Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Nerd News in Brief

You know it's a good week when the geekiest music news is coming from well outside of our little community!

Personally, I love Danger Mouse's idea to release his next album as a blank CD-R. It's a big "fuck you" to EMI and a well-placed warning shot across the bow of a sinking industry. Plus, the novelty of it is nothing short of delicious.

The pay-what-you-want business model is still an unsure bet, but, by packaging the album's visual narrative in the commercial release, DM is making sure that folks get something for their money. In the end, I'll be interested to see how many folks shell out for the album simply as a show of solidarity.
  • Change is Good: Church wanted me to remind you that if you're gonna change, change into something awesome.
  • The Doctor is In: Also from Church comes a link to this amazing chiptune WhoMix. Complete with video.
  • Boldly Go: Wasn't the new Star Trek kick-ass? Apparently it was even remarkable enough to continue to inspire the voice of fandom. In very unlikely ways.
  • Tucks His T-shirt Into His Pants: MisterB has just released a song about none other than Nerdapalooza founder Hex Warrior. As you can imagine, it's pretty hilarious.
  • Insert Name Here: And speaking of Hex, I've been informed that the Nerdapalooza crew has set up a travel fund to help in-demand artists get down to Orlando for this year's festival. Interestingly enough, this fundraiser will consist of a raffle competition, the rewards of which include a dinner date for two at a local restaurant and ample geeky merchandise donated by supporting artists, groups and organizations. Raffle tickets cost $10 for your first chance and $5 for each additional ticket, and the drawing will be held, not surprisingly, at Nerdapalooza. Details are sketchy at present, but I'll be providing links to relevant info in the near future.
  • The Future Soon: The epic Jonathan Coulton concert experience can now be, uh, experienced by everyone thanks to his new CD/DVD combo release BEST. CONCERT. EVER. This bad boy is available for pre-sale right now, so head to JoCo's site for full details.
  • Where's Waldo?: The mystery of Steffo's disappearance – or, rather, the mystery of what the great blue fuck is going on with My Parents' Favorite Music – deepened last week at Game Music For All. There are still more questions than answers, but now I'm pretty sure that Steffen, via his time-travelling shenanigans, accidentally created The Adventures of Lolo. Also, he's his own grandpa.
  • New Game in Town: And speaking of music of the gamer persuasion, there's a new VGM remix site on the block. RemixSite is a place "for video game music synergy" where artists can share their work with the world and get valuable feedback from their fellow composers. Peep the new hotness.
  • The 1 and Only: And on the subject of new hotness, there are a metric ton of amazing new releases from the nerdy hip-hop meta-community. The first is from my FLA-based brother Epic-1. It's his long-awaited full-length simply entitled 1, and it's available as a physical CD, 320kbs MP3 and FLAC file downloads for $10, MP3 and FLAC downloads for $5 and 128kbs MP3s for a buck. Get on that shit!
  • He Got It: From the land down under comes The Ranger's new EP Evolution, a release that "kinda sums up [his] life over the last 10 years." And apparently the last decade has been simply fucking amazing. Musically-speaking, at least. Grab this one from RT ASAP.
  • The Language of the Snake: KABUTO THE PYTHON's Scrub Club release PARSELTONGUE is also fresh off the virtual press. His full-length features a few joints you've heard and a whole lot you haven't, but you can be goddamn sure that all of it is gold! Head over to your favorite nerdcore label to snag it.
  • Level Up: And lest we forget that your boy Random has also dropped his new freebie TeacherRapperHero, his first foray into the realm of the mixtape. Featuring Burg, ZeaLouS1 and tons of other top-shelf talent, it's more of Ran at his best. Hit up his spiffy new site for the DL link.
  • Alive and Zombified: Thanks to Luzid for passing on an email he received from Eventful stating that ZeaLouS1 has a new gig lined up this summer. On Friday, July 24, he'll be hitting the stage at The Jumping Turtle in San Marcos. Z1's been quieter than usual lately, so it's great to hear him once again stirring from his California crypt.
  • The Battle Rages On: Also on the horizon is the premiere of a new video from Uncle Monsterface. UMF will unveil the vid for "Mashed Potato vs. Vampire" at The Tank in NY on June 6! Of course the band will also be playing their other epic songs all live and stuff, so come for the video and stay for the sock puppets.
  • This Diminutive Robot Stores Information: Help MC Lars pick the next single from This Gigantic Robot Kills and win a free 1 gig USB memory stick. That looks like a robot! 'Cause Lars is cool like that.
  • Roots: Earlier this month, Lars popped up at the Musical Families blog to answer some questions about how his own mom and pop influenced his musical development. It's a great piece from a really fun blog, and I highly recommend you give it a look.
  • Beware Canadia: Jesse Dangerously was profiled last week in the Ottawa Citizen. And while Ottawa may not yet love him as much as his native Halifax, it looks like they are coming around.
  • Join the Fight: Chicago chip rockers I Fight Dragons are actively recruiting fans to help them spread their musical message… even though they aren't entirely certain what that entails. Still, it's a good cause and they're a great band, so sign up already!
  • My Neck of the Woods: Any of my regional brothers and sisters looking to get their opensource on should hit up next month's SouthEast LinuxFest in Clemson, SC. It is important to note that my bro int eighty of Dual Core will be rocking the after party. So guess who else will be there? Yep; me.
  • Mad Skillz: Taking us out is the very same int eighty from episode 513 of Revision3's tech super-show Hak5. Hackers and code monkeys will enjoy watching eighty extract Windows executables from packet captures, but the rest of us will simply skip to the 30:20 mark to hear him perform a preview track from Dual Core's forthcoming (and as yet unnamed) album. Technology is a beautiful thing.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

