UK musician Dan Bull's musical open letter to Lily Allen

UK musician Dan Bull's musical open letter to Lily Allen, after she made comments earlier this week about how filesharing is detroying the music industry. Great stuff. Pass it on.

“I’ve also tried to outline some of the main moral arguments for filesharing in the lyrics. Hope you enjoy..”

The Ramones - I wanna be sedated

.. Such a simple, catchy little punk pop anthem. Two and a half minutes of awesome.

Rock and rolled: thieves busted for bizarre online music racket

An International fraud in which a gang allegedly made thousands of dollars downloading its own songs from online music stores with stolen credit cards has been cracked by London police and the FBI.

The gang is alleged to have made several songs which they gave to an online US company, which uploaded them to be sold on iTunes and Amazon.

Over five months they bought the songs thousands of times, spending about $US750,000 on 1500 stolen US and British credit cards, according to the Met.

The criminal network also allegedly reaped the royalties from the tracks, pulling in an estimated $US300,000, paid by the two sites, which were unaware of the fraud. Seven men and three women are being held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering.

Scotland Yard said the arrests were the result of a parallel investigation with the FBI that began in February.

"It was established that between September 2008 and January 2009 a British criminal network provided music via an online US company who uploaded the tracks to Apple iTunes and Amazon.com for sale," it said. "This is a significant case for the e-crime unit, which was set up 12 months ago.

"The unit has been set up to provide a point of expertise and a national and international response to online crime. The nature of online crime means the unit are actively developing cross-border partnerships both with other international crime agencies and businesses."

Detective Chief Inspector Terry Wilson, of the e-crime unit, said: "This has been a complex investigation to establish what we believe to be an international conspiracy to defraud Apple and Amazon. It shows the success that can be achieved through our close working relationship with the FBI.

"We are now making it more risky for criminals who seek to exploit the internet and commit e-crime across national borders. We are working hard through partnership with industry and law enforcement to combat e-crime and are committed to pursuing those responsible."

Grandaddy - Nature Anthem

Slap all your troubles away..

.. with the Slap Chop



.. and Rap Chop, the brilliant remix:

Fast Food Folk Song (at the Taco Bell Drive-Thru)

Thanks to Chris for sending this one through.. love it.

MGMT - Electric feel

Catchy song, cool clip. Been a while since I've been to one of these parties unfortunately.

Panda Bear ~ Bros

.. I'm really loving this album at the moment. Check it out if you like droney 60's inspired psychedelic folk pop. I know i do.

Super Furry Animals ~ Golden Retriever

.. a great song from a great band.

Paul Gilbert - Scarified

.. great song, & what could be better than rocking out in spacesuits?

Paul Gilbert also has a great taste in shirts

.. Awesomeness.

Rodrigo y Gabriela

.. (thanks Grace)

Greenhouses new pig-thru-brain look headphones

What could be possibly said about these that they don't say themselves?
.. amazing. I think the pink ones would definitely be the way to go. Black is for the heavy-metal fans out there, white for the weirdo girl in your life.

.. Product page

Beatles may rile aliens

SCIENTISTS have warned that transmitting songs into deep space could put the Earth at risk of an alien attack.

They voiced fears that advertising humanity's place in the universe – as happened last week when NASA broadcast a Beatles song towards the North Star – could attract the attention of aliens who are less friendly than ET.

"Before sending out even symbolic messages, we need an open discussion about the potential risks," Dr Douglas Vakoch, of the SETI Institute told New Scientist magazine.
SETI – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – plans more broadcasts from its base in Mountain View, California. For the past 20 years, it has used radio telescopes to scan for alien radio messages.

Now, they say, we should be actively sending out friendly signals to the stars. "SETI's big mistake is that it's relying on ET to do all the heavy lifting," said Dr Richard Gott, an astrophysicist from Princeton University.

Barrie Jones, an astronomer with the Open University, said there was an "unofficial embargo" about alerting potentially unfriendly species. "The chances are slight, but the consequences would be huge – the end of life on Earth," he said.

"If they have the technology to cross interstellar space to reach us, they will be so much in advance of us humans that there is nothing we could do to resist them."

However, other astrophysicists point out that humanity has been advertising itself to neighbouring stars since the first commercial radio transmissions of the 1920s. By now, those early broadcasts will have travelled nearly 90 light years – some 540 trillion miles. And at least one physicist at SETI is confident that "first contact" will be more like Steven Spielberg's friendly encounter in ET and less like Ridley Scott's horrifying Alien.

Dr Seth Shostak said that if there are extraterrestrials listening out for us, they will have already had plenty of experience of Earth's culture. He is sanguine about the possibility of unfriendly attention, saying: "It's quite paranoid, given that the one thing we know about aliens – if they do exist – is that they are very, very far away.

