(Video embed above, and here's a direct MP4 download.)

A special treat from Boing Boing tv for your New Year's eve revelry, we're gonna sneak this one last episode in before the clock strikes 2009 here! Enjoy this music video for Sydney, Australia-based band The Herd, directed by the phenomenally talented Mike Daly. More about the band's "glam/folk/tropical" music here. Every time we played this one in the BBtv editing bay, we all ended up dancing around the Final Cut windows. Mike Daly did incredible work here, there's not a frame of this I'd do differently, and it says so much about the year we're ending tonight, don't you think? Dig it, TRY not to dance, keep the faith my fellow mutants, and Feliz Año a todos ustedes, from all of us at the Boing Boing blogs, and the Boing Boing TV team! Peace.

Continuing in our lazy-time retrospective of favorite Boing Boing tv episodes from the past year, we revisit an animated music video gem by Kristofer Ström of Ljudbilden & Piloten, based in Sweden. Here's their blog. Snip from the original BBtv blog post:

This short work is a music video he created for the Swedish electronica band Minilogue. The track is "Animals," and the video features colorful critter-blobs wreaking hyperfun havoc all over an urban real-life-scape.

We asked Kristofer to tell us a little about how this came together, and he explains:

In late 2007 we (me and the band Minilogue) started talking about making a followup to the very popular "hitchhiker's choice" video. At the same time I was doing some VJ-ing for them and found that those little animations i made for that could be characters in their next video. So I started producing a lot of loops of creatures. I hooked up with bart yates, nicholas wakeham and erik buchholtz, and our first thought was to put them all in an animated world... but i didn't really feel it. Then Erik showed me a test of my characters motion-tracked onto some footage -- and there it was. So he went out shooting some spots, rough cuts without the creatures, then we added those little fellas in the footage. Voilá! A longer version will be found on the minilogue DVD, coming this fall, finally! The longer version of "hitchhiker's choice" will be on there too. Some other stuff can be found on our temporary web site: http://varelsen.com. Link to Minilogue's YouTube features. (Special thanks to Claire Jones, and to Cocoon.)

Longtime Boing Boing tv contributors monochrom have brought us Soviet terrorism training videos, improvisational urban fires, and highfalutin economic philosophy from the mouths of sock puppets.

Monochrom sock puppets Kiki & Bubu return to us today, for a very special holiday-themed episode: Kiki & Bubu & The Feelings. The yuletide song they perform for us is sure to be an instant classic -- Killing Capitalism with Christmas. You can grab it from iTunes, on the 2008 album "Monochrom: Carefully Selected Moments".

Bonus: Watch this behind-the-socks footage, from the secret filming location in the Austrian alps.

SYNOPSIS (some spoilers):

Yes, it is a time of crisis, but it is also a time of Christmas. Slovenian hackers crack CNN's hologram thingie, and bring us the avatar of gender-ambiguous singing sensation Enron Hubbard. Enron sings a hypnotic call to reject holiday consumerism and replace malls with meaning. Or if not meaning, post-internet nihilism and the ironic use of MySpace smiley-gifs. Online porn monster shows up after Enron is finished singing his holiday song, then Kiki and Bubu scamper off for eggnog frappucinos.

(Special thanks to chief executive sock puppet overlord and awesome guy Johannes Grenzfurthner!)

(Flash video embedded above, here's a downloadable MP4.)

Today's episode of Boing Boing tv is an OFFWORLD feature -- this time, Joel and Rob visit the annual chiptunes music gathering Blip Festival 2008, better known as "blipfest."

Joel interviews several artists in this episode who create music inspired by the aural texture of old-schoold video games: Mr. Spastic, Jellica, and Nullsleep.

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Join the conversation about this episode over on Offworld.

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Previously: Blipfest 2008: Joel interviews chiptunes artist Bubblyfish.

(Special props to Beschizza for doubling as director of photography for these episodes! Holy Brother of Mario, what can't that guy do. Seriously. )

(Flash video embed above, downloadable MP4 link here)

Today on Boing Boing tv, the first in a series of gaming/gadget features with Joel Johnson from an annual celebration of 8-bit/videogame-inspired music. Joel says:

Last week found us at Blip Festival 2008, the megalocus of live chiptunes music, where Game Boys met Atari STs with Amiga visuals for four evenings of square wave fun.

We were out in Gowanus in Brooklyn at the event, at least until Rob and I got tired and had to go home and rest our widdle heads. But until then, we got to speak to several of the artists just after their sets, and the BBtv crew is taking our drunken, blurry footage and actually making something worth watching out of it.

First up: Haeyoung "Bubblyfish" Kim

Here's the comments thread over at Boing Boing Offworld.

BBtv presents this week's Friday "Unicorn Chaser" -- the goofy truth behind Xeni and BBtv's UK music correspondent Russell Porter's reports from the SF Outside Lands music festival. Summer concert season is long gone, and the gaffer tape that once spelled "Boing Boing tv" on our tour bus has long since faded, along with our concert sunburns. So we figure it's safe to reveal how much dorking out took place between story tapings and band sessions. Besotted joyrides on stolen Segways, the snatching of sunglasses from complete strangers, and improvised pickup lines like "I'm the drummer from Radiohead. Really." Russell? You really are "special." We love you, man, and we miss "working" with you.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled weekly programming (Brandon from Offworld is taking the week off from Boing Boing tv duties) to bring you a short, sweet, retro-tastic little video from Bill Barminski, one of our favorite filmmakers and multimedia artists. This piece is a music video for his music side project, the SubAtomic Nixons. Direct MP4 download here (Duration:00:01:32). You can view previous BBtv episodes featuring his work right here.

