From The Musical Science Desk...

Two legendary professors were also kind of musicians. And it's now available on wax. Third Man Records, owned by a cat named Jack White III, recently released the song "A Glorious Dawn" on glorious 7-inch vinyl. I'll give you 3.3 guesses what I bought today.

Composer John Boswell took various sound-bites from Carl Sagan's 1980s TV show Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, fired up the Auto-Tune, added Professor Hawking on backing robot vocals, popped in some spacey arrangements, and bam! Cool record. It's actually quite astonishing.



There you have it. Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking in a band. Now, this is the most important part: I don't want to ever, EVER, hear again that Kanye West and Lil' Wayne are talented. Ever again. Using the exact same technology, the damn Auto-Tune, you can make a guy with no voice sound melodic.

Check. Mate.

Thread tiny cameras through the singer's noses and focus on the larynx. Then have them sing sweetly and see what it looks like deep inside. Yes, that's really what this is.

(via b3ta)

I'm a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails and alot of their videos are highly creative (i.e. Only). I honestly don't know if this is the official video for the song Discipline (from The Slip) but it's funny as hell to watch (albeit slightly gay in a Village People way). Thanks Trent for the good times and hopefully we'll see Nine Inch Nails reappear somewhere down the road!

From the Relevant to Nobody but Me Music Desk

PHISH - FALL TOUR 2009 from Phish on Vimeo.

Best get your tickets today as they seem to be going fast! I got mine so see you in Charlottesville in December!

Those who think rap music began in 1979 haven't heard the 1972 song Prisencolinensinainciusol, by Adriano Celentano. The lyrics are neither English nor Italian; they are pure gibberish. Someone called this "what English sounds like to a non-English speaking person." Okay then.

(via Metafilter)

From The Rock & Roll Archives Desk...

As the result of a Freedom of Information Act request, a list of musical artists whose work was used in controversial interrogation techniques has been acquired.

Some bands, including R.E.M. and Pearl Jam, that may have had their tunes used are not happy about this.

At the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, a variety of musical torture tactics were allegedly used. Supposedly, a suspect would be put in a room and a certain songs or songs would be blasted at ear-splitting levels for long periods of time. It could drive you batty. One of the songs used was the Sesame Street theme. A few hours of that would be cruel and unusual.

For me, if I was in a room and you blasted any Creed "song" for more than 11 minutes, I would tell you that I shot JFK from the grassy knoll and kidnapped the Lindbergh's baby. I may even throw in a "I gave Lizzie Borden's parents a whack with an axe" confession for good measure. "You got me. I did it. I am Spartacus. I'm The Great Pumpkin. I framed Roger Rabbit! I did it! Now turn Beyonce off!"

Was your favorite band used at Guantanamo? The list of artists used that has been declassified so far can be seen after the jump.

While at work today, rocking out to some NOFX, I remembered this video and felt like the Loyal 77 needed a shot of punk today. Enjoy this little slice of blasphemy...

Storm Large is her name.
And she's got some information she'd love to share with you.

{NSFW}

A track from her one woman show Crazy Enough.
You think?

I've always been impressed by anyone who can fluently speak more than one language. People who learn a manufactured language confound me. And being able to perform a known song in a manufactured language is just plain cool. Introducing the artist known as Klenginem, performing the Klingon version of Eminem's song Without Me. In Klingon, the song is called SuvwI'pu' qan tu'lu'be.

Growing up on the Klingon starbase Morska, it was no problem for Klenginem - whose real name is Quvar muHwI' valer - to receive the most different kinds of communication waves, among which also the terran rap-music.

As a communications officer, it was no problem for him to adapt the songs to the klingon music, and then he presented his first try to the warriors of the Dark Vengeance Fleet. To make his pseudonym, he used the name of a famous terran rap-singer, from the "Klingon Eminem" he got the name "Klenginem".

The website is clearly labeled as a parody, but what does that mean? I don't know the Klingon language, so I don't know how much of an accomplishment this song is. Maybe you know someone who is passingly fluent in Klingon to ask whether this performance is in fluent Klingon. Maybe we'll never know.

(via Culture Popped)

Much like we did with Chocolate Rain, we give you this song by Das Racist in the hopes it's musical stylings will stop bouncing around our cerebellum.

You know, there are some days that I love New York City even more than every other day. Today, at The Union Square Greenmarket, was one of those days.

Now that is a busker...

A little something to blow away the Monday Morning cobwebs. (via Waxy)

From The Johnny Wright Musical Idolatry Desk...

There is a White Stripes film coming soon called Under Great White Northern Lights. I'm very excited. The film documents the Stripes' 10 year celebration as a band and shows their last Canadian tour. That tour the band played in every province, and did "impromptu secret shows in local pool halls, bowling alleys, public parks, flour mills, fishing vessels, classrooms, grocery stores, transit buses, and elder meetings." Boring, the Stripes are not.

While the promoting the film, Jack couldn't help himself and took the opportunity for a little Kanye tomfoolery.



It's the shrug that makes it art.

"I'm in the right place the wrong time? That's how I feel every day."
Jack White

To corporate America? Yeah.....that Satan! You'll be surprised who got them though....enjoy the video after the jump.

(sorry to move it there but it auto-plays and I didn't want Sacarmouch getting on my case for cluttering up the main page)

How many heads does it take to make a hip hop beat?
About 9, plus 4 musicians.

Enjoy this cut from Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc.

Thanks to the Daily What