I had the pleasure of seeing Beardyman play at the Glade Festival and was absolutley blown away with his oral skills. The cool thing about him is that he has a great sense of humour and doesn't always try and be the "cool" guy.
"Beardyman has always pushed the boundaries of what people expect from human beatbox, merging phenomenal beatbox skills with his left-field sense of humour and incredible musicality. After winning the well renowned Lyric Pad Beatbox Battle twice in 2004, he went on to win the title of London champion and UK runner up in the 2005 Championships and the following year became UK Beatbox Champion 2006. He successfully defended his title in June 2007 and is still UK champion. he will represent his country in the next World Beatbox Championships"
A Cooking Show
A great performance playing on English stereotypes
This is an AMAZING video showing experimentation with multi-touch screen technology! I particularly like the section with what look like turntables...the future DJ's tool? I can just see this technology used to incredible effect at live music shows where the music and musician can actually create stunning visuals while they play their instruments. They might even be able to program notes with specific images so that repetitive and cognitive messages can be directed through the music not only through aural but visual stimulation as well.
I love this kind of technology because it feels like we are learning to breakdown the rules of nature and twist its abilities to our purpose. Should this type of technology become a part of everyday life I often wonder how it may effect the workings of our own brains, even our evolution as a species.
Eitherway..as the vid says..this is from 2006... so by the time this gets into the shops...just imagine what they'll be working on by then? GASP!!!!
I was so astonished to hear and see the original Drummer Boy Solo youtube video (see original post HERE)that I did some more research. I found out that his name is Jacob Armen and the video was taped off a Johnny Carson show in the late eighties.
At what age did you start drumming? Was the drum kit your first instrument? Do you play other instruments? Did you get any support by your family?
At 8 months old, my father held my hand and made me feel the pulse of the rhythm. I started to tap my hand to the downbeat of music. As my father explains to me, it would take 6 to 8 consecutive quarter beats for my timing to become shaky. At 18 months, my father had me sit behind a full 5-piece drum kit where he taught me how to play 2/4, 4/4, 6/8, 12/8, 5/4, 7/4, 9/4 and swing. I still feel a little weird watching myself play at that age in the video clips. If it weren't for my father, I probably would have not discovered drums at 8 months old or at any age for that matter. Since he is such an educated musician and an accomplished composer/keyboardist, I still have a lot to learn from him.
- Do you think your enormous technical abilities are a gift or was it hard work?
Well, if I call it a gift and thank the Man upstairs, you also need to religiously dedicate your time to it. So I think it's both.
- What inspirations do you have musically and apart from music?
Music is and will always be my greatest inspiration and apart from that, true people will always inspire me. Friendship is very important to me.
- Most of the drummers are either good in groove playing in 4/4 or in - a little stiff sounding - odd times - only a few like Vinnie Colaiuta or you can play "groovy" in odd times! How did you develop this ability? Can you recommend special exercises to improve grooving in odd times?
My being polyrhythmic has a lot to do with my cultural background because I don't think or attempt to play in any special way - it all comes naturally to me. My best advice to play "odd times" is to rather feel the pulse and not primarily focus on the count as much. Then it becomes natural.
- What do you like better - playing live or recording?
I am a performer and I love to play in front of an audience. But when I record music in an isolated studio atmosphere, instead of imagining people around me, I actually like to invite people during recording sessions. So I don't think of constructing rhythms and I just allow everything to fall in its place naturally.
- What musicians - dead or alive - would play in your "dream band" apart from you? What style would this band play?
Any accomplished musician who listens and absorbs other musicians without copying and has his/her signature in music is a type of musician I would like to form a band with. This will eventually evolve to a unique style, which will incorporate a lot of musical anticipations from all styles.
- If you got the chance to ask a deceased drum hero one question - whom would you ask and what would be your question?
I would ask Gene Krupa about his experience battling with Buddy Rich. "So who really was the intimidator?"
- What are your plans for the future? What things do you want to learn rhythmically and in general in your further life?
Life itself is a rhythm. Everyday you learn from nature. Everyday new discoveries are made with medicine. In other words, every discovery has a sequence, which creates its own rhythm. To me rhythm is such a deep, interesting, and endless topic that cannot be expressed in a couple of sentence. With this understanding, my goal in life is to take the level of my drumming as far as I can. And last but not least, to make my father proud.
