This is what the future was supposed to look like:
It’s a digital electric guitar, from 1984! It was called the SynthAxe, and it digitised the input from the (separate!) sets of strings on the neck and body and then output a MIDI signal.
If you’re wondering what the future currently looks like, here’s the Misa Digital Guitar:
(It’s a video). “running linux kernel 2.6.31″ – hell yeah!
I’ve linked to a video from these guys before, but this song’s great too:
I first saw this one on William Gibson’s blog – he also thoughtfully provided an outstanding Babelfish attempt at the lyrics.
For a while, the video ran through my head every time I stepped into the lift at work.
These guys are one of those punk bands that never die, but just keep on being awesome while growing increasingly wrinkly.
The video is arguably not-safe-for-work.
I heard this song on FBI Radio a year or so ago. It’s the inspiration/basis for the Black Eyed Peas’ Don’t Phunk with my Heart – and it turns out it has an awesome, Orientalism-confounding, James-Bond-esque video/dance-routine as well:
Aye Naujawan Hai Sab Kuchch Yahan
It’s from Apradh, an Indian movie from 1972.
Last year, I was involved in the technical organisation for a conference. This meant that I had to make sure that laptops, projectors and everything else were set up before the start of each talk.
Going back to the main room after the morning tea break one day to do a last minute check, I discovered some damn kids had disconnected the speakers and projector from the lectern computer and were using them to play this:
The Chemical Brothers – Star Guitar
It’s directed by Michel Gondry (There’s also an interesting making-of). One of the kids was enthusing about the technology that went into making the video – but I must have watched to at least a third of the way through before realising that it wasn’t just straight film from a train window.
This video is reminiscent of an 80s kids’ cartoon – I’m thinking of Cities of Gold or Once Upon a Time… Life – but those cartoons were never actually this cool; I just remember them that way.
Takashi Fujii is the host of Matthew’s Best Hit TV (maybe you remember him from a scene in Lost in Translation). He also has a music career, which I discovered by accident: I was looking to see if Tommy february6 (yesterday’s video) had any music available on the iTunes store. The only song my search produced was OH MY JULIET! by Takashi Fujii, on the Babel soundtrack. It turned out that Tommy produced the song, and the iTunes metadata had faithfully recorded this.
Anyway, the song is pure Tommy february6, and the video’s fun too:
After the brilliant green’s third album, their singer, Tomoko, started a solo side-project as ‘Tommy february6‘ (the 6 is silent), singing 80s-style synth-pop. What’s interesting (and perhaps distinctly Japanese) here is the lack of angle or attitude – the music is “irony free“:
When I lived in Germany, I spent a lot of time watching Viva Zwei, a music video TV channel. They played a lot of local music, and one of the most interesting phenomena was that of “Deutscher hip-hop”, which was at the height of its popularity at the time. It tended intentionally towards humour and light-hearted songs, but beyond that I think there was an unintentionally comical aspect to some of these songs – especially the videos.
I liked the following one particularly because of Toni L, who shows up from 3:25 onwards:
a job that slowly kills you,
bruises that won’t heal.
You look so tired-unhappy,
bring down the government,
they don’t, they don’t speak for us.
I’ll take a quiet life,
a handshake of carbon monoxide,with no alarms and no surprises…
–Radiohead, No Surprises. The video is excellent too.
Then her husband took out his pocket watch.
“One hour, Marcie. I’ll give you one hour,” he said. “If you’re not back by then, you can find your own way home.”
She walked for half an hour with her bare feet in the frothy edge of the sea, then turned back along the cliff path, and from the shelter of some trees, watched her husband, at five minutes past the appointed hour, slam the car door and turn the ignition. Just as he was gathering speed, she jumped into the road and stopped the car.
Then she climbed in and spent the rest of her life with a man who would have gone home without her.
–Claire Keegan, Close to the Water’s Edge
A moment of silence followed. The eyes she turned on me seemed to lack any depth. The dessicated shadow of a smile flickered at the corners of her mouth, suggesting a kind of hushed sense of resignation.
“I’m married now,” she said. “To an accountant three years my senior. And I have two children, a boy and a girl. We have an Irish setter. I drive an Audi and I play tennis with my friends twice a week. That’s the life I’m living now.”
–Haruki Murakami, Birthday Girl
I’ve been listening to the Katamari Damacy soundtrack a lot recently – it’s some great music. The various genres represented remind me of two or three items I already have floating around in my collection:
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