Posts Tagged ‘jonathan coulton’

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$99 Music Videos

February 25, 2009

$99 Music Videos hopes to occupy the space between fan-created videos and traditional music videos. The brainchild of Next New Networks, the rules are simple: the video has to be made for less than $99, it has to be shot in one day, it has to be edited in one day and—this is where it’s really differentiated from fan videos—it has to be made with the collaboration of the band. The idea is to bring together emerging bands with enthusiastic filmmakers: the band gets a video, the filmmaker gets exposure, and Next New Networks gets its cut via the (occasionally intrusive) advertising. Every video has a companion making-of video, in which the creators get to document how they worked within the constraints (here’s the one for La Strada’s “The Sun Song” video, above); for someone who’s interested in how things tick, they might be more interesting than the videos themselves.

Want to make your own? Go find a band you like, or a fan who’s up for shooting a video, get five twenties out of an ATM, and submit your own video here.

Wired has a longer interview with the site creators here.

MP3: La Strada – The Sun Song

Posted in future of music | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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Concert notes: Jonathan Coulton

January 27, 2009

joco

So, last Friday, my friend dragged me out to see this guy Jonathan Colton. We got there right at eight and we didn’t have to wait very long at all, which was good because my mom wanted me home by 11. *pout*

The opening band were pretty fun – I don’t really remember their name. Paul and…something? Thunder? But ewww! One of them got some things called jafa cakes, they didn’t really look like cakes, they looked more like cookies and he dropped one on the floor and HE PICKED IT UP AND ATE IT! EWWW GROSS!!!

I didn’t really get a lot of the main guys songs. There seemed to be a lot of robots. And there was something about a vacuum cleaner? All of the songs seemed to be about guys who have crushes on girls. Just ask them out already! Unless you’re really a dork, cause then they’ll probably just say no.

All in all, it was a pretty good concert. I got to wear a really cute outfit but it was really, really cold in the theatre so I had to keep my coat on so no one could see it. But it was still really cute.

Current mood: 🙂 happy

[For those of you thinking ‘WTF?’, today is Rabbit Hole Day. For those of you not thinking ‘WTF?’, might I refer you to some of my other postings? If you actually prefer this one, you may wish to return to the LiveJournal from whence you came. And my sincerest apologies to Jonathan Coulton and to Paul and Storm.]

MP3: Jonathan Coulton – Shop Vac

Posted in Concerts | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

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Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime

December 25, 2008

chiron-beta-prime[Image credit : Len from the Jawbone Radio Show]

As you may have gathered from an earlier post, I’m not so much about holiday music (hey, it’s a secular democracy, deal with it). So it’s perhaps unsurprising that “Chiron Beta Prime” by Jonathan Coulton is one of the very few Christmas songs that I like. This live version features zed equals zee’s very own guest blogger Scott in a cameo as the robot voice.

MP3: Jonathon Coulton (and Scott) – Chiron Beta Prime (live)

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Election day

November 4, 2008

If you are a US citizen, and you haven’t yet voted, please go out and vote today.

MP3 link: Jonathan Coulton – The Presidents (more JoCo)

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“Still Alive” as videogame theme, redux

October 16, 2008

I got a press release today, heralding the theme song for the upcoming Electronic Arts videogame “Mirror’s Edge.” It’s sung by Lisa Miskovsky, and Nettwerk is releasing an EP of remixes, including big names like Paul van Dyk. The song is called “Still Alive.” Wait a minute, I think, isn’t that the name of the song Jonathan Coulton did for Portal? Yes. Are the games related? No. (I suspect that asking the question reveals the depth of my gaming ignorance.) I mean, seriously – it’s been barely a year since Portal came out – didn’t anyone at EA realize that the world might not want two videogame themes with the same title?

I’m sorry to have to relate that the Miskovsky song, at least the baseline version, is a little generic-sounding; I streamed it while working at my desk and realized I wasn’t even listening to it. On the other hand the Coulton version, like pretty much everything he does, is anything but generic. If you’re spoilerphobic and haven’t yet played the game, you might want to pass on listening to the song; if you’ve completed the game or don’t care about spoilers, you can get full details of the song process and lyrics from JoCo’s blog. Also, if you have issues with vocoders and/or sopranos (it’s sung by Ellen McLain, who did the character’s voice in the game), you might prefer a version that Coulton sings himself.

MP3: Portal theme – Still Alive

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