April Fools’ Day may just be one day a year but in internet terms, the jokes live on. In the week proceeding April 1st, a keen web user encounters dozens of crazy and fake news stories which persist on websites after they’ve served their ephemeral one-day use. It’s best just to mark “read all” in your feed reader and be done with it or you could end up reading with interest, about Coldplay’s plan to launch a new fragrance called Angst (with a bottle designed by Brian Eno) or Indaba Music’s remix prank without realising it.
The remix community site Indaba launched a remix competition on April 1st which gave users the opportunity to remix “one of the most important musical works of the 20th century”, 4′33 by composer John Cage. The site purported to offer stems of the track for remix purposes but of course, 4′33 is in fact, four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence. So you’d be a proper April fool to fall for it.
Blurring the lines somewhat between fact and fiction last week, was an announcement from Bootsy Collins. Having lived the funk way of life with Parliament-Funkadelic, Bootsy is ready to bring his own funk teachings to others from July this year with the launch of an online Funk University for bass players.
“Because a groove is a terrible thing to waste, this sonic learning institution will be unlike anything before, as Professor Collins and the finest bassists in music will unleash an intense curriculum, on the web, for intermediate to advanced funk disciples within the program,” says the website thefunkuniversity.com. The online campus will be launched in June, that is, if it’s not revealed as a hoax in the meantime.
Away from possible pranksters, here’s something which makes a lot of sense. American rockers Linkin Park whose music is always used to soundtrack big action sequences, have stepped into the iPhone gaming arena.
Linkin Park 8-Bit Rebellion is an impressive looking multi-player arcade-game for iPhones, iTouch and iPad, for which the band provided music, characters, storylines and gameplay suggestions. The game’s storyline charges the player with finding the band’s stolen music with the reward of unlocking a new Linkin Park track in the process. 8-bit old-school versions of exisiting Linkin Park songs serve as the game soundtrack and the community aspect is strong, with in-game chat, messaging, discussion boards, player rankings and gift-giving possible. Watch the trailer at their site.
Features
Fri, Apr 9, 2010