Sound of Science has released their epic new synthpop track, “Hydrodome”.

This soon-to-be-classic track appears on the Hydrodome EP (currently on iTunes HERE) and includes 4 remixes by other great acts including:

• Daniel Myer (Architect, Covenant)
• John von Ahlen (Parralox, Sound of the Crowd)
• Northern Kind
• Julian Beeston (Nitzer Ebb, Die Krupps)

Sound of Science is relatively new to the synthpop scene combining the efforts of Tom and Jason from synthmakers Analogue Solutions. They create real music with real synthesizers. If this track is any indication of things to come, synthpop fans are going to have much to look forward to from this duo.

check them out here: http://www.soundofscience.org

Why do humans act the way they do? Is it something they think of rationally and consciously? Is it something that’s wired into their brains –meaning, well, that they’re not aware of it? We face these interactions every day and most of us really don’t think about them much. That is to say, we all try to understand something because we want to be conscious of them. But what about those reactions, those tics, those quick actions or thoughts that arise all of a sudden?

There is a channel on YouTube called Losing All Hope Was Freedom and they have been posting clips every Monday that show our human condition tested in various situations so that people have to react quickly. Maybe not think long about something, but surely something about a reaction is absolutely fascinating. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not just that we’re surprised that Chris Martin of Coldplay and his bandmates were fans of the Beastie Boys, but to devote part of their Hollywood Bowl show last Friday night to the memory of Adam Yauch, aka MCA, who sadly passed away last week of cancer at the age of 47, then it means something. I know what you’re thinking –“Ugh –Coldplay!”. Self-important, navel-gazing, soulless stadium rockers, all their songs sound the same, the lead dude prances around in high tops –yeah, those guys. The same guys everyone’s pretty tired of nowadays. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, quiz time! What the hell is Cinco de Mayo. Yes, it means “Fifth of May”. But what does it stand for? Give up? You don’t know why you’re about to swim in pitchers of frozen margaritas and flauta and chimichanga platters tomorrow? Wear a stupid sombrero and attend some loud fiesta? Read the rest of this entry »

Lest anyone think that American Idol is a snoozer this year would be quite surprised. The show, which has gone through some significant changes in recent years –notably the exit of Simon Cowell—has been a snoozer in, say, the last couple of years. Last year was arguably the worst, and it wasn’t just because of the rocky transition into the J Lo and Steven Tyler additions. We were saddled with some middling talent, to say the least. The fact that we ended up with two country stars with no real flash or personality and we crowned someone who had a deep voice but looked like Alfred E Neuman didn’t portend too well for the future of this once-lucrative juggernaut. Scotty McCreery, really? Read the rest of this entry »

When you consider the airtime on C-SPAN, almost five hours, and the intense online coverage, you really have to wonder about the level of intelligent discourse in this country. The other night, inside the cavernous Hilton Hotel ballroom in Washington DC, hundreds of political and celebrity luminaries, including the President himself, gathered for the annual self-congratulatory, headline-grabbing, publicity-hound mongering event that only serves to puff up the hard work of publicists and staffs, running around carrying clipboards and rushing their clients in front of cameras. Is that a CNN camera? No, it’s actually Extra and Entertainment Tonight. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a small thrill to occasionally “discover” a musical artist or group that you haven’t heard before, something that sounds creative and fresh. Not the latest Top 10 artist either, or the pablum that radio stations spit out ad nauseam 50 times a day on their computers. Read the rest of this entry »

For her upcoming CD, “Someone to Watch Over Me”, to be released November 1, 50-year-old Scottish superstar singer Susan Boyle has once again plumbed a classic song that is another unlikely choice. You remember SuBo from a couple of years back, when you and probably the entire globe stopped everything to watch the formerly dowdy dowager electrify a panel of judges on “Britain’s Got Talent” (among them, Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan) with a show-stopping version of “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables”. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night at the Tesla auto plant in Fremont, CA, onlookers marveled at the new Tesla Model S luxury sedan, which finally made its debut after a long wait. Technically speaking, the unveiling of the new luxurious sedan was for the approximately 2,000 customers who have put down deposits of $5000, but these were prototypes, not their actual cars. Seeking to create even more buzz, if not bowl over these customers who showed up for the gala event, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, dressed to the nines in a tuxedo, asked the crowd to spread the word about this beauty, which won’t be ready for delivery until 2013. Read the rest of this entry »

