It started out with Starship Sofa, a wonderful podcast that had both a news and a Radio Play segment. Later they added Tales to Terrify, with audio stories for the horror fans. They have now launched District of Wonders, which includes both of the aforementioned series as well as two new ones: Protecting Project Pulp with some wonderful gold and silver age SF and Fantasy stories from the pulp magazines, and Crime City Central, which is the same thing from the True Crime type pulps. Whether you prefer the individual sites or the aggregate collection, these are some classic and world class stories you will really want to hear for yourself. And if you like those, don’t forget to check out Holodeck Workshops if you are one of the aspiring writers out there. Thanks to SF Signal for the heads up on this one.
Jonathan Coulton writes and performs some truly excellent science fiction music, including the theme song to John Scalzi’s new book, Redshirts. Scalzi liked it so much, he did his own cover of it, on a Ukelele no less. And then he recently interviewed Coulton on his Tor Press blog/podcast segment, which you should read, then go back and listen to. It is good to know there are some people having this much fun while earning their living; it gives the rest of us something to aspire to!
I love the mix you can get sometimes between modern and traditional music, when the right people are involved. In this case it is heavy metal guitar and Taiko Drums, with the guitar played by Tomoyasu Hotei. The first song is Battle Without Honor or Humanity, the second is Devil’s Sugar, and the setting is live in front of a famous Buddhist temple. If they sound familiar, there is a good reason. The first track alone has appeared in the movies Shin Jinginaki Tatakai (where it originally was used), and then in Kill Bill, Hotel for Dogs, Shrek the Third, Transformers, and Team America: World Police. If you don’t see many movies, it was used in the games Dance Dance Revolution and Gran Turismo HD, as well as a number of TV shows and radio programs.
Taiko Drums are traditional Japanese instruments used in temples and festivals, and often played in groups. Taiko actually means “wide drum” or “great drum” in Nihongo, so calling them Taiko Drums is a bit redundant, but that is the usual English usage. The third track is a traditional Taiko performance and trust me when I say the recording did not capture the depth of sound those drums are producing, nor could your speakers reproduce it. One of the most moving episodes in the 2011 season of J-Melo was their broadcast of the live performance by the surviving members of the Fukushima Taiko competitive team. If you don’t have J-Melo available from your cable company or satellite provider, you can watch it and the rest of the programming online from NHK World; just check their schedule to see when your shows will be on.
This may be from last year, but it is still a great Sci-Fi short feature video disguised as a Katy Perry song.
The first track is from the band Unlimits, and while I may not be good enough yet to follow the dialog I can sure follow the attitude! The presentation after that is the band Special Thanks doing their song NEVER GIVE UP. And to round it out, we have Blue Sugar Spirits doing their hit モノクロ. Trust me when I say you are going to like this music. And then Special Thanks comes back one last time, to do their song You say GOOD BYE. If you have trouble finding these at your local brick and mortar, check Amazon, iTunes, and iTunes Japan (you can pick up gift cards to use on iTunes Japan from places like JBox, which do take American credit cards).
Bringing it all back home, a few tunes from the culture I grew up with, starting with The Kills with the live version of Black Balloon they did on KEXP. And then Florence and the Machine doing Rabbit Heart (her more recent studio track, No Light, No Light, is at the bottom of the page), followed by Zola Jesus with her song Sea Talk. All live selections from the same Seattle radio station, KEXP FM, and all world class examples of quality music.