As a musician I always find the technical side of live performance particularly interesting. I often listen to (and sometimes create) really complex, abstract or soundtracky music. The big problem with this genre, is how the hell do you take it to the stage?

One great example of this, is 2004’s great collaboration between Mike Patton and John Kaada titled ‘Romances‘. The album is a beautiful collage of fragile and atmospheric pieces that evolve, at times,  into soundtrack-worthy anthems.

A DVD of a one-off live performance performed by the duo (and accompanying musicians) was released a few years later, which included this great behind the scenes look at the process of moving the music from the recorded realm, into the live arena.

I highly recomend that you go out and buy the album and DVD, in doing-so supporting these great musicians, and encouraging future releases.

Ken Eakins

Originally appeared - http://sittingnow.co.uk/2009/11/15/episode-31-occult-america-with-mitch-horowitz/

After a pretty lengthy break from the world of podcasting, we return with a real 90 minute treat!

This weeks guest, Mitch Horowitz, is the author of the excellent new book ‘Occult America: How Mysticism Shaped our Nation‘. Mitch has held a lifelong interest in the Occult and Supernatural, and after pursuing the subject for as long, naturally, became the editor of one of the largest publishers of Occult and Supernatural works Tarcher/Penguin.

In this weeks episodes we discuss: Freemasons, Mesmirism, Theosophy, Astrology and the dark side of American occultism.

Daddytank and his army of flying (musical) monkeys return this week in the shape of:

Memories of Tree’s – Snakes and Headaches

Diamond District – I Mean Business

Vlooper – Muzungu

Enjoy!

Mitch Horowitz Bio:

Mitch Horowitz is a writer and publisher of many years’ experience with a lifelong interest in man’s search for meaning. The editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin in New York, he is the author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation (Bantam, September 2009).

A frequent writer and speaker on metaphysical themes, he has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, Dateline NBC, The History Channel, The Montel Williams Show, All Things Considered, Air America Radio, and Coast to Coast AM. He has written for U.S. News and World Report, Parabola, Science of Mind, the Religion News Service, and the popular weblog BoingBoing.

At Tarcher/Penguin, Horowitz has published some of today’s leading titles in world religion, esoterica, and the metaphysical. He has also published notable works in philosophy, social thought and politics. His recent titles include Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch; 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck; The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders by Jacob Needleman; The Secret Teachings of All Ages: Reader’s Edition by Manly P. Hall; and Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber.

Need proof?, then check out this trailer released today, for the new Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City:

See what I mean? MENTAL!

Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. It would seem that this guy, you know the one that makes all video game trailers, was still wacked out on whatever psychedelic herb he’d embibed for the GTA trailer, and it was still in his blood-stream for our next video:

Scratch that. I think the guy that makes all video-game trailers actually made this game! I need to go and lie down for a while.

Ken Eakins

]]> http://keneakins.com/2009/11/gta-test-post/feed/ 0 http://keneakins.com/2009/11/is-sixth-sense-tech-right-around-the-corner/ http://keneakins.com/2009/11/is-sixth-sense-tech-right-around-the-corner/#comments Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:36:38 +0000 admin http://keneakins.com/?p=11 We’ve all seen it; and we all want it! I’m of course talking about that badass software Tom Cruise uses in the movie-adaptation of Phillip K. Dicks ‘Minority Report! You know the bit I mean: whilst searching for potential murderers, Cruise uses fragments of movie files, extracted from the future visions of the Police department’s ‘Pre-cog’ division, and zooms, rewinds, and manipulates them on a giant iPhone-like mid-air touch surface…DO WANT!

Well, it would seem that M.I.T. media lab’s Pattie Maes is also jonesing for some of this tech:

From H+ Magazine:

Maes has a passion for empowering people by providing “fluid interfaces” that bring materials to digital life — books, clothes, sticky notes, portraits, walls, tables, and so on. The world she envisions magically responds to you with information where and when you need it, “enabling insight, inspiration, and interpersonal connections.”

An associate professor in MIT’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences, she founded and directs the Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces group. She holds bachelor’s and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. Her areas of expertise are human-computer interaction, intelligent interfaces, and ubiquitous computing.

In the late nineties, Maes founded Firefly. The company developed technology widely in use on the Internet today that assesses buying and browsing habits of users and then offers purchase recommendations. Microsoft bought Firefly for a rumored $40 million in 1998. Maes has been listed on Newsweek’s 100 most important people to watch, the World Economic Forum’s 100 people to listen to, People’s 50 most beautiful people, and the Association for Computing Machinery’s 15 most perspicacious visionaries.

In addition to Pattie, the Lab’s luminaries include Marvin Minsky (the “father of AI”), Deb Roy (Cognitive Machines), Edward Boyden (Synthetic Biology), and Cynthia Breazeal (Personal Robots), to name just a few.

Quite an academic powerhouse! If you want to read more about this ‘game-changing’ tech, Ken ‘R.U.Sirius’ Goffman’s excellent publication H+ Magazine hooked up with Maes for a great interview, that delves further into this futuristic, yet affordable technology; with instuctions on how to build your own device (it even inlcudes the software).

Ken Eakins