The Ninja Edit

The past few days have been busssssy. Between teaching and coaching, time to write on here is scarce. However, busy is good. Walking to and from practice has provided ample time for listening to podcasts. The early darkness and cold air brings the hood up and the toque down. Gotta stash the headphones deep in the layers of clothing, at least under the jacket - otherwise the frozen cord makes it feel like I'm listening to music through a coat hanger. How difficult would it be to produce headphones with a freeze-proof plastic? Maybe not cost effective - but I'd pay for it. Anyways, let the record show that I thought of it first... you can go work on it, invent it, try to market it. Proof of concept is here, I'll see you in court.

Walking to practice means music - walking home seems to be podcasts. Podcast-wise, its been Endurance Radio, Daily Source Code, some Accident Hash for indie podsafe music, and D&D for mindless entertainment. Any suggestions for podcasts - drop a comment.

Music-wise, its never been better. Grabbed a copy of this year's Grey Album ... Green Day vs Dean Gray - The American Edit. American Idiot is a great album, I never thought I'd be listening to Green Day in 2005... but they proved me wrong. Yet, the album is rife with influence - some obvious, others not so much. The mash up puts the missing pieces back into some songs, Bryan Adams and Johnny Cash sing their own parts on American Jesus (aka: jesus of suburbia)... and in other parts, new pieces are added to the puzzle to create a more interesting picture. I don't know if I'll ever be ever to listen to "whatshername" without a helping of The Bangles' Manic Monday. I'll post more about music later... its hard for anything to compete with this album right now.

Lets face it, we live in a remix culture. The best new ideas are old ideas, with a new spin. Retro is always coming back, to the point when its not retro, its gone again. The best marketing departments understand that the best slogan is one that you've already heard, applied in a new way. If you've heard something a million times, and on the million and first, its associated with something new, its clever - its novel - it makes you smile. It never makes you hate the original. It pushes things forward. With that being said, the aforementioned mashup album has been banned. If you combine Cease and Desist, you can roughly form "Disease" - the plague of legal involvement in anything progressive. The same Grey Album that was banned, was later named Album of the Year by Time Magazine. Its propagation was helped by online activism - the famous "Grey Tuesday". Rallying behind the Dean Gray album, a new "Dean Gray Tuesday" is being organized. Download the album from the links provided here. Burn discs, throw it on your iPod, enjoy it.

If you like it, buy the Green Day album... If you really like it, you might follow in my footsteps... I still can't believe it, but I just bought The Bangles' track from iTunes. Long live Mashups!