When all you want to do is lie back and watch a movie..what could be better than a snazzy pair of shades with tiny screens in the lenses by MYVU?
Aside from looking like a SWAT team member working aboard the Starship Enterprise the advantage to these little beauties is that your unlikely to get any glare on the screen and, when compared to lugging your portable DVD player, laptop, PSP etc, these will fit snuggly in your pocket..just DONT sit on them!!!
"The remarkable adhesive abilities of geckos and mussels have been combined to create a super-sticky material.
Unlike other adhesives inspired by the nimble reptiles, "geckel" can attach to both wet and dry surfaces, the team that developed the material says.
Its staying power comes from coating fibrous silicone, similar in structure to a gecko's foot, with a polymer that mimics the "glue" used by mussels."
"Geckos have an incredible ability to stick to surfaces. Some studies suggest the over-engineered reptiles can hold hundreds of times their own body weight.
In 2000, a University of California team showed that the adhesion was due to very weak intermolecular forces produced by the billions of hair-like structures, known as setae, on each gecko foot.
Geckos can support hundreds of times their own body weight These "van der Waals" forces arise when unbalanced electrical charges around molecules attract one another.
The cumulative attractive force of billions of setae allows geckos to scurry up walls and even hang upside down on polished glass.
The reptile's grip is only released when it peels its foot off the surface.
The new geckel material exploits this ability but also combines it with the sticking power of mussels.
It consists of a base of densely packed silicone setae coated with a polymer that mimics amino acids found in the glues of mussels."
"This might look like something humans would set up if they were settling on a harsh planet such as Mars, but it's actually something humans set up to settle a radio station in the harsh country of Poland. Yeah, it's the headquarters of Krakow-based Rmf FM, and if you think the outside looks neat, wait until you see the inside. When the GizmodoHQ Megaplex is finally completed, it'll look something like this."
The futuristic folks at the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan have taken us one step closer to an Anime world. Seriously, this eight-wheeled, eight-legged, fully functioning vehicle prototype looks like something straight out of "Ghost in the Shell." It seems like it'll walk and/or drive over just about anything, and the designers are hoping to put it to practical use in rescue operations within the next five years. I think they'll have to invent an enlarger ray first though, as this prototype seems to be about the size of a dog.
Still, it does a heck of a lot more tricks than my dog will ever do. Check out the awesome robot impressiveness after the break. Then be prepared to have nightmares about these things stomping down your street in the next decade, complete with embedded artificial intelligence, the voice of a 12 year-old-girl, and a nice smiley face painted on the front.
For those of you who don't know the Tamo Toy, it is based on a cute fashionable girl born from a cloud. Tamo stands for Te Amo in Spanish which means "I love you". Here is a small animation made by the Tamo creator, Alfredo Meija and an incredible custom by the NVC Crew.
Don't forget to post a comment in the Competition Post if you would like to win a custom Tamo by ESPV and also the chance to win a Treeson 2nd B-day Boxset.
"Toypunks is a episodic documentary film project covering the converging worlds of Japanese toys, fashion and punk rock. Volume One features the godfather of Japanese vinyl toys, Bounty Hunter, and streets November 15 at toypunks.com and select retailers." I'm personally really looking forward to this release and I wish them all the best!
When I look in my cupboard, it seems that 75% of the T-shirts I wear are actually from Fifty24SF! I can't get enough of them. They have been collab-ing with Jeremy Fish, The London Police, Mars-1 and Sam Flores to name a few and now they are in cahoots with USUGROW of Japan. He will be exhibiting his tattoo-style work at their infamous gallery which is made stronger by the fact that there is also a Usugrow X Secret Base collab figure which is said, "will be a big hit with Kaiju X Vinyl Crossover Collectors Worldwide".
And if that wasn't enough, Fifty24SF have also released a book with Usugrows artwork. Enjoy!
Hey everyone! Well...Due to the overwhelming response from all of you who have visited us to enter the TAMTASTIC giveaway( thank you!), the site couldn't hack the traffic and has partly-crashed on us!!
SO if you don't see the usual animated banners etc this is the reason. We are expecting the problem to be resolved soon and for anyone who wants to find the competition post follow this link: "!!TAMTASTIC!!"
By the way...we at ESP think its pretty cool you crashed the blog!....so keep up the heavy traffic!
