Today on Offworld our beta keys went fast for Metaplace's eponymous new virtual world service (just over an hour!), though there's still a chance to get on the waiting list. Elsewhere throughout the day we saw an Xbox 360 crammed beautifully into a laptop case from master of his craft Ben Heck, watched the latest trailer for the new Ghostbusters game, and examined the business of the iPhone App Store with Apple's 2008 top sellers list now out. We also posted the next Ragdoll Metaphysics column from Jim Rossignol, who looked at why 2008 was a crucial year for indie gaming, particularly generative MMO Love and 2D Boy's World of Goo, saw how Deus Ex's J.C. Denton responds to an ontological quandary, watched millions of copies of the Half-Life franchise fly off retail shelves, and previewed tracks from UK games podcast OneLifeLeft's new chiptune compilation CD. Finally, we played a Space Invaders game from an invader's perspective, and were excited to hear that news is afoot for Brütal Legend, the new black metal adventure from Psychonauts creator DoubleFine which stars Jack Black as its hessian lead....br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=5eff062cfccb5c432db0e158804b497bp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=5eff062cfccb5c432db0e158804b497bp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=5eff062cfccb5c432db0e158804b497b" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/

In June, Dorian Cox, guitarist for UK indie rock back The Long Blondes, suffered a paralyzing stroke that made it impossible for him to play his instrument. The band was forced to call it quits. Now though, Cox is learning to use a SaeboFlex, a glove outfitted with springs and levers that helps stroke patients grasp objects and regain hand function. He hopes to someday pick up his instrument again. "My right arm and leg aren't really usable so I can't play guitar," Cox explained to the Telegraph. "That was a nightmare because it meant the band couldn't carry on and my livelihood had suddenly gone..." "I know things might never be the same again and nobody can give me a definite answer about whether I'll play guitar again but I'm getting back on track," Cox said. "Long Blondes guitarist Dorian Cox back on track with 'bionic hand'" (Thanks, Gil Kaufman!)...br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=5d4efac11c86080ae64497e43f9b4fa1p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=5d4efac11c86080ae64497e43f9b4fa1p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=5d4efac11c86080ae64497e43f9b4fa1" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/

Since slowly getting back into the record game a couple years ago, Slumberland seems to have been loading up for a huge display of fireworks in 2008. The years spent in inactivity haven’t dulled their knack for finding great pop bands and putting out great records, one after another.

The Lodger - Life is Sweet
The Lodger’s debut album, Grown-Ups, was a fine slice of indie pop that called to mind stellar groups like Orange Juice, the Wedding Present, and Heavenly, while making a case that they might someday be mentioned in that same class. Life Is Sweet is a step forward in both sound and song, and goes a long way toward making this thought a reality. (Read full review and hear samples here)

Crystal Stilts - Alight of Night
……a perfect blend of psychedelic gloom and garage rock punch, of indie pop hooks and girl group drama, of noise and candy. It’s obvious from the first few seconds of Alight of Night that Crystal Stilts aren’t doing anything shockingly new or innovative, and that’s alright. They give the old noise pop formula enough of a kick to make this a very worthwhile addition to any noise pop fan’s collection. (Read full review and hear samples here.)

Cause Co-Motion! - It’s Time! Singles & EPs 2005-08
The tinny, live-wire sound the quartet sends shooting through the wires is reminiscent of the clatter and hiss of Henry’s Dress, the strutting songcraft calls to mind Jane Pow, and the reverb-soaked recording style is a hallmark of the label’s approach from Black Tambourine to Aislers Set to now. (Read full review and hear samples here.)

Along with these albums, Slumberland’s been crazy busy releasing singles all year. Starting with their excellent Searching for the Now 7″ series (which features songs from top poppers like Summer Cats, A Sunny Day in Glasgow and Bye!, Archie from Velocity Girl’s new project), continuing with the return of the June Brides‘ Phil Wilson with an EP of interesting covers called Industrial Strength, and finishing with a one-two knockout punch from Scotland by a couple bands formed out of the wreckage of the Royal We. Bricolage’s orange-y, juice-y single “Turn You Over” is all elbows and knees up, Sexy Kids‘ “Sisters Are Forever” is a brilliant indie rock anthem with a huge, heartwarming hook. Both leave the listener desperate for more!

