Morgan Avery

Let’s be honest now, Eigenharps seem like just about the nerdiest of all instruments – I mean come on, that looks to be a vocoder attached to a drum machine/sequencer and a sampler, all dressed up in the conceit of a guitar or saxophone – but they sure do work nicely for this kind of music.

I’ve just come up with a new name for the instrument, I hope you like it: Electric Guitaxophoney.

Bonus: the same guys (plus one) covering Ghost Town by The Specials.

Good stuff.

A quick look behind the scenes at the guiding vision and construction of the (incredible, unsettling, gorgeous) True Blood main titles. Includes a closer look at some of the source footage used.

Via Matthew Buchanan.

Nicolas Cage demonstrating his superb parenting skills in the movie Kick-Ass.

“I hate getting punched in the chest.”

(Glory, glory, halleluuuuuuujah.)

Just change a few names and this quote from Graham Linehan clearly applies perfectly in New Zealand as well.

One of the things I find so frustrating about “three strikes and you’re out” is the lack of creativity it displays. A bright idea from the Clinton years that didn’t work for crime and here it is popping up in the digital Britain debate like a middle-aged, overweight boxer trying out for the Olympic team.

In tumultuous times like these, the Government should not be throwing ropes to flailing David Geffens as they sink into the mud. David Geffen thinks that it is vitally important to the future of capitalism that he and his business model be kept alive indefinitely. Why? Because the vast majority of people, including many musicians, still believe that there is no alternative to that business model.

This would obviously be a terrible thing if it were true. But it’s not true.

The advances we’ve made because of technology have suddenly given consumers a dizzying, disproportionate amount of power, and everyone’s still trying to find their feet. But my instinct is that the new connectedness of the world means that there are a million new ways to address the new reality, if only we can calm down enough to bring to the matter a bit of creativity and actually set about finding them.

The importance of creativity is the reason politicians are the LAST people on earth who should be anywhere near this debate, and it’s why I’m always amazed to see artists siding with Mandelson on it.

Graham Linehan, if you don’t already know is variously writer and/or director of The IT Crowd, Little Britain, Black Books, Father Ted, and many other popular British TV series, so you’d think that perhaps he’d know a few things about creativity and about doing business in creative industries.

This brilliant and insane series of YouTube shorts deconstructs Phantom Menace from all directions and in great detail, while simultaneously revealing the terrifying details of the reviewer/narrators life. Hilariously funny, and certainly one of the greatest reviews I’ve ever seen.

I’ve only embedded the first part, there are seven, watch them all if you can.

If the first one doesn’t grab you, you know what to do. (But I’m telling you, you’ll be missing something pretty great.)

I’ve got something to put in you.