Serendipity Book

The Smiths 'Still Ill' Live Video Bootlegs

I bumped into a friend whilst out and about this morning. We got to talking about the internet. He told me authoritatively that "99.9% of the stuff on the internet is rubbish". I told him that I had heard my dad say something similar.

With no further introduction required, this little musical interlude is dedicated to him. This is The Smiths performing 'Still Ill' live on The Tube in 1984.

Other live versions of this gloriously life-affirming piece of miserabilism can be found here, here, here and here. I could play these all day.

"Let's make a sawng" with Weezer

Geek band Weezer have really been putting the internet to good use lately to generate interest in their upcoming album.

First they gave us a video recreating the greatest hits of the net.

Then, while everyone else is asking why they didn't think of doing that, Weezer's lead singer Rivers Cuomo has been off harnessing the power of mass creativity to write a song with his fans on YouTube.

Rivers' version of the resulting song, '80s Radio', can be found here. Alternatively, you can hear the versions done by some of his collaborators.

Aside: I wonder who owns the copyright to this?

Offside: Can the moustache REALLY be making a come back? I thought the rule was that moustaches can only be worn ironically and even then they must only be grown to raise money for charity and must be cut off immediately after the fundraiser?

BBC Sound Index - buzz-based music chart

The BBC have created an innovative music chart called the Sound Index based on aggregating usage and purchasing data from popular internet music sites:

"The BBC Sound Index analyses what people are writing about, listening to, watching, downloading and logging on to. It then counts and analyses this data to make an instant list of the most popular 1000 artists and tracks on the web.iTunes, MySpace, Bebo, Google Groups, Last.FM and YouTube

The more blog mentions, comments, plays, downloads and profile views an artist or track has, the higher up the Sound Index they are. So, the Sound Index is a music buzz index controlled entirely by the public."

The chart is updated every six hours and broadcast on the BBC every Sunday. Yet more good stuff from Ashley Highfield and team:

"Under Ashley's leadership, the number of UK adults visiting bbc.co.uk has more than trebled from 4.6 million to 14 million every month and page impressions have increased tenfold to just over 3 billion a month."

Three Brian Eno time-lapse mash-ups

Watch the seasons ebb and flow in these fantastic amateur time lapse videos created to accompany the Brian Eno tracks 'Just Another Day', 'How Many Worlds' and 'This' which use images taken in Komoko National Park, Ontario.

Birdsong is back on DAB

What a treat. The Birdsong channel is back on DAB after a two and a half year hiatus. Following the closure of the spoken word channel Oneword listeners will instead be treated to a 18 hours of rural background noise a day.

The DAB operator Digital One gives the history of Birdsong here on their site UKDigitalRadio.com:

"The audio was originally recorded for the test transmission of Classic FM prior to its launch in 1992. It was last used three years ago for the imaginatively named station "D1_temp" and won plaudits from listeners who complained when it was taken off air in June 2005. Listeners and Birdsong enthusiasts should note the transmission could cease at any time and that the recording is not commercially available. Birdsong will be broadcast between 0600 and midnight each day."

Nick Packham has posted a sample here (MP3). Very calming (except for the crows). Almost drowns out the calls for DAB broadcasters to sort out their business models.

The consumer does not

This quote from David Ogilvy currently has pride of place on my office wall:

The Foals: Hummer

Back to some indie with The Foals. Bad hair. Great song. This is Hummer.

Plaid: Itsu

It's still the weekend so I'm going to carry on with the musical interludes.

This is a incredible video from an intriguing British electro duo called Plaid. They're on Warp records which tells you most of what you need to know about their music.

The video features a mix of live video and digital overlays. It was done by the crazy bunny-obsessed French digital collective known as Pleix whose amazing work I've featured before. They describe the video as "a kind of parable of our consumer society and its hysteria".

My Bloody Valentine - To Here Knows When / Soon

Have some bliss courtesy of MBV.

"To Here Knows When"

"Soon"

Good to be forgotten

Criminal, really.