Eric said,
Be yourself... As long as that means being a successful person.
said, Eric said,Holy crap! That was awesome. If you haven't been bitten by the line rider bug yet you can check out the original version here or the new and "improved" version here.
A rainbow vomiting chunks of the periodic table? Or a stroke of brilliance after the macromedia merger? Or somewhere in between?
Ok designer and non-designer friends... thoughts on this new branding effort?
Dan said, Dan said, Ryan said, Dan said, Dan said, Eric said,
Just saw this at Veer. It's called the Nooka Zot.
It reminds me of the Binary Clock, which i hoped would lead the binary revolution.
I'll be off on vacation for a week. Have a happy holiday.
Paul said, Dan said, Eric said, Dan said,FYI Friends: "An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by Me, John Hodgman, a Professional Writer, in the Areas of My Expertise, which Include: Matters Historical; Matters Literary; Matters Cryptozoological; Hobo Matters; Food, Drink, & Cheese (a Kind of Food); Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels; Haircuts; Utopia; What Will Happen in the Future; and Most Other Subjects; Illustrated with a Reasonable Number of Tables and Figures, and Featuring the Best of "Were You Aware of It?", John Hodgman's Long-Running Newspaper Novelty Column of Strange Facts and Oddities of the Bizarre" is free on iTunes today.
Paul said, Paul said, Dan said, Dan said, Dan said, Ryan said, Dan said, Ryan said, Eric said, said, Dan said, Eric said, Dan said, Paul said, Eric said, Ryan said, Paul said, Dan said,PAUL AND I AGREE: Minneapolis rock concert crowds are bored an complacent. They lack some energy and enthusiasm. Are they jaded and apathetic? Are they too "artistic" and "cerebral" to cut loose? Or are they simply unexposed to such carnal rocking? What do you think?
Cyn Collins of the Twin Cities blog howwastheshow.com back up the assessment made by Paul and Myself. It's no suprise that a Gogol Bordello show made her realize this. The end of the review states the following:
"I was bereft for days after, wandering listlessly and wistfully from show to show, seeing audiences standing and sitting, expressionless listening to tight bands with restraint. This is Minnesota. A few nights later, I heard someone scraping a plastic dishtray, in rhythms that reminded me of Gogol’s washboards and was sad that they’re no longer here. This was the most uninhibited physical show I’ve ever been to, and I wish that there were more of its ilk here."
Paul said, Eric said, said, said, Paul said, Paul said, Paul said, Eric said, said, Paul said, Eric said, Dan said, Dan said, Eric said,
...and the opening act(Valiant Thorr) was near the top.
awesome awesome. they have 2 HOT chicks that play the cymbals and a bass drum. and assorted other instruments. at one point one of the girls threw her bass drum into the crowd then climbed over to it, sat on top of it and played. did i mention they were hot, cause they were - they contrasted nicely with the band old-man-ness. The old violin player would lean into the crown and do violin solos, which sounds normal, but he's like 50 and eric tells me used to be a professor in Moscow.
Somehow the whole time -even thought there was a push pit- everyone was able to get all the weird gypsy hopping-dancing out of their system. also very friendly pit, which is always nice.
The opening band's singer made the whole crowd get on its knees as he walked into the middle of them and went on some "we will take the energy the banks created with sports teams to become the greatest band in the universe" rant... at some point he said "Ronald Reagan created star wars"' it was awesome.
OH OH! and the greatest encore ever. eric started the "gogol, gogol...." chant. and they came out and played like an 30-40 min encore... where for the most part the songs seemed more traditional, in 'gypsy', of course with a lot more rockage and hot chicks with band instruments.
Paul said, Eric said, Paul said, Eric said, Eric said,
Is design not important in email correspondence? You should see the countless emails i get from netflix about almost registering - they remind me that netflix will be super simple, and a bit annoying and nagging (because you'll always feel guilty for not watching movies fast enough).
Either way, this email reminds me of one thing , that there's a lot of work to be done in the design community - Starting within its walls.
Dan said, Paul said, Paul said, Dan said, Paul said, Eric said, Andy J said,
Paul said, Dan said, Eric said,Appleinsider is reporting that itunes isn't doing so hot these days.