A career milestone for Joel Johnson on Boing Boing tv -- his very first shower scene. The naked gadget reviewer explains:

What hath videoblogging wrought? It is my honor and personal shame to present my video review of the Freestyle Audio Soundwave underwater MP3 player. Using the miracle of not showing you my junk, this is my first nude videoblog, but remains safe for work. Except for my dancing, which if everything goes to plan, will induce crippling nausea.

If you'd like a direct download — I'm looking at you, my furry fanbase — then here is a direct MP4 link.

Might I suggest you wander on over to the viewer comment thread on Boing Boing Gadgets blog, where the words "cheapish," "fap," and "natural urge to want to see the entire shot" have recently been typed? And don't worry, I swear the video is totally worksafe. Also, the ending is quite funny, so do stick around for that.

As is our newly minted tradition, Boing Boing tv ends the holiday week with a Unicorn Chaser.

In today's edition, Boing Boing Gadgets' Joel Johnson, who trekked out into the wilderness for this previous episode, returns there to perform the nerdcore anthem embedded above -- UHHHH. (MP4 Link).

Not a single one of these grunts was repeated. All were taped in the order they appear in this remix, the morning after Joel was nearly bitten by a snake, doing a gadget review out in the wilds.

Today, the Boing Boing tv crew takes the day off for time with family, friends, and food. We revisit one of our favorite good-vibe animation episodes, a lovely video from Bill Barminski. Perhaps you missed it? Do watch now.

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Butterflies, wah-wah pedals, and one-eyed yeti, ahoy! The Boing Boing tv crew is proud to return to the work of one of our favorite multi-media savants, Bill Barminski of Walter Robot Studios. The filmmaker, composer, illustrator and animator shares this new video work, a hypnotic flight of fancy for his music project, the Subatomic Nixons. Enjoy the "Hazy Day," and happy weekend, everyone. Special thanks to Barminski and Christopher Louie, and all of the Walter Robot team. Here are previous BBtv episodes featuring their work.

In Boing Boing tv's inaugural Friday Unicorn Chaser, we reprise our OFFWORLD debut episode with a special extended dance remix of editor Brandon "Dirty Dancing Death Dwarf" Boyer, funking out in Azeroth.

Walter Robot, aka Bill Barminski and Christopher Louie, produced this video for Gnarls Barkley's new track "Mystery Man." Here are previous Boing Boing tv episodes featuring Barminski's work.

Today on Boing Boing tv, a music video about life and death in the New Depression: Mom and Pop Killer, by Bay Area "intelligent hip-hop" artist The Grouch. (Special thanks to director Isaac Klotz.)

Boing Boing tv's UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter speaks with Ben Lamdin, founder of the nine-piece, alt-jazz ensemble Nostalgia 77 Octet (MySpace). Here's how one reviewer described their music:

Imagine Breakstra hanging with Cinematic Orchestra, or DJ Shadow teaming up with Elvin Jones and you're close to the sound of Nostalgia 77. A dark and stormy clash of breaks n' beats, moody bass lines, and cosmic jazz. Also includes the heavyweight cover of The White Stripes' "7 Nation Army". Hard to resist whether you're a hip-hop head, music lover, or jazz freak. For fans of Bonobo, Quantic, Cinematic Orchestra, Radio Citizen, Portishead, Polar Bear, Poets Of Rhythm, and Sleepwalker.

Butterflies, wah-wah pedals, and one-eyed yeti, ahoy! The Boing Boing tv crew is proud to return to the work of one of our favorite multi-media savants, Bill Barminski of Walter Robot Studios. The filmmaker, composer, illustrator and animator shares this new video work, a hypnotic flight of fancy for his music project, the Subatomic Nixons. Enjoy the "Hazy Day," and happy weekend, everyone. Special thanks to Barminski and Christopher Louie, and all of the Walter Robot team. Here are previous BBtv episodes featuring their work.

Café Tacvba (MySpace, Wikipedia) are one of the most, if not the most, imaginative and recklessly experimental indie rock bands ever to come out of Latin America. They formed in near Mexico City in the late '80s, and have been happily mutating ever since. I'm always kind of surprised when non-Spanish-speaking American friends don't know who they are -- they're sort of like the Radiohead of Mexico. Anyway, Boing Boing tv caught up with the tacubos backstage after their set at the Outside Lands festival, and our UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter asked them important questions about their excellent shoes, and why lots of ladies run screaming to stage-rush them during shows (Answer: because they're awesome).

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Sponsor Note: This episode, and other BBtv music features this month, are sponsored by the Crowdfire live music social media project. You can find images, video, and audio about the band featured in today's show at Crowdfire -- here's the search link for fan-uploads related to Café Tacvba.

