Posts Tagged ‘8bit’

Bookmarks for August 17th through August 22nd [del.icio.us]

Bookmarks from August 17th through August 22nd :[del.icio.us]

  • On Becoming Less Dumb About Wordpress (Subhead: H-E-L-P.) – ihnatko’s posterous – Andy Ihnatko blogs about some of the limitations on running a wordpress blog: “Not really. There are thousands of free, professional themes for Wordpress that’ll take you 75% of the way, but that’s a bit like a ship that will take you 75% of the way to the Sun. You’re still about 25,000,000 miles short so pack a lunch and wear comfortable shoes”
  • Networked Music Review — Join the Chiptune Marching Band [Berlin] -”Chiptune Marching Band (CMB) is a participatory DIY workshop/performance. CMB is a public workshop and actual public performance where participants make a sensor driven sound instruments, self-powered by a kinetic power source, and perform with their instrument with the band. With instruments at the ready, the group heads outside, bringing an event to the streets as the Chiptune Marching Band! The course invites any members of the general public, offering them the opportunity to explore localized resource communities, sound making circuitry, and collective sound performance through their realization.”
  • Create Digital Music » Alternative Music Distribution: Moldover’s CD Case as Circuit Board Noisemaker – “Moldover is the latest artist to experiment with ways of re-imagining the musical object. Already a fan of custom sonic circuitry, he made his CD into a circuit board. Some of it is just aesthetic, like the printed lettering. But there is also integrated noise-making circuitry for a very simple optical Theremin (well, at least, a light sensor-driven oscillator), plus a headphone jack. There’s actually quite a lot of function you can get out of that when plugging into a computer ” http://moldover.com/quicklinks/buy.html
  • Jazz: The Music of Unemployment: Watts Ensemble – “What follows is an email interview with Brian Watson, founder of / composer for the Watts Ensemble. Never heard of them? How’s this? (The tune is called “Funny Cigarettes.”) Based in LA, and supposedly created on a dare, Watts is an impossible, outlandish creature after my own heart, a kindred spirit if ever I met one. The group recently released their first album, Two Suites for Crime & Time. N.B.: I recommend reading the Chris Ziegler interview over at L.A. Record before reading this one.”
  • Critic’s Notebook – Nightly Guests Give an Insight Into Their Quirks and Tics – NYTimes.com -”I learned that the world is divided into the hoarders and the sharers, and into the perpetually slighted and the eternally grateful; that the diners who eat the least are the ones who pretend to eat the most; and that no manner of advance instruction can prevent guests from saying your real name and even referencing your last three reviews loudly, repeatedly and in direct earshot of the restaurant manager. There’s a reason most people don’t go into the spying business. They have no aptitude for it.”
  • Pajamas Media » L.A. Police Chief Jumps Ship “So he has earned his admirers, but as anyone who has followed his career will tell you, William Bratton has no greater admirer than William Bratton himself. Which brings us to the curious timing of his departure, coming as it does only two years into his second five-year term as chief. When Bratton came to Los Angeles, a friend in the NYPD described him as the P.T. Barnum of law enforcement, a handle that seems just as apt today as it did then. Like Barnum, Bratton knows how to put on a show, and also like Barnum, he knows to leave the audience wanting more as he exits the stage.”

Bookmarks for August 9th through August 17th [del.icio.us]

Bookmarks from August 9th through August 17th:[del.icio.us]

