E.T. detected by 2019/my 8 off 8th
April 28, 2009
One prominent NASA scientist believes that we will find life on Mars by 2019. Peter Smith, who led NASA’s Phoenix Lander Mission, made that prediction at a recent presentation at the University of Delaware. I used to think that Mars was probably dead, but used to harbor life millions of years ago. But due to recent findings of the Phoenix mission and the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, I do think there’s a chance that we’ll soon find microbial life beneath the soil surface. I certainly hope he’s right… more at Fanboy.com.
President Obama recently further confirmed his promises on boosting science funding and “restoring science to its rightful place.” But unfortunately NASA has not been mentioned nearly as much as other government science organizations. Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy expresses his worries about this and the fact that Obama still hasn’t appointed a new NASA Chief Administrator. I’m inclined to agree… though I should make a point that overall this is a huge win for science and reality in general, and we’re already making vast improvements over the last 8 years of putting politics and ideology before scientific truth.
Oddee has a great post today about 10 amazing and fascinating natural phenomena. I’ve seen a few of these myself, including mammatus clouds, but none quite so dramatic as those pictured.
If you’re Nashvillian reading this, you’ve surely heard about the recent carjackings and robberies in East Nashville. Unfortunately 3 close friends of mine were victims of one of the carjackings, 2 of which received gunshot wounds. They are all fine and recovering, but these people were all heavily involved in our great local music scene and instantly the scene has rallied around them to help with their medical expenses. Jeremy Ferguson of Battletapes has volunteered to put together at least one, if not several benefit shows for these guys. I’ll post more info as soon as dates and lineups are confirmed. It’s possible that there may be a silent auction at these shows, and if there is I will probably put some framed prints in it. Thankfully, it seems that all 3 suspects have been caught.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m curating an 8 off 8th at Mercy Lounge on May 11th. It’s gonna be a great one, and I urge you to mark your calendars and plan to attend. As always, it’s free and 21+. Here’s the awesome flier, created by Alicia and Drew at Monkey Ink Design. Spread the word!
Monkey Ink Design!
Evan Voytas=jam of the summer/Eureka finally returns/Asteroid may not have killed dinos
April 27, 2009
It’s pretty rare for me to instantly fall in love with a band/artist these days. I’ve just become so “Nashville” about everything- jaded/oversaturated/desensitized/insert-apathetic-synonym-here. But RCRD LBL posted some mp3’s from this dude named Evan Voytas on Friday, and I was instantly blown away. It feels good to be totally into something new. This guy’s stuff is a little bit of everything- the tracks I’ve gotten my hands on so far range from a shoegazy, fuzzed out slow pop jam to electro-driven rock with a touch of twee to a full on summery disco-pop groove. That last track I’m describing is called “Getting Higher,” and I have hereby proclaimed it to be the official jam of the summer 2009. Please, PLEASE go to RCRD LBL and download it now! Then go to the Hype Machine and you’ll be able to find several other great tracks. But “Getting Higher” is where it’s at. It’s an instantly love-able dancey track, complete with a 70’s funk bass groove, and straight-up disco beat, and uplifting sunny guitars and syths bathed in a healthy but tasteful dose of reverb.
In local news- Makeout With Violence, the locally made feature-length film starring several members of our music scene, pretty much owned the Nashville Film Festival, taking the best feature-length narrative film and best music awards, along with a few other smaller awards. It’s good to see these guys finally getting the recognition they deserve for their 3 years of hard work on this thing.
My love of science fiction is no secret. That’s why I’m quite pleased to know that one of my favorite TV series Eureka, has finally been scheduled to return to action on July 10th on the SyFy channel. (Yes, the SciFi channel is now SyFy…. go figure.) I read about this on io9, and I agree with their sentiment that moving the show to Battlestar Galactica’s old slot of Fridays at 10pm/9 central was a bad idea. That means I’ll end up watching most of it online because I’m normally out & about by that time on a Friday night…
So we all know that the dinosaurs were killed because of a giant asteriod hitting just off the Yucatan Penninsula in Mexico, right? That’s what they taught us in middle school science class, afterall…. Not so fast. As more and more new evidence is uncovered, that theory is starting to look more and more… extinct. Universe Today posted this morning about some new discoveries that date the actual impact at least 300,000 years prior to the mass extinction. At the same time comes the discovery of a supervolcano eruption (or even a series of supervolcano eruptions) called the Deccan Traps in India. Such an eruption could easily have thrown enough dust and ash into the air to block out the sun and cause a sudden massive cooling. My personal hunch is that the asteroid surely did have some degree of impact on the global climate, (pun fully intended) and obviously would’ve killed a ton of dinos in the immediate area, but ultimately it may have been the volcanic activity that dealt the lethal blow to our bird-like ancestors.