Related Boing Boing tv episodes from Outside Lands:
* Roots Reggae Legends Toots and the Maytals (music)
* Broken Social Scene: interview and live performance (music)
* Galactic's "Modern New Orleans Funk" with Xeni and Russell (music)
* Interview with Cold War Kids frontman Nathan Willett (music)
* Andy Gould, rock band manager, dances on the labels' graves.
* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

(Special thanks to Wayneco for the magic bus, and to Virgin America for air travel.)

In today's episode of Boing Boing tv, our UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter interviews Adele, who describes her sound as "heartbroken soul." Adele's new album "19" was nominated for a Mercury Prize (think: Grammys, sort of, for the UK), and Russell caught up with her at the awards show backstage. Adele will be the musical guest on the October 18 edition of Saturday Night Live! The video for her song "Chasing Pavement" excerpted in today's BBtv was directed by Matthew Cullen.

Toots and the Maytals are true reggae legends (more: Wikipedia, MySpace). Founder Toots Hibbert is credited with coining the word "reggae" in the band's 1968 single, "Do the Raggay." They've had more number one hit songs in Jamaica than any recording artist ever, and received a Grammy for Best Reggae Album of the Year in 2005.

He was a contemporary of Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff, and was featured in Perry Henzell's seminal 1973 reggae movie "The Harder They Come" (Amazon link).

I joined BBtv's London-based music correspondent Russell Porter for a visit on the venerable Mister Toots' tour bus after an amazing set at Outside Lands, and we sat down with him for a conversation about the history of reggae, and what Toots thinks about contemporary hip-hop and dancehall -- and where his legacy leads. The generous vanity intro he did for BBtv is a thing of beauty, we can all die happy now.

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Sponsor Note: This episode, and other BBtv music features this month, are sponsored by the Crowdfire live music social media project. You can find images, video, and audio about the band featured in today's show at Crowdfire -- here's the search link for fan-uploads related to Toots and the Maytals.

Related Boing Boing tv episodes from Outside Lands:
* Broken Social Scene: interview and live performance (music)
* Galactic's "Modern New Orleans Funk" with Xeni and Russell (music)
* Interview with Cold War Kids frontman Nathan Willett (music)
* Andy Gould, rock band manager, dances on the labels' graves.
* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

(Special thanks to Wayneco for the magic bus, to Michael Cacia, and to Virgin America for air travel.)

When Led Zeppelin founder Robert Plant teamed up with Nashville mama Allison Krauss, critics compared the musical collaboration to a hookup between King Kong and Bambi. But their album "Raising Sand," produced by T-Bone Burnett, earned the odd duo widespread raves.

Boing Boing tv's London music correspondent Russell Porter caught up with Plant and Krauss backstage at the Mercury Prize, an annual award for the best album from the UK or Ireland.

Boing Boing tv is wrapping up the work week with a music feature on Broken Social Scene, a Canadian indie rock music collective with about 20 members. Like a giant litter of hipster kittens! Together, they create a sound best described as Baroque Pop. Each musician contributes their own unique style into an fusion of rhythm and ambience.

They’ve won two Juno Awards (sort of like Canada’s Grammys) for Alternative Album of the Year. BBtv's UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter caught up with Brendan Canning, one of the band’s founding members, at the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco.

Note: this episode, and other BBtv music features this month, are sponsored by the Crowdfire live music social media project. You can find images, video, and audio about the band featured in today's show at Crowdfire -- here's the search link for fan-uploads related to Broken Social Scene.

Related Boing Boing tv episodes from Outside Lands:
* Galactic's "Modern New Orleans Funk" with Xeni and Russell (music)
* Interview with Cold War Kids frontman Nathan Willett (music)
* Andy Gould, rock band manager, dances on the labels' graves.
* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

New Orleans is a lot of things to a lot of people, but to the guys in the band Galactic, it's the motherland of funk. In today's Boing Boing tv episode, Xeni and Russell catch Galactic's Crescent City Soul Crewe live at the Outside Lands festival, and speak to them about the band's homage to this birthplace of jazz and its ancestral influence on many other forms of modern music. The band's newest release, From the Corner to the Block, is potent stuff, and pulling in rave reviews all over.

( Sponsor note: Crowdfire is sponsoring this series of music features on BBtv, and you can find crowdsourced snapshots, audio, and video about this band at crowdfire.net. )

We're kicking off the week at Boing Boing tv with a visit from our London-based music correspondent Russell Porter, who sits down with Rachel Unthank & The Winterset, a experimental folk-roots ensemble from Northumberland, UK.

Rachel and Becky Unthank are sisters, and Russell caught up with them at this year's Nationwide Mercury Prize, where they are up for high honors.

In his "best albums of 2007" review, Paul Morley of Observer Music Magazine described the band's work as "tough as it is gentle, as ancient as it is modern, and as coldly desolate as it is achingly intimate. They might not end up being the best-selling British all-girl group of all time, but they're well on their way to being the most charismatic and imaginative."

The girls are currently on tour throughout the United States and Europe. Their 2007 album The Bairns is lovely, and you can pick it up at Amazon, iTunes, and elsewhere around the web.

Boing Boing tv's UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter catches up with Cold War Kids frontman Nathan Willett for a brief chat about the band's new record, Loyalty to Loyalty, just as Willett and the band finish a set at San Francisco's Outside Lands fest.

