No one is more deserving of this week's FU of the Week (check out the full episode here) than Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, and Zack Whedon, the notorious writers of the epic three-part musical mini-series Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. If you haven't heard the story of the evil Freeze Ray toting mastermind with a heart of cold created by Joss Whedon, where the heck on the InterWebs have you been?
Alternate Reality Games, more commonly known as ARGs, are interactive games that involve users through use of the internet and multimedia. Wikipedia explains it as "an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions."
An amazing resource for ARG information is WikiBruce.com, where fans collect and edit information on currently running ARGs. More about the ARGs featured on Thursday's episode after the jump.
T E X T P E C T A T I O N
As defined by Urban Dictionary: The anticipation one feels when waiting for a response to a text message.
We've all been there. Hot guy or girl, hot prospect for a date, you finally get the nerve to text over something with cojones, and now you wait. The internal dialogue is usually something along these lines:
Did it go over correctly? Did it sound too pushy? Am I a creep for sending that message? Oh, wait, maybe they are showing it to their friends and they are laughing at me. Great, now I really blew it! What an idiot I am! What was I thinking?! I was trying to play it so cool and I had to go and--
--wait--new text message...
Sweet, I knew they would be into it! I am WIN. Today I claim victory and sit upon my mount as a champion. I fucking rock.
Feel the burn.
Sometimes you get a song with lyrics like, "the surgery went bad." That's when you know you've got a gem. Thursday's spotlight is Son of Robot, a self-proclaimed "5 piece mock-hop-rock outfit from Brighton." The band consists of Scott Coello (keyboard), Matt Coello (drums), Olly Simmons (vocals), Luke Holmes (guitar and keyboard), and Sam Roberts (Bass).
Rick decided to spin up a little "Guess the 80's movie and artist" game for us to play last week. Final scoreboard after the jump.
The new police chief in Flint, Michigan is cracking down on the victimless act known as pants sagging. Call it a fashion faux pas, call it bad taste -- CALL IT ILLEGAL!
I'm really glad that someone is stepping up to fight these hoodlums... they think they can show off their boxers in plain daylight and nobody's gonna do anything about it? Not anymore!
On the show this week we highlighted surrealist/fantasy painter and illustrator Ryohei Hase from Tokyo, Japan. He created works for book covers, the web, games, and magazine, and he exhibits his paintings regularly in Tokyo. More of his work after the jump.
Polysics is a Devo-inspired Japanese new wave band that combines punk guitar riffs with the bleeps and boops of wonderfully composed computer-generated melodies. The original 4-person crew came together in the late 90s while still in high school.
"Drive A isn't just entering the rock scene, they're kicking in the door." That's what it says on their website, and who's to argue? With rock legends like like Cheap Trick, Tommy Lee of Motley Crue and Don Henley of The Eagles singing their praises, it's difficult not to do a double take.
Ask and ye shall receive! On one of my last behind-the-scenes videos, Kurt Snieckus asked "Can you do a behind the scenes where the computer systems are explained? I see two dells under Steve's desk and am itching to know what they are doing." Penguinator wondered the same thing: "I saw a lot of computers too under there. I wonder what they are for."
Thanks for asking! :)
This is what happens when you break up with the one you love... well, hopefully not. It's the third single from Gnarls Barkley's album The Odd Couple. Great blues sound. Also love that Jorma Taccone is in it. Directed my Chris Milk.
Thanks to Adam for the heads up. :)
So, if you watch EPIC FU, you know that we regularly feature music artists in the "Sh!t We Like" portion of the show. We love highlighting indie and up and coming musicians and exposing them to a wider audience.
Recently, we featured Peter Fox, who is a kick-ass German musician. He has his own web site and a MySpace page from which he streams some of his songs. Now, we reaaally love his most recent single Alles Neu, but the problem is that YOU CAN'T BUY IT ANYWHERE ONLINE. His record label Downbeat/Warner doesn't get it. What is the point of releasing a new music video on the web if you don't make the song readily available for everyone to buy?!?
Check out this music video for North of Ping Pong. It's a Cockney rap narrative, directed by Adam Smith, following the passengers of a taxi cab as they spit out some pretty fresh rhymes to the cab driver's beat.
This is a fascinating short film documenting the life of deaf children. The narrator does an awesome job narrating, which leaves us able to absorb and actually pick up a few words. I now know how to say "smile" in sign language.
What was most enlightening is how they say their parents don't understand what they're saying some of the time, which is frustrating to them. The kids in this film (most seven to nine years of age) struck me as eloquent and wise beyond their years -- and most of all, they seem to have a talent for listening above many of us who are able to hear.