I’ll leave you today with this great image of the next space shuttle crew… I must say NASA has been doing a great job of marketing lately. First the whole C.O.L.B.E.R.T. thing, and now this:
Click to enlarge
Autotuned babies/Flaming Lips’ “Do you Realize?” to be OK rock song/Girl Talk makes real songs
April 24, 2009
So I read on Billboard that Girl Talk is exprimenting with actual songs of his own. Wow. That’s a big move for him, really… I’m intrigued as to what it will sound like. It’s hard to gauge what the perception of this will be. Something makes me think that even if it’s good, it may be perceived as a flop because he’s so established in what he does now. A band is always “known for something” and Girl Talk is known for mashups. He’s a remixer/mashup artist… and arguably the most successful of his genre/niche. That’s different that being a musician who creates/writes their own music. We’ll see what happens. Can’t wait to see him at Bonnaroo this year. I feel like in a festival setting, it’ll be even more off-the-chain than at the Cannery.
The Oklahoma Governor signed an executive order declaring the Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize?” the official state rock song. The public overwhelmingly voted in favor of the song, but it fell just short of passing in the state congress. The executive order overruled, however, and the song is now official. Awesome! Pitchfork has the full story.
Apparently Yahoo’s GeoCities is closing down this year… GeoCities still exists? Does Angelfire still exist? Does AOL still exist?
Ok I have to put these videos relatively high in the post. I found these via this post on Kottke.org this morning. It’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen. I almost fell out of my chair. AUTOTUNED BABIES!!!!!
Ok now that’s over with… KITTEHZ IN BOXEZ!!!!
Cuteness over…. now for what’s going down this weekend. I’ll probably be attending the final Friday version of Coach Vs. Kase at 12th & Porter. I’ve yet to experience one of these events, and for the first time in months I don’t have something else to shoot/attend.
Also on Friday- Shoot the Mountain w/ Umbrella Tree and Brenn @ Mercy Lounge.
For Saturday- Megan will be joining me and we may end up at the free outdoor show @ Bobbie’s Dairy Dip featuring Vermicious K’nids and Danger & the Steelcut Oats. Never heard of the latter, like the former.
On Sunday I’ll be attending/shooting the Cursive/Man Man show @ Mercy Lounge. Megan is a big Cursive fan and I’ve heard Man Man is quite an experience live, so I look forward to photographing them.
Just one interesting tidbit from the technology world… apparently a guy has figured out a way to send his thoughts directly to Twitter. I don’t know if this is utterly amazing or utterly terrifying. It could be a life-saver for people with severe neural injuries who are unable to communicate, that’s for certain….
Have a great weekend!
Thomas Bangalter
For all those who seriously hoped Daft Punk were real robots, I guess you’ll just have to cry now. Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter was spotted doing a quick DJ set at L.A. club Cinespace for the birthday party of Ed Banger owner Busy P…. sans the robot costume. That’s him behind the shades. Pitchfork has the full story. Twitter obviously went bonkers. Oddly, though, there’s no mention of the apparent brawl that went down afterwards… Hipster Runoff posted several photos of an apparent clash between the bouncers and the Ed Banger crew. The Pitchfork article posted some video clips but those have since been made private and un-embeddable. Robot Drama!
In other music-related news, Record Store Day was a big success. Billboard reports on the various statistics. Check it out if you’re really interested in all the numbers, but in summary there was a small but substantial increase in indie records store sales compared to last year’s RSD. Vinyl sales are way up compared to last year. A big part of it is the fact that so many artists/bands did special limited-edition releases specifically for that day. If this kind of thing keeps happening, I’d say record stores aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Kudos Record Store Day!
The Scene has a great story on the “band that almost was,” The Remains. They came out of Boston, appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, and opened for the Beatles on all 19 shows of their 1966 tour. Then they broke up. They’re playing tonight at the Cannery. I may be there, hopefully taking photos…
Short post today.
