The Loris Bite : Music

Sony Commemorates The Magnetic Cassette With Final BoomBox

cstanton — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:47:00 GMT

The mixtape paved the way for the way that we listen to music now. Think about it.. before mixtapes albums were the only thing around. That means that once you popped it in, there was no variation of artists, tracks, anything... Just the same album with the same songs by the same artist in the same monotonous order, over and over again. Then the mixtape came along and revolutionized the way people listened to their music. CDs and MP3 players came to follow, but Sony never forgot what the good ole cassette did for it.

Though the technology's basically long dead, Sony is finalizing the retirement of the cassette by releasing the last BoomBox with a cassette player that they will ever produce.

The CFD-A110 is a CD/ Cassette playing boombox with 14 AM/FM radio presets, a full range of speakers, and an external mic input for those karaoke lovers out there. It's going to be released at the beginning of summer with a pricetag of 20,000 yen, or $215 USD.Sadly, the boombox comes with nothing but a remote. No gold chains, no headband, no spray paint, and no hats to turn to the side.
But... what's better to spend money on than history?

New Snoop Dogg and Kid Cudi Video: That Tree

cstanton — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:40:00 GMT

Snoop Dogg has teamed up with "Day 'N' Night" rapper Kid Cudi to bring you an eco-friendly video for the new song "That Tree" a week before earth day. Actually, scratch that, this video is more about burning trees than it is planting them. Check out the clip below.

This upbeat and cheerful buddah lover homage to the kind herb features the rappers in some lumberjack garb, harvesting paper cut-out trees. Younger viewers may not get the joke, but their outfits are those of Cheech and Chong from the stoner classic film "Up In Smoke." They are joined by a couple of chicks that seem to be doing most of the work and a deer that looks a little lifted.

Tell me what you think of the video, chronic or beasters?

Snoop Dogg - New Music - More Music Videos

Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock Writes Marvelous Cartoon Music

cstanton — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:39:00 GMT

Ever have the craving for cartoons? Well The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack on Cartoon Network is a great place to start because Modest Mouse allstar frontman Isaac Brock is contributing the music to an upcoming episode!

Apparently Isaac is a big fan of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, a REALLY trippy and pretty funny show about a boy named Flapjack that's on a never-ending quest for candy to satisfy his gargantuan sweet tooth.

Details on when the episode is going to air are still unknown, but my guess is that you might be able to find out on the creator's blog.

Tom Morello Jams Out on New Cypress Hill Track

cstanton — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:30:00 GMT

Cypress Hill is on the comeback trail and they're releasing their new album Rise Up on 4/20.. deadheads ;).

What's really awesome is that they managed to snag Rage Against The Machine's riff-slayer Tom Morello to play alongside them in two tracks, which are pretty much as close as we're getting to hearing any new stuff from RATM. Cypress Hill and Tom Morello really are a pretty natural fit. Watch the video for the track "Rise Up" below!

Amongst a bunch of TVs, children wearing gas masks, SWAT with riot gear, and a prison break, is a Tom Morello that hasn't changed much since his days with Rage. His unique sound remains and is complimented by some pretty political verses from B-Real and Sen Dog.

Its not Rage, but it'll have to do.

The Gorillaz: Stylo Video.... Bruce Willis!?

cstanton — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:52:00 GMT

Though not a traditional "Roger Rabbit" type Gorillaz music video, you can't help but think that the cameo is awesome...

Gorillaz - Stylo from mario ucci on Vimeo.

The Gorillaz new album Plastic Beach is available for purchase now. There is also a special LP available on iTunes that has 2 extra tracks, and if you're a die hard fan ;) you can purchase the "Plastic Beach Experience" that comes with a documentary about the making of the album, a booklet, all the online content on the Gorillaz website, and access to a live stream TBA.

Mario Ucci's other work is really awesome. He's the CG guy. Colours by Hot Chip is a pretty cool video too.

Hot Chip: 'I Feel Better' directed by Peter Serafinowicz

cstanton — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:04:00 GMT

Hot Chip's new single "I Feel Better," off of their new album "One Life Stand", has an awesome music video directed by Peter Serafinowicz, the star of BBC's "The Peter Serafinowicz Show."

Serafinowicz is a comedian and actor, but resigned in January from his position at BBC since they refused to continue backing his show. He stated that he would probably reapply for a position at BBC, but was pretty vague about what he was going to be doing. I guess this is what he's doing, and if you ask me, he's doing a great job of it.

The video stars Ross Lee, from that superweird Ghoulies show on Nickelodeon.

I am happy about how these two seemingly random selections turned out to make such a good video. Check it out!

Gorillaz Leak Superfast Jellyfish From New Album

cstanton — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:55:00 GMT

The Gorillaz long awaited new album Plastic Beach is set to come out on March 6th, but Damon Albarn has already leaked one of the tracks on YouTube.

Superfast Jellyfish is another song with a really catchy good-mood chorus with De La Soul rapping the verse, much like Feel Good, Inc. from the Demon Days Album that was released in 2005. Gruff Rhys from the band Super Furry Animals sings the chorus.

Check it out!

