Here’s clip from the BBC featuring The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain performing the Theme From Shaft by Isaac Hayes live at the Cambridge Folk Festival 2007.

via Neatorama

guest post by Doctor Popular

I dare you to listen to Xoc’s newest album without smiling. If the retro game nostalgia doesn’t get you, the quirky melodies and funky instrumentation surely will. The Beginning of the End, the album’s title track, is an 18 minute long medley featuring over 100 classic video games songs. That’s right, 100 songs from over 80 games, in under 20 minutes. The album also includes each song in the medley as it’s own mp3 track. Put it on shuffle and play “Name that Game” during a lull at your next party.

You may remember Xoc’s NESpaul, a guitar built from an original Nintendo Entertainment System, or maybe you’ve heard his live recordings of the entire soundtrack to Super Mario Brothers 3, but The Beginning of the End is his most ambitious project yet. 4 years in the making, TBOTE uses a wide variety of instruments, including theremin, toy piano, Casio Sk-1, guitars, and drums. It’s a slick mix of adolescent memories and lo-fi pop. Think Metriod meets Neutral Milk Hotel.

The Beginning of the End is available as a $5 download from Concatenation’s site.
For more info on TBOTE, check out my full interview with Xoc on DrownRadio.com or check out his Myspace.

photo via Concatenation Records

guest post by Aaron Muszalski

After suffering a predicatably soulless remake starring Nicolas Cage in 2006, the beloved 1973 cult horror film The Wicker Man was ripe for a more entertaining adaptation.

That adaptation arrives this week, in the form of The Wicker Man: A Rock Opera About The Ultimate Sacrifice. Created by notorious San Francisco underground theater artists, Cameron Eng and Sean Owens, as part of their series of “Foul Plays”, The Wicker Man stars Flynn DeMarco, Steffanos X and Maura Sipila, and features an original music score by Jim Fourniadis and LIVE EVIL. Also keep an eye out for Laughing Squid guestblogger (and Man Of 1,003 Faces) Mikl-em, who performs in several roles.

April showers bring the sanctimonious Sergeant Howie a mysterious letter concerning a missing girl from Summerisle, the tiny pagan island commune renowned for its bountiful produce and unabashed holy day rituals. His investigation of the restless natives proves as fruitless as last year’s crops, though; and the bizarre inhabitants only serve to add fuel to the flames of his righteous indignation. Driven to save the girl’s immortal soul from this den of idolaters, he discovers the truth behind the girl’s disappearance—that come May Day, the villagers intend to sacrifice her to their gods of the field to ensure a successful harvest. Howie must infiltrate their festivities, find the girl and escape—but will his plan put him out of the frying pan and into the fire?

The Wicker Man: A Rock Opera About The Ultimate Sacrifice opens this Thursday, October 2nd at The Dark Room. It runs through October 25th.

photo by Geof Teague

The Get Connected Summit (GCS), an annual conference focusing on electronic music, media, technology and culture takes place this Thursday, October 2nd and Friday, October 3rd at Pyramind in San Francisco. Here’s the full schedule and registration information.

guest post by RICK!

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2008 is October 3, 4 and 5th in Golden Gate Park (PDF). Warren Hellman, famed investment banker and amateur banjo player, gifts San Francisco every year with a concert billed with some of greatest acoustic performers in the country. This year’s lineup (PDF) includes notable bands: Elvis Costello High Whines & Spirits, Gogol Bordello, Nick Lowe, Iron & Wine, The Waybacks, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Loundon Wainwright III, Ben Kweller, Robert Plant with Alison Krauss, MC Hammer (you heard me.), and of course Warren’s band The Wronglers.

Also, I’ll be a volunteer coordinator at this year’s event, and our Green Team could use some help on monitoring recycling and composting bins. All volunteers get traning, a box lunch, a staff shirt and karma points for helping out a completely free festival created out of a simple love of music. Email volunteer@hardlystrictlybluegrass.com if you’re interested in pitching in.

Jamie Wilkinson has compiled Meme Breaks 1.0 featuring some of Internet’s most famous audio samples in a handy DJ-friendly format.

Here’s a demo of it in action using the instrumental from “Respiration” by Black Star.

“You’re No One If You’re Not On Twitter” by Ben Walker. Ben describes how the song came about through the process of niche songwriting.

