Audio: February 2008

Vosotros -- CC friendly label -- first anniversary party this Thu in LA


The Creative Commons blog has a great interview with John Gillilan, one of my former students, about his Creative Commons-friendly record label vosotros. John's come up with a ton of very creative ways of making and promoting music, and the label's having a live event this in LA Thursday to celebrate its first birthday:
vosotros is a new music initiative and label founded by Chicago natives John Gillilan and Gabe Noel. Our latest project, The Lazy Susan, will be released this February. We first met in Professora White’s 7th grade Spanish class, which is where we got our name. Vosotros is a Spanish verb conjugation roughly meaning “you-all.” But since it is only used in Spain, it was always ignored. Vosotros is music for you-all.

The Lazy Susan was born in February 2007, when we assembled a band to record one song and launch our year-long residency in downtown Los Angeles. Each month during the next year, we assembled a new band to record another song and play another month of the residency. Twelve months later, vosotros presents: the lazy susan – an album featuring thirty-two musicians on twelve songs written by bassist Gabe Noel.

The Lazy Susan introduces music by “Noelsson Schmoelsson”, “Someone’s Piano”, “First Good Feeling”, “PB&J…and g”, “masunday”, “Saltar”, “My Moon Boots”, “The Carrot and Stick”, “Touhy”, “ump-off Pause Tape”, “How Long It Takes To Know”, and “Our Song”.

February 28 marks the one-year anniversary of our residency at LAND (details here) – and the release of our third album as a label. You can listen to the lazy susan at last.fm and iMeem. Also, be sure to check out this promo video crafted by our friend Dave McCary using only public domain footage.

Link

Haunting sf story podcast: "Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk"

This week's story on the science fiction podcast Escape Pod is "Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk," a haunting Ken Scholes tale about an animatronic AI Winnie the Pooh toy aboard a doomed, pandemic-wracked survival ship, tasked with saving the human race.
“Do you know what’s happened to the children?”

Edward swallowed. Suddenly, he wanted to cry. “Yes. They’re…sleeping?”

He hoped and hoped and hoped and hoped, grimacing as he did. He looked around.

Makeshift beds lined the room. Small hands gripped blankets, small eyes stared at the ceiling.

“No.” The boy frowned. “They’ve died.”

“Because of Something Very Bad?”

“Yes. And I need you to be a Very Brave Bear. Can you do that?”

Link, Subscribe to podcast feed

Amazing Randi's podcast

Justin sez, "A podcast by Skeptic of the Century James Randi, discussing his career as a magician, a skeptic and some of the interesting friends he's met along the way. Most recent two-part episode features Randi's memories of his million dollar challenge and why he's decided to shutter it in two years." Link

djBC's album of legit mashups: Strictly Mixed and Mashed


djBC, the mashup artist responsible for the amazing, illegal Beasties/Beatles "Beastles" albums, has produced a great albumof authorized mashups, in collaboration with Big D & the Kids Table, called "Strictly Mixed and Mashed." The best work on the CD sounds like vintage Trojan reggae crossed with -- well, a djBC mix. Link

See also:
New album of Beatles/Beasties mashups - drop-dead awesome! -- UPDATED
Meet the Beastles
Mash-up Friday: Hiphop vs. Philip Glass = Glassbreaks Wu Orleans: mashup of Wu-Tang Clan plus dixie jazz tunes
Santastic II: Xmas mashups from djBC and friends

Tank Riot: geeky podcast on the life of Tesla

I'm a great fan of the geeky podcast Tank Riot, produced by three pseudonymous young men in Madison, WI. Each episode, the Tank Rioters take on some goofy, nerdy subject and crack wise (and informative!) about it for an hour or so. They're often very funny, they always very geeky. The last episode, a biography of Nikola Tesla, was particularly great. Link, Link to podcast feed

Jonestown death tape: audio from the last hours of a mass suicide

Lurking in the bowels of the Internet Archive is the Jonestown Death Tape, a recording made by Jim Jones of the final hours of his cult, as he fed them poison and watched them all die, men, women and children. I wasn't able to listen to this -- just reading about the children screaming and Jones berating parents who balked at killing them was enough to give me a serious bout of willies. Still, this is one of those historical documents that I'm glad is out there -- atrocities like Jonestown don't happen every day (thankfully), and getting some insight into those who commit them is a worthwhile endeavor (for someone with a stronger stomach than mine).
An audio recording made on November 18, 1978, at the Peoples Temple compound in Jonestown, Guyana immediately preceding and during the mass suicide or murder of over 900 members of the cult.
Link
Audio: February 2008