Smart Energy

40,000 year old flute from the site of Geißenklösterle made from bird bones. The University of Tübingen

Scientists researching a human settlement in southern Germany have discovered some bone flutes they think are some 40,000 years old. LiveScience writer Jennifer Welsh writes on Discovery:

Early modern humans could have spent their evenings sitting around the fire, playing bone flutes and singing songs 40,000 years ago, newly discovered ancient musical instruments indicate. The bone flutes push back the date researchers think human creativity evolved.

• The flutes are the earliest record of technological and artistic innovations characteristic of the Aurignacian period.
• The Danube River was a key corridor for the movement of humans and technological innovations into central Europe.
• Neanderthals as well as modern humans may have lived in this area around the same time.

“These results are consistent with a hypothesis we made several years ago that the Danube River was a key corridor for the movement of humans and technological innovations into central Europe between 40,000 and 45,000 years ago,” study researcher Nick Conard, of Tübingen University, said in a statement. “Geißenklösterle is one of several caves in the region that has produced important examples of personal ornaments, figurative art, mythical imagery and musical instruments. The new dates prove the great antiquity of the Aurignacian in Swabia.”

Wicked awesome solo bass performance of Mingus’s “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.”

The Sun Came Out. Highly recommended by Smart Energy.

The Sun Came Out: 7 Worlds Collide Again

How do 20 musicians who’ve never worked together before record an album of original material in three weeks? First, you get Neil Finn to invite you to the wild west coast of New Zealand. Make it for right around Christmas time, the heart of southern hemisphere summer, and have Finn invite not just you, but your whole family.

Ask everyone to bring a song. “We need songs,” Finn would’ve pointed out. “We’re recording an album.”

But no one does, of course, because artists are more human than humans, and thus are more easily distracted, are lazier, are more prone to procrastination. But it doesn’t matter because there is a deadline. Record the album, then play the shows.

Don’t want to let your mates down, so write something good and then learn to play it.

Because we’re not doing this for fun, nor for a nice subtropical vacation, but for Oxfam. So we want it to be good, so people will buy the album and come to the shows so we can make some money and give it all away. Read the rest of this entry »

“Today I lost my best friend,” guitarist Steve Cropper wrote on his Facebook page. “The World has lost the best guy and bass player to ever live.” Cropper, who was on the same Blues Brothers tour in Japan, said Dunn died in his sleep. Dunn was 70.

Listen to this guy walk the bass! Awesome fingerstyle guitar playing.

This is from Skye’s DVD, Solo Performance on the Sonoma Coast.

This is hilarious.

We saw Tower of Power last night at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival at the University of Idaho (KJ and I are both alums) in Moscow. They started at 11 p.m. and funked the house till 1 a.m.

I love what Larry Braggs, the lead singer, had to say last night about the group’s 45th anniversary DVD: “We know you college kids are broke and are gonna copy it. We’re kinda OK with that. It’s your parents we get mad it for copying.”

Here’s a cool rap video urging you to stop using all that plastic. This is in keeping with Plastic Planet, a documentary I reviewed here a while back. This video also puts me in mind of another film I reviewed, Gas Hole — which so totally missed the point about fossil fuels that I didn’t bother posting it here on Smart Energy (but you can read the review on Curled Up with a Good DVD).