Thanks to Dave Schumaker for the tip!

Wow, check it out, our friends Cookie Mongoloid recently appeared as “Cookie Mongo” on Comedy Central’s resurrected version of The Gong Show with Dave Attell.

Thanks to Tryntje for the tip!

The Hornucopia Festival takes place September 4th through 14th featuring over 35+ horn and brass fueled bands playing at over 9 different venues in the Bay Area.

The Hornucopia Festival is a new festival featuring the best horn and brass driven bands in the Bay Area and beyond for two weeks of mind blowing, soul shaking shows, workshops and presentations. Taking place September 4th – 14th at 9 different Bay Area venues, The Hornucopia Festival is a celebration foremost of the uniquely dynamic and strong horn and brass community in San Francisco. The Festival also aims to explore the historic and contemporary power of horn and brass music to bring people together while exuberantly bridging genres, languages, borders and cultures. through educational workshops, a DIY parade, and over 30 eclectic bands, The Hornucopia Festival will feature music as diverse as Gypsy Brass to Afrobeat, Marching Bands to Cartoon Bands, Punk Rock Polka to New Orleans 2nd line, delighting hot and cool Jazz cats, klezmorim, soul stirrers and salseros alike in one brassy, horny celebration.

poster by Hugh D’Andrade

Chris Randall created a new sound track for “Just Imagine”, a stop-motion industrial film that he found in the Prelinger Archives that shows a 1940’s telephone being assembled. The result is the wonderful Assemblage #1 by Micronaut.

via jwz

Here’s the Finnish rock band Leningrad Cowboys joined by the Red Army Choir doing a cover of the southern fried rock classic “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

via Rob La Gesse

Chop Shop just came out with another great t-shirt, “Rock Star” (men’s version & women’s version) featuring 28 classic rockers from 1965-1975.

See Previously:

- weGo T-Shirt By Chop Shop Featuring 55 Famous Vehicles
- Internet Meme T-Shirt by Chop Shop
- weRobot, 51 Robots on a T-Shirt

illustration by Chop Shop

“Everything That Happens Will Happen Today” is the new album by David Byrne and Brian Eno. The album is available to purchase as a download or or can be pre-ordered on CD. David Byrne will be touring the US starting in September.

Brian Eno and I recently finished our first collaboration in about 30 years. The name of the new record is Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. For the most part, Brian did the music and I wrote some tunes, words and sang. It’s familiar but completely new as well. We’re pretty excited.

The album is available exclusively from this Web site. You can stream all of the songs for free and purchase it in a variety of digital and physical formats, including a limited edition Deluxe Package designed by Sagmeister Inc. All formats can be downloaded immediately and physical CDs will be shipped in the Fall. [David Byrne]

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Hillman Curtis made a short film about the album, here’s the teaser video.

John Battelle and Federated Media Publishing recently launched the website CrowdFire, a platform for uploading, sharing, remixing and archiving photos, video and blog posts from live music events. CrowdFire will be making its big debut this weekend at San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, a three day event taking place in Golden Gate Park on August 22, 23 and 24.

“Awkward Rap” by College Humor

A hip-hop tribute to life’s most uncomfortable moments.

Jason Webley is bringing the Monsters of Accordion back for a 2008 West Cost Tour starting on August 14th in Santa Rosa and ending up in Seattle on August 24th. Jason is joined by accordion giants Mark Growden, Amy Denio and Duckmandu.

“I meet so many amazing accordion players in my travels, and I thought it would be really fun to bring some of the best together,” explains Webley, who organized the tour.

The result is a tour-de-force featuring some of the most entertaining solo accordion performers currently working in North America. But don’t expect a night of polkas, because these aren’t your grandmother’s accordion monsters. Instead Webley and company will be delivering five evenings of squeezebox-fueled drinking songs, punk rock covers, experimental pop, dark tangos and sultry dirges.

guest post by mikl-em

Toneshared is a repository of short audio clips suitable for your cellphone, made available for free by an impressive lineup of electronic music composers.

Drawing mostly from glitch, IDM and ambient artists (familiar names here include Vladislav Delay, Pole, alva noto and Atom Heart) there’s much to explore here as alternatives to your phone’s default sounds.

