Costas Halavrezos adds a Rube Goldberg twist to our antique engine percussion series (previous instalments here, here, and here.) with this unique James Taylor concert rendition of Slap Leather: As Costas points out, the song is 20 years old, but its bittersweet lyrics could have been written yesterday....

26 February, 2011

Contrarian friend Cliff White muses on tractor percussion (previously here and here): Not only is this just a wonderful piece, it's a nostalgic reminder of just how much rhythm and music there was in early machinery. Aside from the occasional pile driver, I can't think of anything today that carries on that tradition. Even the once ubiquitous make-and-break engine seems to have unfortunately gone completely from our shores....

21 February, 2011

And God love Contrarian readers. When Steve Hart sent me this video of a pretty good guitar trio using a slow-idling tractor for percussion on Sweet Georgia Brown and Bye Bye Blues, I wondered it it was a known Internet chestnut that had somehow escaped me. But the earliest copy of "the Saskatchewan Philharmonic" was posted last April and had only 8,000 hits. Turns out the video is neither philharmonic nor Saskatchewanian. It's Sweden's Olle Hemmingson Trio, featuring the eponymous Olle playing a Gibson Les Paul Signature guitar, with an antique Volvo tractor for percussion. Thanks to Brian Bonnar for setting...

20 February, 2011

It's got a backbeat, you can't lose it: Between the musicians and the marine make-n-breaks in this province, surely we could produce a Maritime rejoinder. Update: It ain't from Saskatchewan. Amplification and correction here. H/T: Steve Hart....

19 February, 2011

My netizen pal Angela Mombourquette makes a good case for the proposed seven story housing project that has stirred opposition in the otherwise low-rise, middle-income neighborhood where church elders want to build it. Venerable St. John's United Church, which currently occupies the lot at Windsor and North in a residential neighborhood of Halifax's West End, has reached its best-before date. The congregation proposes to replace it with a building, called "Spirit Place," that will house both a place of worship and an independent living facility for old people — all wrapped into a seven-storey structure. Furthermore, St. John's specifically promotes Spirit Place...

13 February, 2011

If someone asks you that on a first date, they could be asking a proxy question. OK Cupid, the dating site that uses its database to research the sociology of romance, has been considering the best questions to ask on a first date if your real goal is to find out something altogether different: Among all our casual topics, whether someone likes the taste of beer is the single best predictor of if he or she has sex on the first date. H/T: Nathan Yau...

10 February, 2011

Holland's Theo Jansen sculpts PVC pipe into incredible kinetic beasties. H/T: Tony Comstock....

10 February, 2011

An A.W. Leil crane capsizes while attempting to place a large wall panel during construction of the new Yarmouth High School January 28. The fun begins at about the 2:40 mark. No one was hurt in the incident. H/T: Richard Stephenson....

10 February, 2011

Overheard on the 'net: Zadie (Age 4):    Look in my nose Zadie's mother:    I don't see anything in your nose. Zadie:    Oh. I don't smell anything in your eye....

05 February, 2011

If agencies produced birthday parties, they'd all rock like Chelsea Bedano's 8th. You have only to sit through a few agency pitches to know how close to the mark this is. H/T: DR, via Adfreak.com. The ad agency is john st., Toronto....

11 January, 2011
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