Beatles mystery chord/No Doubt reunites for tour/Name that node
February 26, 2009
Well, they never really broke up officially, but No Doubt will be “reuniting” for a tour this summer. It’s a big one, too, with none other than TN’s own Paramore, kicking off at NJ’s Bamboozle Festival. Via Stereogum.
Jensen Sportag got mentioned on Pitchfork yesterday via a Max Tundra remix of the track “Cocktease” that they posted. Go get it now. Pretty awesome that Nashville’s electronic scene is getting such national attention. And here’s another treat for your hard drive via Nashville Cream:
Jensen Sportag-Jackie
The Fucking Weather. Simplicity is amazing. Via Yewknee.
Have you noticed that new skyscraper going up in downtown Nashville and wondered what it’s for, who’s occupying it, etc?? I thought so. Here’s an article from NewsChannel 5 that will answer all your questions about it.
The opening chord to the Beatles’ Hard Day’s Night has been somewhat of a mystery to musicians for 40 years. No one could quite figure out just what was being played…. until last October, when mathematician Jason Brown gave a whole new meaning to the phrase “math rock” by using a calculation called the Fourier transform to breakdown and analyze each tone present in the recording. Through this process Mr. Brown deduces that there’s a piano chord present, along with Harrison’s 12-string guitar, Lennon’s 6-string, and McCartney’s bass. This part was probably played by producer George Martin. Via Daily Galaxy.
After several delays, NASA has finally targeted March 12th as the launch date for the Space Shuttle Discovery on a mission to continue construction on the International Space Station. Let’s hope they keep this one.
NASA is also holding an online poll to determine what the official name of the next US-built space station node should be. Right now “Serenity” is winning by a landslide. I’m inclined to agree with the majority vote.
Foxes… dinosaurs… robots.
February 19, 2009
Science first today. Then we’ll get to the funny stuff.
In some really depressing news, the Space Shuttle Mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope one last time may be in serious jeopardy. That satellite collision last week, which you’ve undoubtedly heard about by now, was in the same general orbit level of Hubble, and the debris from the collision significantly increases the likelihood of a debris strike during the servicing mission to unacceptable odds. NASA estimates that the chance for a debris impact will be about 1 in 185, which is over their threshold of 1 in 200. Even a tiny piece of metal the size of a pea or even smaller could do serious damage to an astronaut’s space suit during a spacewalk, and since there were 5 spacewalks planned to service Hubble, well… you can see where this is going. The good news is, they’re pretty sure the International Space Station is not at much risk for impact from the debris, because its orbit is much lower than that of satellites. It’s just beyond the outer edges of earth’s atmosphere, which means there are just enough air molecules floating around to put a slight drag on any space junk at that orbit level, thus said space junk burns up relatively faster than junk at higher orbits. Thus, low earth orbit stays comparatively clear of debris.
Space.com reports on how the discovery of alien life could impact society. According to the article, a panel of scientists sponsored by the SETI Institute and the NASA Astrobiology Institute recently met over 3 days to discuss this and come up with a basic outline of what impacts they thought such discovery could have on human society.
Very good news for Hummer-haters (myself included!): The Tennessean reports that GM has announced that it will discontinue or sell the Hummer brand by March 31st. Let’s hope it’s the former, not the latter. In my opinion, there is no greater symbol of the wasteful and inefficient extravangance that helped get us into this economic shitstorm than the Hummer. Good riddance!
Remember my post about the movie Coraline from a week or two ago? At the time I was unclear as to the extent of They Might Be Giants’ contribution to the soundtrack. Well, turns out that 28-second jingle that plays through one of the TV trailers is it. Stereogum reports that they did some other material for the movie that got canned, because in the end it turned out not to be “dark” enough.
Dinosaurs fucking robots. Via iO9.
Foxes jumping on a trampoline. Via Yewknee.
Need I say anything else?
F*** My Life/1st extinct animal cloned
February 11, 2009
My coworker Jordan sent me a link to this amazing website today-
http://www.fmylife.com/
Just go. My favorite so far- “Today, I had just gotten over the flu and thought I was better. So me and my boyfriend decided to have sex. As I was about to orgasm, I puked all over his face. He was so disgusted that he ended up throwing up on me as well.”
