Maybe some of you have seen the video below maybe some of you haven’t but give it a quick watch.

Many things point to this being a fake, mainly the fact that tv.google.com goes nowhere. None the less it is a nice fake. Toward the end of the video in small print is a weblink. fatalfarm.com Fatal farm makes mention of the video series and makes some excuses for the “tutorials” not working. There are a few other videos in the series, all pretty ridiculous. Gizmodo got their hands on the story and the internet army began hammering the gmail servers trying to see if it works. Of course no one has proof of it working until this video pops up on Youtube.

The fatal farm website makes mention of two people Zachary Johnson, which looks slightly like Mark Erickson, and Jeffery Max whose picture slightly resembles the guy in the second video. Jeffery however has a blog. http://jeffreymax.blogspot.com/ On his blog around the 5th post down is a post about him being a professional picture ruiner for hire. That photo shows his likeness pretty well matching the guy in the second Youtube video.

It’s funny that two guys and some video equipment had hundreds if not thousands of people signing in and out of their Gmail accounts most of the day.

Kudos!

I came across this brilliant deconstruction of Hip-hop and Techno music’s use of a particular break beat. It is titled the Amen Break which was originally sampled from the Winston’s song “Amen, Brother”. If you have 18 minutes to spare and are really into music then take a listen.

So I saw Children of Men. For those of you not familiar with it here is a quick summary (spoilers). Children of Men is a dystopian christian parable directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu Mama Tambien). It opens in London in the year 2027 with a totalitarian gov’t running london as one of the last surviving nation states. The women have become infertile and no child has been born on earth in 18 years. The Main character Theo (Clive Owen) is a former political activist who by chance is the ex of the current leader of one of the underground political rebellions. He is forced into escorting a woman, who is pregnant, to a rendezvous with a ship aptly called the “Tomorrow”. Julian Moore plays the leader of the rebellion but alas is killed off rather early when the rebellion turns on her in order to take the woman and use her or her unborn baby as a political bargaining tool. Theo has one true friend in this strange existence, which is Jasper (Michael Caine). Jasper helps Theo and the woman escape from the rebelion and make it to Bexhill in order to meet the ship. Bexhill is a quarantined city which is a giant prison, they get there and the baby is born and they make there way through the war that ensues around them with the baby to the ocean on a small ship in order to meet the “Tomorrow”.

First off, Michael Caine is brilliant in the role of Jasper and he is one of the more interesting characters in the movie. I hope to see Caine nominated for best supporting actor for this role. The cinematography was great, Cuarón has left the rails and tripods at home as it seems the entire movie is shot with a steady cam. Some shots lasting much longer than most traditional shots in movies these days. It made me a little dizzy at times but it was beautifully done. The cast was good, there was no lack of talent amongst any of the actors. That being said, I wasn’t all that impressed by the movie as a whole.

I understand it as a Christian parable, with the neo-nativity going on. I understand the social commentary that the movie made about race, nationality and fear. I even liked the reference to the over the counter suicide pill called “Quietus”, which could be seen as “Quiet us” or as a reference to Hamlets “To Be or Not to be” soliloquy. Act 3 Scene 1 Line 83 “When he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?” in which Hamlet is considering suicide as a resolution to his internal conflict. Nevertheless when the credits rolled I was not wowed.

I’m not entirely sure what it is. Maybe it’s the way the symbols beat you over the head throughout the movie. Maybe it’s the way the camera moved or maybe it’s my personal disassociation with the story.

I recommend to anyone to see it, as it will undoubtedly be one of the best movies this year. Go make your own judgments. It is a fine film but it did not live up to the hype for me. To tell you the truth it has been a long time since I was truly impressed by a film.

The Bush administration is not so quietly asking U.S. Attorneys to resign. Most of these attorneys are pursuing public corruption cases. Even better than that, an addendum to the patriot act enables the Attorney General to nominate an interim attorney for an indefinite period without a senate hearing. Below is Senator Feinstein’s (D-CA) summation on this and information on a bill introduced to remove this power.

iPhone…HAWT!!!

I recently put on The Rapture album Echoes and I thought to myself, “that would be really cool”. The “That” being the idea of a Techno band, a true band. Five people on stage playing Techno music with instruments. I’ve been to plenty of live Techno shows and it’s usually two guys with some gear and a powerbook. I would love to see a drummer with one of those really fancy electronic drum kits, a guitarist, bassist and two keyboard players on stage making the club dance. Feel free to throw in that sexy girl with the whispery vocals for good measure. I’m a sucker for that every time. Imagine a hacienda type club pulsing at the pace of 5 people on a stage rather than one person behind the tables. If it is already out there, please let me know.

