Found this via try-har-der (in turn via Utne, via What Alice Found):

How to explain my parents from lernert Engelberts on Vimeo.

1. The “deerhunter / atlas sound / lotus plaza” blog

It hardly needs the shout-out — it’s already totally famous — but credit where credit is due. This plain-jane blogspot blog is a vehicle for countless rants, free songs and shout-outs — not to mention dozens of beautifully curated classic rock “microMixes” — all from the mind of Bradford Cox, singer of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound. What really distinguishes this blog from most other musician blogs is not just the level of access and intimacy that we get into Bradford’s life and thoughts, but also his generosity. He gives away content left and right. I don’t know what his philosophy behind this is, but it really makes you think about what the internet could be. Instead of getting lost in some sort of weird pre-digital notion of copyright law or some valiant effort to protect his intellectual property (a pursuit that would in any case be in vain) he goes the other route: He gives most of his songs away for free. And he gains droves of fans in the process. Also Bradford’s voice is beautiful and the songs are just great so that doesn’t hurt either.

Check it out: http://deerhuntertheband.blogspot.com/

2. The Art of Ian Dingman

Yes, we’re finally getting around to writing about Ian Dingman. It feels like we’ve known about this man forever. We loved and bought his prints when they came out over at Tiny Showcase. We loved his sketches and his watercolors when they were commissioned and featured in countless magazines. And when he drew the artwork for the Criterion Collection re-issue of Bottle Rocket, well yeah, that was pretty awesome, too.   Time and again Dingman delivers. So by all means: Go to his website. Sign up for his newsletter. Buy his art.

Check it out: http://www.iandingman.com/

Enjoy,
MAN/WOMAN/CHILD

1. The Art of Blake Suarez

We only just discovered Blake’s work this week and already we love it. Not only has he done tons of projects (stuff for small magazines, t-shirts, screen prints, etc.) but he runs a great blog. Everything seems top notch but don’t just take our word for it. Check it out for yourself.

Look here: http://plaza.ufl.edu/bsuarez/
And the blog is here: http://blakesuarez.blogspot.com/

2. Bupp! for Mac/PC

This is an amazing audio App. Sort of midway between an old-timey arcade game à la Pong or Asteroids and…maybe some sort of sampling engine?  Totally weird. Basically, you construct a maze containing any number of obstacles. Balls are then dropped into it. The balls move around and ricochet off of obstacles, triggering vocal samples in the process. (There seems to be pretty much no way of predicting what sample will be produced by a given obstacle and position. You just have to experiment.) The graphics are simple and the motion of the balls is a little jerky but the whole thing is totally addictive. Seriously. We haven’t gotten hooked on anything this quickly since they opened up that breakfast burrito place down the street.

Check it out: http://www.mediascot.org/drift/foolme/bupp

3. George M.’s “Musical Episode” Podcast

Sometimes you just need some classic R&B in your life. Not just sometimes. Often. Maybe it’s because you’ve just lost the love of your life. Maybe it’s the end of the week and you’re tired; you need something to take your mind of work. Or maybe it’s because you’ve been driving for a really long time and you know this really good college radio station but you can’t seem to get it on your radio because their transmitter is so weak and also it’s your car’s fault and what the hell why didn’t you just replace the radio when you bought the car but now it’s too late because you’re probably not going to hold on to the car for that much longer anyway. We don’t know what it is that keeps us coming back but we know a good thing when I hear it.

Check it out: http://musicalepisode.podomatic.com/

Enjoy,
MAN/WOMAN/CHILD

1. The art of the Andy Kehoe.

He had a piece go on sale at tinyshowcase.com earlier this week which was great. Some of the art on his own site is even more amazing. (link)

2. The new Need For Speed: Undercover for the iPhone.

I’ve played just about all of the racing games that have come out for the iPhone. A lot were great, but NFSU takes the cake easily. (iTunes link)

3. CreativeApplications.net

I don’t read very many blogs consistently. I have a whole mix of things that I’ve put in my Google Reader. Occasionally I’ll log in and nervously flick through the posts that have queued up before losing interest or clicking one of the outbound links. Suffice it to say that no one blog has inspired me so consistently as Creative Applications. I can literally go to this blog any day of the week and be guaranteed I’m going to see something totally amazing that will change my life’s ambitions. Outstanding curatorial effort. (link)

Enjoy,
RK

Hi Everyone,

Some days the world is just filled with cool stuff. Here are my picks for this morning:

• This gorgeous New York times drawing by Lauren Nassef.

  Found here: http://www.laurennassef.com/ny-times-showing-the-patient-the-door-permanently/

• This profile of Alvin Lustig who designed the cover art for countless classic albums from the 1950s. A sample here:

  I have a bunch of these that I enherited from my grandmother so I seeing these brought back some nice memories. Also, I’d never bothered to look at the cover art.

• Amazing long exposure photographs of St. Petersburg by Alexey Titarenko.

  It’s an old technique. People have being doing this forever but I don’t think I’ve ever seen photos of this type that produce quite this effect. That smokey mess that you see going up the stairs is hundreds of people passing over the same spot.

• And finally…some sort of amazing diorama.

  I didn’t really bother to investigate this much but I really, really like architectural dioramas. Always have. Little toy trains, too. Growing up in Switzerland everyone had those little N and HO-scale model trains. I had a Lionel which was pretty cool, too.

Okay, that’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed your weekends.

Best,
RK

as you may well know, “photos from tiny showcase’s contacts” is my all-time favorite rss feed. feed:

actually. as a tribute i am going to be posting a feed viewer for this feed right here very soon. hold your breath.

atb,
rk

Just sitting back, sipping my coffee, and listening to the soothing sounds of …disappearer… They’re playing in Providence tonight at Easy Axxess which seems to be a new venue / showspace. Tonight’s tinyshowcase 4-pack is most delicious. This one in particular I like:

Eh? It’s by Nigel Peake. For more of his stuff check out his online gallery. Some days are just like that: everywhere you turn you see something great that makes you want to make something (although admittedly the thing I most want to “make” in this case is a thirty dollar purchase). Wow, this band, …disappearer…, is really winning me over.I’m using this much needed break from my job and recording to sell some old music equipment on eBaY.

norse tale
Originally uploaded by Irina Troitskaya

I’m loving this.

GQ has a nice Michel Gondry interview that is well-described and avoids being overly reverential.