You may have heard about the issues that some Nashville venues/nightclubs are facing with the new city sprinkler ordinance that went into effect about a year and a half ago. Well, luckily the ones still unable to comply have been granted an 18 month extension. Furthermore the whole thing might change altogether because the council’s codes committee is voting on a bill that looks to shift Nashville buildings to an International Fire Code, which would dissolve the retroactive fire sprinkler requirement. Read more in the NewsChannel5 article.
In other local biz news, we might be getting wine in our grocery stores soon! This is something for which I’ve been hoping for a long time. I remember as a teenager growing up only minutes from the VA state line, my mom would take me with her on wine trips to grocery stores in VA because it was much cheaper than liqour stores in TN. Part of that was that VA has a lower alcohol tax than TN (because TN has no income tax) but still, grocery stores will likely have lower prices than wine stores. There’s a flip side to this, however…. Small local wine shops may suffer due to the price war induced by bigger chains such as Kroger, which will inevitably have much lower prices due to their size. My friend Courtney Wilder works at an awesome small wine shop in east Nashville called Woodland Wine Merchant. I’ll be interested to hear her opinion on this. I know that I will not stop shopping at wine stores such as hers for quality wine because I would rather buy from a small local store where the people who work there are actual wine experts. But your average Joe probably doesn’t share that sentiment.
Enrique Aguirre/Getty Images
Scientists in Spain have successfully cloned a species of ibex that went extinct in 2000. The Pyrenean ibex died out due mainly to overhunting. However, the calf died only minutes after birth. The team plans to try again in a year or so. This is amazing and scary all at the same time. We are NOT close to creating a real-life Jurassic Park, however. In order to clone something that’s extinct, you have to grow the embryo in some sort of currently living creature. We don’t have anything living right now that is a close enough analog to a dinsaur for that to work. Maybe we’ll find a way around that problem one day, but not anytime soon.
English-Only=FAIL…. Cellos in the cold=FAIL
January 23, 2009
I’m really proud of Nashville for voting NO on the ridiculous English-only amendment. Way to go Nashville!
Cellist Yo Yo Ma and the group of musicians who play Obama’s inauguration pulled a Milli Vanilli on us. They pretended to play the original composition by John Williams, but what you heard was a taped recording. We have to forgive them, though, because it was physically impossible for their instruments to stay in tune due the cold. Apparently they really wanted to play it live, and waited until the very last minute to make the decision.
David Berman is officially putting Silver Jews to rest. He wants to devote his time to other endeavors. If he continues to record he “might accidentally write the answer song to Shiny Happy People.” Ha. Hahaha. Via Stereogum.
We’re All Gonna Die is an amazing 100 meter-wide photograph created by Simon Hoegsberg in Germany. Do yourself a big favor and go scroll through the whole thing. Thank me later. Via Yewknee yesterday and Kottke.org today.
And now for some photo-nerd-gasm: A Nikon D3 rig cut perfectly in half. (Click image to see more.)
Eye-gasms and frozen tongues
January 16, 2009
Total eye-gasm. In fact… multiple eye-gasms. The Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” comes through as always with another set of amazing imagery. This is a collection of images from satellites. Click the image to get to the site.
Anamalia: Mikel Uribetxeberria. Not sure what country this guy is from, but his images are amazing. These images of different animals in completely odd places make me very happy and yet uneasy at the same time… and I’m not really sure how this was pulled off technically.
In music news, Devo is playing this year’s SXSW, and Pavement is heavliy rumored to be re-uniting to play ATP NY. I’m contemplating joining my friend and bandmate Seth on an adventure to SXSW this year. I’ve been talking about it for a few years now, and now it’s time to just DO IT.
Nashvillians are stupid sometimes. Metro schools are closed today because of the cold. Come on people, because of the cold? Seriously? Apparently a lot of kids walk to school… but why can’t you just bundle the hell up? Layers, people, it’s all about layers! You people are bunch of of pansies! Via Nashvillest.
