Shortly after September 11, 2001, a small, heavy package wrapped in brown paper arrived in the mail at the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York City. Inside was a mess of wires.

Guthrie’s daughter Nora eventually figured out that the suspicious package wasn’t a bomb, but rather a recording of her father on a device that predated magnetic tape. After a year of searching, she managed to track down someone with the equipment to play it.

What she finally heard was a bootleg recording of her father singing a live performance in 1949. It was the first time she had ever heard him perform in front of a live audience. He had developed Huntington’s chorea and stopped performing when she was a child, and she thought he had never been recorded live.
…
The result has been nominated for a Grammy.

Math Trek: The Grammy in Mathematics, Science News Online, Feb. 9, 2008

the monome 40h is a reconfigurable grid of sixty-four backlit buttons.

buttons can be configured as toggles, radio groupings, sliders, or organized into more sophisticated systems to monitor and trigger sample playback positions, stream 1-bit video, interact with dynamic physical models, and play games. button press and visual indication are decoupled by design: the correlation is established by each application.

What can 12 musicians create in 12 hours with only $12 worth of thrift store finds?

The Crate Digger Death-match is an audio experiment wherein 12 different musicians attempt to create an entire album in under 12 hours using only $12 worth of cds, records, vhs tapes, or children’s toys as their instruments.

Drown Radio » Crate Digger Death-match

DCist: This Just In: Radiohead To Play D.C.
What would a Radiohead announcement be if there wasn’t some shroud of mystery or dangling question marks surrounding it? We’ve just heard from the band’s press team that they will be playing a show in D.C. — at a yet to be announced date and venue. But, the British are definitely coming.

It’s kinda muddy in this medium, but it’s pretty cool when they’re cleanly miked.

Luckily, my band’s recently released album, “Oh No,” escaped copy control, but only narrowly. When our album came out, our label’s parent company, EMI, was testing protective software and thought we were a good candidate for it. Record company executives reasoned that because we appeal to college students who have the high-bandwidth connections necessary for getting access to peer-to-peer networks, we’re the kind of band that gets traded instead of bought.

That may be true, but we are also the sort of band that hasn’t yet gotten the full attention of MTV and major commercial radio stations, so those college students are our only window onto the world. They are our best chance for success, and we desperately need them to be listening to us, talking about us, coming to our shows and yes, trading us.

New York Times

I watched Good Copy Bad Copyover the weekend - it was a considerably enlightening and enjoyable video. Also, I must be one of the few people to never see this.

Filmed 3 months before he died.