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Ok, the title of this first link is a little sweary. But the idea – play two YouTube videos simultaneously and use a crossfader to make your own mini DJ mixes (and record the results) is genius. One for the why didn’t I think of that? file. Marvel at it here – and we apologise if the title of the site offends your sensibilities, just enjoy the music.
Also fitting into the why didn’t I think of that category is this rather simple time lapse video of the US festival Coachella. One weekend’s festival crammed into four minutes. Although if we’re honest we’d like to see this for Glastonbury – the way in the video the area is cleared is very efficient but we’d like to see some of the casualties still floating around as the sun came up.
Finally, fitting into the arty category is this rather crazy project that uses Mexican jumping beans to make music by triggering synth patterns. View this strangeness here, and of course, feel free to bid for him on Owngig.com. You never know…
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We’ve had lots of bids for small acts on Owngig since we’ve started and we’re thinking we should do more to support small acts. We already have some promotional tools and we can offer intelligence as well about where gigs are but if you’re starting your career and are interested in using our service, what would you like to see from us? Let us know here.
This week on the web we’ve been loving…
Did you grow up with Dr. Seuss?Green Eggs and Ham? One Fish, Two Fish? Well hopefully some of you out there know what we’re talking about, which is why liked this hip hop version of Fox in Socks. The book, which is basically one long tongue twister is rendered into rap flawlessly by the slightly nerdy duo in this YouTube clip.
Kanye West is never far from the news and certainly seems to have been making himself unpopular with his controversial intervention at American music awards the VMAs. Well, as is often the case, these things have a habit of spreading and KanyeGate is detailed to Kanye telling more or less everyone you can think of that, yes, they can finish but X had the best Y of all time. An endearingly crazy labour of love.
Finally, and tangentially related to the previous link, one of the most popular viral videos this week has been possibly Beyonce’s youngest fan getting his groove on. Given that over ten years ago, one of the web’s first viral hits was a dancing baby, it’s interesting to see how these things change (while staying the same).
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As you probably guessed by the site we’re running we love music, so when a study came out this week saying that listening to music makes you happy, well that made us… happy. Now you have an answer when someone tells you listening to The Cure makes you miserable.
We also, of course, love technology and autotune has been featured in this newsletter before. Probably some of your favourite acts whether you like it or not use it and one artist, T-Pain has become associated with it. Well he now has his own autotune app on the iPhone so you too can sound like a very tuneful robot. Check out this video here and you can download it here
Finally, away from the mainstream, there’s a lot of strangeness out there in music, which is why we loved this little collection of very, very odd music collection. Bare in mind some of these images are NSFW though.
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London radio station XFM has been holding a competition, challenging artists to see how many acts they can fit into a ten minute window. Smashing the record this week was Akira The Don, UK rapper and producer with 210 tracks in the ten minute window. See how many you can recognise here… and be prepared to give up the next ten minutes of your life because once this starts it’s somewhat mesmerising.
In a similar vein, this Lego stop motion tribute to the 80s is difficult to stop watching when you start. Then again, 80s + Lego + animation + electro + video games = how could this not be awesome?
Finally Owngig would like to give a shout out and promotion (not that he needs it) to a former work colleague, Lee Washington who produced a nice little video as part of his work as a design student, detailing both his frustration and a solution to that most prosaic of problems, tangled iPod headphones. The video, which has been picked up by top gadget blog Gizmodo, trend site PSFK and has so far had over 131,000 views. Add a few more from Owngig.com here.
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This week we’ve been working behind the scenes on our new Polish version of the site to launch soon. We’ll be announcing full details of this next week but if you have any Polish friends, let them know – and gigs in Gdańsk, Kraków or Warsaw with their favourite artists could be coming soon.
This week on the web we’ve been loving…
OK, so they’re not going to win any awards for sound fidelity but these tiny iPod speakers in the shape of an 80s boombox will certainly win points for cuteness. Following on from the iPod dock that was similarly retro styled, this mini version is just too much. Buy here .
