Of course the two need not be mutually exclusive. There are many scientists who are also talented musicians, here at NN and within the broader scientific community, and many more who are devoted musicophiles. However, in the process of being sucked into teh intertubz surfing around for information on José González (more on the reason for that below), I noticed that his Wikipedia page indicated that he’d started in the PhD program in biochemistry, at the University of Gothenburg. Apparently his album Veneer was released during this period, and as his music career took off, he chose to abandon his studies (hopefully temporarily). The biography on González’s website also states that the lyrics and ideas on his latest album, In Our Nature, were in part inspired by his reading of The God Delusion, penned by HWMNBN.
González’s lovely acoustic cover of “Heartbeats” (by The Knife) is featured in a Sony Bravia advertisement, filmed in San Francisco (and cousin to the one that Stephen linked awhile ago):
Did you see the frog?
[Takes notes]
(This is a project of mine that is slow but fun. I have some interviews I need to edit and upload, and some people who e-mailed me need to be e-mailed back, but I’ve been busy with stupid things.)
Watching that, I couldn’t help but think of the people who had the job of collecting the balls afterwards.
This Wikipedia page indicates that there were 50 interns responsible for gathering the bouncy balls after each take. How would that look on a resumé? :-D
My understanding was that they recruited 126 ball boys/girls from Wimbledon to do that. Apparently, four are still missing, balls that is, not the ball boys/girls.
I saw the frog. Also a leaf and a cat. What do I win? (I’m guessing a nice big Sony Bravia, probably).
Now I want to play with a bouncy ball. I’ll look for those missing four.
What do I win?
Why, a bouncy ball, of course. Your choice of colors.
I don’t know where I’d put a Sony Bravia in my house. I’d have to move some books.
Oh awesome. I had no idea he had such a science-y background. I saw him live once, at a dingy club, he definitely didn’t have much of the rock star ego/persona. Actually he seemed terribly shy. Guess it sort of makes sense now, I can picture him working quietly at a lab bench.
On the side, David Duchovny, from X-Files fame was working on a Ph. D in English Lit at Yale before dropping it for acting.
Just logged about this as well on the music blog, and found this interview about why he left the lab, and a bit more details about his research.
oh awesome, thanks for the link to the interview Eva! I just saw a couple of clips. he’s an interesting guy. his research was cool too, DNA replication of the Herpes virus…
Great find, Eva, though it sounds as if he doesn’t plan to go back to the lab any time soon. I’ll have to listen to some of the other interviews, to try to figure out what the animation for “Teardrop” (his cover of a Massive Attack song) means. It’s very strange.
Linda, how awesome that you got to hear González at a club (even if it was dingy)!
Well, if Brian May can do it…
Brian May used to make his own pickups (hence the distinctive sound)
I once saw a performance by the infamous “CellMates” at the end of a Cold Spring Harbour Symposium. Richard Flavell and Ira Mellman were among the well known members of the band (in science terms anyway). They weren’t too bad.
Slightly off topic, but have you seen the various ways to convert dna and amino acid sequences into “music”?
That was one of my first ever blog posts !
Oh it was awesome to hear Gonzalez live, it was back before he was so successful. I got in for $20 to see him co-headline with Psapp (responsible for the grey’s anatomy theme). It was a packed club, but everyone just hushed and went still when he hit the stage. It gave me chills when he started singing with just his acoustic guitar in the dark club.
@ Cath and Darren: On Brian May and the genes 2 music link, just WoW.
From the article that Cath linked, the title of Brian May’s thesis:
Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud
Would make a not-too-bad prog rock album title. A bit like Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, for the reality/science-based community.