if i were to order a personalized license plate right now, i believe it would read ‘2BSY2BLG‘ which reads ‘Too Busy to Blog.’ granted, 2BSY2BLG is over the allotted characters for a california state license plate, but you get my drift. many apologies for the infrequency of posts & as always many many thanks for your post comments (& please keep leaving them - i find them encouraging and yes, even soothing - almost like aromatherapy). but my schedule is still jam-packed, but at least not for the next 2 hours.
as a way of saying ‘oops, my bad’ for my lack of posts, please accept the very blatant bribe in the form of free music below. & you are welcome!
the makers of the fantastic & inspiring film One Giant Leap are coming out with a new film titled What About Me? the first chapter of the movie is titled Bombardment. the entire chapter (spanning 15 minutes) is available to view on the whataboutme website & even better at dailymotion as well. this movie looks to be as moving and as powerful as their first project, with a wonderful message that we all have & share many more similarities than we do differences. the project creators use music & song as a common thread to connect artists & musicians from around the world along with interviews with people like eckhart tolle, noam choamsky, timothy “speed” levich, and more. take a look when you get a chance & thanks claudine for the link!
if this track below by the transcended cool cat from san rafael named astarius doesn’t stir something up inside you, then you’re probably very sleepy or perhaps dead. ‘i invoke and dream awake the full current of ascension in every cell of my being …‘ that’s good stuff. press play below & listen to the sound of your mind cracking open. i dig it!
thank you mojito’s in north beach for bringing the lovely & soulful alice russell to the bay area! giantmonster especially thanks alice russell & mike simmonds for 1) a really amazing show at mojito’s in north beach on march 10th & 11th, and 2) getting a ticket-less me into the sold out show for free! thank you thank you! if you haven’t heard alice russell sing, check out alice russell’s myspace page to get a listen to her music. previously with tru thoughts recordings. video of alice russell singing to know this below.
the mighty syd gris and crew at opel productions are hosting the time is now - the opel 6 year anniversary party! it’s happening saturday, march 22nd. “If you were living the life you wanted to lead, how would it be different? If you were the YOU you wanted to be, what would change? What are you waiting for? The Time is Now.” very nice. & if those words don’t seem incredibly apropos, then perhaps the music lineup will work for you: meat katie & lee coombs to host along with other great djs. but wait, there’s a fashion show too! oy! and it’s at temple in SF!? double oy!
is it me you’re looking for? answer: yes. why wasn’t sculpture class like this when i was in school? to truly understand the magic of the video for Hello by lionel richie, one must become the video for Hello by lionel richie. hence, the hello experiment. the hello experiment seeks to capture the wonder, imagination, and beauty that is lionel richie’s massive jaw lovingly formed in wet brown clay by sightless, open hearted souls. awesome! it’s either a goofy and fun nostalgic paraody or a tragic spell created by demons to open a hell-mouth that will swallow us all. watch and see (note: please download the song Hello at your leisure so you can sculpt your very own lionel richie). thanks cobras! download: Lionel_Richie_Hello.zip (3.9 megabytes)
really liking the video for the song ‘ding’ by the german reggae/dancehall band seeed. it features some really nice stop motion animation. honestly, what is not to like about a red hairy ape in a top hat drinking & dancing at a club?
on the heels of space travel talk, please enjoy the awesome and wonderful sounds & visuals with this video for try dis by the band hella. great song too. video directed by david nicholson & brook caballero. neato!
it’s friday, april 6th. and, yes, in two days it’ll be april 8th - easter sunday. but more important than marshmellow peeps and chocolate rabbits, april 8th is biz markie’s birthday. yes! so happy birthday biz markie! the diabolical biz markie was born marcel hall in harlem, new york, way back in 1964. i am a sucker for biz markie’s goofy, ill, silly, real, semi-retarded, happy style, humor, and vocals. makes me smile & dance every time. seriously. if you disagree, then perhaps it is time you had a heavy dose of vitamin biz via a rather swell rendition of ‘benny & the jets‘ or the super silly and equally great ‘just a friend’ video. so good. nobody beats the biz, especially not the easter bunny. so april 8th give a happy birthday shout biz markie! please enjoy the embedded vids and mp3s below.
ye mighty track list:
Biz Markie - Just A Friend Biz Markie - Nobody
Biz Markie - Make The Music With Your Mouth Biz
Biz Markie - Benny And The Jets
Biz Markie - Spring Again
i’d like to buy steve jobs and the folks at EMI a drink! why? Apple and EMI (the world’s third-biggest record label) have made a deal to sell the entire EMI music catalogue as non-DRM & unrestricted mp3s from the iTunes store! this is really great! no locks! thank you! also read EMI’s great press release with links to a podcast of the event. that means that the EMI track you pay for at the iTunes store will play in your ipod and also on any other mp3 player on the market. previously, a track downloaded from the itunes store would ONLY play on an ipod, (which is like buying a CD or a record that only plays on a particular brand of player - not on all players). that’s one of the things DRM does and that’s just silly! glad to see common sense prevailing. in remembering steve job’s letter about removing DRM from the all of the itunes music store library, i am hopeful that more deals like this will be reached. here’s the breakdown of the price structure with the Apple & EMI non-DRM mp3 deal (from the bbc website):
99¢ single = digital locks and at 128kbps quality (DRM! boo! hiss!) $1.29 single = no digital locks and 256kbps high quality (non-DRM! yay! hi-five!)
