Apparently seeing success with their excruciatingly irritating VH1/Slide on-air Superpoke, Viacom announced that their other “music” network MTV will partner with confection company Cadbury and Dish Network to launch an interactive ad campaign cleverly dubbed iTV.

iTV will begin with Cadbury pushing its Sour Patch Kids’ via live polling and quizzes during MTV’s new reality series “Queen Bee”.

The questions will be presented before commercial breaks, and the voting results will appear immediately following the commercial break, encouraging viewer retention throughout the pod. Sour Patch Kids’ branding will be incorporated throughout the iTV application. Additionally, MTV will weave Sour Patch Kids’ product attributes into one question each episode.

From CED Magazine

He’s Fred, he’s 14, he has three of YouTube’s top 10 videos this month, and his channel has been viewed over 5 million times.

Lucas Cruikshank, the boy behind the meme even has his own demographically-targeted endorsements to motivate him to keep pumping out these million-view-videos.

YouTube stars are born and fizzle every day, but the most interesting part of this teeny-bopper phenomenon is ‘Fred’s’ profoundly perceptive ideas about his audience and the medium in which has struck the most recent viral lode. Read the whole NewTeeVee interview here.

“NBC used to have their “Must See TV” Thursday night line-up that got all that Friday water-cooler buzz, so I liked the idea of posting FRED episodes as schools were getting out Thursday afternoons. My strategy isn’t just to get the biggest audience; it’s to get a loyal audience”

I personally think these internet semi-sensations are fascinating, but they wouldn’t be memes without trolls and their nasty comments. Videogum’s Gabe Delahaye certainly falls into the latter sort.

“I think there are definitely a few things that I would totally buy after watching a Fred video, like noise-canceling headphones, or an industrial grade eye-shower, or a gun with one bullet in it.”

On Monday May 26th I went to see (honestly) one of my favorite electronic pop musicians, Owen Ashworth or as his despondent disciples know him, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone at the Trunkspace

Minimalist banjo-and-pedal steel splitmates Foot Foot also rocked the bill, along with local champions Small Group and Businessman’s Lunch.

Businessman’s Lunch stepped on stage adorned in hazardously achromatic pants and ironic t-shirts and backed up by their very own light showman manning a small array of desk lamps, taplights, strobes, and christmas lights. This was a special night for BML, for they decided to temporarily abandon their Flaming Lips-with-slightly-more-personal-baritone-vox sound for a drum machine driven dance party. Needless to say, it got me PUMPED.

Small Group, with one residual BML member (now in jamies) played next, filling the crowd with honest, nostalgic rock and roll. Video proof can be found on their ’space.

The adorably married Josh and Robin Brown of Foot Foot played a charming set despite being a little visibly tipsy and deprived of a vocal monitor. Robin has such a distinct harp of vocal chords that played perfectly with the four strings she plucked on her noticeably loved and worn banjo. Josh saved his stage-banter but Robin made sure to give the snug audience some entertaining background on the songs, whose novelistic lyrics are, to me, one of the best things about Foot Foot.

CTFTPA took less time than expected to set up his impressively well-organized and well-labeled rig. After sound checking on an instrumental/”can I get a little less reverb on the mic”/conventionally sung version of ‘Cold White Christmas’, Owen introduced himself and greeted everyone. His dry wit bounced off most of the crowd until a couple songs in when he touched on the possible Tuscan-Phoenix rivalry (which isn’t even a rivalry if you ask me) when the gang loosened up and started shouting song requests (aren’t set lists overrated anyway?).

click for the whole roll ^

I know I’m beginning to really look pathetic and technological lummox, but I swear I’ve just been having bad luck with my shiny little toys. This time, there was some trouble with the file transfer and I lost some pics and a sweet video of Foot Foot. Maybe I can find that black hole into which my stuff vanished… probably not.

Anyway, the show was fucking great. I really recommend seeing any of these guys again. There are some really cool shows coming up in the next few weeks (check my calendar!) so hopefully I’ll nail down a format of sorts?

hey, a girl can dream

Thanks to the wonderful web apps of Google, I’ve created a simple event calendar of upcoming shows and events.

I know it’s rather hard to read this mini version, but you can just click on an event to bring up the details and hear the bands’ music.

I’ve only filled it in with music shows from now until the end of June, but I’ll be periodically updating it with changes and bumping it up to the front.

