We're launching a series of interviews with artists and video creators who are known favorites to Sifters.

I'm really happy to announce that our first interview will be with Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn from the musical duo Pomplamoose.

If you have any questions that you would like me to ask Nataly or Jack- please post them here - and while you're at it grab their album on iTunes. I picked it up a few days ago and am liking it very much.

Also, we're looking for ideas for other people to interview - doesn't have to be music related. I've asked the "The Website is Down" people- I'd love to hear how they put their stuff together.

http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2009/10/28/the-ten-best-a-team-intro-parodies/ from http://bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewstory&threadid=103712 ...

The 60 char title limit kind of hindered me putting up a fully informative title as to this post.. It was discovered recently that Reznor's music along with a number of other bands is being used as torture at Gitmo. Their music is played at ear splitting levels, sometimes repeating the same song over and over for long durations.

This is all being done without any consent from the artists (did they at least legally purchase their copies?), and it would seem that any requests from the artists to have their music pulled from the 'enhanced interrogation' is being dismissed at a near hostile level by members of Liz Cheney's group, 'Keep America Safe'.

All of my news concerning this is being pulled from The NIN Hotline, I found this particular quote interesting: "A "Keep America Safe" spokesperson went so far as to say "It's almost laughable to think that heavy metal bands like Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine have a moral authority on national security issues.".

I guess loud edgy music must be evil and immoral even though it's almost always anything but, 'least the stuff I listen to.

You can read more: at http://www.theninhotline.net/news/
Including an organized attempt at asking for an apology from Keep America Safe for deeming the artist's stance as laughable and having no moral leverage concerning the use of their music, and as they word it - to stand up for all awesome musicians who have enriched American culture and deserve to have their rights respected, not dismissed.

Ok, so so check it out.

Awesome, eh?

Check it out - VS may want to revisit it's no-flash policy.

http://inudge.net/index.en.html

* Select 1 of 8 different Sound Patterns from the small colour- coded Matrixes on the right.
* Use your mouse to draw or select notes on each 16 Step Matrix and combine sounds.
* For each Pattern, you can adjust Volume, Mute, Clear, or set the Audio Pan from Left to Right.
* Click on the Tempo value and drag your mouse up or down to change the overall Tempo.
* Get & Share allows you to Send Mail, Get Link, Get Embed code or Spread in communities.
* Use the Feedback Forum to tell us what you think, leave your comments or make suggestions.

Yep you heard right, there's a new channel and it's all about da blues! Blues & Roots, actually.

Go check it out, vote up some good ole' blues music, and if you have any sifts that can be added to the channel, please don't hesitate. That includes blues music that was put in *jazz! I've already done quite a bit of channel reassignment and tagging, but any help would be appreciated.

Cheers, folks!

Here's a bit of the best of blues for ya:

For some reason Videosift's top voted video of all time is not working currently:

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-most-amazing-ukelele-playing-you-will-ever-see-Jake-Shimabukuro

It says "An internal server error occurred. Please try again later."

After multiple tries during several days, I haven't succeeded to view it yet. Conspiracy?

http://brainz.org/15-weirdest-music-videos-all-time/ (has embedded videos) from http://www.neatorama.com/2009/09/17/the-15-weirdest-music-videos-of-all-time/ ...

"Music videos changed the music industry completely. Artists were finally given a "visual voice" and fans were able to put faces with names. Musicians are often a little quirky however, resulting in many truly bizarre videos. In honor of these 'out of this world' artists, we've put together a list of the 15 Weirdest Music Videos. Enjoy! ..."

http://kanyelicious.appspot.com/http://videosift.com from http://kanyelicio.us/ from http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/16/possibly-the-best-on.html ...

Johnny Depp sailed onstage Thursday on a pirate ship in Anaheim, Calif., to help announce the forthcoming installment of Disney's blockbuster film franchise.

Depp will reprise his role as Capt. Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," slated for summer of 2011. It's the fourth in a series.

