Big Pickles

Garble Arch, by Blame Ringo



There's also a live webcam.

Labels: music, video

This Band Aid parody is a pretty seamless edit of the original.

The parody is good, but I had just as much fun seeing the old footage of George Michael, Boy George, Sting, and Bono back in the day.

Labels: music, video

Tonight during dinner I put some Artur Rubinstein on the stereo. Amy thought the first Chopin piano solo sounded like "Hot Cross Buns." At least she recognizes piano music, I guess.

Benjamin was less impressed. "Can't we listen to David Bowie?"

By the way, just in case I haven't linked to AMG before, it's basically the IMDB of music.

Labels: music

This guy really likes John Williams. So he wrote a song that's kind of a medley of John William's movie scores, except he doesn't use any of the music from Star Wars. Instead, all the lyrics are about Star Wars. And it's an a capella quartet, and he sings all four parts.

Why is everything cool on the Internet so confusing to describe? Just watch it.

Labels: music, video

It's not enough anymore to know basic lifesaving techniques, now they want you do it with a particular song in your head.

U.S. doctors have found the Bee Gees 1977 disco anthem "Stayin' Alive" provides an ideal beat to follow while performing chest compressions as part of CPR on a heart attack victim.

In retrospect, it's surprising a show like Scrubs hasn't put together some kind of montage based on this song. (Have they?)

Labels: medicine, music

See if you can follow along.

There is a band from England called Utah Saints. They wrote a song in 1992 called "Something Good." They remixed it in 2008 ("Something Good '08"). Kanye West posted the video to the remix on Vimeo. The premise of the video is that MC Hammer got his moves from a pub in Cardiff, Wales.

Just watch the video. It's hilarious.

[EDIT] The Vimeo link is gone, but here it is on YouTube.

Labels: music, video

I'm loving this band. Their name is a little off-putting at first, but then again so is Barenaked Ladies. They are Canadian, too, so maybe that has something to do with it.



(via BoingBoing)

Labels: music, video

Here's an interesting article on what, exactly, makes Guitar Hero so great.

Jack White gets some love at the end.

Labels: games, music, music games

This is so two years ago, maybe I even linked to it before, I can't remember. It's "Since U Been Gone" covered by Ted Leo. Something reminded me of it today, and now my brain is craving it like heroin.

I've been thinking we need some new music at our house. Maybe Ted Leo and the Pharmacists is just the thing.

Labels: music

So the Asian kids are using their piano skills to play the guitar. They just crank up the volume and play one-handed hammer-ons (to use a term I recently learned from Guitar Hero).

And hey, since you only need one hand, that frees up your other hand to play ANOTHER GUITAR!

Labels: crazy guitar skills, music, simpsons

This pic should remind you of a scene from Wayne's World. "Denied!"

It's funny because it's true. When everyone who walks into the store plays the same song, it can really get on your nerves.

My friend Lars and I somehow got roped in to working a Freshman Orientation booth at BYU in Fall 1995. It was some kind of travel theme, all of the incoming freshman had passports that they were supposed to get stamped at each station. Ours was karaoke, and after listening to kids sing the same blasted song for about the tenth time, we posted our own sign:

"No stamps will be awarded for "Love Shack."

Labels: music

If the one of our nation's greatest classical musicians plays some of the world's greatest music on what may be the most famous violin ever built, and no one notices, is he really any good?

Joshua Bell will be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize tomorrow.

Labels: music

Emily Haines is the lead singer of Canadian indie band Metric, and for some reason tonight I find myself mesmerized by her voice.

Besides the intoxicating voice, she's also a brilliant songwriter and not too shabby on the piano. Metric's two CDs, Old World Underground and Live It Out are your typical hipster indie fare, with shades of electronica and math rock.

But recently she released a solo album called Knives Don't Have Your Back which is much more mellow and gives her a chance to sit at the piano.

You can download a recent concert of hers in its entirety from NPR if you're interested.

And I think she looks kind of like Heather Armstrong.

Labels: music

This is music that was truly ahead of its time.

I never heard of most of these bands until well into the 90s or later (I didn't hear of Bauhaus until my mission. Of course I waited until I was released to actually listen to the tape.)

Some of them (Durutti Column and Teardrop Explodes) I've still never heard of. Well, now I have. Barely.

Labels: music

I remember one of my music lesson books had a diagram of Rachmaninov's hands. It showed him comfortably playing a C octave with the 2nd and 5th fingers of his right hand, and his thumb on the G below that.

Anyway, Asians are renowned for their musical prowess but also for their sometimes diminutive stature--which is to say, their piano prodigies don't always have the biggest hands.

This video is one man's attempt to compensate for that.

Labels: music, video

Piggybacking on Clark here.

The first time I heard of Regina Spektor was in January 2006, when her video for 'Us' appeared at number 21 on Good Weather for Airstrikes' list of the Top 65 Videos of 2005.

GWFA is a top-notch blog for indie music, if you're into that kind of thing.

Anyway, that list introduced me to a lot of new bands, notably Hot Hot Heat, Sigur Ros, The Decemberists, and Bloc Party, among many others. I highly recommend it. The number one video, Glosoli by Sigur Ros is particularly good.

I can't find a way to link to the post, so here's what you do. Go to the Good Weather for Airstrikes homepage, and search for "Spektor." The last result should be a link to the top 65 videos of 2005.

Then head over to the Top 50 videos of 2006 and get current.

Labels: music, video

A video about why this guy doesn't like Pachabel's Canon in D.

Labels: fun, music, video

You know how sometimes you're walking along, or driving to work or whatever, and you think to yourself, "Hey, I wonder what Art Garfunkel was reading in August of 1991?" And you just had to be content not to know, because even in this information age there are still some crucial bits of knowledge that lie just beyond our grasp?

Well, not anymore. Thanks to the Garfunkel Library, you can finally be at ease, secure in the knowledge that while Paul Simon was promoting his latest album with another free concert in Central Park, Art was reading Oscar Hijuelos' The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.

Fascinating.

Labels: books, music

Sometimes I like to listen to music that I've never heard of. Because then I've heard of it.

Numbers 1 and 5 seem well suited for Clark, and I thought Shannon might appreciate number 9.

Labels: audio, music