Bram.us » Music

[lyrics] De Portables – Vegetarian BBQ

Bramus! — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:49:49 +0000

“I saw you first
On a vegetarian barbecue
Mission impossible:
My quest for meat
Then you made my quest complete
Saucy situation
Carnal Love in Bikini Blue
Meatball Magic
Belgian fries ‘cuz French are fake
Rumpsteak Lover
Make my meal complete”

My Musical DOTD : Okkervil River

Bramus! — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:24:29 +0000

Thanks to this post over at DoCopenhagen I made a nice musical discovery just a few minutes ago: Okkervil River. Be sure to check their website to hear some tunes, watch some movies and (especially for the geeks) check out their Ajax-usage And ooh, they’ll be hitting the ABClub on December 11.

My iPod Management : XPlay

Bramus! — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:51:10 +0000

In the recently posted “10 Alternatives to iTunes for managing your iPod” Ross McKillop (the author) brings forward 10 programs to manage your iPod in Windows/Linux/OSX. Great list in my opinion, yet on Windows there’s this one killer app to manage your iPod which he did not mention: XPlay. Reason he didn’t mention it, is that Xplay is not free (the apps mentioned in his article all are free), yet a mere $ 29.95 really is considered (more than) “worth its money” when seeing the app in action.

XPlay (one big huzzah for not naming it iPlay!), created by MediaFour who also created MacDrive, differs itself from the crowd by not being a separate program, but by being a shell extension. That’s right: XPlay nicely integrates itself into Windows Explorer!

XPlay : Plays nice with Windows Explorer!

After having installed XPlay it creates a (virtual) Xplay music folder on your iPod. From there on, one can explore the iPod just as if it were a regular folder and start clicking away just as one is used to browsing a hard drive.

Xplay : Browse by Album

Xplay: Album detail

Adding of songs is easy: a simple drag and drop does the job (again, as one is used to in Windows Explorer).

When right clicking on a listed song, you can send it to a playlist or change the properties (and yes, the good old ALT+ENTER works here!)

Xplay: Song Properties

The reason I like XPlay is that it takes no effort to learn how to use it as one already is used to working with Windows Explorer. This makes using Xplay a real walk in the park, even for non-tech users (it’s all about “Habit” and “Expected Behavior” in UX, not?). Above that it’s not “yet another program that tries to manage your song library”, but the essence of it all: managing your iPod without any hassle (although a synchronization option is available, I’m not using this as I like to manually control everything).

Now, my trial (15 days) nearly is expired … time to buy, not?

One happy (soon to be) customer!

[ytb] TrentemÃ¸ller – Moan

Bramus! — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 18:24:23 +0000

Stuck in my head the last few weeks: TrentemÃ¸ller’s latest single Moan, the version featuring lyrics by Ane Trolle. “I’ve been thinking too much about you, I’ve been staring at the floor; I’ve listened to all the all the tunes I love, but it made me feel quite blue; I’ve been thinking too much about you, seen the sunset with no sleep at all; I’m Constantly thinking about you and I can’t get through this at all. ” Be sure to watch the live version too

DNTEL Remix Contest!

Bramus! — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:21:32 +0000

The DNTEL Remix Contest offering the vocal track of Jimmy’s Dumb Luck track might get you $500.

Bright Eyes on VIRBÂ°

Bramus! — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 21:56:12 +0000

Bright Eyes on VIRBÂ° (nice page!), offering full streaming of their new album Cassadaga. Olé!

Your Agenda – SLINT PERFORMS 'SPIDERLAND'

Bramus! — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 20:39:10 +0000

Sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiint!!!!!!

Wohoow, de portables just made my day today,
spreading word that Slint is coming to Belgium!

Slint Who?

Gonna quote here:

“Another name that comes up in the discussion of post-rock is the Louisville, Kentucky band Slint. The 1991 album Spiderland was very influential in the genre and is considered by many to be a brilliant and defining moment. Slint used guitar, bass, drums and vocals but incorporated them in very unconventional ways. They have become the standard to which every new band in the genre is compared.”

Still not tempted?

If I have my facts straight Slint split up in 1991 (the year they released their timeless masterpiece entitled “Spiderland”) and did a ‘Reunion Tour’ in 2005. Yes that’s 14 years later than the first date mentioned. Since then they haven’t done any gigs I think.
(Just checked Wikipedia, I do have my facts straight)

And on May 23rd they’ll hit the Ancienne Belgique here in Brussels, performing Spiderland from start ’till finish

What are you waiting for?

Buy your tickets now! … or listen to some tracks first if you’re still in doubt

Something you might not know

During on of the mailchat-sessions with Wio and Hans (half of de portables) where we would exchange name of bands to listen to, Wio (or was it Hans) actually suggested Slint to me; Slint being one of their favorites themselves!

Slint’s top-album “Spiderland”

Bramus.out!

My DOTD: Their Garden, now with free copycat!

Bramus! — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 17:10:58 +0000

Just saw the new videoclip of Ok Go entitled “Do What You Want”and must say that there is a striking resemblance with a scene from Zach Braff‘s Garden State …

The previous Ok Go videoclip, just for reference (2006)

The new Ok Go videoclip (2007)

The screengrab from Garden State (2004)

Looks familiar, doesn’t it?

My Winamp DOTD

Bramus! — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:48:24 +0000

Discovery of the day: When Winamp is minimized to the system tray, you can actually load the “Open Files” dialog by holding SHIFT while double clicking it (not holding shift will normally open Winamp). Holding CTRL while clicking it opens up the “Open URL” dialog. What a bit of wildly clicking around can do!

My Trancefusion 2006 (TF9)

Bramus! — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:45:43 +0000

The latest personal project I’ve been working is the website for Trancefusion, our yearly event we organize with our scoutsgroup.

What once (40 years ago!) started as a small party named “Scouts & Gidsenbal” (SGB from now on) grew over the years. By 1997, after moving to various – read: bigger – locations to finally end up in the “Brielpoort” (one of Belgium’s biggest halls located in our hometown Deinze), SGB attracted more than 3000 people.

The concept had changed over the years, and in 1997 SGB got a facelift. The dance-aspect of the party (which already had it’s own room/hall) was named Trancefusion and that party was boosted as THE main event of the evening since house/trance/techno/… are very popular. The shift in course was an instant hit: by now, 9 years later, TF attracts 5000 people who all are there for one cause: music. Many of the visitors still come for SGB, many others come for the top-notch deejays.

Enough history, on with the nerdy stuff. The Trancefusion 9 website has been launched! Designed by Coy (who also created the poster & flyer, as he usually does), “website-ified” by me (did I just invent a new word?).

It’s not my usual “XHTML/CSS/PHP/MySQL”-site, it’s full flash this time since such a party requires some interactive things which cannot be achieved with the general techniques I use. However, I still was able to get real nerdy and bounce in a Googlemaps-implementation for the roadmap.

See you october 14!