All this and The Pains of Being Pure At Heart full-length coming in early 2009 too. Check the video for the first single “Everything For You” now and check back often to see what other magic tricks Mike Slumberland has up his sleeve.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLVrTruj_Aw

div class="image"a href="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/big_show.php?/avaxhome/58/f9/0009f958.jpeg" target="_blank"img src="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/58/f9/0009f958_medium.jpeg" id="external_img_653656"//a/divbr/ div class="center"bTim Mahoney "Stay/Leave"/bbr/ MP3 | CBR 320 Kbps 44100 Stereo | 106.69Mbbr/ i2008 | Genre: Pop | Indie | Rock | Songwriter/i/divbr/ By the sound of it, Tim Mahoney, who has spent the better part of a decade cultivating his sound, hasn't wasted his time. Stay/Leave is pure radio-ready pop-rock of the highest order - it's the sort of record that should propel Mahoney and his backing ensemble through to the proverbial "big time."

It has been awhile since I saw anything that really blew my mind, and this week we've already got three indie films making our front page. Check this one out for size. The film is called Bronson, which was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. If you head over to BDTV you can chew on the official trailer, which looks insanely violent and incredibly bloody. The film is the evolutionary journey of Mickey Peterson into Britain's most notorious and dangerous living prisoner CHARLES BRONSON. Originally sentenced to 7 years in prison for burglary, Charles Bronson has been behind bars for 34 years, 30 of which have been spent in solitary confinement. Charlie has forged an outrageous reputation through violence, hostage taking and rooftop protests to become a notorious figure in the British public's consciousness.

Deal offers YouTube community access to fully licensed, indie-based music for use as soundtrack material in videos via free AudioSwap music tool (PRWeb Dec 3, 2008)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/12/prweb1691694.htm

For those of you who spend a great deal of time roaming the halls of indie hipster-ville, you may have noticed that the brief window of empty space prior to awards nominations has been filled with a whole bunch of Prop 8 speech. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, since it's an important issue in this country and the very influential "indie community" can help provide a large voice of support against Prop 8. If that's your thing. However, now that awards season is beginning to heat up, Prop 8. is being replaced by "So who got which screener today?", and it's slowly becoming "that thing we got really upset about in November."

Hold on! Funny or Die has come to the rescue with this very funny video called Prop 8 - The Musical, featuring all sorts of comedic talent like Jack Black, John C. Reilly, Craig Robinson, Neil Patrick Harris (who's absolutely hilarious), and many more. Watch as this ensemble cast sings and dances their way through the issue at hand, and maybe you'll learn a bit more about what's at stake here. Enjoy.

Filed under: Comedy, Music & Musicals, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Trailers and Clips

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British music fans have a new option for purchasing music online: Amazon MP3, which sells music from all of the major labels and thousands of indie labels in the MP3 format without copyright protection. The British version of Amazon MP3 launched quietly on Wednesday, with no fanfare from the retail giant but was spotted by the Britain-based MusicAlly.

Amazon MP3 offers DRM-free music from all of the majors, as opposed to Apple, which must apply DRM to certain tracks per its label contracts. Another difference between the two giants is pricing. While Apple sticks to a single price for all singles, Amazon allows the labels a bit more variety. Songs in the British version of Amazon MP3 currently range from 87 cents to well over $1.20, and we noticed that one classical piece was priced at $4.43.

The increased competition brought about by a heavyweight like Amazon stepping into the ring may already have had an effect on music pricing in the United Kingdom. MusicAlly reports that as Amazon MP3 launched there, Apple dropped its prices on key albums in the British version of iTunes, including those by Oasis and Fleet Foxes, to under $6.

See Also:

• Amazon Launches MP3 Album Discounts
• Amazon, Google Partner for Mobile Music Store
• Study: 90 Percent of Amazon MP3 Users Didn't Use ITunes Before
• Some Of Amazon's MP3 Tracks Contain Watermarks
• Universal's MP3 Watermarks Will Not Contain Unique Identifiers

Hey all, I'm new to this.I?m a culture addict - travel, languages, customs, music, dance, food, etc. Other favorite pastimes to while away the weekend? I like movies (foreign/indie, too), theater, books, great conversations. While I never liked playing the adjective self-description game, here?s a testament to my adventurous spirit: I?m urbane, communicative, flexible (both figuratively & literally), playful, witty (puns included for free), sharp, passionate, sincere, expressive, thoughtful, open-minded, supportive, loyal, and nurturing (at times expressed by way of cooking & massage). so hit me up if you u wanna get to know me more

