My Wushu Blog

Tools required:

• The internet
• A quality *nix OS (FreeBSD in this case)
• youtube-dl, available in FreeBSD under ports/www/youtube_dl/
• ffmpeg, available in FreeBSD under ports/multimedia/ffmpeg/

First thing is first, find a really cool youtube clip. If you dont know of one already, use a Buckethead Song (Volume warning, this clip was mixed “hot”, so turn your speakers down):

Watch the drummer (Bryan Mantia) go crazy in the background, pretty intense.

Now, use ‘youtube-dl’, which is pretty simple, the main argument it accepts is a URL of the youtube clip in question, and it saves it as a Flash Video file.

[server] 3:41pm: ~>youtube-dl 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61k041I4aEo'
[youtube] Setting language
[youtube] 61k041I4aEo: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] 61k041I4aEo: Extracting video information
[download] Destination: 61k041I4aEo.flv
[download] 100.0% of 8.04M at   57.33k/s ETA 00:00

Next, use ffmpeg to save the audio stream as a mp3 file:

[server] 3:45pm: ~>ffmpeg -i 61k041I4aEo.flv -ab 128000 -ar 44100 interworld_and_the_new_innocence.mp3
FFmpeg version 0.5.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
  libavutil     49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
  libavcodec    52.20. 1 / 52.20. 1
  libavformat   52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
  libavdevice   52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
  libavfilter    0. 4. 0 /  0. 4. 0
  libswscale     0. 7. 1 /  0. 7. 1
  libpostproc   51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
  built on May  8 2010 15:43:57, gcc: 4.2.1 20070719  [FreeBSD]

Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 1000.00 (1000/1) -> 29.92 (359/12)
Input #0, flv, from '61k041I4aEo.flv':
  Duration: 00:03:38.24, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 306 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: flv, yuv420p, 320x218, 242 kb/s, 29.92 tbr, 1k tbn, 1k tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 22050 Hz, mono, s16, 64 kb/s
Output #0, mp3, to 'interworld_and_the_new_innocence.mp3':
    Stream #0.0: Audio: libmp3lame, 44100 Hz, mono, s16, 128 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.1 -> #0.0
Press [q] to stop encoding
size=    3411kB time=218.31 bitrate= 128.0kbits/s
video:0kB audio:3411kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000916%

Verify the file with file(1), or listen to the newly saved mp3 file over and over and over and over and over and over again.

[server] 3:45pm: ~>file interworld_and_the_new_innocence.mp3
interworld_and_the_new_innocence.mp3: Audio file with ID3 version 2.4.0, contains: MPEG ADTS, layer III, v1, 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, Monaural

One of my Christmas gifts was a magazine subscription to Guitar Player. The biggest enjoyment I get out of a magazine like this, is I get to read about bands and musicians I normally wouldn’t hear about. I live in a musical vacuum, which is odd since I seem to like it so much. I don’t listen to the radio, watch MTV, and for some reason I don’t like computer software telling me what I might like (like iTunes, Pandora, Google, etc…). Over the past decade I’ve probably ‘discovered’ 3 or 4 groups or albums that I actually like. However, in the past two months I’ve found that many artists or groups I’m really digging because now I get to read about them more.

One artist I came across is Buckethead. The first image that comes to your mind when you read that name is exactly what you should think of. He is a man who wears a bucket on his head, and he, Brian Patrick Carrol, has been doing this for 20 years. That sort of fascinates me, because the only picture of buckethead with out the mask on was taken before he created the character. When he is interviewed, he will either talk through a hand puppet ( a gruesome head ), or he will write down what he wants to say.

But you know, considering how your typical rock start tends to look (especially 20 years ago):

Or, what other soloist guitar “Virtuoso’s” look and act like:

I’m just sayin’, I don’t mind this as much as the above examples:

Besides the look to make him stand out, he is WICKEDLY talented! I’ve seen a LOT of footage by now on youtube, and I’ve purchased a few of his solo albums, and this guys plays on another level. Some of it is pure shred, and its almost obnoxious, but it just doesn’t feel like he’s jerking his guitar off in your ear like Yngwie or Steve Vai. I offer the follow clips to explain what I mean, and why I’m really getting into this guys music. Yeah, I’ve found something else to fixate on His guitar is a serious piece of wood too, it’s a chambered over-sized Les Paul with 24 frets (awesome, most guitars have 21 or 22) and two kill switches which he uses a lot.

He can bust out a pretty traditional rock song, and it makes sense why he was Slash’s replacement for Guns and Roses (I think he’s much better than Slash, but I was never a big fan of GNR, and Axl is another rock star dick).

Then, he can have something thats really mellow and full of soul

Those arn’t technical breakthroughs, so here is a “Lesson” by Buckethead. It is not so much a lesson, because you can’t learn this. I would say he’s a robot, but I think even a robot would screw this up. Check out the 4 note tapping, then the really cool riff afterwards.

It’s not all rock n roll though, he also plays some amazing chicken pickin’…

…and break out the Nunchaku’s followed up by a Robot Dance… Because he just couldn’t come off any more scarier.

I read in an old interview that he wears the mask because he wants his performance to be about the music, and not him. That, and it lets him feel like to can do more and take more risks on stage (like dance). I can understand that, and appreciate the emphasis on it being about the music. He is also a horror movie fan, and that shows. Most of his music would make a killer soundtrack, he should do one of the Silent Hill games. I’m adding him to my short list of concerts I want to make an effort to see.