BBC: "Geoff Ward examines the strange life and terrifying world of the man hailed as America's greatest horror writer since Poe.
During his life Lovecraft's work was confined to lurid pulp magazines and he died in penury in 1937. Today, however, his writings are considered modern classics and published in prestigious editions.
Among the writers considering his legacy are Neil Gaiman, S T Joshi, Kelly Link, Peter Straub and China Mieville."
BBC: "Mark Lamarr tells the story of the Million Dollar Quartet, one of the most famous jam sessions in the history of pop music that saw Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis perform together in a studio in Memphis, Tennessee, on a Tuesday afternoon in December 1956. Including contributions from Peter Guralnick, Colin Escott, Carl Perkins, Sam Phillips, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis." Listen here
kcrw.com: "Creativity is the lifeblood of American life.-- Our national output of ideas generates huge sums of wealth.-- In fact, with the exception of the military-industrial complex during war times, our creative ideas are the number one export.-- Whether you know it or not, we are cultivating ideas for the entire world." Weiter Copyright and Creative Commons
BBC: "A fiery vault beneath the earth or as Sartre put it, other people - it seems our ideas of hell are inevitably shaped by religious and cultural forces. For Homer and Virgil it?s a place you can visit and return from, often a wiser person for it. With Christianity it?s a one way journey and a just punishment for a sinful, unrepentant life. Writers and painters like Dante and Hieronymus Bosch gave free rein to their imaginations, depicting a complex hierarchical world filled with the writhing bodies of tormented sinners. In the 20th century hell can be found on earth in portrayals of war and the Holocaust but also in the mind, particularly in the works of TS Eliot and Primo Levi. So what is the purpose of hell and why is it found mainly in religions concerned with salvation? Why has hell proved so inspirational for artists through the ages, perhaps more so than heaven? And why do some ideas of hell require a Satan figure while others don't?" More The History of Hell
"A feature-length documentary film about hip-hop DJing, otherwise known as turntablism. From the South Bronx in the 1970s to San Francisco now, the world's best scratchers, beat-diggers, party-rockers, and producers wax poetic on beats, breaks, battles, and the infinite possibilities of vinyl."
wikipedia.org: My War: Killing Time in Iraq by Colby Buzzell is a book recounting the author's November 2003 - January 2005 deployment of post-invasion Iraq in the U.S. Army.
My War focuses on the down-to-earth experiences of a soldier, chronicling the daily life, absurdities and ennui in addition to the combat events. Its blunt, unrefined style has been praised for honesty as well as criticized for the heavy use of profanities. It incorporates some material from Buzzell's early journal and much from his later milblog of the same name, which became highly popular in its scant few weeks of operation.
"My War by Colby Buzzell is nothing less than the soul of an extremely interesting human being at war on our behalf in Iraq." -Kurt Vonnegut
See also: War Memoirs Offer Ground View of Iraq
Talk of the Nation, October 6, 2005 · Throughout history, soldiers penned books, poems, diaries and letters home. Two years after American troops invaded Iraq, a flood of books arrive, written by U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq." Listen here
"TrackMeNot is a lightweight browser extension that helps protect web searchers from surveillance and data-profiling by search engines. It does so not by means of concealment or encryption (i.e. covering one's tracks), but instead, paradoxically, by the opposite strategy: noise and obfuscation. With TrackMeNot, actual web searches, lost in a cloud of false leads, are essentially hidden in plain view. User-installed TrackMeNot works with the Firefox Browser and popular search engines (AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and MSN) and requires no 3rd-party servers or services." Download here
npr.org: "Hollywood is an entertainment-industry juggernaut; its success in exporting movies, TV shows and music that have vast, global appeal is unparalleled. At the same time, anti-American sentiment is rising overseas, most notably in the Middle East, Latin America and Europe." Listen here
detanicolain.com: "Digital typeface that portrays the mixture between the modernist architecture of Oscar Niemeyer and informal occupation of the urban space that shapes major brazilian cities"
"It's not easy living on the avant-garde edge of any art, let alone the always-changing world of jazz. But for nearly 50 years, the sound of Ornette Coleman has proven to be one of the most unorthodox -- and most influential -- in modern jazz.
Coleman's recordings -- like the just-released Sound Grammar -- still earn praise and challenge listeners. Yes, his music can sound raw and under-rehearsed. Yet generations of jazz fans have come to appreciate its peculiar and spontaneous beauty." Listen here
subpop.com: "These songs are rotten with metal, reeds, consciousness-erasing islands of black doom; bass-heavy rippers, late-night free-terror jams, afflicted dog-hearts, underwater crabs: pure mayhem" More
synestheticrecordings.com: "Five Dolls For An August Moon is the long awaited debut studio album from Norwegian drone- space- freak- psychedelic- noise-out- rock band DEL. Consisting of Kjell Runar "Killer" Jenssen, Lasse Marhaug and Per Gisle Galåen but for most recordings and gigs they are joined by various guests. Five Dolls For An August Moon features longtime almost-member Fredrik Ness Sevendal on guitar." Read on
WIRED 274: "earlier this year jazkamer, hegre's duo with lasse marhaug, released metal music machine, a fine collection of black-boned hymnals and pulverising thrash metal. these rockist tendencies spill over into hegre's latest solo album, for which he returns to his original instrument, the electric guitar. it begins with a field of highly processed pastoral glich and sine tone that recalls the work of fennesz, or oren ambarchi at his simplest and most bucolic, and gradually shifts onto a more meandering path. joined by jorgen traen and david aasheim on bass and drums respectively, hegre summons up swathes of magnificent free noise, seamlessly cut and spliced with classical and countryesque picking at a stately and controlled pace that never jars." MP3: JOHN HEGRE - DON'T
wikipedia.org: "Erase Errata is a band from San Francisco, California. Their music draws inspiration from experimentalists such as Captain Beefheart and The Fall, as well as bands like The Minutemen. The possess improvisational tendencies, claiming that they could improvise a whole set if they wanted to. Since forming in 1999, the band has released three albums as well as a number split singles with various other bands including Black Dice, The Need, Numbers and Sonic Youth. They began their career by touring in 2000 with electro grrl band Le Tigre and Japanese noise rockers Melt Banana." Read on
hr-online.de: "Das erste Telefon wirkte so sinnlos wie der Satz „Das Pferd frisst keinen Gurkensalat“, der bei dessen Vorführung hineingesprochen wurde. Alle Beteiligten verstanden es als technische Imitation des Ohres, aber welchen praktischen Nutzen konnte das haben?" Hier anhören
Radiohead Gets a Cuban-Style Makeover
npr.org: "The idea behind Rhythms Del Mundo: Cuba is high-concept simplicity: Alt-rock meets the Buena Vista Social Club. Assorted '80s and ‘90s rock songs and pop standards are remade within a Cuban aesthetic, though some songs are more like remixes."
