Merry Christmas from theplaydoeband

merry chrimbo from theplaydoeband hahahaha

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

check out the fingerboarding skills...

Banksy's New York show

for more vids: http://thevillagepetstoreandcharcoalgrill.com

gig recording

I've finally got round to sticking the recording of the gig up on the website.
it can be found here

enjoy!

6TH SEPT 08 GIG @ CITY SCREEN

Full gig write up and permament audio link coming soon
temp audio link below
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F75D8Z0W
photos in reverse order

New Ruckazoid Controller One video

RUCKAZOID - CONTROLLER ONE DEMO / MULTI-VIEW!
Uploaded by HeartsandStars

This video was made to show what can be done with the Controller One turntable by Vestax. The viewer is given 5 scenes to watch every element of how the music is produced live. Each element of the music was performed live in 1 take.

Original concept: Ruckazoid circa 2002
Music performed by: Ruckazoid http://www.myspace.com/ruckazoid

Below is a description of each part played in the demo.

[Top] Intro: Basic "transform" scratch

[Left] Supporting melody: The record is manually phrased (dividing the separate notes to play a new melody) while using the note changing buttons.

[Middle] Main melody: Performed by taking one long synth chord, and changing the notes to create the melody.

[Right] - Supporting melody: Performed by taking one long synth note, and changing the notes to create the melody

[Bottom] - Bass line: The Controller One is controlled via MIDI to play a bass line sound on vinyl, controlled by a keyboard. A locked groove record (never-ending tone on vinyl) was used. The GATE function on the controller one was used. When the gate function is on, sound is ONLY played when buttons are pressed down. This can be done in and outside of MIDI mode.

Message from Ric......

Wassup yall,

I been really busy putting together a lot of projects, but in the midst of all this, I had to take a couple of days to put together a video for the Controller One.


If you don't know already, this is a revolutionary turntable! It's the next evolution in dj/sampling culture. The potential of this instrument is so vast, that it's really difficult to market because it appeals to so many markets!

Before the Controller One, the turntable used to be like a guitar with 2 strings. You could only go 8% up or down, and you'd have to come up with a whole routine. To know how far scratch djs took it within those limitations, is truly staggering.

In 2002, I published an article about translating pitch speed to musical notes on a turntable, so djs could control any sound in a ratio of a melodic scale. The idea of controlling notes with footpedals, the whole deal. I started talking to D-styles about it, throwing ideas around, and decided to pitch the idea to Vestax.

A year later we're in Japan at Vestax drawing out rough ideas. 3 years and 2 prototypes later, it's now on the market, and I can proudly say that this is THE rolls royce of turntables. Apart of me feels like I'm re-inventing my style and starting from zero again, learning new finger movements, mastering the features, everything.

After playing with the C1 for about a year now, I've come to understand it much more, and am even more excited for the future of this instrument. The best thing is being able to create a melodic phrases without relying on the sample itself. The cooler thing is, when you DO find a cool sample, you can change it in a way that would be too complex to do if you did it on an MPC.

I developed a record specifically for the Controller One called UPR4. It is a record made entirely of locked groove sounds, these are sounds on a record that loop forever! For this new video I did, I approached the music from a more scratch dj perspective, but it sounds like it could of been produced on an MPC. The turntable gives so much control, that when you good at it, you can actually hear it now!

Back in the day, there were djs that were so technically dope, but because the limitation of the turntable, the average people wouldn't get it. Now, if you got technical skills, you're going to hear it melodically, and it will be noticed by more than just the crowd who can appreciate the precision it takes to perform a crab.

I think some djs should have the respect as some guitar greats have, unfortunately this is not the case because the beauty is subtle and well hidden. Today, flares and crabs can completely highlight a musical idea, as opposed of being a non-melodic percussive triplet. The turntable gives djs access to melodic control, and can now litterally sing songs off a whim with their hands and captivate a crowd like a pianist, or like a guitarist, with or without distortion, smooth or hard, it can go any where.

...................................................................

For this video, I shot 5 different over head views, and built the song around the main melody (center picture), which was controlled entirely with the buttons.

I think outside of the scratch dj, this should be a producer's best friend. This turntable can allow you to maximize your MPC or any sequencer you're using. I think most people would argree, the more magic you can create outside of the box, or your sequencer, the better. This is a hands on instrument, and being blunted in the lab (like I am now), making beats, your hands get to messing with the buttons, and next thing you know, you are manipulating a sample in a way you'd never think of on the MPC, and then you can even flip THAT on the MPC after you sample yourself playing the record! You can play the turntable with the MPC pads if you wanted to!

J Dilla was going to be the first person I gave this turntable to!

The Controller One is an INSTRUMENT, and can enhance any vinyl or digital dj setup, it's the controller of movement. A master of this instrument will be able to take one of these turntables alone, and keep a crowds attention for hours with technical mastery translated to melodic arrangements.

I really hope this video helps people understand the depths of this instrument, it's really a mirror to your own limitation.


ONE
R!