  • TRIUMPH OF HIS WILL: GQ Feature on Quentin Tarantino – “You can lie about a lot of things,” he says, “but your filmography doesn’t lie. It’s right there. And it doesn’t give a shit about why you did it.”
  • Clare Graham’s Wonderama – LA Times Magazine -”As for the question of art versus craft, Graham comes down definitively on one side. “I don’t like the terms outsider art, or naive art. What I do is craft,” he insists. “Fine art has a need to communicate something. My work is about simple processes done to the nth degree until the accumulation is significant.”
  • Lefsetz Letter » Amanda Palmer email; the new art of twitter and blogging – “BUT this is, hands fucking down, also why people listen, why they search, why they want art. connection = primary. music/art = secondary.”
  • Ready for the devil we don’t know -LA Times endorses a constitutional convention to fix CA budget mess -”A single initiative to end the current rule requiring a two-thirds supermajority of the Legislature to adopt a budget may be doomed at the ballot box. But opponents are more likely to accept the change if they can keep the supermajority to increase taxes and are assured that future taxes will no longer be disguised as “fees.”
  • Fieldnotes from a Rock Band Bar Night | – “Much to my surprise, the scene reminded me of the participatory tradition that was the focus of my first major research project: Sacred Harp singing, an American vernacular hymnody tradition that is open to anyone, regardless of perceived musical expertise, and that revolves around drop-in community “singings” rather than rehearsed performances for an audience. “
  • Views on Music and Life from an outpost.: Making the case for the musical amateur. -”think to say that people simply need more exposure to jazz, to classical music, etc- is only half-right. I think that people need to be directly involved. Make people an active part of any activity, and they are much more likely to stay engaged.”
  • This Blog Will Change the World: No neon arrows – “What we need here is a third option, one which avoids asserting the absolute superiority of any one musical style without sliding into relativism.”
  • YouTube – GAMEBOY FOOT CONTROLLER DEMO + 8BIT GUITAR -
    joey mariano [animal-style] demonstrates his GBC Gameboy Foot Controller
  • How American Health Care Killed My Father – The Atlantic (September 2009) -”Indeed, I suspect that our collective search for villains—for someone to blame—has distracted us and our political leaders from addressing the fundamental causes of our nation’s health-care crisis.”
  • A music lesson for LACMA’s film program | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times – “It is not without a twang of envy that I watch the film community react to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s announcement that the 40-year-old film program would go the way of the even older Monday Evening Concerts, which was thrown out on the cold street three years ago.”
  • Cal State Fullerton abruptly begins canceling classes – College Life OC – OCRegister.com -”Cal State Fullerton officials say the university has begun canceling classes, including those that were already underway, because its being required to make tens of millions of dollars in cuts to help the state balance its budget.”
  • WATTS ENSEMBLE: IF WE ALL GOT MOHAWKS -”What would I call the next punkest classical record? Fuck. I could tell you probably the Andy Kaufman of classical music, which is probably Terry Riley’s ‘In C.’ Don’t get me wrong—I love the piece but it almost feels like it’s daring you to like it. ‘In C’ is typically 45 minutes to an hour long and it’s everyone playing the phrases at the same tempo—but they play it staggered so it creates all these different patterns. It’s an amazing piece. But I’ve shown it to people before and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is driving me insane—I can’t deal with it.’ It’s kind of the same thing with Andy Kaufman. Some people were like, ‘Wow, this is fucking amazing’ and other people were like, ‘I can’t stand this guy.’”
  • The Fun Music Company Ultimate Flashcard Set -”In the Ultimate Instant Print Flashcard Set you get a comprehensive selection of printable flash cards that you print yourself, right from your computer.”
  • Create Digital Music » Hexagonal iPhone Sequencer-Rhythm Machine from Jordan Rudess -”Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess and noise.io developer Amidio have made a crazy-looking hexagonal sequencer for the iPhone. It comes with plenty of samples and factory sessions if you just want to play around…”
  • Terry Teachout Asks, Can Jazz Be Saved? – WSJ.com -”No, I don’t know how to get young people to start listening to jazz again. But I do know this: Any symphony orchestra that thinks it can appeal to under-30 listeners by suggesting that they should like Schubert and Stravinsky has already lost the battle. If you’re marketing Schubert and Stravinsky to those listeners, you have no choice but to start from scratch and make the case for the beauty of their music to otherwise intelligent people who simply don’t take it for granted. By the same token, jazz musicians who want to keep their own equally beautiful music alive and well have got to start thinking hard about how to pitch it to young listeners—not next month, not next week, but right now.”