(special thanks to Virgin America for air travel, and to Wayneco for the magic bus)

Related Boing Boing tv episodes from Outside Lands:
* Andy Gould, rock band manager, dances on the labels' graves.
* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

Today on Boing Boing tv, our UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter sits down with legendary rock band manager Andy Gould for a chat about crazy, historic rocknroll hijinks he's witnessed in his decades in the biz. We caught up with Gould at the Outside Lands Music and Arts festival, near the Crowdfire tent.

Gould is presently the manager for Primus, Morrissey, and other acts; past and present clients include Linkin Park, Lionel Ritchie, Rob Zombie, Pantera, Kool and the Gang, Damien Marley. Together with Irving Azoff, he manages Guns and Roses. He explains that he was there during the early days of "fur coat and cricket bat," band managers, tough guys who "walked around with suitcases full of hundreds of thousands of dollars when the band walked offstage."

"What's really really great now is that the record companies have gone out of business," he says -- why would a music manager be dancing on the labels' graves? And how is a pilfered pre-release MP3 like a box of Chicken McNuggets? Watch and learn, grasshoppers.

If you dig this, check out our previous BBtv episodes from Outside Lands. And there's tons of fan-made footage and photos of Primus on Crowdfire.net (they're a BBtv sponsor).

(special thanks to Jason McHugh; to Virgin America for air travel, and to Wayneco for the magic bus)

Related Boing Boing tv episodes from Outside Lands:
* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

BBtv's UK music correspondent Russell Porter interviews British modern "post-jazz" group Portico Quartet about the eclectic influences behind their sound -- and how it felt to be nominated for this year's Mercury Prize. Here are previous BBtv episodes with music features from Russell. Listen to Portico Quartet at Last.fm, and you can pick up their new album Knee Deep in the North Sea (just released a few weeks ago!) on iTunes or Amazon.

Boing Boing tv caught up with Les Claypool and Larry "Ler" Lalonde of Primus at Outside Lands for a hyperdelic, transdimensional conversation about inflatables, Maker Faire, South Park, weird home-made electronic instruments, and more.

Les also made his film directing debut this year with Electric Apricot, a faux-cumentary feature about a fictional jam band in search of the ultimate music festival.

If you dig this, check out our previous BBtv episodes from Outside Lands. And there's tons of fan-made footage and photos of Primus on Crowdfire.net (they're a BBtv sponsor).

(special thanks to Jason McHugh; to Virgin America for air travel, and to Wayneco for the magic bus)

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

One of the artists Boing Boing was excited to "discover" at the recent Outside Lands festival had in fact already "discovered" us. Today on Boing Boing tv, we present singer-songwriter Kaki King.

Pesco says the prolific multi-instrumentalist "plays like a mofo," and boy is he right. The BBtv crew and I caught her live performance at the festival, and chased her down for an interview backstage (literally: our legs were sort of hanging off the side of the platform while guys hauled drums and amps off). We learned that (1) she's a fan of the Boing Boing blog! and (2) she hates comment trolls. Boy do we love her.

Kaki has a new record out, "Dreaming of Revenge," and she's touring the world as I type, with show dates in Europe and the US through 2008.

Rolling Stone named her one of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” describing her style as "Van Halen Meets Bootsy." You'll witness why in today's BBtv episode.

We talk with her about life on the road, how IM and social networking help keep her from getting homesick while touring, and how she managed to go from busking in NYC subways to jamming with the likes of the Foo Fighters and hypnotizing crowds of tens of thousands with her rich, distinctive sound.

Speaking of Outside Lands -- you can find lots of crowd-submitted video, audio, reviews, and cameraphone snapshots of Kaki's performance at Crowdfire.net (the project is a BBtv sponsor).

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

(Special thanks to Bre and Wayne for the bus; to Virgin America for generously providing air transportation)

Today is animation day on Boing Boing tv, and we're super proud to present a new work from one of our favorite young animator/directors -- Kristofer Ström of Ljudbilden & Piloten, based in Sweden. Here's their blog, and this has to be the most lovely Facebook graffitti ever.

This short work is a music video he created for the Swedish electronica band Minilogue. The track is "Animals," and the video features colorful critter-blobs wreaking hyperfun havoc all over an urban real-life-scape.

We asked Kristofer to tell us a little about how this came together, and he explains:

In late 2007 we (me and the band Minilogue) started talking about making a followup to the very popular "hitchhiker's choice" video. At the same time I was doing some VJ-ing for them and found that those little animations i made for that could be characters in their next video. So I started producing a lot of loops of creatures. I hooked up with bart yates, nicholas wakeham and erik buchholtz, and our first thought was to put them all in an animated world... but i didn't really feel it. Then Erik showed me a test of my characters motion-tracked onto some footage -- and there it was. So he went out shooting some spots, rough cuts without the creatures, then we added those little fellas in the footage. Voilá! A longer version will be found on the minilogue DVD, coming this fall, finally! The longer version of "hitchhiker's choice" will be on there too. Some other stuff can be found on our temporary web site: http://varelsen.com.

Link to Minilogue's YouTube features. (Special thanks to Claire Jones, and to Cocoon.)

