geek pop

Geek Pop Sessions: Underground by Andy Brown

geekpop — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:31:03 +0000

For several years now, members of the Geek Pop crew have been great admirers of the WeAreAllBadgers.com website. It really is a thing of pure joy and you’ll have to investigate it yourselves to truly appreciate it… but in any case, it’s the inspiration for this month’s Geek Pop Sessions pod. Yes, we’ve hunted down the man responsible for WeAreAllBadgers’ official song, ‘Undergound’, and persuaded him to talk to us. Jimothy Bell has also extracted some spurious facts from the WeAreAllBadgers website and used them to quiz Hayley with. As you will find out, Hayley is not as easily fooled as she looks. (She has, however, just cried with laughter until her stomach hurt whilst taking WeAreAllBadgers’ good or evil test.)

Thanks to Big Cheese Badger for making all this possible. And to Daniel Beswick and others for the listener-sourced badger artwork accompanying this post.

THE SONG: Underground by Andy Brown

Live session downloads available here.

I remember I took her underground, it’s the best place I have found

There’s a mystery deep underground, where we keep warm and sleep sound

Come with me, come with me, it’s a kind of heaven and it’s not in the sky

So use your best endeavours, try

Have you seen the setting sun? It’s the best time to play and run

Come with me, come with me, it’s a kind of heaven and it’s not in the sky

So use your best endeavours, try

When I took you across the road, we took care because of what we’ve been told

Didn’t stray from the beaten track and know our way back

Come with me, come with me, it’s a kind of heaven and it’s not in the sky

So use your best endeavours, try… (repeat)

More badger art what we promised we would publish. Thanks Sophie (left), Martin (top right) and Beki (bottom right). Do send us other badger art via the comments section - we’re quite enjoying it.

Subscribe to our podcast feed through iTunes or Google. It’s like, totally free. That’s not all though. You’ll also receive a bunch of free music downloads from our previous festivals. And if you’re looking for the archive, it’s here.

Intro/outro music: Intercontinental Music Lab. Click here to sponsor this podcast. Main image: Daniel Beswick.

Geek Pop: January 2012

geekpop — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:48:22 +0000

This month, we asked you for the weirdest songs you could think of, and here they are. Somehow, whilst striving for “weird”, everything got a bit sexy and/or rude, so brace yourselves, listeners.

Here is our extra-weirdo Spotify list for January and here’s the one with *everything ever* on it. Download links below.

Computer in Love - Bonaparte

“10″ - Buck 65

Walking on the Moon - William Shatner

Quantum Physics (from Quantum Physics/Remarkable medley) - Onion Flavored Rings

FULL PLAY: The Cervival Smear Song (Get on the Bed and Don’t Run Away) - Zeph Churchill (YouTube link)

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Geek Pop Sessions: My Scientific New Year’s Resolutions by Ardie Collins

geekpop — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:39:12 +0000

This month’s session cast is our first Twitter-sourced song. It features the talents of Ardie Collins, the man behind the Cooper365 project, in which he wrote, recorded and published a song for every day of 2011. Including this geeky New Year song, that’s a new song every day for 366 days! The theme we gave him was “scientific resolutions” - perfect for a New Year podcast. Happy 2012 Geek Poppers!

For more sciencey songs from Ardie, go here. If you have some of your own scientific resolutions, why not post them in the comments or tweet them at us?

THE SONG: My Scientific New Year’s Resolutions - Ardie Collins

Live session downloads available here.

Lyrics: Currently being typed up by the lyric fairies…

Intro/outro music: Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: @ArdieColl. Click here to sponsor this podcast.

Christmas appeal 2011

geekpop — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:04:20 +0000

Hi folks,

It’s that time of year again. On 4th January we have to renew our PRS licence, which is what allows us to keep bringing you all that lurverly music you hear in the Geek Pop Podcast. (Sample some of it on our bumper Spotify list). This year it’s even more expensive - we need to find £140. So we’re doing our annual push for podcast funds with extra gusto…

PLEEEEEASE put your hands in your pockets and donate your pennies to help us keep doing what we do. Last year our PRS licence was fully funded by you the listener. Let’s see if we can do it again.

Everyone who donates will be put in a hat (not literally, of course) and entered into a competition to win a Geek Pop tshirt. Oh, and we will *actually* do a song and dance in the podcast… hopefully that’s an enticement, but maybe not… If you just want the tshirt, that will help us too - buy a tshirt from our shop and get free delivery between 27th December and 2nd Jan.

READY TO DONATE? JUST GIVE WHATEVER YOU CAN AFFORD

KER-CHING! THANK YOU! xx

Geek Pop: December 2011

geekpop — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:01:27 +0000

Look at that! It’s a man wakeboarding with magnesium flares! What a dude!

For more stuff about magnesium, boron and indeed a number of other elements, dive into our Christmas “chemistry” themed podcast, which despite our best efforts actually turned out to be more about the things we hated at school (ahem, the nitrogen cycle), suicide, the water content of pensioners and mince pies. With some chemistry jokes thrown in for good measure. Thanks to Chemistry World and Jim’s podcasting students, Jean and Leo, for their contributions.

December’s Spotify list has a few extra chemically-oriented tracks, including the rather wonderful Oxygen by Willy Mason. This is the bumper Spotify list for the Geek Pop podcast, featuring all the songs (well, all the not-ridiculously-obscure ones) we’ve played. And December’s download links are below. Happy Christmas one and all!

Rapping the Elements - Oort Kuiper (YouTube link)

Carbon Monoxide - Regina Spektor

Water Leaking, Water Moving - Jeffrey Lewis

Nitrogen Cycle - Amy Bronson

FULL PLAY: Chemistry Set - Peter and the Wolf

OH AND! You’ll need this spurious link for the Geek Poll.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Guest post: Arthouse science gig turns family friendly musical

geekpop — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:47:42 +0000

Professor Karmadillo is a two-time Geek Pop festival performer and winner of the Graphic Science Most Contrived Rhyme prize in our 2010 songwriting competition

It’s a few months shy of two years since I was motivated by Geek Pop to write and record a sciencey song that I’d had going round in my head. That turned into a dream of doing a live show featuring a whole set of science songs, along with visuals and dancing elephants. The other night, I got to turn that dream, sans elephants, into something as tangible as a live show can be, unveiling a set of specially composed songs at Norwich Arts Centre.

As well as a set consisting largely of never-performed-before material, I also had to contend with not having used visuals before in a music show. I arrived early at the venue to work through any issues with the setup… Fun was had with Quicktime on the provided Mac, which decided not to play the audio in the movie files I had brought with me. There was a hurried download of VLC Media Player, which then came up with an interface in Polish… or maybe Hungarian. It certainly wasn’t English, Elvish or even Greek to me. Luckily the language of play and stop icons translates across user interfaces.

As this was off my home turf we were reliant on what and whom the blurb in the Norwich Arts Centre brochure and on their website would drag in. As it happened, quite a few families turned up – a slight departure from my usual audience of slightly tipsy University students. Now, while Professor Karmadillo is family friendly show – in that as well as being sans elephants, it is also sans swearing – even the simplest material I had written on Brownian motion catered for GCSE-level plus. GCSE being a qualification that some of the kids looked like they might be a few years away from encountering. I was reminded of John Christopher’s comments in the introduction to his Tripods series, in which he describes the challenge of writing for children – and their legendary short attention spans. Needless to say, the presence of so many young’uns gave me The Fear.

The gig itself was reasonable, with high points and wobbly points – in particular, trying to remember the words towards the end of the set. Definitely could do better. The material’s good, but I need to gain some confidence in delivering it all the way through. And having gone on about how challenging it was doing so much new material, the low point for me was one of the songs I have played the most. It’s comedic and not too high level, but when the audience sits in silence at the lines that usually have them rolling, a bit of a “Gosh, this is a tough crowd” mentality creeps in. Having said that, the GCSE-level-plus ‘Brownian Motion’ was an unexpected high point.

So, some things to chew over, from my own experience and from the reading reviews. The main one being the difference between what I am trying to create and what the audience wants or expects. It was a conscious decision on my part to do an arthouse-pop-meets-high-level-science project, and I deliberately set out not to fit into the teaching science to kids model. The visual developers were given their artistic freedom, leaving me leeway in song and lyric writing to be more indulgent. However, there seems to be a demand for a show aiming at a slightly younger audience. Plus, someone had commented that with a name like Professor Karmadillo they were expecting a costumed kids character!

Anyway, I aim to tie up the arthouse side of things with an album launch in 2012, but am keeping ears and eyes open to inspiration for a show aimed more specifically at kids. And with my own first child due next Spring, it’s almost inevitable.

To this end I’m quite keen to work with live collaborators. So far collaborations have been through the music and visuals. But with a musical and/or stage show in mind, I think it will be crucial to have any collaborators or producers on board from the start. So if you think you’d like to be part of a sciencey music show aimed at young’uns, get in touch!

Like the rain soaked journey down the A11 from Cambridge, Professor Karmadillo has been a bit of a slog at times. But along the way, I’m indulging myself musically and motivating myself to learn more about the amazing world science offers, and (hopefully!) passing on my enthusiasm for both. I’m not quite sure what the destination is for Professor Karmadillo but this trip ain’t over yet.

Geek Pop Sessions: The First Time by Lori Campbell

geekpop — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:02:36 +0000

Onwards with our new two-podcasts-a-month mission. And this month we’re bringing you a song specially commissioned by Geek Pop (yes, by us!) for Bright Club Bristol. Hoorah!

We asked Bristol-based musician Lori Campbell to write us something a bit silly for a sciencey sort of show. And well, she’s done us proud.

Thanks to Lori’s friend John Hendicott for putting all the mics in the right places and to Mr Lori for the inspiration.

THE SONG: The First Time - Lori Campbell

Live session downloads available here.

I can’t remember the first time I saw your face, but faces change and so have I

I always knew there was something unique about you and I let my curiosity get the better of me

This is the first time I have loved an intellectual, mathematical, he always corrects my grammaticals

Ever so practical, exceptional, electromagnetical man, who says things like:

“The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky, but that’s not only blue and yellow you see floating high

It’s a phenomenological phenomenon, a trick of the light…

The light is first refracted, entering the surface of the raindrop, reflected off the back of the drop and again refracted as it leaves the drop

The overall effect is that the incoming light is reflected back over a wide range of angles, with the most intense light at the angle of 40 to 42 degrees

The angle is independent of the size of the drop but it does depend on the refractive index.”

He’s so romantic like that

He is an intellectual, mathematical, he always corrects my grammaticals, ever so practical, exceptional, electromagnetical man

If science and art could agree to agree that they’re fighting the same battle, kind of like you and me

Freedom from ignorance, striving for excellence

There’s a first time for everything - wouldn’t you agree? Still I don’t know how you ended up with me

Because I am idealistic and slightly autistic, artistic and generally I like to risk it

I’m hardy but tardy, I have a good heart, I erratically cry and compulsively lie and I can’t tell you why I do what I do, I can not find my shoe

And I can’t tell you how I ended up with, probably can’t live without, you

Intro/outro music: Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: Julianna Photopoulos. Click here to sponsor this podcast.

Geek Pop: November 2011

geekpop — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:55:43 +0000

This month’s podcast is a chocolate box of geeky treats - songs about dinosaurs, robots, space and… er… baked beans. Hayley wonders what the point of a mayfly is. Jim plays teacher, sending us all off to do our homework like good little children (see below in the Geek Poll). And The Hornblower Brothers do some right proper Northern accents. Lovely.

Here is November’s Spotify list. Click here for the bumper list - all the songs we’ve ever played on the Geek Pop podcast, which is millions. Oh, alright, it’s not… but nearly. This month’s download links are below:

Here Come the Dinosaurs - MJ Hibbett

Fools Gold - The Stone Roses

Autumn Constellations Song (YouTube link)

Android with a Heart - The Hornblower Brothers

FULL PLAY: His Last Few Days: Mayfly - Mind Map That (Mind Map That link)

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Geek Pop Sessions: The Particle Zoo by Nerd Song

geekpop — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:57:50 +0000

Hello dear friends. Today we’re beginning a trial of a new podcast format, so bear with us. Instead of releasing Geek Pop live sessions on our live sessions page as we have done for the last year, we’re going to be releasing them right here in the podcast feed. We’ll be sticking to the 5-song format for the regular monthly podcast, which means in total… (maths required)… you get 6 podcasts instead of 5!

In the coming months we hope to be bringing you interviews and all sorts of extra goodies in our live sessions podcasts, but while we get ourselves sorted out, here’s a quick one from Nerd Song. Oh, also, they made a little video of it just for us (but you probably already saw that). Thanks to SciCast for alerting us to their genius.

THE SONG: The Particle Zoo - Nerd Song

Live session downloads available here.

People used to think that An atom was fundamentally indivisible Now we really know that Matter is made of 24 different particles
We’ve classified these fundamentals Into groups called quarks and leptons 12 in each makes 24

Now, quarks are really kinda strange Because of their gluon exchange They only come in 2s or 3s

Up quark, down quark, strange quark, charm quark, top quark, and a bottom too. These 6 things are all a part of the standard particle zoo

It’s time for us to move along From quarks over to the lepton The other fundamental group

Now, half the leptons carry charge The other half, by and large, Don’t really interact at all

Electron, muon, tau and corresponding neutrinos too These 6 things are all a part of the standard particle zoo

Some of you may have figured out That particles have been left out Exactly half, to be precise

Each particle has got a twin, An opposite-behaving thing That’s called an antiparticle

Every quark and lepton has an antiparticle too These 12 things are all a part of the standard particle zoo

The particles aren’t finished yet We’ve got some things called bosons That are carriers for every force

Electromagnetic and weak and strong Are carried by 4 gauge bosons But gravity is unresolved

Photons, gluons, w and z bosons for force mediation But we haven’t yet confirmed the particle for gravitation

People used to think that An atom was fundamentally indivisible Now we really know that Matter is made of 24 different particles

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Geek Pop Podcast - October 2011

geekpop — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:42:36 +0000

***Contains graphic descriptions of dinosaur sex (heh)***

So it’s the MONSTERS podcast that you all voted for and you’ve made some right good song suggestions for it. Emmy the Great prompts a very frank discussion of stegosaurus sex, Jonathan Richman stumbles across a yeti in the freezer section and we ask whether Jim’s sister is an alien. Remember to cast your vote in this month’s Geek Poll (below) and enter our Monster Moves competition by emailing crew@geekpop.co.uk

We’ve made a MONSTER playlist on Spotify, including a bunch of other listener suggestions we collected but couldn’t fit on the podcast. Click here for the bumper list of songs played on the podcast. This month’s download links for iTunes below:

Godzilla - Blue Öyster Cult

Dinosaur Sex - Emmy the Great

Abominable Snowman in the Market - Jonathan Richman (YouTube link)

Monsters in the Parasol - Queens of the Stone Age

FULL PLAY: Tianchi Lake - The Mountain Goats

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Image: Toho Company Ltd (1956).

Geek Pop Podcast - September 2011 (Neutrino Special!)

geekpop — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 10:16:50 +0000

Time for some topical science-based music on the podcast. This is a special show to coincide with the news that neutrinos *might* be able to travel faster than light, and therefore some of Einstein’s theories *might* have been a bit wrong, and therefore time travel *might* be possible… Anyway, thanks to Andrew Pontzen, Geek Pop 2011 alumnus, for making that into a song and sending us a live recording of it. We were so pleased, we had to tell you all straight away.