A few of my favorites are diminutive tunes from Andrew Liles, Andreas Tilliander, erikm, and Bernd Friedmann.

For something extreme, check out noise artist Francisco Lopez’s Broad Band Grindcore for the loudest ring-tone you’ve ever heard. Vancouver ambient artist Loscil’s tracks are gorgeous 20-second samples of his work (he has a full free album here).

Notable exceptions to the electronica norm are Experimental Dental School (ex-Bay Area, now Portland) who do their signature carnival robot rock and Califone (of Chicago/LA, my certified favorite-band-in-the-world: a dust & pixel hybrid like the boots made from the Blade Runner rattlesnake) offering up a moody tonal piece.

The clips range from 2 seconds to a little over a minute. So they also function as a short sampler introduction to a pretty interesting stable of artists. It should be noted these are all mp3s with no DRM and all are completely free to download.

The site seems to be a project of a Polish record label and Polish music festival (audiotong and Unsound respectively). It’s a fun browse and maybe a good excuse to finally give everyone in your phone book their own individual tune.

Here’s a video of Randy George playing the Super Mario Bros. theme (NES version) on a Theremin. Last year Randy did an amazing Theremin cover version of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy.

Randy is currently recording a classical Theremin album and is looking for donations to help him complete the project.

See Previously:

- Theremin Cover Version of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy
- Theremin Playing Robot Lev Covers Crazy by Gnarls Barkley
- A Cat Playing The Theremin

The US Air Guitar Championships National Finals take place this Friday, August 8th at The Grand Ballroom (part of The Regency Center) in San Francisco. The winners will go on to the Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu, Finland.

guest post by Aaron Muszalski

This Friday night, Berkeley’s Ashkenaz is hosting a celebration of the life, songs and stories of U. Utah Phillips, who passed away in May of this year at age 73.

A true folk hero, Utah Phillips was a labor organizer, storyteller, hobo, musician, anarchist, atheist, pacifist and poet who dedicated the bulk of his life to preserving the words and the deeds of the American worker. Through folk music, exquisitely-told stories, humor, honesty - and sometimes, rage - Phillips sought to remind people that the rights they now enjoy were not given, but earned, and often at great cost.

“Kids don’t have a little brother working in the coal mine, they don’t have a little sister coughing her lungs out in the looms of the big mill towns of the Northeast. Why? Because we organized; we broke the back of the sweatshops in this country; we have child labor laws. Those were not benevolent gifts from enlightened management. They were fought for, they were bled for, they were died for by working people, by people like us. Kids ought to know that. That’s why I sing these songs. That’s why I tell these stories, dammit. No root, no fruit!”

Long beloved in the folk music community, Phillips gained broader notoriety during the nineties through his two musical collaborations with singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco, “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere” and “Fellow Workers,” for which he received a Grammy nomination. In addition to his own compositions, Phillips regularly recorded and performed his interpretations of classic folk songs, such as those of famed labor activist Joe Hill.

“Joe Hill was executed by the state of Utah, November nineteenth, nineteen-hundred-and-fifteen, for writing songs like this. But he left them to us - these are people’s songs - so you damn well ought to learn how to sing it, don’t you think?” - U. Utah Phillips

Phillips believed that folk history - “the long memory,” as he called it - was everyone’s birthright, an uninterrupted river into the past from which we could draw wisdom, insight and inspiration, and from which we were becoming increasingly disconnected. He believed that maintaining this connection was not only vital, but subversive, as people with a strong connection to the struggles of the past would be far less likely to be manipulated again in the same way.

“The long memory is the most radical idea in America.” - U. Utah Phillips

A lifelong member of the IWW (the Industrial Workers of the World, or “Wobblies”) Philips was a firm believer in the power of organized labor and direct action as a means to bring about change. He believed in taking individual responsibility instead of assigning it to elected officials and his countless concerts served not only to entertain, but to educate his audience, and inspire them to action.

On his radio show “Loafer’s Glory: The Hobo Jungle of the Mind,” Phillips once said, “My work on this planet has been to remember.”

It is fitting then that we celebrate the life of U. Utah Phillips by continuing to remember; carrying his words, music and spirit with us, making them forever part of the long memory.

See Also: UtahPhillips.org

painting by Robert Shetterly

photos by Fleming Artists and Nicholas Wilson