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A song for Valentine’s Day: Hitman’s Lovesong by The Freak Fandango Orchestra

February 14, 2012 No comments

The Freak Fandango Orchestra is one of many bands I have discovered on Jamendo over the past few years. They also have an entry on Last.fm, which claims:

The Freak Fandango Orchestra is a multi-ethnic band from Barcelona. Their music is a explosive mixture of folk, polka, gypsy music from the Balkans and punk-rock. The band is composed by musicians with lots of different instruments (guitar, bass, drums, violin, saxophone, accordion and trumpet). They are influenced by artists like Emir Kusturica And The No Smoking Orchestra, Goran Bregovic and Gogol Bordello.

They certainly have a mood-liftingly cheerful sound and an infectious sense of humour. Have a listen to Hitman’s Lovesong to see what I mean. The version embedded here features Paola Graziano.

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This week I have been mostly listening to The Dark Clan

January 21, 2012 No comments

In terms of genre, The Dark Clan are all over the place. Personally, I think this is great but it does make it a little difficult to sum them up, so I shall leave that to Last.fm:

The Dark Clan is a heartbreakingly sincere, over-the-top, genre-bending good time. The music of The Dark Clan is filled with big pop hooks, big fat beats, big vocal harmonies, big guitar solos, and big serious fun.

I first heard about them by way of the Rathole Radio podcast and, on checking their Bandcamp page, discovered that they have a free sampler available. I downloaded it, have been listening to it for most of the week, and am liking it so much that I expect to be splashing out on one of their other albums in the very near future.

(Man With a) Clockwork Heart is still, for me, the high point of their musical output so far but I can’t help feeling that I should go back and listen to Goals again every time I start a new job, or embark on a new (work-related) project.

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Audio

And, we’re back

January 18, 2012 No comments

And, for the last word on SOPA, here’s a copyright infringing YouTube video that I found via Nina Paley.

The Day the LOLcats died

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Audio, Censorship, Copyright, Corporate Insanity, Digital, Liberties, Video, Web , ,

The pseudoscience of Blue Monday

January 16, 2012 No comments

Every year, it seems, some fool in the press reprints a story about the third Monday of January being the most depressing day of the year. I’ve seen a couple of stories referencing this today but, more hearteningly, I also saw Dr Dean Burnett’s blistering response in The Guardian.

This silly claim comes from a ludicrous equation that calculates “debt”, “motivation”, “weather”, “need to take action” and other arbitrary variables that are impossible to quantify and largely incompatible.

The equation, which was dreamt up by Dr Cliff Arnall (not a Cardiff University psychologist) for a travel firm is meaningless. Fine, if it was just a bit of harmless fun – or an excuse to post a YouTube video – but Dr Burnett does raise a good point:

I believe strongly that pseudoscience (like this equation) regularly presented as genuine science in the mainstream media harms the public understanding of science and psychology.

The rest of the article is well worth a read but first… Here’s a video.

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Audio, Social Sciences none

StarShipSofa has a little sister: Tales To Terrify

January 13, 2012 No comments

Launching, appropriately enough, on Friday 13th (hey, that’s today!) is a new horror podcast called Tales To Terrify. Normally this is a bit of news that would pretty much pass me by – I am already badly behind on my podcast listening, and horror is a genre that I have found myself reading a lot less of in recent years.

However, in this case I shall be making an exception and plugging it into my podcatcher just as soon as I get home. The reason: Tales To Terrify is a sister podcast to the ever-reliable (and award winning) StarShipSofa. When I subscribed to Black Static magazine, a few years ago, I did so entirely because it came from the same publisher as Interzone. This bit of randomness proved to be very successful for me and, in the case, of Tales of Terror, the risk is even lower.

I have a second reason for subscribing immediately. Lawrence Santoro. Again, if you have listened to the StarShipSofa for any length of time, you will have heard Larry’s name bandied around and you will probably have some sense of just how good a writer he is. Larry’s involvement certainly raises my expectations for this podcast.

And finally, the podcast is promising scary character driven horror and I’m in.

Enjoy the rest of your Friday 13th – I certainly intend to.

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A Song For Christmas

November 25, 2011 No comments

White Wine in the Sun, because Tim Minchin is an Australian.

Via Pharyngula

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Audio, Video

This week I have been mostly listening to Tequila Mockingbird

August 5, 2011 No comments

According to their Jamendo Page:

Denver-based band Tequila Mockingbird serves up a huge shot of genre-bending rock. Since 1996, their infectious repertoire of original, catchy tunes steeped in American roots music has been delighting audiences across the Rocky Mountain Region, proving they’ve got the drive, endurance, talent and stamina worthy of acclaim.

I can certainly agree with that. They have two albums on Jamendo, Alien-American and UFO and both are superb collections of infectiously catchy rock songs. So when I realised that they had another album, Luck and Trouble out on CD Baby, I ordered it immediately.

Check them out – you won’t regret it.

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Audio

Juxtaposition

July 15, 2011 No comments

It is a complete coincidence that I happened to be listening to this song when I saw the news that Rebekah Brooks has failed to cling to her job.

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Audio, Politics, Privacy none

StarShipSofa No 191 Michael Moorcock

May 31, 2011 No comments

StarShipSofa 191 is an end of the month edition – which means all new cover art. And one look at the cover has me rushing to start gPodder. This is promising to be a very good show indeed.

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Audio

Happy Towel Day!

May 25, 2011 No comments

Towel Day is an annual celebrationand a tribute to the late author Douglas Adams. On that day, fans around the universe proudly carry a towel in his honour.

Do you know where your towel is?

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Audio, Culture, Print, Video ,
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