So often with big music festivals you hear major opposition from some old coots who don't want no damn hippy shindig in their damn town.  They don't want the noise, they don't want the people and they don't seem to care about the influx of cash to their area.  It's happened since music festivals began decades ago and it continues to this day.  However, old folks don't always hate music festivals.  In fact, I came across one elderly couple who are begging that one be allowed. 

It's a sad story, really.  Well, not sad yet but it could be.  Barbara and Ted Beckingham live in upstate New York.  They don't have pensions and they get by on social security payments.  The only thing they really have is a nice 100-acre farm in the town of Springfield.  Here is the story from Syracuse.com

In the spring, the owners of Madison Square Garden came to the rural town of Springfield, in Otsego County, with plans to launch a three-day music festival each summer, like Woodstock, Lollapalooza or Bonnaroo. The concert site would sit atop the Beckinghams’ farm and another, larger farm next door.

But the Springfield Arts and Music Festival idea has generated so much controversy that Barbara Beckingham, 75, fears opposition from local residents will kill the deal.

“They’ve got their 401(k)s and their pensions and all those other things,” she said, her voice breaking and her eyes tearing up behind sunglasses. Looking toward the farmhouse and barn, she added: “Social Security of $800 a month just doesn’t cut it. This is our retirement.”

The Beckingham farm sits at the epicenter of a bitter fight that is tearing apart this small town population 1,350 that arcs along the northern shore of historic Otsego Lake. The promise of a $15 million investment and an annual influx of 75,000 music fans has pitted those who want economic development against those who want to keep this rural town rural.

Both sides see green, be it cash or countryside.

So, what do you think?  Should the town have a right to stop the festival?  Should the Beckinghams sacrifice for the rest of the town?  Weigh in in the comments.

Many great musicians pen love poems to the cities that birthed their talents and i appears Jack White, of the White Stripes, is no different.  TheDailySwarm got their hands on a poem penned by the singer and devoted to the Motor City.  It's called 'Courageous Dream's Concern.' 

‘Courageous Dream’s Concern,’ by Jack White

I have driven slow,
three miles an hour or so,
through Highland Park, Heidelberg, and the
Cass Corridor.
I’ve hopped on the Michigan,
and transferred to the Woodward,
and heard the good word blaring from an
a.m. radio.
I love the worn-through tracks of trolley
trains breaking through their
concrete vaults,
As I ride the Fort Street or the Baker,
just making my way home.

I sneak through an iron gate, and fish
rock bass out of the strait,
watching the mail boat with
its tugboat gait,
hauling words I’ll never know.
The water letter carrier,
bringing prose to lonely sailors,
treading the big lakes with their trailers,
floats in blue green chopping waters,
above long-lost sunken failures,
awaiting exhumation iron whalers,
holding gold we’ll never know.

More at TheDailySwarm

Guitar Hero, the most popular music videogame of all time, didn't just happen.  A talented team of designers, musicians and hyper-geeks had to construct the game from scratch at some point.  But when it came time to do some upgrades one feature they decided to add was realistic faces on the games singing characters.  And the best way to replicate human facial movements is to digitally map a real human face while he sings. It's called motion capture - or mo-cap - and the man behind the faces of Guitar Hero is a 24 year-old guy named Adam Jennings.  SFGate tracked him down and gives us a rare look into the strange world of one of the most "seen" faces in the world.

About once a week, actor Adam Jennings drives a few miles down the San Fernando Valley from his apartment to a converted warehouse in nearby Woodland Hills. He lies on a couch for the better part of an hour while technicians attach about 70 little spherical sensors to his face with adhesive.

When they are done, Jennings sits on a stool in a large, dark room for eight-hour sessions and lip-syncs rock songs while his face is filmed by as many as a dozen motion-capture cameras, collecting data that will be turned into computer-generated graphics for video games.

Adam Jennings is the face of the wildly popular Guitar Hero.

Full Article

What's inside your head?  Well, a brain for one. And, as it turns out, your brain may be different than a non-musical mind.  Oliver Sacks, an all-around academic, has a book on how music affects the human mind called "Musicophilia." Most surprisingly, he found that musicians' brains are different to the point of being able to identify one just from looking at it.  Wired, along with just about every other publication, wrote the book up.

According to neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, musicians' brains differ from those of the general population in a number of ways, including having a stronger connection between the left and right sides of the brain (from an NPR interview):

"Gottfried Schlaug - up at Harvard... used brain imagery to measure the sizes of different parts of the brain. He found first, for example, that the corpus callosum - the big band which unites the two hemispheres of the brain - tends to be larger in musicians. And then he found enlargements of the cortex, the grey matter, in the auditory parts of the brain, and in motor parts of the brain to a degree which may be almost visible to the naked eye. So that, say, if one looks at pictures of brains, you might not be able to say this man is a genius or this man is a fool, or this man is a visual artist, but you could probably say that man is a musician."

