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One of my favorite J-Rock bands of the last decade has been Go!Go!7188, although no one but the band members themselves know what the name refers to. It is a trio, two gals and a guy, that do Ska, Punk, and Alt songs that are top of their class. Imagine my delight to learn there was a collaboration between Yuu (the lead singer of that band) and The Boom. They play together on J-Melo every so often (including the shows from the last two weeks), and since The Boom also play a wide range of music they sound good together. Here is a taste of a few of the original tunes from Go!Go!7188 to give you a feel for the band…

On October 30th, 1938, the Wells Brother (Orson and H.G. of no actual relation to each other) terrified America with their broadcast of an alien invasion as a news event on Mercury Theatre on the Air. Many people ignored the beginning of the program where they were told it was a fictional tale written by H. G. Wells, and only started paying attention when told of the giant war machines ambling across the countryside. Part of the problem was that Orson Wells had a truly magnificent announcers voice, so it was easy for everyone to believe they were really listening to the news. You can’t blame peoples reactions on the fact that the opening moves of WWII were going on; those smart enough to see the signs of the gathering storm were the kind of people who paid attention to disclaimers and didn’t get fooled by the program. At this point the Wells broadcast has been mentioned in as many movies and TV shows as the original Wells book, I think, with Buckaroo Banzi as one of my favorites. Listen to the original broadcast now:

One of my favorite J-Rock groups is Scandal, who started out as four actresses in training. Each was advised to learn a musical instrument to round out their skill set; so they chose 4 different ones and formed a kick-ass band. You mostly only hear them in North America on Anime DVDs, when they come through on tour, or periodically on a J-Melo broadcast. And while over here they are best known for their contributions to K-ON and other anime, they have a ton of top quality non-anime music as well, and more fans than you might suspect (some of whom can sing their entire catalog in Japanese). Did I mention the have won some awards, including the Viewers Choice Awards on J-Melo?

SF Signal does it again with a listing of 120 more awesome and free SF/F/H stories, culled from the collection linked at Free Speculative Fiction Online. The stories authors include Kevin J. Anderson, Kage Baker, Peter S. Beagle, Michael Bishop, Terry Bisson, Ben Bova, David Brin, Emma Bull… and that’s just some of the authors listed from the first 2 letters of the alphabet. The more is because they previously posted 76 Free SF/F Audio Stories, a direct link to Starship Sofa’s famous Complete Nebula Best Short Story Nominees 2008, and an absolute ton of individual links in their various Free Fiction posts. Be sure to check out Starship Sofa in detail while you are there, since they have a new quality story pretty much every week. Other sites for good stories include Podcastle and the related Psudopod and Escape Pod, and of course Librivox is a must-visit site for audio stories.

This had to be shared. Weird Al is singing about the internet again, although the music style doesn’t count as Nerdcore. Or maybe it does, since I got the heads up on this one from MC Lars. I also used to know the keyboard player, another reason to add this tune. Then, just to keep it balanced, a parody song by a fem about the glories of geek (but also not actual Nerdcore). Sometimes silly trumps all other choices, just because you need your daily laugh quota. OK, screw it, one actual Nerdcore song (third one down) from MC Lars.