"Britain is overflowing with new ideas and imagination, especially when it comes to music," says our UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter in today's BBtv episode. Russell is reporting in from the 2008 edition of the Nationwide Mercury Prize, where up-and-coming artists get a chance at instastardom, alongside established headliners like Radiohead or Coldplay. After a brief introduction to the history of this prize (about 3:00 minutes in), Russell introduces us today to the alt-folksy sounds of 19-year-old British singer-songwriter Laura Marling.

Below, a beautiful animated video for the song she performs live during our BBtv ep -- "Ghosts," directed by James Copeman. The song appears on Marling's newly released "Alas I Cannot Swim." Her album is offered in a really cool box set with original artwork.

Boing Boing Gadgets editor Joel Johnson checks out Crowdfire, a sort of real-life social media experiment at the Outside Lands Music fest. The experiment allows concertgoers to upload, share, remix, and "favorite" photos, audio and video they shot themselves... during the event. Some of that media was projected on the stage where bands played, and all of it was made available online.

Crowdfire (with Windows) is Boing Boing tv's sponsor this month, and the project was the brainchild of BB partner and FM founder/CEO John Battelle and Rick Farman, the festival developer who created Outside Lands.

Crowdfire is sort of like an event-centric Flickr or videosharing site, but on a very large scale -- some 60K+ people attended the concert each day, and as Battelle said, probably 59,000 of them were carrying cameraphones.

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

(Special thanks to Bre and Wayne for the bus; to Virgin America for generously providing air transportation)

Today's dose of Boing Boing tv is an experimental rock animation oddity featuring one of our favorite directors, Syd Garon. It's a music video for To My Surprise, a band led by The Clown (Shawn Crahan) from nu-metal heavyweights Slipknot.

The video was directed and animated by Syd Garon and Eric Henry with illustrations by Doug Cunningham (of Morning Breath), Lee Ballard, Cristie Henry and The Clown's daughter, who was 6 years old at the time.

Part of what makes this so interesting to us is the crazy backstory. Syd explains:

The record was produced by Rick Rubin and had some pretty good Beatles-inspired tunes on it if memory serves.

The Clown had a bizarre list of things -- completely unrelated to our treatment -- which we were required to have in the video. The items were so strange we decided not to even try to fight it. That is why the final video has a pilgrim and a turkey, a rubber dog head, and a rat eating a taco among other oddities.

In addition to "the list" we had to incorporate a bunch of black and white drawings made by his 6 year old daughter. Oh yeah, the drawings had to be playing dodgeball.

We actually had a conversation with an assistant at the record label and spoke the words, "yes there is a rat eating a taco in the video".

One of the band members refused to have his cartoon likeness anything other than completely realistic. That is why a goddamn imaginary band has a robot with bunny ears, a three eyed Rastafarian and one totally fucking normal guy.

In retrospect, having one normal guy makes the band even stranger in a way I never would have thought of. So, hats off to you, normal guy.

To our surprise the video didn't totally work. The kids drawings were actually awesome and if I had a time machine I might go back and try making a video just around them instead combining our ideas with The Clowns.

We made this video with the mighty Doug Cunningham at Morning Breath and it was fun to get the Wave Twisters crew back together again.

Also: Previous BBtv episodes featuring the work of Syd Garon.

BBtv presents a performance and interview with Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, purveyors of cut-up street talk and fine electro-glitch-funk. Their new album, Angles, was just released in the United States, and our UK music correspondent Russell Porter digs in.

The duo consists of Dan Stephens and David Meads, both of whom are natives of Stanford-le-Hope in Essex, England. Their band's name -- "Scroobius Pip" -- is an intentional botch of the Edward Lear poem, The Scroobious Pip.

The second half of today's episode (at about 7:00 in, after the midroll ad, and the stuff about Pip's lip tat) is the music video for Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip's "A Letter from God to Man," directed by Steve Glashier of NTSH. The song is constructed around a short, sweet Radiohead sample (Planet Telex) from the 1995 album, The Bends. The still you see in the flash embed above is from this music video.

Here are previous editions of Russell's interviews with up-and-coming indie artists for Boing Boing tv.

Their 2007 song "Thou Shalt Always Kill" was featured in this previous Boing Boing tv episode, embedded below.

BBtv's London-based music correspondent Russell Porter brings us a performance and interview from the Rumble Strips (website | MySpace | Wikipedia). They're currently on tour throughout the USA, and they're named after a UK-English term for the "small, continuous lines of bumps along the edge of a road." Their music is described as " Soul / Regional Mexican / Powerpop;" a fine, rockin' way to close out a short Labor Day work week. Previous BBtv music features with Russell Porter are here.

When the BBtv team and I were covering the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco, a lot of interesting stuff happened. Case in point -- today's episode, in which members of the "rock / blues / French pop" band Carney (MySpace / band website) wander into our giant blogstar tour bus (generously loaned by Wayneco). They perform an amazing acoustic set, after zany hijinks.

Those hijinks include phoning the "president of show business" on a dishwashing hose, and an unintelligible deconstruction of jazz music with our UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter. The live set aboard the bus begins around 4:40, and it was electrifying in person when it (most unexpectedly) happened.

