In 1988, a pair of British acid house DJs named Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords, or The KLF, had an improbable number one hit with “Doctorin’ The Tardis.” The track isn’t so much a song as it is an early mashup. Just about everything in it …
Author Archives: Ethan
May the weak force be with you
I follow science news the way normal dudes follow sports. If you’re geekily inclined like me, you may have heard that the particle physics people are getting closer to producing the Higgs boson. You may have wondered what that is exactly, and why you should care. The science press has nicknamed the Higgs “the God …
The Choice Is Yours
There’s a commercial on TV right now featuring a bunch of CGI hamsters that reacquainted me with this Black Sheep classic. I knew the song better as the one that goes, “You can get with this or you can get with that.” Thank god for Google, otherwise I wouldn’t know anything about anything. This is …
INXS needs you tonight
I’m pretty sure that “Need You Tonight” by INXS was the last song I fell in love with through commercial radio. I would never have admitted it, and I couldn’t have articulated why, but oh yes, in middle school this track hit me exactly where I lived. It still sounds as fresh today as it …
They Reminisce Over You
Hip-hop at its best is about truth-telling. It doesn’t get any realer than “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)” by Pete Rock and CL Smooth.
Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough
This song represents a lot of firsts for Michael Jackson. It was the first single from Off The Wall, and the first recording MJ made that he had complete creative control over. Many of his hits were written by Quincy Jones or Rod Temperton or the guys from Toto, but Michael wrote this one himself. …
Michael Jackson, one year later
MJ’s death still makes me sad. It was so untimely, and so preventable, and it seems like he might have been on the cusp of a genuine creative reawakening. The life leading up to the end is as sad a story as I can think of. And the music keeps sounding better and better with …
Janelle Monáe and Randall Thompson
Update: a reader tells me that Janelle Monáe is not quoting Randall Thompson at all, she is quoting a hymn called “All Creatures of our God and King“. I stand corrected. All the musicians I trust for recommendations in real life and on the web agree: the hottest artist in the universe right now is …
Brand Nubian meets Edie Brickell
While I was researching the Spoonie G meme, I noticed that Brand Nubian uses a lot of remarkably creative samples. It inspired me to do a sample map of their classic first album, One For All. Click to see it bigger. Hear all the tracks sampled on One For All, via Kevin Nottingham’s awesome blog.
My social media setup
After a few years of honing and balancing my various social media profiles and blogs, here’s how I have the information flowing. This doesn’t represent every last thing I put on the web, but it does cover the tools I use regularly.