Don’t forget that next month’s show is MONSTER themed. Send your song suggestions to crew@geekpop.co.uk

P.S. Sorry for any sound quirks - it was all a bit ad hoc and the usual equipment was on loan…

THE SONG: Spare A Thought - Andrew Pontzen (also on our live sessions page here)

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Image: Andrew Pontzen

Geek Pop Podcast - September 2011

geekpop — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:46:47 +0000

Everything seems to be wildly out of place this month, what with oranges in ovens, universes in cornflake boxes and POETRY sneaking into our music podcast… Oh and can anyone tell us whether Einstein once turned down the presidency of Israel? WHAT? It seems like we’ve come back from Green Man Festival and completely lost the plot. But while we were there we did record a lovely little live session with Johnny & the Chemists on Green Man FM. The full length version, including TWO whole songs is on our live sessions page. And you can listen to Jim’s radio show in its entirety (including some Geek Pop classics) on the Green Man FM Mixcloud channel.

Don’t forget to vote in the Geek Poll (below) and send your suggestions for next month’s MONSTER themed podcast to crew@geekpop.co.uk

There are full-length versions of some of this month’s songs on Spotify. The uber-list of all the songs we’ve ever played on the podcast is here. (Or about three quarters of them, because sometimes we get quite obscure). Download links for iTunes below:

Photosynthesis - Frank Turner

Splitting the Atom - Massive Attack

Storm - Tim Minchin (You Tube link)

240 Years Before Your Time - The Black Keys

LIVE SESSION: American Now - Johnny & the Chemists (full two-song session here)

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Image: by Matt Kay. Stupidly, no one thought to take a picture of Johnny & the Chemists while they were doing their live session, so here’s one of Johnny tuning up at Hayley’s wedding

Helen Arney at Green Man Festival

geekpop — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 08:29:45 +0000

Over the weekend, Geek Pop alumnus and friend of the podcast Helen Arney appeared on the Solar Stage at Green Man Festival. Here’s a little video of her sun song.

Don’t forget, Helen also appeared on the Geek Like Me mini-album… go buy it!

Geek Pop Podcast - August 2011

geekpop — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 08:51:09 +0000

This month’s show is a space special! Hooray! Telepathic communication with aliens and moon frisbees are dealt with, dismissively in some cases. Friend of the podcast, Dr Martin Austwick is on hand to provide August’s full play and we announce the winner of our Geek Like Me mini-album competition. If you want to hear more about the science behind Martin’s song ‘Luminiferous Aether’, check out Jim’s sneaky bit of moonlighting on the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast. Or see our last post for some live snippets from Martin’s Wilton’s Music Hall performance at Geek Pop Live in March.

There are full-length versions of some of this month’s songs on Spotify (you’ll also find some spacey extras suggested by our listeners). Download links via iTunes/Soundcloud/Bandcamp below:

Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft - Klaatu

Jupiter - Neue

The Commander Thinks Aloud - The Long Winters

Moon Song - House of Strange

Luminiferous Aether - Dr Martin Austwick (full play) (and here’s the album)

You can also get this podcast on MixCloud, including full-length tracks. But for a downloadable version, stick to iTunes.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Image: NASA

Live at Wilton’s Music Hall

geekpop — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 08:36:15 +0000

Remember Geek Pop 2011? It wasn’t that long ago. You really should remember. Anyway, we did a thing at Wilton’s Music Hall. All the nerds were there, including Dr Martin Austwick and band. It was epic. Now, it’s taken a little while, but we’ve finally got round to putting up some videos on Ye Olde You Tube - or at least Mrs Jim has (thank you!). So here are some snippets from ‘Luminiferous Aether’ and a full live recording of ‘Brownian Motion’. Unfortunately the sound hasn’t come out too well, but it’s worth watching if only for Martin’s scissor kick.

Both songs are available to buy on Martin’s album ‘Songs from the Scientific Cabaret‘.

Geek Pop Podcast - July 2011

geekpop — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 12:00:26 +0000

Dudes! It’s another packed show with snowflakes, space elevators, some tough decisions to be made in an extended Geek Poll and a live session from the awesome Bronze Medallists, recorded in their garage. Don’t say we don’t love you.

Check out full-length versions of this month’s picks on Spotify or Mixcloud. iTunes links below:

2 Atoms in a Molecule - Noah and the Whale

Crystalline - Telegrams

Space Elevator - Glen Phillips

Radiation - I Am Kloot

LIVE EXCLUSIVE: Mathematics (Kitschen Version) - Bronze Medallists

And they made *another* rather lovely video to go with it.

You can also get this podcast on MixCloud, including full-length tracks. But for a downloadable version, stick to iTunes.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Geek Pop Podcast - June 2011

geekpop — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:48:17 +0000

We’re ba-aack! (Again.) Did you miss us? Well, luckily for you, this is a bumper edition, featuring crocodiles, the moon, radioactive children and none other than the Rapconteur himself, Baba Brinkman. His album The Rap Guide to Evolution has been turned into an awesome video project, and the live show will soon to be taking to a stage just off Broadway. There are snippets from the interview in the show, but you can also listen to the full version here or on MixCloud.

Our June Spotify playlist is right about here. To download the tracks for keeps, use the iTunes links below.

Roundy Round - Monty Harper

Country Low - The Foxes

Chemistry - Semisonic

The Kids Are Radioactive - Misty’s Big Adventure

Performance, Feedback, Revision - Baba Brinkman (full play)

And for the FULL Baba interview, click here.

You can also get this podcast on MixCloud, including full-length tracks. But for a downloadable version, stick to iTunes.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Save Wilton’s!

geekpop — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:01:49 +0000

Geeks and geekettes! A call to arms!

Do you remember in March we did a little live gig at a beautiful old place called Wilton’s Music Hall? That’s right. Some of you came. It was good, wasn’t it? Now, Wilton’s is in a spot of trouble and this has made the geeks at Geek Pop very upset. So please, please donate what you can to save this amazing building from demolition.

@WiltonMusicHall @savewiltons

And to remind you just how incredible this place is, we’re re-posting the photos from our live event in March.

—

Thanks to Ben Valsler of The Naked Scientists for some of these (the good ones).

[Click speech bubbles for captions]

Geek Pop Podcast - May 2011 (The Fly & Other Shenanigans)

geekpop — Thu, 05 May 2011 10:49:41 +0000

Yo! Podcast listeners! If you’ve been listening carefully you’ll know that Geek Pop Podcast host Hayley is getting wed this month. So instead of making a podcast for you lot, she’ll be lazing on a Sardinian beach. This means for the first time since before July 2009, there is no podcast… or at least, no normal podcast. We have, however, put together a little package of best bits to tide you over. It contains such memorable times as the fabled “fly” episode and snippets from our interview with Martin Noble from British Sea Power. And if that’s not enough, why not delve into our archives yourselves? We’ll be back in June. See ya! (Oh and here’s a Spotify list for this episode).

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Geek Pop Podcast - April 2011

geekpop — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:36:26 +0000

We’re back after all the excitement of the 2011 Geek Pop festival, with silly things like babies in boiling tubes, frog wrestling and Arnie, and sensible things like maths and a whole segment devoted to the great Yuri Gagarin. Plus, Jim says “schmo”. And don’t forget to vote in the GEEK POLL! below.

If you’re after our April Spotify playlist, it’s here. There are only two songs on it, ’cause this month’s tracks are slightly skewy. But if you want to download them in iTunes, some of the links are below.

The Mathemagician - You & The Atom Bomb

Mama Steel - Ariel Archer (Soundcloud)

The Quest for the Golden Frog - Professor Elemental

Radio Gagarin - Karmadillo (or get the whole mini-album!)

Gagarin’s Way – Dr Stu & the Neutron Stars (Exclusive) - download as zip

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Pat yourselves on the back, Geek Poppers!

geekpop — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 11:43:36 +0000

Well, National Science & Engineering Week is now over and we’re drawing a line under the official launch celebrations for this year’s Geek Pop festival. And we have SO many thank yous to say for all those who’ve helped to make this the BEST. GEEK POP. EVER.

We’ve made a big ol’ list of thank yous on this page here, but we really can’t emphasise enough how grateful we are to all our bands. Not only has this year’s festival output been of the highest musical quality - a special shout out here to all the behind-the-scenes people including producers and siblings/friends roped in as musicians - it has achieved new heights of geekiness and allowed more Geek Pop festival-goers than ever before to appreciate scientific ideas in original and unexpected ways.

Thank you also to all those festival-goers who have blogged, tweeted and told their friends about Geek Pop by old-fashioned, er… talking. And to those who have helped fund more scientific musical madness by buying a ticket for our launch party or something from our shop.

But don’t think this means Geek Pop 2011 is over. So much has happened at this year’s festival, it’s hard to take it all in. And of course, Geek Pop being a virtual festival, it’s all going to stay online for… well… ever. So if you’re just catching up, here are a few bits and pieces to get you started.

Our free festival highlights podcast is essential listening. A round-up of the crew’s picks of the festival, including ten full-length tracks brought to you straight from Geek Pop’s four virtual stages. You can download each of these tracks separately at the festival, plus more by the same artists.

Geek Like Me - a collection of six uber-nerdy songs, curated by us, on an actual record. That’s right: a record you can buy in an actual store - albeit it an online store such as iTunes or Amazon. But to preview full tracks for free before you buy, go to Bandcamp, where we’re also selling some special limited edition physical CDs, which are rapidly declining in number.

And once all that’s whet your appetite for sci-pop, it’s time to head to the festival map, where you can access full sets for 20 different geek musicians 24 hours a day. Just click on the download arrows to get zip files of tracks from your favourite Geek Pop artists. And remember, besides those Geek Like Me tracks, it’s all free to download.

So that’s a wrap for this year’s festival diary, but for Geek Pop all year round, tune into our regular podcast, which dissects five geeky tracks a month and brings you live sessions from Geek Pop artists.

I am a geek because…

geekpop — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 09:51:51 +0000

Today we’re asking you to share your geekiest tendencies with us. All you have to do is complete the sentence above in the comments section. Then copy and paste your answer into Twitter, switching “I’m a geek because” for #Iamageekbecause Here, we’ll start you off…

Festival diary: Melanie

geekpop — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:00:12 +0000

Well, I missed the Geek Pop launch last week, which I was most disappointed about, but I’m back from the mountains now, and have rushed straight here to the Geek Pop festival (and it’s lovely weather for it too).

I started off at the Tetrahedron Stage and did a little jig to ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea‘. Then I laid back and enjoyed Marian Call’s beautifully melodic pieces, particularly ‘Got To Fly’, elements of which I would think resonate with everyone these days. I always seem to be doing six things at once… [long pause as I check Twitter whilst making tea and talking about the Fukushima nuclear power station in Japan]. As a fan of both science and poetry I tittered to Dr Martin Austwick taking metaphors literally in ‘Meet Me on Monday’, and with a final burst of enthusiasm for all things cosmic from Andrew Pontzen I skipped over to the Tesla Tent where I am now bopping to the beat of ‘Black 7′ by Weird Gear.

I’ve noticed in my tramps between the tents that in between the informative, science-y stuff like Jonny Berliner’s clever calypso ‘DNA’ there’s also a lot of love out there – cautious, furtive, obsessive, flagrant, it’s all there and all cloaked in jargon, terminology, maths, physics principles… or otherwise being very inconspicuous and showcasing biology. One of my pieces is about love – well, infatuation really. It’s called ‘Love in a Lecture’ and is about fancying the lecturer and daydreaming about all the geeky things to do together. I like it because of the piano (kindly arranged and played by my sister Nicola), especially the instrumental bits.

My other pieces are more science-based. I’m a plasma physicist so I had to write something about plasma – the fourth state of matter. A plasma is a charged gas, where electrons have been stripped away from the atomic nucleus so there are positively- and negatively-charged particles moving around separately. Extra energy is required to strip the electrons, and if the electrons recombine with an atom this extra energy is given off as light, so plasmas are often very beautiful and colourful, as well as useful. Some examples of plasma are lightning, the aurorae, the Sun and stars, neon lights…

But plasmas are also very chaotic and unpredictable. This is because they’re made of charged particles, and charged particles create electric and magnetic fields, which are intimately connected – moving charged particles (currents) generate magnetic fields and changing magnetic fields generate currents. So everything affects everything else.

I found that many of the words we use to describe plasma – excited, highly-charged, chaotic, dynamic – are also used to describe human characteristics, so in the song I set out the reasons why I, out of all the states of matter, would like to be a plasma.

And finally, somewhat illogically, the first song of my set is Darwin and the Monkey Bone, which I should probably mention quickly as it’s the reason I’m here at all - it was a runner-up in the Geek Pop summer song-writing competition. I’m not a biologist, but I had a crack at tackling Darwin and evolution, hopefully reasonably accurately. It’s my other – non-piano-playing – sister’s favourite, I think because it’s catchy and the “dee dee dee-dee” bit gets stuck in your head.

[EDIT (geekpop) As an added bonus, here’s the original version of that Darwin song. Melanie worries it’s a bit noisy, which it is, but we love it all the same

And don’t forget, the revamped electric version is available to download on Melanie’s Geek Pop 2011 page.]

Anyway, that’s enough from me. Enjoy the festival! I’m off to iTunes now to make myself a Geek Pop favourites playlist. Hurray!

Melanie.

(@m_windridge)

Geek Pop pop quiz!

geekpop — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:00:38 +0000

Want to win one of these?

And a quintessential Geek Pop pin badge?

PLUS! A geek chic t-shirt from our shop (your choice of colour and design).

Yeah, we thought you would.

So, all you have to do is identify the two science rock stars cunningly disguised in the images below. The first three senders of the correct answers will each win a digital download of the Geek Like Me mini-album and a Geek Pop pin badge. BUT, make sure you answer the essay question below to stand a chance of winning the top prize - one of these lucky winners will also get a limited edition physical copy of the mini-album sent to them in the post, as well as that geek t-shirt. Nerderiffic!

ESSAY QUESTION: Who’s better? (Argue in 140 characters or less)

Send your answers to crew@geekpop.co.uk

Festival diary: Michael off of Spirit of Play

geekpop — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:45:44 +0000

O friends! O theoretical physicists, very-much-hands-on zoologists, fellow Geek Pop musicians and scientists (ie, you lot backstage), never-let-out-of-the-shed inventors, and O you passers-by accidentally caught up in the virtual fun of it all: hi. How are you all doing? It’s great to see you here – and, for us, to be part of the whole marvellous Geek Pop experience once more. We hope you’re enjoying yourselves.

Four-fifths of Spirit of Play infiltrated the launch at Wilton’s Music Hall last week, in order to gawp at Steve Mould’s butane solo, marvel at the sweet sonorities of the Amateur Transplants (surely they’ve never been called that before?), and take off our collective hat (only worn for the most Spiritual of occasions, don’t you know) in the fabled presences of Dr Martin Austwick and Helen Arney. It were grand.

Martin and Helen, like us, can be heard on Geek Like Me. If you’ve already picked up a copy of that, or had a listen – thanks, hope you enjoyed it. Our contribution, ‘An Element Sends a Postcard Home’, is one of our more upbeat, lo-fi numbers, inspired by various rumours about the, shall we say, somewhat heavier elements that, we’re told, really ought to exist even if they don’t already.

No doubt somebody with a properly firm grasp of such matters can respond and put us/you straight about that. We’re really ever so fond of our artistic licence to take an idea, or even just the hint of an idea, and make a song and, if you bribe us, fine, a dance about it too, as exemplified in our former attempts on particle physics (’Wave or Particle‘) and genetics (’Chromosome‘). In other words, don’t expect rigorous, peer-reviewed empiricism and accuracy from us. Just some notes, in the strenuously indie-ish order of our choosing, and some garbled lyrics about polynomials.

Talking of which (spot the segue – go on, I dare you! Spot it! There, that was it), we hereby invite you to grab our latest song, ‘Difference Engine’, for free.

Just sign up for the odd e-mail from us (very odd, judging by this blog), via spiritofplay1@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter (@spiritofplay1), whichever you prefer, and we’ll send you the link to download it. It’s a very different beast from “An Element…”, and entirely constructed out of back issues of New Scientist.