All of this happened because a BBtv team member taped the letters "Boing Boing tv" in blue gaffer tape to the side of our ginormous motorcoach, which was parked just behind the festival's main stage. The Carney dudes were wandering around in the dust around 2am looking for their drummer's lost jacket (more on that later), spotted the bus, and because they're fans of the blog, they peeked in to say hello. We're sure glad they did.

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You can check out more of Carney and the many other acts that performed at Outside Lands at the CROWDFIRE website, where folks who went to the fest uploaded photos and video they shot themselves.... during the event. It's a really cool project. We contributed a bunch of clips and stills there.

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(Special thanks to Bre and Wayne for the bus; to Virgin America for generously providing air transportation; to BBtv field producer Jason McHugh; to BBtv production assistant Ilana Shulman, and to Windows and Crowdfire, for sponsoring our Outside Lands coverage.)

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

Our retrospective of favorite Boing Boing tv editions concludes today in a visit with music legend David Byrne, at the launch of his musical installation Playing the Building. This episode was a blast for cast and crew alike, and we're revisiting it today to remind you that Byrne is about to start a Fall US tour to support his recently-released collaboration with Brian Eno, Everything that Happens will Happen Today. Snip from that project's website:

Byrne and Eno began their artistic relationship in the late seventies with 3 Talking Heads albums, followed by their groundbreaking album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

The album is their first together in 30 years, and is available in deliciously DRM-free digital download. It's beautiful.

Photos from the BBtv "Playing the Building" shoot, below -- and in the episode -- by Clayton Cubitt. (Special thanks to Danielle Spencer, and Jason Wishnow).

Previously on Boing Boing: David Byrne and Brian Eno's kick ass new album in a million downloadable and physical formats

Our retrospective of favorite Boing Boing tv episodes continues. I'd actually planned to post something else today, but this is what feels appropriate, while our friends in Louisiana -- and expats from there -- cope with Hurricane Gustav. So above and below, an encore presentation of BBtv's two-part feature on the Hot 8 Brass Band of New Orleans, with our UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter.

A little background on the band:

The members of the Hot 8 were all born and raised in New Orleans; many of them began playing together in high school. In 1995 they came together and began playing traditional New Orleans brass band music professionally.

Founded by Bennie Pete, Jerome Jones, and Harry Cook in 1995, the band has played in traditional Second Line parades hosted each Sunday by a Social Aid and Pleasure Club ever since. The Hot 8 are famous for playing all day in the sun, then hopping to a club gig and playing through the night. But even more than their boundless energy, what makes the Hot 8 special are the sounds they coax from their well-loved, well-worn horns.

(...) Following Hurricane Katrina and the devastation wrought upon New Orleans, The Hot 8 became the featured band in the SAVE OUR BRASS! relief project, which brought music to evacuee shelters, temporary trailer parks, and communities that have reached out to New Orleanians.

Part one of the interview and live musical performance above, part two below. -- XJ

The Boing Boing tv crew continues their hard-earned snooze in the sands of a swingers' resort on the south shore of Mars today, but we're revisiting the best of the show while we slack off in outer space. (Robot! Bring me another red Rover martini.)

Today, we feature the work of animator, filmmaker, and music video director Bill Barminski, a longtime Boing Boing fave.

Above, "Drive In," a soothing ambient work I like to watch before bedtime.

Another beloved Barminksi joint is below, S.E.X.Y. R.O.B.O.T.: Pinker Tones music video by Walter Robot.

Here's a link to all of the BBtv episodes which have featured Barminski's work.

My favorite appears in the second half of this BBtv episode: the "Fuji Apple" animated short from Barminski's production team Walter Robot, with music by Boards of Canada (song: Roygbiv, from "Music has the Right to Children.") I could just watch that over and over again, and I often do.

Boing Boing tv is taking a week off for organic yak-yogurt wrestling on a private Himalayan island; we leave you to enjoy some of our crew's favorite past episodes in the meantime.

"Gem sweater diva" and midwestern maven Leslie Hall has appeared twice on our show. The video featured above is a tour diary she recorded just for us. If you like that, check out our backstage visit with her during a stop in San Francisco, below. "With these shoulder pads, I have the strength to destroy villages, homes and crops."

Original BBtv posts:
* Leslie Hall: Dear Diary
* Leslie Hall: ceWEBrity, gem sweater diva, jammer of jams.

Team Boing Boing tv was live and in effect all weekend long at the first Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate park. The event was a blast, and we interviewed many amazing artists here. BBtv's UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter hopped across the pond to join us for hijinks and great music, the first of which is this conversation with David Hinds, the frontman of legendary roots reggae band STEEL PULSE.

(special thanks to Wayne and Bre for use of their magic bus; air travel generously provided by Virgin America.)

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Boing Boing tv backstage at Outside Lands: (Xeni + Russell Porter)

Boing Boing tv is live and in full effect at the Outside Lands Music and Arts fest in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The gates haven't opened yet, but when they do, some 180,000 people are expected to pour in over three days to see bands like Radiohead, Beck, Wilco, Primus, Tom Petty, Manu Chao, Black Keys, Ben Harper, and dozens of others, plus some cool tech-art experiments we'll be digging into.

