Australian PSA makes wonderfully dark, cute entertainment

All this just to say "Don't do stupid things around trains!" More about it here. Watch it over a few times and catch new details by each of the cast. I'm totally going to join animator Julian Frost's cult.

The deepest note in the universe is a B-flat

 At least, according to NASA's study of the sound that black holes make. The B-flat is well below the human range of hearing, at 57 octaves below middle-C. The sound's frequency is a million billion times deeper than anything any human has ever heard.

Mr. Yuk

A funny little series of PSAs created by Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, to clearly label poisonous and toxic chemicals so tots don't drink it.

"When you see it, you'll know quick! Things marked Yuk make you sick! Sick sick sick! SICK SICK SICK!" It's a prime example of '70s surrealism, with what sounds like sound effects from an arcade game leading it off. (Yes, they had them in 1970.)

More about Mr. Yuk here. It's high time we made a meme out of it and ran it into the ground.

The day break-dancers performed for the Pope

In 2004, Pope John Paul II was entertained by a very modern and urban performance: break-dancers in the Vatican! He seemed to enjoy it. Here's the video:

Fall In Love With Marika Rokk's Interpretation Of Space Cabaret

Marika Rokk was a dancer and singer of German film. Unfortunately, she was at the height of her popularity right during the Nazi era, so she became indelibly linked with it. Nevertheless, as seen by the campy, original style of this production, she's worth a second look.

This film from 1958, titled "Mir Ist So Langweilig" (It means "I am so bored") shows a moon-woman spying an African tribe on Earth and blasting down to be frolic with them for the sheer novelty of it. Despite the racist overtone (she even draws her finger across the chest of one dark man to see if it would rub off, but is promptly laughed at for this), it's full of charming touches like the swaying astronauts and a cute rocket with a gyroscopic cockpit.

This was done after her pardon from her post-WWII professional ban. For a while there, they didn't let her perform because she was so associated with the Nazis, which, let's face it, is hardly her fault since she couldn't help who buys a ticket to her shows.

Before there were iPods, the Katzenclavier

A cat organ is a musical instrument in which a series of cats are arranged in a row by vocal range, with their tails secured inside the machine with a keyboard attached, such that when a key is played the corresponding tail is pulled and makes the cat yell.

Discussed by Robert J. Richards in a psychiatry context.

Referenced in this music ensemble posted recently on BBC news, where Prince Charles just thinks this is the funniest damn thing ever, even though they're only playing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" using toy doll cats (animal rights people, you can relax now).

Meanwhile the Wiki page on cat organs describes some pretty disturbing abuses of animals for entertainment's sake in general.

Would you believe there's a whole field called "zoomusicology", dedicated to the use of fauna in composition? There is an elephant orchestra in Thailand, thankfully with the elephants playing instruments rather than being the instruments themselves. And then there's Hatebeak, a death metal band employing a screeching parrot for vocals (and they still sound better than Nickelback).

Captain Beefheart - Still one of the most mind-blowing artists ever

This is "Bat Chain Puller" from a 1990 performance in France.

At Lyric-Interpretations, I already wrote up The Weird, Weird, Weird Story of Trout Mask Replica. This is the most widely-known album by Captain Beefheart, definitely his magnum opus.

And here's "Pena", from that album:

Don't just dismiss this as noise music. Listen to Captain Beefheart once, you'll think he was a madman spouting nonsense. Listen to him three times, you'll realize that in fact they were doing this on purpose, they meant every note and beat to sound exactly the way it did. Listen to him five times, and you'll appreciate a great experimental genius inside all that racket, somebody whose approach to composing music was so novel that it defies categorization or imitation, even to this day.

Here is Captain Beefheart's 10 commandments of guitar playing.

Rule 1:

1. Listen to the birds

That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere. 

 Here's a full discography, for further exploration. But now, I must leave you with one of his more accessible songs, "Ella Guru":

Mr. T's singing career

Mr. T was basically the Mayor of the Eighties. And yet Michael Jackson out-charted him. Imagine that!

The most intriguing street performer you've ever seen