Web Stuff Friday: Hot Sauce Committee, Part Two

OMG. Check this out. This Spring marks the 25th anniversary of the Beastie Boys recording of (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!). My God. 25 freakin' years since short, hairy Steve used to blast this out of his dorm room on Friday afternoons. But I digress...

Here is an extended video of a few songs from the Beastie Boys' new album. The video is called Fight For Your Right (Revisited), but don't expect the familiar old song. It's a short movie with a zillion stars and some new Beastie Boys music.

Speaking of the zillion stars, check out who all is in this video. When you see the list of cameos at the end, I think you'll agree that it's simply epic.

I also like the music. Good to hear something new from the Beastie Boys. Pretty sure I need to buy Hot Sauce Committee, Part Two.

My First Remix: Panic at the Human League

The first time I heard The Human League's remix of Don't You Want Me, I was hosting a last-day-of-school party at the end of my Junior year of high school. We were blasting the music, swimming, sailing, and canoeing in the lake, and just generally having a great, raucous time.

When the song got to 2:22, I had a heart attack. I thought someone had bumped my precious turntable, made the album skip brutally, and (more importantly) probably damaged my turntable's stylus (you 20- and 30-somethings can get your parents to explain all that retro vinyl lingo to you). When I ran inside to check on my stereo, Bryan Reichhardt and Tammy Keysor were laughing at my panic. Good times.

This was the first remix I recall hearing and it made an immediate impact (once I calmed down). My love for remixes that started on that sun drenched afternoon is tied up with my love for jazz and mash-ups. Though I can appreciate a simple tune as much as the next guy, I like to see what artists do with a simple idea when unfettered by the constraints of a 4 minute long song that is fit for the radio.

Here are some albums that are full of some of my favorite remixes:

• Human League: Original Remixes (ex: Don't You Want Me)
• Stone Roses: The Remixes (ex: I Wanna Be Adored)
• Just Say Yo (or Yes or Da or Mao or several others) (ex: Personal Jesus)

Music Monday: YouTube Trip: from France to Home

YouTube can help you discover new music. This isn't news, but I want to make a concerted effort to document some musical journeys I take courtesy of the popular video site. After the first song, I found each subsequent song from the list of Suggestions for the previous song.

Camera Obscura: French Navy

This is a nice, jaunty tune to start the journey.

St. Vincent: Marrow

Interesting video. I like the music. Annie Clark (her real name) rocks.

tUnE yArDs: Bizness

Wow, I like Merrill Garbus. She is one talented woman.

Mumford and Sons: Little Lion Man

Maybe you only heard of these guys when they were nominated for a couple Grammies last year. If you are into the Folk Rock thing, or want to hear what it's like, this is a good song for you.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros: Home

This song is a good place to end our journey.

Passion

When late HS or early college students ask me what they should major in, I invariably quote Joseph Campbell: "Follow your bliss."

The xkcd comic Time Management gets at one aspect of this issue. The tolltip caption is the important part:

I never trust anyone who's more excited about success than about doing the thing they want to be successful at.

So true. It's not that success doesn't matter, but are you driven by success or by doing something and trying to be successful with it? If success is the driver, then I am somewhat leery. If you have a passion and want to be successful with it, then that is totally cool.

Executive Pay Back on My Mind

In today's WashingtonPost, Barry Ritholz gets right to one of my pet peeves.

Like Ritholz, I have no problem with people who earn massive amounts of money. What irks me is when risks and rewards are disconnected so people get rewarded for stupid risks or for lighting the fuse on a catastrophic bomb. These disconnects create flaws in the free market system that should be addressed.

After a Long Haitus, a Potential Game Changer

I've been a slacker.

Call it the Droid Effect. I used to use my laptop to read (and thus write) quite a bit online. Now, my online reading is done on my phone. I like the convenience, but I haven't been able to blog from my phone... until now.

Google has released Blogger for Android, so I'll try it out. I hope this does good things for my ability to post more frequently.

Ramble: Not Just a Math Nerd: Word Fun

In case you thought I was only a math/tech nerd, here is a post at Language Log that made me laugh: The shock of seeing a new verb anniversarying. Here is my favorite quote from the article:

I don't mean to suggest that there's anything particularly wrong with verbing new nouns, of course: you can pretty much verb any noun you want to verb. But if you pick a solidly nouny noun and use it without warning or precedent as a verb, it may cause a certain shock, ....

Anyway, I am a bit of a language nerd. I like words. In a recent community meeting, I used the word penultimate to refer to the one before the last item in a list. The CEO of our association then asked me if I kept a list of words like that to use. I suppose I do, but the list is purely mental (as you might say am I).

New addition to this post. I have a new favorite initialization: MSO (minimal scatological object). I found it at Language Log Most of the People in the World Could Care Less.

The process has been generalized to give with a variety of MSOs ("minimal scatological objects"):

I could give a {damn|shit|hoot|(flying) fuck|crap|rat's ass}

The MSO can be an elaborate nonce formation ("a gnat's left testicle"; "a fart in a tornado"; "a rat's hairy scrotum").

Words are such fun.