Please email me if you know of any other worthy happenings (phxnoise at gmail dot com)

The stroke of midnight tonight will bring the fabled return of America’s favorite Archaeologist in Lucas, Spielberg and William’s 2-hour epic shown across more than 4,000 screens.

I just set up an account through the mobile streaming service QIK and I will start streaming from the Tempe Marketplace Harkins Theatre at around 10:30p or so right up until those charming bow-tie-clad ticket-tearers threaten me with an MPAA suit.

So for now, please enjoy some of the astounding genius of John Williams from the “Last” Crusade and for later, check back for the streaming vid.

John Williams - The Penitent Man Will Pass [1989]

<EDIT>

Okay, so I forgot the N95 at my house. I know, I’m a bad blogger, but hey, there wasn’t any available wireless at the theatre anyway and I had already tried (in vain) to set up a stream over MMS beforehand.

Anyway, i have come to my final decree about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. As far as movies go, it was okay, and since you’ll probably go see it at some point, or have made up your mind to refuse to feed this beast, there’s no use in me putting together a feeble review of this already over-hyped song-and-dance. (Comforting to know that at least when it comes to cinematic merit it won’t (god willing) overshadow the prospective caliber of the Dark Knight coming July 18 baby!).

However, the experience of seeing Indy 4 at the Tempe Marketplace delivered just what a summer blockbuster midnight showing is supposed to: a reason to get a grip of friends and drink and celebrate the propaganda circus surrounding one of the most anticipated flicks since the Phantom Menace. I was told that tickets for the Cine Capri Theatre were sold out almost two days before the screening, and by the time the lights went down at 11:57, all 7 theatres were sold out.

I’m curious to see just how many records this big guy crushes, considering it’s 5-day saga of a weekend debut. Box Office Mojo reports that it made (an actually not-too-impresive) $25 million opening day, but hey, it was a Thursday. Check back on Tuesday to see the full damage.

The other day I bought a soprano ukulele.

I haven’t had this much fun playing music in too long. I play the guitar also but the uke’s small fretboard was so much fun to play on.

I found the extremely helpful ukulele-enthusiast website Uke Hunt that helped me with the basics and also had an impressively organic (not bot-populated) roster of uke tabs of artists like Beirut and Stephin Merritt. Such a treat considering the Magnetic Fields could possibly be one of my all-time favorites.

I also gotta find someone who can make me one of these.

For fellow Magnetic Fields fans, I came across this great hand-made collection of all of Stephin Merritt’s songs (pre-Distortion). It’s called Stephin’s Songs and I bookmarked it.

And even if you’re not an MF fan, I’m sure you will enjoy this deliciously 90’s video for “Born on a Train”

The Northwest Chapter of the Grammy Organization, NARAS, put on an event in Portland Oregon earlier this week. Dave Allen of Pampelmoose.com gives a brief talk on the obscure state of the music industry today.

“As independent musicians we have to look at what it is we can achieve using all these tools online to make a difference in the music industry,” Allen said.

watch the full speech below

Dave Allen speaking at the Grammy PDX In The Mix event April 08 from Dave Allen on Vimeo

Patrick Wolf - Accident and Emergency [2007]

The Federal Communications Commission has just approved a new system for shooting you a text message for all those emergency alerts, terrorist attacks, disasters, and Amber Alerts. T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and AT&T all said they’d be down for serving as America’s grim texters.

The Mountain Goats - Pale Green Things [2005]

An Arizona (woohoo local economy!) energy company PetroSun Biofuels opened a farm for raising algae and converting their algal oil into environmental jet fuel. The pond scum farmers plan on opening more plants in Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and other stateside locations.

The Beatles - And Your Bird Can Sing [1966]

A graduate journalism student at UC Berkely was arrested while photographing at a political demonstration in Egypt. Lucky for James Karl Buck, social micro-messaging allowed him to Twitter ‘ARRESTED’ to his friends in time for Berkeley to hire an attorney, notify the US Embassy, and get himself out of jail.

Of Montreal - Vegan in Furs [2004]

Norwegian scientists have begun to prove the economic worth of vat-grown-meat. Although currently in only the experimental stages and looking an awful lot like a used makeup pad, the test tube steaks are said to be cheaper, healthier, and more environmentally friendly than the bloody alternatives.

