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Not your average librarian..

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This is definitely the most rock and roll library we’ve ever seen… and as it’s very close to Owngig towers we’re excited to visit soon to check it out. Mick Jones of the clash definitely deserves credit for making his personal archive of punk rock history available to the public and the fact you can copy various items is the icing on the cake. If you’re interested in checking it out as well, it’s here in London.

The recent resurgence of interest in cassette tapes has been something we’ve been watching with interest – being good children of the 80s. First we brought you some amazing portraits based solely in tape. Well now it’s the cassettes themselves being used in a new creative fashion. This lamp is made from the tapes simply binded together – with the light seeping through the holes, providing subtle light and not-so subtle nostalgia. Check them out here.

Owngig’s love for Spotify knows no bounds, so the sites and services that have grown up around the service have really helped add a lot to what’s already a useful service. So Spotifitunes is a worthy addition to the pack. Basically by uploading your library file to the site (there’s instructions if you’re not sure how), Spotifitunes gives you a web page filled with Spotify links to the music in your iTunes. As you can access the page anywhere, you can take most of your libary with you – and listen to it anywhere with a web connection. Nifty!

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As we’ve said on numerous occasions, we’re heading off to spread the Owngig gospel at the New Music Seminar in New York in July. Well the organisers have very kindly given us invites to anyone who wants to attend. You’ll have to pay (and get to New York) but if you’re a budding musician, it’s worth stumping the cash up. To get hold of the invite, click here to download the PDF.

This week on the web we’ve been loving…

Unless you’ve been living in a shed with no access to any media or the internet (in which case, how are you reading this newsletter?), the news of the sad death of Michael Jackson can’t have escaped your attention. Rather than dwell on this sad fact, we’d rather celebrate some of the best of Michael Jackson’s life with a few quirky links.

Firstly, this has to be the best portrait ever. It’s from a sale of his stuff when Neverland was shut – there’s more interesting relics from the sale here. One of the things about Michael Jackson is how many artists he influenced. This is something hip hop DJ Yoda did in a set in 2003 was play 25 minutes of rap tracks sampling Michael Jackson. Check it out here…

Finally… it’s worth remembering that Michael’s own influences were wide and varied. From wanting to work with Kraftwerk (how we’d love to have heard that) to being influenced by Fred Astaire for Billy Jean. This classic mashup of Michael Jackson and Fred Astaire certainly proves the point.

A very silly video (and some great content) all from our weekly newsletter. To receive a copy every Friday, register on site.

We’re pleased to announce that our Twitter offer for tickets will be starting very shortly. Keep an eye for the phrase for the phrase Free tickets available @owngig. The first person to Retweet the phrase will win the tickets.

As announced a few weeks ago we’re off late July to the New Music Seminar in New York. If you’re interesting in attending, there’s a flyer for the event you can view online here. We’ll have our badges on so if you do end up attending say hi.

Finally, the bids are rattling in for acts. This week we’ve seen Tokio Hotel go above 800, Rick Astley go up to just under 170 and in the last few days we’ve seen a stampede of bids from fans of Aussie Pop Idol sensation Shannon Noll. Add yours here …

This week on the web we’ve been loving…

Given what we do, unsurprisingly we’re very much for the fans. Therefore we were impressed this week when we heard that a fan of US progtastic band Phish streamed the whole of the band’s live concert from the venue via his iPhone . It’s like the Beastie Boys fan shot video Awesome: I… Shot That! from a few years ago. Mind you, bet his arm is tired…

Another thing that impressed us this week was the Wiiolin – one clever geek has repurposed our favourite game console’s controller as a violin. Watching the video it seems so natural. Anyway he joins an increasing list of geek instruments that include the iPhone Ocarina , the USB roll up piano and the Arduino trumpet .

Finally we’d like to end of something sillier. The 1984 video for Bonnie Tyler’s power ballad, Total Eclipse of the Heart is one of the most insane music videos of all time so any lampooning of it already has comedy gold to work with. Well this literal version where the lyrics respond to what’s on screen couldn’t really fail… and it doesn’t. Enjoy! A million YouTube users can’t be wrong.

