Those who know me are aware of my love for playing with Maya and C4D to make half finished models and sub-par animations. Unfortunately, I have never had the motivation, the chutzpah if you will, to see a project to completion (for more on my artistic movement of Unfinishedism, go here). So I figured I would take a different tack. I am trying to learn some new software.
I recently acquired a copy of Motion, Apple’s answer to After Effects. I imagine myself making any number of visually stunning animated abstractions, accompanied by tasteful aural washes. It’s a good thing I can imagine it, cause God knows I’ll never get around to actually finishing one!
Anyhow, I thought the perfect start would be making a music video for Car Commercial, Superficial Hero’s most commercially “successful” song. The great thing about making a video for a Superficial Hero song is that asking permission is so easy because I was in the band!
Hey Reed, can I use your song in one of my projects?
Sure you can!
See how easy that was? It’s just a matter of…
Wait a minute. On second though, I wasn’t the only member of the band, I know.
Sure, but I would assume that Dylan wouldn’t mind.
Well, you know what they say? When you assume, you make an “ass” out of “u” and “me.” And in this case, since it’s an internal dialogue, it’s more like an ass out of “me” and “me.” That’s like being an ass squared. You don’t want that.
Wow. I’m not even going to let myself use my own song. I really AM an ass. Well screw me! Here it is anyway, sans video!
At last, my plan is coming to fruition. And through no effort of my own. My pawns at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University have successfully demonstrated what we here at MonekyRobotArmy have known for years, that monkeys are able to control a robotic arm through sensors implanted in their brains. The scientists who spearheaded the project showed that the monkeys were able to distinguish between large and small pieces of food and use the arm to select which they preferred. My only question is, why limit yourselves to arms? What about death rays and battleaxes? Trust me, it’s only a matter of time. We all knew it was coming.
Experts say that this is a breakthrough in robotic prosthetics for people who have suffered spinal injuries — a technology that will be especially useful in making life easier for the injured soldiers returning from their service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Useful for people, sure, but what about monkeys, I ask? By the time this technology is ready for humans, monkeys will have a HUGE head start, and then watch out!
Props to one of my main peeps, Successless, for the heads up!
Perhaps you missed them, maybe you just didn’t hear the news, but New Zealand’s self-proclaimed fourth most popular parody digi-folk duo and Grammy Award winning artists, Flight of the Conchords, wrapped up the San Francisco leg of their North American tour Thursday night at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall.
The duo, or band, as they prefer to be called (if you can have a one man band, why can’t you have a two man band?) have garnered widespread critical success and a devoted cult following surrounding their self-titled HBO series, Flight of the Conchords.
The Conchords, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, are undoubtedly one of the funniest acts to grace the small screen in quite some time. But long before they were portraying their partly fictional selves on HBO, they were perfecting the act on stage.
Their stage personas could be described as masters of the deadpan and the pregnant pause; two blissfully ignorant, yet overly serious Kiwis who like keeping it real and talking about the issues. Issues like saving the whales which, clever sea mammals though they may be, would be unable to dial 911 should they ever need help. Even if they did manage to dial, they couldn’t talk…”they’d have to text,” quips Clement.
McKenzie and Clement, who prefer to be called by their rapping names Rhymenoceros and Hiphopopotamus respectively, showed remarkable timing and improvisational skills those only familiar with their television show might not know they posses. When the usual routine of clever song followed by witty, half-scripted banter failed them they found prime material in unexpected equipment failures and surprising outbursts from the audience. Indeed, they remained quick to quip even with the often uncomfortable mood created by an audience that sometimes seemed more suited to a Chippendales show than a musical comedy duo.
As wonderfully off the wall as their stage banter is, any Conchords fan will tell you that the real bread and butter of the show, live or on TV, are the songs.
The band use their guitars and a host of dated digital instruments to flow through genres from love ballads (You’re so beautiful/ you could be a part time model/ but you’d probably have to keep your normal job) to post-apocalyptic robo-pop (The humans are dead/ affirmative, I poked one it was dead).
Sublime anthems of loss and rejection such as “I’m Not Crying” (it’s just been raining…on my face) give way to freestyle rap battles where they “rap about reality/ like sitting at my grandma’s house drinking a cup of tea/ Ain’t no party like my nana’s tea party!”
But enough already, you’ll just have to hear them for yourselves.
The Flight of the Conchords self-titled album is out on Sub Pop Records. It debuted at the number three spot on Billboards top 200. Season one of their HBO show is currently available on DVD with season two in the works.