Album prices unchanged with no locks and all at 256kbps (non-DRM! yay! hi-five!)
yes, the non-DRM costs more. but it is a much higher quality mp3. and, removing DRM is definitely a step in the right direction.
it’s friday. end of the week. i hope you are wearing a half-shirt today. yes, it’s time to turn gay. yes, truly. and giantmonster wants to help! how? simple (way more simple than you think!). apparently & according to love god’s way ministries you can put all this pent up heterosexuality behind you and turn hella gay by listening to specific bands & music that will make you a gay. amazing. elton john is so gay he’s mentioned twice. and very little disco. wow - who knew? well, not just ted haggart, but donny davies too. donnie seems to know a thing or two about gayness. if this offends anyone, please just relax, let the spirit of andy kaufman fill your heart and say ‘meet the new borat.’ and, if you like, you can also bolster your heterosexuality by listening to non-gay ( a.k.a. ’shitty’) bands too. save that for later. for now, just access those music mix below (sorry, no elton john) and get onto turning gay! you’re welcome.
track listing:
Bjork - All Is Full Of Love
David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes
Culture Club - Time (Clock of the Heart)
Queen - Play The Game
Judas Priest - Turbo Lover
Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again
Interpol - Not Even Jail
Le Tigre - Deceptacon
the mash-up kings and queens over at club bootie have released their 2006 best of bootie cd. just like last years 2005 best of bootie mix, their 2006 selection is also free (yes, free) to download as either one lumped together zip file (108 megabytes), or track by track. so nice! 21 tracks total (bonus tracks on their website). they even threw in some lovely cd cover art too! thank you D from bootiesf for the heads up!
went to bed with the news that james brown had been hospitalized with pnuemonia and awoke to the sad news that james brown died very early this december 25th 2006 at around 1:45am. james brown made such an awesome and overwhelmingcontribution to music. i was lucky enough to see him perform at the circle star theater over 12 years ago. safe to say that one of the best albums ever put together is james brown’s funky people. the hardest working man in show business. and easily the most sampled man in music (funky drummer). rest in peace, james brown. thank you for all that you gave. boingboing has a good memorial post, as does sfgate and the bbc.
ho ho ho & happy holidays from giantmonster! give the gift this year that keeps on giving: the gift of creepyness. it truly is ever-lasting. sure, a ceramic crying clown figurine music box will do just that. but this year, it’s time to go much farther! feel free to re-gift the gift i am giving to you: it’s Fabio’s album After Dark. oh no, you are welcome. yes, fabio does have an album. and we here in the romance division of giantmonster really want you to have that album. so get the greatest dose of cheese to ever be pressed to vinyl using the link below. the zipped album archive includes cd art work (front & back & more) and all 17 tracks in mp3 format at 192kbps. so don’t be afraid to set the night on fire this holiday season!
sample:
Fabio on Films
update: (5/2008)
i pulled the download link to the file due to the many jackasses biting on this hella original post & hotlinking to the file. yeah, totally. but if you are that much in need of some cheesy music via a fabio album fix, please feel free to contact me and maybe i can help you out. peace!
the ever funny & always powerful musical comedy genius duo known as tenacious d will be playing a concert in san francisco this month. their last show in SF was in 2002 at slims i believe. the D is on tour for their new movie tenacious d: the pick of destiny. (check out the trailer - it’s got sasquatch in it!). tickets for the SF show are still on sale too! the show is monday november 20th at the bill graham civic auditorium. and tickets are not cheap - $50+ after taxes & fees (hence the not sold out part). go & i’ll see you there! meanwhile, enjoy the D below.
this next clip doesn’t have to make sense. it just has to be … be weird, be silly, be possibly the gayest thing i’ve ever seen. yes, all of those things. combine care free + tassles + spandex + headband + mullet + moves and you’ve got dirty cowboy! awesome. it just may warm your heart to an intensity the likes of which you’ve never experienced. and you’ll find yourself asking ‘why?’ yet watching it again and again and again and again …
the mighty iTunes mp4 protection has been cracked! from seidai software comes FairGame, software that will convert the songs you purchased on an iTunes store to an unprotected format - keeping all original metadata, artwork, lyric, and album information intact. fairgame has several pre-requisites before it can be used, like having iMovie HD installed and enabling ‘access for assistive devices’ in the universal access control panel. only works on a mac with OSX. but nice to see this happening. buying music from the apple store is like buying a CD that will only play on one specific type of player. kind of nuts, and also kind of a recipe for a monopoly. doesn’t everyone know that the archos media players are worlds better than any ipod (thanks tony!)?. i’m serious. linky via boingboing via thornography.