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On Owngig, we’re dedicated to bringing people together to enjoy their favourite bands. We can do this through the internet, which makes it easy to spread the word. So when heard about how Nine Inch Nails front man, Trent Reznor used Twitter to raise almost a million dollars for a fan’s medical bills, we have to admit it made us go warm and fuzzy.

So to counteract this cuteness, we bring you possibly the most dangerous version of Dance Dance Revolution you’re ever likely to see – Dance Dance Immolation. Developed by some Californian (where else) nutcases, the game is the same in every respect apart from when you put a foot wrong a huge flamethrower burns you. The game has to be played wearing a flame retardant suit and suffice to say, don’t try this at home (even if you do have access to a big flamethrower in your house.)

Finally at Owngig we’re always looking for new ways to bring you the music you enjoy and this week we’ve been impressed by Simplify, a new tool that allows you to enjoy the music. If you listen to music at work, or have an iPhone, this is for you. Basically you install a small program on your home computer and then at work (or an iPhone) you can listen to all of your music, streamed from your home computer. So if you have more music than you can fit on a iPod, this no longer matters. Plus the iPhone app seems highly reliable. On a recent commute home, it cut out precisely once – for all of two seconds over a 40 minute journey. Highly recommended.

It’s been a bit of an 80s week so this image seemed appropriate

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With there now over 100 bids on site for Rick Astley and our first gig being The Blow Monkeys, it seems that we’ve gone a bit 80s here at Owngig Towers. Well, following a meeting with A-Ha’s label, it seems that another act from the decade of Thatcher and the Rubik’s Cube is interested in playing an Owngig. So if you loved A-Ha, know anyone who loves A-Ha or even just fancy a bit of nostalgia, then bid on site now and you could be seeing Morten up close at an exclusive gig soon.

One thing we’re also pleased to bring you soon is our exclusive tickets through Twitter offer, which we announced earlier in the week on our Twitter account. The details are being worked out as we speak and we hope to bring you more information soon, but in the meantime, if you’re on Twitter and haven’t already, follow our account here.

This week on the web we’ve been loving…

Although we’ve seen interactive music videos before – the one for Arcade Fire springs to mind, we were impressed with this one for the Cold War Kids, not least because as well as being interactive it allows you to remix the song – by removing or adding elements from the music. Check it out here.

Love, is perhaps the wrong word for the next item but, it’s certainly intriguing. DJ Dangermouse, best known for being the mastermind behind Gnarls Barkley and The Grey Album (check out this video) was planning a new album. All was going well with collaborators for the album including Jarvis Cocker, Iggy Pop, Frank Black, The Flaming Lips and David Lynch was even lined up to do the sleeve design. However, because of a legal dispute with the record label, release was indefinitely delayed.

DJ Dangermouse’s response has been very inventive – he’s releasing the CD case – with Lynch’s sleeve art but with a blank CD inside. The music has been leaked onto peer to peer, so fans can hear it, so if they choose they can buy the case and make their own release. If you want to buy the release, click here, although you’ll have to find your own way to the songs.

Finally, to something less thought provoking but very pretty. This building in Linz Austria was covered lights that respond to sound. Worth checking out the video here.

OK, we’re not the only ones but biggest surprise in music this week has to be when a 47 year old from Scotland started singing on Britain’s Got Talent this week. If you haven’t seen this clip already, even if you hate the show, it’s worth it for the surprise. Honestly.

Also, fairly mainstream but very cool was the YouTube Orchestra’s debut this week. The Orchestra, which were recruited through the video sharing site with the public choosing the final line up; performed their first concert this week. Check it out here and see more about the story of their formation here.

We’ve seen a few bids for Prince on site, so this iPod may be of interest to a few of you, but you may have to max out your credit card if you’re interested. The limited edition Prince iPod cost just under £2000, and comes with an exclusive 40 minute documentary.

