In honor of Carl Sagan’s birthday, an interview with the creator of “Auto-Tune the Cosmos” (AKA “A Glorious Dawn”)

November 12, 2009

By John Pavlus

By now you’ve probably seen Carl Sagan’s (born 75 years ago on November 9) viral music video hit from beyond the grave, “A Glorious Dawn”:

Well, Monday 11/9 would have been Carl Sagan’s 75th birthday, and there are two celebrations on tap.

One: White Stripes guitarist Jack White has a record label, Third Man Records, which has issued “A Glorious Dawn” on limited-edition 7" vinyl . Who knew that Jack White was a secret nerd? Even more awesome is the fact that the record’s B-side has an etching that reproduces Sagan’s famous “Golden Record” of earth sounds, which was launched on the Voyager 1 probe in 1977. The probe left our solar system in November of 2004.

Two: I’ve conducted a short interview with the creative genius behind the song, John Boswell. Enjoy!

What inspired you to remix COSMOS into a music video?

I gained a deep appreciation for science and philosophy in college, and when I first saw an episode of Cosmos about 5 years ago, it immediately resonated with me. I loved the style and message, and Carl's charisma was the cherry on top. The idea to remix it came to me after being inspired by other artists that have used auto-tune technology on speech, such as the Gregory Brothers and DJ Steve Porter; they were both working in mostly comedy but I wanted to apply the concept to a more personally meaningful source. I turned to Cosmos because I knew how profound Carl's message is and that it would fit well with a mash-up; the result was surprisingly pleasing, so I decided to put it on Youtube for anyone who may take interest in such an idea.

Were you surprised at the attention that "A Glorious Dawn" received? Has anyone from Carl Sagan's estate commented on it?

At first, I was only expecting maybe a few thousand views for the video - through some devoted Sagan fans that keep tabs on new Sagan-related material. However, the song and video quickly caught on to the Sagan community, and spread from there, to viewership levels that I did not forsee in any way. To my delight, the song has reached and inspired many people who have never heard of Sagan and motivated many to further research his books and TV series. I have been in touch with his wife and people who have worked on Cosmos, and they have expressed their sincere appreciation for the song, which is highly satisfying for me. I feel honored to give back to the Sagan community in this sense.

How did the record release with Third Man come about? Is Jack White a COSMOS fan?

Third Man Records approached me about releasing A Glorious Dawn not long after the video began its viral spread. Jack White loved the song, and I can safely assume he is a big fan of Cosmos and Carl's message. I was initially skeptical about the ability to get proper copyright clearance for release, but Jack and friends really pulled through on that front. We reached an agreement that keeps them, the Sagan family, and myself very happy and excited about the release. Even if you don't own a record player, it is a pretty cool collector's item.

You’ve made a sequel to the original music video. Are you going to make a whole album's worth?

Since the follow up video, We Are All Connected, was a success as well, I will definitely continue the series. Whether I will eventually compile a whole album's worth of material is yet to be seen; there is a plethora of footage out there with excited scientists talking about all sorts of fascinating subjects, so there will never be a shortage of source material. I am currently working on a third video, which is coming along great, and it should be out in about a week or two. If you enjoyed the previous two, this new one will fit right in.

CBGB & OMFUG Virtual 3D Tour

July 28, 2009

photo: chad davis

CBGB's has long since left us and the Bowery looks nothing like it did when we were in high school.

photo: 1hrphoto

Our friend Tommy passed on this site--a virtual, 360 degree tour of the late CBGB's. We're particularly fond of the bathroom shots and happy that we couldn't see the floors or toilets in the dim light.

Jonathan Coulton Interview

July 09, 2009

by Dave Caputo

Jonthan Coulton is many things. He is a Yale graduate, a computer programmer, a father and an Internet superstar to name just a few. Some have called him a “Song writing machine” referencing his first major musical project called “Thing-a-week”. At that time Jonathan had just quit his job of 8 years as a programmer and decided to be a musician. Did I mention that was the exact time that his daughter was born? Some people might see this and think it quite irresponsible, to quit a lucrative job when you have a daughter to support. His mind set at this moment is something that I was extremely curious about and since talking to him I have come to understand it completely. He decided to take the plunge and follow his dream not only for himself but for his daughter. He was telling her to follow her dreams, but he did one better than just preaching it, he actually did it.

Since quiting his job in 2005 Jonathan has written over 52 songs and toured the country. He has collaborated with his old schoolmate John Hodgman on a literary tour and audio book, he’s written the theme song to a best selling video game and has just released a concert DVD entitled "Best. Show. Ever.".