Also, adrienne sent in this report the other day from BBC, titled itunes copy protection cracked. as music downloaded from an itunes store can ONLY be played on an ipod, the code that prevents music downloaded from Apple’s iTunes store being played on any portable player other than an iPod has been “cracked”. this reverse-engineering has been done by Jon Lech Johansen. his company DoubleTwist hopes to distribute the cracking code to other media player producers. that is great news.
it’s friday, and i’m still working on my costume. waaay behind schedule. but a quick time out to post some songs ranging from possible to definite for including in your halloween mix. there’s also a great halloween mashup mix posted at the bride of the monster mash website. so get your fill of tunes! save all the files by clicking on the handy folder link below.
ye mighty track listing:
Beck - Devil’s Haircut
Halloween - Misfits
Deadbolt - VooDoo Curse
The Specials - Ghost Town
Gnarls Barkley - The Boogie Monster
DJ Shadow - Giving Up the Ghost
Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi Is Dead
Skin & Bones - Fear Of Music
Michael Jackson - Thriller
belated birthday wishes to the jazz greatness of john coltrane on what would have been his 80th birthday. john coltrane was born on september 23rd, 1926. a quick search on youtube will pull up a lot of coltrane vids. posted below is a performance of the heavy song alabama, written by coltrane in 1963 after the bombing of the 16th street baptist church in birmingham, alabama. also below are a few tracks posted (right-click & save-as, please) from the albums Standard Coltrane, Giant Steps, and Impressions. happy birthday, mr john coltrane, and many many thanks for your music!
here’s a really lovely music & sound experiment using flash actionscript called the whitney music box - brought to you by the talented jim bumgardner of krazydad.com and coverpop.com. read more about the whole process and thought behind the whitney music box on krazydad’s blog entry on visual harmony. my favorite is variation 6: 48 tones in one octave. the whitney music box is based on the theories of john whitney (more on john whitney here and here) and his book digital harmony. the cool thing about the whitney music box is that while john whitney was interested in turning musical ideas into motion graphics, jim bumgardner’s whitney music box does the inverse - turning one of whitney’s key animation ideas back into music. very very cool.
you know those semi-retarded questions people sometimes ask to get a conversation going, such as ‘if you were stranded on a desert island, what albums would you like to have with you?’ well, even though that gilligan’s island scenario would never happen, i do know one of the albums i would bring: james brown’s funky people. easily the one album i’ve listened to the most and never find it tiring. full of heavy funk & soul hitters such as maceo parker, lyn collins, and fred wesley. there’s also a mighty part 2 and part3. below are five fantastic feeling tracks from part 1. please enjoy.
ye mighty track listing:
JBFP - Pass The Peas
JBFP - Gimme Some More
JBFP - Think
JBFP - Damn Right I am Somebody, part 1 & 2
JBFP - (It’s Not The Express) It’s The JB’s Monorail, part 1
… you are A #1. so i haven’t posted anything about my trip to new york city. and how damn great it was/is (both new york and the trip). so many things to like about new york city. man, it was fun. i miss it! i will have to post up some pics and experiences soon. for now, i hope these tracks/soundbytes from the escape from new york soundtrack will suffice. enjoy!
ye mighty track listing:
Escape From New York - Snake Plissken
Escape From New York - You Are The Duke of New York
Escape From New York - The Duke Arrives / Barricade
Escape From New York - 69th Street Bridge
Escape From New York - The Name is Plissken
sent in from my friend isiah, please watch & enjoy this song & video from the group potions made by children titled picture of a bird. really cool & imaginative homemade animation going on there featuring hand-sewn dolls, paper cutouts, illustrations, puppets, and some great colors. found via wired blog.
it’s still friday darn it. 11pm-ish. i can still post something up in time for friday! what to post? i’m gonna default to music on this one. please exercise your right-click-save-as skills if you wish. i’m just posting up some songs that have been on heavy rotation at the luxurious giantmonster corporate headquarters these last few days. enjoy!
