new deputy mare to the old bad horse

One would expect a sad comeuppance after subjecting a visiting friend to the DVD entirity of Firefly. But said friend has kindly sent word to my far off cave of Joss Whedon's new interweb mini-opera of mythopoetic tragi-silliness, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

And horrible is exactly what it ain't.

Surely you know this by now, but in case your cave is even more secluded than mine, I humbly pass the word along. (I guess its free online distribution is about to end . . . UPDATE: yes, as of 21 July there is no more free Dr. H.--now only available via iTunes. Part of a master plan that sees eventual DVD release for us ancient ones of the Luddite clan.)

And blather on how cool it is that Neal Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day bring forth this shining bit of funny to coax one from the ledge. Fellow Whedonverse fans will spot David Fury and Marti Noxon in there singing it once more with feeling.

As I'd just finished going through all five seasons of Angel (geeky, yes I am), Dr. Horrible was most welcome indeed. (And I hope it will drum up bidness for the forthcoming series, Dollhouse.)

And having now shilled so totally for the good doctor bad, I've re-earned my designation from another old friend: Joss Whedon's bitch. (Personalized t-shirt in the pipeline?)

Meanwhile in other fiction, I lent the merest of words to FABULON's recent Your Caption Here post. Many others added their own wicked spin to a great superbomba pic of teenage lassitude. My caption has won me an exploding tiara. Or a Arcanta CD. Or the trunk key from a '48 Hudson.

Who knows, who cares . . . I won. I won.

Gimme.

marianne & anna et al

As if you don't already go to these other blogs, strap your bad self in for a pop culture ride:

Funky Junk Trunk & Fabulon harmonically converge on the corner of Boulevard Anna Karina and Marianne Faithfull Avenue.

deadlicious and Au carrefour étrange have been cookin' up a mess of coolness: biker stuff (Paris gangs and Carnival!) and juvenile delinquent book covers (deadlicious and A.c.é.).

The Boat Lullabies has some great new slides, in the colors of yore that folks all adore.

And PCL LinkDump is all about radiation.

fuzzy picture of a cool concertina

Cutting through a considerable blurriness, this and the voice behind it.

(Semi-simulcast on uberkayness)

production: the last ten days

The status here is still mostly napping. And may be for a while.

But I was cranky (after some good cop/bad cop action of a sort one might take too much to heart). And was momentarily saved via belly laughs by the film post-production parody posted on The Music of Sound.

Seek ye also the birthday commemoration of Len Lye.

born on the fourth

unterkayness yet slumbers, yawns, turns over in bed, and talks in its sleep:

hmmm, it's the fourth . . . go visit the spirit of 17.76 and this bicentennial minute is brought to you by

yeah, yeah, over at uberkayness

and no fireworks, but plenty of lighter fluid and paper

sure, you're welcome

um, turn out the light

zzzzzzzzzz

Entering sleep mode, with just a few items 'fore snoozing . . .

I'm Learning To Share! posts a Ferrante and Teicher 78 from their prepared piano days. Yes, prepared piano--"Beezwhacks" is an especial example.

Poem of the Week posts the poem "Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World".

Anyone arriving bored & confused might time trip back a year to unterkayness' first month of posts. Too many to deal with? Maybe try the second one.

No doubt more groovin' stuff out there awaits, but lids grow heavy, torpor sets in, and autopilot takes over as suspended animation slows things down.

in advance of the broken brain

Even as the heat retreats, thoughts have been too far pushed away. Indeed, thought in general has taken a siesta. And so may this blog.

Meantime, FABULON gives Nancy Sinatra due consideration.

The Dresden Dolls once again land on Venice Beach . . .



And freely work through a flux of time, mood and persona:



And back in the 80s, pop angularity is made manifest by The Go-Betweens (courtesy bennyshambles):



Here Siouxsie and The Banshees will take us out (courtesy 3m3c3p3ka):

tra la la, diy and absence

BrandlandUSA waxes nostalgic about the Banana Splits. And if you too were once a banana (or a dastard), you can reup here.

Synthtopia posts a bit of the DIY or DIE video, brought to you by the same fellow behind $30 Film School and Baby Opaque.

The Boat Lullabies posts a few images from a new Square America series, On the Beauty of Absence. Cool old photo album pages with some photos still there and others gone.

make the brass shimmy & shake

The Music of Sound, having brought folks some cool sounds from Bali, may bring yet more of the same from a Gong Factory. Cool articles linked there.

Deviant Synth posts about inventor/electronic media experimentalist Eric Archer. Indeed, Archer has all kinds of cool audio & visual stuff going on like the Money Synthesizer, the Wasabi Photopickup, and my "hell, yeah!" favorite, the Electric Gongs.

Seems like struck or shook, metal's gotta sing . . .

at noon too soon to swoon in June

Now is the time on unterkayness when we repost yet more fun/obscure/geeky music videos from back in June '07.



Like the above vid of Glenn Branca establishing a indelicate equilibrium with a Telecaster (original post).


