Video Round-Up: Not Funny Edition

Video Round-Up is a weekly post collecting an assortment of videos from around the web. Whether they be music videos, creative viral marketing, just plain cool, or just plain ridiculous, they will all be found on Video Round-Up.

In this week's Round-Up, we have some good ol' comedy, some viral music, and Dutch vuvuzelas. Yes, I know, I didn't expect that last one either. And also: more!

Unoriginal Soundtracks: Battlefield Bad Company 2 Edition

Every other Wednesday I share a playlist of songs tangentially related to a single game or series. Songs about alien sex for Mass Effect, songs about world leaders for Civilization, and so on. Searching for random terms on Spotify is a great way to discover new music and rediscover old classics.

This week it's Battlefield: Bad Company's turn. DICE proved with Mirror's Edge that they can make you feel like you're controlling a real human body -- Battlefield does the same thing, except this body is weighed down by 110 pounds of kit. The story is stupid though -- Bad Company 2 has been in my Xbox a lot this year, but its campaign of building-destruction and super weapons did nothing to engage my brain.

June Music Wrap-Up

The Music Wrap-Up is a monthly summary of my favorite and other notable new releases. The songs are for sampling purposes only. Artists or labels notify me with any complaints and I will remove the song as soon as possible. Please support these musicians as that's the reason I'm featuring them in the first place.

June was chock-full of great music. So much so, that it almost rivals last months April/May dual Wrap-Up. I would have been happy if only Stars and Devo had come out this month, but as usual with these posts, I discovered plenty of great new music in my constant search for more music to feature. That's the reason I love doing these, and I hope why you love reading them.

Unfortunately, as of right now, July is looking kind of slim. I'll cruise around again and see if I'm missing some new releases of note, but I might have to go in another direction for next month's Wrap-Up -- Unless you've got some suggestions you want to leave in the comments. For now, we've got The Villagers, The Chemical Brothers, Ariel Pink, Tokyo Police Club, Blitzen Trapper and much more ahead, so hit that jump and get listening.

The Portable Five: June

The Portable Five is a monthly column designed to help you pick through the glut of games out there -- especially on iPhone -- and purchase only the highest quality portable time-killers. If you do a lot of gaming on the go, you'll want to keep an eye out here the 15th of every month.

Portable gaming has been around since 1977, but it has never been as popular as it is today. One reason for this surge in popularity comes from everyone having a phone that can play games, but I think a lot of it is also due to great games being made that put console games made just 10 years ago to shame. Sure, they aren't all great, though. There is a mountain of crappy games covering the great games, and with my help you can scale that mountain and find those diamonds in the rough.

This month, I'm focusing on iPhone/iPod Touch games. There are over 100,000 apps on the iTunes store, and only about 50 of them are decent. Here are a few of the good, one of the bad, and one that is so broken, if you try it, you may contemplate suicide. So for a healthier mental state, follow this handy guide.

Insufficient Funds: Colore Non Vedenti

Insufficient Funds is a regular 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.

Colore Non Vedenti is a short film made by Jay Cheel of FilmJunk.com. I'm not exactly a horror movie connoisseur, so I can't tell you about all the influences I'm sure Jay had when making this. But I've listened to the Film Junk podcast for a couple years now and I can assure you, he was most definitely influenced by plenty of people.

Even without any old horror movie knowledge, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. In a half hour it tells a pretty engaging story that kept me interested throughout. And I'm really impressed with the acting ability he managed to round up from a bunch of his friends. It is pretty fascinating through all of the drama, and the end made me chuckle.

You can watch the whole thing here, as well as listen to multiple amusing commentary tracks. Hit the jump for the trailer if you need some more convincing.

Podcast Test Episodes

I devour podcasts on a regular basis. Being in my car every single day for at least six hours a day gives me plenty of time to listen to all kinds. So, awhile back I took a crack at making my own. I didn't entirely know what I was doing, but I more or less figured it out. The two "episodes" that I made have sat on my hard drive, hidden from the rest of the world, for well over a year.