Chairman of Walt Disney Studios Richard Cook announced the news to about 5,000 fans on hand for D23, Disney's answer to Comic-Con. The first all-things-Disney convention runs through the weekend

People are flying in from all over europe for the already legendary siftup party on september 12th.
Sadly, quite a lot of us sifters won't be able to attend, but in honour of the party we might as well show our appreciation of british culture.
British humour is already highly regarded on the sift, and gets its fair share of votes. So on this 3rd Pqueued Monday let's focus on another thing the Brits are pretty good at: music.

Here's what to do to participate: post a link to 1 (or 2, max) pqueued vids that fit the theme, not from your own pqueue.

Previous:
PQM2: Time
PQM1

http://blog.limewire.com/posts/24681-stream-rolling-stones-squelched-doc-cocksucker-blues-online/comment-page-1/

Go to the above URL, read the blurb, click the link. Note that the first part is not available, but parts 2-9 are there. I'm a little concerned dl'ing this and YouTubing (and subsequently sifting) it because the Stones have apparently sued to keep this doc unreleased since it was made it '72. Anyway, it's grainy and the audio isn't very good, but you can get a feel for the utter hedonistic bubble they lived in at the time. Parts of it are very NSFW (drugs, sex).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocksucker_Blues

1st SiftTalk post.

Apparently the wack-job hairstyle and inimitable nose are not enough to identify this mystery rock legend. Read the hilariously disappointing story below.


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090815/D9A30C6G1.html

Couldn't find anything too specific about this after searching sifttalk, but what is the policy concerning sifted vids that have had their audio disabled by Youtube? Are they dead? I'm thinking most of them should be (esp. music videos). Case in point: http://www.videosift.com/video/Art-of-Noise-Moments-in-Love-Rare-Version , which I declared dead, but which was then resurrected still missing its audio. Do we need a *deaf or *mute invocation!?

Have you heard of Spotify? If not, research it!

It's a program that streams music in real-time, any song you want(95% are usually available), has search functions, and drag-drop playlists. When you click on the artist, it goes to the artist's page and gives you a list of all the albums he/she's ever been involved in including the top hits they've had, and the songs in those albums (which can also be drag/dropped into your playlist btw).

It also has a radio function. You choose the time period (from the before the 50's rangint to 00's) and the genre, then it plays random songs that fit in the categories you chose.

It's programmed SO well that it automatically detects the media keys on your laptop.

FURTHERMORE, once you create your username, it stores all your playlists server-side so wherever you log in in the world, it uploads your playlist to that version of Spotify.

Now the catch? It's free only if you are located in the UK or France, BUT don't fret! I know how to get around this little "problem."



One more thing. Logging into Spotify when you're NOT in the UK/France, you will have a 14 day period where it allows you to listen to their music, but once again, don't fret! There are two workarounds for this:



VOILA! FREE SPOTIFY!

Now, we have played this game before but I though it would be fun to do it again.

The rules are the same as last time:

1. Set your music player(itunes, ect.) to random and press play.
2. Write down the first ten tracks that play and post the list here.
3. Be honest. If something embarrassing comes up, you must write it down, that is half the fun.
4. You may skip anything that isn't music.

http://gawker.com/5310339/embedding-a-youtube-video-may-cost-you-a-bundle-in-ascap-bills

Bastards.

Digg shares a CNET News article on Webware Auto Keyboard Cat to make your own Keyboard Cat videos.

The Sift's one and only Celtic ewok just got his Gold 100 star. I know because he was kind enough to use his very first *promote on one of my videos. It made me feel all tingly in places I probably shouldn't mention. Anyway, ol' MoodyBluedonia is probably feeling all tingly right now too. So why don't you make him feel all congratulated and stuff, and then tingle his PQ while you're at it. There's a lot of good stuff there, so don't vote out of pity. That's what rottenseed's PQ is for.

I had an mp3 once of a particular live version of the abovementioned U2 song. It sounded very different from the album version -- spare and haunting -- and in the beginning of it, Bono while trying to introduce the song appeared to challenge a loud and mouthy member of the audience, saying "what is it now?" If anybody can help, please do, I'd be very pleased to have it again.