Insufficient Funds: Agents of Change - The Buzzkill Mixtape

Insufficient Funds is a recurring post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without over drafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop.
Chicago-based hip hop band Agents of Change are out to destroy everything for you by being the biggest buzzkills possible. Alright, really they just want to educate people and talk about awful things happening every day in our society in order to get others talking and thinking and put it into the collective conscious a little bit more.

I'm gonna show my lack of knowledge with this Insufficient Funds because I don't listen to very much rap or hip hop. What does the term 'mixtape' mean in hip hop culture? Is it always the artist rapping over other artist's beats? Does it always consist of not only studio-recorded songs, but live recordings, and plenty of collaborations? Are mixtapes always free?

Well, no matter what the "norm" is, The Buzzkill Mixtape from Agents of Change has/is all of these things. It's also pretty damn good.

Insufficient Funds: Breton's Free EP "The Blanket Rule"

Insufficient Funds is a recurring post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without over drafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop.
UK-based electronic band Breton are priming new listeners for their no doubt illustrious musical careers by releasing a free 5-song EP entitled The Blanket Rule. I'm not entirely sure what the rule is, but the music is quite excellent. (I assume the rule is to not eat food on someone else's blanket. No one wants you wiping your nasty food-covered fingers on something they're gonna snuggle with later.)

Breton do things a little differently. They fancy themselves a "multimedia collective", which is their way of describing their practice of cutting and chopping up sounds from a variety of genres -- as well as their own uniquely created ones (like intentionally breaking speakers and playing inside bank vaults) -- and combining them into driving dance beats. The press release describes them as "deconstructing and reconstructing popular culture." Sound familiar? They're the musical version of this very website!

Hit up this link to download the EP for free, or hit the jump to hear a few sample songs.

Insufficient Funds: Childish Gambino EP

Insufficient Funds is a weekly post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without over drafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.
It seems the biggest enemy to Donald Glover's music career is the perception that the entire thing is some sort of joke. Whether it's the fact that everything else he's done is comedic (writing for 30 Rock, starring on Community, or performing with Derek Comedy), or the fact that everything he has released has been free, people just can't seem to take him seriously.

Maybe the release of this new self/titled EP, proving the whole music thing wasn't just a one-off experiment, will silence some of those voices. Though, even his music has never been completely serious. Just like with his full length the EP has some pretty amusing lyrics, they're never played as silly though.

Insufficient Funds: Dr. Green

Insufficient Funds is a weekly post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without overdrafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.
Music is good; free music is really good. For this week's post on Insufficient Funds here are a load of free tracks by a band I recently had the pleasure of seeing live: A three piece rock band trio by the name of Dr. Green.

Last weekend I made a little excursion up north to Burlington, Vermont. After a late start and a five hour drive, I had reached the far north west corner of the Green Mountain State. Now most people would be content with just relaxing after such a trip, but my friend had mentioned there were other plans for the evening: A house party in South Burlington.

Insufficient Funds: Angry Birds in Chrome

It’s not often that a game catches onto the mainstream like Angry Birds has, and usually when one does it’s made by PopCap or Zynga. But Rovio Mobile stumbled upon a phenomenon with their bird-launching casual game. It has likely earned them a bajillion dollars and has been ported to every platform imaginable, now including your Internet browser. Yes, as of this week, Angry Birds is now playable in Chrome browsers for absolutely nothing.

Insufficient Funds: Tell 'Em Steve-Dave

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When Kevin Smith (director or Clerks, Dogma, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, etc.) began building a podcast empire, his friends Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson were second in line to make a show. I'd somewhat known both of them from appearances on SModcast (Smith's signature podcast) and from Johnson's directorial debut, Vulgar, but I was hardly prepared for just how much I would fall in love with their podcasting endeavor. Add in Brian Quinn and a rotating cast of their other acquaintances and it only gets better.

I listen to a majority of the podcasts on the SModcast Network, but Tell 'Em Steve-Dave is the one that I look forward to the most each week. It's not only their brand of humor that draws me in, but their complete and utter honesty that makes them so easy to like and relate to. You can really tell that they've been friends forever and that's what makes them play off each other so well.

Insufficient Funds: The Short Films of Ruairi Robinson

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Short films seems to be an ever-growing testing ground of sorts for upcoming movie directors on the Internet. With a possible audience of millions, it's much easier for a well done short to garner attention from movie studios. Just look at the career of Neill Blomkamp as a prime example. If I had to guess who would be the next Blomkamp based on their released shorts, it'd be Ruairi Robinson.