I'm not a huge Moby fan but the video for I Love To Move In Here by director Toben Seymour is a lot of fun. Lots of creativity here, and the octo strip/dance sequence at the end is a great pay off. The video also features hip-hop legend Grandmaster Caz (AKA Grandmaster Casanova). Seymour also directed a recent video for EPIC FU alums Honorary Title.
Our favorite or most visited links this week. We recommend:
annie t: ask.metafilter.com - "Amazing resource!"
daniel m: elbo.ws - "Find any downloadable mp3 on the web in seconds."
rick r: google notebook bookmarklet - "Because the Google Notebook add-on for Firefox 3 is buggy as hell and the bookmarklet works on non-Firefox browsers like Safari."
steve w: ReadWriteWeb - "A refreshing mix of new web tools and web business."
zadi d: twitt(url)y - "Just a great way to track what links people are talking about on Twitter."
Oh. My. God. All I have to say is that Doug Bresler is awesome. If you haven't seen Doug's work on Doogtoons, you should. And his latest work just proves that there is more creative genius in store for all of us.
The "new" music video is called Indiana Jones and is performed by L.B. Rayne. It's apparently a lost classic from 1984. It hits all the right 80s notes, and our friend Paul Dateh is in it as well. Read more about it on the Doogtoons blog. So glad that it was "found." ;-)
Steve's note: what follows is a guest blog post from Adam Wallenta, the owner of American Mule Entertainment, an independent comic book publisher responsible for a number of titles including the official Public Enemy comic book.
By Adam Wallenta
First off let me say that I love going to the San Diego Comic-Con. I have been attending as an independent publisher since 1997 and I have had a lot of success. I have met some of my best friends there. Made invaluable connections and learned a great deal. Most importantly, attending the con, provided a great opportunity to get my work out to the people and I have had the honor and pleasure of meeting some of the greatest fans and supporters a guy can ask for.
That being said, The San Diego Comic-Con has always been the hardest convention to sell books at, even back in my early days. It's a huge show with tons to see, do and spend your money on. Throw in the cost of admission for the attendees, hotel and travel costs and food and there isn't much money left over for fans to go out of their way to try new books. Even with a great product, you have to be an even greater salesman to get the attention of the fans and hope that they haven't spent all of their hard-earned money elsewhere.
The sad truth is that many of us can't make it to the San Diego Comic Con this year. During the next few days our Twitter feeds will fill up with the mad-cap adventures our friends our having and there will be jealousy -- a lot of jealousy. The good news is that we don't have to sit around and act all mopey -- thanks to this wonderful invention called the internet, we can take things into our own hands and create our very own ALTERCON!!
Ready to ride the digital tubes? Lets GO!
In the spirit of Comic-Con 2008, this week's artist of the week is Paul Duffield, a newcomer to the comics world. I found him through the online comic FreakAngels, where he and writer Warren Ellis shaped a future steampunk universe about a group of telepaths who brought about the apocalypse. For Duffield it was a major score to work with an established writer like Warren Ellis on his first major project, and for fans we get to enjoy all twenty episodes of the comic online for free.
Pomplamoose's song, "Pas Encore," is our Epic Spotlight for today's episode. Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn are two musicians that combined their talents to form Pomplamoose, derived from pamplemousse, the French word for "grapefruit". The video they put out for "Pas Encore" is set to create a new genre of music video, called a VideoSong. According to Jack, a VideoSong requires only 2 things: that everything you see is real (no lip-synching!), and that we have to see everything we hear. It's a fantastic way to show the many layers of instruments and vocals go into one song.
Alright, some nitty gritty technical behind-the-scenes stuff! Here's a little bit about the lighting. We use a couple of Lowel Pro-lights with different colored gels on the show. Check the video for Steve's thoughts, and there is one more photo after the jump.
Here's a site that I totally dig! I learned about it from popSiren. Bgpatterns.com allows you to create cool tiled backgrounds that you can download. You choose an image then adjust the size and opacity. You can also play around with the colors and canvas.
The @ symbol was an option so I couldn't resist using it for my Twitter account.
I found this design that someone else had made and put it as my desktop.
Go get to create'n and show me a picture of your design!
This week's Flash Game Challenge is a seemingly cute car romp by Ferry Halim. But don't let its cute looks fool you -- Sunny Day Sky is fun, addictive, and perfect for the challenge because it's all about getting crazy high scores. It's also super easy to play. Just click your mouse once to open your umbrella and click again to close it. Try to jump over as many cars as you can to achieve higher point multipliers.
As always, post a screenshot of your high score and we'll give you a shout-out next week PLUS the prime real estate on MIX. Have fun!