I'm here with our UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter, and the entire BBtv crew over the next 4 days. We're posting this episode from inside a giant rock star tour bus *very* generously loaned to us by friends of the blog

We ran around yesterday in a golf cart with the guy who created Outside Lands, Rick Farman of Superfly Productions. We spoke with him for this episode about the idea behind this festival, and what it takes to put together something this huge and complex. Events like this are a virtual world of sorts -- only with lots of real live breathing humans.

We're parked about 100 feet away from the main stage. It feels strange to be so close to something so big before the gates open. All night long, production vehicles and golf carts full of loading guys buzzed around; as I type this there's an eerie quiet before the opening chords explode. This is going to be fun.

Tech notes: the tall eucalyptus trees next to our bus (this is a gorgeous park, remember!) are blocking our satellite dish, so no WiFi in the bus right now -- instead, we're jacked into EVDO cards on MacBooks, on which BBtv editor Wes and segment producer Derek edited this piece last night. I'm pleasantly surprised at upload speeds on this card (it's a Verizon Rev-A). Stay tuned for more video from the BBtv bus at Outside Lands!

(special thanks to Wayne and Bre for use of their magic bus; air travel generously provided by Virgin America.)

Related Boing Boing tv episodes:

* Primus: Xeni interviews Les and Ler (music)
* Kaki King, guitar hero: performance, interview with Xeni (music)
* BB Gadgets' Joel at Outside Lands: Crowdfire deconstructed
* Carney at Outside Lands - a "Boing Boing tv Bus Session." (music)
* Steel Pulse founder David Hinds at Outside Lands (music)

Boing Boing tv's UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter interviews singer-songwriter Candie Payne. The "atmospheric" chanteuse hails from Liverpool, and her brand of indie-pop draws fans the world over.

Boing Boing tv's UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter interviews -- and coaxes an epic street performance from -- Beardyman, the human beatbox from Brighton. This dude is a totally unassuming normal guy who can flip a switch in his brain to make crazy perfect funky human beatbox sounds come out of his mouth. The ladies dig it, as you'll see around 08:13, when he lets loose on the mic with a flock of blonde birds surrounding him.

I blogged about Beardyman in 2007 when this crazy cooking video hit the 'tubes.

If you're in the mood for still more of him doing his thing, below is a popular YouTube video in which Beardyman shows up at some stuffy academic conference, and poses as a lecturer before breaking out into beats.

Boing Boing tv's UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter interviews the young experimental jazz band EMPIRICAL, from London. Today's episode includes an extended musical interlude, to ensure the mellowest possible Monday for all the peeps out there in BBtv-land. The band's "influences" roster says it the best:

Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Booker Little, Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, Johnny Hodges, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Steve Coleman, Branford Marsalis, Ray Brown, Jimmy Garrison, Bob Hurst, Ron Carter, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, Ben Riley, Thelonious Monk, Jason Moran, Wynton Kelly, Keith Jarrat, Herbie Hancock, Ali Farka Toure, Oumou Sangare and to many others to list.

Previous PORTER REPORT episodes on BBtv:

Russell Porter: Hot 8 Brass Band of New Orleans, pt. 1

Hot 8 Brass Band, pt. 2

Russell Porter: Transgressive and rockfeedback.com, pt. 2

Russell Porter roundtable: Transgressive Records, rockfeedback.com, pt. 1

Russell Porter with Alice Russell, pt. 2

Russell Porter with Alice Russell

Russell Porter and Cadence Weapon, pt. 1.

Russell Porter and Cadence Weapon, pt. 2.

Russell Porter with George Pringle

Russell Porter with The Young Knives pt 1

Russell Porter with The Young Knives pt 2

Russell Porter with The Futureheads

Russell Porter with The Guillotines

Russell Porter with Peggy Sue and the Pirates

Russell Porter with Dockers MC

Russell Porter with Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip

Recently on Boing Boing tv, we aired an animated music video by Bill Barminski and Christopher Louie for the Pinker Tones' song "S.E.X.Y. R.O.B.O.T" We loved the band's vibe, and couldn't get enough of the song, so we reached out to this Barcelona-based electronica duo for more. Today on BBtv, a remix of that song, with an alternate video featuring actual real live sexy robots (director: David Lopez). And in part two of today's show, another delightful and new video for their song "Working Bees" (director: The Magical Thinking studio). You can catch the Pinker Tones on tour throughout the USA, including spots on the WARPED tour.

(Special thanks to Paul Dryden of Nacional Records)

What would Japan look like through the eyes of a drifter camped in a shantytown near one of Tokyo's trendiest zones?

Today on Boing Boing tv, we debut Dowa Mondai: Assimilation Issues, an experimental short film by Bob Jaroc which attempts to provide an answer. The director explains:

In the run up to the launch of the 2006 av album Greedy Baby, Plaid (Ed Handley) and myself were on tour in Japan. On a day off in Tokyo I visited a small shantytown in Shibuya I had seen from a train the day before, tucked away in a kids playground. My translator Nick Stone and myself introduced ourselves to a friendly group of people and negotiated permission to pry into their lives and film, in exchange for some food/ cigarettes and wine.

My intentions for the piece were to stay clear of making a patronizing "cry/be angry for the homeless people" thing or a romanticized view of that life. I wanted to distill the experiences of the people who took the time to talk to me and question myself why I ended up going there in search of something to film.

