Melissa’s Neighbors

WHA?!'s Summer of Love 2008 mashup monsterpiece!

nobody@vox.com(W♥M) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:59:15 -0700

07/20/2008 02:55:26 ♥ written by derek ( / www.pegritz.com)

Apollo Zero-Pinball Wizard in the Driver's Seat

Apollo Zero

I generally don't think much of mashups. Some of them are really creative--"The Ghosts That Feeds," combining Ray Parker Jr's "Ghostbusters" and Nine Inch Nails' "The Hand That Feeds" is brilliant, as is the entire-musical-spectrum-raping insanity of Pittsburgh's Girl Talk--but for the most part, mashups are almost always poorly-thought-out, and even more poorly-executed exercises in the cut'n'paste aesthetic that Negativland and Emergency Broadcast Network pioneered but few, few, can master as well.

WHA?! Studios latest mashup monsterpiece, Summer of Love 2008, proves that there are brilliant mashup artists Out There who can combine elements of various songs into mind-melting frankensongs that manage to transcend the mere sum of their parts. Yeah, it's cool to hear Jim Morrison's laconic vocals from "Rider On The Storm" synced up to Blondie's "Rapture," but are you prepared for the sheer musical chimerism of "Buffalo Springfield VS 808 State VS Deee-Lite VS Prince VS Duran Duran"? Because that's exactly what "What's That Sound?" by World Famous Audio Hacker, on Summer of Love 2008 is.

The whole idea behind Summer of Love 2008 can be succinctly described in the words of WHA?!'s press-release for the comp: "[Summer of Love 2008] is our tribute to the second Summer of Love, the acid house and rave culture which started 20 years ago in the UK. It was just as important as the first Summer of Love in the late 60's. So we took songs from the Flower Power era and we took songs from the Acid House Revolution and mashed them together." And that's exactly what you get. Album opener, "Step Together," by the brilliantly-named Phil RetroSpector, combines the Happy Mondays with The Beatles, while "Pinball Wizard in the Drivers Seat" splices together elements from The Who, Dogtooth, and Cook's County. I'd have to say this is my favorite track, because it turns The Who's "Pinball Wizard," one of my alltime favorite Who tracks, into a synthpop dancefloor destroyer that sounds more like a strange, contemporary remake of the song rather than a traditional remix. Bobby Martini's "Here Comes the Sunscreem" is a seamless mercuric amalgamation of Sunscreem and The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun." Though sometimes the vocals don't quite match up with the music, it's still an incredibly ballsy track that will electrify hippies and britpop fans alike and will keep dancefloors rocking. Flying White Dots' shiversome "Land of Oz" is a beautiful, almost ambient space/dance/trance track built from pieces of Manuel Gottsching, Latino, Grace Jones, Pink Floyd, The Orb, Opus 3, Björk, Masters At Work, and The freakin' KLF to boot! We're talking ten minutes of space music so lush and mindblowing it proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt...this one track proves that music is better than acid for achieving altered states of mind. Yes. There. I said it. It's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Again, what makes this compilation work so well is that it's not a one-trick pony. Yes, it's built around a basic gimmick, combining music from two different eras, flowerchildren plus early rave culture, blah blah blah--but it only uses that gimmick as a starting point, not an endpoint. These individual tracks achieve much, much more than simply stitching together the familiar hooks from a bunch of random pop songs from the late '60s and the late '80s/early '90s. The combination of Summers of Love produces vibrant new music, not merely zombie tracks consisting of reanimated samples from old songs. A few of them, the first two tracks in particular, sound like remixes--but good remixes that do what remixes should do: create all new songs out of the components of previous tracks. But the other tracks...the other tracks are truly unique examples of, and triumphs of, the mashup genre.

Best of all...the entire EP is free! Free as Love! First, you can listen to all songs in streaming format at the album's homepage, then you can download the entire album here (Divshare link), or, even better, you can download it as a torrent. Plus, the torrent version contains a special extra: "The Caravan of Love Collection is the bonus gift of the Summer of Love 2008 compilation. Each artist from the album has designed a VW bus and you can find them in a handy print ready booklet feature in the zip file. Print them all and set up your very own Caravan of Love!" That's right, you get a collection of papercraft microbuses to print out, fold up, and display proudly in your cubicle while you blow your coworkers minds with the psycherobodelic sounds of Summer of Love 2008!

Links: whastudios.com apollozero.blogspot.com

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on going round -n- round -n- round ...

nobody@vox.com(ambookgeek) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:44:45 -0700

CB064866

I read about this on someone else's Vox blog, but I got so involved with the site that I lost the original poster so apologies to whoever sent this site my way ... Check this out! You can get 360-degree views of parts of cities from all over the world. Pretty damned amazing!!! 360 Cities: The World in Virtual Reality.

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犬印鞄製作所 iPod case

nobody@vox.com(TAKUHITO) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:40:37 -0700

犬印鞄製作所 iPod case

http://inujirushi.net/inujirushi/7.1/...

iPod用ですが、iPhone 3Gでもいけそう。シンプルでかっこいいかも。

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DayReflection [Vox] for iPhone

nobody@vox.com(TAKUHITO) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:46:29 -0700

iPhone 3G

DayReflection [Vox] for iPhone

http://sotomevox....