Remember that scene in A Christmas Story where the kid is dared to put his tongue on a metal lightpost and ends up with his tongue frozen to it? Well, I guess kids still actually do that.
A tutorial video from a xhardcorex kid on how to do a xone-stepx and xtwo-stepx xwall flipx. That’s sooo xhardcorex dude.
A US Airways plane taking off from LaGuardia airport in NYC had to abort and land in the Hudson river yesterday, which I’m sure you’ve seen in the news by now. Apparently it was caused by a bird flying into one of the engines. Thankfully no one was hurt. A quick youtube search for water plane landings yielded this terrifying video of a plane barely missing some buildings near a beach, then landing in the water.
Photo cliches/new Neko Case song
January 15, 2009
Photo cliches: a collection of the most common cliches in tourist photos. Included- the fake phallus, statue groping, the Lynndie England thumbs-up, snorting Coca Cola.
While we’re on the subject the phallus… might as well post a link to the Head O State Obama sex toy. You really have to read the “testimonials,” especially the one from Sarah Palin.
Ok, enough giggly sexual innuendo.
A new environmentally-minded general store is opening in the Sylvan Park neighborhood of west Nashville. That’s just around the corner from me, so I’ll probably be hitting it up pretty soon. Read all about it in that Nashvillest post. I’ll bet if it’s successful she’ll open another one in east Nashville. Those two communities seem to be the most likely locations for such a store.
Neko Case has released her newest single via free download at Brooklynvegan. For every blog that reposts this song, Neko and ANTIlabel will make a cash donation to the Best Friends Animal Society. So download it, and if you have a blog, REPOST!
Neko Case-People Got A Lotta Nerve.mp3
Here’s a really cool collection of How-To graphics and illustrations. Fun to just peruse through… if that sort of thing interests you.
And for a little science: Wired talks about the top 5 best bets for extraterrestrial life in our own solar system. The top choice might surprise you, depending on how closely you follow the latest astronomy news.
Vote NO on #1 and #2
January 13, 2009
This only pertains to people living in Nashville, but for heaven’s sake get out and vote NO on #1 and #2. This is the hotly debated “English Only” law that would require all Nashville goverment forms, business, etc… to be carried out in English only. I don’t have the time nor energy to go into why this is a terrible idea, so go to NashvilleForAllofUs.org and read why you should definitely vote against this law. Early voting is underway NOW and goes until this saturday the 17th. You must go to the downtown election commission office to do so. Go here to see the early voting schedule. The official election is Jan. 22nd.
Related to yesterday’s post about Microsoft Songsmith (and you’ve probably already seen/heard this, but if you haven’t, do yourself a favor)- listen to the songsmith version of “Runnin’ with the Devil” by Van Halen. They took the bare vocal track of David Lee Roth singing and ran it through songsmith. Simply amazing if you ask me. No really. Via Nashville Cream.
Pete Souza was named the official White House photographer for soon-to-be President Obama. His coverage of Obama’s senate years is apparently what landed him the job. I cannot imagine how it must feel to be tasked with documenting the most historic presidential administration in the last 100 years, if not EVER.
Thank God the Heritage Foundation reached their fundraising goal to restore the historic Franklin Theater. The downtown area of Franklin is the only thing left there that hasn’t been completely overrun by ugly, mindless, white-upper-class uniformity and gentrification. Via Nashvillest.
This week the Mercy Lounge is celebrating their 6th anniversary by have 6 nights of free live music, with 6 or more bands each night. My band Tigers Con Queso is playing tonight, along with The Privates, The Effects, The Clutters, Rae Herring, and Vermicious K’nids. Did I mention it’s FREE?
Merge Records- 20 years old!
January 9, 2009
From the department of AWESOME, Merge Records will be having a 20th anniversary festival in their hometown of Chapel Hill, NC this summer. I can’t wait to see the lineup! I’m really hoping that Spoon, M. Ward, Arcade Fire, and Camera Obscura are all involved. That would be well worth making the trip. Save the date- July 22nd through 26th. Also, for $199, you can subscribe to SCORE!, an exclusive series of releases, featuring content hand-picked by the curators of Merge’s back-catalog. Just go read about it, too much to explain here…
SXSW has announced the initial lineup for it’s 2009 festival, being held March 18-22nd in Austin, TX. I’m going to try to weasel my way into going this year.
