Entrances to Hell

www.entrancestohell.com

An archive of creepy looking places from around the world, Entrances to Hell is a website I stumbled upon a couple years ago. While most of the pictures were probably taken by wishful thinking goths (there is an unseemly amount of pictures submitted from Grand Rapids, Michigan), this site is more of a chronicle of urban decay than a list of portals to the underworld. Although it hasn't been updated since 2008, it's a fun place to kill some time in.

Gayngs, man. Gayngs.

Competing with Broken Social Scene for the band with the most members, Gayngs consists of 23 musicians from the likes of Bon Iver, Rhymesayers, and Solid Gold. I guess you could consider it a supergroup if you obsessively follow obscure bands. Mainly composed by the group's founder, Ryan Olsen, the band put out their first album, Relayted, last year. It's epic soft-rock that's ideal chill-out music. Watch the video for their Godley & Creme cover, "Cry," at the bottom or listen to the first song on the album, "The Gaudy Side of Town," below.



Myspace + Amazon.

Books for Music Nerds

Perfecting Sound Forever

by Greg Milner

A book for audiophiles, "Perfecting Sound Forever" details the history of sound recording from the earliest days of Thomas Edison to the loudness wars today. This might be as nerdy as books about music go, but this is a must-read for anyone curious about the recording process. No book you read will be more illuminating on it.

Amazon Link.


Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music

by Greg Kot
"Ripped" chronicles the technological revolution of the last ten years and the changing effects it had on the distribution and consumption of music. A lot of the information in this book is stuff I already knew ('cause like, I totally lived it bro), but having it laid out so clearly really puts things in perspective.

Amazon Link.


This is Your Brain on Music

by Daniel J. Levitin

This book is for anyone curious about the neurological process that happens in your brain when you listen to music. It's an interesting read, but I'm not a science-minded person so nothing from it was particularly enlightening. If you're a right-sided thinker, though, you'll love this book.

Amazon Link.

Kill Your Coworkers

It's a good time to take stock of all the amazing music that came out in 2010, which means that you should totally listen to Flying Lotus' 2010 album, Cosmogramma, and his 2010 EP, Pattern + Grid World. It's a genre-bending mess of hip hop, jazz, funk, soul, and electronic music. If you have no idea who Flying Lotus is, he used to make all the instrumental breaks for Adult Swim that aired between thousands of Aqua Teen Hunger Force reruns and the many commercials for Denny's Late Nite Stonerz Fest (unicorns, leprechauns, and omelets bro!). The video below is for "Kill Your Coworkers," from his EP, Pattern + Grid World.

Myspace + Amazon Link 1 & 2.

And if Flying Lotus tells you to kill your coworkers, you should probably listen to him.