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Profile of Walter Werzowa, the man responsible for the Intel Inside theme. More here about tiny music makers, including the Windows 95 startup sound by Brian Eno, the THX theme, and the Mac startup sound.
The difficulties of interviewing Bob Dylan. “Dylan is rarely concerned about sounding polite, and he says things, but he sometimes makes them up. He also contradicts himself, answers questions with questions, rambles, gets hostile, goes laconic, and generally bewilders.”
Street hacks: how to survive a freestyle rap battle. “Have your first real battle against someone you at least somewhat dislike. If you can find someone who just gets you emotional or who angers you, it makes it easier to flow about them.” (thx, steve)
Video for Gnarls Barkley’s Smiley Faces, my favorite song of theirs. (Even though the mashup with the Notorious B.I.G.’s Hypontize might be better.)
Future Rock Hall is calculating current artists’ chances of getting into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame using your votes and a set of predictive criteria. According to the site, the Beastie Boys currently have an 82% chance for election to the Hall in 2007.
Here’s a video of Snoop Dogg listening to and singing along with a country-style cover of Gin and Juice by The Gourds.
New tagline for kottke.org: “bringing you the world’s finest treadmill music videos”.
How to DJ your first set without knowing how.
Update: For another take on how to DJ, see Vice’s Hey DJ, Fuck You! Anyone Can Rock the Party. (thx, dave)
10,000 computer-generated fake band names that sound real.
Profile of Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, aka half of Gnarls Barkley. “[Burton] wants to be the first modern rock ‘n’ roll auteur, mostly because he understands a critical truth about the creative process: good art can come from the minds of many, but great art usually comes from the mind of one.”
The American Masters episode on Woody Guthrie is worth a look.
The Garden State Effect: leave indie rock to indie rock fans. “When I say that I want as many people as possible to like my favorite bands, what I actually mean is that I want as many people as possible to like my favorite bands for the right reasons”. (via waxy)
US college students won’t download music provided by their schools even though its free because they can’t take it with them after graduation, won’t work with Apples, and can’t play on iPods. That’s not really actually “free” then, is it?
Interview with Thom Yorke about politics, his solo album, and Radiohead’s impending (yet distant) new album. (via dooce)
Slate’s wine columnist considers which champagne Jay-Z should drink now that he’s given up the Cristal. Taste and prestige are not the only considerations: “Take, for instance, this line from the Jay-Z hit ‘Can’t Knock the Hustle’: ‘My motto, stack rocks like Colorado/ auto off the champagne, Cristal’s by the bottle. ‘Salon’ can be substituted for ‘Cristal’ at no cost to the flow.”
Classic Royksopp music video featuring dozens of wonderful infographics.
Jay-Z is banning Cristal champagne in his clubs after some “racist” comments by the champagne house’s managing director in The Economist. I think Jay-Z is confusing race with culture here; I can’t imagine two cultures that are more different from each other than American hip hop and French champagne production. Despite his hesitancy about discussing a culture unfamiliar to him, I thought the director essentially said that they aren’t worried about the bling lifestyle association because it’s ultimately good for business. (via bb)
The worst band names (along with the best worst band names) of 2006 (so far). Mariospeedwagon!
Listen to three tracks from Thom Yorke’s new solo project, the eraser. Radiohead it ain’t, and I’m not sure I like it.
Names of books + band names. Charlie Daniels and the Chocolate Factory, Motley Crusoe, The Natalie Merchant of Venice, and J-Lolita…you get the idea.
“Dude, it’s time. Girls, you too. Time to pack up the whole in-your-face, raw, hyper-sexualized, porno, skater, white trash, open wounds, self-effacing, Jackass, loose ethics, 80’s bar mitzvah disco, and party-till-you vomit movement, aesthetic and attitude. Go on, scram. Beat it. We don’t want you hanging around anymore.”
My new favorite song ever for the next 20 minutes is Smiley Faces by Gnarls Barkley (album @ Amazon). Can’t get enough. Thanks to Greg for turning me on to the GB.
Long ago, I signed up on last.fm and downloaded the AudioScrobbler plugin for iTunes, which plugin listens to what I’m playing in iTunes and sends a report of it the last.fm web site. Then I promptly forgot about it. A year and a half later, it’s compiled quite a musical dossier on me: 10,300+ tracks listened to (that’s about 18 per day), my most listened to track is A Dream by Cut Copy, and my 10 most listened to artists are Ladytron, Boards of Canada, Fischerspooner, Bloc Party, John Digweed, Daft Punk, Royksopp, Pixies, Radiohead, and Sigur Ros.
Even longer ago, I used the dearly departed Kung-Tunes to place a list of my recently played music on kottke.org. Thanks to the last.fm API and a gently modified version of this PHP script, that list is back; you can find it on the front page of kottke.org.
Cloud Cult has been Pitchforked, Clap Your Hands Say Yeahed by Gothamist, and is already the last next big thing, but that’s not going to stop me from recommending them to you. Here’s their latest album (which was instantly good and still so after a week), befriend them on MySpace, or download a few free mp3s. Minnesota represent!
You can use iTunes and a little AppleScript to make custom ringtones for Mail.app. I could have it play When Doves Cry everytime I get email from Anil.
Brandon Flowers expresses his love for Bruce Springsteen and then announces that The Killers are recording “one of the best albums in the past 20 years”. (via gf)
New Yorker music critic Alex Ross has compiled a chronolocial 100-song playlist/tour of mostly classical/instrumental music for the 20th century. Starts with Stravinsky & Gershwin and ends with Bjork.
Following up on why HAL sings “Daisy, Daisy” in 2001: A Space Odyssey”, Lee Hartsfeld found a 1961 record with the Bell Labs recording on it at a junk shop for $10.
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