*****6TH SEPTEMBER GIG*****

Thats right folks (if anybody other than the band reads this!)
we have a gig at our usual haunt,
The Basement Bar, City Screen, on SATURDAY 6TH SEPTEMBER.
More details (support etc) and a new flyer to follow.

Bert & Ernie Ante Up.

T-cophony - acoustic finger tapping guitarist from Japan

Moog Guitar with infinite sustain

Bob Moog's synthesizers and effects changed the world. Now, the company that bears his name is trying to apply its vision to a new instrument: the guitar.
The Moog Guitar Paul Vo Edition has infinite sustain -- enough to keep Nigel Tufnel holding the guitar up to his ear until the end of time -- while a muted mode allows players to add the sound of their fingers holding down the strings loosely and then taking them away from the strings right away after the strum for a banjo-type sound. These effects operate separately on each pickup, giving players a wider range of sonic options.
The special sauce: strings that have "a specific metallurgy designed to work with the Moog pickups." Marketing manager Chris Stack told Listening Post, "the pickups are simultaneously listening to the strings and controlling them."

The video above to the right, in which Lou Reed, Vernon Reid (Living Colour) and other musicians put the Moog Guitar - Paul Vo Edition through its paces, does a fine job of explaining how this $6500 piece of six-string bliss sounds. Here's Moog's full run-down on each of the guitar's modes:
FULL SUSTAIN MODE - like no other sustainer; infinite sustain on every string, at every fret position and at any volume. You may have heard sustain before but not with this power (we call it "Vo Power") and clarity.
CONTROLLED SUSTAIN MODE - allows you to play sustained single or polyphonic lines without muting technique. The Moog Guitar sustains the notes you are playing while actively muting the strings you are not playing.
MUTE MODE - removes energy from the strings, resulting in a variety of staccato articulations. The mute mode has never been heard on any other guitar; the Vo Power stops the strings with the same intensity that it sustains them. You feel the instrument transform in your hands.
HARMONIC BLENDS – use the included foot pedal to shift the positive energy of Vo Power in Sustain mode and the subtractive force of Vo Power in Mute mode between the bridge and neck pick-ups to pull both subtle and dramatic harmonics from the strings.
MOOG FILTER - control the frequency of the built-in, resonant Moog ladder filter using the foot pedal or a CV Input.

order of the empire

not too sure why or what this photo's for - can't find any real info. But how cool would it be if you saw these walking down the street!!

more snowglobes

http://www.martin-munoz.com/main.html

Human Space Invaders

67 people sat in a theatre simulating the movement of the pixels from the original game. Sound effects as well!
This a performance of the Game Over project who have also done versions of Tetris, Pong and Pole Position.

link to Game Over site
via Architectradure

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

wtf!!!

cringeworthy!!!!

stromtrooper snowglobes

how cool are these little things!!


link

melting bunnies

not really sure if there's a point to this, but I kinda like it!!

*****16th April GIG*****

scratchin hand

Drums please.

Tony Royster Jr. and Thomas Pridgen (new Mars Volta drummer)



Jon Theodore (old Mars Volta drummer)



Deantoni Parks (not the best vid)



John McEntire (Tortoise) short video



Magnus Ostrom (e.s.t.)



Seb Rochford (Polar Bear, Acoustic Ladyland, Basquiat Strings) not the best video of him, but there aren't many vids about.



John Stanier (Battles)


Jeremy Barnes (A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Neutral Milk Hotel)



Animal v Buddy Rich


had to throw this one in....

Old Greg

classic Boosh

Music made from cars

And not that bloody Ford ad!!!

A "mash up" of car samples in a similar (but not as sinister) as the swedemason stuff from earlier.

Ricci Rucker using the Vestax Controller 1

Ricci Rucker from an unknown destination using the Vestax Controller 1.







perfect circle drumming


using the MIDI function





More info on the Controller 1 coming soon.
Also please feel free to sponsor us and buy 2 of these for the band!

Cedric Bixler-Zavala, The Mars Volta.

Preach on brother....

"Our records our not meant to be listened to the way most people listen to music. Our music demands your attention, demands at least an hour out of you life, and with complete silence and with complete devotion, ya know? A lot of bands don't do that sort of stuff, I guess. Or, some bands used to – but they would just get accused of being pretentious, or whatever. But it's like a movie. You shouldn't really be talking during a movie because the moment you say anything, you'll miss a really great subtle moment that expresses what a character's feeling. A character in a movie can walk in a room and not say anything, but just move his eyebrows, and it speaks fucking volumes. But if you're talking during that moment, or eating your popcorn, or opening the candy wrapper, you missed it. And then you say the movie sucks because you were too dense to watch it the way you were supposed to watch it. Our music should be listened to in a very specific way, I mean…headphones were made for a reason, ya know?"

Cedric Bixler-Zavala. The Mars Volta

swede mason - jungle all the way video

http://www.myspace.com/swedemason
more info to follow

airport security gone mental!!

not quite as cultured as the last post, but worth a look...

peter callesen paper sculptures

Check out these paper sculptures:
loads more on his site
http://www.petercallesen.com/index.html

wakka chikka wakka chikka

" Now WM Recordings brings you a new dose of “Porn Music Magic” to swing to/by, thanks to mr_melvis, the same producer who brought you WCWC vol.1.