Or the one below featuring Pauline Oliveros as one of the Timeless Pulse Trio (original post):




Here yrs truly hand models the latest in repurposed kitchen appliances (original post):




Totally wired for sound (original post):




Aunt Mimi on road and off (original post):

smiling are the dead

Were I some famous type person and I were to wake up dead some morning, you could forgo the Viking funeral and just toss my ashes in a swamp.

That is, providing I'm Learning To Share! did a post on my life & times.

Like this one on the departed Bo Diddley (which features the music tech geekalicious image of Bo in possession of a WEM tape delay).

Or this one on Harvey Korman ("that's Headley . . .").

Beyond the prospect of joining James Doohan (a moment of silence, please . . .) or being shot into orbit by the likes of Jonathan Winters, the famous dead may yet hope to reach escape velocity & return to FABULON.

Meanwhile, looking over the cast of Blazing Saddles on Wikipedia, I noticed at least two long departed celebrities of note, Madeline Kahn and Cleavon Little. [Also, mention of the extant Rodney Allen Rippy.]

Who can begin to say enough good things about Madeline Kahn?

And I hope someday to see some new (and funny) genre parody in which a intransigent crowd unwilling to help will be lead on by the words: You'd do it for Cleavon Little.

And the crowd will say in hushed and reverential tones: Cleavon Little . . .

strutting now and then

On uberkayness a turkey gobbler prevails. And can be heard in quietude or storm on audiokayness.

Also on uberkayness, the Spirit of 17.76 can be found in old print ads from a July 4, 1976 newspaper.

playing the house, spring ahead

With a repurposed pump organ, David Byrne is turning the huge Battery Maritime Building in NYC into an instrument for visitors to play.

My brother kindly emailed me about the cool writeup in today's New York Times. It includes a nice video with near & far views of the instrument, including closeups of solenoid-driven strikers and the keyboard being played.

And there's a post on BoingBoing that has a nice exterior picture of the building. UPDATE: Synthtopia posts interesting video of the installation.

Byrne's installation brings to mind The Great Stalacpipe Organ of Luray Caverns. As well as artist Tim Hawkinson's Uberorgan which I was lucky to see at the MASS MoCa several years back.

Also along the lines of funky clunkyness, The Music of Sound has a vid of a musician/composer/sound designer's fun with a contact mike and a bowed metal spring.

estimated speed

PCL LinkDump sends out the happy vibes of The Super Preachers. Also this vid of Mongoloid.

Meanwhile, Laurie Anderson brings things coast to coast and up to speed with Mach 20 (thanks to k8fan):

yet another moon in June

As unterkayness has malingered for well nigh unto a year, here are a few timely resuscitations from June '07 . . .

The dulcet tones of Miz Jolene Sugarbaker on the Onmichord:




The lovely & talented Deni Bonet with some anonymous muso (more links & yammering here):




One of several live videos of the Loved Ones:




The one & only Wilko Johnson:




The not so quiet storm that is DNA:




One of two videos for the Shaggs' "My Pal Foot Foot":

striking bowls, bending water

The Music of Sound has posted a great vid of Tomoko Miyata playing tuned water bowls. Very recommended.

heterodyning on the fly

Perhaps you've left your theremin in your other jacket. It happens to everyone some lost weekend or another--no need for it to be the day the Earth stood still.

Synthtopia posts a vid on how to make one the MacGyver way with three AM radios.

Now your audience will be spellbound.

mix it up

One of this week's reasons to be cheerful on I'm Learning To Share! is this fine Muxtape posting, Swedish feminist songs.

Indeed, as it sounds overall like a cool missing link 'tween Sandy Denny and The Raincoats, I'm feeling cheerful too (even tho' comprehension of the lyrics would likely complicate my impression).

in a land without Netflix

Funky Junk Trunk has not one but two cool foreign pop siren vids well beyond my ken. For less DX transmissions there's Nichelle Nichols as Uhura on the cover of Ebony and Charles Nelson Reilly in a world gone bananas. Meanwhile twins get all James Rosenquist on Coke.

On an adjacent frequency, FABULON is calling all go-go records. And giving to the young and forgetful the full meaning of "broadcast" with a long & ever shifting Beatles medley featuring Cher, Tina Turner, Kate Smith and (if I'm not hallucinating) Tim Conway. Before cable and the death of the last pterodactyls, this was it.

a world at play

I'm Learning To Share! takes us into the fun world of Kimono My House where Anime toys and florid depictions of Randolph Scott and Apollo 11 abide.

Pruned plays exorobotic havoc on the prairie.

Catherine Carter squares off while son of the forest John Borowicz bends paint and carbon to ironic form.

On FABULON, June Allyson dances while attempting to guide her partner from the primrose path.

The Boat Lullabies posts the papers & pics of seemingly unlikely knights-errant who sought both to rule the macadam and serve other motorists.

Paleo-Future gives us a 1959 version of how dreadful leisure could be.

Synthtopia posts about the wigged out sampler toy, Sound Candy.

Juan Matos Capote is having his own more serious speaker fun with his piece Gold & Noise, now showing at Dak'Art 08 in Dakar, Senegal.