#1 Music Recording of 2009 That You Can’t Buy

I have no business reviewing music. I gave up on keeping up with what’s hip in music when studio tricks took over for musical talent. Yeah, I’m an old fart. That said, a top 5 list written by Nathan Chase caught my attention because Chase’s #1 recording was a collection that you can’t get at Amazon or Wallmart or iTunes: Kutiman’s “ThruYOU” project.

I previously posted a blog entry about the ThruYou project after a friend sent me a link to the project on the same day that the Buzz Out Loud podcast crew commented on Jonathan Coulton’s blog post about the project. Like Coulton, my first impulse is to go on and on about the tour de force that this project represents and how it reveals how ridiculously broke copyright is. One track from the project, Wait For Me, has almost 140,000 views. After listening to the project I bought his commercially available CD, Escape Route, from Amazon (in DRM-free downloadable MP3 form). That’s one sale of a record that wouldn’t have happened had this artist posted his creation for free on YouTube. As Larry Lessig said in his TED presentation, this is not about taking someone else’s work and passing it off as ones own (piracy), but taking what has gone before and making something completely new: remix culture.

An excellent website has been created listing the Thru-YOU videos and all of the contributing videos: http://thru-you.org

Sources:

* My Top 5 Albums of 2009 – Tortoise, Muse, P.O.S., Mute Math, & Kutiman by Nathan Chase, http://nathanchase.com/2009/12/my-top-5-albums-of-2009-tortoise-muse-p-o-s-mute-math-kutiman/ retrieved 12/31/2009.

* YouTube video: Kutiman-Thru-you – 06 – Wait For Me by Kutiman, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i88CKr6Shn4 retrieved 12/31/2009.

* TED Talks: Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity by Larry Lessig, http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html retrieved on 12/31/2009

Share this Post[?]

Windows 7 Launch Party Spoofs

In honor of last week’s launch of Windows 7 we have the “bleeped” version of the lame instructional video. Amazing how much better it is with a few strategic beeps. And as if that weren’t enough, I’ve also included the CNET deconstructed version below and one of the latest PC/Mac ads. Enjoy!

Share this Post[?]

Google OS Announced Today, I Predicted it 3 Years Ago

In their official blog, Google announced Google Chrome OS. CNET’s Webware ask why, to which Google said “Why not.” Who cares, my Pepperdine friends and I predicted this back in Early 2006 with the following video commercial:



Support the artist: “Too Much Information” by the Police

Share this Post[?]

After 3 Year They Still Line up for Their iPhones

… But not nearly as crazy as the previous two years. To recap, last year Apple released a faster iPhone to take advantage of AT&T’s faster network (3g) and mega-podcaster, Leo Laporte did a 24-hour marathon run-up to the phone’s release. Before that, in year one, it seemed like the whole world was lining up three or more days early to get what some were calling the “Jesus phone.” And even though I’d sworn myself to wait until version two I couldn’t resist the gravitational pull, walked in after the lines died down that night and bought my iPhone (see my iPhone Unbox! Pls Sign Me Up for a 12-Step Gadget Program blog post. Good times. Funny, I miss hanging out in the lines of happy apple-fanboys, even when I wasn’t intending on buying anything. It was just fun to be there, catching the happy vibe. Sigh.
Read more

Share this Post[?]

Mother of All Funk Chords – Kutiman YouTube Remix

I know something is up when I get a link to the same artist from several completely different sources in one day. Earlier today fellow web-voyager, Linda, sent me a link with the subject line: “Interesting music videos.” Ah, understatement. I loaded the video off of the artists’ site and thought something was wrong ’cause it looked like YouTube but wasn’t. Than this afternoon said artist, Kutiman, was featured on CNET’s Buzz Out Loud podcast, after the crew saw this video posted in Jonathan Coulton’s blog. “What you are about to see,” says Kutiman on the ThruYou website, “is a mix of unrelated YouTube videos/clips edited together to create ThruYou. In other worlds – what you see is what you hear.

According to Coulton, Kutiman is an Israel musician who takes bits and pieces of unrelated musical instruction and amateur performance videos from YouTube and creates something really amazing. Here’s Kutiman explaining how he does it, followed by one of my favorites from his collection:
Read more

Share this Post[?]

The iPhone Hype Continues – Leo Does 24-Hour Marathon

One cool thing with this year’s iPhone release is that I can follow it live on the web, especially iPhone coverage by Leo Laporte on his TWiTlive stream. This year Leo decided to stay “on-the-air” for over 24-hours, beginning with the release of the iPhone in New Zealand around 1PM PST and ending with the Hawaii release. The comparisons with Jerry Lewis’ famed telethons have been abundant. Thank god it’s been very much a dialogue and not a monologue with TWiT favorites Tom Merrit, Cali Lewis, Andy Ihnatko, Amber MacArthur, and Alex Lindsey and Apple Co-founder Steve Wazniak. As if additional buzz was needed, Leo has been giving away iPhone 3Gs which were donated by Audible.com. Thus there have been a few “give me an iPhone” videos such as the following:

Leo’s Kids – A TWiT Charitable Effort from Nick S on Vimeo.

Leo’s own ad for the 24-hour coverage:

I’m thinking that I’ll probably swing by the local Apple Store sometime over the weekend. And the hype continues. jbb

Technorati Tags: ambermacarthur, apple, applehardware, calilewis, CNET, geekbrief, iphone, leolaporte, media, techtoys, video

Share this Post[?]