I just received this from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strike-Baseballs/dp/B003EEMG1U

Go scroll down and check out the sample clips.

Basically, in an ironic reversal of popular trends, these guys have 
taken crappy modern music and turned it into classic Rock & Roll.

Several things are clearly apparent:

1. These aren't cheezy novalty tracks. This stuff is high-quality music. 
It sound *fresh* and crisp and exciting.

2. It's not some guy doing bad Elvis impressions. This is propper, 
authentic Rock & Roll. The arrangements and instrumentation are all very 
convincing, as are the vocals. (I didn't even *notice* these were covers 
until I reached track 3!)

3. They've taken utter crap and made it sound... good. I mean, *really* 
good. As one reviewer wrote "it shouldn't work at all... but it really 
does!" I can't believe it.



Also, I would point out that I now have multiple CDs of music from the 
1950s (not all of it in any one style, mind you). There are some utterly 
brilliant songs in there. But there's surprisingly little that's good to 
dance to.

Then I went to Roade, and all night long the DJ played authentic tracks 
that thunder along at a frenetic pace. I didn't recognise any of them, 
but they were all very, very fast.

And so is this new CD. This is the kind of tempo we danced to at Roade. 
Maybe slightly faster, but not much. And with the characteristic rapid 
basslines. At Roade, I saw a man actually do this to a double bass, 
live. I wouldn't have believed you could do that to a fretless 
instrument, but he did it all night!

Damnit, now I have the overwhelming urge to go dance... and I've got 
nowhere to dance and nobody to dance with! :-(

(That's the only problem with this dancing lark!)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Oh my God... I just found this on the official website:

http://www.thebaseballs.com/videos/rocknroll

How *mental* is that?? It's, like, 3 minutes long and appears to be a 
single take. Crazy!

I had no idea Poland was anywhere near this cool.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Am 06.08.2010 14:30, schrieb Orchid XP v8:
> I just received this from Amazon:
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strike-Baseballs/dp/B003EEMG1U

Thanks for sharing - this is cool indeed.

Remotely reminds me of a band called "Big Daddy". They did some good 
"retro-cover" music, too - though not strictly Rock&Roll, and it's been 
a few years now.

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> http://www.thebaseballs.com/videos/rocknroll

  Try this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zcOFN_VBVo

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> It's, like, 3 minutes long and appears to be a single take. Crazy!

Did you watch Children of Men?  There's a scene that seems like 5 or 8 
minutes long, all one take, of him running through a war zone, into a 
building which gets blown up, back out again, etc etc etc.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Oh my God... I just found this on the official website:
> 
> http://www.thebaseballs.com/videos/rocknroll
> 
> How *mental* is that?? It's, like, 3 minutes long and appears to be a 
> single take. Crazy!
> 

It's a fun music video and all, but as far as technical achievement for 
long single take videos this is not very impressive nor very novel (not 
knocking the band, I'm sure they have a limited budget and aren't out to 
make a technically impressive video anyway).

In the realm of music videos (of which I know very little) I think that 
Ok Go's "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w is much more 
impressive in this regard (and is inspired by equally or more impressive 
previous work, such as that by Peter Fischli and David Weiss).  There's 
also several full-length movies which are essentially shot in a single 
take,  Rope (Hitchcock) and Russian Arc (Aleksandr Sokurov) both come to 
mind.  Multi-minute long takes in film actually aren't that uncommon.

Post a reply to this message

Kevin Wampler <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
> Multi-minute long takes in film actually aren't that uncommon.

  Actually taking into account the total amount of movies out there,
and the extremely small amount of multi-minute long takes, I'd say
it is pretty uncommon.

  Some TV series also sometimes make some really long take, probably just
for the fun of it. For example, at the beginning of the Stargate episode
"Fallen" there's a rather complex uncut sequence of over 50 seconds (the
one that ends with "I hope it's not contagious").

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 07/08/2010 7:28 PM, Kevin Wampler wrote:
>
> It's a fun music video and all, but as far as technical achievement for
> long single take videos this is not very impressive nor very novel

If you are interested in single shot films then try Russian Ark. 96 
minutes of St. Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum shot in one fluid 
take using High Definition video cameras.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:
> On 07/08/2010 7:28 PM, Kevin Wampler wrote:
>>
>> It's a fun music video and all, but as far as technical achievement for
>> long single take videos this is not very impressive nor very novel
> 
> If you are interested in single shot films then try Russian Ark. 96 
> minutes of St. Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum shot in one fluid 
> take using High Definition video cameras.
> 

I actually mentioned Russian Arc in my post :), but yeah, it's really 
impressive.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Kevin Wampler <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
>> Multi-minute long takes in film actually aren't that uncommon.
> 
>   Actually taking into account the total amount of movies out there,
> and the extremely small amount of multi-minute long takes, I'd say
> it is pretty uncommon.

Good point, I should probably have gone with a word like "rare" instead.


>   Some TV series also sometimes make some really long take, probably just
> for the fun of it. For example, at the beginning of the Stargate episode
> "Fallen" there's a rather complex uncut sequence of over 50 seconds (the
> one that ends with "I hope it's not contagious").
> 

I haven't really watched much of the Stargate TV series.  How is it?

Post a reply to this message