Edshugeo The GodMoor

Yes, even better than the one worn by the Pope. Why? Mine has dreads!!! Okay, they're tiny braids, but it's cool. Made by my co-worker, Ronnie.
Merry Christmas and everything else.

Labels: dead links, holidays, These pictures will come back to haunt me one day

Kaiju Shakedown is great. Sometimes I fell behind in my reading cuz I had 'im bookmarked under movie news instead of blogs. That's been corrected. Click the title above and laff your ass off...

Labels: dead links

We Love The Chroni- (What?) cles Of Narnia!
Yes! The Chroni- (What?) cles Of Narnia!
We Love The Chroni- (What?) cles Of Narnia!
Pass That Chroni- (What?) cles Of Narnia!

The song's actually called Lazy Sunday and it's an SNL short. Watch it here. I've already watched it 4 times. Damn.

Found via GarageSpin. They've also got a link to the lyrics.

Disclaimer: I haven't heard much hip-hop this year.

Labels: Awesome, dead links, funny-ass shit, music video, tv, youtube

Machinima (the term I prefer) usually refers to movies made using game engines like Halo or The Sims to create stories by manipulating characters and environments and sometimes adding external elements like sound and editing techniques. I first came across a few of these when I found out about the Internet Archive site, which hosts various multimedia registered under the Creative Commons copyright (including my music).

Red Vs. Blue is a popular Machinima based on Halo. I thought it was cute, but didn't see the potential the genre had for democratizing film-making (or perhaps more accurately, animated puppetry) the way Acid had for music.

Not until I saw this piece here about French racism. It isn't very good (though some seem to love it), the animation's clunky and reviews on the program used to make it site a number of limitations.

Still watching it and a few others make me want to get in on this. The program I just mentioned is called The Movies, and it's a Sims or Tycoon like game set in Hollywood, where you get to make movies with a star, director, etc. Apparently one can skip the game nonsense (there might be a cheat code needed) and just get on with making your movie, by casting and altering your actors, choosing sets and if I'm not mistaken, a number of animations. the game then allows you to export your film to wmv and post it on their website. Cool.

What's not to like? There's a limited variation of sets, actors, and animations (the things your actors can do). Also while you keep the copyrights to your stories, the visuals are created by Lionhead studios, you just edit them, so that limits your commercial rights to the finished product. That's fair, but I believe that as the genre grows and technology develops we'll see parallels to music programs that use commercial free samples (often you pay for the samples, but are free to use them in commercial productions).

Right now the only other program specifically for creating machinima (that I know of) is Machinimation. I can't find a direct link to it right now, but the book, The Art Of Machinima does contain a demo. The program is available somewhere on that site for less than 60 bucks (I think), but you have to email them for licensing rates (if you wanna sell your movie or even show it in some instances). The Movies may be the best bet for the beginner, though there are how to's on sites like machinima.com if you wanna do it old school and use Quake, World Of Warcraft or whatever to make your own (they say anybody with a computer can do it). Here's a link to a machinima created with a $30,000 grant from Volvo and how he did it.

I haven't tried either of the mentioned programs, though I gave The Movies as a Christmas present (not sure how that'll go over) and I may get it for myself in the new year, but hopefully we'll see other choices pop up. I'd like to see a Japanese company come up with a kick ass anime version. Machinima porn can't be far off (assuming it doesn't already exist). I'm excited at the possibilities for creative expression.

Labels: independent film-making, possibilities for creative expression, video games

I've been played on a few podcasts over the last few months.
What's a Podcast? Kinda like an internet radio show, but archived in mp3 or similar format to be played on a portable player like an iPod. More info at Wikipedia.

I'd like to try doing one at some point, but like many other things, it'll wait for a while. Perhaps that'll be my New Years resolution.

I have some music on the Podsafe Music Network, a collection of podcasts as well as music which can be used for such. Links below.

Folks who've been kind enough to think my music was good enough to at least serve as time killers on their programs are:

Bandtrax, the husband and wife (?) team of RenaMarie and Canis Lupus. They've got a kinda morning show vibe. Bright, fun, energetic. The show they played me on also had this dude, Matthew Ebel, who's worth a listen.
Here's the show from Tuesday, July 2005 (they play my song, "Can't Wait").
More of their podcasts can be found here.

On August 13th, I was played by the stellYseepodcast, an interesting German electronica show, but with very little (I've not heard any, yet) spoken commentary. Current and recent shows can be found here. It's very eclectic, atmospheric, cool. Perhaps my favorite so far.

Revolution Radio is hosted by Jeremy, who seems very dedicated to alternative and indie music. He was very laid back on the episode that played one of my songs (ep 39?), but I believe he had sinus issues which have been since resolved, judging from a couple of recent shows. I'm not aware of an archive, but current and recent shows can be found here.

Podcast Eu Como Maçã played "I Want" on their 4th episode. I don't know what language this is. I guessing Portuguese. It's cool to hear PsychoVoyager pronounced with an accent. Hell, it's cool to hear the word pronounced at all. Likewise Edshugeo, which RenaMarie and Canis struggled with on their show. I found Eu Como Maçã by googling myself, which I do on occasion. It's hosted by Rafael Gaspar.

I also found myself on The Podcast Network:: A Late-Night Blues and Jazz Hangout.
Don't Leave Me Hangin' was played on the first episode.
I hadn't heard of the Podcast Network before I googled, but they seem to have quite a bit of content to offer and bill themselves as the first commercial podcast network in the world. I'm sure there's more to podcasting than these guys and Adam Curry's Podsafe Music Network, but I'm still new to all this. Apparently many podcasts are available on iTunes as well as through subscription through xml and rss feeds, but that's more crap I know very little about at this point.

Hello Gina is not a podcast, but an mp3 blog. A musician quoted in an article in Wired magazine once likened an mp3 blog to a friend with really good taste in music. It turns out she really does have some good taste and since she mentions my Prince cover here, perhaps I should consider her a friend. When I first saw this I bookmarked the page, but when trying to return, found the page wasn't there anymore, but oddly found the actual address on The Hype Machine. Actually, the permanent link I had (for that post) seems to have changed and all I had to do was check the homepage address, and go to the archives, which is what I did once I got to The Hype Machine.

Like I said, I'd like to do a podcast or a few and hopefully I'll get to do that in the new year. There's a lot of decent music on both the Podsafe Music Network, and the Internet Archive and not all of it is mine. The stuff that is, is here and here.

Give some of it a listen (not just my stuff)...

Labels: downloads, my music, podcasts

Merry Christmas And A Funky New Year
Recorded back in 1994 on a Tascam 688, a multitrack cassette recorder with eight audio tracks or seven with midi - I don't remember if I used midi, but I probably did. Given away to friends, family and whatnot as a cassette tape in '94, then as a CD in 1999, and finally, part of the song showed up as a soundtrack to a video X-Mas card given out on VHS and VCD in 2001. The gift that keeps on giving. Or at least, keeps being given.
Download or stream from the Internet Archive (click here)

Black Jesus and Baby Buddha - X-Mas 2003

A little video done in flash with digital photos of an area of Hempstead just a couple of blocks from my apartment, used as a back drop. It was given out as a Christmas card that year on DVD-R. I've been threatening to do more of these, and actually started one almost a month ago, but I've put it on hold and will continue it later. It'll be used as next year's Christmas card, maybe.
It can be viewed at Google Video (click here)

Labels: downloads, holidays, my music, non music projects, PsychoVoyager, religion