Last seen and heard 2-3 years ago. Good to see and hear it again.
This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the
Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of
Engineering at the University of Iowa .. Amazingly, 97% of
the machines components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation
Equipment of Bancroft , Iowa ..Yes, farm equipment!

It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment,
calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see it
was WELL worth the effort.

It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University
and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty clear that this is fake. The whole look and feel of the video is very computer-animated-ish, and it would be very strange if the xylophonic-type instrument would actually light up as its bars were hit. But the most important tell-tale sign of fakery is the sound quality. There aren’t any microphones visible anywhere in the setup, and obviously if this was an acoustic instrument as the quote claims, there would have to be microphones to pick up the sound. And even if there were microphones that somehow weren’t visible in the video, the sound quality of the audio would not be nearly as neat and polished as it is–there would be a great deal of ambient noise, both from the space in general and from the bleeding of different parts of the “instrument” into each microphone.

And to confirm my suspicions, the trustworthy rumor-busting site Snopes.com has exposed it as false in their article “Farm Machine Music.” It was created originally as a computer animation, but then was picked up by someone and passed off as a real video.

Nonetheless, it’s definitely an impressive animation and a fun song. Enjoy!

“Gustavo Dudamel: The Dude Abides”

You can listen to “Ways and Means” in its entirety here, courtesy of the latest free online music-playing site I’ve found, http://listen.grooveshark.com.

Eyes Open, which I’ve written about before, is a very enjoyable CD and one that I’ve returned to in my own listening quite often. And Snow Patrol gets extra points because they opened for Coldplay earlier in their tour this year. So I was interested to see what Final Straw would be like.

I wasn’t disappointed, although I have to say it’s clearly not as good as Eyes Open. There are some really great tracks (I particularly like “Chocolate” and “Run,” tracks 6 and 7), and the sound is similar enough to Eyes Open to identify it as the same band. There’s a lot of minor electronic experimentation, mostly with little blips and bleeps that sound as if they’re somehow slightly outside the sphere of the band’s style. I also noticed that the singer’s voice is mixed differently on several different tracks; rather than finding one setting of reverb/delay/effects that makes his voice sound good, the band (or rather the producer) changed it multiple times–not only in obvious ways like adding distortion as in “Wow,” but different types of “normal” sounds to fit with different moods. And there are a plethora of short melodic ideas that are not quite hooks but serve to give the songs an identifying motif and fill empty harmonic space.

But it was interesting to listen to Eyes Open after I’d familiarized myself with Final Straw. It was clear that the band had learned lessons from the previous album and really crystallized their style. Mostly gone are the sometimes random electronic effects; the guitar playing is simpler, clearer and more direct. In a word, Eyes Open is a distillation of the best elements of Final Straw without the clutter and filler that the earlier album sometimes stumbled through. But I certainly enjoyed both records, and very much enjoyed seeing the band mature between the two.

Now I’m even more interested in getting the band’s latest release, A Hundred Million Suns, that came out last year and was the followup to Eyes Open. Anyone have that record and care to give me a sneak preview?

http://soundcloud.com/groups/derek-webb-stockholm-syndrome

Not all of them are particularly creative, but I really liked “Black Eye (Shiner Mix)” by user anothermisty. It was an excellent example of taking the original material and doing something unique with it–something that was clearly derivative of the original but took it in a new creative direction. My favorite thing that anothermisty did was take Derek’s vocal track, duplicate it, and manipulate the pitch, thereby adding a harmony vocal line that didn’t exist in the original song. Very cool. “Cobra Con (Acoustic Remix)” is fun too, as it retains only the acoustic guitar tracks and the vocals from the original. “8-bit ConGame,” another remix of “Cobra Con,” imagines the song as music from a Nintendo game back in the day, with Webb’s vocals superimposed (quite quickly) over the chords of the chorus played in a loop. On its own it might not be terribly interesting, but if you know how the song goes, it’s cool to see how the different sections of the song interact.

Those are the highlights, but some of the others are interesting in their own ways. And you can keep checking back, since more will continue to be added as they’re created!

To listen to the song, click here, click on the “Lala” player and scroll down to the last track. When I first clicked on it, it looked like it was going to play the whole song; but after I stopped it and went back later, it only played a 30-second clip. But it’s the only place online I could find that had at least the possibility of hearing the whole song. If you find another one, let me know; otherwise, try that link out and see if it works. And leave a comment to let me know what you think of the song and the music!

Funny? Yes. True? Yes. Sad? You decide.

“Songs Included are :
You’re beautiful by James Blunt,
Forever young by the Alphaville (covered by Youth Group),
I’m yours by Jason Mraz,
Amazing by Alex Lloyd,
Wherever you go by the Calling,
Can you feel the love tonight by Elton John,
She will be loved by Maroon 5,
Pictures of you by the Last Goodnight,
Cigarettes will kill you by Ben Lee,
With or without you by U2,
Fall at your feet by Crowded House,
Am I not pretty enough? by Kasey Chambers,
Let it be by The Beatles,
Under the bridge by RHCP,
Horses by Darryl Braithwaite,
Down under by Men at Work,
Waltzing Matilda,
Old Australia’s funniest Homevideos intro,
Taylor by Jack Johnson,
2 become 1 by the Spice Girls,
Take on me by A-ha,
When I come around by Green Day,
Save tonight by Eagle Eye Cherry,
Africa by Toto,
If I Were A Boy by Beyonce,
Self Esteem by the Offspring,
Apologize by One Republic,
U + Ur Hand by P!nk,
Pokerface by Lady Gaga,
Barbie Girl by Aqua,
Kids by MGMT,
Scar by Missy Higgins,
Thats all it takes to be a star by Axis Of Awesome.”

It was an interesting experiment. Try it the next time you’re at a birthday celebration–and let me know what you hear!