Category: music

Stephen Colbert remix

On By Rick McIn humour, internet, music, TVLeave a comment

The Colbert Report is the best comedy show on television. And my favourite TV show of all time.

Colbert is a “well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot”, a caricature of televised political pundits like right-wing idiot Bill O’Reilly.

Colbert debated Lawrence Lessig, “a founding board member of Creative Commons, a board member of the Software Freedom Law Center and a former board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications.”

Needless to say, Colbert pretended to be outraged against anything “free” on the net, especially illegal downloading.

Here’s one clip from Colbert’s ongoing coverage of the internet.

Stephen Colbert makes a remix featuring himself on some “jaw dropping, ear popping fresh” beats so others won’t 🙂

Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie

On By Rick McIn music1 Comment

Her Morning Elegance
Directed by Oren Lavie, Yuval and Merav Nathan
Photography by Eyal Landesman
Featuring Shir Shomron

Oren Lavie is a songwriter of curly brown hair, whisperish voice, green eyes and suspiciously cold feet. He was born in 1976, two minutes behind schedule, and has been trying to catch up ever since.

… the album track ‘Her Morning Elegance’ was chosen to feature on a US Chevrolet TV commercial. The aforementioned author, who has never owned a car in his life, and who has diligently ignored the invention of Television, could not stop giggling for days.

With a song in his heart he continues to take the bus.

MySpace – Oren Lavie

He’s influenced by Tom Waits, Jacques Brel and Leonard Cohen.

cruel and shallow money trench

On By Rick McIn Apple, books, music1 Comment

I love the Hunter S. Thompson line so often attributed to the Record Industry:

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”

This week Apple announced that all 10 million songs in itunes will soon be DRM (Digital Rights Management) free. A death sentence for the old model of music distribution.

Appetite for Self-Destruction is a new book by Rolling Stone magazine editor Steve Knopper.

The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age
The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age

… Should anyone care that in the process, the iPod has all but killed the music industry as we’ve known it? Maybe not, Steve Knopper writes in “Appetite for Self-Destruction,” his stark accounting of the mistakes major record labels have made since the end of the LP era and the arrival of digital music. These dinosaurs, he suggests, are largely responsible for their own demise. …

NY Times – When Labels Fought the Digital, and the Digital Won

This quotation has has achieved the status of urban legend. Here’s the original:

… The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason. …

Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the ’80’s

Price / music track will drop steadily into the forseeable future.

Twilight – vampire craze

On By Rick McIn books, movies, music, product endorsements2 Comments

Buffy might have been a fad. But the new TV series True Blood seems to be a hit. (I saw episode #1. It was OK.)

And the staggering success of the Twilight novel series by Stephenie Meyer makes me believe this is a real “craze”. There’s almost a blood lust for these books.

Twilight is a series of four vampire-based fantasy/romance novels by the American author Stephenie Meyer. It follows the adventures of Isabella “Bella” Swan, a teenager who moves to Forks, Washington, and finds her life turned upside-down when she falls in love with a vampire named Edward Cullen. …

The Twilight series is popular among young adults, having sold 20 million copies in the United States and over 5 million further copies worldwide.

Wikipedia

Disclosure. Even I’ve read book 1. And quite enjoyed it. (These are the first and last Romance novels of my life.)

Book 1
Book 1

Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)

The author said she based book 1 Twilight on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. That’s a bit of stretch.

She posted a musical playlist to accompany book 1. Cool. It’s somewhat similar to the movie soundtrack which has already sold over a million copies.

Click PLAY or watch the Twilight Movie trailer on YouTube.

The film scores an overall approval rating of 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not good.

Actually, I thought it was quite good. Well cast. But some of the changes made to the book were unnecessary. Better would have been to stay more true to the details of the original.

I’m planning to read Book 2 in the series next. Leave a comment if you have an opinion on the vampire craze.

Stand By Me – Beautiful International Version

On By Rick McIn musicLeave a comment

Rockin’ sent us this video as a New Year’s gift.

Thanks buddy.

