Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Oliver Sacks on The Daily Show

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Oliver Sacks
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Oliver Sacks, author of Musicophilia, appears on The Daily Show.  I don't know about you, but after seeing this segment, the book has shot to the top of my reading list.  It's almost like Sacks had taken a look at The Shanty Blog and then wrote Musicophilia because we inspired him.  At least a few Shanty pieces came to mind after watching the clip.  Sacks' most obvious debt to The Shanty was reflected by his reference to the resilience of musical capacities over linguistic capacities.  

I was a little wary when he made the claim that dancing is a purely human characteristic (fuckin' a, we got ourselves another specist here).  His comments about the fundamental nature of our sense of rhythm forced me to adjust my views on non-human dancing.  Snowball may not have been "dancing," in Sacks' view.  But the clip left open the possibility that while dancing is an exclusively human achievement, rhythm may be a more widespread animal characteristic.  Snowball has undeniable rhythm.  Suck it, Sacks.  May be time to revise the first edition.

Regardless, the way I'm seeing it, Musicophilia draws attention to and neurologically demonstrates our collective capacity and appreciation of music.  Our hunger for the stuff extends beyond language and culture.  One world.  

Pat yourselves on the back, Shanty writers.  

Monday, June 29, 2009

Risil - Non-meters vol. 1

This just came out. The people involved makes it intriguing enough:

Guillermo Herren (Prefuse 73)
Zach Hill (Hella, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Quintet)
Tyondai Braxton (Battles)
John McEntire (Tortoise)
Alejandra Deheza (School of Seven Bells)
Eva Pujuelo Muns (Savath y Savlas)

http://www.myspace.com/risil13

Friday, June 26, 2009

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Walking a mile in Charlie's shoes



New episodes start in September on FX.  I can't wait.

Is there anything money can't buy?

Luxury Yacht Offers Pirate Hunting Cruises

"Wealthy punters pay £3,500 per day to patrol the most dangerous waters in the world hoping to be attacked by raiders.

When attacked, they retaliate with grenade launchers, machine guns and rocket launchers, reports Austrian business paper Wirtschaftsblatt."


Wild stuff.  But check this out.

Comfort Wipe



I know I've said it before, so I won't say it again.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Dave Matthew Band - Time Bomb

To those of you not convinced that Groogrux deserves your serious attention, I offer another great song besides the other best song on the album.  This one starts out slow but builds a LOT of steam as it progresses into a full blown rock out where Dave does that thing where you think his throat may start bleeding onto the mike.  Enjoy.



By the by, the video advertises free downloads of this on off LoveFreMp3.com.  I checked it out and best I can tell...Not Found.  Stoopid anyways.

Miles Benjamin Anthony Johnson - Buriedfed

Just in case you didn't check this out before, here's another opportunity.  I freaking love this song.

You suck at surfing


Surfers agree, it was

sick
mental
ridiculous
gnarly
perfect
like boom boom boom
unbelievable
one of the greatest moves
inspiring

For a slightly more articulate expression of the event, check out the story here.

25 Best Blogs 2009

Yes.  A blog about blogging.  Indeed, it's trippy.  But follow me for a second on this one.  Time magazine has ranked the 25 best blogs "in the world" about anything really that you can think of, from politics to economics to frugal living to foreign living to popular culture to very unpopular culture.  The 25 best include:

I haven't read any of these.  Ever.  Liberal estimates indicate that I've heard of four (TPM, Huff, Freak and Boing). Whatever happened to my favorite blogs? Like:

    Eric Goldman's Technology and Marketing Law Blog
    FML
    Pitchfork
    And of course, The Shanty Blog

By the by, why isn't Twitter considered a top 25 yet?  At least I've heard of that one, and visit it quite frequently (check me out @brncnnr)  Jay Mac n' Cheese (or @jlm08726), gonna back me up on this one?  
   

Friday, June 19, 2009

Sigur Ros Video

http://video.aol.com/video/vid-spilum-endalaust-interface/2295026




soothing them...

beck updated...

http://beck.com/

Video of him doing V.U.'s "sunday morning." Sounding so good.

Fall tour rumors...

Fuck ya~! It would be so awesome if this turns out to be true.