on that lars vote, vote for OG Original Gamer. I'll spill a secret in this comment wall, chances are, I'm directing the video in July (nerdapalooza) and taht would be MY preference. This voting system worries me ... I'm afraid I'll end up with a song that doesn't translate well to video. Oh well.
Let's keep this 'secret' on this wall, mmk.

Unknown said...

Hey Z, actually the fundraiser is independent of Nerdapalooza, Saiyrus (Lo Tech now), and I are actually working on it. the goal is the same either way though =]

Thanks a ton for the plug!

Anthony said...

haha whoops. This is anthony, I accidentally posted under "letters" which is the letters vs numbers account.

Anthony said...

haha ALSO the link to the fund proper is
http://gamemusic4all.com/npfund

Ace, Lo Tech said...

Thanks a lot for the mention of the fundraiser! I hope it grows and means a lot for the nerdcore community! :)

-Lo Tech!

Anonymous said...

If anyone give me a beat, I will sing an operatic theme tune for them.

Anonymous said...

thanks for the kind words

Z. said...

That certainly adds a wrinkle to things, nYg! An interesting wrinkle at that.

Oh, Any, you know I consider you part of the Nerdapalooza team. :)

No prob, Lo Tech. I'll get a proper post about it up mid-week.

I'll get right on that, MisterB.

Glad to do it, Ranger. Still loving Evolution!

Unknown said...

Hi,

Great site. I found it through a link in the remixSite referrer logs.

I had to point out that Star Trek is now rated the 83rd best movie of all time, according to IMdb, which, in my opinion, is rightly deserved. Everything about that movie, from the acting to the special effects to the storyline was top-notch. I was disappointed, though, that I couldn't see it in IMAX. Since this movie sold more IMAX tickets than any other, they should be expanding their theaters to be closer to people who don't live near major cities.

-Steve

Z. said...

Hey, Steve. Glad to know that remixSite got a little traffic from over here! Sadly, I live in an IMAXless area myself. I would've love to've seen the Kirk/Sulu fight seen on that big-ass screen. :)