Those of you with a thoroughly nerdish interest in the prehistory of digital computing will already know what the song’s about: the great Charles Babbage (1791–1871) and his efforts to build an automatic, completely accurate calculating machine, despite the immense cost (mainly to the taxpayer), scepticism about its usefulness (yep, computers have turned out to be a real dead end, haven’t they?), and Babbage’s various personal misfortunes and eccentricities (the finest irony being that in his final years he campaigned vigorously, and quite rightly, against street musicians…).

It’s an extraordinary story, well worth seeking out online or in print (for example, in The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the quest to build the first computer by Doron Swade). Not the least of it is that it involves Byron’s daughter Ada Augusta Lovelace, Babbage showing off the working model of the Difference Engine at various parties (Swade, p. 76: “There was a growing fashion for statistics…”), and alienating potential allies, all of which finds its way, albeit in feverish, distorted ways, into this song.

Gosh, it’s a tough gig, this virtual festival malarkey…

Michael.

(Spirit of Play)

P.S. The author of the Geek Atlas has concocted a plan to build Babbage’s analytical engine and donate it to the Science Museum. Current status of that plan (’Plan 28′) is here.

Festival diary: Rishi

geekpop — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:29:16 +0000

For last year’s Geek Pop I wrote a song ‘Arabidopsis‘, which as well as being designed as an ode to the little plant that forms the basis of much work in genomics was meant to mirror the way in which the general public knows about the groovy people who use and design around technology, but nothing of the labwork that goes on in the background.

This year I worked on a song to celebrate 50 years since the first manned flight in space – ‘Radio Gagarin‘. A song, as its title implies, discussing Gagarin climbing into the Vostok 1 and shooting out into space. I like the fact that at the end of this song there are actual excerpts of Gagarin on the radio. He is saying in Russian that he feels good and the visibility is good – basically, everything is going to plan.

And a huge part of why everything went to plan was down to Sergei Korolev, chief engineer of Soviet space program at the time. The Arabidopsis of this story if you will. This guy has a tale that must be told, and I was going to tell it on my guest diary entry for Geek Pop 2011. However, since yesterday The Guardian did a more thoroughly researched version of this tale than I could have produced - full of insight into the politics and personnel at the time - I will direct you to that article.

The tale of Korolev is one of those worthy of an epic Russian-equivalent-of-Hollywood biopic. It is a testament to the man’s character that in spite of spending 10 years doing hard labour (during which time he lost all his teeth) in one of the worst gulags Stalin had to offer, he came back to lead the Soviet Space program into its golden age. Certainly something worth considering if your main complaint is paperwork required for grant proposals.

As the US decommisions it space shuttle program the only way to get people up into space will essentially be from a rocket based on Korolevs 50- year-old design, which demonstrates just how good the designs are.

But what about the cutting edge of sending people into space? The next big step that will really capture the public’s imagination is when someone does to Mars what Neil Armstrong did unto the Moon. And in this respect it seems to me that the big problem is not about the electronic, and mechanical machinery to get people there and bring them back, but the organic machinery that makes those people tick. The physiology and the psychology of being in a cramped capsule with the same group of people for two years is going to be difficult to get through.

There is currently a simulation going on in Moscow of this scenario, where a group of people are locked in an small enclosed space, due to ‘land back on earth’ in November this year. Last month they landed on the ‘fake Mars’ and two weeks ago they blasted off back to Earth. After a previous test resulted in a punch-up (a New Year’s glass of bubbly led to two guys fighting over a woman), the team chosen are all male and they will be denied alcohol. This one has people of mixed nationalities and seems to be going well, though the lack of gravity for the length of time when they do it for real will also make things interesting.

Personally, I think back to a Ray Bradbury description of someone leaving Earth for Mars from his Martian Chronicles collection, and know that however much the child in me wanted to go on such a journey, the isolation for that length of time would not be something my neuroses and I would take. But I salute those who will do it in the future.

AND NOW, A SPACE-THEMED COMPETITION!

‘Radio Gagarin’ on the Geek Like Me mini-album is peppered with distorted musical themes from a classic space-faring movie. The question is: What is the movie? Send your answers via email to karmadillo@live.co.uk, with the subject line Gagarin Compeition. The prizes are: The Natural World DVD Box Set, Doctor Who DVD (from the Tom Baker era), a Karmadillo tea towel and CD.

Festival diary: Hayley

geekpop — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 10:51:08 +0000

Well, hello! As you can see I’ve got my nerd gear on and am having an ace time hopping from stage to stage at the newly up-and-running Geek Pop 2011. Over the next few days, you’ll be hearing from Spirit of Play, Karmadillo and The Ultraviolet Catastrophe via this virtual festival diary, but for today you’re stuck with me.

Actually, I say “hopping” from stage-to-stage… but over the weekend, the benefits of all those stages being accessible by http became very much apparent. Despite being a regular runner, my calves objected profusely to having to dart up and down the stairs (about a million times) at Wilton’s, the venue for our live launch gig, on Thursday night. By Friday midday, when the virtual festival was launching, I was pretty much incapable of walking anywhere. Thus, being able to simply direct my browser at The Tetrahedron was most convenient.

Anyway, without meaning to be over-the-top, the launch party was perhaps the scariest and most exciting thing that’s ever happened. (That was a bit over-the-top, right?) If you’ve got yourself a virtual VIP pass you can now see some silly behind-the-scenes footage I shot in the run-up to the gig, in which crew member Neal averts a minor emergency and Jim tries one of my delicious but incredibly poorly iced Geek Pop cakes. I also took Amateur Transplants some of those cakes, and, bless them, they were very polite about them - check out my quick chat with them in the Green Room.

So what’s going on at the virtual festival? Well, lots! Of course, we’re all very excited to have the great Jeffrey Lewis on-site. His ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ is going down a storm and he’ll be playing it continuously for… well… ever. Such is the nature of virtual festivals. And on the subject of Mr Lewis, I couldn’t happen to notice that both Jeff and Helen Arney at the Comical Flask mention squid and praying mantises in their sets. When I told Helen this she said, “NO WAY! Hook us up! Transatlantic Jeff/Helen duet time?” Quite. Let’s campaign for it!

In the meantime though, if you have a particular fetish for songs about squid and praying mantises - and let’s face it, who doesn’t? - you’d do well to download Jeff’s track for free on his page and Helen’s on the Geek Like Me mini-album. We’ve already started posting physical copies all over the world, but you can also get digital copies via just about every major online MP3 store.

Right, well, I’m off to watch Wolfington at the Reproductive Stage now - seems the crowds have been enjoying their ode to Professor Brian Cox. Just hope we don’t get in trouble about their Uranus references…

Bye for now!

Hayley. xx

(@gingerbreadlady)

Geek Pop 2011 launch party photos

geekpop — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 14:57:42 +0000

Photos from Thursday night’s launch gig! Thanks to Ben Valsler of The Naked Scientists for some of these (the good ones).

[Click speech bubbles for captions]

Geek Like Me is out now!

geekpop — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 09:47:21 +0000

DIGITAL DOWNLOADS £4 FROM BANDCAMP

(Supercool limited edition physical CDs £6)

You can also download via iTunes, Amazon, emusic and other major online music stores, but for the best deal, head to Bandcamp.

Geek Pop will donate a third of the profits from this release to a fund for commissioning new science-inspired music. Yippee!

Artwork by Tom Humberstone.

Oh and and here’s the story behind it all (as if anyone’s interested)…

About January time this year, Helen Arney contacted us with some ideas about her Geek Pop 2011 performance. We’d been in cahoots about a potential Geek Pop single release previously, but many things - including Christmas, and a complete lack of organisation - got in the way. So, offering up a brand spanking and sparkly new song that she’d performed at the Funny Women Awards in September…

…Helen wanted to give it another bash. Only this time, we suggested releasing not just a single, but a WHOLE EP full of bonus tracks from Geek Pop artists. Well, one thing led to another and soon six artists (including two collaborating for a duet) were on board. Last to join the (top secret) project was Jonny Berliner. His Genetics Calypso, first recorded for the Geek Pop sessions on Green Man FM, came out of production - hand-clapping and all - just in time.

By this point, we’d gotten carried away and roped in an illustrator, Tom Humberstone, to create the artwork, and even ordered some vinyl-effect CDs to make physical copies. Quick as a flash, Tom created three awesome design ideas for fifties-style cover art and we chose the one that Tom felt “captured the inner geek in us all”.

Meanwhile, Martin Austwick, who was also preparing for his own album release and our London launch gig, was advising us on matters of Bandcamp and digital distribution. And we’d roped in our Twitter followers to choose a name for a “hypothetical” record. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves uploading Geek Like Me (which had by then morphed into a mini-album) to be distributed by every major music download site on the internet. That was scary.

Finally, one Saturday near the end of February, we found ourselves at Geek Pop HQ with a box full of CDs, a pile of Tom’s lovely artwork and a guillotine. And a couple of weeks later, we’re unleashing Geek Like Me on the WORLD!

Geek Pop 2011 - Festival Highlights

geekpop — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 09:46:54 +0000

The Geek Pop 2011 festival is go! Our highlights include the awesome Jeffrey Lewis headlining at The Tetrahedron, a song about Professor Brian Cox and a musical rendition of the Fibonacci series. Listen below, download for free via our iTunes feed, or jump to virtual gigs for artists on our highlights playlist by clicking on the arrows.

Jeffrey Lewis & Peter Stampfel - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea >>>

Spirit of Play - An Element Sends A Postcard Home >>>

Hannah Werdmuller – Diurnal Migration >>>

Wolfington - Spacefox (Live) >>>

MJ Hibbett - A Little Bit >>>

Helen Arney - Erwin’s Other Animals >>>

Lårs & Marïse – Phibonacci Nova >>>

Matt Westcott - Love is Never Mean >>>

Marian Call – I’ll Still Be A Geek After Nobody Think It’s Chic (The Nerd Anthem) >>>

Weird Gear – Black 7 >>>

Free downloads of over 40 Geek Pop 2011 songs are available online at the 2011 festival site.

Thanks to our sponsors Graphic Science and the British Science Association for their support.

For six bonus tracks including Spirit of Play’s ‘An Element Sends A Postcard Home’, download the Geek Like Me mini-album at geekpop.bandcamp.com for just £4. Geek Pop will donate a third of the profits to a fund for new science-inspired music.

Welcome to Geek Pop 2011!

geekpop — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 09:45:28 +0000

Ahoy, hello, bonjour and just plain hi! I’m Jim, one of the dedicated crew of proud geeks that has been busy using and abusing its nerd power to shape the internet into this rather blooming marvelous festival that you see before you. Hope you like it.

EH?

If you are new to this whole Geek Pop thing then where have you been these last few years?! Probably far too busy having a life, or something… Well, I’m glad you’ve finally realised that Huey Lewis and the News were right all along – it really is hip to be a square. This is the fourth annual celebration of the geek in all of us. It doesn’t matter if it’s heterotic string theory (don’t ask) or pictures of cats looking cute, we all have something that we spend just a little bit too much time on. Well, there is no need to feel ashamed any longer – we’re all geeks in our own special way, so let’s celebrate it!

SO WHAT’S NEW THEN?

You may notice Geek Pop has a sort of vintage, olde worlde geek chic-ness about it this year, which ties in rather nicely with last night’s live launch party - at the world’s oldest surviving grand music hall. As always, the Tetrahedron and Reproductive stages play host to the majority of our science-inspired acts, and the Tesla Tent caters for all of your late-night-geeking-out needs. The Comical flask returns for its second year, with comedy and music and science all jostling for centre stage… And you thought science-themed music was niche enough… All the stages - and some other exciting bits and bobs (check out that dragon) - are arranged lovingly on a fantastic new map, created by the multi-talented Naomi Fearn. It’s interactive: just give it a click and it takes you zooming off around the festival.

There’s also an official mini-album to download - it’s called Geek Like Me. Exciting, no? It’s got six exclusive songs on it from the likes of Dr Martin Austwick (masquerading as The Sound of the Ladies), Helen Arney, and the legendary Mr. Jonny Berliner. You do have to pay for it, I’m afraid, but at £4 it’s a complete bargain, and will help us fund more science-inspired music in years to come. Hurrah! Or if you prefer something more physical, there are some limited edition vinyl-effect CDs for a mere £6. Get them while it’s still a relevant format! The artwork is also rather stunning, and the vinyl-effect makes it looks like you’re putting a little record into your CD player – how much fun is that?! And, don’t forget, we give you all of the other music for free (so it’s not like we’re being mean or anything).

VIRTUAL FRIENDS ARE BETTER THAN REAL ONES

All of the usual social network-type things are up and running, so come and say hello. We’re going to be tweeting like an insane possessed tweeting thing, so if twitter is your bag then tweet @geekpop and use the #geekpop hashtag… Interesting point of Twetiquette: does one write hashtag after using a hashtag to denote the use of a hashtag on Twitter…? Answers in 140 characters or less. If that last bit made no sense to you whatsoever, you’re probably not on Twitter. I bet you’re on Facebook though, right? You can be a fan of Geek Pop, like us, and write things at us, as well as at fellow nerds. Emails are best sent to crew@geekpop.co.uk and you can even Skype geekpop if you want a private little chinwag.

If you’re eager for more Geek Pop, then the festivals from previous years are still lurking around behind the scenes somewhere. We’ve even created One Big Page of Geek Pop Love, containing every song (all of them downloadable!) from Geek Pop 2008-2010 - totalling more than 100! There’s also our monthly podcast, on which we look at the science in the music suggested by you (yes you!) the listeners, and then make silly jokes about how to pronounce aluminium, and ponder which sci-fi robot is the coolest… Podcasts are free of course - well, ours is anyway - and you can get them to load straight into your phone if your phone is clever; perfect for long boring journeys and suchlike.

INTO THE REAL WORLD Did you all enjoy your time at Wilton’s in London last night? If you missed it, you’ll have missed out I’m afraid; Dr. Martin Austwick, Amateur Transplants and Steve Mould all in the same venue. But if you keep listening to our podcast, we may just bring you some special snippets in the coming months, and we’ll be updating our Green Room with interviews over the festival week. For the rest of the year, the best way to stay up-to-date is to sign up to our newsletter. Always good to be in the loop, and our loop is a mobius strip.

We really hope that you enjoy all the crazy stuff that we’ve organised for you this time around. We’ve set a pretty high bar this year in terms of quality acts and we’re incredibly grateful to all of the artists who have given us their time and creativity. Keep a look out for all the stuff happening in the British Science Association’s National Science and Engineering Week (which we are part of) and have a great Geek Pop 2011!

Lots of love,

Jim. xx

(@sos_jim)

Festival diary: what’s coming up

geekpop — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:21:03 +0000

(click for larger version)

Preview Geek Like Me: our first official release!

geekpop — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:00:27 +0000

For months now, we’ve been working on a secret project and now it’s time to let you all in on it: Geek Pop is releasing an album! No, seriously, we are! It may only be a mini-album, but it’s possibly the greatest and geekiest mini-album you’ll ever hear. It features tracks from some of this year’s Geek Pop festival artists. And we’ll be donating a third of the profits from this release to a fund for new science-inspired music. So buy it to support future geekdom, but also because it’s GREAT!

Geek Like Me

A six-track mini-album containing bonus songs from the 2011 Geek Pop festival. Artists: Helen Arney with Mr Simmonds featuring Professor Elemental, Spirit of Play, The Sound of The Ladies, Karmadillo, Jonny Berliner, MJ Hibbett & Vom Vorton. Handmade by geeks, for geeks. Preview right there ->

With original artwork by Tom Humberstone.

RELEASED ON 11 MARCH*

Digital downloads £4 from Bandcamp

Limited edition (100) physical CD £6

(yeah, check out those beauties, and they’re lovingly hand-crafted!)

