Archive for the 'video' Category

4 Rock Docs or Music on Film

Published
by
kubton
on July 24, 2008
in DJ, movies and video
. 0 Comments

I always in the mood for a good Rock Doc. Below a collection of music documentaries that I have enjoyed recently.

1. Dig!

Even though I am not really a fan of either the Dandy Warhols or The Brian Jonestown Massacre(or clever references to overrated 60’s artist in your band name for that matter) I this found this a very good watch. It is billed as a story of 2 bands one finding success and one not but it is really more of the the story of the one that does not. That is the interesting part especially band leader Anton Newcombe. Aton is referred to a genius through out the film. He is painted as kind of a mad eccentric genius. I doubt the genius part but the mad part is certainly there. I wanted to smack Aton and the tambourine player(yes The Brian Jonestown Massacre have a full time tambourine player) for there pretension. If you love ‘em or hate ‘em it is fascinating to watch a band that had a good chance to make it just not get along and stay sane long enough to make there chances count. The last of those chances when they get a showcase they blow it in the most spectacular and rock ‘n’ roll way. A must see.

The Film:

2. Scratch

It is a history of DJ and Turntablism and a good one but it is deeper than that. It is about culture and art. DJ Shadows in an amazing basement of records gets down right deep in the philosophical sense. And of course there are performances form the best turntablist out there.

The Film:

3. The End of the Century

This documentary follows the Ramones from start to finish. There was the epic struggle of personalities between Dee Dee and Joey in band that just wouldn’t quit. Through the CBGB days, Phil Spector, line up changes, a mountain of animosity and Dee Dee attempting to bend the world to this will what strikes you most is how the just kept going because it was the only thing they knew to do. They played music and lived the same way they played.

4. The Devil and Daniel Johnston

This is one of the better documentaries I have seen. I someways it reminds me of the excellent Crumb. In some ways it is because Robert Crumb’s bother Charles reminds me of Daniel Johnston. But in both films you feel like you get to know and artist even part of the knowing is the understanding that you’ll never fully understand them. And wonderful unique art work mix with a love of unique music. Daniel Johnston is not eccentric like Robert Crumb. Daniel Johnston is possessed by madness. To fragile and mixed up for really life he goes crazy. It is interesting to ride the ups and downs with him for a while but you’ll be glad you can get off the ride.

Trailer:

Korg Nano Video or Small Controllers Captured on Film

Published
by
kubton
on June 17, 2008
in Gadget, controllers, gear and video
. 0 Comments

Found Via Chip collection:

Here is some video of one of those cool Korg Nano Controllers.  More at SOS also.

Spore and Eno or Generative Music

Published
by
kubton
on June 17, 2008
in computers, games, sound design and video
. 1 Comment

Found via the excellent Audio Lemon

Even being part of the first generation that will play games there whole life I am not that big of a gamer any more though I do play. Games like most pieces of pop culture tend to be mostly derivative and disposable but I will always be interested when something attempts or succeeds in rising above a simple distraction to art that is innovative, changes the way you look at part of the world or elicits a emotion response. I hope Spore is one of those games. It approach to the idea of evolution could not be duplicated in another medium. I am excited like when I was a kid. I have been playing with the creature creator and it is great fun.

One of the most interesting things about Spore is Brain Eno creating (if that is the right word) the sound track for spore. Eno and Will Wright are to of the biggest innovators of the past few decades. And they seem a good fit together. Ad generative music might be a perfect fit for a game base on a generative model. I am a fan of of a having a little randomness in all things so I hope it works. It does raise all kinds of philosophical questions about generative art of any kind of art rather than creating it in a more traditional way. And I think that is a good thing to think about and bring into debate.

The video is very long you can skip ahead by using the open tools menu.

Radiohead’s Nude Remix on PC parts or 6/8 Dot Matrix Rhythms

Published
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kubton
on June 11, 2008
in 8bit, DIY, Music, Remix and video
. 0 Comments

I found this on the very cool Retro Thing. When I heard about Radiohead’s remix contest for Nude I was excited. Then when I heard the track my enthusiasm waned a bit. Radiohead were having some fun with the song they selected. If Radiohead was a Shakespearean character the their fatal flaw would be being too clever. I am not discounting their musical talents somethings they have done musically and other wise have suffered a little form being a little to clever. At least I think so which is odd because that special British brand of cleverness I never can get enough of in the forms of comedy and literature. Still a great band. And how often do you get access to each track of a song by a great band. That was my attract to it rather than any contest. I bought the stems and plan to have go at it despite 6/8 time and 63 bpm. Normal remixes are made for the clubby dance numbers. Which seemed impossible if you were going to use most of the music made available to you. So, I though I will just make it in to something else unique and not dancy or hip-hoppy. Stretching the sounds to a normal tempo the sounded well stretched and found it pretty hard to work with do to the songs structure. I don’t claim to be a talented remixer. I was falling miserably when The Great Hard Drive Disaster of ‘08 hit. Then I learned things like the also very clever Apple doesn’t let you download purchased music again. So, I was doubly defeated.

I was glad to see someone succeed at doing something original and generally awesome. Just give the video a minute to get going and you will see Radiohead’s Nude created on old computer parts and gear. You have to love a dot matrix rhythm sections & unintended purposes.


Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

Weekend Links or Mastering, Documentaries, Steam Punk and Nude Statues

Published
by
kubton
on June 7, 2008
in Links, Music, gear, guitar, recording and video
. 1 Comment

I wonder what Watt would have though about the steam punk business going on now. They have done everything else why not a guitar. Though this does look like something that BC Rich would have sold in the 80’s. It might be the flying V. Maybe a little to Randy Rhodes for steam punk.


Robert Babicz about mastering audio from David Star on Vimeo.

Robert Babicz gives this excellent talk on mastering and a few other things in the video. Plus shows off some cool gear.

Instructables has this cool hack to light up you keyboard. Good if are working in the dark and touch type as poorly as me it might be an idea.

Just a vid of the charming Drum Buddy that I ran into.

Mediacoder Audio Edition is a pretty cool little app. It will encode about any audio format and will run off a usb stick. It is going to go on my list of portable apps. From the site:

MediaCoder Audio Edition is an audio transcoding tool based on MediaCoder. It nicely integrates many audio codecs and tools into an all-in-one software. It decodes almost all popular formats of audio files as well as audio stream in video files and encodes them with all its supported (and even some not claimed supported) audio encoders. All the codecs are included in the standalone software. With CUE Sheet and DVD/VCD/CD support and many additional features, audio enthusiasts can convert all their favorite music freely to any format on-the-fly and in batch

Nick Cave wants to erect (no pun intended) a statue of himself nude on horse back in his hometown. It more of a blurb than an article but it does say he intends to raise money for it. Serious I like Nick cave Ship Song is one of my all time favorites but if you want to build a statue of yourself you could probably just pay for it yourself. Pay for it himself is not any ego maniacally than wanting to do it in the first place and with Cave’s long career that is doing especially well of late I am guessing he has the $60,000. Whats up with male Australian celebrities. They all seem to have issues Angry raving Mel Gibson. Heath Ledger, punch ‘em up Russel Crowe, death wish Steve Iriwn.


MLR finally moving from derekvincentsmith on Vimeo.

This video is of some fancy fingers on a monome.

I ran in to this video that someone put to a Daniel Johnston song. Thought it fit really well. If you have never heard of Daniel Johnston you can find out about him in the fascinating documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. I am not a rapid fan as some people but it one of the best music documentaries ever made. Even in the crazy world of rock music Johnston is one of the strangest and remarkable character you can find. But if you forget the music angle it is still a damn good film.

Henry Rollins vs. Iggy Pop or The Slim & Invincible

Published
by
kubton
on June 2, 2008
in humor and video
. 0 Comments

This is a great story. Henry Rollins can be a little repetitious in a telling and he makes it seem like almost an athletic competition which I am not sure even high energy Rock n Roll qualifies but still a great story. I am not sure I am into “spoken word” but I certain like good stories especially if they are about people like Iggy that live in a different world than the rest of use.

There should be Iggy Pop the movie. But who the hell would you cast as Iggy.

Death by Audio Video or Pitchforks

Published
by
kubton
on April 9, 2008
in DIY, Music and video
. 0 Comments

Ah, crazy life. I can’t believe it was only yesterday. But it was yesterday I posted about the new Pitchfork.tv. Well, on it today is a video tour of Death by Audio’s pedal making empire.

Good viewing lovers of noisy music or noisy gadgets.

Pitchfork.tv or Hipster Boob Tube

Published
by
kubton
on April 8, 2008
in video
. 0 Comments

If you can fight to the death over which is better Neon Bible or Funeral or check Pitchfork for album ratings daily you got more to watch. Well, even if you don’t but like the Indie scene you can watch some videos you will not see on MTV(or MTV Ocho Classic or whatever MTV channel still plays music) on Pitchfork.tv. It was only launched yesterday and still carries the beta tag but it could be a really great thing. The lines between television and Internets are blurred a little more.

Music Made Video or Computers Killed the Radio Star

Published
by
kubton
on April 7, 2008
in video
. 0 Comments

Found this video on TED. This is about the least mind blowing thing I have watched on TED. But then again the is some pretty amazing lectures on TED. Some them have completely changed the way I look at the world. This one is just kind of an intro to a video that is less impressive than explaining how the poverty will end. If you have never visited the site before you should check it out there is most likely a topic you would be interested in.

Anyway, I am interested in the idea of music generated video. I am not sure this is the best example of it(probably would not be on the site if it was not for the name Eno and Bryne.) VJ’s have of course been doing this sort of thing for a while. But I like the idea of using the computational powers of computers to generate visuals that relate to the music. What relates to the music is a highly subjective matter but computers can create visualizations that it would be difficult for human to do or too time consuming animate by hand. Considering the technology like Celemony’s Direct Note Access deeper analysis of pieces of music could lead to more complex and even more meaningful visualizations. And with processing power ever cheap this kind of thing will become more accessible to more and more people.

I found the link to these cool videos in the comment section of the TED video:

Magnetic Ink, Process video from flight404 on Vimeo.

Kind of related is a fun and simple music generated visuals of Audiosurf. It is a fun little game that does a great job syncing up to your music collection.

Best sonund track ever. Mine!