Your music makes my brain itch.

More useful music research out of the USA. Professor James Kellaris, of the University of Cincinnati College of Business Administration (Business Admin? Shouldn't this guy be studying practical music business models for the digital age or something?) has discovered that songs get stuck in our heads because they create a "brain itch" that can only be scratched by repeating the tune over and over.

He puts the success of songs such as the Village People's classic 'YMCA', Los Del Rio's infuriating 'Macarena', and the Baha Men's nauseating 'Who Let The Dogs Out' down to their ability to create a "cognitive itch" - in which we have to repeat the offending melody in our minds until it's 'scratched' out of existence.

I would just like to point out that I used the phrase 'brain-itch' several months ago (in a slightly different context), over at nzmusic.com.
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Google gets better. Again.

Cool. You can now do 'definition' searches directly via the Google search box. It's a bit like the dictionary function that is already part and parcel of any Google search (where clicking on any of the returned word phrases takes you over to dictionary.com to see the definitions there), but works by returning the definition at the top of the first search results page. So, a search for...

define gay

...returns 'someone who practices homosexuality; having a sexual attraction to persons of the same sex' (from www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn), and then the usual Google returns from the search phrase 'define gay'. You can get a list of definitions by adding a colon after the word define, eg...

define: gay

...which, although mostly pretty good with regards to the results returned, makes you wonder who Google are getting to select their sources. Down the bottom of this list (when I looked, anyway), was this entry...

"To some the ultimate form of male bonding, to others the ulitmate in mal-bonding."

I mean, other than the spelling mistake, the definition is drawn from 'The Politically Incorrect Dictionary' website, which is hosted on, ugh, geocities.
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Geeeeeeeks.

A while ago over at nzmusic a few of the regulars had a bit of a 'I-am-such-a-geek' catharsis. However, I can safely our combined geekiness doesn't even begin to touch the uber-geekdom of the regular contributors over at slashdot, who contributed around 700 posts in a couple of days to a discussion based on the physics of the Starship Enterprise. The whole thing sparked off by some scientists in Oz who thought it'd be nifty to use a model (well, duh, of course a model, despite the firm beliefs of some of those slashdotters) of the famous TV starship in their wind tunnel experiments. Neato.

[via foggynotion]
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Sex, not drugs, and rock'n'roll

According to some researchers from Austin, Texas, USA, modern popular music is moving away from glorifying drug use, and is in fact warning kids off the perils of illicit narcotic substances. They've trawled through lyrics of popular music from the 1960s to the present, and concluded that "teenage listeners today 'are being exposed to more negative images of marijuana and LSD than older listeners'."

Yes, modern music is fond of pointing out that 'drugs are bad, mmmkay?'. Even Marilyn Manson, the scourge of all right-thinking, god-fearing Americans points out: "I don't like the drugs..."

Personally, I reckon the researcher's music sample was probably drawn from trawling the playlists of their local Texas Christian rock stations and the Billboard Top 100, which are filled to the brim with commercial pap that would take the modern US attitude that 'Winners don't do Drugs' (except the Olympic Track Team, obviously).
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Radio Active 89FM NZ Music Show Playlist
21 October, 2003

The lovely crew over at nzmusic.com have been offering up a new nz mp3 track for free download every day over the last month or so, so I thought I'd give the punters a chance to hear what's on offer by playing a selection of them on this evening's show. Most of the first dozen or so tracks below are thus available for download from here. Enjoy.

blue set - hospital sex
baitercell - electrodaddy
burma - hotspot
flash harry - alright
grusome - groove is in the hutt
meterman - skyline
nouveau riche - autumn girl
k1500 project - hanging by your side
polly prior - in my dreams
late 80s mercedes - save my soul
revolver - out your window
shihad - clapper-loader (yee-haa remix)
the datsuns - lady (peel session)
scattergram - little indians
looma - you to me
st lucy - mornig gladhouse
jet jaguar - emotional hygiene
salmonella dub - ez on
phelps & munro - slap me stu
one million dollars - black cat shuffle
ghostplane - lazy bones
the pencils - just
the mint chicks - licking letters
sleepers union - giant spheres
signer - scooter qb
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The Legend of Crazy George

My mate Adam was in the USA last year playing the lead role in an art-house horror-flick (yes, that is a genre) called 'The Legend of Crazy George'. The film's now edited and ready for release in the US of A, but anyone else can get a sample of it here. Crazy.
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Maennergarten

Ooo, oo, I want to go...

German women fed up with their partners' grumbling on weekend shopping trips can now dump them at a special kindergarten for men offering beer and entertainment.

"The women are issued a receipt for their partners when they hand them in and can pick them up again when they return it to us later," Alexander Stein, manager of the 'Nox Bar' in Hamburg told Reuters Tuesday.

The men are given a nametag on arrival and for 10 euros they get two beers, a hot meal, televised football and games.

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Top 40 Bands in Britain today.

I'm often a bit behind the play in offshore musical trends, being so all-consumed with local sounds, so it's nice when the Guardian (which I usually just read for the political and sports sections), comes up with a nice list like this. All the usual suspects: Coldplay, Super Furry Animals, Muse, Chemical Brothers, Blur, and with Radiohead coming in at #2. Who's #1, read on...

[via dubdotdash]
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Trouser Semaphore


"The acquired skill known as Trouser Semaphore is swiftly gaining currency as the only way for people of quality to communicate in an age of rapidly escalating background noise levels. Typically, at the race track or at unexpectedly rumbustious parties, attempts to make oneself heard above the general hubbub can prove exasperating and, as often as not, utterly futile. Within the space of a week, and with minimal amount of application, it is possible to gain a skill of incalculable worth."


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