Scott Sigler is the Future Dark Overlord™. That's what he says. We believe him. He has a pair of chicken scissors ready if we dare say otherwise. So that's what we'll all say "Oh, hail Future Dark Overlord!"
On a more serious note, there is a reason why we chose Scott to be our FU of the Week -- he epitomizes the FU. He's a science fiction horror novelist who took matters into his own hands after getting rejection letter after rejection letter. And they didn't involve sharp deadly weapons, though some may consider podcasting equipment just that.
There is some great music coming out of Berlin and Peter Fox is no exception. His latest song, Alles Neu -- or "All New" -- is getting some serious head bopping from some of us here at EPIC FU HQ. The music video is pretty crazy too, with Peter leading his own personal band of monkeys. Some of the monkeys are played by a very talented Cold Steel Drumline, who Mr. Fox paired up with on the single.
Hardcore Nine Inch Nails fans got a special treat last week when Trent Reznor and company hid tickets to a private concert all over Los Angeles. More than twenty question marks appeared on a Google Earth map that NIN put out on their tour page. The question marks were labeled with phrases like "Men's room. Behind the mirror. Be discreet," and "Incredibly ugly hat. Last pair of tickets." Quick-thinking fans noted the GPS coordinates of question marks and set off on a treasure hunt, much like geocachers.
With The Dark Knight opening this weekend...which you all are going to LUV...I've got superheroes on the brain. So, I checked out some superhuman entertainment that you might want to check out too!
The works of Alexey Titarenko hang in many museums around the world, but thanks to the web we get to see them whenever we want, and we get a chance to experience the painterly and haunting photographs from his Black & White Magic of St. Petersburg series. More images after the jump.
Those Dancing Days is 5 young women: Linnea Jonsson (vocals), Rebecka Roifart (guitar), Cissi Edraimsson (drums), Lisa Pyk (keyboards), and Mimmi Evrell (bass guitar), who got together in 2005 to play music while they were still in high school. The band, which hails from Stockholm, Sweden, was just recently signed to Wichita Recordings, home also to bands like Bloc Party, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Peter Bjork & John. The singer's voice (and hair) is amazing, and its plain to see that the girls have a great time making music. Their video for "Run, Run" is super cute and fun to watch as well.
Thursday's credits music comes from Disasteradio, also known as Luke Rowell. Hailing from New Zealand, Disasteradio is a one man band with just his computer and the internet. His track, "Awesome Feelings", proves that you can never go wrong with the cowbell and synthesizer combination. The music video was created by Simon Ward and Don Brooker. Simon posted a bunch of behind the scenes photos from the video shoot.
You can buy Disasteradio's CD, Visions, from A Low Hum for $12.
Radiohead's new music video, directed by James Frost, for "House of Cards" was created using all kinds of neat technology instead of cameras. Lasers were used to scan Thom Yorke, a party scene, and a cul de sac to gather three-dimensional data about these objects. The data was then rendered and manipulated to produce this amazing video.
This is not the first time Radiohead has done something outside the box. Last October, Radiohead initially released their album "In Rainbows", online through a pay-what-you-want system. This was after they finished out their record contract with EMI... so essentially, Radiohead served their own FU to the record industry. Word.
Look for a "Making-of" video and more after the jump.
For every episode of EPIC FU that goes up, a master text document is created with all the show descriptions, keywords, and most importantly, links. Since we distribute the show to several different websites, this file comes in handy when it comes to uploading the actual episode: the accompanying information can be quickly copied and pasted from the master text document. We do this because we feel that it's important to give people a place to find the videos and artists we feature on the show- giving credit where credit is due!
Why am I so fascinated by Full House mashup videos? For some reason the ridiculousness of the show's content itself lends itself to poignant and hilarious remixes. This one by YouTube user bents75 attempts to "tap into the most primal thoughts of father extraordinaire, Danny Tanner."
You may also get a kick out of the last Full House mashup I posted a few months ago.
(via Spout Blog)
Please watch this video. It's been around the 'net for a while. It's the story of a man named Daniel Tammet, who can do calculations to 100 decimal places in his head. He has been diagnosed with a form of autism, but one with a relatively mild affect on the way he handles social interaction. Typically autistics have trouble relating to other people and things in their environment, but can demonstrate an ability to focus on single tasks. This rarely manifests itself as true savant-like abilities, but for a while now I have started to wonder whether the escalation in autism diagnoses over the past 30 years is a result of environmental effects on children, or whether this is nature experimenting with us to take us to the next stage of evolution.