Twenty tunes of porn groovieness and one bonus track with a ‘Behind The Scenes’ look at the industry will be sure to titillate even the most repressed listeners. It’s time to turn those lights down low again, and get it on - Wakka Chikka Wakka Chikka!"

there's some tasty ass stuff!
link

PUSSY WIG

NOT THAT KIND!!!!!






Blue is edgy and electric. In this wig, Chicken sports some serrrrious attitude – she’s thinking saxophones, smoke and snapping fingers.

Blue gives your kitty a sharp look -- jazzy and totally copacetic.

Gotta love them Valvers!!!!

nice use of record sleeves!

more shenanigans at sleeveface.com

via AudioLemon

little nitro

Old one, but a favourite of mine!

New Recordings

There are 2 new recordings available over on the website (www.theplaydoeband.co.uk).

They were both done on the same night - one is only available as the full sesh, whilst the second slightly longer one is available as separate sections and in its full awe-inspiring glory!


enjoy!

Armando Iannuci take of Barack Obama’s policy-free political messaging

Barack Obama - I'm sure we've seen him somewhere before
Armando Iannucci
The Observer - Sunday January 13, 2008


Like Will Smith, who in the new film I Am Legend wakes up to find himself the last man alive in a world of zombies, am I now the only person left on the planet who finds Barack Obama a little bit dull? Every time I listen to him, I start off thinking I'm about to wet my pants, but a minute-and-a-half later find my mind wandering, asking itself things like: 'What does "the challenge of hope" mean?'

Yet I turn and look around and everyone is shouting and screaming. Obama chants: 'Something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it' and there's a collective swoon from grown pundits and hardened reporters, all of them tearing off their shirts and pleading for Obama to sign their chests with indelible marker pen. Will Smith woke up to a world of zombies: in my personal nightmare, everyone around me has an overactive thyroid.

So why does Obama, billed by everyone as a cross between Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln, but without the terrible looks of either, just leave me puzzled? Maybe it's because his is a rhetoric that soars and takes flight, but alights nowhere. It declares that together we can do anything, but doesn't mention any of the things we can do. It's a perpetual tickle in the nose that never turns into a sneeze. Trying to make sense of what he's saying is like trying to wrap mist.

But, rhythmically, it's quite alluring. It can make anything, even, for example, a simple chair, seem magnificent. Why vote for someone who says: 'See that chair. You can sit on it' when you can have someone like Obama say: 'This chair can take your weight. This chair can hold your buttocks, 15 inches in the air. This chair, this wooden chair, can support the ass of the white man or the crack of the black man, take the downward pressure of a Jewish girl's behind or the butt of a Buddhist adolescent, it can provide comfort for Muslim buns or Mormon backsides, the withered rump of an unemployed man in Nevada struggling to get his kids through high school and needful of a place to sit and think, the plump can of a single mum in Florida desperately struggling to make ends meet but who can no longer face standing, this chair, made from wood felled from the tallest redwood in Chicago, this chair, if only we believed in it, could sustain America's huddled arse.'

Speeches full of hot air ...

Maybe Obama is so successful because he's the supreme master of what American politics excels in: high-flown language that denotes as little as possible. America is curious in that it is the most powerful, influential nation on Earth, it's a doing country, but its politicians rarely spend time on the stump specifying what precisely they will do in case it makes them lose votes. Instead, they settle on emotive, intangible phraseology, such as Hillary Clinton's recent 'I intend to be the President who puts your futures first', uttered in New Hampshire.

I listened to all the victory speeches of the winning candidates last week and it was impossible to spot any difference in the message. Mike Huckabee said: 'This election is not about me, it's about we', while Clinton came up with the variant: 'You want this election to be about you.'

Thus both of them appealed to voters who believed strongly that elections should be about types of people. This is a theme Clinton developed when she said: 'I believe in what we can do together', a brave message this, since there was always the risk she could alienate people who don't believe in what a lot of people can do together. It may well be that the people who do believe in what people can do together came out in droves at the last minute to vote for her, hence her remarkable comeback. Similarly, John McCain's pledge that as President he would 'make in our time another, better world than the one we inherited' might have won over a lot of voters who were dead against making another, worse world than the one they inherited.

... and empty promises

This abandonment of specifics is the opposite of how politics is articulated in Britain. Here, politicians have less power, less international influence and are at the mercy of the markets and even the weather, so they try covering this up with language that is all about pledging and specific target-setting - anything, in fact, that sounds like action.

'We intend to provide a chair, which, over the next five-year period, will guarantee stability for anyone who sat on it.' 'We will introduce the most sweeping measures yet to ensure that all four chair legs are of exactly the same length and we will measure every leg on the chair twice a year and place those results in national chair-leg database.' 'We will stop other people coming over to use the chair before us.'

American politicians take time out from their busy lives to makes speeches that sound empty; British politicians fill the emptiness of their lives with words that make them sound busy. The chair, by the way, was made in China.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008[/quote]

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