ThinkStank

- June 4 -

Nine Inch Niles - The Seattleward Spiral

Okay, I actually made this one.  Bizarre reconstitution of The Downward Spiral built entirely from audio from Frasier.  Writeup, mps, and zipfile of the whole album available here on my music site.

- May 24 -

Uke The Site From Orbit

Concept album, telling the story of James Cameron’s Aliens as a series of ukulele-driven folks songs.  Tracks would include:

• Upset Stomach
• Just Another Bughunt
• Have You Ever Been (Mistaken For A Man)
• Mostly
• Seventeen Days
• Doesn’t Mean We’re Engaged Or Anything
• You Always Were An Asshole
• Not Bad (For A Human)

- May 19 -

Theremin Hero

DIY mod for Rock Band and Guitar Hero and I guess maybe those karaoke games too if you’re into that sort of thing:

1. Run your theremin through an amp.
2. Stick the mic for the vocal part in front of that amp.
3. Theremin the shit out of those vocal parts.

- May 4 -

Mom I’d Like to Filk

Blog featuring user-submitted coming-of-age confessionals about e.g. the time when you were fourteen and you spent the night at a friend’s house and you met their mom and you realized that you really wanted to write science-fiction themed folk lyrics set to traditional melodies about her.

- April 30 -

The Paula Album

A mixtape album for a woman named Paula, composed of songs about and containing the names of women who are not named Paula, except that the compiler of the album has clumsily overdubbed each utterance of a non-Paula name with audio of him saying/singing Paula’s name instead.

Possible songs include:

• Elvis Costello, Alison Paula
• The Rolling Stones, Angie Paula
• Michael Jackson, Billie Jean Paula
• Neil Diamond, Sweet Caroline Paula
• Aerosmith, Janie’sPaula’s Got A Gun
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Last Dance with Mary Jane Paula

- April 26 -

Floppy Disk Demo Tape

Dead-format audio distribution stunt.  Copy a low-bit-rate mp3 of one of your band’s demo recordings onto a bunch of 3.5” floppies, take them to a gig, and chuck ‘em out into the audience during the show as freebies for the lucky audience members who actually still have access to a floppy drive somewhere.

Warning: do not throw disks hard, or you may put someone’s eye out.  Treat it like confetti, not a shuriken.

Warning #2: definitely don’t use a knife to carve the disk casing into the shape of a shuriken.

(Bonus round: make it a deluxe edition by also including MIDI and MOD versions of the song on the disk.  And maybe a nice ASM demo of your band’s logo twirling in 3D through a starfield.  Also, get a new drummer, christ, that guy keeps worse time than a Dolex watch.)

- April 19 -

singsomethingforme.com

A man-on-the-street blog that collects audio and video evidence of the responses of random strangers to the cheerful, iPhone-extended request to “sing something for me!”

Doesn’t matter if it’s a song they like from the radio or something they grew up singing or something they wrote themselves.  Doesn’t matter if its great or terrible or merely adequate.  So long as it is something, and they sing it, mission accomplished.

Ideally featuring remixes and mashups of the raw audio as well.

- April 13 -

Cloistr Bells

An iPhone app that lets you “ring” a large cathedral bell by yanking your phone downward in a long, smooth rope-pulling motion. 

You can choose any of several bell tones; with a group of friends all using Cloistr Bells on different settings, you can collaborate to execute elaborate liturgical signals while e.g. standing in line for a midnight screening of The Name Of The Rose or maybe Zombieland or whatever.

- March 25 -

Clapping Guy

A little bobblehead-looking guy who sits on your desk or your car’s dashboard, who uses advanced beat-detection algorithms to physically clap along on the off-beats to whatever music you’re listening to.

Possible accessories include sunglasses, cigarette hanging from lip, look of ironic disdain, possible Sway Unit for added movement.

- March 22 -

Jedi Mind Sticks

Air-drumming iPhone app that uses the accelerometer to monitor phone movement for the sudden wrist-snap stops of your imagined drumsticks “striking” your drum set.

Best with two phones.  Each “stick” is assigned a default sound (e.g. left-hand closed hihat, right-hand snare) and has two additional large buttons on the screen, the touching of which while “striking” produces an alternate drum sound (kick, tom, open hihat, splash).

Warning: significant chance of accidentally hurling iPhone at the ground in mid-Bonham.

Alternate name idea: anything that wouldn’t get you sued into oblivion by Lucas.