Is Buffy better than Batman? OH NOES, I say! RedEye's "Best Superhero" Tourney is down to the Elite Eight. This past week the Sweet Sixteen matched up The Batman vs. The Vampire Slayer. Not only did Buffy take down the Dark Knight, but she did so fairly significantly...37.7% to 62.3%. With 6276 total responses to this pair, more than any other match up in the Sweet Sixteen, the Buffy fanboys & girls were making a statement.
Can I count the number of ways I love this song and video? Lyrics Born is our Epic Spotlight for this Thursday's show, and if you like hip-hop with a party flavor this jam could be your summer anthem. Another great jam submitted to us by Adam Wallenta, aka Illusemcee, who's rapidly becoming a regular resource for the latest in indie hip-hop.
Lyrics' most recent album, "Everywhere at Once," features live band members and other Cali-based hip-hop producers like Jake One and Trackademicks. The awesome video for "I Like It, I Love It" was directed by Neon.
If you haven't heard of Mortified, it all began in 1990 when founder Dave Nadelberg found an old unsent love letter and shared it with friends. In 2002, he teamed up with Neil Katcher, formally formed Mortified and began sifting through thousands of people's forgotten diaries and photos in an attempt to "crack the lid off our cultural shoebox and expose our inner geek."
I don't know where the hell Rick found this, but I think you can best classify reflectoporn as Internet Gold. Even the name -- reflectoporn -- it just sounds like something that can only exist because of the web. You never know what you might come across on eBay or Craigslist, do you? See if you can spot the porn -- more pics after the jump. Note: you can't really see anything, but if suggestive photos are not your bag, don't click through.
On Tuesday's show, Zadi mentioned that the Senate recently passed legislation approving amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. These provisions strengthen the ability of intelligence officials to listen in on "foreign targets" and grant immunity to the telecommunications companies that cooperated with the White House wiretaps after September 11th. Most importantly, this bill weakens the Fourth Amendment of our Constitution. Many privacy advocates feel strongly about this issue because it gives the White House so much power when it comes to citizens' rights.
Last week, we were doing a bit of brainstorming when everything kind of just came to a grinding halt.
I'm so excited...and I just can't hide it! My life just became Epic. I am now a part of this kick-ass team. I am going to help Steve, Zadi & Rick make this show happen and keep up the behind the scenes vids, pix & general funness. Please friend me on MIX and/or follow me on Twitter and lets become BFF.
A few episodes ago we started a Campfire discussion which posed the question: Has the web killed the radio star? It was after we had visited KCRW, a local radio station that is head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to their technological savvy. The visit to the station made me an instant fan and had me quickly wondering where radio's future was headed.
On Thursday's episode, Zadi talked to Peter Brauer and Juan Carlos Piñeiro, the director and producer of Second Skin, a film about MMOs. The film goes way beyond the video game addiction that gets so much attention in traditional press and covers the social aspects of games, both virtually and in real life. World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest create worlds where players can truly come as they are, or take on entirely different personas. Second Skin asks whether or not our lives are really becoming encapsulated inside these virtual worlds.
Our Artist of the Week this week is The Me Nobody Knows, otherwise known as TMNK. His work is reminiscent of Jean Michel Basquiat -- except his styling is completely fresh. He takes his surrounding experiences and translates them on canvas, resulting in a body of work which is personal, rich, authentic, narrative and slightly melancholy.
There is more to my community than violence and drugs. There's beauty, and there's culture, and there are talented positive people, just like "me," that nobody knows.
Last Tuesday we chose Time Machine as our Epic Spotlight. Guess what? We're spotlighting them again this week. One of their other singles, "The Groove That Just Won't Stop", is another treat.
Time Machine hails from Los Angeles and, like Steve mentioned last time, is composed of emcees Biscuit, JetSetJay, and producer DJ Makealek. This song is a nice throw back to old school hip hop and makes me want to cruise around in a convertible with the top down. The video, which is actually produced in part by JetSetJay, makes use of stop motion and neon animations to take us through a night out with two of their friends. It definitely has my foot tapping.
Apple fanboys get on your knees and slap that Steve Jobs tattoo on your upper thigh! Tomorrow we'll see the release of the iPhone 3G, a modest update to the original iPhone with faster internet, built-in GPS, and a cheaper price tag thanks to a $200 subsidy courtesy of AT&T.
I have to be honest. I'm mostly ambivalent about the release tomorrow, partly because of the forced in-store activation and partly because the new features aren't that tempting for someone who already owned the O.G. iPhone. The GPS sounds cool on paper, but the word on the street is the built-in GPS antenna is too small to support reliable turn-by-turn navigation. Whether or not I pick one up depends on how easily I can finagle a unit for use off AT&T's network. Hehe I wrote "finagle a unit."