*Can I pre-order then? Sorry, no, but if you come to our launch party, a limited number of copies will available, without the P&P. If you ask nicely, you might even be able to get them signed by some of the artists.

Guide to our launch giggers

geekpop — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 19:41:48 +0000

So you may have noticed us banging on (and on) about our launch party on 10th March. Ooops! It’s only because it’s going to be GREAT! Still, on your travels around the interweb, you may not have bumped into any of our launch gigging artists, so perhaps it’s time we enlightened you.

AMATEUR TRANSPLANTS

If you think you’ve heard of them but can’t quite figure out why, it’s probably because of this* - their ‘London Underground Song’ - which has had well over a million hits on You Tube.

Amateur Transplants are Adam Kay and Suman Biswas. They write funny songs about all sorts of things, but being doctors, they’ve written an awful lot of nerdy ones about medical exams, drugs, nasty diseases and so on… it’s much funnier than it sounds. Here, you should probably just watch this:

Ultimately better than the Bonnie Tyler original, we think you’ll agree.

Last year, for our May podcast, we caught up with Adam and Suman at the Redgrave Theatre in Bristol, where they played us a couple of songs:

Amateur Transplants live session

That was nice of them, wasn’t it?

Anyway, you should come to see Amateur Transplants if you like: laughing, parody songs, smut.

Oh, and here’s what some other people had to say about them:

“Superbly politically incorrect. Gloriously funny.” - The Scotsman

“Extremely funny. Never less than utterly clever” - The Telegraph

“This made me very, very happy” - Stephen Fry

*You probably shouldn’t watch this if you are easily offended by swearing. There’s quite a lot of it.

DR MARTIN AUSTWICK

How to describe Martin Austwick? He’s a man. A physicist. A soundman. And a one-man band. Who, incidentally, now has some other people in his band. We first met Martin at last year’s virtual festival, in his guise as The Sound of the Ladies. He’s since played in Einstein’s Garden at Green Man Festival and contributed a gorgeous acoustic version of his song “The Grand Tour” to our podcast. He’s also excellent at closing umbrellas when they get stuck.

Martin will be joined by Jim Footner and Will Elsdale to play songs about science from his forthcoming album Songs from the Scientific Cabaret, due for release on the day of the launch.

You should come to see Martin if you like: acousticness, clever lyrics, beards

“A genuine musical maverick” - Subba-Cultcha

“He should be more famous” - Josie Long

“Becoming somewhat of a superhero in the underground acoustic scene” – God is in the TV zine

STEVE MOULD

Steve is our host for this year’s live launch. It doesn’t do him justice to say he does science stand-up, but he does do jokes that involve science, and they are funny. You might recognise him from Blue Peter (yes, THAT Blue Peter), where he’s the resident science expert. He also appears regularly at Festival of the Spoken Nerd and is one half of the comedy double act Mould & Arrowsmith (guess which half…), about which people have said:

“Beyond nerdy, yet playful and ingeniously funny… far more entertaining than they have any right to be.” - The List

“Riotously funny” - Fringe review

You should come to see Steve if you like: nerd jokes, fire (aha, bet you’re curious now huh?), Blue Peter

OTHER REASONS TO COME TO THE LAUNCH PARTY

1. It’s (probably) the only place you’ll be able to get your hands on a physical rather than digital copy of the forthcoming Geek Pop EP release - AND you’ll get it ahead of the official release date on 11th March

2. We hope to be able to set up a (small) fund for commissioning new science-inspired music from the profits.

3. Wilton’s. This place is one of London’s finest music venues.

4. Because all the cool square kids will be there.

5. If you combine the first halves of two of our acts, you get Steve Martin. (If you combine the second halves you get Martin Mould, which is potentially funnier).

ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, HOW DO I GET TICKETS THEN?

Go here. Tickets are a tenner.

This year’s launch gig is sponsored by the communications and education consultancy Graphic Science, who run innovative and engaging projects and events involving science.

Geek Pop Podcast - February 2011

geekpop — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 15:51:05 +0000

The subject of robots explored through song! What could be geekier? We had so many suggestions for this podcast we couldn’t fit them all on, but here are our top tunes. As always, don’t forget to vote in the Geek Poll - this month we ask you to pick the coolest science fiction robot EVER (below).

We also preview the 2011 Geek Pop festival, with clippage from MJ Hibbett and a full length Lardpony track. (Ex-Lardpony member Vom Vorton will be taking to the Comical Flask stage in March). Get tickets for our launch party here.

The February Spotify playlist is here. We’re also putting together a Robot Song Spotify list including all the suggestions we couldn’t use. But if you want to download this month’s tracks in iTunes, click on the links below.

Dirty Robot - Arling and Cameron

I Am Not a Robot - Marina and the Diamonds

Build the Robots - Dr Steel

Robot Rock – Daft Punk

Robot Son - Lardpony (full play)

You can also get this podcast on MixCloud, including full-length tracks. But for a downloadable version, stick to iTunes.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

Sponsor this podcast.

Geek Pop 2011 launch tickets on sale now

geekpop — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:45:44 +0000

Folks! Tickets are now on sale for our 2011 launch featuring Amateur Transplants, Dr Martin Austwick and Steve Mould. There will be music! There will be science! It’s going to be ace! Full guide to artists here >>>

Thursday 10th March, 7.30pm

Wilton’s Music Hall, Graces Alley, London (nearest tube: Aldgate East)

Buy TICKETS (£10) from WeGotTickets

Download a flyer here. Facebook event here.

And massive thanks to our sponsors Graphic Science.

Please note: online ticket sales will end at 12pm on Thursday 10th March. You can also buy on the door. Keep an eye on Twitter or Facebook if you will be arriving late and want to check availability.

Announcing: Geek Pop 2011 Live

geekpop — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:54:34 +0000

Happy news, dear geeks! We have confirmed the venue and acts for our 2011 live event, which will launch the Geek Pop 2011 virtual festival.

You will, of course, be thrilled to know that we will be showcasing the many extraordinary scientific and musical talents of:

Amateur Transplants

Dr Martin Austwick

Steve Mould

on Thursday 10th March, at Wilton’s, the world’s oldest grand music hall.

But let’s not forget what it’s all about: the launch event is only the beginning. We’ll be kicking off a whole week’s worth of celebrations, involving a specially selected bunch of 20 artists performing songs about science across four virtual stages. Lots of them are writing songs *just for us*! WE CAN’T WAIT!

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Geek Pop Podcast - January 2011

geekpop — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 10:40:32 +0000

Happy New Year! This month in the podcast we get to grips with The Future, both technologically and science… fictionally, as we discuss dystopian futures, the many forms the coming apocalypse could take and what albums we’d want with us on a space trip.

The crew has finally entered the digital era, with some new sound recording equipment, but do bear with us as we haven’t quite figured it all out yet.

Conversely, this month’s live session is from the distant past - the other half of a live session recorded by Spirit of Play in March 2010. (See the March 2010 live session for the first half).

The January Spotify playlist is here. But if you want to download the tracks on iTunes, click on the links below.

All of One is the Other - The Most Serene Republic

Citizens of Tomorrow - Tokyo Police Club

The Rise and Fall of Intelligent Design - Rodney Crowell

One Night in Space - Tangerine Dream

Live session: M - Spirit of Play (listen here)

You can also get this podcast on MixCloud, including full-length tracks. But for a downloadable version, stick to iTunes.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

Sponsor this podcast.

Geek Pop Podcast - December

geekpop — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 21:28:48 +0000

It’s the Christmas podcast! Complete with sleigh bells, a baby and Christmas dinner, not to mention Christmas spirit in the form of ethanol. Plus, we speak to Jon Butterworth, who’s been involved in making an album with scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, and discuss snowflakes the size of milk pans.

This month’s live session isn’t *technically* live but it was recorded exclusively for us, for the purpose of our Christmas podcast. And it is AWESOMELY geeky. Thanks to Declan Fleming for that.

Sadly, this month’s playlist was a bit obscure for Spotify, so you’ll only find one song on the list, but here it is! You can download a few more of the tracks on iTunes.

Vitamin - Kraftwerk

Points Of Order – The TLAs (details of album release here)

Machines (Back To Humans) – Queen

Snow – Arran Arctic

Live(ish) session: I Wish I Had A Smaller pKa – Declan Fleming (listen here)

You can also get this podcast on MixCloud, including full-length tracks. But for a downloadable version, stick to iTunes.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

Sponsor this podcast.

How’s this for a geek Crimbo gift?

geekpop — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 18:10:26 +0000

Available in our shop now (yes, now!) at the frankly ridiculous price of £12.40! In all the colours of the rainbow (almost).

You lucky, lucky people.

And P.S. between 1-14 December, our merchandise partner Spreadshirt is offering free standard shipping on orders of £30 or more. Enter the code GIFTS2010UK when you check out.

Christmas shipping deadlines

Music to read scientific papers to

geekpop — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 10:51:21 +0000

The reading of a scientific paper can’t be undertaken half-heartedly, or with one eye on Twitter. It requires absolute focus and an absence of distractions. People offering you cups of tea and the postman turning up in the results section just won’t do. And you probably don’t want Lady Gaga singing ra ra ah ah ah roma roma ma at you either.

But is there a genre of music that you can listen to whilst reading hardcore science papers? Is classical the only option? Does it have to be instrumental? Or can you happily hum along to Dizzee Rascal whilst tackling quantum physics?

We want to know. So we’ve created a Spotify list called “Music to read scientific papers to“. Add your suggestions in the comments below and we’ll add them to our list. We might even play one or two in the next podcast.

Image: juliaf

Help us pay for our music licence

geekpop — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 10:32:02 +0000

Lovely people, we need your support. Every year, we have to pay for a new PRS music licence so we can carry on featuring all sorts of weird and wonderful songs in our podcast. So if you listen to our podcasts or live sessions and enjoy them, please consider making a donation. It’s whatever you can afford. We suggest a number of pounds equivalent to the molecular weight of your favourite atom. But whether it’s hydrogen or fermium (ch-ching!), we love you all the same.

And as an added incentive, we’ve put together an extra 3 minutes of unheard audio from the podcast, just for those who donate. It’s a bit silly, but you might like it. Just follow the link back to the site once you’re done donating.

Problems? Email us at crew@geekpop.co.uk

Geek Pop Podcast - November - update*

geekpop — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 20:34:43 +0000

In this month’s show, we ponder EVIL science, find out why the moon isn’t really *that* silvery (despite what Little Richard might say) and temporarily lose our jobs to some students.

MIXCLOUD: Don’t forget, you can now listen online via MixCloud, where you’ll get full-length tracks for all the songs we play in the ordinary podcasted version. But if you want to download the show and run around with it, you’ll need good ol’ iTunes.

Thanks to The Standards for letting us into their home to record this month’s live session. It includes not just one but TWO tracks, if you listen online. The second is even a world exclusive! Blimey, get us. Ooh, and their new single ‘Like a Heart Attack‘ is out now.

As always, you’ll find links below to download the tracks on our playlist via iTunes. Or there’s a Spotify list for November here.

Sylvia - The Woe Betides (check out that video we mention)

Methuselah Mouse - The Destroyers

By the Light of the Silvery Moon - Little Richard

The Astronomer’s Love Song - Andrew Pontzen

Live session: The Standards (extended version here)

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

Sponsor this podcast.

*Oops. We made a bit of a booboo when we sent this to iTunes. If you got a 2-min track instead of the podcast, refresh your feed now and it should work.

Geek Pop 2011 open for submissions!

geekpop — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:07:29 +0000

*** PRESS RELEASE AVAILABLE ***

Yep, it’s that time of year again… In fact, yikes, it’s later than that - we’re behind schedule! Anyhow, we’re pleased to announce that the submissions process for Geek Pop 2011 is now (finally) OPEN! Hooray!

What that means is that we’re now looking for the nerdiest bands and singer-songwriters around to contribute science-inspired music to our 2011 festival in March. If you’re new to Geek Pop, here’s a short history of the festival.

ARTISTS: for more info about becoming a Geek Pop star, click here. To apply fill in this form.

PRESS: for a press release about this, click here.

EVERYONE ELSE: sign up to updates on the Geek Pop 2011 festival here.

Geek Pop Podcast - October

geekpop — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:39:52 +0000

This month’s podcast skips merrily from militant fruitarianism to a rat-shaped hole, to genetics-based calypso. Also: Hayley’s Bette Davis impression and the results of that all-important Geek Poll. For the new poll (we need your votes!), scroll down.

MIXCLOUD: It’s now possible to listen online to a version of this podcast that includes full-length tracks, which means you get nearly a full hour of Geek Pop. Yay! Click here. BUT, you can’t download from MixCloud, so stick to iTunes if you want this for your iPod.

This month’s live session is from Jonny Berliner on August’s Green Man FM show hosted by Jim at Green Man Festival. Tune into that show for an interview with the man himself.

As always, links to download the tracks on our playlist (via iTunes) are below. Or there’s a Spotify list for October here.

Supertheory of Supereverything - Gogol Bordello

Vertigo - The Libertines

Machine - The Hat

Sciurus Carolinensis - George Hrab

Genetics Calypso (live) - Jonny Berliner (Geek Pop exclusive)

VOTE IN THIS MONTH’S GEEK POLL: Subscribe to our podcast feed through iTunes or Google. It’s like, totally free. That’s not all though. You’ll also receive a bunch of free music downloads from our previous festivals. And if you’re looking for the online archive, it’s here.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

Sponsor this podcast.

Spirit of Play mix it up for Geek Calendar

geekpop — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 12:57:00 +0000

So if you read our newsletter earlier today, you’ll know that we’ve been involved in a deliciously nerdy project entitled Geek Calendar. Very excitingly, we’ve been able to contribute - in a small but important way - by putting the Calendar guys in touch with Geek Popsters Spirit of Play (remember them from Geek Pop 2010, and 2009?). They’ve remixed their track ‘Geek of the Week’ especially for the launch of this AWESOME Geek Calendar trailer, which neatly explains what the whole project is about.

So go PRE-ORDER YOUR GEEK CALENDAR today and support libel reform.

Here’s that ultra-nerdy remixed version (right click and Save As) as a free download:

Geek of the Week (Geek Calendar remix) - Spirit of Play

And for other versions of ‘Geek of the Week’, try these. Again, right click and Save As to download:

Geek of the Week (original) - Spirit of Play

Geek of the Week (live) - Spirit of Play (from our exclusive live sessions archive)

Who are you?

geekpop — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 07:29:37 +0000

EDIT: 23/09/10

THIS SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED - THANKS FOR ALL YOUR FEEDBACK!

Dear lovelies,

Here’s a cat dancing like a monkey in a business suit. Now, please take 3 minutes of your time to tell us a little bit about yourself by filling in OUR AUDIENCE SURVEY. We’ll be forever in your debt.

Cheers!

The Geeks.

The Geek Pop Newsletter is BACK

geekpop — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:18:28 +0000

Hullo you lovely folks! Have you been missing our nerd jokes? Of course you have! Never fear, because the newsletter is BACK after the summer break and we’ll be entertaining you fortnightly with our special brand of geek.

The first update of the new season goes out today. To get it, email news@geekpop.co.uk. Type SUBSCRIBE ME RIGHT UP into the subject line and include your full name in the body of the email. (More details here).

Also, we need more nerd jokes, so send ‘em along!

Loveyoubye! xx

Introducing: Naomi Fearn

geekpop — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:00:41 +0000

We’d like to introduce you to Naomi Fearn, the budding geek song writer who won our Summer Song Writing Contest. (Results announced yesterday in the September Podcast).

Here’s Naomi’s winning entry, UnGoogleable You:

UnGoogleable You - Naomi Fearn

Judges’ comments:

“A total treat, the teenage laurie anderson and bill gates dancing at the senior prom. Touching, tender, nerd and sweet.”