Some Nashville songwriters/musicians decided that the Titans needed a fight song going into their big playoff game this saturday against the Baltimore Ravens. Apparently they finished it at about 4am this morning. Check out the story and hear a clip of it on the Tennessean’s website. Link via Nashvillest.
For you daily dose of WTF from the science world, check out this Universe Today article about entrepreneur Eric Knight’s ideas about what NASA should do with the Space Shuttles after they’re retired next year. He wants to use them to go to Mars. Not one, but two of them at once. Keep in mind while reading this article that his ideas were meant to be simply a thought exercise, not a technically sound and feasible plan.
Zooey Gibbard? Yep.
December 30, 2008
Photos: Jensen Sutta
I’m not one for celebrity gossip, but WTF?!?!?!?!?!? How did I miss out that Ben Gibbard and Zooey Deschanel were dating? Two of my top 25 or so musicians… and I hadn’t a clue. Well, according to Stereogum and several other sources, they’re engaged! Honestly, I can’t think of a better match. It’s a total indie rock cuteness-warm-fuzzy-gasm. They just need to write some songs together already! Ok ok… I know I’ve mentioned ZD in like, all of the last few posts… but she just keeps popping up on my radar… not that she’s ever really below it anyway. Yes, I have a girlfriend, but even SHE has a crush on ZD.
Not sure what to do in Nashville this New Year’s Eve? Here’s a list of some good things going on.
How I Became the Bomb, The Privates, And The Relatives @ the Basement, 21+
JEFF the Brotherhood, Meemaw, Turbo Fruits @ the End, 18+
Selloutpresents.com and Club Sportag present “Return to Whatever” @ the Warehouse, 901 6th Ave South, 21+
The Protomen, Makeup & Vanity Set, Beta Macks @ Springwater, 21+
Autovaughn, Cage the Elephant, Hollywood Kills, Gone City, and Leslie @ 12th and Porter, 21+
Charles Walker & the Dynamites @ Exit/In, 21+
There are some other things going on, but those are the biggest ones in my book. I haven’t seen JEFF or Meemaw since Next Big Nashville, so I’m guessing I’m due for another dose of Infinity Cat.
Science tidbits for the day:
Livescience’s top 5 incredible science discoveries of 2008.
The Obama administration will hopefully help to bring America back to the forefront of science and technology. Under the Bush administration’s morality-based politics, we’ve slowly lost our grip on being the world leader in these fields, and reality in general. Livescience talks about the optimistic new outlook for science and the democratization of knowledge.
Exomoons, ice, and an avian dance party
December 16, 2008
Score one for the weather forecasters. This morning on my way out the door I inspected my surroundings to find a thin glaze of ice on almost everything except the road (THANKFULLY!). We were under a freezing rain advisory and freezing rain is indeed what we had. It’s rare, but it’s kinda cool to see when it happens. When it hits you on the hand, it’s wet, yet when it hits anything else, it freezes! But I really don’t think any roads had problems as they were just a little too warm for anything to freeze on them. I also found this cool slideshow on the Tennessean’s website showing snow photos over the past several years.
Ok, enough nerdy weather science. Back to the usual links of interest:
Since I’ll be flying to NYC this Wed. with Megan, I thought it appropriate to post this video showing the astounding number of flights world wide over a 24 hour period.
Apparently astronomers are already tired of discovering exoplanets. Now they’re onto discovering exomoons around exoplanets! David Kipping at the University College London is working on a method of measuring the wobble of planets around other stars. So, we look at a distant star and observe its wobble caused by the tug of a large planet orbiting it. Then we directly image that planet with Hubble or even some ground-based telescope, and observe its own wobble, caused by it’s moon(s). Obviously this can only be done (at least for now) with very large planets (think Jupiter-sized or even bigger) that are close enough to be directly imaged, but still… AMAZING. Read the rest of the the story at Universe Today.
Finally, I give you Snowball, the Dancing Cockatoo:
steve cross loves music and science 