"Military radar signals have already penetrated deep into space and early broadcasts of Star Trek and I Love Lucy are washing over one star system a day. "If they're listening, they already know we are here."

from news.com.au

The Wombats - Kill The Director

I've just started to listen to my favourite Australian radio station, triplej again over the net and this was the first song that played last night. Quite good, I likey likey. Malaysia radio appears to be all top 40 stuff unfortunately.

The Breeders ~ 'Saints'

oh i'd forgotten how much i love this song :)

The Chemical Brothers - The Salmon Dance

Chemical Brothers: Let Forever Be

iPhone musicians

A trio of tabletop musicians have turned their gadget lust into an art form, using two iPhones and an iPod Touch to form the "iBand".

The three art students from Vienna in Austria have eschewed roadies and regular instruments in favour of custom music applications loaded on to the touch-screen gizmos from Apple.

Seb, 24, is the drummer, Roger, 25, is on bass and guitar while Marina, 26, is the vocalist and pianist. They declined to give their surnames for privacy reasons.

The iBand's first video, uploaded to YouTube two weeks ago as a demonstration of what could be done with new music applications, jumped from 20,000 to 300,000 views within the first three days.

After spreading virally across the internet and being linked to on various gadget blogs, the clip now has just over two million views.

The band's first real song, Life is greater than the internet, appeared on YouTube six days ago and has attracted over 60,000 views so far.

"Of all possible things you can do with a mobile phone, what could be more meaningful than to create music," Seb said in an email interview.

"We have been thinking about forming a band that would only use iPhones as musical instruments for a long time now, since the possibilities of the iPhone as a programmable, customisable platform became obvious with the first wave of third-party applications."

The custom music applications, which are unauthorised by Apple but can be used after performing a simple software hack, are called MooCowMusic Pianist, MooCowMusic Drummer and PocketGuitar.

Buttons displayed on the touch screens correspond to different sounds, allowing the band to emulate a range of real musical instruments. All three band members play conventional instruments but decided to form the iBand to "create a new type of sound".

"To use the iPhone as a musical instrument isn't about getting a technically perfect song together," said Seb.

"It has very innovative input methods, but we could also use any sort of synthesizer and full band equipment; with today's technology there are no limitations."

To create their music, the iBand connects the iPhones and iPod Touch to a mixing table, which is in turn connected to a regular stereo hifi system so the trio can hear what they're playing. Everything is recorded and mixed live, except for vocals which are added afterwards.

The band plans to continue churning out tracks but Seb insists they are more than just gadget freaks having fun. He said the iBand's first song seeks to express the message that real life is just as important as virtual life.

The track is available as a free download from the iBand website and the band is asking those who like it to donate through PayPal.

"It seems that many people are sucked into the black hole of the web too deeply, losing their idea of what life can really be," Seb said.

"We think that although the internet comprises the possibility to lose oneself within it, the technical developments of our world can also be used to realise the potential of oneself and the life that is given to every one of us; to realise that there is something higher to be sought and found in life."

.. from smh

Was (Not Was) - Walk The Dinosaur

Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom
Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom

Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom
Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom

Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom
Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom

It was a night like this forty million years ago
I lit a cigarette, picked up a monkey, start to go
The sun was spitting fire, the sky was blue as ice
I felt a little tired, so I watched 'Miami Vice'

I walked a dinosaur, I walked a dinosaur

Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur

Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur

Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom
Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom

I met you in a cave, you were painting buffalo
I said I'd be your slave, follow wherever you go
That night we split a rattlesnake and danced beneath the stars
You fell asleep, I stayed awake and watched the passing cars

I walked a dinosaur, I walked a dinosaur

Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur

Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur

One night I dreamed of New York
You and I roasting blue pork
In the Statue of Liberty's torch

Elvis landed in a rocket, rocket, rocket ship
Healed a couple of leapers and disappeared
But where was his beard

A shadow from the sky, much too big to be a bird
A screaming, crashing noise louder than I've ever heard
It looked like two big silver trees that somehow learned to soar
Suddenly a summer breeze and a mighty lion's roar

I killed a dinosaur, I killed a dinosaur

Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody kill the dinosaur
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody kill the dinosaur

Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody kill the dinosaur
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody kill the dinosaur

Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody kill the dinosaur
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody kill the dinosaur

Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody kill the dinosaur
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody kill the dinosaur

Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom
Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom

Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom
Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom

Boom boom acka lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka lacko boom boom

.. read the Was (Not Was) entry on Wikipedia

Mr Bungle ~ Air-conditioned nightmare

I've seen these guys in concert a couple of times over the years. Always amazing, always unexpected. Mike Patton is an amazing vocalist.