Louie Bellson, Inventor of the Double Kick Drum Passes Away
Posted on 18. Feb, 2009 by spencer in Music
I would start this off by saying “Metal Drummers Are Bummed,” except no metal drummer I am friends with knows who Louie Bellson was. I had no idea either until I head that he died, and that the term “double kick” is forever attached to his name.
From NPR:
Bellson’s performance credits include collaborations with a who’s-who of jazz. He’s best remembered for his work in late Swing Era big bands — Benny Goodman, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, among others — and for leading his own ensemble.
But [...]
Fuck Twitter
Posted on 13. Feb, 2009 by Daniel Taylor in Internet
No matter how hard I try I can’t get into to Twitter. It just seems alternately creepy and pointless. Thankfully I’m not alone, at least when it comes to the former
Synthetic Lab-Grown Meat: PETA is Down
Posted on 20. May, 2008 by spencer in Environment, Science
This morning, NPR’s Morning Edition ran a story on the potential for Lab-Grown meat. Much like how scientists grow sheets of skin for medical use from cells, animal muscle can also be grown..and hey! animal muscle is meat. Mmmm….delicious, test tube meat.
Almost any meat eater who went to college or has a hippie friend (or reads the Synthesis Blog) has seen at least one video of animals at the slaughter and the absolutely horrendous conditions there, so it’s apparent that meat eaters don’t care where their food comes from [...]
Happy Birthday Willie Nelson! The Red Headed Stranger Turns 75, Prepares to Release Blues Album with Wynton Marsalis
Posted on 30. Apr, 2008 by spencer in Music
Last week when I wrote about “Pancho and Lefty” I hadn’t realized that the man who made that song famous was having his birthday right around the corner. Today, American songwriter and Outlaw Country Music King Willie Nelson turns 75. NPR’s Fresh Air did a nice piece on Willie today, you can check it out here (audio available after 3 PM EST). They also played a portion of an interview and live set he did with Terry Gross from a few years back, and you can hear the whole thing [...]
Surrogate’s “15″ is NPR’s Song of the Day
Posted on 25. Mar, 2008 by Daniel Taylor in Chico, Music
Though this post is semi-masturbatory in nature, I still can’t help but be stoked that the best radio station not on Satellite, NPR, picked local yokels Surrogate’s song “15″ as their Song of the Day. Check it out on the NPR web site, like it, then go to Amazon and buy the damn CD so that I can spend my summer vacation rocking Saddam Hussein’s ass back to Russia like I did last year.
Photo by Harland Spinks
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin asserts that the world isn’t quite fed up with longwinded indie rock band names
Posted on 10. Mar, 2008 by spencer in Music
Edging out Austin, TX bands I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness and …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Springfield, Missouri quartet Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin has emerged as this year’s winner of SXSW’s most ridiculous AND uncomfortably long band name. Destined to never fit onto a venue’s marquee (at least without using “5″s as “S”s), or become a catchy acronym (SSLYBY…nope, I got nothing. But I guess you can spell their acronym in a calculator: 551484. SWEET HUH.), the band is slugging it [...]
Dengue Fever: Cambodian Pop
Posted on 28. Feb, 2008 by spencer in Music
The other morning I was lucky enough to catch Terry Gross interviewing Zac and Ethan Holzman from Dengue Fever on her nationally syndicated interview show, Fresh Air. For those unfamiliar, the band is reviving Cambodian Pop, a style of music that became all but extinct during the time of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.
Originally created during the Vietnam conflict, Cambodian Pop was the result of locals listening to American Armed Forces radio, grooving on the psychedelic San Francisco / post-British Invasion sound and mixing it with their native language and instruments. [...]
Pinback on NPR’s Talk of the Nation
Posted on 10. Oct, 2007 by spencer in Music
So while laying in bed in a semi-delusional state on Monday morning (I was sick) something snapped me back into reality. It was an unmistakable sound: Pinback, live. But I was listening to…NPR…didn’t make any sense. Since when does NPR appeal to me and my sensibilities so much?
Then the thought hit me: fuck, I’m getting to be an old liberal. Oh holy hell….
Whatever, I guess I’m cool with it, I just need to get some gray sweatervests and a beige turtle neck and I’ll be set. At least I’ll have [...]
