Note: Check out the extended interview after the jump!
Sustainable Dave first caught my attention when he was interviewed on NPR at the beginning of the year. I only knew him then as the guy with the crazy trash saving idea, but it was intriguing nonetheless. Before heading over to Dave's house to interview him, I decided to keep all my trash for just that day. By the time 2pm rolled around, I already had the cardboard box from starting a new tube of toothpaste, a box and waxed paper from a morning bagel run, napkins, a plastic Starbucks cup, and two receipts. That was just in the span of 6 hours!
Video game fans might recognize the name Hadouken from the classic Street Fighter series. That Hadouken was a devastating fireball special move -- this Hadouken is an English grime band with hip-hop and dancehall influences.
The group came together in fall of 2006 and started to get a lot of attention after the release of their music video for That Boy That Girl in early 2007. They just debuted their first full-length album Music For An Accelerated Culture last month.
It's always cool to see mainstream artists making an effort to connect with their fans on a more personal level. Weezer's Hootenanny tour is just that -- an intimate acoustic set where fans are asked to bring their own instruments and play along with the band.
The footage from today's EPIC FU was taken in Portland during a cover of Radiohead's Creep -- a song which is gaining momentum as a cover song after the recent Price take-down debacle. I'm wondering if the song will begin to take on new meaning when played live.
Shake it up! The word of the week is "jowlers": photos of people jowling, also known as a flap n' snap. The act of jowling involves relaxing all the muscles in your face, quickly (almost violently) shaking your head left and right, then snapping a photo to catch that one perfect shot of your jowls in disarray... perhaps even with some spittle, for bonus points.
I don't know about you guys, but I attended many-a-birthday party at Showbiz Pizza Place in my pre-teen years. Remember the animatronic robot band The Rock-afire Explosion that used to rock the house with somewhat dated pop songs and revivals of the Happy Birthday song every few minutes?
Apparently there's a small community of people who are buying up the old machines on eBay and reprogramming the band with new songs. Aaron Fechter and his partner Chris have a YouTube channel with a bunch of examples. They also take requests via bids. The whole thing is mildly unsettling, strangely hypnotic, and somewhat creepy in an after-school special kinda way.
(via Kent Nichols)
Ill Doctrine recently remixed the Obama "Yes We Can" video as a tribute to George Carlin, and it is awesome. He mentions in his YouTube description post that Carlin's "7 dirty words" court case happened at his radio station.
This is what springing a camera on unsuspecting FU-ers looks like.
On Tuesday's episode we gave our Fu of of the Week award to KCRW -- during our trip to their studios in Santa Monica we were lucky enough to run into Salt and Samovar while they performed on Morning Becomes Eclectic. Some of the guys from the band spoke with Zadi on camera for a few minutes, and only a small portion of that interview aired on the show.
The Black Ghosts is comprised of British duo Simon Lord and Theo Keating. The two actually met on the internet and wrote the first half of their album before meeting face to face. They sent music and lyrics back and forth in emails... in an interview last year they said it was "a bit like a musical version of chinese whispers."
This week we're really digging Munk One's work. If you haven't yet heard of Munk One, you may have seen his band artwork for artists like Smashing Pumpkins, Korn, My Chemical Romance and many others. He's a contemporary American illustrator and fine artist based out of California. Since 2003 he's been exhibiting his work in galleries and shows no sign of stopping any time soon.
Known as Balakov on Flickr, Mike Stimpson recreates some of the most famous photos in our culture in Lego form.
I take quite a lot of Lego pictures.
I love messing about with macro lighting.
Strobist.com taught me everything I know.
To tell you the truth, I didn't know much... I had never heard of KCRW before moving to Los Angeles. Even then, it was just a station someone had recommended that I program into my car radio. Surprisingly, I don't spend much time in my car, so I never get to listen to most of those stations.
Fast-forward a few years and we're interviewing KCRW for the FU of the Week. I quickly learned that the local public radio station based out of Santa Monica College is a beacon of light to a lot of indie musicians and responsible for launching many of their professional careers. It's also known far and wide for the way they use technology to get their content out on a global scale.
Thunderheist is an indie dance/hip-hop group based in Montreal and Toronto. Today's spotlight video is one of three finalists in their recent music video contest. They solicited user-generated videos to accompany their new single Jerk It. The video was created by Noel Paul and Stefan Moore. You can vote for it on Thunderheist's homepage.
It only took a few hours for Spore fans to realize its Creature Creator was so customizable they could design creatures that resembled human genitalia, or two-headed creatures that could have sex with itself. This is how the Sporn industry was born.
[Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
In an attempt to protect artist rights, France introduced a new law to take away internet access from people who download copyrighted material. According to the law, an ISP would be required to ban a user's bandwidth for up to one year on the third offense of illegal downloading.