5 WAYS TO MAKE ABC’s “THE CHEW” TOLERABLE

The loud trainwreck that is “The Chew”, which premiered this past Monday on ABC not only as yet another food-theme show but also as replacement for “All My Children” the 40+ year legendary soap that ABC killed earlier this year, has not been the smashing success that the network had hoped. Or is it early to tell? Read the rest of this entry »

Yikes! It’s Labor Day weekend! School’s already started in some parts of the country. Is the summer over? Didn’t school used to start in September? What’s the rush? Does this mean the lazy days of what has been a steamy summer in many parts –well, do we have to pack it in for the fall already? I want to still remember what I did this summer, which for one, was to come up with this year’s SMASHgods list of the most memorable, the most disposable, the most played —sometimes you wanted to poke your eyes out—songs of Summer ’11.

Let’s review some of the guidelines here. Summer songs are memorable not just because they are played on endless loops by absent djs on radio stations, or downloaded frantically on iTunes. They also have to minimally represent summer in some way –something frothy, something accessible, something that can withstand all those replays. What was the song of this summer? In the past we have awarded this dubious title to the likes of Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” and BEP’s “I’ve Got a Feeling” –iconic titles for sure and certainly reminders of the last two summers. Read the rest of this entry »

You really don’t want to be around Obama nowadays. He will kick your ass. And he’ll be smooth about it. Let’s look at the last 72 hours or so of his schedule and take a look at what finesse and general bad-assness he has displayed.

On Friday, instead of just tucking in and watching the Royal Wedding and hat parade like the rest of us, he flew with his family to Alabama to comfort those who were devastated by horrendous tornadoes. He even went to Miami’s Dade College and gave a commencement address! Read the rest of this entry »

We are knee-deep in the film awards season, it seems.  Last week’s brouhaha about Ricky Gervais tossing out some jokes that offended some Hollywood types as the host of the Golden Globe Awards almost overshadowed the fact that real awards were hand ed out. (We think Ricky rocked, and it’s high time someone of his courage decided to take the hot air out of the event. Like Angelina cared about her worthless nomination, or aboutcharges of payola with her rotten “Tourist” movie, as she leaned back into Brad Pitt’s arms.) Read the rest of this entry »

So, you’ve all been shopping, haven’t you? Of course you have! We’ve seen you schlepping those shopping bags up and down the escalators at the malls. We’ve seen you stand in long lines at Macy’s just to get gift boxes –that’s the 6th floor at “Gift Wrap”. Just from a cursory glance it really does seem like there are a lot more people out there spending money, so there must be some kind of economic recovery going on. Yes, the economists declared the recession to be over in June 2009, but unemployment has slowed things down, or at least the perception that the economy is still tanking. We don’t think so. We have proof. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is my birthday. 9/11/10. Ah, so you noticed? I get that from time to time. The double-take, the slight pause, the occasional “So what’s it like?” question which, I suppose, is more rhetorical until I actually try to come up with an answer. Because in fact I don’t really have any answer. Because I don’t think I have fully internalized my feelings about this. Because maybe I try to not let things get to me. But I am going to try to explain how I feel today, the 9th anniversary of the day that, according to many people, I am supposed to suddenly feel differently about this day, my birthday that I used to celebrate as if it were any other day. Read the rest of this entry »

My nephew and I have a long-distance postcard relationship. For a couple of years now he and I manage to see each other rarely but instead send each other postcard dispatches in which I will describe a cool attraction I visited and he will get excited about a local dish or delicacy from a vacation spot around the US. I travel a lot internationally so I have sent him postcards from places like Singapore and Paris, and even more obscure places like rural Massachusetts (the homemade pasta e fagiule soup at Il Forno in Fitchburg = to die for) and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This latter spot was memorable because in the middle of 98-degree summer heat, a woman who was missing a front tooth was selling Siberian Husky pups outside on her pick-up truck bed. $400 in cash and that precious pup could have come home with me in a bag on my flight back to SFO –ah, the things I regret in my travels. Read the rest of this entry »