While I would love for Cerebral Pop to have it's own podcast, that day will only come when I can justify paying the hosting costs. Until then, however, I might have a solution. The site File Dropper will let me put very big files online for public download, so I put up my two test podcasts to try it out. I'm thinking of making something similar to these -- minus my voice -- for the monthly Music Wrap-Ups I already do. That way you could download them and listen on the go. Interested? Let me know!

Until then, feel free to suffer through those things I made forever ago. The download links are after the jump.

Shuffled: Fast to Funky Edition

Every Wednesday I hit the shuffle button on my 90 gigabytes of music and post the results. I might have to justify some of the stuff in my library, but hopefully it will help inform you of new music -- Or at least be entertaining.

I'm a ravenous music fan, and I devour a lot of music that I like to help evangelize. I thought it would be easier to help share some of the 90+ gigabytes of music I've amassed if I did it completely at random. Honestly, a lot of stuff gets forgotten in there, so I might discover just as much new music as you do! Though, this could also be thoroughly embarrassing for me.

In the first ever Shuffled, my tastes seem much heavier than they tend to actually be. Still, there is a good mix here; From punk, to (basically) metal, to post-rock, and rounding out with an dance remix of Nine Inch Nails -- A band I forgot I even had in my collection. Hit the jump for the tunes, and my explanations of the bands and why they're in my library to begin with.

Music Review: Stars - The Five Ghosts

Stars has been on the rise since they started, continually crafting albums that surpass their previous endeavor in every way, even when you thought it impossible to do. That shows in the reviews given to their releases by well-known sites like Pitchfork; That is, until they took a slight stumble with their last release, In Our Bedroom After the War. At least, that's what Pitchfork would have you believe.

I very much disagree, and see that album as yet another step up on the ladder of great CDs. Still, the lead singer, Torquil Campbell, apparently took the review hard as he wrote an aggravated myspace blog about it (which seems to have since been taken down or I'd be quoting from it). I think that kind of shows in the direction of this album, and while it isn't really a bad thing, it saddens me a little.

Video Round-Up: E3 Edition

Video Round-Up is a weekly post collecting an assortment of videos from around the web. Whether they be music videos, creative viral marketing, just plain cool, or just plain ridiculous, they will all be found on Video Round-Up.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo is in full-swing down in Los Angeles, and that means the gaming press is chock-full of new game announcements, game trailers, and other bits of sweet gaming news. Don't care about video games? Well, then I guess you'll want to steer clear of this round-up.



Holy crap! Have you seen the line-up for the 3DS?! Sorry, nerd freak out there. But seriously, Nintendo said all the right things to make me want a 3DS the moment it is released... except for the price. If this thing comes out at $200 it'd easily cement Nintendo's dominance in the handheld market with another hit. I had my eyes set on a new handheld from this E3, and wasn't sure if it'd be the 3DS or a new PSP, but since Sony didn't announce a single thing (not even a price drop on the PSP Go) I guess they made my decision. Still, a 3D handheld that takes 3D pictures, runs 3D movies, and has a line-up including Star Fox, Kid Icarus, Pilot Wings and more certainly helps seal the deal.

Insufficient Funds: Minutes

Insufficient Funds is a regular 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 was really big into the Kalamazoo music scene a couple years ago. Actually, the night it sort of died for me was the night of the last Kraftbrau show ever. Pregnant Zoe and I were both there, but I've barely been back since. Kraftbrau, for the unaware, was one of the best venues in that city and gave a home to a seemingly endless amount of really amazing local bands.

But Kalamazoo music didn't die that night even though I don't pay as much attention to it now. It is still going strong and I might venture to say it is one of the best scenes of any Michigan city. Yeah, Grand Rapids has some good bands, and Lansing as well; And I'm sure you could spend an hour listing all of the bands that came out of the Detroit area, but there is something really special about Kalamazoo.