TexasMary.com

pOkay, so. We've long heard rumblings about a potential rock opera movie musical, presented in three glorious dimensions, based on the life of Cleopatra, directed by a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001752/"strongStephen Soderbergh/strong/a and soundtracked by former Guided by Voices frontman a href="http://www.robertpollard.net/"strongRobert Pollard/strong/a. But getting a firm grasp on all of it has proved a little tricky since the Pollard part of that equation hasn't exactly been forthcoming with the juicy details./p pThere's been an upswing in interest in the flick lately, including recent a href="http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117994550.html?categoryid=1050amp;cs=1"emstrongVariety/strong/em/a and a href="http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2008/12/01/exclusive-ray-winstone-cast-as-ceaser-in-cleopatra-musical-soderbergh-calls-it-viva-las-vegas-meets-tommy/#more-7192"strongMTV.com/strong/a articles that all but confirm everything we'd heard about the project. Apparently, the film is called emCleo/em, Soderbergh says that Catherine Zeta-Jones will play Cleopatra, Hugh Jackman's all but ready to go as Mark Anthony, and English actor Ray Winstone has been cast as Caesar. They expect to start shooting in April, in, it bears repeating, 3D./p pThe script for emCleo /emwas written by author/former Guided by Voices bassist Jim Greer. Soderbergh told MTV.com, "He went away for like six weeks and wrote this great script! It's like an Elvis musical in a way. It's not serious. I mean it's historically pretty accurate but its sort of like emViva Las Vegas/em meets emTommy/em."/p pOh, and Pollard? According to MTV, he's all in. emVariety /emreports, "The music has been written by the indie rock band Guided by Voices," but unless it was written before Pollard stopped using the GBV name in 2004, that probably means just Pollard.br /br /Pollard's people won't officially confirm anything specific about his involvement in the project, but note that a 2006 article in emthe New York Times/em describing the longstanding creative partnership between the Fading Captain and the acclaimed director gets Pollard's involvement in the then-incubatory emCleo /emproject right. We tracked down a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/movies/29olse.html"strongthe emTimes/em piece/strong/a, which says, "the two have started working together on another project, emCleopatra/em, which is being written by Jim Greer...the film is described by Mr. Soderbergh as emTommy/em meets emViva Las Vegas/em." Hey, two years later, he's still using the same soundbite!/p pAs a bit of background, Soderbergh wrote the introduction to Greer's Guided by Voices oral history/biography Gemuided by Voices: A Brief History/em, while a href="/article/record_review/20958/Robert_Pollard_Zoom_It_Happens_All_Over_the_World_EP_Music_Fr"strongPollard wrote the music for Soderbergh's 2005 film emBubble/em/strong/a.br /br /While we wait for more information about this whole crazy project, we'll remind you that Bob's new sensation a href="http://www.bostonspaceships.com/"strongBoston Spaceships/strong/a will released a href="/article/news/146459-pollard-preps-new-solo-spaceships-circus-devils-discs"strongemThe Planets Are Blasted/em/strong/a, their rather quick follow-up to this fall's fine a href="/article/news/51300-pollard-forms-new-band-with-gbv-decemberists-folks"strongemBrown Submarine/em/strong/a, February 17 from Guided by Voices, Inc./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/td_cJdxnAJMGzPaDk3JZ1kWp9aM/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/td_cJdxnAJMGzPaDk3JZ1kWp9aM/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/3AtumPpxQS0" height="1" width="1"/

pA two-man team has created a Flash-based game as a calling card for their web site—and have created an unlikely success. The next challenge will prove even harder: marketing emAuditorium/em as a full product. /ppa href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081203-gaming-with-auditorium-an-indie-treat-on-the-edge-of-success.html"Read More.../a/p

pA two-man team has created a Flash-based game as a calling card for their web site—and have created an unlikely success. The next challenge will prove even harder: marketing emAuditorium/em as a full product. /ppa href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081203-gaming-with-auditorium-an-indie-treat-on-the-edge-of-success.html"Read More.../a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/IFGKWYtCRBcFPvKIyaZnPUqPcZg/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/IFGKWYtCRBcFPvKIyaZnPUqPcZg/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=HQGQdrod"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?i=HQGQdrod" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=acjXQdJw"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=vhW6tlC3"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?d=41" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/arstechnica/BAaf/~4/pbohp2Qf55Q" height="1" width="1"/

pA two-man team has created a Flash-based game as a calling card for their web site—and have created an unlikely success. The next challenge will prove even harder: marketing emAuditorium/em as a full product. /ppa href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081203-gaming-with-auditorium-an-indie-treat-on-the-edge-of-success.html"Read More.../a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/IFGKWYtCRBcFPvKIyaZnPUqPcZg/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/IFGKWYtCRBcFPvKIyaZnPUqPcZg/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=HQGQdrod"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?i=HQGQdrod" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=acjXQdJw"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?a=vhW6tlC3"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/arstechnica/BAaf?d=41" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/arstechnica/BAaf/~4/pbohp2Qf55Q" height="1" width="1"/

â??Corking, angular art-punkâ? NME artist: Archangel myspace.com/archangelmusic video: Eduardo Benchoam radarmusicvideos.com/users/eduardo Radar is an international network of cutting edge music video directors. submit treatments: make music videos: join in at www.RadarMusicVideos.com Distributed by Tubemogul.