The Cars - Just What I Needed [1978]

Circuit City’s future as a competent big-box electronics dealer has gotten even more uncertain with the surprising bid from Blockbuster to buy out the city for $1 billion. I experienced the inner workings of the city first hand about a year ago, selling computers, cameras, extended warranties and my dignity for about $10 an hour. Good riddance and go Newegg!

I have been a happy iTunes user when it comes to downloading, organizing, and enjoying my favorite online “TV shows”. However, as an open-media zealot and a perpetual killer app scout, I felt like I had to give Miro, the free, open source Internet TV and video player, a try, seeing that it’s supposedly made to “turn my computer into an internet TV”.

The user interface in Miro’s small, quick-launching window is very user-friendly with a left sidebar of expandable folders that reminds me of NetNewsWire and even iTunes.

The first thing Miro did upon initial launching was it combed my computer for videos, and it certainly did just that by digging up videos I thought I had lost.  Miro stuck all the videos into the ‘Library’ folder on the sidebar in pretty much the same unorganized, misnamed and thumbnail-less state in which it found them. It’s worth mentioning though, that it did play all my videos seamlessly, regardless of the format. The only real problem I had with the video playback is the fact that I couldn’t browse Miro while playing a video in full screen (I use two monitors).

Miro comes pre-subscribed to four ‘starter channels’, which are (surprise!) relevant and interesting. I personally like the HD NASA show.  It also comes subscribed to the company’s ‘Using Miro’ channel of about a dozen detailed screen casts to quickly get you up to speed.

I find, by far the most interesting element to Miro is its “Miro Guide” which works similarly to the iTunes store and lets the user search, browse and subscribe to some of the 4000 channels, 400 of which are available in high definition. The searching is fast when you want to find a specific channel, and the layout is easily digestible. The channel profiles are also informative, but can sometimes be inaccurate when it’s integral RSS feed is really just an auto-download for anything on youtube with a certain tag or user.

But then again, I think this free-to-upload as well as the free-to-watch element of Miro could be the broad inclusiveness needed to help marshal the currently unorganized wealth of good content out there. If it stays true to its non-profit, open-media roots while managing the signal over the noise, Miro has the chance to become a powerful delivery system in a new world where content, not products of corporate focus groups, is truly king.

The Strokes - Barely Legal [2001]

The gold standard for legit and free filesharing, www.legatorrents.com celebrated it’s relaunching a couple days ago complete with some rad features such as a system for users to donate money to the site, which for the time being, is free from any ads. It’s an extremely nice differentiation from other not-so-legal torrent sites whose banner ads often make visits somewhat NSFW.

Bob Dylan - North Country Blues [1964]

North Korea cut off dialogue with South Korea on Thursday, claiming the peninsula was on the brink of another war. On Sunday, after the top military general in South Korea’s capitol Seoul warned the North of possible military retaliation if the communist nation attempted a nuclear attack. Three days prior, North Korea fired short-distance missiles off the country’s west coast, a move that the United States said was completely within the North’s legal boundaries.

The Kinks - The Moneygoround [1970]

Other than attempting to reopen talks with the North, South Korea’s new president Lee Myung-Bak made a pledge that he would donate his salary of his 5-year term to South Korea’s underprivileged through public welfare programs. He’s got plenty of coal to spare too, this free market champion is the former CEO of a successful engineering and construction company. You may have heard of Hyundai?

The Cure - Cold [1982]

The Sydney Opera House, Roman Coliseum, and even the mighty Google homepage along with millions of other households and businesses around the globe turned off their lights for Earth Hour 2008 in an effort to reduce greenhouse emissions and raise awareness about energy consumption. I’ve decided to personally contribute by representing this event with one of the darkest darkwave songs in my library, which of course comes from our moody Mr. Smith, who sulks in darkness at all hours of the day.

The Who - Going Mobile [1971]

Cuba’s new president, Raul Castro, after blessing his people with the miracle of microwaves, passed a decree Friday which allows ordinary Cuban citizens to have cell phone service. No more lonely Leninist landlines!

David Bowie - Life on Mars [1971]

NASA decided last week that they would hibernate neither Spirit nor Opportunity Mars Rovers (woo!) This announcement, welcomed by space nerds everywhere, comes after a breif scare of NASA stating that one of the space bots would have to be put into hibernation in response to $4 million in budget cuts. Four more years!