I'm not too surprised, i haven't bought an itunes song in over a year. I used to buy 1-4 a month. But with services like emusic offering the music i like at a better price ($15 for 60 download - i think though prices went up recently) and with no DRM, I can't rationalize spending more for music i can do less with.
2 companies competing in the spirit of the democrats
Dan said, Eric said, Paul said, Dan said, Dan said, Paul said, Eric said, Paul said,i kinda like the new "celebreality" - Rob & Big, Hogan Knows Best, and similar. Unlike reality TV 1.0 which - in my opinion - tries to make the uninteresting interesting. It takes professional entertainers, and uses them as the inspiration and entertainment. It's pretty obvious that only about 20% of it is "real", and the rest is just set up for your viewing enjoyment. but that's cool... 'cause the point is to be entertaining, not to be voyeuristic.
Eric said, Dan said, Eric said,Apparently, some jokers in Turkey made a version of Star Wars in '79 that fell a little short of the Lucasfilm vision. An excellent review can be found here.
An excerpt from Chris Harris' article:
"To longtime fans and supporters of Minor Threat and Dischord, this must seem like just another familiar example of mainstream corporations attempting to assimilate underground culture to turn a buck," reads MacKaye's statement. "However, it is more disheartening to us to think that Nike may be successful in using this imagery to fool kids, just beginning to become familiar with skate culture, underground music and D.I.Y. ideals, into thinking that the general ethos of this label, and Minor Threat in particular, can somehow be linked to Nike's mission."
Dan said, Ryan said, Pooki said, paul said, paul said, Eric said,While in a ridiculously long line on Black Friday that wrapped all around and through a best buy, one of the isles the line passed through had keyboards on display. And i played one and...... i went and bought a M-audio keystation 61 es. I have no idea what to do with this thing, having not played a piano in 20 years and having no working knowledge of music.
Intuition told be to install garageband 1.0 on my ibook. It just worked, plug and PLAY!! a grand piano track came up and i could just hit buttons and sounds came out of my speakers. and after about 30 minutes that got boring, so i decided to also do my inaugural ichat-voice-connection with kelly.
This is where this keyboard really shined. slowly but surely Kelly walked be through how to play mary had a little lamb. I was kinda suprised that it would sound better with a specific set of 3 keys (FGA) - for some reason i though any three keys would do.
Then i loaded up the drum kit. And then while we ichatted i would do a drum solo when i thought the conversation was lagging. or if i felt inspired i would hit the bongo sounding keys and talked as if i was reciting a poem.
But I knew i had made a valuable purchase when i figured out how to do this!
Anyway, i have till january 8th to return this thing - and i'm hoping that i won't want to.
Eric said, paul said, paul said, Eric said, Eric said, Dan said, Eric said, Adam said, Eric said,
So, how does this stand up to like a rock solo (or metal solo), technically?
As far as technique, this clip shows a hybrid of bass and guitar techniques.
At the beginning of the clip Justin King (the guitar player in the clip) uses his thumb to slap the guitar string while using his forefinger and middle finger to pull or "pop" additional strings. This is a bass technique is used often by Flea and Victor Wooten. It is much harder to do on the guitar as the strings are smaller and closer together.
The other guitar technique Justin uses is "tapping." This is used frequently in metal and was popularized by Van Halen's "Eruption." Tapping involves patterns of hammer on's and pull offs to voice notes quickly. Hammer on refers to pushing the string to the fret without strumming. Pull off refers to pulling the finger off the fret without strumming to sound a note. Therefore a hammer on immediately followed by a pull off can produce 3 notes with one touch. With me so far?
Watch Paul Gilbert of Mr. Big show how to tap a classical piece. He slows it down a bit towards the end.
SO, HOW DOES THIS STAND UP TO THE OTHERS WHO HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE HIM? Well Justin King has added slides to his tapping. He will slide his finger to a different note before pulling it off. Justin also uses his thum to tap and slap at the same time. Tapping is very hard to do without distortion, let alone on an acoustic guitar. Throw in the slapping technique and you've got something amazing -- Though not quite as amazing as this.
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