Electronic musician, vocalist, and inventor Tim Exile is back; while the Google Doodle today of an interactive Les Paul inspired lots of people to invest some time fiddling and hacking, in Tim’s case, it inspired a whole song. And, to my knowledge, it’s the first time the homepage of Google got its own ode.

Bet the Googlers didn’t expect this response.

All of this serves as a serious reminder: sometimes simple and ubiquitous is good. It also shows the serious value of silliness. Here, here.

Previously: Les Paul Google Doodle, Animated – and Scripted with SuperCollider

Well, it’s official – the fact that you can beatbox with Google Translate has gone completely viral. I’ve even heard it crossing over into mainstream media (like the BBC mainstream). This also says to me that the Web could be fertile ground for creating musical toys that distract people from work. (Hmmm… okay, that may not be the best argument for getting your employer to upgrade their rusty old “vintage” MSIE to a new, HTML5-savvy browser.)

The best evolution of this yet: YouTuber chulini sets the Translate German beatboxing to a mash-up of Internet memes, hip-hop infused. It takes a nation of millions to make us a meme. (Apologies, Public Enemy.) See top.

Here’s what I want to know: has anyone been able to determine who originally came up with the textual incantation for this pattern? And if you could have a Google Translate beatboxer-rapper, what would you want it to do?

Oh, and at the next concert, will someone ask us to stick a fish in our ear? Douglas Adams would surely have loved this.

DJ Spooky: How a Tiny Caribbean Island Birthed the Mashup
Upgrading Jamaica’s Cultural Shareware: Trojan Records at 40

Cassette-tape DJ battles are just one of TradeMark G.’s retro, regressive, subversive musical creations. He also likes to put on glasses, a white lab coat, and interactive sewing thimble gloves, in order to produce illegal, copyright-crushing musical performances.

Many of the techno-gimmicks seen here on CDM are one-offs and prototypes. The Evolution Control Committee, by contrast, has been producing “illegal art”, often with the aid of technology, for some 20 years. They’ve been “culture jamming”, dropping Napster bombs (remember Napster?), infamously attracting the ire of CBS, and dressing up as giant pairs of trousers and cans of Parmesan cheese ever since. (I’m especially fond of the giant pants costumes.)

For the last few years, they’ve been perfecting the Thimbletron, a glove with sewing thimbles attached to a hacked M-Audio Oxygen8. (I always knew those Oxygen keyboards would be good for something.) The interface gives them newly-expanded powers of sample triggering. Happily, unlike Wired Magazine, they don’t overuse the term “mash-ups” to describe what they’re doing. Try, instead, “plagiarhythm” or “plunderphonics”: “In the world of The ECC’s music, Public Enemy duke it out with Herb Alpert while TV news anchor Dan Rather is the new frontman for AC/DC.”

Thimbletronic Energy Technology Page (video link at the top)

TradeMark will be performing with the Thimbletron at the Maker Faire, as well as running the cassette tape DJ battle we saw earlier:

Call for Cassette Jockeys @ Maker Faire, Cassette Tech Roundup

CDM (meaning me) will be at Maker Faire all week, sending as much coverage and causing as much havoc as possible. I’m hoping Dan Rather shows up.

More glove music controllers:

Controlling Music with DIY Interactive Gloves