A book about the neuroscience of the brain might sound daunting and unapproachable, but Oliver Sacks’s 2007 novel, Musicophilia is a collection of genuinely fascinating stories about the brain’s reaction to music. It’s too bad it took three years to actually get around to reading it (look at the cover…

Earlier this week, a Wichita man died at the Vans Warped Tour in Bonner Springs, Kansas. Although the cause of his death has yet to be determined, it’s a safe bet that prolonged heat exposure might have had something to do it (temperatures reportedly climbed over a hundred degrees that…

Yesterday, CNN reported that Wyclef Jean has entered himself into the bid for president in Haiti. This doesn’t mark the first time a celebrity has run for office, and while we wish him the best of luck, we have to wonder what qualifications he has other than being a member…

Sometimes it’s not so much about the music as it is the idea. Case in point: The above song, “The Birds and the Beedrills,” by White Licorice and Sad Panda, is not a good rap song. It doesn’t have particularly intriguing beats. It does, however, manage to pack in the…

It has been a while since we’ve seen a new genre on the music scene, but thankfully miniature-juggalo Violent JJ, who is the son of adult juggalo and Insane Clown Posse member Violent J has given us baby-wrestling-rap, or BWR for short. It’s a new form of music that melds…

Rumors have been swirling recently that Nick Cave may have signed on to rewrite the screenplay for The Crow remake (ouch that sentence hurts our heads). Cave is a favorite around here for his music, but we’re a bit hard pressed to find anyone who’s actually made it through a…

Hours after dissing Twitter in a freestyle at Facebook HQ, Kanye West became a part of the Twitterverse, joining ranks of millions of other users of the micro-blogging service. Since then, he’s already produced nearly a hundred tweets, ranging from the inane to, well, the really inane. He’s already gotten…

Chances are you’ve heard the newest Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach at some point since its release. You may not have even been aware of it — maybe it was in the grocery store or while you were out at a club — but you’ve probably heard it. Now you can…

San Diego Comic-Con is in full swing this weekend, with nerds, dorks and geeks combining forces to create a Mecca of awesome in California. While we’re stuck at home twiddling our thumbs and reading, ahem, books, we found our minds returning to comics no matter what we did. So, in…

I’ve been obsessed with the vocoder for a long time. From the first time I heard Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn” to watching Clockwork Orange in high school — the sound has fascinated and amused me to no end. Until last week, I didn’t know Dave Tompkins’ book, How to Wreck a Nice…

Last week, it was revealed the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) spent $16 million to recover $391,000 from lawsuits involving peer-to-peer file sharing. No, we didn’t print that backwards; you don’t need to adjust your screen — they really did waste that much money. It’s a hefty cost/reward balance,…

Korn’s new album, Korn III: Remember Who You Are came out this past Tuesday, and word has it that the album’s producer, Ross Robinson, who produced the act’s first two records, brought the band to tears several times while recording it. Jonathan Davis’s shrink was evidently incensed, and the drummer,…

The first time The Heart is a Drum Machine caught my eye was sometime in March when it popped up on my Netflix Instant queue. It looked interesting — but I quickly moved on to something else — probably something with explosions or monsters or some obscure foreign film that…