October 26 The Dodge Theatre Phoenix AZ
October 28 [The Tonight Show with Conan O' Brien]
October 29 Save Mart Center Fresno CA
October 30 MGM Grand Garden Arena Las Vegas NV
October 31 MGM Grand Garden Arena Las Vegas NV
November 3 Qwest Center Omaha NE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 4 Indiana University Auditorium Bloomington IN
November 6 Allstate Arena Rosemont IL
November 7 Allstate Arena Rosemont IL
November 20 John Paul Jones Arena Charlottesville VA
November 21 Verizon Center Washington, D.C.
November 24 TBA Philadelphia PA
November 25 TBA Philadelphia PA
November 27 TBA Albany NY
November 28 TBA Albany NY
December 2 Madison Square Garden Arena New York NY
December 3 Madison Square Garden Arena New York NY
December 4 Prudential Center Newark NJ
December 5 Prudential Center Newark NJ

Daily Schedule Wodes

http://2009.lollapalooza.com/events/daily/2009/08/09/1/hbha

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Aurora, NE Tornado 6/17/09



A fellow Admissions Counselor posted this today. Be sure to watch the whole thing, amazing footage. I like that you can watch the tornado form from the beginning, where most of the footage we see is caught mid- tornado. I wanna see a tomato!!

Aurora is right next to Grand Island for those of you that don't get to travel this fine state. I've been there like 100 times.

So Awesome, Insanity at its finest

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/pets/48273047.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUnciaec8O7EyUsl

Jack Conte

I frequent Digg.com infrequently. It's one way of finding that diamond in the rough without all the mining.  At Digg, you let other miners, or Digg'ers (ha!) do it for you.  Usually they digg things like pictures, movies and articles.  Less often do they digg music.  But today they dugg Jack Conte and I checked it out.  




What's great about this video, disregarding the actual music for a second, is the different pieces of footage detailing his recording of the song.  He does EVERYTHING: vocals, rhythm guitar, bass, drums, piano, keyboard. Presumably he even produced, filmed and directed the music video.  All from what looks like a dorm room (and I thought watching TV was cool!).  For that reason alone I have to at least give this guy a chance.  I haven't come a conclusion on the actual music yet, which is why I'm tossing it to The Shanty for the final verdict.

An added bonus.  This guy covers Gorillaz.

Pokey LaFarge!!!!

dude opened for the felice bro's last night. really fun.


from pitchfork...beck...

When most of us have extra spare time on our hands, we end up zoning out in front of "Daisy of Love" reruns or rereading Watchmen for the billionth time. Beck, on the other hand, challenges himself to record cover versions of entire albums as quickly as possible. Different strokes, I guess.Over the next month, Beck will be overhauling his website, and one of the features will be something called Record Club, in which Beck ropes in various musician friends to record an entire album in a day. For the purposes of scrappy immediacy, nobody will rehearse or arrange anything beforehand. After that day of furious recording, Beck will slowly let the record out into the world via his website (as well as the websites of the other musicians involved), uploading a new song once a week. He'll kick this party off with The Velvet Underground and Nico. That's an ambitious start! Will Beck attempt the Nico vocal parts himself? We'll find out!Future Record Clubs will involve friends-of-Beck like Devendra Banhart, MGMT, Jamie Lidell, and producer Nigel Godrich. Here's hoping they give 8Ball & MJG's In Our Lifetime a shot.

New mars volta streaming the whole thing....

http://www.myspace.com/themarsvolta

It's pretty mellow. It sounds pretty damn good so far. What do you all think?

Real life calvin and hobbes

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Sweet dude!

Thursday, 10/01/09 9:00PM @ The Waiting Room
TORTOISE
TICKETS: $15 - AVAILABLE 6/20

Monday, June 15, 2009

Guillermo Del Toro Makes Wine Labels?

Bonnie Prince Billy

Heard this on the way into work today. Here is the myspace page - check out "Cursed Sleep."

http://www.myspace.com/princebonniebilly

Monsters of Folk

Here is that collaboration from Jim James, Connor Oberst, and M. Ward that they were working on when we met them at Mr. Toad.

http://www.jambase.com/Articles/18430/Monsters-of-Folk-AlbumConor-Oberst-Jim-James-M.-Ward

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Definition of Irony

His stage name was "The Crippler". This is irony. I apologize for the insensitivity in advance

http://www.ketv.com/cnn-news/19578023/detail.html 

Friday, June 12, 2009

For the Hard Headed that don't know the definition of words

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irony

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/11/teen.self.diagnosis/index.html

If you still can't see the irony in this, I'm afraid there's no hope for you. Anyone else have thoughts? Am I the only one around here that gives a shit about the rules? You think I'm fuckin' around MARK IT ZERO!

Two Gallants

You guys may remember me trying to push this band on you years ago.  Thought I'd try again.