This was filmed on Kodak vision2 200 super 8 stock with a Beaulieu 6008pro. The neg was cut into 1000 strips and was given away with the 1st 1000 copies of Greedy Baby. Dowa Mondai: Assimilation Issues was made from those rushes/recordings.

The short was shot, directed, and edited by Bob Jaroc, with music from Ed Handley (Plaid). Jaroc's past work includes work with other recording artists such as The Go Team and Leila. He has collaborated with artists Chris Dorley Brown, Blast Theory and Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich. Jaroc has appeared at the Queen Elizabeth hall, the Los Angeles Natural History Musem and the London IMAX, and he is currently working with the dance company Random Dance on a piece that will be headline the main stage at the UK festival The Big Chill.

More selected shorts by Jaroc here.

Plaid, whose music you hear in the piece, recently remixed a song by Bats for Lashes featured previously on Boing Boing; the 12" of that remix will be out soon.

(special thanks to David Pescovitz)

Today Boing Boing tv presents part two of our UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter's interview with the legendary Hot 8 Brass Band, from New Orleans.

Band leader Bennie "Big Peter" Pete explains the history of second line, the roots of New Orleans jazz, and what it took to survive as jazz band in the French Quarter.

Today's episode is a little longer than usual, so we can include an extended musical number live from the streets of Brighton -- the Hot 8 Brass Band performing their Louisiana-style cover of Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing." The band is currently on tour throughout the USA. Enjoy!

Previous PORTER REPORT episodes on BBtv:

Russell Porter: Hot 8 Brass Band of New Orleans, pt. 1

Russell Porter: Transgressive and rockfeedback.com, pt. 2

Russell Porter roundtable: Transgressive Records, rockfeedback.com, pt. 1

Russell Porter with Alice Russell, pt. 2

Russell Porter with Alice Russell

Russell Porter and Cadence Weapon, pt. 1.

Russell Porter and Cadence Weapon, pt. 2.

Russell Porter with George Pringle

Russell Porter with The Young Knives pt 1

Russell Porter with The Young Knives pt 2

Russell Porter with The Futureheads

Russell Porter with The Guillotines

Russell Porter with Peggy Sue and the Pirates

Russell Porter with Dockers MC

Russell Porter with Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip

Today on Boing Boing tv, we are proud to share the sneak-preview of a television pilot, the AQUABATS! SUPERSHOW!, a live-action and animation program featuring the popular superhero ska band, The Aquabats (MySpace).

Jon Berrett of Yo Gabba Gabba explains:

This spring the Aquabats completed a pilot for a new television show based on the misadventures of rock and roll's greatest super dude men. The Aquabats have been a band for over a decade, have toured the world, and put out 5 full length studio albums.

The AQUABATS! SUPERSHOW! TELEVISION PILOT will have a special screening at the San Diego House of Blues show on July 25th, 2008 [during Comic-Con].. If you already have tickets, you are STOKED!

The excerpt we are world-premiering on BBtv today is an animated portion of the show's first episode, and includes angry mushrooms, vengeful unicorn princesses, and a subterranean paradise with lakes of hot pink lava. The AQUABATS! SUPERSHOW! also includes live performance and real-world hijinks. We think it's pretty awesome.

(Huge thanks from all of us at Boing Boing to Jon Berrett and the crew at Yo Gabba Gabba, and to The Aquabats for allowing Boing Boing to share this first with the non-subterranean world!)

Boing Boing tv's UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter of "Porter Report" fame interviews the legendary Hot 8 Brass Band, from New Orleans.

Band leader Bennie "Big Peter" Pete explains the history of second line, the roots of New Orleans jazz, and what it took to survive as jazz band in the French Quarter.

Today's BBtv episode is a little longer than usual -- 9 minutes -- so we can share with you an extended musical segment, with the Hot 8 performing their song "What's My Name" live on the streets of Brighton. Their performance is breathtaking, and quite possibly the funkiest, most soulful sounds you've ever heard on Boing Boing. The band is currently on tour throughout the USA. Enjoy!

Previous PORTER REPORT episodes on BBtv:

Russell Porter: Transgressive and rockfeedback.com, pt. 2

Russell Porter roundtable: Transgressive Records, rockfeedback.com, pt. 1

Russell Porter with Alice Russell, pt. 2

Russell Porter with Alice Russell

Russell Porter and Cadence Weapon, pt. 1.

Russell Porter and Cadence Weapon, pt. 2.

Russell Porter with George Pringle

Russell Porter with The Young Knives pt 1

Russell Porter with The Young Knives pt 2

Russell Porter with The Futureheads

Russell Porter with The Guillotines

Russell Porter with Peggy Sue and the Pirates

Russell Porter with Dockers MC

Russell Porter with Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip

Today on Boing Boing tv, a music video for the Pinker Tones song "S.E.X.Y. R.O.B.O.T." produced by Bill Barminski's "Walter Robot" studio. The whole album ("Wild Animals") is great: Amazon link, iTunes.

Previous BBtv episodes featuring Walter Robot Studios and Bill Barminski:

Bill Barminski animation: "Drive-In"

Mark makes a mini amp / Funky cowboy (BBtv's 50th!)

Roachbot / Walter Robot