shawn avery

does recorded sound pre-date the civil war? 150 years ago... a french inventor was recording sound waves onto ash powder... incredible : SAN FRANCISCO - At first listen, the grainy high-pitched warble doesn't sound like much, but scientists say the French recording from 1860 is the oldest known recorded human voice. The 10-second clip of a woman singing "Au Clair de la Lune," taken from a so-called phonautogram, was recently discovered by audio historian David Giovannoni. The recording predates Thomas Edison's "Mary had a little lamb" — previously credited as the oldest recorded voice — by 17 years. The tune was captured using a phonautograph, a device created by Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville that created visual recordings of sound waves. Using a needle that moved in response to sound, the phonautograph etched sound waves into paper coated with soot from an oil lamp. Giovannoni and his research partner, P...

here's a great blog i read recently: "Jericho" as a dramatization of disaster capitalism POSTED: Friday, March 07, 2008 FROM BLOG: The Left End of the Dial - Dr. James Benjamin's periodic musings and rants -- primarily of a political nature, as well as jazz, poetry, haiku, Bokononism, and whatever else happens to be on my mind. The following blog post is from an independent writer and is not connected with Reuters News. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by Reuters.com . I'm not sure how many of my readers have followed the series Jericho. If not, it might be a good idea to check a few episodes of the series out as its story is pretty fascinating. The basic premise is that of a rural community in northwest Kansas (the fictitious town of Jericho) cut off from the rest of the world in the wake of a set of nuclear explosions which end up destroying a number of major urban areas around the US. Over the next several m...

johnny greenwood (guitarists for radiohead) guest conducting w/ the alabama symphony orchestra. april 10th. nice. this is very odd, but i've actually never been to the alys stephens center... Cutting Edge Music. Cool Party. From the WHITE NOISE between ROCK and CLASSICAL comes RADIOHEAD guitarist Jonny Greenwood's "Popcorn Superhet Receiver" plus the WORLD PREMIERE of "Shapeshifters" by Paul Lansky and "Light Overture" by Poul Ruders. April 10 Alys Stephens Center Jemison Hall 6 PM - Cocktails with Conductor's Comments 7 PM - Concert 8 PM - Protective SYMPHONY 7: After Party with DJ Coco and Matt Devine of Downright

friday night... big birthday party for mr. ashby pate. 30 years young. great group of people showed up... christine brought cantina and ashby got a keg of 420. there was still a solid group of folks on the porch at 2am. watched two movies this weekend. both excellent. last night we watched rendition , and the evening before we watched michael clayton . there are several movies i'd like to watch in the next few weeks. i've got pics and video of the party... i'll post this evening perhaps... what else... last monday... st. patty's day... the spots played an eccentric and excellent set at speakeasy... brian brought a 2nd drum kit that i played along with shane during the last set. interesting results. pics and video will be posted soonish. also last monday... i sent our master to discmakers to be printed and duplicated. wow. yep. over a year after finishing the master... we finally sent it off. i'm having career angst. i really need to get further a...

5 years ago this week, we wrote the song, blackout... inspired by the build up to the war in iraq. five years later, the war is ongoing... and we sent the song off to be mastered this week. interesting. to celebrate... here's some bowie lyrics from the vietnam era... Pushing thru the market square, so many mothers sighing News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in News guy wept and told us, earth was really dying Cried so much his face was wet, then I knew he was not lying I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies I saw boys, toys electric irons and t.v.s My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare I had to cram so many things to store everything in there And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people And all the nobody people, and all the somebody people I never thought Id need so many people A girl my age went off her head, hit some tiny children If the black hadn't a-pulled her off, I think she would have killed them A sol...

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787. The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations. Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of e...

st. patty's day. we are gonna try to go over the top this time around. the visuals and sonics should be fantastic. also... this is either the best or worst poster i've ever made. 17 bonus points for you, if you figured out that this is the flag of ireland... and those are irish goats. actually, it is a cloned irish goat. evil.

For Immediate Release The Raindrop Music Festival benefiting the Hulsey Little River Trust April 25 & 26, 2008 BIRMINGHAM, AL. – On Friday, April 25, 2008 beginning at 6 pm and on Saturday, April 26, 2008 beginning at 2 pm, the Bottletree Café will host a music festival to benefit the Hulsey Little River Trust. The 2 nd Annual Raindrop Music Festival is a 2-day music event, featuring some of the best bands Birmingham has to offer at one of the most popular venues in town. What began last year as a gathering of friends and supporters of the creation of the Hulsey Little River Trust (HLRT) has become an exciting showcase of local music with many genres represented and the primary annual fundraiser of the HLRT. There is truly something for everyone, and the community is invited to enjoy great music, great food, and to participate in an impressive raffle highlighting goods and services from some of our area’s most prominent and generous businesses. ...

hi... i'm the governor of new york state. i came into national prominence by implementing sweeping reforms on wallstreet... and other market entities... and i also played a major role in shutting down prostitution operations in my state. for shits and giggles, i participated in human sex trafficking across state lines. for example... i thought it would be a really great idea to buy really expensive call girls and pay for them out of a traceable account. one time... i hired a woman from the state that i govern... to take a train to our nation's capital so that i could fuck her in really weird ways. awesome . by the way, my family is comprised of all women. i've pretty much ruined my wife's life and my daughters are probably gonna be scarred. i just resigned from my office as governor and i gotta tell ya'... i feel pretty good today. i might even go for a jog.

this week... after so many false starts that i have lost count... we are sending off the wiseblood ep to be printed. this project passed the retarded sign post several miles back. it has taken over 4 years from start to completion, although it is true that we finished recording / mixing / mastering toward the end of 2006. the last hold out was a complete remix and re-tracking of the drums and re-edits of the guitars on the song, hwy that is being mixed and mastered RIGHT NOW. i also took over the december 2006 master in november 2007 to fix a few glitches. so basically... we recorded fast and furious during 2004 and 2005 and a little bit in 2006. at that point we decided that the ashes were dead and that we no longer wanted to make a rock record. the rest of the time has been just waiting around while i played in bands and got drunk at SXSW and ashby finished law school and bought his girl a ring. we recorded some songs twice. we recorded about 25 songs... enough for two complete al...

1. you cannot judge a book by it's cover. outside . inside . full slide show . 2. alison and i went driving around looking at houses for sale yesterday. i have the fever. 3. obama is a marxist. this would have been awesome when i was 17. i'm 33. its not awesome. 4. nobody saw this coming . and it resonates with me - Staying to Help in Iraq We have finally reached a point where humanitarian assistance, from us and others, can have an impact. The request is familiar to American ears: "Bring them home." But in Iraq, where I've just met with American and Iraqi leaders, the phrase carries a different meaning. It does not refer to the departure of U.S. troops, but to the return of the millions of innocent Iraqis who have been driven out of their homes and, in many cases, out of the country. In the six months since my previous visit to Iraq with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, this humanitarian crisis has not improved. However, during the l...