I really like these hand-painted vinyl records from artist Daniel Edlen. According to his web site, Daniel also does drawings of authors on their books. I’m partial to the Zappa, natch.

 

 
See more of Daniel’s work after the jump…

 
One of the aural drivers of the 20th century—and the bane of many traditionalist stick-men—the drum machine has a rather undersung legacy.

The first drum machine was invented in the early ‘30s by Leon Theremin on commission from Henry Cowell.

The biggest one was recently built and toured around Stockholm by Propellerheads, the Swedish bad boys behind Reason music software. Kids stomped on it, and its interface was projected onto a big-ass building downtown. Bring that thing over here!
 

 
Olivier Messiaen is one of my absolute favorite 20th century classical composers whose body of work is all wonderful, totally worth investigating and far too huge to try to cover in one post. For now I’ll simply present what I consider to be one of the most powerful, violent and mezemerizing pieces of music anybody’s ever likely to hear, the 5th movement of his Turangalîla Symphony, composed between 1946 and 1948 and performed here by The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (in truth the only version I could find on YouTube, but they do a smashing job). Note the prominent use of the early electronic instrument, the Ondes Martenot, essentially an elaborate keyboard controlled Theremin, later use extensively by Radiohead.

 
No, you really can’t beat that…

 
2009 Indian mega-hit Magadheera is the most expensive film produced in the Telagu language of Southern India. Telagu (Tollywood) films don’t have Bollywood budgets, but Magadheera , a tale of reincarnation spanning 400 years, delivers maximum bang for the buck and, in this scene, some big laughs.

Directed by S.S. Rajamouli (watch out Michael Bay) and starring Ram Charan Teja.

The DVD is available here.
 

 
Fascinating article from The New York Times about the travails of finishing up the work of the late Harvey Pekar, in particularly the innovative digital stories told online at Smith magazine’s Pekar Project. Sadly, it looks like some all-too-human jealously is threatening to derail completion of the work. What’s transpired after the writer’s death seems like, well, one of his own autobiographical tales. In fact, it’s pretty much classic Pekar:

As the Pekar Project continued, it became apparent that Ms. Brabner was displeased with one contributor in particular: Ms. Seibel, the only female artist involved, and the only one who worked face to face with Mr. Pekar.

Ms. Seibel, whose husband and three children also became acquainted with Mr. Pekar, said that Ms. Brabner would abruptly pull Mr. Pekar out of their telephone conversations, and that she tried to interfere with a Brooklyn book-signing event at which Ms. Seibel appeared with Mr. Pekar in November. Ms. Seibel said Mr. Pekar told her these conflicts were “for him to worry about,” not her. “He put it under his business,” she said. (Ms. Brabner declined to comment on these matters.)

No one in their artistic circle believes the relationship between Mr. Pekar and Ms. Seibel crossed professional boundaries, but some could see how it strained Mr. Pekar’s marriage.

“A part of him was enjoying the attention he was getting from this very good-looking young woman,” said Mr. Parker, one of the Pekar Project artists. “And, naturally, Joyce, how could she enjoy that? You don’t have to be a psychologist to see that one’s not going to be good.”

Not even Mr. Pekar’s death quelled the tensions between Ms. Seibel, who has said she spent part of his last day alive with him, and Ms. Brabner.

 
The Unfinished Tale of an Unlikely Hero (The New York Times)

 
Not what you think it’s going to be. Turn it up!  Many thanks to The Worst Channel on YouTube.