July 12, 2012
The Evolution Control Committee (The ECC) is an experimental music band based in Columbus, Ohio. The ECC was founded by Mark Gunderson (a.k.a. TradeMark G.) in 1987. It typically uses uncleared and illegal samples from various sources as a form of protest against copyright law.
The ECC also produces numerous audio experiments, such as the disfiguring of compact discs in live performance, known as ‘CDestruction,’ and has produced a few video works as well, ranging from re-edited 50’s corporate shorts to a Teddy Ruxpin reciting the works of William S. Burroughs. Other activities include culture jamming. Continue reading →
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July 12, 2012
Negativland is an experimental music and sound collage band which originated in San Francisco in the late 1970s. They took their name from a Neu! song. The current core of the band consists of Mark Hosler, Richard Lyons, Don Joyce, David Wills, and Peter Conheim. Negativland has released a number of albums ranging from pure sound collage to more musical expositions. These have mostly been released on their own label, Seeland Records.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they produced several recordings for SST Records, most notably ‘Escape from Noise,’ ‘Helter Stupid,’ and ‘U2.’ Negativland were sued by U2’s record label, Island Records, and by SST Records, which brought them widespread publicity and notoriety.
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July 11, 2012
The Bran Flakes are a sound collage pop group with members in the United States and Canada who specialize in creating music from pre-existing sources. The group’s members include Otis Fodder, Mildred Pitt, Susan DeLint, and The GRDNR. Along with other bands such as Negativland and Evolution Control Committee, the Bran Flakes make extensive use of sampling, recontextualizing the samples into new works. The group scours thrift shops for obscure and quirky LPs; some of their songs also make use of recognizably famous basslines, television shows, and soundtracks from video games. The unauthorized nature of much of their output has precluded wide commercial release.
Following the 1998 release of ‘I Remember When I Break Down’ on Ovenguard Music, on which Otis Fodder was sole writer, the group’s first album as a duo (Otis Fodder and Mildred Pitt) was in 1999, with ‘Hey Won’t Somebody Come and Play’ on Ovenguard Music. 2001 saw the release of ‘I Don’t Have a Friend’ on Lomo Records. Their 2002 album ‘Bounces!’ was released on the band’s own Happi Tyme Records, and contained one of their most popular songs; ‘Good Times a Goo Goo’, which sampled extensively from Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear’s performance of ‘Moving Right Along’ from ‘The Muppet Movie.’ In 2008 the band signed with the label Illegal Art, known for such acts as Girl Talk and Steinski.
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July 11, 2012
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex, and experimental. Post-punk laid the groundwork for alternative rock by broadening the range of punk and underground music, incorporating elements of Krautrock (particularly the use of synthesizers and extensive repetition), Jamaican dub music (specifically in bass guitar), American funk, and studio experimentation into the genre.
It found a firm place in the 1980s independent scene, and led to the development of genres such as gothic rock, industrial music, and alternative rock. The term ‘post punk’ was used in 1977 by ‘Sounds’ to describe Siouxsie and the Banshees. In 1980 critic Greil Marcus referred to ‘Britain’s postpunk pop avant-garde’ in ‘Rolling Stone.’ He applied the phrase to such bands as Gang of Four, The Raincoats, and Essential Logic, which he wrote were ‘sparked by a tension, humor, and sense of paradox plainly unique in present day pop music.’ Continue reading →
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July 11, 2012
Indie pop is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s, with its roots in Scottish post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label in the early ’80s (Josef K and Orange Juice) and the dominant UK independent band of the mid-’80s, The Smiths. Indie pop was inspired by punk’s DIY ethic and related ideologies, and it generated a thriving fanzine, label, and club and gig circuit.
Indie pop differs from indie rock to the extent that it is more melodic, less abrasive, and relatively angst-free. The term ‘indie’ had been used for some time to describe artists on independent labels (and the labels themselves), but the key moment in the naming of ‘indie pop’ as a genre was the release of NME’s ‘C86’ tape in 1986. Continue reading →
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July 11, 2012
Pop punk is a sub genre of alternative rock, which typically merges pop melodies with speedy punk tempos, chord changes, and loud guitars. Contemporary pop punk bands have a radio friendly sheen to their music, but still maintain much of the speed and attitude of classic punk rock. It is not clear when the term ‘pop punk’ was first used, but pop-influenced punk rock had been around since the mid- to late-1970s.
An early use of the term appeared in a 1977 ‘New York Times’ article, ‘Cabaret: Tom Petty’s Pop Punk Rock Evokes Sounds of 60s.’ In the mid-1990s, the California pop punk bands Green Day and The Offspring, who were later followed by Blink-182, would all achieve worldwide commercial success. From the mid-1990s onwards, some bands associated with the genre have been described as happy punk, faux-punk, mall punk, pseudo-punk,or bubblegum punk.
