Chiranjeevi’s Tollywood is a marvelous, magical, moustachioed realm that we’ve explored briefly on Coilhouse before. This morning, let us reopen the Telugian floodgates! We’ll start off with a particularly choice Chiru clip (via Dogmeat, thanks) and continue on with several more rip-roaring performances spanning the Megastar‘s illustrious career, featuring Chiranjeevi in cahoots with various gorgeous female co-stars… and a horse.*
A collaboration between Interpretive Arson, False Profit Labs, Gray Area Foundation For The Arts (GAFFTA), and Illutron, this 2.5-ton, 60-foot sculpture will act as a giant electronic musical instrument. Designed as a traveling installation, Syzygryd will debut at Burning Man in under a month. The Syzygryd user experience, as explained by Interpretive Arson’s Morley John, will be as follows: “Three strangers [will] come together and visually compose a unique piece of music. The beauty of Syzygryd is that the entire sculpture responds to what you’re creating in sequenced light and fire. Each touchscreen controller has a grid of buttons which allow you to input musical patterns.” The initial Syzygryd proposal elaborates further:
Syzygryd is a collaborative musical instrument for three non-professional players. We are not naive. We’re not shoving guitars into the hands of novices and expecting symphonies. This is a very carefully designed canvas that guides beginners to harmony (in fact, discordant notes are literally impossible.) The interface is rhythmic, visual, and dead simple. We’ve been meticulously developing the software for months, playing with iPhone prototypes on busses, tweaking sounds, testing it out on our friends. We knew we were getting warmer the first time that three people, with no formal training in music, got bystanders grooving involuntarily…
Though most of the heavy lifting takes place Oakland, people from around the world are invited to contribute to the build.
How can you help build Syzygryd? By submitting sound sets. You’re basically submitting 3 (or more) types of sounds that mesh well together, and people will make music with them. For Syzygryd’s sound palette is not limited to the three electronic tones you hear in the software demo above. You can make it play anything: chirping bird noises, breathing, machine/factory sounds… the more creative the combination, the better. To submit a set, all you need to do is have Ableton Live, download Syzygryd’s MDK (Musician Developer Kit), and consult this handy video tutorial for extra help as needed. There’s also a forum where you can ask questions and get advice. All submitted sets will be reviewed by Syzygryd’s Music Team, and a selection of the top sets will played by the sculpture.
Having observed and participated in the Syzygryd project build, it’s clear that everyone involved is deeply invested in crafting an experiential zone that will be the first of its kind. As the proposal states, “[Syzygryd is] the most beautiful expression we can imagine of the joy we take in community, music, technology, fire, sculpture and architecture. We have assembled an international team of artists with extraordinary talent and experience. All of us are in love. Every day we see things that no one has yet imagined, and it’s been our delight to work within a community to make them real. We’d like to create a space in our city where others — people who don’t normally do this sort of thing — can feel at least a little of that.” That’s a wonderful thing to be part of on any level, and in Syzygryd’s case, people from around the world can get involved.
The deadline for submitting sounds sets to Syzygryd is Tuesday, August 24th. More info on the sculpture and music submission process, after the jump!
Is it just me, or is an exceptionally pungent cloud of irony-infused nostalgia hanging o’er the interwub like a stale pegacorn fart today? First, three different people send me this. Also, this has resurfaced. Someone just made me watch “Falkor Gone Wild“. And now, this:
*sob*
I’m so glad Z published that Captain Eo post. A questionable antidote for the inappropriate diddling of one’s childhood, perhaps, but still. Every little bit helps.
Menacing and amusing in equal measure, here’s “a selection of book titles and covers so boring they’re interesting”, set to spooky minimal pseudo-Webern music, and seemingly narrated by Alan Rickman on a ‘luude binge:
So sayeth my old chum and fellow east bay resident, author Eli Brown, regarding this viral video of four phenomenally talented young guys TURF dancing in the rain at the corner of 90th Ave and MacArthur in East Oakland:
No Noize (red jacket), Man (black jacket), BJ (striped shirt), D Real (white shirt). Directed and edited by Yoram Savion.
TURF stands for “Taking Up Room on the Floor”. It’s a roughly decade-old form of street dancing that originated in Oaktown. This particular footage was shot a little under a year ago. Via the Bay Citizen:
In contrast to other street dances, TURF aims to tell a story. And so “Dancing in the Rain” is a memorial to dancer D Real’s (he’s in the white shirt) brother Rich, who was killed in a car accident on that corner.
The day after Rich died, D Real and a few dancers were gathered in YAK Films’ Yoram Savion’s office at Youth UpRising trying to think of a tribute that went beyond the standard R.I.P. T-shirt. Youth UpRising is a youth leadership center in Oakland with a professional dance studio.
Before his brother’s death, D Real had strayed from dancing and was beginning to dabble in music. In one of their last conversations, Rich told D Real to forget about music and focus on dancing, his real talent. So in memory of Rich, D Real and three friends who were willing to brave the pouring rain danced for this this video.
The aforementioned YAK Films production team has one seriously mind-blowing YouTube channel, and their mission statement brings joyful tears to my eyes:
Corporate patronage does not equal crappy art, even if said art is associated with a stupid campaign. That statement may be literally true in the case of this short film commissioned by Diesel:U:Music:
The concept for “Ritalin” (a Dancing Pigeons music video directed by Tomas Mankovsky) is based on Diesel’s theme for their spring jeans collection, Fire & Water.It’s easy to see how the gonzo style of the short dovetails nicely into Diesel’s recent, polarizing “Be Stupid” commercial campaign. Still, “Ritalin” stands on its own as a feisty, snarling gem of a short film.
Who knew that, deep within Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights, an epic power metal ballad was waiting to be unleashed? Brazilian metal band Angra discovered this great truth in 1993, releasing the utterly deadpan cover above. There’s no music video to accompany the song, but I suggest syncing it up with Kate’s “white dress” version, below (as opposed to the “red dress” version for the American release – while also stunning, the facial expressions in it are more sane in a way that makes it pale in comparison). Kate Bush was 18 when she wrote the song, and had never read the book. She later read it, and discovered that she shares a birthday with Emily Brontë.
No doubt, if you are Brazilian, have kin from Brazil, or you’re just generally fascinated by the brief, impassioned revolution of Tropicália/post-Tropicálismos, you’re already familiar with Secos & Molhados. Otherwise, all you really need to know before you chug your morning smoothie is this: S&M were a scrumptiously plumed and glittering glam-rock trio fronted by a sexy sopraniño beast named Ney Matogrosso, and they were fuhhuhHIERCE. Enjoy a sampling of their performances –and a few of Matogrosso’s solo clips– below:
Bear in mind, those trio clips are all pre-Rocky Horror, pre-KISS, and pre-Nomi.