“I’d buy an album of this. Wonderful structure, very nice original melody, extra geek & smile points for the 140 character solo. Really nice tempo & melody variation.”

“A fully-formed indie pop song, this wouldn’t be out of place on the playlist of an independent radio station. And it has the potential to become the new stalking anthem that could finally replace “Every Breath You Take” by Police – at least, I hope so…”

“Pulls at the heartstrings as well as the nerd… strings. Fab.”

Naomi’s website is here and as she says in the song, you can easily find her Twitter feed. Naomi also asked us to mention David Deery, who helped her record the song.

We also want to mention a couple of other song writers who didn’t quite win, but did impress us muchly with their creations:

HONORABLE MENTION GOES TO: Andrew Pontzen

The Astronomer’s Love Song - Andrew Pontzen

THE GRAPHIC SCIENCE MOST CONTRIVED RHYME PRIZE GOES TO: Rishi Nag

“Growing 29000 plants was not the only trick, You still had to perform some Mendel arithmetic”

Mendel - Rishi Nag

Read Rishi’s blog post about writing his song, including lyrics, here.

AND THANKS ONCE AGAIN TO: Graphic Science for sponsoring that prize.

Geek Pop Podcast - September

geekpop — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:39:12 +0000

So this is the one all you budding song writers have been waiting for. The time has come for us to announce the winner of our Summer Song Writing Competition! It hasn’t been easy choosing a winner. In fact, it’s been bloody hard. You’ve all done such a darn good job.

So big thanks to our judges for making all the tough decisions, and a special shout out to Graphic Science for making it worth the winner’s while by stumping up £100 of Gadget Shop vouchers… Oooooh. Now, you’ll just have to listen to the end to see who’s won them.

And in the mean time, you can hear us trying (and failing spectacularly) to get to grips with M theory, pondering over an Inuit hymn and doing the old big-fish-little-fish-cardboard box routine (whether you can actually hear that last one is debatable).

11th Dimension - Julian Casablancas

Beautiful People - The Books

Surprise - Gunnar Madsen

Crystallography - DJ Stox

COMPETITION WINNER! Ah, you won’t find out that easily…

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

Sponsor this podcast.

Geek Pop Podcast Special - Green Man Festival

geekpop — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:10:01 +0000

We’re back from our adventures at Green Man Festival (check out the pictures in our group pool on Flickr) and just because we love you, we’ve recorded a special Green Man podcast. Which means this month instead of one podcast you get TWO. Don’t say we don’t spoil you.

This one’s an (almost) entirely live music podcast, recorded in Einstein’s Garden, so there are no iTunes download links, but you’ll be hearing from: Jonny Berliner, Phatmattbaker & Oort Kuiper, The Sound of the Ladies and Sibelius. You can find videos for a couple of the live performances in our last post.

You’ll also hear from Andrew Glester, the man in charge of Polar, a project that sets footage of the Arctic and Antarctic to classical music in a live concert. You can reserve tickets for the first performance in January here. It sounds beautiful.

EXCLUSIVE: Octopus, I Love You - Dalmatian Rex & the Eigentones

Dalmatian Rex played the Reproductive Stage at the Geek Pop ‘09 virtual festival. You can find links to buy their albums at their website.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

Sponsor this podcast.

Geek Pop in Einstein’s Garden

geekpop — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:14:23 +0000

Since last Thursday, the Geek Pop crew has been roaming the wet, muddy fields of the Glanusk Estate in the Brecon Beacons. The Green Man Festival is over and lovely though it was, we’re glad to be back in the warm and the dry and are nursing welly blisters…

Anyway, there will be many more highlights from Einstein’s Garden - where some of our artists played - on the next Geek Pop Podcast, but for now, content yourself with this video playlist. Sorry to all the bands we couldn’t catch because our camcorder battery ran out… hence it cutting out near the end of Jonny Berliner’s first song. (We tried recharging it in using the bikes at the amazing pedal power stand, but to no avail).

We’ve also uploaded our photos from Einstein’s Garden to our Geek Pop group pool in Flickr. Please feel free to add your own if you were around for Geek Pop artists.

Geek Pop sessions on Green Man FM

geekpop — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:49:32 +0000

Finally, Geek Pop has it’s own radio show! (Albeit for one weekend…)

Geek Pop Podcast host Jim will be taking to the airwaves on Green Man FM at Green Man Festival in Wales. He’ll be plugging Geek Pop artists playing on the Solar Stage and generally bigging up the Einstein’s Garden area of the festival. You can listen at 87.7FM around the festival site, online at GreenMan.Net or in iTunes, or listen again with MixCloud. All the links are here. Also, follow @GreenManFM on Twitter. Here are Jim’s slots:

3-5pm, Thursday 20 August

1-3pm, Saturday 21 August

Yay!

Geek Pop Podcast - August

geekpop — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:00:39 +0000

This month in the podcast we take on evolution, serotonin and pi, and catch up with steampunk musician-slash-comedian Andrew O’Neill (left) to talk about the Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing’s new album. (And pssst, tickets for their Edinburgh Fringe gigs on 16-17 August are going like hot cakes).

There’s a new audience-interactive section, which is by no means rocket science and basically involves you choosing between one thing and another thing. A poll, if you will. Scroll down to choose between LSD and walnuts (you’ll probably need to listen to the podcast to understand why).

Our live session this month is from Bert Miller & the Animal Folk, whom you can find at the Geek Pop ‘10 virtual festival site, or in the video highlights from our Bristol gig. Buy their EP! It’s great!

Click the links below to find this month’s playlist tracks in iTunes, or here for our August Spotify playlist. Or try this one for all the songs we’ve ever featured on the podcast.

Extra bits: We thought we’d give you a sneaky peek into our podcasting world, so here we are in the “studio”. Well, here’s Jim, at least, with his customary cuppa, just before the show. And here’s that marvellous diagram Hayley was talking about in case you were looking for it.

Serotonin - Mystery Jets

Charlie - The Men That Will Be Blamed For Nothing

Streamlined - Being 747

Pi - Kate Bush

EXCLUSIVE Bunnyhuggers (Live) - Bert Miller & the Animal Folk

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

Sponsor this podcast.

Geek Pop Bristol - video highlights

geekpop — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:28:14 +0000

Finally, for those who missed out on our live launch gig in Bristol earlier this year, here are the video highlights. There’s crazy creature-based tunes and a mouth trumpet from the brilliant Bert Miller & the Animal Folk, a freestyle science rap jam sesh (what else?) from Phatmattbaker & Oort Kuiper and beautiful acoustic geekery from Jonny Berliner. For an interview with Jonny, check out the Geek Pop Green Room.

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Also, big hugs and kisses to Molehill Media for filming the gigs.

BERT MILLER & THE ANIMAL FOLK

Part II of this set is available on their Geek Pop ‘10 page. And you can download their awesome self-titled EP right here.

PHATMATTBAKER & OORT KUIPER

Phatmattbaker aka Matt Baker Oort Kuiper aka Jon Chase were part of the Geek Pop ‘10 festival.

YOUR HOST, CHRIS DUNSFORD

(Please note: parts of Chris’ set may not be suitable for children)

Part I of this set is here. You can also find Chris at the Geek Pop ‘10 virtual festival.

JONNY BERLINER

Jonny was part of previous Geek Pop festivals. You can download his track Dark Matter for free at Geek Pop here or buy a whole EP of his Science Songs on iTunes.

Big Geek Pop party at Green Man Festival

geekpop — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:32:40 +0000

Bert Miller & the Animal Folk, Einstein’s Garden, 2009

Thanks to friends in the right places we’ve got a whole bunch of artists from previous Geek Pops booked in to play Einstein’s Garden at Green Man Festival this year. The festival is sold out as of now but for all those who have already got their tickets, see you there!

We’ll also be recording special live sessions during a slot on the festival radio and at Camp Geek.

Here’s the (Geek Pop) line up (all on the Solar Stage). Click on the links to find them at previous Geek Pop virtual festivals.

FRIDAY 20TH AUGUST:

1500-1530 Aidy

1630-1715 The Sound of the Ladies

1715-1815 The Layers

1815-1900 Jonny Berliner

1900-2000 Bert Miller & the Animal Folk

SATURDAY 21ST AUGUST:

1300-1345 Jonny Berliner

1715-1815 Spirit of Play

1815-1900 Aidy

1900-200 Adults (previously Let’s Tea Party)

SUNDAY 22ND AUGUST:

1300-1500 Phatmattbaker & Jon Chase

1630-1715 Johnny & the Chemists

1815-1900 Dalmatian Rex & the Eigentones

Psssst! Cos we want to be able to identify the real geeks in the audience, we’re extending our offer on Square t-shirts until Green Man Festival. A tenner for a t-shirt plus £1.50 post and packaging. Can’t say fairer than that, boys and girls. (There’s limited availability though, so look sharp). >>>

Geek Pop Podcast - July

geekpop — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 10:21:06 +0000

It’s mayhem this month as the crew (okay, mainly Hayley) is driven to distraction by CREATURES attempting to disturb the peace and serenity of the Geek Pop studio. As a result - and due to the fact that the internet at Geek Pop HQ deserted us just before the show - there’s a slight shortfall of science in the July episode…

Our live session is from Geek Pop ‘10 artist Karmadillo. Plus we bring you news of the Geek Pop summer song writing competition, in which you could win the awesomest of awesome prizes.

Click the links to find this month’s playlist tracks in iTunes or at the artist’s website, or here for our July Spotify playlist. Or try this one for all the songs we’ve ever featured on the podcast.

And in case you’re wondering, that’s Rishi Nag (right) of Karmadillo beaming away in the photo, along with Aidy, who brought us June’s live session.

Bunsen Burner - Beatnik Turtle

Black Star - Radiohead

Biochemistry Pie - Kevin Ahern

Atomic - Blondie

EXCLUSIVE Arabidopsis - Karmadillo (Live)

Introducing: The Judges

geekpop — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 12:27:51 +0000

Right. These are the people you need to impress/bribe to win that song writing prize.

Helen Arney, geek songstress

Helen is a comedian, singer-songwriter, ex-physicist and geek. She has performed her unusually funny original songs at Geek Pop Live and the Cheltenham Science Festival, as well as in her own bedroom and on YouTube. A veteran of two Edinburgh Fringe festivals, she’s taking a new solo show there for 2010: Helen Arney’s Songs for Modern Loving. Expect songs, laughs and Venn diagrams.

Hayley Birch, Creator, Geek Pop

One of our resident nerds, Hayley is in charge of our annual festival and co-hosts the Geek Pop podcast in her spare time, whilst somehow managing to hold down a “proper” job as a science writer. Despite being able to play odd bits of everything from Fleetwood Mac to Green Day, she’s never quite sat down long enough to learn a whole song.

Ben Johnson, Director, Graphic Science

Ben is director of the science communication consultancy Graphic Science. He’s something of an expert in innovative ways of delivering scientific content and thus singing about it is right up his street. Graphic Science sponsors the “Most Contrived Rhyme” prize.

Ben Valsler, Producer, Naked Scientists

Ben is a professional audio whizz. He’s also a latent musician, with several guitars gathering dust at home while he spends his days producing for the BBC radio show The Naked Scientists. He’s a fan of Pink Floyd, Tom Waits and Joanna Newsom, but his Shakira fetish sometimes gets the better of him.

Summer song writing challenge

geekpop — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:15:41 +0000

Listen up! We’re putting your song writing skills to the test. Your task is to write and record your very own geek summer hit single. You can cover any geek-related topic you like - think particle accelerators, Dr Who, trigonometry - but it must be all your own work. (You don’t have to be a musical genius, but we will award bonus points if you make us laugh.)

You’re encouraged to enlist the help of your entire office, science class or lab. Once you’ve penned your masterpiece, record it and send it to us in the form of a digital music file, You Tube video or plain old physical CD.

WHAT DO I WIN? Thanks to the donations of some awesome folks at The Economist, Deafness Research UK, Naked Scientists and Graphic Science, the top prize is nothing less than immense.

Not only will we play the winner’s song, in full, on the Geek Pop podcast, we’ll send you: £75 of Gadget Shop vouchers, a coveted Geek Pop Square t-shirt, 7Digital music vouchers for ten free downloads, Geek Pop pin badges for you and up to ten co-writers and an assortment of popular science books, including Poseidon’s Steed by Helen Scales, a signed copy of Big Bang by Simon Singh, Crisp Packet Fireworks by Chris Smith and Dave Ansell, and the “Introducing” series books for Stephen Hawking, Time and Darwin. Oh and of course, you get a big ol’ slice of glory pie. Mmm-mmmm.

PLUS! Extra prizes! The Graphic Science Most Contrived Rhyme Prize winner will receive £25 of Gadget Shop vouchers. And we at Geek Pop will award a Geek Pop pin badge to the songwriter of each valid entry.

HOW DO I ENTER? Send your MP3 file or You Tube link to crew@geekpop.co.uk or ask us for a postal address to send a CD. The deadline is 17:00 BST on 31 August 2010.

If you know anyone else who might be up to the challenge, why not share this with them using the button at the bottom of this post?

Hey, and make sure you do your homework: check out the songs we’ve featured previously on the podcast for inspiration, and who you need to impress to win.

Some rules:

1. Songs must not have been released, or otherwise made widely available, before the competition deadline.

2. Instruments are not essential - the prize is for song writing. So feel free to record a capella, or even get someone with superior vocal talents to sing it for you.

3. Explicit lyrics are okay, but please provide a clean or “bleeped” version too.

4. No “borrowing” from other artists.

5. The judges‘ decision is final. MWAH HA HA HA.

6. Bribes may be accepted, but only if they are really, really good.

Geek Pop: the documentary

geekpop — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:03:12 +0000

So someone called Drew, aided by friend of the crew Dr Gav, has produced four (FOUR!) HEE-larious videos about the Geek Pop London gig. Besides some quite-good jokes by compere Chris Dunsford and cutesy geek pop lovin’ from Helen Arney, this one (part III) also features some excellent shots of Hayley chewing her thumb and Dr Gav looking like he’d had more than one pint (tip: that’s cos he had).

For the other three, check out Drew Kirk’s rather marvellous website - part I, part II, part IV. Oh, and see if you can pick up Jim on his stunning lack of accuracy (or just plain wrongness) about the beginnings of Geek Pop in part II.

Geek Pop Podcast - June

geekpop — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:51:23 +0000

We pull out two of the classics of the geek pop genre this month, as we tackle Tom Lehrer’s Element Song and a spot of Monty Python. Both excellent suggestions from our listeners, so keep on sending them in! The address, as always, is crew@geekpop.co.uk

The live session in June is from Aidy, one of our artists from this year’s festival. You can go to Aidy’s website to download his entire album. And here’s the archive for all our live sessions from previous months.

Click the links to find this month’s playlist tracks in iTunes or here for our June Spotify playlist. Or there’s this one including all the songs we’ve ever featured on the podcast.

ADD SUV - Uffie ft. Pharrell Williams

The Element Song - Tom Lehrer

Chemical Calisthenics - Blackilicious

The Galaxy Song - Monty Python

EXCLUSIVE: 3 Monkeys (live) - Aidy

These T-shirts need homes!

geekpop — Thu, 27 May 2010 08:23:49 +0000

Following our live gigs, we’ve got a few red and black Square t-shirts left at Geek Pop HQ. And because we want them to go to good homes, we’ll send you one for a tenner (20% discount on normal shop price) and just £1.50 post and packaging anywhere in the world, before the end of May. How’s that for a deal?

HERE’S THE OFFER PAGE - CLICK ME!

But ONLY until the end of May. You have five days… GO!