Auteur : RadarMusicVideos
Tags : radar music videos archangel london how to lose best friend eduardo benchoam pop indie new wave guatemala radaradar
Envoyé : 03 décembre 2008
Note :0.0
Votes :0

A desperate man tries to survive the night in a world gone mad. A film by Patrick Rea.

Auteur : dreadcentral
Tags : zombies end of the world ready government indie
Envoyé : 03 décembre 2008
Note :0.0
Votes :0

American folk singer and civil rights icon Odetta has died at 77, of heart disease:

"Odetta sang at coffeehouses and at Carnegie Hall, made highly influential recordings of blues and ballads, and became one of the most widely known folk-music artists of the 1950s and ’60s. She was a formative influence on dozens of artists, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Janis Joplin. Her voice was an accompaniment to the black-and-white images of the freedom marchers who walked the roads of Alabama and Mississippi and the boulevards of Washington in the quest to end racial discrimination. Rosa Parks, the woman who started the boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Ala., was once asked which songs meant the most to her. She replied, 'All of the songs Odetta sings.' Odetta sang at the march on Washington, a pivotal event in the civil rights movement, in August 1963. Her song that day was 'O Freedom,' dating to slavery days: 'O freedom, O freedom, O freedom over me, And before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave, And go home to my Lord and be free.'"

The Boston Globe writes, in their obituary: "She was full of surprises in recent years, too. Indie-pop auteur Stephin Merritt recruited Odetta to sing 'Waltzing Me All the Way Home' on the 6ths album 'Hyacinths and Thistles' in 2000. He later said Odetta had told him she thought the song was about two gay black soldiers during World War II, which was news to Merritt."

Listen to it here:

A couple clips in Odetta's honor, AFTER THE JUMP...

pThe third album from these 2008 Juno Award winners from Halifax, Nova Scotia, finds them further refining their brand of jangly, affecting indie rock while subtly laying groundwork for future experimentation./ppa href="http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/node/146857" target="_blank"read more/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/VyQbJyYc0rdpqWCQ7cTFbLxDjUk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/VyQbJyYc0rdpqWCQ7cTFbLxDjUk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/uSNuHv7jxb8" height="1" width="1"/

pThe third album from these 2008 Juno Award winners from Halifax, Nova Scotia, finds them further refining their brand of jangly, affecting indie rock while subtly laying groundwork for future experimentation./ppa href="http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/node/146857" target="_blank"read more/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/tsB1TSV3ASkUTehwA_Fm_F1Huqk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/tsB1TSV3ASkUTehwA_Fm_F1Huqk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/reviews/~4/uSNuHv7jxb8" height="1" width="1"/

Sekklow - Mind The Step (includes my own indie remixes) [152MB, 128 kbps]

More Shows: http://indieTV.tv Question Kaywood Hopkins had for CNN's Situation room to Microsoft's Bill Gates. Mr. Gates: Recently you created the Microsoft Connecter Shuttle to connect all your employees to your campuses in the Seattle area. However you do not allow your Temporary Employees ride? Why Mister Gates? What are the Temps supposed to do? How can they conserve on gas or carpool?

Author: indietvfest Keywords: indie tv seattle Microsoft connector temps Added: December 2, 2008

Dorian Cox, the 27-year-old guitarist of the indie band The Long Blondes, thought his guitar playing days were over after he suffered a stroke. He now has a glimmer of hope thanks to some neurological physiotherapy which includes a cutting-edge piece of medical technology. The SaeboFlex helps patients by supporting their wrists and helping them grasp and release objects. "It's a fantastic service, it's helping tremendously and I think it can work wonders for me and others mdash; it's almost like a gym for my hand. I know things might never be the same again and nobody can give me a definite answer about whether I'll play guitar again but I'm getting back on track with their help," Mr. Cox said. This thing looks really cool, and I'm sure many people will benefit from it, though I can't help but wonder if they make a model that lets you shoot your fist at an enemy.pa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/02/1632240amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/12/02/1632240"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/02/1632240amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/DxztLt5Xdcvy09ihZO8YXQ0I7XQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/DxztLt5Xdcvy09ihZO8YXQ0I7XQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/es4d4j_s8dE" height="1" width="1"/

Dorian Cox, the 27-year-old guitarist of the indie band The Long Blondes, thought his guitar playing days were over after he suffered a stroke. He now has a glimmer of hope thanks to some neurological physiotherapy which includes a cutting-edge piece of medical technology. The SaeboFlex helps patients by supporting their wrists and helping them grasp and release objects. "It's a fantastic service, it's helping tremendously and I think it can work wonders for me and others mdash; it's al