Insufficient Funds: Streets of Rage Remake

Insufficient Funds is a weekly post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without overdrafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.
My favorite part of the Internet is when mega-fans makes awesome things of the things they love. Most of the time if their love is for a video game, and they express it by making a remake or a sequel themselves -- instead of waiting around for the developer to hear their pleas -- it's unceremoniously shut down before it ever sees the light of day. Sometimes, though, it makes it's way through the entire process and is released for all gamers to enjoy; Such is the case for Streets of Rage Remake.

Even more astonishing then the fact that this team of fans got it released is the sheer amount of effort they went to. They didn't have any of the actual game code, and they didn't reverse engineer the game to get it. Instead, they just analyzed everything and attempted to recreate it from scratch. And not only the first game -- they've pretty much remade the entire series in one product.

Insufficient Funds: The Institute Web Series

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Before YouTube became known for videos of people getting hit in the crotch and boring vlogs, there was likely some expectation of the service being used as an outlet for creative people. Luckily there is now some of that going on, and people are attempting to put out some content that actually took a little bit of thought. Like the web series, which offers up mini-episodes of shows that would likely never get a greenlight on a network station. Somehow I always get sucked in when I start a series, and the latest in which I'm entangled is The Institute.

The Institute would definitely not have been greenlit on a network station given it's plot. Two brothers start a school for upcoming pornstars back in the 70s when pornography was just starting out. Each episode follows the gang of "teachers" and their attempts to keep their "school" up and running, as well as gives a mock origin to a well-known sexual term such as The Dirty Sanchez or The Blumpkin.

Insufficient Funds: Evil Empire Sucks

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A thousand punk bands are recording themselves in a thousand different basements right now and you will likely never hear the results. Some of them might have a lot of promise, but they'll break up before they ever get the chance to see that potential realized in a real studio with a producer to help them sound their best. Thankfully, the Internet allows us special access to this formerly lost world of music.

Evil Empire fits nicely into this category. I actually discovered them from their next release, Does This Genocide Make Me Sexy?, which is a significant step up in recording quality. I fell in love with their volatile sound and immense potential. So, I dug up their first recording to see how it compared.

Insufficient Funds: A Thousand Clowns

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Sometimes my father-in-law likes to turn it to the Turner Classic Movies channel on weekend afternoons. I've noticed that old movies tend to have really drawn-out scenes, well beyond the attention spans of people nowadays. Actually, my father-in-law is usually asleep within the first 20 minutes of the movie, meaning it could be all generations.

I realize this makes me sound like some stupid little kid with a short attention span, but those TCM afternoons have made me wary of older movies. Still, I decided to bite on A Thousand Clowns after being inundated with praise from Jesse Thorn, host of The Sound of Young America and proprietor of MaximumFun.org. I was not disappointed.

Insufficient Funds: Dumbo Gets Mad - Elephants At The Door

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To me, music that takes a backseat instead of forcing its way to the front of your attention is immensely useful. Sometimes I just need a soundtrack to a monotonous task like delivering papers or writing/editing articles, and the new Dumbo Gets Mad album, Elephants At The Door, does that perfectly.

Most of the time I require instrumental music to fill that need, because I start to pay too much attention to the singing. With Elephants At The Door it is just another instrument in the lush soundscape, rather than a distraction. Best of all? The entire album only costs you a tweet or Facebook status update.

Insufficient Funds: Feed the King

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You know those Stacker machines you see in truck stop gas stations? The ones that task you with dropping blocks at an increasingly rapid pace onto the pile in order to win the real prizes dangling inside the machine. I had a friend that spent a sizable chunk of money on one of those machines to try and win a $200 gas card so that they could use it to go to New York City. He lost on the very last block he needed and their impromptu trip was a bust. If only he'd had Feed the King to help him practice.

Most of the time the Stacker machine gives you really great prizes if you win, though I came across one in a small town with a keychain coin purse and a cheap $20 camera as the big rewards. Feed the King offers you even less, but it is pretty charming. The king is hungry, and you have to stack cakes on his platter as high as you possibly can in order to satiate his hunger.

Insufficient Funds: Hot Sugar - Muscle Milk EP

Insufficient Funds is a weekly post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without overdrafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.
I don't listen to a lot of electronic music, but I usually enjoy it when I do. I just need a good, solid recommendation, and when the word free is put before that recommendation it is a huge motivating factor to me actually checking it out. That's why I jumped right on Hot Sugar's new EP, Muscle Milk.

