Laser Beam Music Performance System

Via Spreeblick I found this. It looks to me like a modern day theremin. By attaching it to a computer you can control virtual instruments – so the sound has no boundaries.

Beamz

geekalerts.com writes:

The Beamz is a laser-based invention that is connected to a computer via USB. This allows you to play hundreds of musical instruments in a true Jean Michel Jarre style by breaking the laser beams with your hands.

The beamz system has a ‘W’ shape, with six laser beams spanning the two sections; connect via USB to your PC or laptop, and hook up some speakers. The simple, intuitive computer interface makes it easy to choose any of 30 included songs in 19 musical genres for laying down a complementary rhythm track. The beamz library includes original works in jazz, bluegrass, classical, hip-hop, reggae, heavy metal and more

read more at GeekAlerts

Musical Furnishings

This gives me the idea of having an invisible recording studio in the living room… Should be possible!

Introducing the Musical Rumba Series! Musical Furnishings is very excited to introduce the Musical Rumba Series. Design your own personal drum table with durable, interchangeable and rearrangeable percussion inserts. Choose from four different sized tables to suit your musical and space needs. The smallest table accepts four of the smaller instruments and the largest accepts sixteen. Make sure to watch the videos below and carefully consider which inserts you desire. The tables are easily shipped UPS and only require the legs to be attached (very easy requiring no tools) All orders are hand built by NW Artist Tor Clausen in his Studio in Olympia WA.

Unless otherwise noted, these are single modules (8?x 8?x varying depth). Note that the large 4×4 table has all of the 12 modules and the snare and cajun drum are larger thereby explaining why 12 modules can fill a 16 module table.

1 ) Tamborine
2 ) Snare Drum (takes the space of two modules, 8?x16?)
3 ) Medium Bongo
4 ) Low Bongo
5 ) High Bongo
6 ) Shaker
7 ) Chimes
8 ) Bell
9 ) Cow Bell
10) High Hat (adjustable)
11) Cajon Bass Drum (takes the space of 4 modules, 16?x16?)
12) Cymbal Crash

Musical Furnishings

Midcentury Modern Show (UK)

Welcome info about this design show in UK from Jacquelin on MySpace:

Our next Dulwich Midcentury.Modern show is on Sunday 30th March 2008, Dulwich College, Dulwich Common, SE21 7LD. View location on Google Maps.

Set in the light and bright 60’s concrete and glass Christison-designed refectory and the South Cloisters at Dulwich College. Situated on the A205 South Circular near College Rd, SE21 7LD. Nearest train – West Dulwich (trains leave Victoria BR and take approximately 10 minutes). 5 minute walk to college. Other local galleries and museums include The Horniman and The Dulwich Picture Gallery. Refreshments on site. Car parking with college boys showing visitors to spaces

Opening times, 10am–4pm (admission £5). Early admissions for trade from 9am

(£7). Children under 14 are welcome and do not have to pay.

Email us for our latest designer and dealer updates. Designers and dealers, apply to take part.

If you are looking for the best in design from the last century or the latest in future collectables from this one, look no further than Midcentury.Modern. Recognising the eclectic way people dress their homes Midcentury.Modern has fast established itself as the number one destination for sourcing the antiques of the future without the huge retail mark-up. …

read more here

Birth of the Cool

I checked this book out a while back and I confirm it’s a must have. Here’s a quote from the New York Times.

birth of the cool

The cool was born in New York. It was in Manhattan that Miles Davis and the nine-piece group he convened in the late 1940s forged a tightly understated alternative to the hot expressionism of bebop and recorded the hugely influential tracks later collected in the album “Birth of the Cool.” But it was in California in the 1950s that cool jazz and cool art in general took root and flourished.

The story is well told in “Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design and Culture at Midcentury,” an exhibition here at the Addison Gallery of American Art. Organized by Elizabeth Armstrong, chief curator at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, Calif., where it originated, the show examines cool style of the ’50s in several disciplines, including painting, furniture design, architecture, film and photography.

The multidisciplinary approach could be confusing, but it all hangs together in ways both entertaining and thought provoking. What emerges is not just a style but a spirit and an ethos that are in many ways diametrically opposite those of East Coast Abstract Expressionism. Angst-free, not monumental, anti-grandiose:
California cool is laid back yet cleanly articulated, impersonal yet intimate, strict yet hedonistic, and seriously playful. …

Birth of the Cool – California – Art – Review – New York Times

Thanks to Lou Smith.