Futuristic Misa Digital Guitar

cstanton — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:34:00 GMT

The future is coming. Electronic music is picking up speed and the instruments are following right along.

The Misa Digital Guitar is not only awesome looking, but allows the user to control each note with the press and drag of a finger. The creator of the Misa Digital Guitar wants to make sure that it is known that it is in no way to be compared to its acoustic or even electric relatives, as he says that "Those are different instruments, for different art forms, for different music."

The creator's thinking when making the guitar stressed that in digital music, every aspect of the sound must be controllable while being performed. With the Misa Digital Guitar, the effects are controlled with the same hand that creates the sound. Moving you fingertips across the 8.5" LCD screen allows the user to control all of the synthesizer parameters. The left hand roams across the 144 keys on the guitar-like neck to determine which notes are played. Each of the 24 frets is 6 keys across, emulating a normal guitar's neck.

The Misa Digital Guitar is clearly not like any other guitar. It runs on a 500MHz AMD Geode CPU and runs Gentoo Linux. The Linux firmware code is open source, allowing users to modify it. That opens up a lot of options for the programmers out there.

It will be available in black and white, and the price isn't available yet, but should be soon.

Record Tripping - Fun Mousewheel Musical Game

cstanton — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:22:00 GMT

Record Tripping is an experimental game where you control time, wind, and random objects' rotations with your mouse wheel. You can go backwards and forwards and click to slow down time to complete goals. The scenes are beautiful and the gameplay is addictive.

It features a pretty awesome soundtrack, and your own actions add a twist to the audio. The soundtrack includes 2 songs by the Gorillaz, and 1 song each by Beck, Death Cab For Cutie, and Spoon. Not only that, but Lewis Carrol's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is being read in the background.

The game goes through 5 addicting chapters, with three levels of difficulty in each chapter. Each chapter is timed, and its pretty hard to complete all three difficulties, which I guess is why the third is labeled "hard." It's not necessary to complete each of the challenges to proceed, it's really just for your online score and a place in the rankings.

Hobnox Audiotool Adds The Tone Matrix

cstanton — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:44:00 GMT

I found this really cool widget called "inudge" today on the Hobnox site and thought I would share it.

Inudge is a flash program that allows you to make and share a short clip of music.

This is one I made when I was messing around with it.

The inudge tone matrix features 8 different instruments and a 16 step matrix as your drawing board.

Each instrument's volume and balance can be tweaked, as well as the tempo of the composition as a whole.

Its pretty cool how many different kinds of short beats you can make with it.

It was put together by Hobnox, which is a really cool online entertainment website with online TV and browser based tools to create music.

They have a couple of different pretty awesome music tools including Electro and Drum and Bass. I haven't gotten the chance to mess with them all that much, but it seems like they really put a lot of time and effort into creating these flash applications.

Addiction Kills DJ AM

cstanton — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:25:00 GMT

DJ AM was found dead in his SoHo home on Friday evening, authorities said.

Toxicology tests must be performed on the deceased DJ to find out the exact cause of death, and that might take weeks.

According to the New York Daily News, the DJ was found with 8 undigested OxyContin pills in his stomach and one in his throat, leading them to believe that an overdose was a cause of his death.

DJ AM, or Adam Goldstein offstage, has openly admitted to having a problem with addiction over the years. He even did a show with MTV that was scheduled to air in October called "Gone Too Far" in which he and the families of addicts would do kind of an intervention for the addicts in need.

He even said that the show reminded him of his own addictions and even scared him sometimes.

"I have to constantly remind myself why I'm here and remember what it was like," he said.

Dr. Drew Pinskey, from the VH1 show "Celebrity Rehab" said this about painkillers, which is what he believes brought DJ AM back to his addiction:

"It very slowly and subtly reawakens addiction, I'm not saying it was inappropriately prescribed, I'm saying he didn't know the risks."

DJ AM had been prescribed to pain medication ever since his critical injury that he suffered in a plane crash with Blink 182 drummer, Travis Barker.

He was burned very badly, and though he began to perform again within a month of the crash, he was prescribed to some pain medication for the skin grafts he had received.

Many of his friends are very distraught about his death. Travis Barker, the other member of their group TRVSDJ-AM, commented on twitter about his loss.

"Don't know how i am gonna play 2night but i am for AM," wrote Barker. "My brother is gone. i love u and miss u, i'll never forget all the good times we had."

Goldstein's body was found in his apartment when a friend called the police after not being able to get into the home.

Paramedics had to break down the door, and upon entering the house found Goldstein's body, dressed in only sweatpants, in his bed without a pulse.

Addiction is a very real and scary thing, and any kind of drug can set it off.

Here is a great piece from DJ AM and Travis Barker:

Moonbell Music Generator

cstanton — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:58:00 GMT

We can make music out of anything, right? Why not the moon? That's what JAXA, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and some other creative mind did.

Moonbell is a music generator that uses the topographical data of the moon that was gathered by the Kaguya satellite from 2007 to mid 2009.
The generator features two playback modes: Orbit and Free Scratch.

