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
Ice Cream/Ray Kurzweil/NASA embarks on biggest delay ever
April 21, 2009
Today is the annual free cone day at Ben & Jerry’s. From what I’ve heard, they’ve gotten the issue of long-line-management down to a science, and it shouldn’t take as long as you think it will to get through. Good luck! I honestly don’t know if I’ll do it or not…
The Protomen won last night’s Road to Bonnaroo 8 off 8th. They join The Features, who won the first installment of this 3-part series. The final one happens Mon. May 18th.
The 2009 Lollapalooza official lineup has been announced. Headliners are: Depeche Mode, Tool, the Killers, Jane’s Addition, Beastie Boys, and Kings of Leon. It takes place August 7-9 in Grant Park, as always.
Diplo and Switch have a new Jamiacan dancehall-inspired project called Major Lazer. It’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect when you mention those two and dancehall in the same sentence. Stereogum has 2 free mp3’s.
The new Zooey Deschanel film 5oo Days of Summer screened at the Nashville Film Festival this past weekend. Not exactly sure of the Nashville connection to this film, but Nashvillest has a nice guest blog review by Winston Hearn.
A documentary film on renowned inventor and thinker Ray Kurzweil has been made. It’s called Transcendent Man. According to my NetFlix, a release date has not been announced, but it’s in the Tribeca Film Festival. Kurzweil theorizes that humanity will reach a technological singularity in the next 30 years, and that the only way for us to survive is to learn how to become literal cyborgs- meld our minds with computers. Here’s the trailer.
Space.com reports that the lightest exoplanet thus far has been discovered in the famous Gliese 581 system. This latest planet is called Gliese 581 E and is the 5th planet found in this system. It’s only 1.9 times the mass of earth, but unfortunately it’s VERY close to its host star, orbiting it in a mere 3.15 days. That means it’s way too hot to support life. The only planet (that we’ve discovered) in this particular star’s habitable zone is Gliese 581 D, but it’s 7 times the mass of Earth, and though it’s thought to have a rocky core, it’s probably completely covered by a vast deep ocean. In other words, it’s a waterworld. So that would preclude any land-based life forms, but there certainly could be life in those oceans!
Finally, the Onion reports that NASA has officially embarked on the biggest, most epic delay in history. Indeed.
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!
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.
New mix/edge of space/honey bees
April 14, 2009
DJ Burgers (me) has posted a brand new mix for your dancing/listening pleasure. Click here to download the official DJ Burgers Spring MIXXXX 2009. Here’s the tracklist:
Leif-Timbs
Le Castle Vania- Trouble in Daylight (LA Riots Remix)
KUDU- 4 Let’s Finish (Sinden Remix)
All-American Rejects-Gives You Hell (Bloody Beetroots remix)
La Roux-In For the Kill (the Twelves Remix)
Jensen Sportag- Jackie
PNAU-Baby (Breakbot remix)
Daft Punk- One More Time (Radio edit)
Black Kids- Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance (Twelves Remix)
The Presets-Girl and the Sea (Cut Copy Remix)
Rye Rye- Bang (ft. M.I.A.)
If you want me to DJ at a party or something, email me at djburgers@gmail.com. Also I’m hosting another 8 off 8th at Mercy Lounge on May 11th. Mark your calendars, it’ll be a good one. Lineup is mostly confirmed but I’ll wait until I hear from everyone to post it here.
Ok now that the shameless self-promotion is out of the way, on to some music news… and there’s really only one thing that sticks out to me today. Phil Spector was found guilty of murder and could face life in prison.
From the department of “OMG THAT’S DISGUSTING!!!”…. A man in Russia had a 5 cm. fir tree removed from inside his lung. I don’t understand how it grew without any light…. In fact, I question the legitimacy of this story. Gross, nonetheless.
Scientists in Spain have discovered one potential cause of Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder, Science Daily reports. No, it’s not lethal tree farts as M. Night Shyamalan would have us believe. They found a bacteria that was infecting a colony and successfully treated it with anitbiotics. This may or may not be the main cause of CCD. Let’s hope it is, because if they keep dying, it could be devastaing for the world’s food supply.
Scientists at the University of Calgary have come up with a new definition for the edge of space. According to them, it’s 73 miles above the Earth’s surface. But the definition is still pretty unclear, becuase technically an astronaut is said to have been to space after travelling only 50 miles above the ground. Furthermore, for the space shuttle the edge of space is defined as 76 miles becuase that’s where it switches from thrusters to using air surfaces (the wings) for control. But the atomsphere at that altitude is still negligible, the only reason the space shuttle can use air surfaces that high-up is becuase at that point it’s just beginning re-entry and thus is travelling at 16,000-17,000 mph. If it were travelling much slower than that it would still have to use thrusters.
On this day in 1970, the famous words “Houston, we have a problem” came across the radio from Apollo 13. If you’re interested, you can read the details of the incident on the National Space Science Data Center website.