(this one reminds me of evan williams)



(give this one time, at least once through)

Check out the band's site and their MySpace page.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Irony Series: Part IV

After eight years of symptoms, doctors could not figure out what was wrong with this girl. (These are professionals people). So she diagnosed it herself. Full story here

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Mother Nature Throws Us All Another Curveball

AP: "The wind, a favorite power source of the green energy movement, seems to be dying down across the United States. And the cause, ironically, may be global warming — the very problem wind power seeks to address."

Wouldn't that be a kick in the right nut?

Full Story - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090610/ap_on_sc/us_sci_diminishing_winds

Checking in on the Burr Oak Tree


One of Missouri's favorite trees.

One Day, One Deal, Woot.com

You guys gotta check this out. Woot.com has one of the coolest sales models I've seen.  Everyday, they sell a new product.  That's one product.  And they only sell a limited amount, a very limited amount.  After they sell out, or the day is done that product is no longer available.  Period.  Sometimes these things sell out in a matter of hours.  Most importantly, they sell the product cheap.  Like, really cheap.  50% or more off cheap.  Today's product is an Ion TTUSP05 USB Turntable, normally listed at $99.  Woot.com lists it at $49.  Check out past offers here.

Now, I'm not plugging the site or anything.  If you like USB turntables, go for it.  The site sells a bunch of other stuff (one at a time, mind you).  I'm only talking about it because I think the idea is really cool.  Questions arise, like how the hell does this site turn a profit?  The site itself doesn't anticipate profitability until 2043, although their marketing style is often self-depreciative, in a kind of cool and honest way.  Or dishonest mocking.  Like their projected profitability, maybe.  There is some advertising on the site, like from other deal offers from other sites.  From what I can gather, Woot.com takes advantage of excess inventory in the same way that Overstock.com does.  The difference is the One Day, One Deal model, which apparently banks on the appeal of real scarcity.  Not only is the product itself scarce, but the price at which it is offered is also scarce.

Sounds like a cool model.  I'm going to pay attention.  You should too.  

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The Worst Job Ever


The Worst Job Ever - Watch more Funny Videos

Finally!

Saturday, September 19th @ Slowdown - Bon Iver

Animals laugh

Kurt Vonnegut released Galapagos in 1985.  The book predicts that a million years in the future, humans have evolved into seal like creatures with dramatically smaller brains.  Many traits associated with modern humans as we know them today have vanished in the seal-like people.  Warfare is a thing of the past.  So is industry, architecture, art and culture.  One thing does remain the same, however.  Farts are still funny.

It now seems like such a move may bring the species full circle.  Challenging the specist notion that laughing is a uniquely human trait, researchers have begun to suggest that the "laughing" found in other types of primates points to a common ancestor.

"Our evolutionary tree based on these acoustic recordings alone showed that humans were closest to chimps and bonobos, but furthest from orang-utans, with gorillas somewhere intermediate. And that is what you see in the well-established evolutionary tree of great apes," said Davila Ross. "What this shows is strong evidence to suggest that laughing comes from a common primate ancestor."

Check out the full story if you don't believe me.  Personally, I think it's kind of cool to think that the monkeys at the zoo could be laughing at me just as much as I'm laughing at them.  By the by, did you know that chimps can ride segways?


Monday, June 8, 2009

Best song on GrooGrux King, so far

It may not be the most catchy.  It may not be the most popular.  It's most definitely not his best work.  But GrooGrux, as an album, deals with several issues.  Some of them are familiar and comfortable.  Dave's still a perv, for instance.  Check out "Why I Am, " for instance.  Dave likes  a couple of things with his coffee.  He'd rather do something else.  Other themes pop up.  Like death.  And humanity, its past and its future at its most basic level.  This is where "Squirm" comes in.  It's Dave at his angriest, his loudest and his most honest. This is why true music fans like Dave.  This is why GrooGrux King should fly across your speakers at least once.  

OK.  Enough talking.   Start listening.
 



I've listened to it at least 20 times.  I can't wait for the next 20.  Also, all white russians should be skaken and not stirred, despite popular belief.

Lala

Ok, dudes. This has been around a while, so maybe you've already heard about this site. But I just learned about it today and I'm trying it out as I write and it seems pretty sweet. Lala is a website to listen to music and create an online library. You can upload your mp3 files to create a personal online library, add songs to that online library for ten cents, download mp3 albums for around seven bucks and I've been using the feature that allows users to listen to any song once for free. This means you can try out any album included in Lala's collection (which includes major and indie labels) before you feel like purchasing it. HERE is a more recent article about the site if you wanna know more.