The Orbit playback mode shows an image of the moon, the Kaguya's orbit, an altitude graph of the topography, and a graph of the musical pitch over time. It plays different notes based on topography of the moon that is below the simulated orbit of the Kaguya. You can change the orbit by dragging your mouse.

The Free Scratch mode is really cool because you can select your own path across the moon and the notes play the same way, using the topography along your path to determine the pitch of the note played.

The preferences button in the bottom left gives a lot of variation to the playback. You can select out of 128 different instruments for your highs, mids, and lows, change the playback speed, and select which notes out of which chords should be played and which ones shouldn't.

I'm just really glad that someone took this information and got creative with it.

New King Rat Video Released!

cstanton — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:56:00 GMT

The video for Modest Mouse's song "King Rat" has just been released on Myspace within the last week or so, its a great song and a great video, so check it out.

Correlation Between Music and Smarts?

cstanton — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:43:00 GMT

Virgil Griffith, a grad student at CalTech, has come up with an interesting study. He's gone around and surveyed students that have just taken the SAT and asked them their favorite bands or genres and their SAT scores. This study really isn't very accurate at describing the students' intelligence, as the SAT is not the same as an IQ test, but it gives you an interesting outlook. The students with the highest scores chose Beethoven as their favorite musician, while the people with the lowest scores chose Lil Wayne. I personally find this hilarious because I like both of them, but more and more Lil Wayne has turned his raps into subintelligent babble. To be honest, the chart doesn't surprise me one bit. I actually had a conversation with a couple of my friends about how all of the moderately intelligent out of us listened to Radiohead, which ranks between 1205 and 1220 on the chart. I got a higher SAT score than that, but I don't listen to Counting Crows, don't even know who Sufjan Stevens is, and haven't heard of Guster. Plus I like to trick girls into thinking I'm kind normal so I don't jam to Beethoven, I stick to Bach... no I'm kidding, I've been jamming to Bone Thugs lately.

While this study is not so much scientific as it is interesting, it shows you a good correlation between the SAT scores and what people listen to, and to be completely honest it all really makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that Griffith titled the chart "Musicthatmakesyoudumb," because you'd figure that he would know the difference between correlation and causation being a grad student at CalTech, but hey, he never said what he listens to ;)

Blazed And Confused Tour!

cstanton — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:51:00 GMT

Every once in awhile a great show comes up that makes me frustrated that I live in such a small town with no really good venues. Slightly Stoopid, a reggae/blues/rock/rap/punk band from San Diego, is going on tour with Stephen Marley, one of my favorites of the Marley siblings, and the infamous Snoop Dogg. I have seen Slightly Stoopid only three times, which isn't that many considering how many times they've been around Florida. The first time I saw them was at a small show at Floyd's Music Store in Tallahassee. I honestly wasn't impressed at all, but that impression quickly changed when I saw them again in Jacksonville the next year. They're a great band with a great sound, maybe a little repetitive, but still they manage to make some awesome music. I have never seen Snoop Dogg in concert, which is why I really really want to make sure that I get to one of these tour dates. I've been following Snoop's music since Dr. Dre released The Chronic in '92 and he has released some really intense tracks. The only thing that makes me not want to see this tour is that ass clown, Mickey Avalon. He is really just a no-talent baffoon and I am still perplexed as to the way world works and how people give white trash megolomaniacal douchebags like that money. Other than him, it should be a really awesome show.

The whole point of the show is to get people together that are all on the same plane, that love music and smokable plants. I'm a little dissappointed that there aren't any shows coming closer to me but that's what I get for living in the beautiful city of Tallahassee. I think I am going to have to make the drive to either Elkton or St. Pete to catch this show. Tickets are available on pre-sale now at BlazedAndConfusedTickets.com. The prices depend on the venue, but range from $60 for stadium seating to $380 for floor tickets. A little pricey, but I'm sure it will be well worth it to see the show.

July 10: Primm, NV (Star Of the Desert Arena)
July 11: Irvine, CA (Verizon Wireless Amphitheater)
July 12: Santa Barbara, CA (Santa Barbara Bowl)
July 14: Albuquerque, NM (Journal Pavilion)
July 15: Denver, CO (Red Rocks Amphitheatre)
July 17: Portland, OR (Amphitheater at Clark County)
July 18: George, WA (The Gorge Amphitheatre)
July 19: Boise, ID (Idaho Center Amphitheater)
July 20: Salt Lake City, UT (USANA Amphitheatre)
July 22: Vancouver, BC (Pacific Coliseum)
July 24: Mountain View, CA (Shoreline Amphitheatre)
July 25: San Diego, CA (Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre)
July 30: Atlanta, GA (Masquerade Music Park)
July 31: St. Petersburg, FL (Vinoy Park)
Aug 1: Miami, FL (Bicentennial Park)
Aug 2: Elkton, FL (St. Johns County Fair Grounds)
Aug 5: Columbia, MD (Merriweather Post Pavilion)
Aug 6: Holmdel, NJ (PNC Bank Arts Center)
Aug 7: Philadelphia, PA (Festival Pier at Penn's Landing)
Aug 8: Boston, MA (Comcast Center)