So why exactly are we writing about Jonathan Coulton? Simply put, because he is our nerd troubadour. His songs are the themes to our obsessions and quirks. Love songs between moons and planets, zombie office negotiations or sad ballads of giant squids that, well, just crush everything. His songs span other topics as well such as furniture stores, creepy dolls and shop vacs. There is a common thread that ties them together, however, and that is their humor, wit and downright cleverness.

Be sure to check out the interview. We had a good chat and he was nice enough to play Code Monkey and a bit of Future Soon for us. Part two (at left) concludes with a Mad Lib so be sure to tune in till the end!

Memorial: Top 10 Michael Jackson Machinima Videos

June 26, 2009

By Joanna Burgess

Michael Jackson emerges as a clear favorite when it comes to the art of music and machinima. These videos have been scientifically ranked against the gold standard of all machinima videos, Spiffworld and attempt to hold true in one way or another to the original Michael Jackson videos. Without further ado we present the Top 10 Michael Jackson Machinima videos.

Top spot: a brilliant World of Warcraft parody of Billie Jean.

John and Jo Faceoff: Top 10 Songs about NYC

March 11, 2009

photo by Henry Roxas

John and I took a reality break from our World of Warcraft questing to come up with what we each think are the top 10 songs about NYC. Because we were not in game, we couldn't duke it out over a pit of raging lava. We had to settle for IMing. For the record, there was some crossover.

Best Album Ever

March 03, 2009

By John Son

Created with flickr slideshow.

So when I wasn't leveling my night elf warrior Muchmuck on WoW (the colossal time suck recently introduced into my life by Joanna, thank you), I'd say the nerdiest moment of my week* was participating in the latest meme raging through Facebook. Called "Album Cover" it's a delightful mashup incorporating Wikipedia, Flickr, randomness, and the most rudimentary of photo-editing software skills (I used the free program Photoscape). Now I know it probably won't reach the epic memeness of "25 Things" since it requires a little work and creativity and fails to give you a reason to talk about yourself, but for certain nerdy types who've spent untold hours gazing at the brilliant serendipity of their favorite album/cd covers, it's a ridiculously fun way to connect with your inner Peter Saville while tapping into that bliss of discovering the best album ever. Above are 5 examples of the next great album you'll never hear.

To create your own Best Album Ever, just follow these 5 easy steps:

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations" or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3. The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5 - Post it to FB with this text in the "caption" or "comment" and TAG the friends you want to join in.

*I actually had two nerdiest moments of the week, the second being a meetup with my beloved Nerdabouters at the International Bar.

Type-Off

February 12, 2009

By Elizabeth Suman

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Burgeoning Musicians Take East Village Typing Competition by Storm

New York, NY, February 12, 2009—What two, fresh-faced, out-of-town-musicians de-boarded a plane from Hollywood and blew the 2nd Annual Type-Off™ competition out of the water? LA-based Seattle natives Tyler Cordy and Dave Dalton, members of up-and-coming musical group 2AM Club (vocals and keyboard, respectively), had not only never attended a Type-Off, Cordy¹ appeared never to have seen a typewriter before—let alone participate in an internationally renowned typing competition.

Geeky Love Songs

February 05, 2009

Love songs are, by definition, cheesy. But it's possible to surmount the gooey layers and find some that resonate loudly. My wife and I are quite content with sending each other cats singing sexy songs but for those of you who are more romantically inclined there are ten songs we've picked out.

4706: The Year of the Ox!

January 26, 2009

By Joanna Burgess

January 26th marks Chinese New Year, 4706 on the Chinese calendar. The Year of the Ox, Element: Yin Earth. Though I was born in the Year of the Rat, I admire the calm, patient, unflagging demeanor of the Oxen people.

Top Ten Songes I Learned About via Taggedhype

December 26, 2008

People often seem surprised when I mention that Yahoo!'s Delicious.com generates podcasts. Delicious does provide a cool little music player any time it shows you a link to a music file (the player has recently been upgraded, check it out if you haven't already). But it's not immediately obvious that any Delicious RSS feed is also a URL to which you can subscribe in a podcast client. And that's too bad, because Delicious is full of interesting things to listen to, like science fiction podcasts.

A couple of years ago, I happened to notice a Delicious user named Taggedhype. Taggedhype struck me as different from other people on Delicious, because although thousands of bookmarks were tagged by that user, all of them were links to songs indexed by the Hype Machine. In fact, Taggedhype was quite different from other users in that he was a Perl script written by a programmer in Germany.

When the Hype Machine finds new songs in the blogosphere, Taggedhype looks up each track's tags on Last.fm and stores the result in Delicious. It's an elegant and useful mashup, that somehow has managed to remain relatively undiscovered.

I've had a lot of fun digging through the blogosphere's music collection with Taggedhype. It's been like listening to a pretty decent mixtape that, well never ends.

Here's ten of my favorite tunes discovered via Taggedhype.