[Via Times Online]
For those who may not know Sasha, one of the resident cats at EPIC FU HQ, here's all you need to know.
Paul "Moose" Curtis is considered the pioneer of reverse graffiti art, also known as clean tagging. Graffiti usually gets a bad rap, because it's associated with vandalism or property damage. Reverse graffiti spins that on its head by doing the exact opposite.
Meanest Man Contest is a hip-hop duo featuring Quarterbar and Eric Steuer. The guys met in college and first started recording rap songs on a "barely-working 4-track." In 2002 they released their first single, Contaminated Dance Step.
This week's flash game was sent in by Schlomo Rabinowitz. Dino Run is pretty much a mad dash to stay ahead of Armageddon. Gameplay is simple: collect eggs, don't get trapped, and just keep running!
Post your high score as a screenshot on MIX and you'll get a shout-out on next week's show and the prime real estate. Good luck!
Hello Gang I'm Rick and Thank you for your interest in my program! It's been quite a whirlwind experience getting featured on the Wonderful EPIC FU. However I am sadly disappointed that Steve and Zadi have cut down my 43 minute program to just 1 minute!
I believe that my program The Rick Factor will upset some viewers, because I take a hard stance on the issue of Twitter clones. Sometimes I find it's important to take hard stances because otherwise we are all just floating in a sea of complacency.
Please Find my Twitter page at http://twitter.com/rickrey and Email your questions, comments, and feedback to therickfactor@epicfu.com. I Will be happy to hear what you have to say. Until next time, I'm Rick Rey and thank you for reading this Blog.
Now you can get EPIC FU anywhere in yet another way:
Not only can you get two resolution versions, but you can set your favorites, search through shows, and share with friends. Awesome job by our partners at Revision3!
While you're there you can also get other Revision3 shows on your mobile device by clicking "All Shows." Ain't modern life grand? :)
On Monday I picked up the new EPIC FU shirts. They look great, and we can't wait to get them processed and shipped today. However, sometimes we run into small roadblocks here at HQ. When I pulled up with the shirts at the office, Rick, Steve, and Zadi ran out to help me bring them up (we're located on the second floor). When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I heard Zadi say from top, "Oh... no," and the sound of a door knob jiggling.
Elon Musk is the principal owner and chairman of Tesla Motors, an electric car company that actually released a 100% electric car -- their first model is a gorgeous sports car dubbed the Roadster. In April, they opened their first U.S. showroom in Los Angeles where Zadi got a chance to speak with Elon about electric cars and some of Elon's other endeavors.
The Grouch, an independent hip-hop artist and member of the Living Legends rap crew just released a new solo album, "Show You the World," in April. "I worked on this record for almost three years," writes the Grouch. "More, this record was an idea that sprang to mind after the birth of my daughter, Rio, in 2006. As soon as she arrived all I could do is think about wanting to show her everything that I love. I was quickly humbled when I realized I was learning as much from her as she was from me."
I love this video for "Artsy", one of the songs off his album, because so much is going on at once, and the irony of the lyrics is classic. It's like an early "Pork and Beans" of the hip-hop world, borrowing imagery from Eminem's iPod ad, Gnarls Barkley's ink blots, and hand gestures from an HP commercial. According to the Grouch himself, he says the concept "was that we were stealing from other people's artsy campaigns that they had already put out." I think my favorite line is: "'You ain't artsier than me / cause you live in Los Feliz / bitch you ain't Jesus." (sent in by Paul Dateh, thanks!)
This week Zadi introduced us to a website called Ecomodder with 100+ tips to help improve your gas mileage. Changing your driving habits to exceed EPA's gas mileage estimates is called hypermiling. Kind of a cool term isn't it?
This week we're shining the light on MIX member Matt, who signs on every day from McComb, MS, USA.
If you didn't already know it's going to be an epic summer here at FU HQ. Expect to see more behind-the-scenes videos and photos on the blog soon. Lots of cool stuff in general coming down the pipeline! Send me questions!
There's something about sneaking a peak at a person's desktop that seems a bit voyeuristic. It's almost as if you're getting an inside look into their mind - how they organize information and why.
Last night I showed people on Twitter my desktop and asked them to show me theirs. Above is my desktop and after the jump are the responses. Pretty awesome to look at. It's like a gallery of the mind.
The week before last Zadi and I flew to New York to meet up with the Diggnation crew and Revision3 team. They taped a live Diggnation and held a Digg meetup at a venue in Brooklyn, about 20 blocks from where we lived prior to moving to Los Angeles. To make the announcement about EPIC FU joining Revision3, we were super excited to appear on Diggnation as the first guests they've ever had on the show.
Our appearance is really quick and the audio levels on the mic were low, but we hit the stage at about the 35-minute mark in the show. Big thanks to Kevin and Alex for having us on the show, and a special thanks to the Revision3 team -- Damon Berger, David Prager, Sarah Lane, and of course Jim Louderback -- for getting us to New York to take part in the festivities!
