Kill Ugly Radio: Frank Zappa & Elsewhere

Also known as The Whitburn Project:

For the last ten years, obsessive record collectors in Usenet have been working on the Whitburn Project — a huge undertaking to preserve and share high-quality recordings of every popular song since the 1890s. To assist their efforts, they’ve created a spreadsheet of 37,000 songs and 112 columns of raw data, including each song’s duration, beats-per-minute, songwriters, label, and week-by-week chart position. It’s 25 megs of OCD, and it’s awesome.

Don’t miss the follow-up on One-Hit Wonders and Pop Longevity.

Posted in Music, Pop Cult, Science | No Comments »

Having first aired on BBC Four about a year ago, Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives is finally given a re-run that us lowly mainland Euro’s can watch — on BBC Two:

A documentary which follows the singer of US rock band Eels, Mark Everett, as he travels across America to learn about the father he never knew - quantum physicist Hugh Everett III.

Which Eels? This Eels. Many thanks to the Beeb for broadcasting this at the ungodly hour of 12:20 am. Must… Stay… Awake…

Posted in Movies, Music, Science | 1 Comment »

Drummers worldwide listen up:

People who score high on intelligence tests are also good at keeping time, new Swedish research shows. The team that carried out the study also suspect that accuracy in timing is important to the brain processes responsible for problem solving and reasoning.

Well that certainly puts a new spin on the old proverbial drummer’s joke. Got any good ones? Feel free to share in the comments. How many drummers does it take to change a light bulb?

Posted in Heh Heh, Music, Science | 4 Comments »