“Volcanic Action” Returns Today on Luxuriamusic.com

From Domenic Priore:

Friday on Volcanic Action you’ll hear music from the surfing movie soundtracks to Blue Surf-Ari, Strictly Hot, Gone With The Wave, The Golden Breed, Follow Me, The Fantastic Plastic Machine, Getting Back to Nothing and the Waimea Bay epic Ride The Wild Surf. Plus plenty of Exotica, Surf Instrumentals, West Coast Jazz, Bossa Nova, Hawaiian and Surf vocal tunes too.

11 p.m. London

6 p.m. New York City

3 p.m. Los Angeles

Noon in Honolulu

Luxuriamusic.com

Leaping Eagle Ray Kills Woman in Rare Accident

Found via BoingBoing:

Leaping Eagle Ray Kills Woman In Rare Accident
MARATHON (CBS4) ? A woman died in a freak accident in the Keys involving a sea creature on Thursday, but she wasn’t even in the water when it occurred.

Jorge Pino, with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said a woman was on a boat with her family off Marathon when an Eagle Ray jumped out of the water next to the vessel Thursday morning. The animal reportedly struck 55-year old Judy Kay Zagorski who fell backward and suffered a severe head trauma.

read more here: cbs4.com – Leaping Eagle Ray Kills Woman In Rare Accident

Hot Buttered Soul DVD

Hot Buttered Soul was a revolutionary four track LP released by Isaac Hayes and the Bar-Kays in 1969. A few months later, 20-year-old Terry Fitzgerald, fresh from a Hawaiian winter season and a big fan of funk and soul rhythms decided to identify the name for his new surfboard company with this multi-layered music genre. But all three words didn’t quite fit on the rainbow sash logo. Thus Hot Buttered Surfboards were born – and with it one of surfing’s true originals. But the third word never went missing. Instead it’s lived in the handmade, hand-painted HB surfboards and the styles that arose from riding them, over three decades, in the best surf on the planet. Hot Buttered Soul: The Movie draws on a deep well of surf cinema heritage to present the surfing of the HB extended family. Choice selections from HB’s “Sultans of Speed” series, along with surf flick classics Morning of the Earth, A Winter’s Tale, Fantasea, Storm Riders and more, are expertly intercut by editor Mick Waters, with interviews and commentary from Andrew Kidman and Derek Hynd. Wherever they went, “Sultans” trips always had the knack of scoring amazing waves. …

… The unique soundtrack, featuring ex Tamam Shud guitarist Tim Gaze in front of a six piece band, was written, practiced, and finally recorded as a single 59-minute free-flowing piece, in sync with the movie’s final cut. It’s an inspired enhancement to inspired footage. The unique packaging will feature two photos which can either remain in their original frame or be removed as individual collector’s items. The first 3 different series of artworks will be limited to 600, 600 and 800. A limited numbered edition of 42 units, of each design, will come with hand signed photos by the Sultan of Speed himself.

Action Sports Video | Hot Buttered Soul DVD

Third Annual Great Lakes Surf Battle

Night 1: Friday, June 6

The Calrizians from Toronto
The Robots from Oshawa
The Treblemakers from Montreal
and the Blue Demons from Parts Unknown

www.ranchorelaxo.biz
(416) 920-0366

Night 2: Saturday, June 7

Los Tabarnacos Surfers from Montreal
The Amino Acids from Detroit City
The Eradicators from Toronto
The Treblemakers from Montreal
The von Drats from Toronto

www.cadillaclounge.com
(416) 536-7717

with thanks to Tiki Tena.

Turn Me Up!
Bringing Dynamics Back To Music

Wow! A website dedicated to bringing back dynamics into modern recordings. I applied there with Tiki Traveling. Hopefully they accept that recording. I will do my best to support the project. I recorded TTWKK in the consciousness of making an anti-loudness record. Being mainly for soundtrack use, I could more easily fight the temptation of being competitive with music recorded for radio, music-tv or a teenager’s music collection, but aimed for the late fifties/early sixties hifi stereo sound instead. Think Command LPs with Bauhaus covers (Enoch Light’s label). I mixed and mastered for a good, enduring listening experience.

command lp klein

These records say: Turn me up! Your stereo deserves being turned up as much as your guitar amp or vehicle. Simply sounds better. Dials are more precise up the scale, too.

I wrote about the so called loudness wars earlier on this blog.

Quote from Turn Me Up!

Turn Me Up!™ is a non-profit music industry organization
campaigning to give artists back the choice to release more dynamic records. To be clear, it’s not our goal to discourage loud records; they are, of course, a valid choice for many artists. We simply want to make the choice for a more dynamic record an option for artists. …

Turn Me Up! | Bringing Dynamics Back To Music

Here’s another link to an article on over-compression of music.