Update to yesterday’s post- the tornado that hit northern Murfreesboro was upgraded to EF4 intesity. It briefly reached EF4 status around Highland Park Drive and again near Tomahawk Trace, but was at EF3 strength for most of its duration. The total path length was also extended to 23 miles.
South Park may have pulled off the impossible: putting Kayne West’s ego in check. This Billboard.com article reports that last Wednesday’s episode “skewered the famously self-important rapper… painting him as a narcissistic figure so out of touch with reality he couldn’t even take a (very politically incorrect) joke.” Well done, South Park. Check out Kayne’s blog post here.
Stephen Colbert is a smart guy. The most brilliant thing he’s done recently is rally his fans to vote on an open NASA poll for the name of their next node to be added to the International Space Station. They had some suggestions- Serenity, Earthrise, etc… very typical-sounding names for stuff like that. But they had an write-in option, which Colbert exploited. The result was that the name “Colbert” won the contest for naming the node, and NASA has been scratching its head as to what to do about it ever since. Tomorrow night we’ll find out their decision in a clever way- astronaut Sunita Williams will be on the show to unveil the name. Will it really be Colbert? Only time will tell. It’ll be an interesting episode for sure…
The CIA and USAF have finally declassified a project that was based at the mysterious Area 51 base in Nevada. The LA Times interviewed 5 former employees of the facility who disclosed details on a top-secret spy plane code named OXCART. This plane allegedly has an odd shape, and was capable of flying at Mach 3. This could explain a HUGE number of the UFO sightings in that area, because according to this article there were 2,850 test flights of this thing, all conducted from Area 51. This is a bigger deal than it may seem, because up until now, the government didn’t even acknowledge that Area 51 existed. By declssifying this project they’re now admitting that it does exist. A big step forward if you ask me. I’ve always been fascinated by the place, and really want to go out there just to walk up to the signs telling you that you’ll be shot if you try to break in. I’m quite sure that there are some crazy things going on there involving technology that we haven’t even dreamed of yet, but I won’t say or believe that they’re reverse-engineering UFO’s and keeping aliens in freezers until proof of such a claim exists. Via io9.
Friday’s tornado outbreak was pretty devastating, though the vast majority of the damage was from an EF3 twister that hit nothern Murfreesboro. The official NWS survey has determined that a total of 4 tornadoes hit middle TN on friday- three EF1’s and one EF3. The report actually says “at least EF3,” so there’s a chance it may be upgraded to an EF4. One of the things that made this particular tornado so devastating was the fact that it was a multiple-vortex tornado. I will leave you with this absolutely amazing video footage shot from a tall building in Murfreesboro. (Probably the bank building.) You can easily see the smaller funnels inside the main vortex. The first few seconds are jittery but he sets the camera down and you get a long, clear look at this monster. Watch closely at about :45, 1:15, and 1:30 where you can clearly see a smaller vortex to the right of the main one.
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!
2 tornadoes confirmed on Saturday/T.I. makes Rites of Spring appearance just before jail
March 31, 2009
Apparently Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber is on the list of TIME magazine’s candidates for the 100 most influential people. You can vote to rank each individual’s influence on a scale of 1 to 100. Seriously? Everyone’s heard of the “Pitchfork effect,” but I think it has become less relevant over the past 2 years or so. It just seems to me that people start regarding over-hyped “blog-buzz” bands as “Pitchfork bands,” and rightfully so, because most of the bands they’ve hyped over the last couple years have had little staying power. Ex.- Vampire Weekend, Deerhunter, TV on the Radio, etc… Hipster Runoff has a take on this issue.
Rapper T.I. has been confirmed as the “other” headliner for this year’s Rites of Spring, and it will probably be one of his last performances before starting his 1-year jail sentence. Kinda weird but kinda cool at the same time?
In other festival news, the 2nd All Points West lineup has been announced, and it includes Nashville/Bowling Green act Cage the Elephant. These guys have a very festival-friendly live show from what I’ve heard, so it’s really no surprise, especially since they’re also playing Coachella and Bamboozle.
It had to be invented eventually… shoes that grow with children’s feet.
President Obama signed a very important environmental bill into law yesterday called the Omnibus Public Land Management Act. This protects wildnerness areas in California, West Virginia, Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan, Utah, Virginia and Oregon. It also protects a thousand miles of rivers. This act has been in the works for many years, so one can only credit Obama with the final push to make it law. Still, a big win for our country’s natural beauty. Via the Daily Galaxy.
NASA unveiled a mock-up of the Orion Crew Vehicle yesterday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. For some reason I can’t find any photos of this in the public domain, but it basically looks just like the Apollo modules from the 60’s. Technologically, though, it’s vastly more advanced than the Apollo modules. The new Constellation project (of which the Orion Crew Vehicle is a part) will carry astronauts to the ISS beginning around 2015, to the moon in the early 2020’s, and hopefully to Mars in the mid 2030’s. I really hope that I’m still around when that happens.
