15 styles in 5 minutes – Frank Coleman on Drums

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00:02 Firestarter beat00:30 Uptown Swing aka Krupa Beat01:02 Northern Soul beat01:20 Hard Funk beat – alternating drop 101:41 Latin breeze aka Cocktail Hour beat02:04 Take 5 (5/4 beat)02:24 Making 13/8 time sound almost danceable02:38 Downtempo minimal Trip Hop02:52 “Gallop” beat03:03 Jazz waltz (3/4 time) aka Broken Carousel beat03:18 Sunday Bloody Disco beat03:31 Sea shanty...Continue reading...

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Playlist: All the Colors of The Chameleons

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In 1981, the top three college radio bands were U2, the Bunnymen and these guys. Their music made me yearn for a place I’d never been and probably didn’t exist. Somewhere in the English countryside, where weeping willows, stone arches and unattainable spooky girls were in abundance. Unfortunately, Strange Days, one of their biggest albums,...Continue reading...

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Everson/Coleman on Cinema – Episode 1 – DEAD OF NIGHT (1945) on Patreon

Everson/Coleman on Cinema – Episode 1 – DEAD OF NIGHT (1945)

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Everson/Coleman on Cinema – Episode 01 – DEAD OF NIGHT (1945)

Bambi and I have a long history with the movies, and with each other. Here’s our first time doing a video podcast together, about our first date, when we were eight years old, watching DEAD OF NIGHT at one of Bambi’s dad’s legendary Saturday night screenings (for the uninitiated, see here).

My beloved will readily admit it took some coaxing on my part to get her to agree to this. On the other hand, we are both quite passionate about continuing her dad’s work in edifying the next generation, and stressing the importance of preservation. We agreed that if this were to have value, rather than regurgitate every detail of the production history, we should talk about what these films meant to us, and why people might enjoy them now.

HERE’S THE COMPLETE FIRST EPISODE. Please share as you see fit.

If you enjoy this sort of thing and want to see more, the best way to do that is by becoming a monthly subscriber via this page. Like I was PBS in a gorilla suit or something.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Image Source: Open AI’s GPT-2 (SoTA Language Model)

Does Not Compute: Why Machines Need a Practical Sense of Humor

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Image Source: Open AI’s GPT-2 (SoTA Language Model)
Image Source: Open AI’s GPT-2 (SoTA Language Model)

“The next obvious question: What does a machine’s sense of irony do for us, the machine’s users? The strongest case can be made for the automated recognition of irony, and of sarcasm too, since these have such dramatic effects on the perception of a user’s sentiment, either in online reviews, social media, and emails, or in our direct interactions with the machine. To do its job properly, a machine needs to grasp our intent, but irony can do for sentiment analysis what a magnet can do to a compass, making true north difficult to locate. So, for instance, if a machine is going to derive actionable insights from an online product review, it needs to know whether a positive outlook is sincere or ironic.”

More at MIT Press.

GojirAI : Cult Movies vs. AI : My first NFTs

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Introducing BoredApe Drummin’ for GojirAI!

(pronounced Go-JEER-eye)

Own some of the first AI-assisted NFT art on OpenSea! A limited set of 101 images, each one unique, assisted by AI, but subverted by a human, who inputs disruptive suggestions, and curates the results… uh, that would be me.

Those results are one-time-only. If I reject what the machine creates, that image is lost forever. If anyone else entered the same input, they would not get the same result.

This makes my role more of a decider than a doer. There’s a long tradition of artists working with assistants, from Michelangelo to Andy Warhol. So, this is nothing new, except now the assistant plugs into the wall.

Zombies on BroadwayI have a weird sense of humor.

I also used to break software for a living. My M.O. has long been to try to make art out of whatever the bleeding edge is, usually by trying to break it, and tweak noses in the process. An unrepentant punk sensbility, basically. Same thing here. Crashing this party. When an AI engine called Wombo became available, I couldn’t wait to try to break it, by feeding it my favorite cult movie titles.

