Paramore - one of the 1,600 bands playing SXSW this year.
Whether you're going to Austin, Texas, next week or not, it's always good to update your music collection with bands appearing at the annual South by Southwest music conference and festival. There are a few big names like R.E.M., Paramore and Talib Kweli playing this year, but this isn't Lollapalooza (or Austin City Limits for that matter). SXSW is all about discovering new music, and with more than 1,600 bands booked this year, you may need a bigger iPod.
To see a list of bands that we're excited about this year, check out our SXSW 2008 Pre-Party feature, and stay tuned to our Best of SXSW after the event. Listen to the free playlist below, and let's get this party started!
R.E.M. might have goofy lyrics at times ("you're drifting off to sleep with your teeth in your mouth") but it has broken interesting new ground with its decision to open-source 11 videos for a new song from its new album. R.E.M. will be releasing the videos under the Artistic License, appropriately enough.
Viewers are encouraged to remix the videos and share them on the song's YouTube page. The band will not be doing a Radiohead and offering the album for free, but this is an interesting twist somewhere in between that approach and the standard industry practice.
Think about that. What possible purpose could there be in locking down a music video? Such things are meant to promote the underlying music. It makes soooo much economic sense for R.E.M. to open up the videos and let people remix them to help promote R.E.M.'s new album. But R.E.M. isn't alone in this general idea.
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(Credit:
IWantOneOfThose.com)
Like falling asleep to the soothing sound of whale song? Like waking up to the violent posturing of G-Unit? Yes, us too. That's why we use the Sound Asleep Pillow. It's a pillow with a speaker inside it.
Just set the sleep timer function on your MP3 player, attach it to the 3.5mm headphone jack, then lay back as you enter REM--while listening to REM. It works in reverse, too. Set the wake-up function on your iPod and it'll play music first thing in the morning.
We've tested it comprehensively, and like the SleepTracker Pro, it works surprisingly well. You'll have to tweak the volume so the person next to you can't hear it, but the cable is long enough so your MP3 player can rest on the floor.
It's very comfortable too, despite the presence of a tiny hat-shaped speaker inside. Oh, and in case you're wondering--yes, it still works if you flip it over to the "cool side."
You really can't go wrong with this thing. If you like music while you sleep but don't like wearing earphones in bed or disturbing your neighbours or your girl/boyfriend, it's ideal. Grab one now for a bargainous 20 pounds (about $41).
(Source: Crave UK)
Image of proposed Great Pyramid of Germany
(Credit: Friends of the Great Pyramid)
Germany's pyramid would be 10 times larger than the Great Pyramid of Egypt.
(Credit: Friends of the Great Pyramid)A group in Dessau, Germany, has received funds and famed architect Rem Koolhaas as an adviser in its quest to build the world's largest structure.
Dubbed a "monument for all of us" the new "Great Pyramid," which is estimated would take about 30 years to complete, would be about 1,900 feet tall and 10 times larger than the Great Pyramid of Egypt, according to the Great Pyramid's Web site.
Instead of being a monument to only a few individuals, Germany's Great Pyramid would be a communal tomb open to anyone regardless of nationality or denomination. It would offer burial space in the form of a "tomb container with ashes of the deceased" and engraved "memorial stones" with time capsules to store personal memorabilia.
A burial spot will cost about $960 (700 euros), Jens Thiel, an economist and one of the Friends of the Great Pyramid leaders, told U.K. construction magazine Building .
On Sunday, the group presented a stone prototype of the Great Pyramid at a Great Pyramid Festival in Streetz, a small village north of Dessau.
Pritzker-winning Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas is set to lead the jury for choosing a final design for the project, according to several reports. Students under Heiko Holzberger at Weimar Bauhaus University in Germany conducted a technology feasibility study that concluded the project is viable, according to the Great Pyramid Web site.
The project has been given starter funding by the "Future of Labor" program of the government-backed German Federal Cultural Foundation.
As part of the group's business plan, the structure would be built up and out incrementally so that stones are added only as people buy placement in the pyramid.
In with the new
(Credit: Uber-Review)
Out with the old
We normally don't go out of our way to post items on animal speakers, but penguins have become an exception on Crave. (Thanks to fellow Craver Caroline McCarthy, not us, for the record.)
So out of obligation, we offer this pair of 'guins featured on Uber-Review. But make no mistake, these are no ordinary penguin speakers: Their eyes jump to the beat of your music. How creepy is that?
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