The Needle Drop describes it as lo-fi, quirky beatmusic, and it certainly is both of those things. I'm a fan of some pretty weird music, so there was nothing that could turn me off. Personally, I love that it feels like there is absolutely no structure to the songs at all and they could turn on a dime at any second.

Insufficient Funds: Digital: A Love Story

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I don't usually stay up to date on the indie gaming scene, but every once in awhile a game is heralded enough to warrant my immediate attention. This was the case with Digital: A Love Story. Several people whose opinions I greatly respect listed it among their favorite games of the year, so I decided I should probably get around to playing it. After all, it's free to boot.

Digital is a pretty unique experience; it simulates the BBS world of 1988. If you don't know what a BBS (Bulletin Board System) is, don't worry, neither do I, really. I was three years old in 1988, but I've learned since then that they were a precursor to the Internet as we know it. Think of it like a messageboard that is hosted on your own computer and other people access it by actually dialing into your machine. Had I been old enough to understand that in 1988 I would probably rave about Digital's loving recreation of the world of BBSs.

Insufficient Funds: The Pod F. Tompkast

Insufficient Funds is a weekly post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without overdrafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.

Back on August 1st, comedian Paul F. Tompkins decided to pile onto the top of the growing comedian-hosted podcast heap. He had guested on numerous shows before that point, from Jordan Jesse Go, to Comedy Death-Ray Radio, and Stop Podcasting Yourself -- but rather than completely yank the styles of those shows, he created something all his own. The Pod F. Tompkast was born.

Insufficient Funds: Girl Talk's All Day

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I've listened to the last few Girl Talk albums, and while I thoroughly enjoyed them, I was under the impression that I was missing something. Turns out I was wrong. There is no reason to think about his odd mash-ups as anything more than a lot of fun. So, you'll be happy to know that his newest album is entirely free online.

Like I said, it's not that I don't enjoy listening to the weird mixes he puts together, I just think they fall short of becoming another that can stand on their own. Apparently, that's cool with other people, so I'm cool with it to and can now concentrate on just having fun with it. I just can't help but wonder if he'd make each song into it's own individual, highly-specialized remix, if that would elevate them to a level where you could enjoy them like you would all the rest of your favorite music.

Insufficient Funds: 9 Beet Stretch

Insufficient Funds is a weekly post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without overdrafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.

 

9 Beet Stretch is a playful title for a more mesmeric experience. Norwegian Leif Inge took Beethoven's 9^th symphony (Ode to Joy and so forth), and stretched out the piece (which is somewhere between sixty and ninety minutes) to last twenty-four hours. You might, by reading that, have an idea of how it sounds. On the other hand, whatever is playing in your mind, it's slower than that.

Featured on WNYC's Radiolab, Inge was making his rounds in America with 9 Beet Stretch, after staying in Europe for several years. This episode of Radiolab followed listeners to an art house in California, where the piece was played in full, from 1AM to 1AM. The room was full of pillows and people who tried to describe the experience of listening to 9 Beet Stretch. The answers are amusing (if potentially nebulous), and I encourage you to check it out, if our earlier IF entry about the podcast hasn't already swayed you.

Insufficient Funds: Give Up, Robot 1 and 2

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I don't play many Internet games. I usually get bored or frustrated and all too easily navigate away from the page. But after the first few stages of Give Up, Robot from Adult Swim games, I was hooked.

You play as a charming little robot with a grappling hook, being watched over by a God-like computer -- much in the vein of Portal. This head computer wants nothing more than your death. He actually tells you that he loves you when you indeed die -- and believe me, you will die... many times. The game is just hard, and you may want to quit, but provides enough fun that you'll want to see it to the end. The encouragement of the head computer telling you to give up after you complete a stage is another reason to push on through.

Insufficient Funds: Radiolab

 

Insufficient Funds is a weekly post in which we feature a free, or very close to it, piece of media that you can enjoy without overdrafting your bank account. So if you're low on funds, stay tuned to Cerebral Pop every Friday morning.

Most of the podcasts I listen to are a bit conversational in both tone and pace. Some step it up a little, spreading their topics into segments to better focus the discussion. Then, there are the distinct few who truly produce their shows, editing the conversation in a very deliberate way, adding sounds effects or music, and keeping a tight grip on the message of each show. Radiolab definitely fits in that last category.