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July 11, 2012
Top 40 is a music industry shorthand for the currently most-popular songs in a particular genre. When used without qualification, it typically refers to the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music songs of the previous week. Top 40 became the dominant radio format of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Its popularity coincided with the rapid changes in recording technology in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1954, the recording industry agreed upon a standard recording format for higher fidelity music, so any new record player could play any new record.
Also in that year, new single records were released on 45 rpm records, and the Top 40 thereafter became a survey of the popularity of these records (and their airplay on the radio). Tape recording had become perfected, allowing artists more freedom as they composed songs, especially novelty songs. By the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the 45 rpm record would decrease in popularity and other means would be used to evaluate the popularity of new songs, such as cassette-single, CD single, and digital MP3/AAC sales (plus radio airplay).
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July 11, 2012
Mosquito control manages the population of mosquitoes to reduce their damage to human health, economies, and enjoyment. Mosquito control is a vital public-health practice throughout the world and especially in the tropics because mosquitoes spread many diseases, such as malaria. Mosquito-control operations are targeted against three different problems:
Nuisance mosquitoes (bother people around homes or in parks and recreational areas); Economically important mosquitoes (reduce real estate values, adversely affect tourism and related business interests, or negatively impact livestock or poultry production); and Public health (focusing on mosquitoes as vectors, or transmitters, of infectious disease). Continue reading →
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July 10, 2012
Time perception is a field of study within psychology and neuroscience; it refers to the sense of time, which differs from other senses since time cannot be directly perceived but must be reconstructed by the brain. Humans can perceive relatively short periods of time, in the order of milliseconds, and also durations that are a significant fraction of a lifetime. Human perception of duration is subjective and variable.
Some researchers attempt to categorize people by how they differ in their perception of time. Pioneering work, emphasizing species-specific differences, was done by Estonian naturalist Karl Ernst von Baer. Experimental work began under the influence of the psycho-physical notions of Gustav Theodor Fechner with studies of the relationship between perceived and measured time. Work with animals conducted by German biologist Jakob von Uexküll included measurement of length of momentum in snails. Continue reading →
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July 9, 2012
The Bullingdon Club is a secret society dining club for exclusive students at Oxford University. The club has no permanent rooms and is notorious for its members’ wealth and destructive binges. Membership is by invitation only, and prohibitively expensive for most, given the need to pay for the uniform, dinners, and damages. The club was founded over 200 years ago. Originally it was a hunting and cricket club. This foundational sporting purpose is attested to in the Club’s symbol.
‘The Wisden Cricketer’ reports that the Bullingdon is ‘ostensibly one of the two original Oxford University cricket teams but it actually used cricket merely as a respectable front for the mischievous, destructive, or self-indulgent tendencies of its members.’ By the late 19th century, the present emphasis on dining within the Club began to emerge. ‘The Bullingdon Club dinners were the occasion of a great display of exuberant spirits, accompanied by a considerable consumption of the good things of life, which often made the drive back to Oxford an experience of exceptional nature.’
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July 9, 2012
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is an adventure video game developed by Capcom. It was first released as ‘Gyakuten Saiban’ (literally ‘Turnabout Trial’) in Japan exclusively for the Game Boy Advance in 2001. The game stars Phoenix Wright, a rookie defense attorney in the Fey and Co. Law Offices, owned by fellow defense attorney Mia Fey. Other characters include Maya Fey, Mia’s sister; Miles Edgeworth, a rival prosecutor; Dick Gumshoe, a scatterbrained detective, and Larry Butz, an old friend of Phoenix’s.
The game features five court cases divided into episodes. Each case flips between two game modes: investigation and the actual trial. In the investigation aspect of the game, Phoenix gathers evidence and speaks to characters involved in the case. In the trial aspect of the game, Phoenix defends his client using said evidence, cross examines witnesses, and solves the mystery surrounding each case. The court perspective is usually in the third person, while the perspective outside of court is in the first person. Since the release of the Game Boy Advance version, the Ace Attorney series has produced many sequels and spin-offs, in a variety of formats including Nintendo’s WiiWare and Apple iOS.
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July 9, 2012
Black Hole is a comic written and illustrated by Charles Burns; it was published as a 12-issue limited series between 1995 and 2005. Set in the suburbs of Seattle during the mid-1970s, the comics follow a group of mostly middle class teenagers who, over the summer, contract a mysterious sexually transmitted disease known as ‘the Bug’ or ‘the teen plague,’ which causes them to develop bizarre unique physical mutations, turning them into social outcasts.
Burns has said that the mutations can be read as a metaphor for adolescence, sexual awakening, and the transition into adulthood. The look of the comic is meant to evoke the feel and atmosphere of classic 70s teen horror films like ‘The Last House on the Left,’ ‘Carrie,’ and ‘Halloween.’
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