Good Thing It Wasn't "Cattle Decapitation"

Random Boing Boing amusement!

More Algorithmic Music, Now With Spiffy Visuals

These things are just stunning. My favorite is variation 6, microtones.

I Love Me Some Low-Wattage Guitar Amps

Brian from Birthing of Millions recently heard an Atomic Space Tone amplifier in action. I love low-watt amps because you can turn them up and get some naturalistic, touch-sensitive overdrive without having to go up to 200 decibels. Low-power amps just plain sound better, and according to Brian, this one is a real winner. Here's one of the sound samples.

I'm Selling a Ton of Guitar Gear

• American Standard Telecaster



• Fender Pro Junior amp



• MXR Doubleshot Distortion pedal



• Boss DS-1 Distortion pedal



• DOD Grunge distortion pedal

More Illegal Music

Some very cool music is illegal. The stories of some of these songs are rage-inspiring:

Yes, the song the entire Western world sings at birthday parties is actually owned by a large corporation, and every time someone sings it in public without permission, it is an infringement of copyright. The song’s tune was published by schoolteachers Mildred and Patty Hill in 1893 as "Good Morning to All" in their book Song Stories for the Kindergarten. Children began singing it at birthday parties but with words they came up with themselves, which is how folk music typically develops. Nevertheless, the song–lyrics and all–is now owned by AOL Time Warner, the largest entertainment company on earth, and the corporation aggressively defends its property.

As you might imagine, hip-hop and rap have it especially hard:

The Piklz are a special sort of band composed of a rotating lineup of hip-hop DJs, including Q-bert, Mixmaster Mike, and Shortcut. These highly skilled turntablists scratch out songs together live, each using a record and a record player as an instrument, each contributing, in real time, a different part (like drums, bass line, or horn stabs) to the music. This track comes from a 12-inch record pressed and circulated in 1996 with no information (a "white label"). Hip-hop and dance records often appear in this limited, underground manner and then vanish forever, never to be officially released due to copyright issues.

Banned Music

Downhill Battle has a project called BannedMusic.org to make available music that has been "banned" due to alleged copyright infringement. There's more here than just Dangermouse's Grey Album, including Hippocamp Ruins Pet Sounds. Get your BitTorrent on...

Bannedmusic.org is a peer-to-peer collaboration that makes it impossible for the major record labels to ban or censor musical works. When record labels send legal threats to musicians, record stores, or websites, we will post the music here for download and publicize the censorship attempt. There is a clear fair use right to distribute this music, and for the public to decide whether current copyright law is serving musicians and the public, they need to be able to hear what's being suppressed.