このサイトのiPhone対応サイトはコチラです。

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Cabinet rearranging

nobody@vox.com(Papi Chulo) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:02:56 -0700

Everything in its place.

photo.jpg

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just finished ...

nobody@vox.com(ambookgeek) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:21:04 -0700

Market, The

J.m. Steele

The Market—J.M. Steele

Kate has been satisfied to make it through three years of at Millbank High School as just one of the girls in the crowd. She earned good grades, admission to Brown University, and had good friends with whom she could pass the time. Kate’s high school life changes, however, when late one night she stumbles across the Millbank Social Stock Market (MSSM). Of the 140 girls in her class, Kate’s ranking is a bleak 71. Kate and her friend develop a plan to raise the value of her stock from “junk bond” to “blue chip” before the end of their senior year.

While the plot is thoroughly clichéd and can be very easily mapped by anyone who has seen Mean Girls and three episodes of a teen drama on the CW Network, middle schoolers and younger high schoolers will likely enjoy the fastpaced story telling in this decent enough beach read.

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こむすび

nobody@vox.com(TAKUHITO) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:37:44 -0700

こむすび

RICOH GX200

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The Dark Knight

nobody@vox.com(W♥M) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:09:05 -0700

07/19/2008 08:04:52 ♥ written by vu ()

Hans Zimmer - I Am The Batman

Hans Zimmer

As a pretty big DC Comics geek, so I went to see The Dark Knight on opening day. I've been eagerly awaiting the film since Batman Begins and it just felt forever for the film to finally make it to the movie theaters. What made it worst, was I picked up the Batman Bluray and saw the first six minutes of the film, which made waiting for the movie even more unbearable!

So after watching it, I definitely wasn't disappointed. I thought maybe at the end, there was an over usage of sweeping orchestral music that seems to overpower the dialogues spoken. Maybe even Christian Bale's Batman voice is sometime over dramatic and the Gotham mafia is a joke, the movie is still pretty awesome.

By the way, I'm actually kind of surprise that with all the violence in the film, it was still Rated PG-13. I guess the rating board have laxed over the years, but if this movie was released in the 80s, it would've been slap with an R.

I'm sure all the critics will tell you what a wonderful villain Heath Ledger's Joker was. He was pretty frightening in the role, and I'm kind of sad that this will be his last role. In some ways, I hope they don't bring back the Joker in future films, especially if future actors won't be able to carry on the craziness of what Ledger brought.

Anyway, before I let spoilers slip, I'll just keep this short and sweet. Here are some Batman music.

Danny Elfman - The Batman Theme

Prince - Batdance (Vicki Vale Mix)

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Face To Face

The Dynamic Batmen - Batman TV Theme

R. Kelly-Gotham City

A couple of comments: I've previously mentioned Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman before, so check those out. The "Batman TV Theme" was redone, possibly in the late 60s by an outfit called The Dynamic Batmen. I've always loved this surf theme song, but it doesn't seem to suit the seriousness of what Batman should be. It is a fun song and I guess reflect the feel-good theme of the Adam West show.

Prince's "Batdance (Vicki Vale remix)" and had heavy sampling from the 1989 Batman movie. It is, as they say, funky, I didn't think belong in the "grim" and "gothic" Tim Burton film. However, Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Face to Face" fit quite well in the sequel Batman Returns. What a great single! Rounding out is R Kelly's "Gotham City", from the disaster that is known as Batman & Robin.

Links: thedarkknight.warnerbros.com hans-zimmer.com oingoboingo.com

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『崖の上のポニョ』観てきましたー！

nobody@vox.com(TAKUHITO) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:43:23 -0700

ポニョポニョチェーン

『崖の上のポニョ』公式サイト

映画を観る前にグッズをゲット。何となくその気になりたかったので先に買ってみました。
映画はとにかく面白かったです内容は書けませんが、さすがジブリですね！

ついでに、池袋サンシャインシティ文化会館で行われている『崖の上のポニョ展』も見てきました。

20080719-ポニョDay

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popInがiPhoneに正式対応！

nobody@vox.com(TAKUHITO) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:30:41 -0700

popInがiPhoneに正式対応！

http://www.popin.cc/ja/pressrelease/0...

1．iPhoneでの文字列選択「popSelect」 popInの利用はWebページ内の「語」や「文章」を選択することで始まります。しかし、現在のiPhoneには、文字列選択の機構は用意されておりません。このことを受け、popInは簡単に文字列を選択できるインターフェースを開発しました。これにより、iPhoneでもpopInを快適に利用することができるようになりました。 2．popInサービスとiPhoneネイディブアプリケーションの連携現在、popInでは、ユーザーニーズの高い7つのWebサービス(テキスト検索サービス、画像検索サービス、動画検索サービス、書籍検索サービス、翻訳サービス、地図サービス、Wikipediaサービス)とメール文字列添付サービス (Webページ中の「語」や「文章」をメールでお友達に送信できるサービス)を提供しています。popInがYoutubeやマップなどのiPhoneネイティブアプリケーションと連携することによって、これらのサービスをより快適に使うことができます。

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