:: Hollow Earth Radio ::

Hellyeafuckyes! The Dodos are back with their second full-length album, “Visiter”! Think West African Ewe drumming meets blues fingerpicking meets tribal chants reminiscent of Akron/Family. Check it out if you know what’s good for you. They’ll be in Seattle on the 25th of June, playing with the OhSees at Neumos. Put on your friend hat- I’ll see you there!

<3 Jamie

Was it Avey Tare’s shrill screaming? Or was it Panda Bear’s frantic dancing?

Check out the video that’s scaring puppies all over the West:

Animal Collective: “Brother Sport” Live in Lyon, France 

A straightforward mashup/screw, 50 cent’s “In da club” with Lawrence Welk’s “Bubbles in the wine”. Pitched 50 down, and fudged a few things, and voila!

Bubb in da club

Forrest Baum (DJ Prizmatic) did the visual mashup (look closer!)

This is the other half to the project outlined in Ambers post below. I actually prefer the unwanted one. It can be found at ubuweb
“This survey confirms the hypothesis that today’s popular music indeed provides an accurate estimate of the wishes of the vox populi. The most favored ensemble, determined from a rating by participants of their favorite instruments in combination, comprises a moderately sized group (three to ten instruments) consisting of guitar, piano, saxophone, bass, drums, violin, cello, synthesizer, with low male and female vocals singing in rock/r&b style. The favorite lyrics narrate a love story, and the favorite listening circumstance is at home. The only feature in lyric subjects that occurs in both most wanted and unwanted categories is “intellectual stimulation.” Most participants desire music of moderate duration (approximately 5 minutes), moderate pitch range, moderate tempo, and moderate to loud volume, and display a profound dislike of the alternatives. If the survey provides an accurate analysis of these factors for the population, and assuming that the preference for each factor follows a Gaussian (i.e. bell-curve) distribution, the combination of these qualities, even to the point of sensory overload and stylistic discohesion, will result in a musical work that will be unavoidably and uncontrollably “liked” by 72 plus or minus 12% (standard deviation; Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic) of listeners.”

The Most Wanted Song

Russian conceptual artists recorded a song in the mid-1990s based on a survey of what the most hated kinds of music were. David Soldier, another conceptual artist based in NYC who also spearheaded the amazing Thai Elephant Orchestra, basically took the results from the survey and created a song that embodied all of the most despised elements of bad music. For instance, it was shown that people hated music about holidays, choirs, and kids singing. So there was a passage in the song that included a children’s chorus singing about Labor Day.

Here is an account of how Soldier created the song:

The most unwanted music is over 25 minutes long, veers wildly between loud and quiet sections, between fast and slow tempos, and features timbres of extremely high and low pitch, with each dichotomy presented in abrupt transition. The most unwanted orchestra was determined to be large, and features the accordion and bagpipe (which tie at 13% as the most unwanted instrument), banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ, synthesizer (the only instrument that appears in both the most wanted and most unwanted ensembles). An operatic soprano raps and sings atonal music, advertising jingles, political slogans, and “elevator” music, and a children’s choir sings jingles and holiday songs. The most unwanted subjects for lyrics are cowboys and holidays, and the most unwanted listening circumstances are involuntary exposure to commercials and elevator music. Therefore, it can be shown that if there is no covariance–someone who dislikes bagpipes is as likely to hate elevator music as someone who despises the organ, for example–fewer than 200 individuals of the world’s total population would enjoy this piece.

You can listen to the Most Unwanted Music here. Enjoy. (I actually like it, but then again, I am an accordion player.)

Yes, I’ve been known to read Perez Hilton from time to time, er, weekly, er, pretty much religiously. He pointed me towards the light with Riskay’s “Smell Yo Dick,” and so I’ve gotta keep going back for more treats like that. Here’s his latest recommendation:

The guy apparently didn’t know what kind of JACKPOT he was sitting on, or maybe I’m a little weird……..

There’s all kinds of bad instrumentals and acapellas, things like “X-tended euromix” etc. Ima go craaazy!

If i had time to learn another instrument, I mean ALOT of time, I would try out the zither.

These are the undisputed masters:

Ruth Welcome