The song Stand By Me performed by many artists in different countries. From Bill Moyers Journal on PBS.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Billboard top 25 tunes 2008 mashup

On By Rick McIn musicLeave a comment

DJ Earworm’s mashup of Billboard’s top 25 tunes of 2008—called The United State of Pop 2008—will catch you up on the biggest pop hits of this past year in under five minutes.

The poop pop hits of the past year are so bland that they don’t deserve more than 5min. I could only name one song of the bunch on first listen. How about you?

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Flo Rida Featuring T-Pain – Low
Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love
Alicia Keys – No One
Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major – Lollipop
Timbaland Featuring OneRepublic – Apologize
Jordin Sparks Duet With Chris Brown – No Air
Sara Bareilles – Love Song
Usher Featuring Young Jeezy – Love in This Club
Chris Brown – With You
Chris Brown – Forever
Ray J & Yung Berg – Sexy Can I
Rihanna – Take a Bow
Coldplay – Viva La Vida
Katy Perry – I Kissed a Girl
T.I. – Whatever You Like
Rihanna – Disturbia
Rihanna – Don’t Stop the Music
Natasha Bedingfield – Pocketful of Sunshine
Chris Brown Featuring T-Pain – Kiss Kiss
Ne-Yo – Closer
Colbie Caillat – Bubbly
Mariah Carey – Touch My Body
Madonna Featuring Justin Timberlake – 4 Minutes
Pink – So What
Finger Eleven – Paralyzer

(via Lifehacker)

Flight of the Conchords

On By Rick McIn humour, music, product endorsements, TVLeave a comment

Have you seen the TV show yet?

Here’s a snippet.

Flight of the Conchords is a Grammy Award-winning New Zealand comedy duo composed of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Billing themselves as “Formerly New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo”, the group uses a combination of witty observation, characterisation and acoustic folk guitars. The duo’s comedy and music became first the basis of a BBC radio series and then an American television series, which premiered in 2006, also called Flight of the Conchords. …

Wikipedia

I think I’ve seen all 10 surreal episodes of season one. Interesting, quirky and original.

The boys try to make it BIG in New York City. And fail hopelessly.

Lovable losers.

converting cassettes to MP3 format

On By Rick McIn gymnastics, music, product endorsements2 Comments

I am looking for a way to convert analog tapes to digital.

One device:

Ion

Ion Dual Cassette Tape Archiver

Seems you can buy them in Canada at The Source by Circuit City.

Leave a comment if you know of other options.

iPod Touch, microphone headphones

On By Rick McIn Apple, audiocasts, music, product endorsements2 Comments

Note to self: buy in October.

Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic – Apple

On Wednesday Apple updated their iPod lineup:

Touch Changes: Minor

The iPod Touch expectedly gets a dramatic price drop that brings it more in line with the iPhone 3G’s pricing, if you want to pay a slightly higher price for a multimedia player that doesn’t have phone capability. The 8GB iPod Touch will sell for $229 ($30 more than a comparable iPhone 3G), while the 16GB model will sell for $299–which means you’ll get double the memory for the price of the old 8GB iPod Touch.

The design of the new iPod Touch remains similar to before, but like the Nano, the Touch thins down compared with its predecessor. The chassis remains contoured stainless steel. The biggest hardware additions: Integrated volume controls on the side, and a built-in speaker (similar to what’s on the iPhone 3G) for casual listening. Jobs said the volume controls were the number one requested feature for the iPod Touch. Also now integrated: Nike + iPod software and receiver; now, you only need to buy the Nike+iPod transmitter for your shoe, and don’t need the extra receiver dongle, as before.

In spite of its thinner profile, the Touch’s battery life is rated for an impressive 36 hours for music, and six hours for video.

PC World

The compelling new feature for me is an easy way to leave myself voice notes (when I get the odd flash of brilliance).

The iPhone is OUT for me now.

song of the Summer …

On By Rick McIn musicLeave a comment

Rachael gave me a copy of Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long”. A nostalgic tribute to summers of youth and wonderful tribute to Werewolves of London and Sweet Home Alabama.

Click PLAY or listen to it on YouTube but don’t bother watching.

Likely the first and last good thing I’ll ever have to say about Kid Rock.