The Beatles: A look back from the year 3000

Give me one red button and a joystick!

The Ballad of G.I. Joe

The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde

Foreign music day

For some reason lots music from other countries seems to be passing across my desktop today. Here’s two. One I immediately purchased from Amazon, the other, not. I’ll let you guess which is which.

Bobby McFerrin is a frickin genius

Please forget everything you ever remember about Don’t Worry, Be Happy then watch these videos.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Improvises A Cappella, Song Two of Two from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Covers of 80s classics in Ragtime

Can you name them all?

The Year the Media Died

via Photography is Not a Crime

JAYDIOHEAD: Minty Fresh Beats

Here’s a new album mashing up Jay-Z and Radiohead. Download it while you can.

Get Inspired in 7 minutes 30 seconds

I don’t usually go for posting the sappy stuff but this was amazing.

Susan Boyle - Singer - Britains Got Talent 2009
by moovieblog

St Francis de la Sissies

Thanks Diane!

This band doesn’t exist

They’re all individual, totally unrelated, YouTube videos that have been remixed into a complete whole. Be impressed, then read more over on Lessig.org.

Doctor Who theme on Tesla Coils

This kicks butt!

Barack O’Bama

The 3 Rules of the Internet

Contains mild adult language. Via BoingBoing.

Jack Imel plays "Pagan Love Song" on Lawrence Welk 1958

Via BoingBoing

Brand New Day

Not all the lyrics are perfect but I can't get this song out of my head this fine morning.

Watch music videos again

Instead of showing music videos on MTV (there's an idea), you can now watch the complete MTV archive of videos online. And yes, you can embed them too.

 

If you've not sent your fan mail to Ringo already, it's too late

Head over Heels : Literal Video Version

Chuck D on Piracy

Via The Pirate's Dilemma

Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song

Woah! It looks like Happy Birthday might not actually be under copyright.

"Happy Birthday to You" is the best-known and most frequently sung song in the world. Many - including Justice Breyer in his dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft - have portrayed it as an unoriginal work that is hardly worthy of copyright protection, but nonetheless remains under copyright. Yet close historical scrutiny reveals both of those assumptions to be false. The song that became "Happy Birthday to You," originally written with different lyrics as "Good Morning to All," was the product of intense creative labor, undertaken with copyright protection in mind. However, it is almost certainly no longer under copyright, due to a lack of evidence about who wrote the words; defective copyright notice; and a failure to file a proper renewal application.

SSRN-Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song by Robert Brauneis

Pink Martini

Last Friday night I got to see Pink Martini with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra Pop. Here's a sample if you're not familiar with their music.

UKULELE - BLITZKRIEG BOP

The next time I play this in Rock Band I might not be able to keep a straight face.

Thing #19: Pandora

This Thing had us wandering about in the list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees, and picking one to write about. I picked the music category and what do I find as nominee #1? Pandora! One of the single best music sites on the Internet.

Here's how it works. You start with an artist or a song that you like and create a "station". That song is then played for you, followed by another, and another, and another, all fitting into the same general style as your original song. To adjust the types of songs that are being sent to you, click on the thumbs up or thumbs down for the song currently being played. Too much bass in that song, thumbs down. That song's perfect, thumbs up. It's a great way to hear artists you may not be familiar with.

I mostly use Pandora at home. Despite an extensive CD collection (thousands) most of which is not yet on my network, I'll often got to Pandora on the laptop hooked up to my HDTV and have Pandora supply the soundtrack for the afternoon.

Here's the favorite of my stations based on the classics of Miles Davis. This and my other stations can be access through my profile page.

John Legend covering “Pride (In the Name of Love)”

On the 40th anniversary of MLK's assassination.

(via Whatever)

Ladies and Gentlemen...Will Ferrell and Dave Grohl

Contains some adult language

dan le sac VS scroobius pip

"Thou Shalt always Kill"

Animal vs Buddy Rich

Sleep, who needs sleep?

I'm vertical today but just barely as Mary and I drove for three hours yesterday afternoon down to Kansas City for dinner and the Rush concert. (Yes, they're still around. 30 years and going strong.) The concert was spectacular despite the behavior of some and three hours after they started the show was over. The drive back through a massive storm ended up getting me to bed at 4am. Back up at 7 and into the office by 8, concert t-shrit proudly worn. (I'm such a trooper.) The only disappointing thing was the fact that the venue did not allow cameras of any kind into the show. (I got a bad cell photo or two but they're so bad that I probably won't even post them to flickr.) So, it's off to YouTube to share with you the funniest bit from the whole show: 'lil rush!

More on Simplify Media

As I posted yesterday, Simplify Media allows you to share your iTunes library over the Internet with up to 30 of your closest friends. Now that I have it running on three out of four of my computers, here's a few follow-up notes.

• The software does not yet run on Vista. (Which is of course my personal laptop's OS.) According to the company "a release for Windows Vista will be available shortly."
• One of my friends has reported that the software is "not reading the data from my external HD." My main collection is not on my main drive but on a secondary internal drive so that seems to work. I have not yet tested sharing a folder on an external drive myself. I'll report back if I receive any additional news on this issue.
• Simplify Media only shares the contents of your "Music" category in iTunes. Items listed under "Podcasts" and "Audiobooks" will not be shared.
• I claimed via Twitter that I'd making "a week" worth of Bowie tracks available. For the record, I'm sharing just four days, 1368 tracks, or Bowie. Sorry if that's not enough for some of you ;-)

Just one additional comment: Simplify Media is a good company name but the software itself needs a name of its own. "Simplify Meida" just isn't a great name (maybe it's just me) for this program.)

I got me some tickets!

With the exception of the 30th Anniversary Tour I've been to a show on every Rush tour since 1989. This time around I'm going to see them in Bonner Springs, KS (Kansas City) on August 23rd! (What's 200 miles each way when it comes to Rush?) I'm a little bummed that they decided to play Red Rocks this year but that's much further and the date was bad for my schedule so KC it is.

How I Became A Music Pirate

Some wonder why people think it's o.k. to do things with music they've purchased that the RIAA doesn't want you to do. Well here's the story of how one man became a "music pirate".

"'Well' she responded, 'You didn't actually purchase the files, you really purchased a license to listen to the music, and the license is very specific about how they can be played or listened to.'"

Jobs on DRM

Steve Jobs has written a 2000+ word essay, posted on the Apple, Inc. site regarding his feelings about DRM (digital rights management) on the iPod platform and in general. After a history explaining how we got to where we are today, this is the paragraph that makes the article worth it's weight in gold:

"The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music."

His thoughts only get more interesting from this point as he clearly states why it makes total sense for the mucis corporations to ditch DRM. Read it and give copies to all your friends.