhat more pathetic, yet equally enjoyable to me, little brother Megadeth. In what appears to be their latest media gaffe, they invited a bunch of journalists to a special listening session of songs from their yet to be released album. After these journalists wrote some reviews on their blogs, they were contacted and told to remove the reviews…no non disclosure contracts were signed, and apparently no one was told not to write about it? So without hearing the album I’m going to write a review about it right here, and see if they contact me to take it down…The new Metallica album sucks as much as the one before it, and if they had any dignity left they’d kill each other. This spoiled bunch of sadly self absorbed has beens have milked the life out of whatever formula they undeniably pioneered and perfected 20 years ago. If you need any proof on what a bunch of useless skinbags these guys have become, view the documentary “Some Kind of Monster” in which they douche it out with each other so much their label has to call in a “band coach” to help them finish their record. It’s clearly one of the most comedic films I’ve seen in years. The ability to play music is a gift…somewhere along the line Lars and James may have forgotten that.

Article- “Metallica to bloggers…“