The Essential Collection for Nerds 2010

geekpop — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:03:32 +0000

Just this morning, we came up with an ingenious idea. “Let’s make a Geek Pop album!” we thought. Then we considered the colossal amount of work this would doubtless entail and gave up on it. But THEN we thought: why not bundle up all our favourite songs from the last year’s worth of podcasts and make some sort of Geek Pop compilation mega-mix? This being the internet, you don’t actually have to MAKE the compilation, so we’ve just included all the links to the songs so you can pick and choose them from iTunes at your leisure, or download the lot (for a rather reasonable £5.53 total, unfortunately money that goes into Apple’s pocket and not ours).

Anyway, enjoy! These are our ten nerd picks for 2010.

***UPDATE 30/06/10*** Here’s some cover art for your homemade compilation.

Race for the Prize - Flaming Lips (1999)

From the album The Soft Bulletin, ‘Race for the Prize’ tells the story of two scientists “racing for the good of all mankind.” What exactly they were trying to do we don’t know, but it was certainly apt in a time when geneticists Craig Venter and Francis Collins were battling it out to complete one of mankind’s biggest ever science projects - the sequencing of the human genome.

Featured on the July 2009 podcast | Download in iTunes (£0.79)

Planned Obsolescence - 10,000 Maniacs (1982)

Apparently something of a meditation on the reductionist nature of science, ‘Planned Obsolescence’ was one of the Maniacs’ very first tracks, released on their debut EP in 1982. Does science remove all the mystery from life? Or do discoveries only uncover new mysteries?

Featured on the November 2009 podcast | Download in iTunes (£0.79)

Particle Man - They Might Be Giants (1990)

A potentially baffling but unshakably catchy contribution to nerd music by alt-rockers They Might Be Giants. Particle Man (whoever he is) gets into a fight with Triangle Man. There’s also Person Man and Universe Man. We don’t know who they all are, but it’s got particles in it.

Featured on the January 2010 podcast | Download in iTunes (£0.79)

Geek of the Week (Live) - Spirit of Play (2009)

In celebrating the life of the geek, Spirit of Play have captured the true essence of Geek Pop. “I’m geek of the week, and I’m not ashamed. Got three letters after my name…” Silly, fun and beautifully performed in this acoustic version from Geek Pop London 2010.

Featured on the 26 March 2010 podcast | Download here (right click and Save As) courtesy of Spirit of Play - thanks guys!

The Ballad of Tony Plankton - Stay Naked (c. 1996)

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any sillier, up pops Stay Naked with its gentle electronica and… well, plankton-based music. There’s all sorts of science in this, mostly centred around food chains. But it really makes the grade due to these lyrics: “Please, Mr Whale go away, Haven’t you eaten already?, There’s plenty of other stuff so bugger off.”

Featured on the February 2010 podcast | Download here (right click and choose Save As) courtesy of Richard Eve - thanks!

Oh, Larsen B - British Sea Power (2005)

Famously (or less so if you happen not to be quite such a nerd) written about the disintegration of the Antarctic ice shelf Larsen B. It’s a tragic tale of our time; even British Sea Power’s heroic offer (”you can fall on me”) wouldn’t have been enough to save the 500 billion tonnes of pack ice and snow that came crashing down in 2002.

Featured on the August 2009 podcast | Download in iTunes (£0.79)

Lesson 6: The Lecture - Jurassic 5 (c. 1997)

Proper old school hip hop from ‘Cut Chemist’, a member of the J5 crew , ‘Lesson 6′ appears in different guises on the Eponymous and Deep Concentration albums. Samples apparently include excerpts from chemistry lectures, including a reading of the oxidation states of various chemical elements.

Featured on the January 2010 podcast | Download in iTunes (£0.79)

The Grand Tour - The Sound of the Ladies (2009)

From Martin Austwick’s beautiful EP of songs about space, the Grand Tour is the pick of the bunch, and features in our Geek Pop ‘10 festival celebrations. Be sure to also listen to the acoustic version released exclusively at Geek Pop in April 2010. Oh, and it’s about a tour of the Solar System.

Featured on the April 2010 podcast | Download here or at TSOTL’s website (donation optional)

In the Year 2525 - Zager & Evans (1969)

The oldest of our compilation tracks, this is a bizarre mix of Spanish-sounding guitar and technological prophecies. (”In the year 5555, Your arms are hanging limp at your sides, Your legs got nothing to do, Some machine is doing that for you.”) Check out the You Tube video too. Priceless.

Featured on the August 2009 podcast | Download in iTunes (£0.79)

Eclipse - Pink Floyd (1973)

It doesn’t get any better than this for geek rock. So we’ve nothing else to say about it really, except: listen.

–

Featured on the July 2009 podcast | Download in iTunes (£0.79)

Here’s the same list on Spotify (minus a few exclusives that you’ll just have to download here).

Geek Pop Podcast - May

geekpop — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:29:05 +0000

Continuing with our new format, we bring you an exclusive live session from Adam Kay and Suman Biswas of Amateur Transplants, the singing doctor duo. No interview though - but there’s a whole story to be told about that…

Also on this month’s medicine-themed podcast: disease, another classic track from Geek Pop faves Flaming Lips (check out our first ever podcast for the other), more disease, and Hayley’s surprise turns sour.

Click the links to find this month’s playlist tracks in iTunes or here for our May Spotify playlist. Or there’s this one including all the songs we’ve ever featured on the podcast.

Masterswarm - Andrew Bird

Senses Working Overtime - XTC

Hospital - The Lemonheads

Free Radicals - Flaming Lips

EXCLUSIVE: Amateur Transplants at the Redgrave Theatre, Bristol

Oh, and make sure you check out Amateur Transplants’ website for their CDs or the Live Transplants site for tour dates.

Geek Pop Podcast - April

geekpop — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 11:04:09 +0000

In an all-new format*, we return for the post-festival season of our podcast… Actually, the format’s exactly the same, except you get a special unplugged session at the end. Oh, and it’s called the Geek Pop Podcast instead of the Geek Pop Playlist. Minor things really, but important.

Anyway, this month, we hear from Pearl Jam (or Pearl’s Jam according to Hayley), and Peggy Seeger on the trials and tribulations of becoming a female engineer. Plus Martin Austwick of The Sound of the Ladies plays The Grand Tour, live, exclusively for Geek Pop. Enjoy! Oh and here’s the ever-growing Spotify list, featuring as many of the songs as we can find from this and previous podcasts.

Gonna Be An Engineer - Peggy Seeger

You’re No One if You’re Not on Twitter - Ben Walker

Do the Evolution - Pearl Jam

Good Technology - Red Guitars

UNPLUGGED EXCLUSIVE: The Grand Tour - The Sound of the Ladies

*We haven’t quite figured out the branding for this new format yet, so here’s a nice picture of Martin Austwick from the Sound of the Ladies.

Geek Pop ‘10 Extra - London highlights

geekpop — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:34:51 +0000

In a surprise extra podcast (surprising because we didn’t know we were doing it), we bring you an unplugged session with Spirit of Play and snippets from our interviews with Spirit of Play and Dr Stuart Clark of Dr Stu & the Neutron Stars. For full length versions of those interviews, head to the Green Room. There are also video highlights for all our London acts here.

We’ll be featuring more unplugged sessions recorded at our live gigs in our regular Geek Pop podcast, so make sure you subscribe to catch that (it’s free!). And if you want to submit sciencey song suggestions for the podcast, tweet at us or email crew@geekpop.co.uk. We look forward to hearing from you and in the mean time… enjoy the music.

HOW DO I SUBSCRIBE?

Just subscribe to our podcast feed through iTunes or Google. It’s like, totally free. That’s not all though. You’ll also receive a bunch of free music downloads from our previous festivals.

Geek Pop: keepin’ it geeky all year round

geekpop — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:50:56 +0000

Hey everyone. Woah, I’m pretty tired. The launch week celebrations for our Geek Pop ‘10 festival have been exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure. And now it’s time for the crew to pack up their virtual tents for another year.

Geek Pop being a virtual festival though, you’re welcome to stay on as long as you like. And you can replay all your favourite earworms from the Tetrahedron and Reproductive Stages, and Tesla Tent, and geek jokes from the Comical Flask, again and again. You can even download tracks to keep for ever - just right-click and save them to your machine.

I also want to point out a couple of things that have been added to the site since we launched on 12 March. Firstly, you’ll notice the Green Room is looking pretty packed now. That’s because we’ve been sitting down with some of our artists during launch week to fire questions at them. So make sure you check out those interviews. I’d also like to thank Rishi Nag of Karmadillo for featuring me in his forthcoming song about Linux… you’ll have to listen to that interview to hear how. And secondly, we’ve already uploaded footage from Thursday’s gig at the Miller in London. You can find highlights on the blog or on artists’ individual pages.

But listen up! That’s not all from Geek Pop in 2010! Oh no, no, no. We’ve been recording secret live sessions with some of our artists, which will feature in the coming months in a new ‘Geek Pop Unplugged’ section of the Geek Pop podcast - make sure you subscribe (for FREE!) in iTunes to catch those, including acoustic versions of songs by The Sound of the Ladies and Aidy. AND, there’s still footage to come from the live launch event in Bristol. Molehill Media are working on some very special highlights even as we speak…

So thanks to everyone who took part in this year’s festival. The list is too long to post here, so we’ve made a proper one on this page. Special thanks of course to all our artists, and our sponsors - Computer Geeks and the British Science Association - as well as The Naked Scientists for technical support.

Keep on geekin’,

Hayley. xx

(@gingerbreadlady)

Geek Pop London - video highlights

geekpop — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:07:15 +0000

In case you happen to live on the other side of the world (or your house set on fire so you couldn’t make it - other passable excuses include death and being attacked by giant badgers) here are some video highlights from our London gig on 18 March. For interviews with Spirit of Play and Helen Arney, check out the Geek Pop Green Room.

YOUR HOST, CHRIS DUNSFORD:

You can also find Chris at the Geek Pop ‘10 virtual festival.

SPIRIT OF PLAY

This track was part of the Geek Pop ‘09 virtual festival is available to download for free at the band’s page.

SPIRIT OF PLAY

This track was part of the Geek Pop ‘10 virtual festival and is available to download for free at the band’s page.

HELEN ARNEY

The second track in this video was part of the Geek Pop ‘10 virtual festival and is available to download for free at Helen’s page.

DR STU & THE NEUTRON STARS

This track was part of the Geek Pop ‘09 virtual festival is available to download for free at Dr Stu’s page.

Off That: video exclusive from Baba Brinkman

geekpop — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:11:55 +0000

What with the London gig on Thursday night (audio/video coming soon) we didn’t quite get round to posting a festival diary entry yesterday. But as consolation, here’s something far more exciting… Baba Brinkman’s new video for his Geek Pop exclusive track “Off That”.

For more from Baba, including his evolutionary rap, head to his set on the Tetrahedron Stage, where you can download ‘Off That’ as a free MP3 (just right click and choose save as) or his website at Baba’s Word. The awesome video is the work of Tommy Nagle and the images are courtesy of New Humanist magazine.

Festival diary: Stu

geekpop — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:54:41 +0000

I am half excited, half terrified. Geek Pop: The Science Sessions is looming (it’s tonight!) and never have 40 minutes of music seemed so daunting. It’s not that we’re not rehearsed or anything – we’ve been trying out songs and getting the set together since before Christmas – but now suddenly it’s here.

To add to the pressure we’ve got the superb Spirit of Play and Helen Arney, our fellow acts, to live up to, too (that’s surely not good English but you get the idea that they’re fab). If only I had a whizzo-relativity-time-drive-thingy to squeeze in another rehearsal. But then, I’m the kind of musician who always wants “just one more” rehearsal.

But, enough of the “terrified” and on to the “excited”. As well as bringing last year’s Geek Pop track, Neutron Stars, to full-blooded (full-bloodied?) life, we’ve delved into our iTunes playlists like never before to find songs that have an astronomical, or at least a scientific, theme.

We’ve got obvious numbers such as Pink Floyd’s Astronomy Domine and Rush’s Cygnus X-1 (if you’ve never fallen down a black hole, you’ll feel like you have by the end of that song). And some newer ones such as Muse’s Supermassive Black Hole and Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun (spotting a black hole theme here?). There are a couple of others tracks too, including another Rush number that we are very excited/terrified about. We’ve had a total blast learning them, arranging them, occasionally train-wrecking them and finally enjoying them. Now, it’s time for you to help us RAWK with them!

We’ve also got a new song for you – but you’ll have to hang on for that a little bit longer. By placing the emphasis on the gig, and having not yet invented the aforementioned whizzo-relativity-time-drive-thingy (although Nik’s drumkit looks like he could travel through time and space), unfortunately we’ve not finished recording it yet. But let me tease you with title: “Once a planet”. Bet you can’t guess what celestial object it’s about!

See you tonight – and remember that neutron stars are “heavier than metaaaaal”!

Dr Stu (@DrStuClark)

Dr Stu & the Neutron Stars are:

Vocals: Dan Breeze

Guitars: Stuart Clark

Bass and vocals: Mark Bloxsidge

King of bling: Nik Szymanek

Festival diary: Grant

geekpop — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:19:26 +0000

While hanging around backstage at the festival, I was really surprised at just how crowded Geek Pop ‘10 really was. I’m not used to playing in front of packed stadiums like this back home.

I was also startled to recognize a few celebrities, especially once someone over in the Tesla Tent hooked up a Chronosynclastic Infundibulum and began passing around whippets. Suddenly, the place was packed. I found myself sitting in a quiet corner next to none other than Johannes Kepler, the discoverer of the laws of planetary motion, and was momentarily starstruck.

I did have a little tape recorder (I’m old fashioned that way), and managed to ask Kepler a few questions before the next act took the stage.

{tape begins}

GB: Nice collar.

JK: Thank you. It’s a little uncomfortable.

GB: Well, it looks great. Enjoying the festival?

JK: Why, yes, yes.

GB: Any favorites so far? The music must be a little different than you’re used to.

JK: Actually, it is all quite good. Some of it is a little noisy for my tastes. I am not accustomed to electronic amplification. But I did enjoy the Roadside Poppies. Oh, and Johnny & the Chemists singing “Neutron Star.” That was rather nice and calming, for the most part. I think Tycho would like them too… I’ll have to recommend them once I’m back. Perhaps he can load them on his iPod.

GB: Tycho Brahe has an iPod?

JK: Well, we’re not supposed to, really, but it does no harm and helps while the hours away under the telescope. Aidy is similarly pleasant to hear, and quite prolific - my, to write one song a week! One could learn much from that dedication to production of data for analysis.

GB: Well, I do write a song a month, myself.

JK: Yes.

(pause)

JK: You do. As I was saying, I find that Dr Clandestino also has some fascinating experiments. I admire his use of geometry, which of course is the organizing principle of a well-ordered cosmos. And Helen Arney loves pi, which is an admirable sentiment in a young woman of breeding. In addition to this beneficent trait, she plays that small lute in a modest yet becoming manner. I hope she overcomes her back troubles.

GB: Back troubles?

JK: For which she consulted with an osteopath, yes.

GB: Oh. And how do you know this?

JK: In my short time in your century, I have listened intently to every song she has ever recorded. I wonder if our 16th century physicians would be able to offer relief unavailable in our century.

GB: I… I beg your pardon?

JK: Do you think she would come home with me?

GB: I’m not sure this is entirely appropriate.

JK: It would be entirely Platonic, I assure you. Governed entirely by the sphere inscribed by the Platonic solid of an isocahedron, in fact.

GB: That would be… let’s see, according to your Mysterium Cosmographicum, the sphere of Venus, the planet of love?

JK: Why, I have yet to publish that! Confound you future-dwellers! You have seen through my romantic ruse. Still, do you think she would like me? Perhaps if I brought her roses.

GB: I think I hear someone calling me. I’ll see you later, Dr. Kepler.

JK: Good morrow, good morrow. {tape ends}

So that was all most enlightening/disturbing. I do hope poor Helen managed to avoid him in the VIP room.

