Cassette tape art

Ghost in the Machine Series: Bob Dylan, cassette on canvas, 2009.
I love this sort of art, bringing the humble retro cassette tape back to life in a clever way!

Astronaut To Test New Non-Stink Underwear

That's right, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata is slated to test a new kind of underwear during his current visit to the space station. The "state-of-the-art" undies were designed "to reduce the smells in normal clothing, absorb sweat and provide insulation."

The underwear, developed by Japanese researchers, are made of antibacterial polymers and are fire-resistant. Astronauts normally change their clothes every three days.

Koichi will attempt to wear the underwear for a full seven days. Which, if successful, will only be 9 days short of my record. And, if you think I'm kidding, ask my dry cleaners. Well, my ex dry cleaners. I am so stinky! Astronaut tests non-smelly super pants in space [metro] Thanks to Thumperchica, who doesn't care because she doesn't wear underwear. I'm with you, girl -- high five! No? Helicopter!

Florence and the Machine

An amazing cover version of a Cold War Kids song. I am late on the band wagon for this young talent...

Nickelback recycle same song twice!

This has been around on the web for a while, but I just remebered it when I woke up to a Canadian radio staion playing a Nickleback tune... that woke me up soon enough!

Emmy the great

With her hotly anticipated debut album ‘First Love’ recently released, this could be her moment to shine at last. Emmy spoke with the audience between songs as if they knew all the in-band jokes!

The atmosphere was appropriately mellow, the crowd sat on the floor. This was not a set to have a dance to, rather, to appreciate a beautiful voice, and perfectly placed accompaniments with unusual instruments. Definitely some superb song-writing talent in Emmy, traditional folk style blended with her own pop twist. For me a highlight was an eloquent cover of the Carpenters 70’s hit ‘The end of the world’.

Komedia, Brighton. 02 February

A new mix inspired by dad music.

You know the type of compilations that are advertised on tv around father's day!

Da doo ron ron with guest DJ Edwyn Collins

The DJ’s went from one female lead vocal belter to the next keeping the pace and enthusiasm of the crowd on the boil at all times. The dance floor was peppered with girls dressed up the way I imagine their mums would have done, with beehive hairstyles, authentic retro dresses and clutch handbags. Even their dance moves looked like they had been lifted from a Beatles movie.

Forget present day imitations, this night will open your eyes and ears to vintage classics that you’ll find yourself humming for days. An nice added touch was the free CD for the first 50 people and some cute pin badges in several different designs.

Komedia, 11 October

Skateboarding dog!

Think I have seen this dog on a video before, but I guess he is getting better at it!

Bravefont, coming soon to a screen near you...

Extensis are releasing their new font manager with this slighlty absurd hollywood movie trailor parody. If you like fonts, watch it here.

Souvenir snaps with a difference

A new book by photographer Michael hughes. Clever stuff with a hint of Martin Parr influence i think
Click here to see his flickr account

Nintendo choir a cappella

Probably late on this, there are tons of nintendo youtubes, but this one made me chuckle.
Also check out the marching band one


and

Super Mario Bros Theme Song Played with RC Car and Bottles


and
beatboxing flute super mario brothers theme

The Mystery Jets play a silent disco set with headphones!

Yes, that's right a live set beamed straight to the crowd via headphones. It's an odd experience. I've heard about the Silent Disco before, which gives you the a choice of a couple of DJ's, but this was just one band.
A free drink from the vodka brand sponsoring the night help get the crowd in the mood, and the novelty of chunky headphones creates a bit of a buzz. Barely a few notes in to the first song and I'm fiddling with the volume trying to eek out more volume and bass with no success. Others in the crowd heckle for the headphones to be turned up during a quiet bit. The strangest thing was taking them off to listen to the crowd sing the songs word for word, completely a cappella, even the drums were electric. When the band paused to share their bemusement of the set up with the crowd, the drummer tapped out an improv techno/gabba beat.
The band sounded tight and looked like they enjoyed it for the novelty value as did the mainly student crowd. I felt like I had seen the Mystery Jets, but not really live. Don't get me wrong it was fun, but not the full experience.

itunes and podcast, a match made in hell!

I am sold on podcasts, they are a good source of music, news, videos... really anything. So much to choose from too. Itunes is still unrivalled when it comes to music management, but maybe not podcasts. At one time itunes was ok, it could handle my demands for podcast feeds, but now I have gathered a whole heap of subscriptions and notably more videos like Diggnation. This means larger and more downloads via itunes, which is annoying if the spinning beachball of death hangs about while what you really opened itunes for was to play some music! This is all the more painfull if, like me, you store you library on your external hard drive linked in on a wireless network... in one word: BUFFERING!

So I have tried a few things like, mypodder, which was rubbish (just seems to freeze every time) It sounded good, with it's promise to work on anything, even a usb stick, and download straight to your mp3 player. This means storing the software on you ipod or whatever and running it from. Not sure what i did wrong but it never did that for me. It did work from my laptop hard drive though. The User interface was dodgy, not easy to understand.

I tried Juice, this was quite good. Looks like an old itunes, only thing was it stores the files with odd numberwang prefixes.


The winner for me I think was Pod Nova. You can search, subscribe and dowload feeds. Install the desktop client and it asks for your login details, syncs with your selections online and downloads them. It looks neat and uses a browser access you account offline.

A good companion for this is floola which allows you to load the files on to your mp3 without itunes. Added bonus to this software: It allows video uploads, obviously a must for video podcasts. Only thing is you might have to make playlists for the stuff you want to load first in tunes.

Put the kettle on!

A short film about our very British obsession with tea!

Cannabis can cure cancer?!

But this guy does'nt have the conspiracy theorist ponytail!

Conspiracy of Science - Earth is in fact growing

Quite amazing... makes you think

New mixtape, great site!

Hit the jump below to hear some great songs... fantastic site, really looks good, oh how I miss the days of cassettes... sort of!
http://www.mixwit.com/roburdick/eraseandsync

Thanks, Google. I think I'll take up gardening (pic)

The new "suggest" feature on Google.com provides some interesting tips for wannabe gardeners.

read more | digg story

bear taxi

bear in a taxi!

read more | digg story

Toots and the Maytals

A reggae legend was in town, an unmissable gig for any roots era fan. Toots have been going since the 6o's pioneering reggae as we know it, harmonising a blend of ska, gospel, soul and rock. With a record 31 chart topping hits in Jamaica, they were at one time overshadowing Bob Marley and his Wailers.

The expectant crowd were kept waiting whilst being teased with classic tunes. Toots came on wearing a rhinestone waistcoat, he still has bags of energy and that distinctive voice is as powerful as ever. The band rattled through hit after hit finishing most tunes with a burst of high energy ska. 'Monkey man', 'Bam Bam', 'Reggae got Soul', and 'Funky Kingston' all the hits were played

The sound was a bit iffy to say the least, with feedback from the mic being the most notable problem. And one point Toots threw his mic on the ground with frustration. An acoustic guitar caused more feedback mayhem, apart from that, it was spot on.



Concorde 2, 19 June
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