Magic Wands & JEFF get blog love/unexplained stuff
April 20, 2009
Via Bre Pettis
Today’s post will have a lot of quick links. Let’s get right to it:
First of all, Kottke.org had some great stuff this morning. The image to the left is from a hilarious set of vintage 1930’s German illustrations about various ways to get electrocuted. Please do visit the flickr set and read the rollover comments. SERIOUSLY… read them all, you will laugh quite loudly at the very least, if not fall out of your chair. He also linked to this pretty interesting article on 13 things that science has yet to explain. I say “yet” because I’m confident that eventually we will be able to explain everything through science. That is, if we last long enough as a species. Some of these have been pretty well explained, however… especially the alleged “WOW signal” from a radio telescope in 1977. SETI scientists see signals very similar to this all the time, and all of them have been declared to have terrestrial origins.
Universe Today has an interesting article explaining the procedure of a rescue mission in the event that Atlantis is badly damaged on its mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
Locals JEFF the Brotherhood and Magic Wands got some blog love today. JEFF was mentioned in this Brooklyn Vegan post about their upcoming dates in NYC with Screaming Females and Sisters. Then I found a post on RCRD LBL featuring a download of the Magic Wands’ Black Magic. Good to see these Nashville bands getting major blog love… though I’m pretty sure Chris and Dexie (Magic Wands) moved to L.A. a year or so ago. I would still argue that they have Nashville “roots” since Chris spent so much of his musical career here. Apparently they’ve got an EP coming out soon.
Tonight is the 2nd installment of the 3-part series, “Road to Bonnaroo” at Mercy Lounge. It’s a special version of the famous 8 off 8th series where audience votes, combined with a panel of judges, will determine which of the 8 bands will get to play at Bonnaroo. Tonight’s lineup and more info can be found on the Mercy Lounge website. I suggest you come on out and help decide the winner!
Finally, major kudos to Grimey’s for making the top 10 of SPIN’s 15 best indie record stores. They came in 8th out of 15. Awesome!
Kepler’s first images/Green rooftops/hipster grifter
April 17, 2009
Image via Space.com
The Kepler spacecraft took its first few images earlier this week, and NASA has released them. The one shown here is zoomed in on a small cluster of stars about 13,000 light years from Earth. Kepler has a 95 megapixel camera to take these images. 95 megapixels. Fuck.
An awesome new concept is emerging in some of the world’s largest cities- green rooftops. It’s a concept that I sincerely hope catches on quickly. Typical building rooftops are dark and dry; they absorb and then release much more heat than a natural plant-covered surface would, and the result is what’s called the “heat-island effect.” This phenomenon is what causes some large cities to be a few degrees hotter than the surrounding areas, and it’s a growing problem. But if we cover most of the city rooftops with gardens and grass, this problem would be virtually eliminated. Please check out this National Geographic article on the subject… not only for the story but for the awesome photography.
Will humans ever be able to travel beyond our solar system? Or will we just resort to armchair astronomy and send an army of intelligent robots to other worlds to explore them for us? The question is tackled in this great article by Luke McKinney from the Daily Galaxy. It’s a short and entertaining read, as all of McKinney’s witty posts tend to be.
The new Harry Potter movie comes out July 15th, and the trailer has just hit the interwebs. I first saw it on this io9 post.
Carles of Hipster Runoff had an encounter with the now somewhat-famous hipster grifter, who brought her cancer/pregnant/sex fraud scheme from Salt Lake City to Brooklyn scammed quite a few hipsters out of a lot of money.
As I said yesterday, I’ll be photographing Rites of Spring this weekend, but there’s also a TON of other great stuff going down, most notably National Record Store Day on Saturday, for which Grimey’s is hosting their Big Ass Outdoor Sale. Be sure to stop by between 10am-8pm and check out the great record deals and live music out in the parking lot. A list of some other stuff happening can be found at Nashvillest. Have a great weekend!
Zooey Deschanel’s cotton ad/Rites of Spring/The Rentals
April 16, 2009
It’s been far too long since I mentioned Zooey Deschanel on this blog. Thus I bring to you a new cotton advertisement featuring the beloved actress/songstress, via Videogum:
One of the bands that literally shaped my formative years was Weezer. Subsequently, I am also a fan of former Weezer bassist Matt Sharp’s project The Rentals. They formed in 1994 and released two albums, but had a large gap in activity until about 2 years ago when they came out with a new EP and did a couple of tours with a revamped lineup. It wasn’t anything to write home about, but getting to see them live twice was totally rad. I saw them in Atlanta with Ozma, and again here in Nashville at City Hall (now Urban Outfitters). See more pics from that show on my flickr here. RCRD LBL features a download from the first installment of their new multi-media project called Songs About Time. The project also includes a photo series by Matt and a bunch of short films.
