Quick: what do Nina Hagen, Laurie Anderson, Sonic Youth, and Run DMC have in common? Among many others, they hung out at 80s arts hub Danceteria here in NYC. Check out the history in flyers. As if the current real estate market didn't give us enough reason to be wistful for 80s New York. (via […]

The good folks at Warp Records are giving away a pre-release single (limited access, so get it fast) from Prefuse 73's upcoming Surrounded By Silence (coming later this month; thanks, disquiet). Best part about it: it features The Books, everyone's favorite oddball found-sound/Folktronic electronic duo (more info at their label Tomlab or their inscrutable, outdated […]

Updated: Wil Wheaton writes us in agreement that "$20 a year is entirely reasonable, and it doesn't make it cost-prohibitive for hobbyists to pay the fee." Of course, that still raises the question of how to handle other rights that may apply and could be more costly — those not administered by ASCAP. And I […]

It's a keyboard wrapped around a pole. Rotate it, and you can play in a different key or mode. Run your finger along it, and you've got a scale. I suppose what makes this useful is the ability to find scales and modes more easily, with one downside: you've got to play a pole. (See […]

The Miami Winter Music Conference has an enormously overwhelming line-up of events. InternetDJ has the scoop on which events to check out. Here's what CDM sees as the big events: Remix Hotel should be fun again, and it's both chill and free. Wednesday BPM Magazine is hosting an all-female lineup — though we look forward […]

There's just something about an echo chamber, magical spaces that have the power to transform sound. An article in Nature (discussed at collision detection some weeks ago and more recently at aptly-named blog Echo Generation with anecdotal evidence) Mayans may have built the El Castillo pyramid with specific audio-filtering capabilities. Echoes can sound like chirping […]

With everyone hacking into the new PowerBook bump sensors — accelerometers built into the PB to protect the HD if you drop it — it was only a matter of time before someone figured out a way to control music by tilting. Bumptunes is a script that lets you, um, tilt, rock, bump, or otherwise […]

Rockstar Games, the people behind Grand Theft Audio, have turned their attention to music with a free 8-track looping application built entirely in Flash, free for online use. Beaterator features: 8-track / 240-bar sequencing from anywhere with an Internet connection, free Built-in stock sound bank from the likes of Matthew Dear (or upload your own […]

We've got more details on Beaterator from Rockstar's web developer (unofficially, of course, but he has some interesting info on how it came about, as a predecessor to the very-cool 2001 creation Rhymerator.) Now, if Rockstar could just create a killer music video game . . . Hit read more for details. Most of the […]

If 2004 was the year of the blog, then 2005 will be the year in which everyone has an idea of what the big new blog trend will be. Here at CDM, we've considered the options, from Podcasting to videoblogging and yes, even smelloblogging (in which odors are delivered via RSS feed to fitted nostril […]