Mediacology

Hey Jude Times Square Subway Station from 39forks on Vimeo.
Saw this at BoingBoing and was heartened by this spontaneous singing of “Hey Jude” at the Times Square subway station. It’s just a small reminder that that not all things in life have a price tag. Then again, I can imagine industry lawyers demanding a take [...]

I just learned the shocking news that singer Lhasa de Sela has passed away. Back in the day when I was an arts journalist I had the privilege to interview her. I was attracted to her border-transgressing music, which was kind of like a Jodorowsky film put to sound. Her earlier work was Tom [...]

OK, so you know I quibble with Stephen Hawking’s mechanical view of the universe (who is featured in the above video), but I still love Carl Sagan (more prominently featured), and have very fond memories of his old TV program, Cosmos. I’m well aware that I have been a bit of a downer lately, but [...]

Ever wonder what it’s like to become a dog biscuit? Modest Mouse’s “King Rat,” director by the late Heath Ledger.

Two days off the pop grid and the media world shifts. After a brief hiatus from mediation I re-entered into a hurricane of gossip and a circus of assholes speculating every which way about what would happen to Michael Jackson’s money. legacy, kids, etc. I never thought that I’d say this, but I’m actually sad [...]

You’ve got to check this out. Another example of anonymous collective intelligence.

And now for this (non)commercial break. You can hear Wilco’s new album streaming for free at their Website. It’s super awesome!

Thanks David for the tip!

Imagine playing in a band in which you don’t know the other musicians, the producer or the final product. ThruYOU is a fascinating project where producer Kutiman mined YouTube for bedroom jam sessions and then edited them into coherent songs. This is a perfect metaphor for emergent social practices that involve disparate people doing what [...]

Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.
Röyksopp always have the coolest videos. This ranks as one of their best.

Nice to see that protest art is making a comeback. The age of bling is over.
From N.A.S.A.
Get the album here.

Happy New Year! See you in a week!
More info at Playing for Change.

I saw this over at BoingBoing. Wow!This video by The Herd fantastically visualizes media surfing. Amazing! I immediately bought the album. I love radical upbeat dance music.

Is it my imagination or is the NYT increasingly becoming a media navel gazer by focusing more and more of its reporting on pop culture and other media? Anyhow, there was a nice little gem of an article as a result of this kind of coverage with a recent piece on the trend of artists [...]

This video makes Live at Pompeii strangely prescient, recalling one of my favorite Walter Benjamin quotes:

[Mankind's] self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.

It begs the question, why are we so fascinated by visualizing our own destruction and those of past civilizations? [...]

Video from Lost’s torture Room 23
Back in the day (yeah, I’m starting to sound old), punk co-mingled with Industrial music. If you are not familiar with that genre, imagine the sound of screeching and grinding machines blasted through broken guitar amps, and you have an approximation. However, Industrial music was often more sophisticated, and wasn’t [...]

School of Seven Bells. Kinda shoe-gazerish, spooky and dreamy.

We don’t expect to win any Grammys for this one, but my friend and musical collaborator Barnmaster Scud and I have released our second music CD, Jambient Excursions. We play under the rubric, My Country of Illusion, and you can click to our Website and MySpace page to check out more about our high weirdness.

This [...]

Zappa pixelated
In Germany the Zappa estate is suing the Arf Society– producers of Zappanale, a three day tribute festival that features cover bands and “Zappa-esque rock”– for trademark infringement. Spiegel Online sums up the paradox:
Mother of Intervention: Zappa Festival Defends Itself from … Zappa – International – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News:
In the end, it all [...]

I’ve never been a rabid fan of Nine Inch Nails, but have been periodically intrigued by Trent Reznor’s music and output. His latest project, Ghosts I-IV, however, turned me into a true fan. Taking Radiohead’s cue, Reznor stuck a big digitized middle finger into the face of the recording industry by releasing this incredible 36 [...]