Grab Bag

Update
I am likely heading to JAXA for the 15th of Feb launch after all, which is good. I'll be away for a month starting early Feb. thru to early Mar. so please be warned I won't post too much in the period. I'm suddenly a busy man again.

Also, 'Coelacanth' is now officially working towards the second 'album' of 12 songs which we hope we'll release this year - we might not get there' but we'll try. Anyway, we are welcoming back Michelle Z on vox, so it probably won't be an all out guitar assault in the style of 'Fish Don't Carry Guitars'. I'm sure people are drawing a sigh of relief there.
Title is still being debated. Stay tuned.

In the mean time, I'm posting up some more of my Beastie Boy remixes so head on over to iCompositions for a listen, won't you now?

From The Mailbag
We were talking about Robert Fripp only a week ago and now we find out this story:
Robert Fripp is being tabbed to do the sounds for the new Microsoft Vista Operating System.

Fripp, who was a co-founder of the influential band King Crimson and has also worked with Peter Gabriel and Talking Heads, recently spent some time at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington campus "recording the various sounds we'll all hear in Windows Vista", according to a video posted on Microsoft's MSDN Channel 9 website.

Fripp is an electric guitarist noted for his ability to generate futuristic, electronic sounds from his instrument. From the evidence on the video posted on Microsoft's website, "Behind the scenes at [the] Windows Vista recording session", he's shooting for aural effects that wouldn't have been out of place in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey".

"They don't just want it to look good, they want it to sound good, too," said Joe Wilcox, senior analyst at JupiterResearch. "Why have the boring PC 'beep' when even the basic sounds of the operating system can be an experience?"

This isn't the first time Microsoft has aimed at cutting edge sounds. Electronic rock pioneer Brian Eno created many of the tones used in Windows 95. Microsoft also spent millions of dollars to licence the Rolling Stones song "Start Me Up" for use in its ads promoting Windows 95.

"From a rocker perspective, it [hiring Fripp] does show the age of some of the people working on this project," Wilcox said.

So Robert Fripp rocks on with Microsoft. Maybe that's another reason to get a PC again when Vistas comes out. Trevor Rabin did work for Mac OS X. What is it about Prog Rock and computer sounds?

There's Also This Gem
I know it's odd, but people were discussing nude skydiving on the weekend and one of the people involved in the conversation dug this one up.


Do yourself a favour and go to the link and watch the video. It's a form of hilarity, all of its own kind.