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Strange Brew

From free music to Lemony Snicket to Johnny Carson

Sometimes I group similar items together for Off the Beaten Path, while other times, like today, I take a different approach. There are some strange items to share this week. A guy gets a big break with Johnny Carson, some great old music videos by The Beatles, training videos on using multimeters, and even a link for acting auditions (and more).

Remember, if you find some cool or unusual link, feel free to email me and I’ll be glad to pass it along.

Free Production Music
Most commercial radio stations purchase great production libraries, but a lot of noncoms (without the luxury of having much money) often use whatever they can find. Here’s a link to royalty-free production music … and some of it is pretty decent.

“It’s The Beatles!”
Right before I started at Ohio U. back in ’81, this new thing called MTV started up. Of course, music videos can actually be traced back to old films in the 1930s where musicians were filmed singing. As a fan of The Beatles, I really thought I had seen about everything of theirs, but somewhere these videos appeared (maybe I just somehow missed them) … and they’re awesome! Beautiful old standard-definition color TV (presumably from the U.K.) as you’ll notice a “gentleness” to the look of the video.

“Lights … Camera … Action!”
I’ve had the “fun” (a word used loosely as there was a whole bunch of waiting around and not a lot of ‘action’) to be an extra in a couple of movies. Pay wasn’t bad for just “looking pretty,” and it certainly was a unique experience. If you do voice work and maybe a little acting … or maybe you just thought: “I oughtta be in pictures,” here’s a link to auditions for different movies. My young daughter just did a video audition for the new Netflix series based on the book “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” (with Neil Patrick Harris cast as the lead, Count Olaf). Though we all love Neil Patrick Harris in our family and think it would be awesome if she somehow got in, we’re not holding our breath for a call from a casting agent even though she did a great job!

The Handy, Dandy, Multimeter
The Society of Broadcast Engineers often talks about mentoring programs for engineers. This falls in line with helping to educate people new to engineering about the tools of our trade. What better place to start than a three-part training video on multimeters?

And finally …
The king of late night TV, Johnny Carson! In 1985 Carson had a musical guest who couldn’t make the taping of the show. So Johnny asked if anyone in the audience could substitute. It’s a great piece of TV magic … and fun to watch. Now … Heeeere’s Johnny!

If you stumble across a good or unusual web site that might be of interest, please don’t hesitate to send me the link and any info you might have about it. My email address is [email protected].

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