Omodaka is a Japanese-based collaborative project between lead musician Soichi Terada and a group of visual artists. The visuals are very much part of the overall Omodaka experience, and Terada himself is said to work closely with the director, dancers, and graphic artists during the video creation process.
Pretty much every picture has the potential to be nom'd. It's actually skewing my view of the world. Get your fill of nomness over at omnomnomnom.com. If you create a Zadi nom'd image like the one I made above, send us a link and we'll post it here or feature it on a future episode.
This week we're spotlighting several members' videoblogs on MIX. First up, ksawyer does a weekly music round-up show called New Sound Now. In this first episode, he showcases some great music videos, sources for free music, and discusses the usefulness of artist videos. I love the video he features from the Raveonettes, the chorus from "Dead Sound" has been stuck in my head since. ksawyer also fosters some thought-provoking discussion on censorship.
It is often said that if you love your machine, your machine will love you back. Not quite sure who said that, or if it was actually ever said - but it sounds like something that should be written in stone. I mean, how many times has your OS just decided to crash as that deadline inches its way to your neck? It's almost as if it knows.
To follow up on my FF3 post earlier this week, it looks like the date has been set for Firefox 3's official launch. Set your calendars for next Tuesday, June 17th. It's coming earlier than expected.
There are over 400 parties going on worldwide to celebrate the launch. Get your download on and help Mozilla set a new world record.
Papercraft DIY time! Tubbypaws, a blog of happy art, created a template to build your own paper ceiling cat. Print, cut, fold, glue, and tape it to your ceiling- presto, an instant feeling of eerieness. There's even a Lucifer Cat edition. If you make one, be sure to post a picture with your new friend on MIX. (sent in by Justine, thanks!)
Rick found this great set of images created by London illustrator Linzie Hunter a while back, and I've kept it in my Google notebook for a long time hoping to find a way to work it into the show. Rather than wait, it's such a cool project that I figured I'd blog about it. Spam one-liners!
More pics after the jump...
We're big fans of the Firefox 3 betas at EPIC FU. It runs faster, eats up less memory, and generally speaking we like the new features, e.g. the almighty location bar. Also, the Mac theme is much more Mac-like. Did I mention we like Macs?
Firefox is hoping to break a Guinness world record for the number of downloads in a day when the final Firefox 3 browser is released. Over a million people have already pledged to participate.
This week's Artist of the Week is Anton Raphael Miriello, or Mr. A.R.M., the founder of The Secret Society of Odd Acquisition. A collector of all things odd and unusual, Mr. A.R.M.'s custom collection is nothing short of mesmerizing.
James Houston is a student at the Glasgow School of Art in the visual communication program. As he writes on the Vimeo page for the video above, this is his final project before graduating. Quite a way to go out, James.
This week our FU of the Week is served by Jacob Soboroff, the Executive Director of WhyTuesday.org -- a non-partisan organization dedicated to increasing voter participation through election reform.
Sounds stuffy, but really it's not. They ask a simple question: Why do Americans vote on Tuesdays? Why not another day, why not weekends, why not on a national holiday? You might be surprised by the answer. Be sure to watch Zadi's interview with Jacob to hear his explanation.
This amazing facility is definitely designed with the future in mind. Tokyo is a very crowded, bustling city, and it seems like real thought has gone into designing a long-term plan for people who use alternate forms of travel.
We've gotten to know a few hardcore bike enthusiasts here in Los Angeles, but I wonder why nothing like this has ever been conceived for LA or New York City. Bikes are great exercise and (obviously) zero carbon emissions vehicles. Let's see some innovative facilities in our major cities here in the U.S., please!
Pencil Face was written and directed by Christian Simmons for the Dandy Dwarves and Savannah College of Art and Design's Scad Shorts.
It's a short, cryptic story about a girl and her pencil. It's also the kind of film that evokes emotion and questions rather than lay out an entire story arc. And as far as emotions go -- this one really creeped me out.
There's also a really well made behind-the-scenes video.
This week we're spotlighting Vincent, who has been a long-time member of EPIC FU's MIX community.
Vincent recently wrote a novel titled After Were Free , a story loosely based on his experience in Iraq as an American soldier in his early twenties. He says he threw in a lot more to exemplify many of the things he learned from the people.
I don't know how I came across Bluejuice. I was in all probability following some online breadcrumb trail. All I know is that once I clicked on the music video for their song Vitriol, I literally had to be dragged away from the computer in order to stop playing it. Okay, that's a little extreme, but the song is damn good. The video features Bluejuice performing as a religious cult on a city street. You can see by people's faces that most were extremely confused. I mean, since when is it okay to really dig the music of a group who may be totally insane? The answer: always.