Category: Music

Mike “M.” Doughty, formerly of Soul Coughing, coiner of the clever phrase “rampant Corganism” and whom Wendy got to

meet recently at a Berkman Center event, asked an audience to hold up

their cell phones while he took some picutres:

He should’ve tried to get them all to make their phones ring Fur Elise. Click the photo to see Mike Doughty’s blog entry.

There are more photos on his blog.

I wonder if somebody yelled “play Freebird!”

Being a Time Lord gets you chicks!

Aside from the obvious reason of seeing Wendy, I wish I could go to

Boston this weekend to attend the Time Traveler Convention at MIT

taking place at 8:00 p.m. this Saturday.

Although the convention site makes a reference to a clever line by “Cat” from the webcomic Cat and Girl…

“Technically, you would need only one time traveller convention.” Click the picture to see the whole comic.

…there has already been one. Back in the late eighties, Spy

magazine put out an open invitation to time travellers to meet at their

offices for cocktails. Presumably, no chronal cruisers showed up.

Although I can’t attend — and neither can anyone who hasn’t RSVP’d

yet; the event is booked solid by people from the present — I’d like

to contribute by offering these two time-travel themed MP3s. Enjoy!

• Doctorin’ the Tardis by The Timelords (who were really The KLF under another name). A proto-mash-up of the Doctor Who theme with Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll, Part 2. [7.2 MB MP3]
• Dr. Qui by musical comedian/comedic musician Bill Bailey. In this track Bill performs the Doctor Who

  theme as Serge Gainsbourg would’ve done it. It helps if you know a

  little French and are a little familiar with Serge’s work. [6.6 MB MP3]

[via Honest Engine] By “done right”, I mean by the three-man Norwegian band Hurra Torpedo,

who perform the number with baritone Norwegian-accented vocals, electric guitar and several kitchen

appliances. Rock!

You can watch it in streaming Windows Media on the Milk and Cookies site or download it from these temporary download locations:

• Temporary download location 1 [25MB, QuickTime]
• Temporary download location 2 [25MB, QuickTime]
• Temporary download location 3 [25MB, QuickTime]

The only bad thing about mash-ups is that they could very well undo the

mythos that has built up over the years on the streets of Accordion City:

that the Accordion Guy can play anything. That’s simply not true. All

I’m doing is exploiting one of the not-so-secret secrets of rock and

roll: that most songs are based on one of about a half-dozen patterns,

or as we musicians call them, chord progressions. These are tried-and-true

arrangements of chords that are pleasing to the ear.

Take the classic I-IV-V chord progression. Played over 12 bars in 4/4

time, it’s the basis of every blues song. It’s La Bamba, Hang on Sloopy, Twist and Shout, Wild Thing and the muscial

proof for the existence of God, Louie Louie.

The I-VII-IV progression gives us The Smashing Pumpkins’ Cherub Rock, Bachman-Turner

Overdrive’s Takin’ Care of

Business and the “Bow down before the one you serve” part

of Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like a

Hole.

(Want to know about I-IV-V and I-VII-IV? Check out this

article on guitarnoise.com.)

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That mention of Nine Inch Nails — one of my musical guilty pleasures

— is the perfect segue for this

mash-up on nathanchase.com that I stumbled across thanks to

one “Miss Fipi Lele” who in turn found it via a blog named largehearted boy.

Imagine Ray Parker Jr.’s Ghostbusters as the bed track for Nine Inch

Nails’ current single, The Hand

That Feeds. Then repeat to yourself over and over: “I

ain’t ‘fraid of no goth!”

You

can download the track from its creator, Nathan

Chase

or

Click

here to download the track from this site [6.2MB

MP3]