Gary Newman - Cars
Giant Drag - Everything’s Worse
The Pixies - Hey
Beck - Missing
Cat Power - Cross Bones Style
Broken Social Scene - Shampoo Suicide
The Skatalites - Guns of Navarone
Billy Nayer Show - Mama Hen
The White Stripes - The Air Near My Fingers
Turbonegro - Imorgen Skal Eg Daue
man, there’s something really good about listening to van halen - david lee roth with van halen - that makes me smile. maybe it’s dave’s voice with the ever-ready ‘eagle cry’ scream. yes! or is that the whole band sounded soo damn great when they were young & raw & strung out on drugs? yes to both actually. then i read a news story saying that a david lee roth re-union with van halen is inevitable. say whuut? crazy. anyway, posted below with much respect and love for the lovely raw powerful rockingness that is van halen are some tracks from the albums van halen, van halen II, women and children first, fair warning, and diver down. it’s friday - you should be rocking out (my bandwidth pending, of course). enjoy!
ye mighty track list:
Running With The Devil
Jamie’s Cryin’
Eruption + You Really Got Me
Ice Cream Man
Unchained
Dance The Night Away
Intruder + PrettyWoman
And The Cradle Will Rock
it’s friday. end of the week. time for laughter. thought i’d post (& link to) some funny sound files of louis c.k. doing stand-up. these are taken from his cd titled Louis C.K. - Live in Houston. it’s really funny - you can buy it direct from louis c.k.’s site if you like. or you can just listen to the samples below. (warning - these mp3s contain swear words & appropriate comedic yelling so be sure to turn the volume WAAAAY up for your co-workers to hear). enjoy!
don’t know why i thought this was funny. but it is. read about it first on defamer. anyway, apple has ‘celebrity playlists’ on their apple itunes site. so you can see/hear/BUY what your favorite iconic with-no-relation-to best celebrity idol make-believe friend is rocking out to. and for some reason, jerry bruckheimer is on the apple itunes store. hmmmm. so the question today is: can you feel the bruckheimer? I know I’ve been waiting for his celebrity playlist to drop for some time. and now it’s here! and this is from a recently overheard conversation in hollywoood: ——————
dude1 - “hey man, what’s up?”
dude2 - “nothing. just trying to make a mix tape for this party. it’s soo hard.”
dude1 - “yeah, I hear you. hey, you should check out what bruckheimer is listening to these days.”
dude2 - “oh yeah? bruckheimer?”
dude1 - “yeah man.”
dude2 - “wow. good idea. if I could just put half of the emotional impact of a bruckheimer movie into this mix tape, I would have quite a party. you know?”
dude1 - “totally! I hear you. it IS bruckheimer, dude.”
dude2 - ” yeah - gotta go with bruckheimer!!!”
dude1 & dude2 (smiling & yelling while hi-fiving) - “B R U C K H E I M E R !!!!” ——————
and here are some dope jams from the bruckheimer itunes celebrity playlist along with some bruckheimer quotes on each semi-to-completely innocuous song:
Lose Yourself - Eminem: “Believe it or not (and i don’t man to throw out stats) but this is Em’s first #1 hit and also featured in an urban movie (8Mile). If you need inspiration and don’t get it from this song, pack it in.”
In Da Club - 50cent: “Moving rhythm and melody, makes you want to dance.”
Yeah! - Usher: “This might just be the number one party song of all time! The rhythms and melodies make it so much fun.
Remember When - Alan Jackson: “A statement on the circle of life. This song is for the closing credits, as we survey and assess events of our past.”
Clocks - Coldplay: “The band many people call the next U2; this song is a great theme song for just about anything.”
Desperado - The Eagles: ” Is there anything better than the lyrics to this song? Moving and emotional.”
that’s some cutting edge shit. and this post should top off your sarcasm quota for the week as well. -xxxooo
just letting you know: if you like bluegrass music, 
it’s friday, april 6th. and, yes, in two days it’ll be april 8th - easter sunday. but more important than marshmellow peeps and chocolate rabbits, april 8th is 
went to bed with the news that james brown had been hospitalized with pnuemonia and awoke to the sad news that james brown died very early this december 25th 2006 at around 1:45am. james brown made such an awesome and 
ho ho ho & happy holidays from giantmonster! give the gift this year that keeps on giving: the gift of creepyness. it truly is ever-lasting. sure, a ceramic crying clown figurine music box will do just that. but this year, it’s time to go much farther! feel free to re-gift the gift i am giving to you: it’s Fabio’s album After Dark. oh no, you are welcome. yes, 
it’s friday, and i’m still working on my costume. waaay behind schedule. but a quick time out to post some songs ranging from possible to definite for including in your halloween mix. there’s also a great halloween mashup mix posted at the 
belated birthday wishes to the jazz greatness of 
it’s still friday darn it. 11pm-ish. i can still post something up in time for friday! what to post? i’m gonna default to music on this one. please exercise your 
it’s friday. end of the week. time for laughter. thought i’d post (& link to) some funny sound files of louis c.k. doing stand-up. these are taken from his cd titled Louis C.K. - Live in Houston. it’s really funny - you can 
don’t know why i thought this was funny. but it is. read about it first on 
