WORLD RADIO
Unlikely though it seems, one of the chief beneficiaries of the broadband age is good, old-fashioned radio, which is available free and live over the internet, broadcasting from everywhere from Asia to Zimbabwe. Radio Tower lists more than 1,200 stations from more than 80 countries that webcast for free on the internet via RealPlayer or Windows Media Player. Why not try Radio Roks from Belarus, which plays, er, rock music?
www.radiotower.com
PODCAST OF THE WEEK
The relaunched Ronnie Scott’s has done its utmost to entice music fans to its Soho address with a professional and attractive website. It has been swift to recognise the power of the podcast, and has used much of its heritage and reputation to construct a very slick programme with interviews, competitions and listings strung together by the presenter Leo Green. Interviews with the likes of Chick Corea and Claire Martin invariably coincide with an appearance at the club, but you won’t mind that at all — not when it brings you past club performances from Ella Fitzgerald (below) as well.
www.ronniescotts.co.uk
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SO BAD IT’S GOOD
The modern age continues to make stars of the mediocre. Surely it’s time the truly awful got a look in, too. This seems to be the thinking behind the acts of vocal violence inflicted on a selection of rock classics by one Glum Lee, a tone-deaf Frenchman who has set out singlehandedly to prove the old adage that the French do not understand rock music. Blur’s Song 2, as covered here, is appalling, and when AC/DC wrote Highway to Hell, they surely never imagined anything as gruesome as this. Be aware: the site contans bad language, and the air may turn blue as you listen in.
www.grumlee.com
IS IT ART?
Marcel Duchamp may have been extracting the urine when he signed a urinal R. Mutt and called it Fountain, but he indubitably changed the face of modern art, ultimately producing a generation of talent so gifted that it can flog an old mattress for millions. The Museum of Temporary Art has been created by Debby Rebsch in a similar vein, but without the millions. It features a regularly renewed collection of exhibits located in her own home that “are linked to a memory or anecdote which increases their actual value far beyond the materialistic one”. These “seemingly meaningless objects”, which include a pigeon feather found on a New York City street, are sent in by anybody who downloads the exhibit sheet and adheres to the size limit of 4x4x8cm, so it can fit in one of the 33 plastic organisers.
www.museum-of-temporary-art.com
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BLOG OF THE WEEK
There are many MP3 blogs out there carrying audio files for people to download. But while many do so in a very shady manner, The Best Media in Life is Free is 100 per cent legal, as it uses those with a Creative Commons licence. The CC system, as Wikipedia explains, “enables copyright holders to grant some of their rights to the public domain or open content licensing terms”. This blog ferrets out the best in free and legal audiobook, e-book and music downloads, including audio productions of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Victorian poetry performances and music from the online label Magnatune.
www.cc-gems.blogspot.com