Some of you will have seen the small space invader tiles in various cities around the world, done by French artist, Invader. Well we liked this project that takes famous album sleeves and tiles them. Try to guess them all here …
Finally a link that’s being doing the rounds this week to a musician I think it’s safe to say won’t be doing an Owngig any time soon, this singer is more an exercise on how long you can stand to listen to his song. I got 49 seconds in before I could stand no more. See how you do here and if you make it all the way to the end then your aversion to pain is impressive.
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Want to spread the word about Owngig and help promote a one-off gig from your favourite artist? Remember that on site we have tools that allow you to make custom badges and banners you can use to place on forums, blogs and websites. They’re perfect for artists too. Check them out on our site here.
This week on the web we’ve been loving…
Well although he seems to have been having a bit of a meltdownon Twitter today over a bad review in the Guardian, we’ve still been rather impressed with Calvin Harris’ amazing human synthesiser. Using fifteen models, conductive paint and markings on the floor, his new single can be ‘played’ by dancing. To be honest we can only explain this so well – check out the videos here. Then, in a similar and somewhat simpler vein, this remote controlled instrument allows you to play tunes automatically on your kettle when it boils. Very clever.
Finally we spent quite a while playing with this Lyrics visualiser. Simply put in the name of a song you like and it plots similarly lyriced themes on a nifty little chart. Great for preparing similarly themed mixtapes.
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Gigs, we love ‘em. That’s pretty obvious really, considering what Owngig is about. So we were impressed with these amazing gig posters. We did notice most of them were American. You’re lucky over there to have stuff like this advertising your favourite band.
We’re surprised we haven’t seen any bids for UK band Raygun yet. Then again, although this band has been over the internet this week, the publicitythey’vegot hasn’t been exactly favourable thanks to a rather risible YouTube clip that’s been going viral for all the wrong reasons. It’s as if they though Spinal Tap was career guidance, the band profile contains some classic lines – such as
“We might have mojitos at 11am in the morning! I mean, what the hell, man? It’s, like, fun. We want people to have fun.” See the full horror here.
Finally, some science. The Owngig newsletter isn’t about to get the Bunsen burners out but we just wanted to share this rather clever crowd demonstration from 80s vocal man Bobby McFerrin. In proving people have an innate sense of musical scale, he gently messes with their minds. Watch it here to see what we’re on about.
Seen anything interesting on the web? Drop us a line.
This is from Owngig’s weekly newsletter. To get this in your inbox every Friday, register on site.
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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So we’ve been away for a few weeks – on holiday and then away for work. Did you miss us? Well we’re jetlagged but we’re back from the New Music Seminar in New York and just want to say thanks to the organisers and everyone we met. There were a lot of passionate and interesting people who care as much about music as we do and had a great time. If you want to know a bit more about what happened then this blog post gives a good flavour to the proceedings.
This week on the web we’ve been loving…
When we saw this musical mashup we just had to post it. OK, you’ve seen a lot of them and maybe you’re thinking that the whole concept is a bit 2001, but as it contains Owngig favourite, Rick Astley, it was a dead cert. So we bring you Never Gonna Give You Up vs Smells Like Teen Spirit. Impressive that the German DJ behind it managed to get the two songs to gel together.
On a similar remix/refit version we liked this gesture from David Bowie’s record label – providing an online mixing tool giving people the ability to remix the famous song – even on your iPhone. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you doing so with fancy software already but this site allows you to do so with nothing more than your browser.
Finally, we love a good tale of the little guy standing up against The Man, so the tale of musician Dave Carroll’s failure to get satisfaction from United Airlines after baggage handlers damaged his guitar definitely was worth bringing to your attention. The song he wrote – one of three he plans on writing has so far got over 3 million views and an official apology from the airline as well as offers of compensation from a very embarrassed company. Maybe we should all write songs over consumer rights. It would certainly make Watchdog more interesting.
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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.
