videos

Both covers. Both awesome.

Blitzkrieg Bop (about this song) by Gus and Fin (via BoingBoing):

Rock the Casbah (about this song) by Rachid Taha (via Neil Kramer):

Now that should start your day off right. It did mine. Off to the pool! And possibly Fry’s Electronics. Possibly.

Boøwy was a Japanese rock group consisting of Kyosuke Himuro (vocals), Tomoyasu Hotei (guitar), Tsunematsu Matsui (bass) and Makoto Takahashi (drums). They were a rock band that reached legendary status in Japan during the 1980s. Their style of play varied from punk to pop rock and they had fans of all ages. The 1990s band movement was credited to Boøwy as they popularized the formation of musical groups, which caused musical instrument sales to hit an all-time high during the 90s and the record companies signed and debuted 80 bands during the 90s in hopes of finding a new Boøwy.

I had a dub (a recording onto cassette tape) of this band and “Plastic Bomb” was a favorite. Straight ahead rocking band, but you know, Japanese. This would have been around 1988 or so, and like many of my musical discoveries, I thank Erin for turning me on to this.

Here’s their official site. In Japanese, of course.

via vintage_ads

This week I discovered a show called Never Mind the Buzzcocks (episode list, lucimon84 has current episodes)—a music chat/quiz show from the UK. I found links to a bunch of shows, including ones with Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse. It’s quite British, and I don’t understand all the current references to TV Presenters, Footballers, shows, etc, but the breadth of the music genres and the span of time of pop music makes the show great. They can go from 1950s skiffle, to Elvis, to The Kinks, The Beatles, Reggae, T-Rex, The Prodigy, Beyonce, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Reggaeton—you get the picture. It’s also funny, often dirty, and dry. I have a soft spot for British Comedy of a certain sort—French & Saunders, The Young Ones, The Office.

Anyway, one of the artists mentioned was the name Kate Nash, who I’d never heard of. There was a comment whose context was that she was an artist who is “mockney”—highlighting a middle-class upbringing, but whose accent emphasizes a working class background. I enjoy several songs by Lily Allen, who gets similar criticism, so I thought I’d check out some of Nash’s music, and downloaded some. Turns out, it’s pretty good. I get the same vibe from it as I remember getting the first time I heard The Smiths—this is music that is not meant for me. It’s not pointed at my cultural context. It’s from the UK and belongs there. But somehow, the universality comes through, and despite the strangeness of the accent and the allusions and the word usage, it works. I can’t remember the last time I responded to music this way, but it made me pretty happy. I’ve no idea if this is merely a passing fad, a temporary affectation of my musical taste, but I won’t question it for now.

There’s a fair amount of videos on YouTube of bad cellphone recordings of her music, here are two official videos, and one recording from a performance at the L.A. Amoeba Records just two weeks ago. Strangely, she came to the States for a very brief period, and is back in Europe now.

Mouthwash:

Foundations:

Mariella (my favorite of her songs so far, it’s got an intensity and eccentricity that moves me):

Stuck in my head like a stone in my shoe is the song Oblivious by Aztec Camera. Here’s a live recording by Roddy Frame, then the awesome lyrics.

Aztec Camera / Oblivious

from the mountain tops
down to the sunny street
a different drum is playing a different kind of beat
it’s like a mystery
that never ends
I see you crying and i want to kill your friends

I hear your footsteps in the street
...it won’t be long before we meet
it’s obvious
just count me in and count me out and I’ll be waiting for the shout
oblivious

met Mo and she’s okay
said no one really changed
got different badges but they wear them just the same
down by the ballroom
I recognized
that flaming fountain in those kindred caring eyes

I hear your footsteps in the street
...it won’t be long before we meet
it’s obvious
just count me in and count me out and I’ll be waiting for the shout
oblivious

I hope it haunts me ‘til I’m hopeless
I hope it hits you when you go
and sometimes on the edge of sleeping
it rises up to let me know it’s not so deep I’m not so slow

I hear your footsteps in the street
...it won’t be long before we meet
it’s obvious
just count me in and count me out and I’ll be waiting for the shout
oblivious

they’re calling all the shots
they’ll call and say they phoned
they’ll call us lonely when we’re really just alone
and like a funny film
it’s kinda cute
they’ve bought the bullets and there’s no one left to shoot

I hear your footsteps in the street
...it won’t be long before we meet
it’s obvious
just count me in and count me out and I’ll be waiting for the shout
oblivious

I’ve been reading and listening to lots about animation, and one of the more fun things has been Spline Cast, a podcast about 3-D animation.

My favorite podcast right now is Dave Ramsey’s 1 hour version of his show. Don’t bother with the 3-hour version, it’s not really free.

My previous favorite podcast is Harry Shearer’s amazingly witty, terribly dry podcast “Le Show.” Supremely funny stuff to me.

The coming Scriptaculous 1.8 library looks like it has some new and powerful stuff in it.

Douglas Crockford’s latest comments about worrying about the security of JavaScript where many sites are pulling JavaScript from several tom-dick-and-harry websites (for ads, maps, calendars, photos, etc.) are interesting: Making JavaScript Safe. His concept is AdSafe. If you want to see him talk about the need for the tool prior to the announcement of AdSafe, check out this Google Talk on Gears and the Mashup Problem (Incidentally, this is the kind of thing I watch while I do the dishes):