Bye for now, and don’t forget to visit the Reproductive Stage where I’ll be playing, well, most of the time really.

Grant (Balfour).

(@grantimatter)

Music, science, but most importantly… CAKE!

geekpop — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:30:08 +0000

A few shots from before the Bristol Live launch, courtesy of Liz at Molehill Media. Look out for video coming soon…

Jim chats with Bert Miller

Jonny Berliner sound checks

Geek cakes!!

Artists enjoy tea and cakes pre-gig. Mmmm.

Festival diary: Dean

geekpop — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:09:42 +0000

Being a comedy act at one of the newly established festivals is never easy. You have to accept the fact that people aren’t there for you - the comedy tent is usually just somewhere to go when they get a headache from too much time at the music tents. It’s never a great success, performing science-themed humorous skits to a smattering of drunken people suffering from temporary tinnitus.

Not a big music fan myself, but have managed to sneak into a few of the tents. As a musical ’spectator’, I’ve learned not to express my likes as people will invariably tell me I’m wrong. Have been particularly drawn to the Reproductive Stage (fnarr!) and enjoying Sci-Fried’s Video Game Homage ‘Level Up’. A fun drinking game is to take a shot whenever you hear/recognise a mention from a game you have played (down it if you’ve completed it). A dangerous game though, as the more hardcore gaming nerds (in my experience) will probably have finished all of them, but are the least capable of handling alcohol.

Keep meandering back to the Comical Flask, though. Everyone performing there is great, but the comics code prevents me from being specific as I may well be slagging them off in a display of envy-driven bitterness after the fest is over.

Nice that I’ve had at least six people watching my contribution to the festivities. And thanks for the email heckles. Nice to get geeky scientific heckles for once, indirectly calling me fat and accusing me of having a small manhood by offering to sell me pills to treat those failings. You guys are hilarious! You should work on your spelling though.

Strolled into the bar a few times, nice relaxed ambience. Did make a few off-colour jokes though, and got a strong vibe that I should leave. I didn’t mind, seen those prices? Glad I brought my own drink, which was back at my tent. But I got back to it to find it had been torn apart by what could only have been a large cat. What are the odds?

Woke up on Saturday morning to find that someone had allocated my pitch as the toilet area. Was nice of them not to wake me, but less pleasant in the long run. I’m pretty sure this has nothing to do with me complaining about the lack of facilities.

Tried to get close to the Tetrahedron, if nothing else but to see exactly what that shape actually looks like.

Too many people though, I’m not good with crowds. Luckily, I never seem to attract them.

Nice festival so far. Wish I’d brought a friend though, I get lost on my own so easily.

Dean.

(@garwboy)

Festival diary: Jim

geekpop — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:41:13 +0000

*YAWN!* Good morning, and how was everyone’s weekend?

Geek Pop is in full swing now (and by swing, clearly we mean pendulums and moments, not the form of jazz), we’ve had a great weekend, and certain songs are going round and round and round in my head. Bert Miller & the Animal Folk have much to answer for. Doop de doopa de doop de doop…

Sorry, lost myself a bit there. Unfortunately, unless you attended the live Bristol gig, you won’t have had the pleasure of Bert & co. yet, but once our backstage editing nerds have worked their magic on the footage it will be up for all to see. Just goes to show that Geek Pop ‘10 has so much more left to offer - we’re gonna keep on adding to the line-up as the days and weeks go on.

Don’t worry either if you’re eager to get your teeth into some live Geek Pop, as our London gig is coming up this Thursday on 18 March. If you’re travelling a long way to see us then I’d book a ticket in advance. We’ll also be bringing some of our lovely Geek Pop T-shirts and pin badges, so if you’ve always wanted one, now’s your chance to avoid the small postage fee. Hurrah!

Now, if you haven’t already, go and have a peek at the bar. People are really (well, virtually) chatting about Geek Pop. I was even showing my dad how it worked and he thought it was great. He does keep referring to the festival as “Pop Geek” so I’m not sure exactly how much he understands, but it sort of proves how easy the bar is to use.

Finally, the toilet facilities controversy still rages, and to that end I’ve established a #geekpoo hash tag for twitter so we can properly find the location and state of the “virtualoos”. Apparently the Glastonbury festival portaloos have nothing on these… Sounds rather ominous.

Toodaloo!

Jim.

(@sos_jim)

P.S. From tomorrow there will be posts from some of our artists, including Dean Burnett and Grant Balfour.

festival diary: hayley

geekpop — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:44:01 +0000

Heya! So, it’s Sunday morning at Geek Pop and all is peaceful and serene on the campsite… until the crew wakes up and starts, unsuccessfully, trying to play a bit of 10,000 Maniacs round the embers of last night’s (well, this morning’s, actually) campfire. Man, it’s been a heck of a weekend.

I’m Hayley, by the way. You probably met my conspirator in all this, Jim, on Friday - he’s the nerdy one with the side parting and the star-spotting obsession… And when I say stars, I’m not talking about the lead singer of Robot Disaster or this year’s headliner Baba Brinkman. I’m talking about the twinkle, twinkle variety - constellations and all that jazz. Anyway, enough of Jim. This is my post.

So, how has everyone been enjoying the festival so far? Actually, seeing as we are on the subject of stars, I want to put a plug in for my new favourite band, Johnny and the Chemists, playing this year at the Reproductive Stage. Honestly, ever since I heard the demo for their song ‘Neutron Star’, I’ve been in love with it. And now, not only have they recorded the final version especially for us, they’ve made a bee-yoo-tiful video for it - or rather Johnny’s friend Natalie has. You’ve just got to take a look.

What else have I been up to? Hmmm. Well, I hung around the bar for quite a while yesterday. It seems busy in there - clearly the virtual cider’s going down well. Then, late afternoon-ish, I went to check out the new Comical Flask and there was this guy, Mike something I think it was… trying to catapult a cabbage. Apparently he’s famous for it. Anyway, it was hilarious, but quite baffling.

After Baba (awesome!), we stopped by the VIP room to meet up with the guys from Intercontinental Music Lab and have a glass of virtual bubbly. They really are a good bunch, those lot. But it turned out they’d lost their synthesiser and they were supposed to be playing at Late Night Geek Out later on. So we all went on a sort of synthesiser-scrounging mission and finally bumped into Weird Gear, who said it would be alright to borrow theirs for a bit. So by the time we made it to the Tesla Tent it must have been, what, 3am? I don’t know, I was still thinking about the cabbage.

Right, well, I suppose I’d better stop virtual partying and get on with doing some actual organising. There’s been a few complaints about the absence of toilets around the festival, so I was going to see if I could get a long drop fixed up behind the Tetrahedron. Having said that, the virtual mud does collect something terrible round there…

Oh, and if anyone sees that pigeon, chuck it a few crumbs would you? It’s all very well having a nice clean and sparkly festival site but it’s getting a bit straggly without any discarded kebabs etc to peck at.

Bye for now!

Hayley. xx

(@gingerbreadlady)

festival diary: welcome to geek pop ‘10!

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:15:53 +0000

Well hello there fellow Geek Popper! I’m Jim, one of the crew members responsible for all the virtual festival shenanigans going on this week. And here I am in my virtual tent writing the first entry in this year’s festival diary (obviously this is a wireless-enabled virtual tent, ahem…) for the brand-spanking new Geek Pop festival 2010.

WHAT’S WHAT?

If you are new to this whole Geek Pop thing then there are very good explanations as to what on Earth this is all about to be found here. To those of you returning for a second or possibly even third year, then the idea is very similar to last year - except that there’s LOADS more stuff for you to get your geeky teeth into.

As always, the Tetrahedron and Reproductive stages play host to the majority of our science-inspired acts. But we also have some tunes from the electronic end of the sci-pop spectrum in the Tesla Tent, and if you want to party long into the small hours and beyond then the Tesla Tent’s Late Night Geek Out will serve you well. The stages are virtually arranged in a brand new map, which has been designed this year by the awesome Sam Church.

Also making a welcome return are the improved Lost & Found facility and the rather funky bar, which works using the Twitter #geekpop hash tag. If that last sentence made no sense to you whatsoever, you’re probably not familiar with our Geek Pop twitter page. We’re also on Facebook. But then, who isn’t, right? It’s like saying we’re on email! (Actually we are: email crew@geekpop.co.uk if you want to ask us anything about all of the lovely stuff you see here.) You can even Skype geekpop - leave us a voicemail or if we’re online, we can have a little virtual chinwag.

SO WHAT’S NEW THEN?

Well, first and foremost has to be the wonderfully named Comical Flask (yeah, I’ll take the credit for that, thanks), featuring the best science-inspired comedy around. We’ve also been busy arranging some actual live gigs, one of which kicked off the whole festival last night in Bristol. In fact, you can already find a backstage interview with one of our artists, this year’s headliner at the Reproductive Stage, Mr Jonny Berliner, in the festival Green Room. The other live gig is next week in London, so do pop along if you can. If you can’t (because you live in Texas or something - otherwise, no excuses), don’t worry - you’ll be able to find all the highlights online in the next couple of weeks.

Finally, our friends at Newcastle Science Festival have been helping us sort out a virtual treasure hunt (!!!), with clues hidden all over both our sites. Begin the hunt by clicking the link on the Newcastle Science Festival home page, available from 3pm (synchronise watches!) Friday. There is a real treasure trove full of prizes up for grabs, including Geek Pop Square t-shirts, 7digital music downloads, a giant bubble making kit, hula hoops and, of course, the quintessential piece of geek paraphernalia – the Geek Pop pin badge.

So, that’s about it from me. I really hope you enjoy our celebration of scientific and artistic creativity, we’re so happy to have such a massive range of talented acts this year. This blog will be updated by some of the aforementioned performers throughout National Science and Engineering week. Enjoy being here, *and* being square.

Lots of love,

Jim. xx

(@sos_jim)

Geek Pop ‘10 - Festival Highlights

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:14:42 +0000

It’s time to celebrate the launch of Geek Pop ‘10, our third annual geek music festival! Hooray! These are our highlights, bursting with an eclectic mix of science-inspired songs, from rationalist raps to blues about Brownian motion. But it doesn’t stop there - we have over 30 acts this year, spread across four different virtual stages. So once you’ve heard the highlights, make sure you explore the rest of the festival site.

Thanks to our artists for putting on such a great show this year, and to all our sponsors and supporters for making it happen.

All the individual tracks on this podcast will appear in your iTunes, but you’ll need to come to the site to download the rest. And if you’re not already subscribed… why ever not? Do it now! It’s free! You’ll also get our monthly podcast.

image: alex davis

The New Campaign for More Sound - Robot Disaster

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:13:41 +0000

The Grand Tour - The Sound of the Ladies

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:12:26 +0000

Brownian Motion Blues - Karmadillo

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:11:39 +0000

Neutron Star - Johnny & the Chemists

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:10:32 +0000

Level UP! - Sci-Fried

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:09:31 +0000

Bake Sale for NASA - Craftlass

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:08:33 +0000

Statistically I Love You - Helen Arney

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:07:47 +0000

3 Monkeys - Aidy

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:06:00 +0000

Off That (Rationalist Anthem) - Baba Brinkman

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:05:45 +0000

Biology - Lamar Holley

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:03:00 +0000

Laika - Intercontinental Music Lab

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:02:36 +0000

A Glorious Dawn (Cosmos Remix) - Symphony of Science

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:01:58 +0000

Peltier Cooling - Fourwave Mixing

geekpop — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:01:34 +0000

Synchronise watches! Virtual treasure hunt starts on Friday at 3pm!

geekpop — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:10:22 +0000

Right, so, to celebrate the launch of the Geek Pop ‘10 festival we’re planning a virtual treasure hunt on Friday at 3pm. It’s in collaboration with Newcastle Science Festival and 7digital, who are contributing to the treasure trove. All you need to do is turn up promptly at 3, at the Newcastle Science Festival homepage, to get your first clue. The rest are hidden around the Newcastle site and our own virtual festival site - live from 12pm on Friday.

But more importantly, here’s what you could win (said in a Brucie sort of way):

One first prize winner will win: Giant bubble-making kit | Geek Pop Square t-shirt, CD and pin badge | Hula hoop | 7digital music voucher for five downloads

Two second prize winners will win: Balloon modelling kit | Geek Pop CD and pin badge | Hula hoop | 7digital music voucher for five downloads

Five third prize winners will win: Hula hoop | 7digital music voucher for five downloads | Geek Pop pin badge

The next 20 people to finish will each get 7digital music vouchers and Geek Pop pin badges.

Be there *and* be square.

tickets for live gigs on sale now!

geekpop — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:02:22 +0000

Tickets for both our live launch week gigs - in Bristol and London - are now on sale and we’ve assimilated a scintillating selection of science-inspired stars.

So don’t dilly-dally… get yours before they’re all gone! Details below.

Geek Pop ‘10 Live Launch gig

Cube Microplex (map), Bristol

11th March, doors 7pm

With Jonny Berliner, Bert Miller & the Animal Folk, and Oort Kuiper & Phatmattbaker.

Tickets £5.50 in advance from Bristol Ticket Shop - no longer available online, you’ll need to go into the ticket shop or pay on the door

Flyer (pdf)

Sponsored by Computer Geeks and the British Science Association.

Facebook event is here.

Geek Pop Presents… The Science Sessions

The Miller (map), London Bridge

18th March, doors 7.30pm

With Dr Stu (aka Stuart Clark) & the Neutron Stars, Spirit of Play and Helen Arney.

Tickets £2 in advance from We Got Tickets

Flyer (pdf)

In collaboration with Science and Pies.

Facebook event is here.

If you’re not in the UK, you can also listen to the live events in real time, online, via the Naked Scientists website or in Second Life, at the Naked Scientists auditorium in the SciLands.

Geek Pop Playlist - February (festival preview)

geekpop — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:57:51 +0000

Yikes! There are only 35 days till Geek Pop ‘10 launches! So this month, it’s a preview podcast, with special guest Chris Dunsford, who will be hosting our Bristol and London live gigs, sneaky snippets from 2010 artists, and a WHOLE SONG from Helen Arney, who you can see live at our London gig. And there’s more info about the live events right here.

Rocket Man - Elton John

The Ballad of Tony Plankton - Stay Naked

Neutron Star(s) - Dr Stu & the Neutron Stars OR Johnny & the Chemists

Evolution of Man - Jonny Berliner [scroll down MySpace playlist]

Once a Week - Helen Arney

As always, use the comment box, tweet at @geekpop or email crew@geekpop.co.uk to let us know what you think about the science behind the songs.

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Get ready for launch!

geekpop — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:54:02 +0000

Geek Pop ‘10 is almost upon us and we expect you’re just as excited as we are. This year, we’re all singing, all dancing, cross-media, multi-reality, bla bla bla… but what that basically means is there are plenty of ways you can experience the 2010 festival.

So here are some of the ways you’ll be able to listen/attend/take part. Get ready…

VIRTUAL FESTIVAL

This is how it all began. And we’ll be back with a newly transformed and beautified virtual festival site at www.geekpop.co.uk on 12 March. Just rock up with your headphones to listen to all the performances, download them for free and get up to stupid stuff - like sending your misplaced virtual underwear to the Lost & Found tent.

You can also listen to highlights (here are last year’s) via a bumper edition of our podcast. Subscribe for free in iTunes. (Podcast?)

LIVE GIGS

11th March, Live Launch, Cube Microplex, Bristol, doors 7pm

[Tickets from Bristol Ticket Shop] [Flyer]

Facebook event for updates on tickets is here.

18th March, The Science Sessions, The Miller, London, doors 7.30pm

[Tickets from We Got Tickets] [Flyer]

Facebook event is here.

If you’re not in the UK, you can also listen to the live events in real time, online, via the Naked Scientists website or in Second Life, at the Naked Scientists auditorium in the SciLands.