WOA!!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Holy Awesome!

http://fun.mivzakon.co.il/flash/video/2344/2344.html

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Taking Crop Circles to the Next Level


This Jellyfish is quite impressive. Here is the full story. Apparently its turning into something of a fad over seas.


Breakfast at Sulimay's

Follow the link below to a cool little internet video series called "Breakfast at Sulimay's." It features 3 adorable octogenarians sitting around a coffe shop reviewing different artists, including Animal Collective (Episode # 16), Andrew Bird (#17), and Bon Iver (#18). Some of them are pretty funny.

http://woodshopfilms.com/index.php/breakfast-at-sulimays

um... yea

And another...

Sideburns



look at the size of those chops!! I love these guys if you hadn't gathered. You all know I'm a fan of really pounding things into the ground.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King

It's been at least 8 years since I've been able to say this. Have you checked out the new Dave Matthews album? Fuckin' should. It's summer, for Christ's sakes.  

Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King.  I don't know what it means.  What I do know is that the album pulls on the same strings that the old Under the Table, Crash and Streets albums did in the wayback days of yore. Back when Birks came close to trendy and I carried a Discman around, carefully (mind the skips). It starts off fun, with an instrumental intro strait to "Shake Me Like A Monkey." It's jazzy, it's funky, it's Band-y. And then there's the single. Here, I found this fun video on YouTube. Great music plus Looney Tunes imagery. Worked before. Let it work here.



I'm going to the concert this summer.  First time in maybe a decade. It should be epic. More comments to come.

By the by, I think it's cool that I've seen most if not all of the Looney Tunes episodes featured in the video above. Just sayin'.  

William Elliot Whitmore on Daytrotter


Check it out.  Tracks available for stream and download include:

Old Devils
There Is Hope For You
Who Stole The Soul?
Don't Prey On Me

Some pretty great stuff.  Daytrotter rocks.

Will Ferrell Kick: Green Team

"Use your fuckin' brain!"

Music a "mega-vitamin" for the brain

According to some researchers, the brain's special relationship with music is increasingly being used for its rehabilitative and therapeutic benefits.  Patients suffering from aphasia, dementia, even Alzheimer's have enjoyed at least a few benefits from differing varieties of music therapy.  Check out the entire story on cnn.com.  

One interesting feature of this special relationship concerns memory resilience.

Musical memories also seem to be more resilient to neural degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's and dementia, enabling therapists to use familiar tunes to cue memories which might otherwise have been lost.

One American World War II veteran whose dementia was so severe he couldn't remember his own name and would barely acknowledge his own wife was brought alive through ballroom dancing and the music of Frank Sinatra, the sufferer still able to lead his wife through the foxtrot as if it was the 1940s.


Scott.  Paul.  Does this cue anything?


Debut of stealing time from the faulty plan....

What do you think? Sound quality is bad, but the song is pretty damn awesome.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

St. Vincent

Tomorrow. Slowdown, front room. Check it out HERE. Anyone interested in going?

The Donkeys- Waiting Room 8/6/09

This is a big one!

http://www.myspace.com/thedonkeys

Monday, June 1, 2009

Sequel to "Donnie Darko" . . . Kinda

Here is a link (maybe) to the IMDB page dedicated to "S. Darko," the straight-to-DVD sequel to the cult classsic "Donnie Darko." It even has Elizabeth Berkley of "Saved by the Bell" and "Showgirls" fame. I haven't seen it yet, but if my calculations are correct, Straight-to-DVD Sequel + Elizabeth Berkley = guarenteed four star film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1231277/

TUNE IN - Will Ferrell on Man v. Wild, June 2

Men vs. Wild premieres Tuesday, June 2, at 10 p.m. ET/PT. http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/man... In the harsh arctic tundra of Sweden, Bear Grylls and Will Ferrell from the Land of the Lost set out to conquer the wilderness ... together. See if they make it out alive.


johnny cash and bob dylan-one too many mornings

Pink Mountaintops

For all you Black Mountain fans out there - this is apparently a spin off or side project of some of the members. You can really here the similarities, but it is a little different. I guess they really like mountains. Here is a link to their Myspace page.

http://www.myspace.com/pinkmountaintops

Rusty Cage

He is a pretty good climber, so it will need a solid roof.


Soundgarden - Rusty Cage - The funniest home videos are here

Creepy Grizzly Bear Video

Check this out . . .