Category: Creativity

With My Freeze-Ray I Will Watch A Video.

Just watched Dr. Horrible. (I dropped the $4 and got it on iTunes.) It was a good story. A tragedy. (Is that a spoiler? If I say it’s a tragedy?) I’m not a big Joss Whedon person so my expectations were not insanely inflated — despite the best attempts of the Inter Nets to inflate them.

It was a good little film, but that’s the end, right? It’s not going to be expanded, sequeled, spinoffed, and merchandised to death, right?

We can watch it, and maybe quote lines from it and laugh, and get on with our lives?

Or is it going to be a Thing?

Lilydale Tasmania’s Best Album

Man, have you heard the latest from Lilydale Tasmania? Go At It Anyway! is their best work yet.

Go At It Anyway!

Welcome to the Album Cover Meme…

Make your own!

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

You then take the pic and add text to it, then post your pic.

I got it from John Harper (who got it from Vincent) and Joe took it from me and posted his before I posted mine!

I might have to do another… it’s a ton of fun.

UPDATE: I did another.  It was a ton of fun.

I bring you, the debut album from Neunkirchen Saarland, “Day Expressed in M&Ms.”

That’s twice in a row I got a band name that was just the name of a town.  I was kind of hoping that I would be able to make a dark industrial album — Neunkirchen Saarland could have been the next Einsturnze Neubauten — but the album title and the image ruled that out.  I’m thinking something  acoustic with just a shade of euro-pop.

Day Expressed In M&Ms

Another Mashup: Jethro Tull vs. Deadeye Dick

newagehuntinggirl.mp3 is my latest effort.  I was going through my itunes stuff recording bpm’s using this little utility, and noticed that “Hunting Girl” by Tull and “New Age Girl (Mary Moon)” by Deadeye Dick had almost the same beat.  So I played around and got this little number.  It’s kinda pleasantly harmonious, especially compared to the creepy monstrosity which was my previous mashup effort.  None of Tull’s and very little of Dick’s lyrics survived; it’s mostly riffs and beats.

2007 Begins With A Silly Mashup

Depeche Mode vs Andrews Sisters I have to credit Joe for being enthusiastic about the concept of this; that enthusiasm led me through a failed initial attempt to this, which I consider a relative success. The quality is poor, because it’s got a nasty double-effect thing going on: I started out by stretching the tempo of the Depeche Mode (128bpm) to fit the Andrews Sisters (108bpm) in Audacity, and it was with those raw materials I created the song in Garageband. In the end it sounded kinda slow and ponderous, and I gave it a try speeding the final product back up to 128bpm in Audacity, and was much happier with it overall. That gives it a kind of unnecessary gritty edge, but I’m not going back and redoing it the faster way from scratch, so it’ll have to do.

Oh, yeah, this is “Master and Servant” by Depeche Mode mashed up with “Mr. Sandman, Bring me a Dream” by the Andrews Sisters. Master Sandman!

I have adopted the Nom du Mix “DJ EJ” and the album name “Bring the Wack” for the mp3 metadata. Enjoy!

And happy new year!

More Remix Fun (Sex Police, Kate Bush)

I’ve been going nuts with GarageBand lately.

In addition to the REM remix I blogged earlier, I mixed up the Sex Police, and then Kate Bush.

Sex Police Brutality

Frau Bartolozzi Gets Funky

I’m proud of the last one because I managed to avoid using any wacky effects, or making it go on too long, or ending up including almost all of the original song towards the end like I did on the other two.

But I did add a canned Apple beat to it, so you got to take the crunchy with the smooth I guess.