So many amazing bands rose out of that city, and 90% of them may never find the national attention they deserve. One of my favorites of those bands was Hornet, and most of the members have gone on to create Minutes. They aren't as loud as Hornet was, but that is probably just in recorded form.

You can download their entire four song seven inch for free right here, or give it a listen first by hitting the jump.

The Twitterfeed of the Future

The beginning of the end is here. Twitter may be the fastest growing site around, but it pales in comparison to Facebook's user numbers. So just stop for a second and imagine your Twitterfeed 10 years from now when the amount of people signed up is tenfold. Companies have already jumped onto automated tweeting to capitalize on the opportunities for free marketing, and this trend is surely going to become ever more present.

The year is 2020. We still don't have flying cars, but a startling amount of products do have "Twitter Enabled" icons on the box. It's a pretty big selling point, I mean, why would you want to buy a toaster that doesn't automatically tell your friends what you just toasted? Pop Tart successfully toasted, you sit down in front of your computer to check on what your friends may or may not have toasted. This is your Twitterfeed...

Five Unrealistic E3 Predictions

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, approaches, and with it comes a slew of predictions on game sites and podcasts. Since there are so many leaks before the show every year, this can get pretty dry. Everyone's elaborate guessing games are either disproved mere days later, or forgotten; and no one ever manages to guess the real surprises -- I mean, did anyone guess Metroid: Other M or Left 4 Dead 2 last year?

So rather than go through the whole rigmarole of an E3 predictions post, I figured I would highlight exactly what we are sure to not see at this year's Expo. After all, it's easier to predict what won't happen than it is predicting what will. You have a much better chance of success. So here are five things that I am fairly confident won't be amongst the 2010 E3 announcements. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Video Round-Up: All Cylinders Edition

Video Round-Up is a weekly post collecting an assortment of videos from around the web. Whether they be music videos, creative viral marketing, just plain cool, or just plain ridiculous, they will all be found on Video Round-Up.

This week, Cerebral Pop brings you songs that are too long for YouTube, mini-documentaries, cute-but-relevant satires, and optical illusions! (Actually, just one of each of those.) Let us peruse.



After becoming the worst oil spill in American history by far (and counting), even those who lean toward defeated political apathy like me are pissed off at BP for the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Fuck, people. Hurry up. Being made fun of is the least of BP's worries (or should be).

Insufficient Funds: Urination Nation

Every once in awhile I like to act like I'm in high school again and put on some fast, short, sloppy punk music -- Some Sloppy Seconds, or F.Y.P. is good -- and just act like a moron, singing and moving along to it. There is something stress-relieving about the visceral nature of such music, at least for me.

Urination Nation, a band from Kalamazoo, Michigan, perfectly achieve that sound, despite having been created in 2007. I'm not entirely sure why the band got together, or even who they are, but I like to imagine it was formed by a group of local musicians that feel exactly like I do and wanted to pay homage to that style of punk. I'm sure sitting down and pounding out 10 songs that clock in at a total of 11 minutes and 20 seconds and focus primarily on bodily fluids was immensely fun for them, and that shows through in the songs.

I've never been able to put in their CD -- which they mailed people for free when they put it out -- without listening to it at least three times through, smiling the whole time. If you've got an appreciation for that kind of music, then chances are you'll enjoy their CD, Urinous Anus We Pee. You might not know who Sean Smith is if you didn't spend countless nights in The Kraftbrau, Kalamazoo's long-lost brewery and music scene staple, but you'll easily be able to get on board with the content behind every other song. I mean, everybody poops, and a vast majority of punk fans have some amount of distaste for the government.

Hit this link to download the entire album for free, or hit the jump to give the whole thing a quick listen.

Music Review: Gogol Bordello's Trans-Continental Hustle

I've never been one to get in an uproar if one of my favorite bands doesn't remain exactly the same throughout their entire career. I welcome change in my bands, and love when they grow and evolve along with my maturing tastes in music. Still, there's a significant step forward that I can gush over and defend from the naysayers, and there's a small baby step that I just sort of acknowledge as a good thing to start. This is the latter.