Gratitude *Beasties kick out the jams

With the Beastie Boys performing an all instrumental set at this year’s Sasquatch festival, I thought I would post a fav video/performance. As many fans already know, the Beasties, who are known to rock the mic, are also skilled musicians and can really kick out the afro-cuban, funk-rock fusion jams. B-boys and B-girls forever…

Gratitude – featuring upright bass intro, wah-wah pedal, and bongos.

Useless Wooden Toys * Sk8 or Die

A friend of mind forwarded this Nissan commercial (below), which incorporates a street skating sequence, that exemplifies the graceful craft of skateboarding by showcasing slow-motion tricks.

Being a former skater, this vid inspires me to grab (buy) a board and hit the streets, even though I was primarily a ramp skater. The grace of this sequence reminds me of one the all-time great skate inspirations Rodney Mullen (also – see video below), who took the craft to a whole new level. If you don’t believe me, play the vids at the same time. Rodney’s tricks are mad, mad crazy.

Cars & Skating

The almighty Rodney Mullen

Bangin’ like a 909 *HammerHead Rhythm Station

Do you dig beats? Thumbs up for the HammerHead Rhythm Station.

It is one of the easiest ways to generate click track solutions and is totally the best way to kill an evening or afternoon…download HammerHead Rhythm Station 909-like drum machine and do your thing.

With “six separate channels, 29 built-in drum sounds, six complete breakbeats and the possibility to import six samples of your own” it is extremely user friendly and it exports CD-quality wave files.

 

If you are feeling saucy and have Adobe Audition, or another sound studio, I highly recommend importing wave files, creating loops and experimenting with additional effects like reverb or chorus. I like Adobe Audition because it has excellent built in filters to give your beats a rich and thick sound (i.e. Large Occupied Room, Medium Auditorium).

Convergence * “Hi, I’m a Marvel…and I’m a DC”

Below are a few (amusing) vlog examples of culture convergence, combining tech corporate parody, comic book/movie fandom and grass roots production all into one. Being 90% through Henry Jenkins book on the subject, the topic is extremely fascinating to me.

I must admit, I was a raving Marvel fan in my day…X-Men all the way. My favorite X-Person is Gambit…wow that feels good to get that into the open.

Hi, I’m a Marvel…and I’m a DC. (Mac PC Parody) #1

Hi, I’m a Marvel…and I’m Batman. (Mac/PC Parody)

Visuwords.com * Online Graphical Dictionary

A colleague forwarded visuwords for me to check out. It is a well executed flash-based web application, which visually displays meanings and associations with words and concepts.

Why I like it:

• No instructions required
• It is visually pleasing
• It makes learning fun