Happy Halloween

Kanye West - Runaway (Full Length Film)

Not just a music video. A music film.

The Prodigy - Ibiza Rocks Hotel

Check out The Prodigy performing at Ibiza Rocks Hotel 5th anniversary.

Bass Thumpin Thursdays - Weezer's Greatest Hits

In lieu of the traditional Bass Thumping Thursday consisting of select videos from various artists, today I thought it would be nice to show you a couple of videos by the same artist. Namely Weezer. While Weezer's albums have been hit-or-miss the last couple years, One thing that has always stayed consistent is their love for the expressive medium that is the music video. Through Happy Days references to cameos by Hugh Hefner and the Muppets, Weezer definitely knows how to stand out above the rest and without further adieu: Weezer.

Bernard Purdie Groove

Bernard "Pretty" Purdie is an American session drummer and is considered an influential and innovative exponent of funk. Known for his strict musical time keeping and "The Purdie Shuffle", Purdie is said to be The World's Most Recorded Drummer and has worked with many musicians including Charles Kynard, Grant Green, Aretha Franklin, Gil Scott-Heron, James Brown, Steely Dan, Miles Davis and Hummingbird. When Purdie worked as a session musician, he would place two signs beside his drum kit. The one on the left read "You done it!" The one on the right read "You done hired the hitmaker, Bernard 'Pretty' Purdie!"

Purdie was credited on the sound track album for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) and more recently he was the drummer for the 2009 Broadway revival of Hair and appeared on the associated Broadway cast recording.

Purdie is pehaps best known as a groove drummer with immaculate timing and makes use of precision half note, backbeats, and grooves. His signature sixteenth note hi-hat lick pish-ship, pish-ship, pish-ship is distinct and hard to copy and he is known for his versatility. He often employs a straight eight groove sometimes fusing several influences such as swing, blues and funk. Variations on this shuffle can be heard on songs such as Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" and "Rosanna" by Toto and the original Purdie shuffle can be heard on Steely Dan's "Babylon Sisters" and "Home At Last". Check out the video below to see why a drum machine can never replace "Pretty" Purdie.

Bass Thumpin Thursdays - Fuck You

What's up Digital Readers? The theme of today is Fuck You. Not you personally, but a celebration of the phrase and all of it's uses. Cee-Lo Green recently made a splash with his new music video titled (you guessed it) Fuck You. Though the expletive-laden track is relatively new, a few venues refuse to play the song or the video, instead opting for the more radio friendly, heavily censored F You or the inoffensively titled Forget You. The video is actually one of the freshest I've seen in a while and if you don't enjoy it, Cee-Lo's got two words for you...

Next up is a song that kids today will be calling old school before you know it, but I can remember when it first dropped. Fresh in 1999, was Dr. Dre's second studio album 2001 and it's hard to believe that it's been 11 years since Dre has dropped that bomb on us. This album is the epitome of classic and, like The Chronic, I can listen to the disc from front to back without having to skip anything in the middle. Soon after, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit and Eminem embarked on The Up In Smoke Tour where they performed a bevy of West Coast G-Funk. Among the songs in the set list: a little ditty called Fuck You. Warning: This concert performance is NSFW.

Clearly not as gangster or demeaning as the first two, I've got to throw Lilly Allen in the mix. From her second album, It's Not Me, It's You, This British songbird's track is a soft and smooth way to say the two words of the day although it was originally known under it's working title of Guess Who's Batman.

Lastly, I'd like to present a song that I discovered long before 50 Cent hit it big. When Fiddy was just starting out, he inked a deal with Columbia records where he recorded two discs Power of the Dollar and Guess Who's Back. Although neither one was considered commercially successful, a copy of Guess Who's back landed on a young Marshall Mathers' desk and by the end of 2002, 50 Cent had been signed to Eminem's label with  a one million dollar deal. The rest, as they say, is history, but let's not forget the album that started it all. Track number 10 on the album: you already know what it is... Fuck You.

The Simpsons Tap Bansky the Graffiti Artist for Show Opening

This isn't the first time Bansky has offered his interpretation on The Simpsons

When Digitally Read was first conceived, one of the first posts posted was a collection of the works done by Bansky the British graffiti artist. Now, surprisingly, The Simpsons tapped him to create an opening sequence for their newest episode that aired last Sunday (the first time The Simpsons have gone for help outside the studio) and he definitely didn't disappoint. The result is a humorous, and possibly literal, interpretation of the way 20th Century Fox outsources most of the animation required for The Simpsons to a South Korean animation studio.

According to Al Jean, executive producer on the show, "Fox Didn't Tweak it Too Much." Jean tells The New York Times that the producers submitted Bansky's script to the network's standards and practices department, and what came back was "95 percent... just the way he wanted." Jean describes the cut material as "even a little sadder" than what aired, and is quick to chime in that Bansky's version of the show's overseas facilities is "very fanciful, far-fetched. None of the things he depicts are true. That statement should be self-evident, but I will emphatically state it." See the opening for yourself below.

Midnight Juggernauts - Lara Vs The Savage Pack

A lesson in determination, this video by Midnight Juggernauts was shot frame by frame, then re-shot using over 2000 printed pieces of paper. Check it out.

Directors: Lucinda Schreiber & Beatrice Pegard

Editor - Jaan Ranniko

Producers - Jaan Ranniko, Sonia Tsai

Compositor - Simon von Wolkenstein

DOP - Tania Lambert

Art Directors - Virginia Mesiti, Kate Dougherty

Stylist - Angelika Nilsson

Masks: Stephanie Anderson & Dave Ladd

JT and Jimmy Fallon Give Us a Brief Tour of Hip-Hop

Now I know when most of you think "hip-hop" Justin Timberlake, or 'N Sync for that matter, should be the furthest thing from your minds. But, as time progressed and boy bands became extinct, JT was one of the few who survived the transition. Teaming up with Timbaland, JT released FutureSex/ LoveSounds, backed by the pulsing rhythms and hip hop drum arrangement that we've grown to love from Timbo. Suddenly, almost overnight, it wasn't gay to bob your head to the new Justin Timberlake track on the radio.

Now JT, to me, has always seemed like a bit of a wigger because it's hard to front like you're gangsta when you're dancing in synchronicity with four other dudes while singing about your broken heart, but he genuinely seems to have at least some basic hip-hop knowledge as evident on this excerpt from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Check it out and see The Roots, Jimmy Fallon, and JT take a tour through some classic, and not so classic, hip-hop tracks.

Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein

Sorry for the lack of posting recently. My PC's motherboard died and in replacing it, I've run into a whole range related problems. Either way, I'm eager to get my computer problems solved and get back to bringing you the features you know and love. On a related note, Digitally Read is looking to expand and we're looking for contributing article writers and general music enthusiasts. if interested, email digitallyread@gmail.com with a sample of your writing and a list of your favorite bands and DJs. Get at us and join the revolution. Now for your enjoyment: the bong-rattling bass of The Edgar Winter Group.

Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein

One Small Victory

well the good news is that The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was not ratified last week. The semi-bad news is that the bill was postponed until congress is back in session in January. This is one bill not to be slept on and we've got to keep it moving if we want to preserve internet freedom.