Radiohead VS Mozart
theprogram.net.au: "Christopher O’Riley is a man of two passions: he’s nuts for Radiohead and he’s a damn fine classical pianist."
Radiohead Meets Reggae
npr.org: "Easy Star All-Stars' latest album, Radiodread, gives a track-for-track reggae treatment to Radiohead's OK Computer, featuring a dozen different reggae artists."
NPR.org: "It's difficult to overstate Tom Waits' importance and impact: With a career that spans more than 20 albums, he blends countless musical and theatrical styles, from classic jazz, blues and polka to rock and folk. Held together with his gravelly rasp, his music is instantly recognizable and endlessly compelling. Waits' visionary songwriting (with a major assist from wife Kathleen Brennan) and experimental nature have kept fans enthralled for decades." Listen here
importantrecords.com: "Hototogisu is Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Sunroof!) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards). They've been laying down billowing sheets of tetonic guitar drone-noise since 2003 with the thickest possible helpings of vocals and electronics. Some Blood Will Stick is a collection of tracks from their ultra-limited self produced label Heavy Blossom." More
einslive.de: "Nicht wenige versuchen das Hobby zum Beruf zu machen. Bei Christoph Klimmt hat es geklappt. Von Berufswegen aus dreht sich bei ihm alles um Computerspiele und das auch noch unter dem Deckmantel der Wissenschaft. Der promovierte 30-Jährige ist einer der ersten Computerspiel-Forscher in Deutschland. "Game Studies" nennt sich die in Deutschland noch junge Disziplin. Geforscht wird am Institut für Journalistik und Kommunikationsforschung der Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover. Obwohl der Markt für Computerspiele immer größer wird, steht die Forschung noch ziemlich am Anfang. Und dabei geht es nicht nur um die Frage, inwieweit Spiele das soziale Verhalten der Spieler beeinflusst." Profesionelle Zockerei
audible.com: "After nine months of examining and analyzing U.S. military involvement in Iraq, the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group issued this report on Dec. 6, 2006.
The report calls the situation in Iraq "grave and deteriorating" and says, "There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved". The report makes a wide-ranging series of 79 recommendations for political, diplomatic, economic, and military action so the U.S. can "begin to move its combat forces" out of Iraq."
Note: to download from audible, an extra software the "audible download manager" is needed. The file format is "audible audiobook" (.aa). I am not shure if every mp3 player or media player can play this format, but iTunes can.
The Fountain is the latest movie of Darren Arronofky, director of Pi and Requiem for a Dream.
thefountainremixed.com: "Have you ever contemplated the idea of eternal life? Here's your chance to delve deeper, using content sourced directly from the upcoming movie "The Fountain". Get your work heard and seen by your peers and by the creators of this epic tale. Create a musical mashup using original tracks from Clint Mansell's soundtrack, visuals, imagery from the film, and whatever else springs to mind. Use any software you want to create your remix, upload your version, and view, rate, and comment on other's efforts. There's also an area where key players involved with the soundtrack will respond to questions.
Finally, our three favorite remixes will be included as a free download on the official site along with remixes by Clint Mansell and others." More
wnyc.org: "Online file-sharing is routinely blamed for the steady decay in record sales. But record companies are now starting to work with the same networks they’d previously been suing. Can the "if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em" strategy work? Today, we’ll talk with Mitchell Reitgut, a principle with advertising firm the Jun Group, and Eric Garland, founder and CEO of BigChampagne, a company that charts the top-swapped songs, about file-sharing as a marketing tool and what it means for music fans." Listen here
guardian.co.uk: "It's not a film, it's not a game and it's not a book ..." muses Kate Pullinger. Digital fiction is certainly a tricky beast to categorise, as Pullinger well knows. She is co-creator of an award-winning online multimedia novel, Inanimate Alice, which tells its story through a combination of photography, illustrations, video, music, animation, and narrative text overlaid on the visuals. "It's a kind of hybrid," is what she plumps for in the end, adding "I think that when a new form emerges, part of the problem is how to figure out what to call it, how to describe it - but what I do know is that I like to make it and people like to read it when they find out about it..." More
synestheticrecordings.com: "Five Dolls For An August Moon is the long awaited debut studio album from Norwegian drone- space- freak- psychedelic- noise-out- rock band DEL. Consisting of Kjell Runar "Killer" Jenssen, Lasse Marhaug and Per Gisle Galåen but for most recordings and gigs they are joined by various guests. Five Dolls For An August Moon features longtime almost-member Fredrik Ness Sevendal on guitar." 