Finally, and a bit NSFW, here’s the latest comedy video from The Lonely Island. Following Lazy Sunday, I’m on a Boat, and one we can’t name here, here’s Like a Boss. Here at Owngig towers we couldn’t claim to have a day as exciting as the one put in here but it’s certainly entertaining (and very random).

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See it as you’ve never seen it before by following the link below…

First, after the amazingness of Spotify in recent months, we’ve been similarly impressed by a new start up called DoubleTwist. The idea is to allow you to play your music, films or videos wherever you are, no matter what device your using. While we haven’t tried it yet, it certainly looks impressive and it’s now open for public beta.

Also impressing us this week are some of the thinnest speakers we’ve ever seen. Warwick University has invented a new material, less than a millimetre thick and flexible as well that can be used to transmit sound. It’s supposed to sound better than current speaker technology as well. Who knows, maybe your wallpaper will also be your speakers one day.

On an arty tip, we loved these album sleeves reimagined as old book covers. Done in the style of Pelican books, see albums by bands such as New Order, Primal Scream, Kraftwerk and Underworld retro-ised. Very clever. Finally, more light heartedly, and in a long tradition of such videos and webpages based around people purposefully mishearing lyrics, we liked this cute video (with illustrations) purposefully mishearing Joe Cocker’s lyrics.

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With the weather turning temporarily nicer and the start of British Summer Time, our thoughts have turned to bands in fields – festival season. Which is where this excellent Times guide to the best festivals in Europe came in handy. OK, the Euro may make this slightly more, but we’re still looking through this guide and making plans. Click here to start seeing where your favourite bands are this summer.

Slightly less appealing but fascinating are these amazing sketches of musical instruments/people. If that doesn’t really make sense, simply click here. It’ll make sense. Trust us – amazing illustration from a guy called Shawn Feeney.

Finally, and a warning to the more sensitive of you out there that this link is NSFW (swearing), welcome to the world’s first rapper with no legs, 1/2 price. Skills. He has them. Let him show you them here.

Some technology and some clever art have been of interest this week. First of all, we were impressed with how creative you can be with just a piece of dead media. Cassette portraits are made with just the audio tape, spooled into a wide variety of interesting shapes. See Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Ian Curtis and a few more here. Incidently, if you’re feeling nostalgic for your old audio tapes, you could do worse than look at this Flickr set of old tape covers.

Since Muxtape went away (though back soon apparently), we’ve been lacking a simple way of sharing the music we like in a simple link. Which is where new service Mixtape.me comes in. Not only does it allow you to build playlists from the songs on the service, you can also pull in songs from elsewhere on the internet. With sites like Hype Machine offering access to countless tracks, we’re sure you could make a killer playlist, whatever your taste.

Also on a technology tip, we were impressed with Gigotron, a new iPhone app (and website) that allows you to see what gigs are happening closest to your current location. Unfortunately it’s only US right now, but we hope to see it here soon. Anything that allows fans to get closer to the music (like us , is great by us.

This is from this week’s Owngig.com newsletter. For the full content, register here…

One of the great members of the public from our favourite website this week

Our heart goes out to DJs everywhere with the website Can You Play That One Song? Dedicated to bad DJ requests, the site contains some priceless and truly clueless gems. We liked the following for example…

girl: can you play that beyonce song “put a ring on it”?
me: phaw. ok. (I play it)
same girl (15mins later): can you play that beyonce song again?
me: I just played it!
girl: but my friend just got here and she didn’t hear it!

Also this week, many of you will be aware of the latest iPod shuffle. While the size of it is very impressive, we are wondering just how tiny it can get. It reminds us of comedian Peter Serafinowicz’s Mactini sketch. The VoiceOver feature that says the name of the track you’re playing has comedic potential too – we’re wondering how it would cope with some titles on Sufjan Stevens albums or indeed some of Autechre’s output.

Finally, one piece of news that escaped us in recent weeks is the reforming of rock gods Spinal Tap. If you’ve never seen the classic 1984 classic movie This is Spinal Tap, then rent it this weekend. For those who have, feel free to bid for them on Owngig. You could see them at a puppet show near you soon.