I like the idea that my brain is different - dare I say better - than the average brain thanks to years of playing and listening to music.  Of course, I did go through a headbanging stage which probably ruined any chance I had at really standing out. 

Musicophilia on Amazon

Indaba user Newton Bach pointed me towards an online talent search to become a backup singer for Alicia Keys.  Thanks, Newton!

You can get to the contest HERE, but don't waste your time if you're ineligible.  Alicia is looking for a pretty specific skill set. 

1. Must be female between the ages of 21-30.
   
2. Have a valid Passport.
   
3. Immediately able to Travel.
   
4. By entering, you agree to the full set of rules and regulations

So, if you fit the bill, give it a shot!  Make Indaba proud, ladies!

Via Wired

The 1990's were a great time for bad music.  Right Said Fred, Ace of Base, N*Sync, all of these stinkers made their debut in the decade that also gave us great acts like Nirvana and Dave Matthews Band.  I say this to illustrate what an accomplishment it was for three guys in the 1990's to produce the world's worst song.  From Wired...

An online poll conducted in the '90s set Vitaly Komar, Alex Melamid and David Soldier on a quest to create the most annoying song ever.  After gathering data about people's least favorite music and lyrical subjects, they did the unthinkable: they combined them into a single monstrosity, specifically engineered to sound unpleasant to the maximum percentage of listeners. The song is not new, but it recently resurfaced on Dial "M" for Musicology.

By my ear, the song isn't too terrible at the onset but gets exponentially worse the longer it plays.  By the time it gets to the 'kids singing about Christmas' part it's virtually impossible to listen to any longer.  If you dare, Take A Listen. 

Via Jakob Lodwick

How funny is this?  It's amazing how many terrible ideas make it to the market.  It's even more amazing when they're sucessful.

Luckily for people everywhere, the music vest failed to capture the public's imagination.

Via Wired

Remember when we were all going to be walking around with virtual reality helmets on, living out our real lives through a virtual medium?  Well, that didn't exactly pan out, did it?  What did happen was the personal computer and the Internet.  Now, iPerform 3D aims to bring it all full circle, virtual reality and all.  Their pitch is this: guitar lessons taught by virtual teachers.  Lame, right?  Wrong.  All the video is made from motion capture technology so it's pretty realistic. From Wired...

In order to study what the site's pros are teaching, budding guitarists can zoom in, loop any segment, view the lesson from multiple angles (including from behind the fretboard) and slow the song to a crawl while preserving its pitch. The idea behind the site is that by manipulating video of the guitar teacher teaching, you can learn at a faster rate. Full Post

I've been looking to get some guitar skills so I'm considering the $20/month offer (much cheaper than real guitar lessons).  If I go through with it I will most certainly let you guys know how well it works. 

http://www.guitarschool.net

There is a phenomenon that has arisen online to not much fanfare: the drive-thru rap.  Unlike it's cousin, the drive-thru food snag, the drive-thru rap has become an art all its own.  Enjoy with me now the fruits of so much creative labor.

Taco Bell

There are more Taco Bell drive-thru raps than there are ingredients in Taco Bell food.  So, like eight or so.  Here though is the most popular. And here are a few more. 

McDonalds

While not as numerous as Taco Bell raps, this McDonalds rap is perhaps the most popular of the lot.  Listen to the masterful wordplay, the reggaeton-style delivery and the looping, background vocal hits.  Enjoy it in three different speeds!  Don't get this confused with McDonalds: The Rap, either. 

Wendy's

In my opinion, Wendy's has the best tasting food of all the big fast food chains that dot our highways like so many zits on a chubby kid's face.  But, does a delicious, bacon-heavy menu translate to tight rhymes?  Yes, yes it does.

Burger King

Surprisingly, there aren't too many Burger King drive-thru raps floating around online.  This guy though aims to fill the void by declaring that "this is the Burger King rap you've been waiting for."  Will it live up to all that hype?  See for yourself.

In-N-Out

Even the famous California-only burger joint, In-N-Out has fallen victim to drive-thru rapping.  Fans/regulars of In-N-Out will catch a reference to some of what makes In-N-Out legendary in the line, "I like my fries animal style."  Animal Style refers to the restaurant's secret menu; an unpublished list of secret ways to vary your order. 

Perhaps I was wrong about the drive-thru rap trend not saturating our culture.  After all, things only get parodied once they're super popular, right?

Remember last year?  Remember a certain deep-voiced young man who got famous singing about a certain type of rain?  Yes, that's right, I'm talking about Tay Zonday, Mr. Chocolate Rain himself.  Besides showing up in an episode of South Park a few weeks back, Zonday has been playing it cool.  And by playing it cool I mean I haven't seen much of him on the internet.  Until the other day, that is.  It seems Zonday not only knows how to create his own viral sensation, but he knows how to cash in on others'.  If this video only had a prairie dog turning around dramatically it would be the perfect storm of Internet videos.