TWITTER

As per usual, we’ll be twittering all the way through the festival. Stalk us, or, better, talk to us, here. You can also follow some of our artists here.

HELP SPREAD THE WORD

Get a free digital poster for 2010 here. Brightens up any dreary blog or website… And if you’d like a slightly bigger PDF version for your office/lab/houseboat, all we ask is that you donate £1 (ONE POUND!) to the 2011 festival fund.

Or how about some nanoflyers? Yeah, go on. You’ll have to cut them out yourself, but hey, that makes it almost an art project…

MORE INFO & UPDATES

PRESS

Press info can be found on our press page. Contact us at crew@geekpop.co.uk to arrange an interview or enquire about attending one of our live gigs. We have a limited number of pretty awesome preview CDs for media.

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Geek Pop Playlist - January

geekpop — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:46:39 +0000

Happy New Year geeks! So this is the first podcast of the new decade (or of The Future, according to Jim). This month, we take a chemistry lesson from Jurassic Five and make our pitch for sponsorship from tanning tablet companies. And, as promised on the pod, here’s a link to Neal’s Science and Pies blog. You can also find full versions of most of the songs (not Melanin, sadly) on Spotify.

Lesson 6: The Lecture - Jurassic Five

Melanin - Dinosaur Pile-Up

Particle Man - They Might Be Giants

Markovian Process - Bad Religion

Nitrogen Pink - Polly Scattergood

Use the comment box, tweet at @geekpop or email crew@geekpop.co.uk to let us know what you think about the science behind the songs.

A special announcement this month about Intercontinental Music Lab, who provide the awesome intro and outro music for our podcast: THEY HAVE A NEW ALBUM OUT! And in true Geek Pop style, it’s all available to download for FREEEEeeeee!

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Second live date confirmed for 2010

geekpop — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:42:41 +0000

Hoorah! So the second live date of our Geek Pop ‘10 mini-tour - the London gig - has finally been confirmed!

Hopes of securing a venue for the gig before Christmas had faded following the realisation that the planned date would clash with St Patrick’s Day celebrations. But thanks to co-organiser Science and Pies, we’ve succeeded at the last minute. Here’s hoping we won’t be met with hoards of blank-faced Irish people wondering what the Dickens we’re doing. (Irish people in general, though, are very welcome. Let’s not get xenophobic.)

So here are some details. The official title of the event is Geek Pop presents… The Science Sessions. And sorry to everyone who received the wrong date in the recent newsletter - as a result of our over-excitement, we told you it was ten days earlier than it actually is.

WHERE? The Miller, London Bridge [map]

WHEN? 18th March 2010

WHO? These lovely people: Dr Stu & the Neutron Stars, Spirit of Play, Helen Arney

If you are a member of the media and would like to enquire about attending, please get in touch at crew@geekpop.co.uk

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Geek Pop Playlist - December (xmas spesh!)

geekpop — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:51:56 +0000

The December Playlist is our Christmas bonanza! Not only do we have an interview with a legend of geek music from BRITISH SEA POWER (latest album Man of Aran on iTunes here), there’s a Christmas quiz and a purpose made Christmas carol. Happy Christmas one and all! Oh, and most of this month’s songs are too obscure for Spotify but you can still find a couple there.

That Spells DNA -Jonathan Coulton

Evolutionary Carol - Darwin Tunes [Darwin Tunes project] [ccMixter]

Bunsen Burner - John Otway

Emily - Joanna Newsom

Stockholm Syndrome -Yo La Tengo

Use the comment box, tweet at @geekpop or email crew@geekpop.co.uk to let us know what you think about the science behind the songs.

Thanks to Intercontinental Music Lab for their awesome intro and outro music, taken from Probe II’s Golden Message on the Superheroes of Space album. And also to Oli Whitworth for audio services…

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Geek Pop pin reaches alien shores!

geekpop — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:21:18 +0000

Check it out: the first Geek Pop pin to reach alien shores (okay, Australia). Anyway, don’t ask us - ask @AstroMeg, who is doing astronomy type stuff down under. AstroMeg won our first Friday pin badge competition a couple of weeks ago. (Follow @geekpop on Twitter to play.)

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Geek chic going cheap…

geekpop — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:38:45 +0000

Everyone loves a bargain, right? Especially when it’s nearly Christmas. So, to buy gifts for your geek friends and relatives, use the voucher code “NOVEMBERSALE” for any Geek Chic purchase before 29 November and you’ll get 15% off. Hooray!

And by the way, we’ve added whole bunch of new geek products, including a notebook sleeve and some awesome Geek Pop hoodies. Check them out at the shop.

Geek Pop Playlist - November

geekpop — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:50:01 +0000

The November Playlist has a loose time travel theme - if you ignore half of it, that is… Hayley and Jim get to grips with loneliness, flux capacitors and warp drives. And Jim still isn’t done with his aluminum/aluminIUM rant… Just don’t encourage him. You can find the tracks from this Playlist on Spotify (sorry, no Time Travel is Lonely on Spotify).

Aluminum - Barenaked Ladies

The Time Warp - Richard O’Brien “et al”

Time Travel is Lonely - John Vanderslice

Flux - Bloc Party

Planned Obsolescence - 10,000 Maniacs

Use the comment box, tweet at @geekpop or email crew@geekpop.co.uk to let us know what you think about the science behind the songs.

Thanks to Intercontinental Music Lab for their awesome intro and outro music, taken from Probe II’s Golden Message on the Superheroes of Space album.

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Something from our lovely sponsors

geekpop — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:58:21 +0000

Our live launch event sponsor Computer Geeks offers local IT support, as well as remote PC tune-ups anywhere in the world (despite being based in Bristol - clever eh?). They can even organise a tune-up while you’re out of the house, working, jogging, trainspotting or whatever you like to do.

In partnership with Geek Pop, Computer Geeks is offering a 20% discount on its PC tune-up service. Fans can claim the discount simply by quoting “GEEK POP” when calling to order - you’ll pay £39 instead of the usual £49. You do the maths. (Well done, yes, that’s £10 off).

Details of Computer Geeks tune-up service:

Dramatically increases performance (as good as new) and makes sure that virus and spyware infections are protected against for the future.

Audit and update/replace Antivirus, Spyware and Firewall software | Perform all Windows (or related) system updates including service packs, and fix Windows update if necessary | Clean all registry, temporary files + application references before, during and after the Tune-Up | Uninstall any malware | Correct any application errors | Full spyware scan | Full virus scan | Tuning of programs loading on startup | Defrag if necessary | Aesthetic enhancements / desktop cleanup

www.cgeeks.co.uk

+44(0)117 325 0370 (Don’t forget to quote “GEEK POP”!)

+44(0)845 862 1637

And feel free to share this offer with your friends:

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Geek Pop Playlist - October

geekpop — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:03:52 +0000

This month, our Playlist prompts discussion of a random collection of weird and wonderful things, including spaghettification, strangeness, supernovas… and pagophagia. (Yet again, Hayley is unable to read her own writing and calls it “papophagia”). You can also find this Playlist on Spotify (sorry, no Black Hole on Spotify, apparently).

Electron Blue - R.E.M.

Quark, Strangeness and Charm - Hawkwind

Black Hole - Aqualung

Addicted to Love -Robert Palmer

Science is Golden - The Grates [check out the “kooky” video]

Use the comment box, tweet at @geekpop or email crew@geekpop.co.uk to let us know what you think about the science behind the songs.

Thanks to Intercontinental Music Lab for their awesome intro and outro music, taken from Probe II’s Golden Message on the Superheroes of Space album.

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New newsletters

geekpop — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:36:28 +0000

Hey hey! Sorry for the silence. Twitter is taking up so much of our time these days we’ve barely had a moment to blog - proof, though, that we are in fact uber-geeks…

Anyway, we’ve been up to all sorts: revamping the website (which now looks AWE-some, even if we do say so ourselves), booking bands for next year’s virtual festival and, of course, putting together the line ups for our live events in March. For a few clues to who might be involved, listen to September’s Playlist podcast.

Now, there’s also been a deafening silence on the email front for all our lovely subscribers. But never fear, the all-new and improved Geek Pop newsletter will be sailing into your inboxes again in the next week. And guess what that means? We need new nerdy jokes! So send ‘em along and we’ll arrange a shout out for you and your Twitter page/podcast/mobile disco/dog.

As regular subscribers will know, the newsletter is not just some boring list of what we’ve had for breakfast for the past fortnight (actually, that would be quite entertaining); it’s an outlet for all the madcap stuff that doesn’t fit on this here blog or in 140 character tweets. It’s full of funny stuff, geeky stuff, made-up stuff and, of course, opportunities for you to win Geek Pop pin badges. (As we said earlier to someone, they’re practically currency around here). And thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, there might even be some more exciting and/or expensive prizes this year…

Also, importantly, subscribing to the newsletter will guarantee you first dibs on tickets to the launch events in March AND access to the virtual VIP room when the festival goes live - a must for media types and those who enjoy amusing/sweary outtakes.

So, now that we’ve got you chomping at the bit to find out how you can subscribe… wait for it… we’re going to tell you! Hoorah! All you have to do is send an email to news@geekpop.co.uk with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE ME RIGHT UP!” Please include your full name. And while you’re at it, include your nerdy jokes too.

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Playlist Promo

geekpop — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:41:53 +0000

@revoltingross asked us if we had a promo for the Playlist podcast. We didn’t… but we do now! And here it is. Feel free to use it on your show/blog/website.

If you do upload it anywhere else, please thank Intercontinental Music Lab for the awesome Playlist theme, taken from Probe II’s Golden Message on the Superheroes of Space album.

(right click here and Save As to download)

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Geek Pop Playlist - September

geekpop — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:36:23 +0000

This month it’s all drugs and rock and roll (and space), as we discuss cocaine and Betelgeuse. Listen to the Playlist picks, then follow the links from the blog to find your favourite sci-pop tunes. You can also find this Playlist on Spotify.

Rest My Chemistry - Interpol

Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine - The White Stripes

Far Out - Blur

Science is Real - They Might Be Giants

Intergalactic - Beastie Boys

Use the comment box, tweet at @geekpop or email crew@geekpop.co.uk to let us know what you think about the science behind the songs.

Thanks to Intercontinental Music Lab for their awesome intro and outro music, taken from Probe II’s Golden Message on the Superheroes of Space album.

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Now in every colour!

geekpop — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 12:25:49 +0000

You can now choose any colour of Geek Pop Square t-shirt your heart desires. Yay!

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Computer Geeks confirmed as sponsors

geekpop — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:36:13 +0000

If you’ve been keeping up, you’ll know that we’re planning a series of live events across the UK for Geek Pop launch week in 2010. One of these will take place in Bristol - home of Geek Pop HQ, hooray!

We can now confirm the sponsors of this event as Computer Geeks, who basically perform miracles with machines (they understand computers so you don’t have to), and the Bristol & Bath branch of the British Science Association. Thanks also to Bob Foster of Science Cafe for helping to organise the event.

The venue for the Bristol launch is now confirmed and the line-up is rapidly evolving - more details on this soon or sign up for our newsletter for fortnightly updates from October/November. For now though, something to whet your appetite: there will, quite possibly, be tea and cakes, and most certainly a geek chic dress code. You’ll also get special privileges for turning up in a Geek Pop Square t-shirt. We’re not saying what they are though (mainly because we haven’t thought of them yet, but we will).

If you belong to an organisation interested in sponsoring one of the other geektastic launch week events in Cambridge or London, you can email crew@geekpop.co.uk for more information.

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Official call for artists

geekpop — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:55:36 +0000

Just a quick post, folks. We’re announcing our official call for artists for Geek Pop ‘10 today. You can download a press release here or read more about how to apply here. So. If you know anyone who is in a band, knows how to play a penny whistle or just enjoys dancing like a big geek, click on the “email it” button below. Or RT (retweet) us on Twitter. (One way or another it should, hopefully, get to those with genuine musical talents.)

Awesome. Thanks.

P.S. We’re going to be at the Green Man Festival on the weekend running a science/comedy event in Einstein’s Garden (Saturday at about 5pm). So if you’re going to be there, come along and say hello.

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Geek Pop Playlist - August

geekpop — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:00:14 +0000

Listen to this month’s playlist picks, then follow the links from the blog to find your favourite sci-pop tunes:

Our Velocity - Maximo Park

In the Year 2525 - Zager and Evans [check out their awesome sixties fashions]

Oh, Larsen B - British Sea Power

Ecology - Anni Rossi

Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes

You can also find this Playlist on Spotify.

Use the comment box, tweet at @geekpop or email crew@geekpop.co.uk to let us know what you think about the science behind the songs.

Thanks to Intercontinental Music Lab for their awesome intro and outro music, taken from Probe II’s Golden Message on the Superheroes of Space album.

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Hooray, we made a new t-shirt!

geekpop — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:19:09 +0000

Geek Pop: be there *and* be square.

Get your own here.

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Geek Pop Playlist - July

geekpop — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:02:38 +0000

Once you’ve listened to us rambling about this month’s playlist picks, follow the links from the blog to find music tracks from the podcast. You can also listen to the tracks from this playlist on Spotify (but there’s no ‘Laika’ on Spotify, sadly).

Race for the Prize - Flaming Lips

She Blinded Me with Science - Thomas Dolby

Dinosaurs - Bonobo

Laika - Intercontinental Music Lab

Eclipse - Pink Floyd

Use the comment box, tweet at @geekpop or email crew@geekpop.co.uk to let us know what you think about the science behind the songs.

Thanks to Intercontinental Music Lab for their wonderful intro and outro music, which is taken from Probe II’s Golden Message on the Superheroes of Space album.

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We Love You Richard

geekpop — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:34:34 +0000

Geek Pop would like to pay tribute to Richard Ayoade - “Moss” of IT Crowd fame - by asking its listeners to post love poems dedicated to this talented actor.

This is not at all a desperate and possibly ill-advised attempt to attract Richard’s attention in order that we might ask him to come and make geeky jokes for a Geek Pop gig/podcast/interview/celebrity pin badge endorsement. However, if he was in any way inclined to do so, we wouldn’t mind. At all.

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Geek Pop ‘10: Geek Pop gets physical…

geekpop — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:33:41 +0000

Guess what? Geek Pop is going live. Or non-virtual. Or physical. However you want to look at it.

Yep, in 2010, the Geek Pop crew will be touring the UK, playing host to some real-life geeky music events. So far, we have plans for Bristol, Cambridge and London during Geek Pop launch week (12th-21st March - technically longer than a week, but shhh).

Before you ask, this is by no means the end of the virtual festival - far from it. In fact, if anything, it means it’s getting bigger. We’ll be sticking all the performances on t’interweb, so if you’re not within reach of one of the launch venues you can watch it all online, with a pint of cider (or a nice hot cuppa, if you so wish… it will be March). And all the rest of the performances will be accessible via the virtual stages, as per usual.

We know what you’re thinking… What’s with all this “live” malarky? Isn’t Geek Pop supposed to be entirely virtual? Well, that’s a very good point. But you see, we’d like to meet some of our lovely fans in the flesh. And give some of our artists the chance to shine under the media spotlight - we’ll be inviting along (probably bribing with glasses of wine) some media types to cover the event.

Of course, the whole thing will be greened up to the max - artists arriving on bicycles, tickets made of leaves, that sort of thing. (Okay, we exaggerate, but it will be environmentally friendly, promise).

So that’s our exciting announcement for this week.

Incidentally, if you’d like to sponsor one of these glorious events, or indeed, one of next year’s stages, do get in touch.

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Snapped: Robert Winston geeking it up

geekpop — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:37:03 +0000

Clearly visible in the image below - the Geek Pop pin badge!

Image courtesy of Conor Cahill - thanks Conor.

Become as stylish as Rob and get your own.

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