Speaking of RCRD LBL, I noticed that they also have a download/blurb about local star-tangled indie rock lady Cortney Tidwell. It’s a track called “17 Horses” from her upcoming album Boys. (The download page incorrectly states that the track is from her previous album.)
SNAKES ON A PLANE! IN REAL LIFE! Thanks Kelly.
Nashvillest posted a bunch of great links/ways to help victims of the Murfreesboro tornado that struck last Friday. Check it out.
This is both terrifying and fascinating. The stats for “since you started watching” really hit home. I’ve had the tab open for a good hour or so now- ~28,000 people born and ~11,500 people died. Population control will soon happen everywhere. It’s only a matter of time.
Vanderbilt’s Rites of Spring festival is happening this weekend. I’ll be there both days taking photos. Here’s the lineup/times:
Friday:
Battle of the Bands: 3:20-3:40pm
Battle of the Bands: 4:00-4:20pm
Run With Bulls: 4:40-5:10pm
Blueskyreality: 5:30-6:00pm
K’NAAN: 6:20-7:05pm
Okkervil River: 7:25-8:10pm
Santigold: 8:30-9:10pm
Q-Tip: 9:30-10:30pm
T.I.: 11:00-12:00am
Saturday:
Pico vs. Island Trees: 3:20-3:50pm
Stardeath and White Dwarfs: 4:05-4:35pm
Erick Baker: 4:50-5:20pm
Sara Watkins: 5:40-6:10pm
Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears: 6:30-7:10pm
Grand Ole Party: 7:30-8:10pm
N.E.R.D.: 8:40-9:55pm
The Flaming Lips: 10:30-12:00am
NASA names treadmill after Colbert/White Stripes movie
April 15, 2009
NASA decided to name the newest and final American-made Space Station node “Tranquility,” after the touchdown site of Apollo 11 on the moon, as astronaut Sunita Williams announced on the Colbert Report last night. Even though “Colbert” technically won the online poll, I guess NASA just couldn’t justify putting the Colbert name on something so important, and instead went with historically significant name. However, in typical scientific acronym fashion they did decide to call the station’s new treadmill the “Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill,” or C.O.L.B.E.R.T. I’m just glad that NASA has a sense of humor. All in all, it was a big win for both parties involved. I’d say the biggest win was for NASA, though… this was great P.R. for them and in these times it’s crucial for NASA to stay popular in the public’s eye. Read the whole NASA press release here, and watch the clip from last night here.
Jack White’s new band The Dead Weather played their first public show last night at Bowery Ballroom in NYC. Brooklyn Vegan has photos and coverage. Also, the White Stripes are working on a movie to be released late this year, according to an interview with White on Self-Titled. Via Nashville Cream. P.S.- one Cream commenter says the film is a documentary of their 2007 Canadian tour.
Apparently the Kings of Leon needed extras for a video shoot, but we all missed it- the auditions were yesterday. Tear.
Ever wondered where the phrase “Murphy’s Law” comes from? Look no further. It comes from an engineer named Edward Murphy who worked at the government’s rocket sled test facility at Edwards Air Force Base. Click here for the full story.
LIFE has a new website that’s very photograph-centric, and features a ton of great photojournalistic work. Feast your eyes.
I’m a little behind in posting this, but if you haven’t been to We Own This Town in a while, I highly suggest you head over and check it out. Joe Baine Colvert and Michael Eades (aka Yewknee) have been doing a great job of keeping it updated and active (especially the show listings). They have a new podcast featuring all artists from Theory 8’s roster, including some yet-to-be released material. Good times for all!
Some other exciting news recently posted on WOTT- The Features have a song in a trailer for the new Mike Judge film Extract, slated to release this fall. It’s got a pretty star-studded lineup, too- including Ben Affleck, Mila Kunis, Jason Bateman, and J.K. Simmons. Watch the trailer. Let’s hope they actually end up in the soundtrack!