Finally, the National Weather Service in Nashville has completed their assesment of the storm damage from this past Saturday. As you probably know if you’re from here, a tornado warning was issued for western Davidson and eastern Cheatham Counties around 5:30pm. The storm that prompted this warning did indeed drop an EF1 twister that hit northern Cheatham County. Also, another storm that hit Rutherford County dropped an EF1 twister that hit very near downtown Murfreesboro. This tornado was orginally thought to be and EF0, but further damage assesment prompted the NWS to upgrade it to an EF1. They have very good aerial survey methods that can determine whether damage was caused by straight-line winds or a tornado. The Enhanced-Fujita scale uses damage to estimate the wind speeds in the tornado. There is still no direct way to measure the wind speeds inside the actual funnel, unless the tornado happens to directly hit a wind vane and it somehow miraculously survives. But the chances of that happening are slim to none. If you know me I’m sure you’re wondering whether I chased either of these storms, and the answer is yes, I did attempt to track down the one in Davidson County, but chasing in TN is very difficult, mainly because the roads are not laid out in nice, easy-to-navigate grids like they are in the plains, and also because the storms around here tend to be High-Precipitation Supercells, rather than Low-Precipitiation Supercells which are more common in the plains. This means that most of the tornadoes in TN are shrouded in rain and thus very difficult or impossible to spot from a distance. So no, I was unsuccessful in seeing/documenting this tornado.
Parking/Privates
March 30, 2009
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve really REALLY wanted to do just this:
Ok, now that’s out of the way. One of my favorite bands from our great local rock scene here in Nashville is The Privates. Their last album Barricades was phenomenal and still recieves regular play in my iTunes despite being over 2 years old now. The guys recently finished up a new EP at Battletapes, which is a departure from their long history of recording at Lake Fever Productions. I’ve written about this before so I’ll say no more about that. Just enjoy the title track “Motion,” and be sure to catch their EP release show at the Basement this Friday April 3rd, along with Hotpipes and the Garland Sisters (Caitlin Rose and Tristen).
If you read this blog or know me at all, you could probably infer that I’m a fan of the History Channel’s series The Universe. Thus I was quite intrigued by this article on io9 that talks about the Discovery Channel’s new rival series, Stephen Hawking’s Universe. Is the Discovery Channel at war with the History Channel?
Today I’ll leave you with this nice bit of space porn from the last space shuttle mission: It was taken as Discovery moved away from the ISS in preparation for landing. Even better than the last pic I posted of the ISS.
Click to enlarge
Click image to see bigger version
This has been popping up in a few places around the interwebs for a couple days now, and I should’ve posted about it earlier, but I’ve fallen victim t0 post-SXSW sickness and laziness. A team of physicists have discovered a brand new subatomic particle, which they’re calling “Y(4140).” Ironically this particle was not discovered at the Large Hadron Collider, which is still not operational due to repairs from the catastrophic helium leak last fall; it was discovered at Fermilab, right here in the USA. This new information will be valuable in future mathematical models of the universe, as well as in the experiments conducted at the LHC later this year. You’d think they could come up with a cooler name for a completely new type of subatomic particle… something like “megaquark” or “quarktron.” Lazerquark…
The space shuttle undocked from the ISS yesterday and did a fly-around, capturing the first images of the fully symmetrical, full-length ISS. Universe Today has the space porn, including video of part of the fly-around.
According to Space.com, NASA has decided to go ahead with the Hubble repair mission, despite the increased risk of debris impact due to the satellite collision on Feb. 10th. I’m glad, but kinda scared for the crew. The danger is heightened by the fact that they won’t have the ISS as a lifeboat. Instead, NASA will have Space Shuttle Endeavour on a different pad, ready to launch and be used as a lifeboat should Atlantis be damaged.
Several different time-lapse videos of plants growing. These things are always fun to watch. Via kottke.org.
This has been showing up on almost every blog I read, but it’s definitely worth posting- the first trailers for the Spike Jonze-directed, Arcade Fire-loaded, live-action version of Where the Wild Things Are has been posted. The best place to view it is on apple.com. They have gorgeous HD versions that are true eye candy.
Camera Obscura @ SXSW 2009 Photo: Steve Cross
I was quite pleased yesterday to find out that Camera Obscura will be kicking off their north American tour in Nashville at the Mercy Lounge on May 27th. To my knowledge, they have never played here, and they’re one of my favorites. Even though I just saw them at SXSW, I will be there enthusiastically. Their new album My Maudlin Career drops April 20th via 4AD. Check out the rest of their tour dates at their myspace.
Another upcoming show I’m looking forward to is The Pains of Being Pure at Heart @ the End on May 2nd. Like C.O., I saw this band at SXSW and they did not dissappoint. But I really look forward to seeing full length sets from both bands, as all the shows at SXSW are showcases with 5 or so bands, thus each band has less time to setup and a shorter set length than normal. POBPAH are definitely one of those “blog-buzz” bands, but I honestly think they will have more staying power and are on an entirely different level than say, Vampire Weekend or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
steve cross loves music and science 