A few days ago I came across this YouTube video from a girl named Mia. She’s a singer and has a small library of videos of her singing popular songs. She recently posted a video of her own song. Take a quick look…

Why is this important you ask? Well it’s not the song or her singing ability or anything of the sort. The important thing is what happened after her video made it to the most viewed list on YouTube. A drummer saw the video and decided to add a drum track to the song she wrote. He recorded himself playing along to the track, then cut the two videos together and reposted it on YouTube.

If that isn’t enough for you. Yet another user added a bass line. However he used a still of him rather than making a video. Nonetheless this is now an odd collaborative effort.

Three musicians that do not know each other recorded a song together. This is one of the most interesting uses of YouTube I’ve ever seen. I hope to see a keyboard player or another guitar added in the coming days. The Postal Service recorded and album via the mail, sending cd-r’s back and forth. Why not YouTube? Audio quality aside, it could be an interesting way to make music.

Does your band need a record label? Absolutely not but possibly maybe. You can make your own records and sell them online and at shows even get yourself in music services like iTunes without too much effort. some quick google searches will probably give you most of the things your looking for. But not everyone is “Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah”. How far will you get? Do you know a graphic artist? How ’bout a web designer? If you have and know how to do everything, go for it, you don’t need a label. If you don’t that is were the new definition of label is coming into play.

The new label is more of a service, they help you design your album cover. Help you get things recorded properly and mastered. Help with the website and get everything done so you see your album on iTunes and amazon as well. Thats what the new label should be. Here’s the problem with having a label though, MONEY. Who pays for what, who gets what, how long before we’re famous. Chances are the fame you’re looking for will never come but you’ll leave a legacy along the way. Chances are there will be little money to fight about. Despite all that, chances are you will have an audience that digs what you do. Which is more important in my opinion.

Nonetheless here is a breakdown of money and the such when it comes to the indie music biz. First physical sales from a retailer like amazon. I release an album and give a price point of 12 dollars. Half goes to the distributor without question. I mean there are logistical fees and retail fees and the such. Everyone needs to make money. So I see about 5-6 dollars per album sale. Of that half goes to the Band and half to me. I take half to cover costs and for future investment in other albums. I’m definitely not getting rich. So that 12 dollar album only gives the band about 2-3 dollars. Sometimes less depending on how much is spent on promotion and packaging.

Download service wise emusic is the best to work with but iTunes is the most profitable. Simply because the iTunes music store is such a giant an there are so many iPods out there. We get approximately 16 cents per track from emusic and about 55 cents from iTunes. Other services (rhapsody, napster) only give us about a penny or a fraction thereof depending on the service.

Then there is torrents and P2P, you make more fans. You get your music to more people, People sharing your music is a good thing, it will hopefully get more of them to a show. You might lose the 2-3 dollars on an album but you’ll get them when you’re at the club and they showed up hopefully.

It’s not easy and it’s not as fun as you might think. It’s actually a lot of work and time. Nonetheless it’s apart of the history, albeit a small part, it’s still a part of it.

Probably the best TV show I’ve seen in a long time despite it being about six years old is Spaced. If your a fan of Shawn of the Dead then you’ll love Spaced. It comes from the same director (Edgar Wright) and Written by Jessica Stevenson and Simon Pegg. The story revolves around two people who need to find a new place to live. Tim, played by Simon Pegg, was thrown out of his girlfriends flat after the end of their 5 year relationship and Daisy, Played by Jessica, needs to move out of a house she was squatting at after sleeping with one of the guys there while her boyfriend was at university. The two meet and decide to pretend to be a couple after finding a flat in their price range that stated “Professional Couples Only”. So they pull an homage to the movie GreenCard and fake a relationship to get the flat.

The series tips its hat to a number of film classics and makes a number of pop culture references. Such wonderful execution of nerdery takes place in the series. Quite often Star Wars and other sci-fi movies are mentioned.

What is particularly interesting about this series is that it is shot like a film. Single camera setups and some odd conventions like dutch angles and camera whips are employed to give the series a bit more of a comical feel but manages to pull it off without being too campy. If you find the visual style appealing in Shawn of the Dead then you can see how it evolved from Spaced.

The unfortunate thing about this series is there are only two seasons. Both of which only consist of 7 episodes. It really leaves you wanting more. There is speculative rumor of a third season coming out but I wouldn’t hold my breathe. The other thing that is particularly problematic is that the DVD is only available in region 2 encoding so your standard U.S. DVD player will choke on it. So what is one to do? I found the first two episodes on Google Video for you to enjoy. It’s up to you to get the rest.

Season 1 Episode 1 – “Beginnings”

Season 1 Episode 2 – “Gatherings”