There are similar engines extant, some commercial, some in academia, and they have an interface that outputs abstract art based on your text input. Rather than use their suggestions (“rainbow dolphin”), I input things like “The Corpse Grinders” and curated the results. Voilà – man/machine partnership in art! [rueful grin]

I chose images that seemed to have some of the spirit of the original movie. I was surprised at how supple the results were. I tended to like first attempts best, when it made the most mistakes. For artists, mistakes are often hidden intentions. Teach that to the AI!

I hope, with this collection, I can help get people interested in these movies if they’ve never seen them. You won’t find them on Netflix! If you’re already a fan, I hope you’ll find these new interpretations as fascinating as I do.

Feast your eyes – if you dare!

The complete first set is 101 images, and here’s the first 11 that I’ll be offering for sale as NFTs on OpenSea. Scroll left and right to see them all. Enjoy!

Red Level – opened at .5 ETH

A Clockwork Orange – on sale now
All The Colors Of The Dark – on sale now
The Dance of Reality – on sale now
The Man Who Fell to Earth – on sale now

Orange Level

Atom Age Vampire
Eyes Without a Face
War of the Worlds
Videodrome

Yellow Level

I Was a Teenage Frankenstein
The Rats Are Coming, The Werewolves Are Here!
Zombies on Broadway

UPDATE: Well, my plan was to do the three levels, but after I listed the Bowie, which was top level, it wouldn’t let me set any other image’s price lower than that! It’s the “floor price.” Well, shit! That was not what I intended! I wanted a “punk rock level” for some of them, ya know? So, I just listed the four I intended for that level and I’ll see what I can do about the others.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

FBC on Crypto and NFTs

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Ok, I’ve been soaking my brain for the last week in this topic. Here’s my reaction so far. Bear in mind, nothing said here is any kind of advice, financial or otherwise. Also, fully acknowledging my incomplete understanding in advance, and the inexorable march of time that will render this all obsolete. But for now, here’s a first marker.

I should note that after this, I decided to launch a first NFT collection on OpenSea. There is both promise and peril herein. Further research is indicated. The environmental issues will be resolved in the near future. Market forces will insist on it. My general policy is to try something before I decide if it’s good or bad. It beats the alternative.

A musical Easter egg

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Lost In the Amazon & I've Got the Jungle Blues

A great track with a groovy Secret Agent vibe. I always smile when this one comes on SomaFM, because it also includes one of my favorite musical “Easter eggs.” A funny, surreal turn of phrase in the Fender Rhodes solo, where another highly recognizable, completely unrelated melody comes marching through, and just as quickly, makes its exit. See if you can spot it. You could say it creates a bit of a circus atmosphere.

Want more? Better? Faster? SUBSCRIBE!

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Everyone’s got their price. Name your own.

It takes a certain amount of resources to mount any type of artistic endeavor of any consequence. No mystery there, particularly if you care about things like production values!

However, I have so many different projects going that doesn’t make any sense to try to do a fundraiser for each one. That would drive me crazy, burn everybody out, and I would never get anything done. Instead, I’ve set up this page as a sidecar to my website where I’m centralizing everything, frank-coleman.com.

I like to support other artists myself, and I know how good that feels from both sides of that equation. If you’re enjoying what’s going on with my 27-ring circus, and would like to help us do more-better-faster, the best way to do that is become a monthly subscriber, at a level of your own choosing. That’s how I support other artists, and it works well for everybody. 

Cancel anytime, I promise I won’t be offended; Come back anytime, I’d be delighted to have you. Simple as that. Thank you for your support!

Party like it’s 2003

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Schadenfreude and the ‘When We Were Young’ Festival memes

“The internet was recently rocked by the announcement of “When We Were Young,” a one-day music festival featuring the most beloved pop-punk and emo bands from the early aughts. Sounds fun — or does it?”

emo carFor a certain demographic (my daughter, for example), this strikes me as another of those imaginary Venn diagrams showing the intersection of truth, humor, and pain. For the preceding generation, that diagram rings true, and familiar, and is fuel for a roaring, rousing fire of schadenfreude.

‘Twas ever thus.

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