One of my favorite LEGO builders is Nannan Z. On The Dallas Morning News website, there is a video of Nannan talking about the LEGO hobby and showing off his massive collection and some of his creations.
If you want to get a closer look at that awesome space station he made, you can check it out here.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
You are sort of listening to Los Angeles.
Many times while I'm writing, I like to listen to music that fits the mood of whatever I'm writing, just to get my head in the right setting. It's often difficult to find something to fit the mood you want, but I usually listen to film scores.
I came across these "You are listening to..." pages which pair ambient music with police radio chatter from a city, complete with a beautiful photo of that city as the background to each page. The cities available are below:
Los Angeles
New York
San Fransisco
Chicago
Montréal
While it's a cool idea, I think it would be much better if the ambient music was actually from the city. While listening to the "You are listening to Los Angeles" page, I was clicking on the SoundCloud pages of each musician to find out where they were from. The whole time, I only noticed one musician that was actually from Los Angeles, and that was probably a coincidence. It would feel a lot more like you're listening to Los Angeles if there's not music from Portland, Brooklyn, or even Sweden playing instead of just music from Los Angeles. I e-mailed the suggestion to the maker of the "You are listening to..." pages.
I came across these "You are listening to..." pages which pair ambient music with police radio chatter from a city, complete with a beautiful photo of that city as the background to each page. The cities available are below:
Los Angeles
New York
San Fransisco
Chicago
Montréal
While it's a cool idea, I think it would be much better if the ambient music was actually from the city. While listening to the "You are listening to Los Angeles" page, I was clicking on the SoundCloud pages of each musician to find out where they were from. The whole time, I only noticed one musician that was actually from Los Angeles, and that was probably a coincidence. It would feel a lot more like you're listening to Los Angeles if there's not music from Portland, Brooklyn, or even Sweden playing instead of just music from Los Angeles. I e-mailed the suggestion to the maker of the "You are listening to..." pages.
Moby explores empty cities with new album Destroyed
I found out about another album to look forward to this year. On May 16th, Moby releases his new album Destroyed. Suffering from insomnia while on tour, Moby would write music at 2 AM when it felt like everyone else in the world was asleep. When he was done touring, he'd take the songs back to his studio to finish them. In an attempt to sum up the album, he described it as "broken down melodic electronic music for empty cities at 2 AM." Sounds like my kind of music!
The cover of the album is a photograph taken by Moby, who is releasing a photography book with the album. Wandering around LaGuardia airport after his flight was delayed, he came across an electronic sign that said "Unattended luggage will be destroyed." The small sign could only fit one word at a time, so when it just said the word "destroyed", he took a photograph. I love wandering around airports, so this just makes me want to listen to the album even more.
He has already released the Be The One EP, which features three songs, all of which will be on Destroyed. You can download the free EP below.
I'll, however, wait until the full album comes out to listen to any of it.
The cover of the album is a photograph taken by Moby, who is releasing a photography book with the album. Wandering around LaGuardia airport after his flight was delayed, he came across an electronic sign that said "Unattended luggage will be destroyed." The small sign could only fit one word at a time, so when it just said the word "destroyed", he took a photograph. I love wandering around airports, so this just makes me want to listen to the album even more.
He has already released the Be The One EP, which features three songs, all of which will be on Destroyed. You can download the free EP below.
I'll, however, wait until the full album comes out to listen to any of it.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Dynamite Steps by The Twilight Singers
The Twilight Singers have a new album called Dynamite Steps coming out on the 15th. It's one of the albums being released in 2011 that I've really been looking forward to. The Twilight Singers is one of my favorite bands ever, and in my opinion, singer/songwriter Greg Dulli (previously from the band The Afghan Whigs) is one of the best songwriters I know of. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to it yet, but you can listen to Dynamite Steps on the music player below.
UPDATE: The music player is no longer available. At this point I have listened to the album many times, and can tell you that it's amazing and beautiful. I definitely recommend it.
UPDATE: The music player is no longer available. At this point I have listened to the album many times, and can tell you that it's amazing and beautiful. I definitely recommend it.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Turn the page, close the book.
Now that Cyberspace And Reds and Computers And Blues are out, all that's left is a tour before The Streets are no more. The final (but unfinished) Streets song was released on The Guardian. I assume it was originally intended to have vocals, but it has been released as an instrumental.
In a video on The Guardian website, Mike Skinner said:
'(This song) was created by me as the final song by The Streets. I intended on calling it "Close The Book" as the first song I ever wrote for The Streets was called "Turn The Page". On realizing that this would be shit, I decided to bin it.'
Right-click on the image and 'save link as' to download the song, or just left-click it to listen to the song in your browser.
I think Mike Skinner should have finished the song and put it on the final Streets album. It would have made a fitting end to Computers And Blues, even as an instrumental.
In a video on The Guardian website, Mike Skinner said:
'(This song) was created by me as the final song by The Streets. I intended on calling it "Close The Book" as the first song I ever wrote for The Streets was called "Turn The Page". On realizing that this would be shit, I decided to bin it.'
Right-click on the image and 'save link as' to download the song, or just left-click it to listen to the song in your browser.
I think Mike Skinner should have finished the song and put it on the final Streets album. It would have made a fitting end to Computers And Blues, even as an instrumental.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Computers And Blues
The Streets have a new interactive branched narrative film that goes along with the new album, Computers And Blues. It's a pretty cool way to take advantage of the annotation boxes on youtube video players.
If you're interested in what you hear in the Computers And Blues film, you may be interested in listening to the Computers And Blues album, which will be released on Monday the 7th. But you don't have to wait that long, because you can listen to the whole album on the music player below!
I think my favorite song on the album is "OMG", even if it's about dramatic facebook relationship paranoia. It seems to me as though "OMG" is the new "Dry Your Eyes", even though "OMG" has a happier ending.
If you're interested in what you hear in the Computers And Blues film, you may be interested in listening to the Computers And Blues album, which will be released on Monday the 7th. But you don't have to wait that long, because you can listen to the whole album on the music player below!
I think my favorite song on the album is "OMG", even if it's about dramatic facebook relationship paranoia. It seems to me as though "OMG" is the new "Dry Your Eyes", even though "OMG" has a happier ending.
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