Nashvillest has a really nice post about dining out on the cheap in Nashville. Nice work, ladies! They also posted a link to a City Paper story about a new local law being proposed that would hold venues directly responsible for illegally posted concert fliers. This has to be the most RIDICULOUS idea I’ve ever heard. We already know it’s technically illegal to post fliers on telephone poles/light poles/any pulblic property. But nobody gives a shit because it’s impossible to enforce unless a cop actually sees someone doing it. But fining a venue because some band’s fanclub posts fliers for their upcoming show? How on EARTH could a venue possibly control this kind of thing? That’s right, NEVER. It’s IMPOSSIBLE for them to do such a thing. They can’t cancel the show (as some dumbass commenter on the City Paper story suggests), what good does that do anyone? The shows are the venue’s business! Futhermore, the bands will be pissed, especially if they’re a touring band, because once again, playing shows is their business. They make their money from it. Then no bands will ever want to play there, thus the venue ends up closing and the whole live music process just implodes. I guess if you want to take the “Music” out of “Music City,” go right ahead and pass this. I have a suggestion for Mr. Tygard- WAIT. It’s quite clear that the internet is becoming a far easier and cheaper way to promote concerts, and that means less and less printed fliers. It’s only a matter of time before this very MINOR problem fixes itself.
Off the soapbox, onto some more interesting stuff…
Hipster Runoff examines Billy Corgan and Tila Tequila.
Remember Line Rider? Well if you enjoyed that, you’ll want to check out BallDroppings. Just go try it. Absolutely addictive and it could easily consume hours of your day if you aren’t careful. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Via Yewnkee’d.
Just one science-related tidbit for the day- the Kepler space telescope popped its lid and is now starting to look for earth-like worlds orbiting other stars! That was the last major milestone in the mission, aside from when it eventually does discover the first earth-like exoplanet. Go Kepler!
I’ll leave you today with this awesome Man Man video featuring my favorite SNL cast member Fred Armisen. Werewolves!
Jack White’s latest side project, The Dead Weather, will be playing their first public show in NYC @ Bowery Ballroom on April 14th. They played a private show right here in Nashville for the opening of White’s new label offices/record store/recording studio/photo studio complex back in early March. In other news via Brooklyn Vegan, AC/DC will be heading back to the US for some extended tour dates. I was under the impression that the Nashville show at Sommet Center was to be their last performance in the US… apparently I was gravely mistaken.
In case you’ve been under a rock for the past few days, Lake Fever has posted a special 5-song issue of their “Lake Fever Sessions” video series starring Superdrag. They play several tracks from their new record Industry Giants, which was recorded at Lake Fever. Pretty effin’ awesome if you ask me. I suggest reading Joe Baine Colvert’s blurb to the right of the videos about his teenage years and first discovering Superdrag. The photo to the left was taken by me when I ran into them at SXSW. Speaking of that… I FINALLY got all my pics from Austin on my Flickr, so go have a look. There are a lot of random candid shots on there that weren’t in the Scene slideshows.
For your daily dose of “awww how cute,” check out this article about a new dog that will be a strong contender for the world’s smallest dog. His owners oh-so-cleverly named him Tom Thumb. Via sister sisyphus.
While we’re on the subject of really tiny animals… might as well mention this new species of tree frog discovered in the Andes Mountains. It’s called Noble’s Pygmy Frog. How cute.
The Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog has a set of amazing photos of Mt. Redoubt, the Alaskan volcano that recently erupted. I knew it was only a matter of time before they had a post full of nice Redoubt imagery. I have a hard to choosing between the aerial shots and the nighttime lightning shots as my fav.
Credit: Josh Wurman, CSWR
This May 10 through June 13, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are co-funding the greatest tornado chasing effort in history. It’s called VORTEX-2, and in classic scientific tradition, they came up with a really cool acronym, and then figured out words that would work with the acronym and also describe their project. The result- Verification Of Rotation in Tornadoes EXperiment 2 (VORTEX 2). As if we need verification that tornadoes rotate…. No matter how silly the name, I’d still LOVE to be right there with them!
io9’s quote of the day today: “The Best Green Technology is Population Control.” Just read this whole excerpt by author Paolo Bacigalupi. My favorite quote from the interview:
Advertising agencies and PR firms are delighted to sell us any number of “green” gizmos and they’re throwing in some nice self-esteem blowjobs for all of us, using their persuasive talents to assure us that we’re enlightened and forward thinking because we just stuffed a green X into our Prius.
steve cross loves music and science 