12.13.2011

Nu-Mark

He played a toy drumset at the J5 show


David Comes to Life

Been meaning to get it





Saw them at Osheaga with the drummer from Death from Above 1979 and Pink Eyes crowd surfing and singing a show closer.

11.29.2011

Elliott Smith

I was at this in store performance - C and I decided to stick around until the end even though we were late for a Buffalo Tom show at the Bowery Ballroom. When we finally got to the Bowery - we left after a few songs anyways. Still haven't found a live recording of the Dec 31, 1999 New Year's eve show we attended - Elliott rang in 2000. It exists as it is listed on trade sites.

11.28.2011

finger stylin' dylan

some musings on who plays guitar on don't think twice. i assume same person for moonshiner

11.22.2011

Major email hack?

Two people have sent emails with links ending in "com_ag_google_analytics2/www.php?html129" The first had to change their password - and spamming stopped. I just called the second to let them know. First was on hotmail - second on yahoo.

11.02.2011

I'm Straight

I just realized in the Modern Lover's song Jonathan rhymes the word "place" over and over with itself....sometimes with "straight".

10.11.2011

nardwuar the human serviette

nardwuar is astoundingly the best interviewer i have ever seen

9.21.2011

9.12.2011

Rumer - like Karen Carpenter backed by Lambchop...or maybe backed by Karen's brother....or maybe Karen herself.

8.21.2011

is the theremin so close to a human voice because the freeform hand is good at being like a vocal cord?

8.10.2011

i had this idea in 1998 - never followed through (although I saw someone making it in 2000)

8.09.2011

Couldn't (quickly) find research on why squinting deblurs an image (theories of restricting light on the periphery of the lens as well as actually changing lens shape are proposed but I didn't see any research proving these theories) - I've always wondered if it has something to do with edge-map alignment a-la-Marr....

7.29.2011

TAL episode on patent trollshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
I am going on the record as saying there should be an "Intellectual Ventures" style open source equivalent. I don't know where funding would come from to pay for the patents....but people should start contributing these frivolous patents into a common pool so that the software community can't be strongarmed by the likes of these big patent trolls who own the rights to similar frivolous patents.

7.28.2011

i was very skeptical going into last night's paul mccartney show. it turned out to be absolutely incredible. to my surprise - i was pretty much verklempt the whole night

7.15.2011

Google broke its promise to me. It told me I would never need to delete another email using gmail. But over the last few months I have been constantly coming up to the limit and needing to delete emails....I finally caved and bought their first level surplus storage plan. It REALLY pains me - not because I think it's expensive or not worth it...but because Google made me change my emailing habits with a promise and now they broke that promise. I am going to start thinking of alternatives....I'm no longer exclusive Google.

7.07.2011

aol touring this summer and live on nprhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

6.29.2011

i thought the 1992 episode of star trek the next generation "the outcast" was groundbreaking - no idea that it had been done in 1955 in playboy magazine by charles beaumont.

6.07.2011

amazing song built up from (tape) sampling of shortwave radio by one of the founders of can. one of my favourite tracks from the WOMAD music and rhythm lp from 1982.

6.04.2011

i never realized how john mclaughlin achieved the bends he does with shakti...explaned here

6.02.2011

5.12.2011

4.21.2011

working man slowed down

approaching the reason why the first album is one of my favourites - to the confusion of other fans

4.16.2011

i wonder if musicians (and others) receiving botox injections to the face actually lose some of their musical expression ability. ie. since the feedback loop within emotional expression has been interrupted. that being said - i wonder if studies have been done on a reduction in emotional expression for botox injectees.

4.07.2011

2.24.2011

Second time in a few months I've got an out of space warning on gmail. The first time I dealt with it by deleting all forwards from my parents....
So much for the "never need to delete your emails" promise. I guess that means if you are willing to pay.

2.21.2011


harry demoing his first song for the monkees

2.17.2011

Alex brought up the point that if when thinking we "hear a voice" in our head - what is the experience for someone who is deaf from birth.
This episode of Radiolab is completely relevant and mentions the possibility in schizophrenia research that that type of hearing voices might have to do with the symptom of not recognizing your internal voice.
My feeling (without diong any investigation into the matter) is that we can't confine the internal voice to a passive auditory like modality (perhaps there is FMRI research on thinking and parts of the auditory cortex lighting up); there must be an active/motor component as well of forming the words (must check FMRI stuff again). So I wonder if the whole experience for someone deaf from birth is akin to whatever sensory/motor experience that that same someone feels when talking normally (eg. motor/tactile act of signing). I will have to check if there is any literature on this.
Final thought - I wonder if there is reduced incidence of "hearing voices" type psychosis for the deaf population compared to the rest of the population. Must check.

2.13.2011

i love the inernets. suffering from some intermittent but severe vertigo these past couple of days - used this site to diagnose and it seems successfully treat it.
benign positional vertigo affecting the left posterior semi-circular canal diagnosed using the hallpike test and treated using the modified epley manoeuvre. So far so good. i am still astonsihed at how simple it was...and apparently the inventor was ridiculed for years.

2.07.2011

it ocurred to me that i would like to hear the zombies record a full version of the beach boys' pet sounds....which is weird because i've never listened to pet sounds.
i'm not a fan of the beach boys although i know that technically i *should* be. i think it has something to do with the quality of their voices (not in the sense of good and bad but in the sense ot timbre etc) - it just doesn't do it for me. also something about the songwriting has always seemed "technical" to me rather than "organic"...if that makes any sense. just my impressions, while i know hordes of music enthusiasts (including many i agree with otherwise) will think i am just plain wrong. e.g - paul mccartney is a big fan of the album and describes it as having influenced him to write melodic bass lines. i have always told aspiring bassists to listen to the beatles to get an idea of how interesting, melodic bass lines should be written. so there you go - i *have* to check out the album. but then recently i thought (while listening to the zombies) that i would like THEM to play it for me. so...i guess...get on it zombies.

1.23.2011

how come Sacha Baron Cohen gets accolades for fooling the ususpecting little man but Joaquin Phoenix gets vilifed for fooling all of Hollywood?

1.20.2011

The Original of Laura and Michael (as well as the ones to come)...shouldn't they have burned? Two perfectionists rolling in their....

1.19.2011

Why good copy-editing is important:
from: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20110119/bastarache-report-due-today-110119/
Former Supreme Court of Canada justice Michel Bastarache has held hearings and collected evidence and testimony (on blah blah blah) over the past year and will be handing his report to the provincial government.
Notice the newsworthy use of the terms "blah blah blah". The item has only been posted for 20 min or so - yet to be corrected

1.05.2011

Now that I busted my Studio Projects B1 during transport - I think I want to get a Blue Microphones Spark rather than a Rode Microphones NT1-A but it is so new I can't find any in-depth reviews....