Star Wars vs John Williams - A Cappella

Yup.
Just one dude, a camera, and A LOT of time recording and editing.

Youtube at it's finest.

Man.

I kinda wanna do a vid like this...

News Sound Bites - Random stuff today...

Alfred Molina and Sir Ben Kingsley sign on to Prince of Persia movie. Movies based on video games make me twitchy, but at least we know two things wont suck about the film...

LATimes Blog, has a neat post up about the musical score for 'The Dark Knight'. I'm so stoopid 'cited for this flick!

Congrats to the cast of The Simpsons! Deal negotiated without Fox execs (jerks) threatening to replace them (they're just voices right), like in 1998 when they hired casting directors to replace voices (or how Tress MacNeille's roles showed up in my hands before The Simpsons Movie). You're now paid ALMOST HALF what you're worth!

Missed this story from a couple weeks ago on IO9, about the passing of two great sci-fi soundtrack composers. Bebe Barron who scored Forbidden Planet (AWESOME flick), and Alexander Courage who scored the theme to Star Trek. Great post on IO9, I just find it a lil creepy that the Federation in ST is loosely based on Forbidden Planet...

Zombie musical based on the cult hit Evil Dead? YOU BET! The posters advertising it are HI-sterical too!

Super Mario video game MIDI art music thing

Really you just have to watch this, but in short, when you write music in MIDI you're really creating a complex piano roll (like those old-tymie player pianos would use), one large sheet where all of your instruments (and what notes they're playing) are all arranged for you visually by little dots, dashes, and lines.
The fact that some one drew pictures using this music note information isn't all that remarkable, the fact that it's not only well composed, but identifiable as a mash up of Super Mario musical themes is incredible.

Moby is ready to help you soundtrack your student or indie film! For FREE!

I don't know HOW I missed this!
Futuremusic's blog posted this up a week ago, but apparently Moby is feeling for indie, student, and ultra-low-budget film makers.

I just signed up for an account to check it out, and there is a pretty substantial chunk of his catalog up to help you out, 90 songs in all.

Check it out here!

Now before you go crazy requesting licenses for everything up there I would highly recommend reading the terms of use. If Moby holds to his intention of this being non-profit (for him) that's great, but this is still the music industry, and if you aren't careful (holding to the terms of the agreement), you could manage to put yourself in a pretty actionable position.

From MobyGrais.com:

hi,
i'll keep this brief.
this portion of moby.com, 'film music', is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short.
to use the site you log in(or on?) and are then given a password.
you can then listen to the available music and download whatever you want to use in your film or video or short.
the music is free as long as it's being used in a non-commercial or non-profit film, video, or short.
if you want to use it in a commercial film or short then you can apply for an easy license, with any money that's generated being given to the humane society.
i hope that you find what you're looking for,
moby

Jonathan Coulton Performs "Still Alive" live! And Acoustic!

What?
It's been like a week since I posted ANYTHING about GLaDOS!
Deal!

Anywho, here's Jonathan Coulton at a gig singing the end credits to Portal. He wrote the song you know...



Speaking to the power of gaming, the audience sings along the whole time, and cheers at the reference to Black Mesa.

Awesome...

Videos Games set to Orchestrated Music

I'm a sucker for this stuff...


Video Games Orchestrated - Watch more free videos

Awesome Old Music Video: The English Beat

Ya know, sometimes I think we really take this internet of ours for granted.

It's 11pm. I'm not quite ready for bed, and I'm bored. That's not a great combination.
Just for kicks I pull up Youtube and punch in the name of my favorite band, The English Beat. Truth be told I'm just young enough that I've NEVER seen ANY of their videos (though I own all of their music).
It's kind of incredible that with out this technological monstrosity that we've created, I probably never would've seen this, an old video cassette rotting away in someones attic...



Sure it's a little goofy, the dancing is a really weak, almost Pinocchio style 80's skank, and it's pretty raw, but I love this band. Now I love them a little bit more.

You'll remember this song from the kick-ass kickboxing scene from Gross Pointe Blank (easily one of the TOP 5 BEST FIGHT SCENES OF ALL TIME!!!), so enjoy!



Heh-heh "Thanks for the pen" ... Priceless...