Bradshaw's Blog

I am always looking for new music and interesting content on Youtube all the time and I think this video called Honeybee by the group Steam Powered Giraffe certainly foots the bill. This particular video was was originally uploaded on the YT channel of "Spine", the guitarist for the group but it looks like his content has been combined with the group's channel. When I found this song the channel had only 950 subscribers (a travesty!) but in the week since I first heard it his subs have grown to over 1,300. I wouldn't be the least surprised to see his subscribers increase to 5K, 10K or beyond. You really should give this song in particular a listen. Your first reaction might be "What is going on with the makeup and robot moves?" Well, first LISTEN to the song - great harmonies. The band is called Steam Powered Giraffe and the 3 guys are supposed to be robots (automatons actually) that were "built in the 1890s" by a Colonel Walter. They are kn...

One of the reasons I enjoy Youtube so much is because of the original music that you can hear, especially that made by people you would not be able to see otherwise. One that I stumbled across has been Lights who is a singer/songwriter who has a new record coming out fairly soon. First here's one she wrote the day before she filmed the video below and the second video is an acoustic version of a song called "I Owe You One" from her first EP. I like this next video. It is seesm so casual, with Lights just trucking around her apartment in a beat up sweatshirt and then playing an effortless version of one of her older songs. You can buy this song (and other songs by Lights at itunes: buy it on iTunes . Also check out her website called iamlights.com of course.

It's not every day that you get a phone call from your idol but it looks like Canadian youtuber Maria Aragon was really surprised when Lady Gaga called in during Maria's interview on the radio (with HOT 103 FM). Aragon has a number of videos showcasing her tremendous singing ability on her channel rojuanearagon , actually 72 have been posted so far. Lady Gaga is going to perform in Canada in early March and it looks like she will have Maria Aragon up on stage with her. So a big congrats to Maria. Below is the video that Lady Gaga was talking about that caught her attention. It is Maria playing the piano and singing Gaga's "Born This Way" and the video has since gone absolutely viral and has over 7.6 MILLION views since it was posted February 17th, but that may have something to do with Perez Hilton posting it and telling Gaga about it (according to what she says in the above video). There's a nice write-up about the story with a bunch of media pictures...

I was screwing around on Twitter and saw a tweet by Ray William Johnson (he's @RayWJ ) who said that he just watched the following video by Jason Kertson and Ray was impressed. So I thought I would take a look for myself: Young dude has quite the voice! He's singing You Can't Do That by the Beatles. The video was posted over a year ago and he's posted a bunch more songs to his sacrifyce4 Youtube channel. Below you will find Kertson doing Heart Shaped Box by Nirvana. If you liked what you heard, you can subscribe to his channel at the link above. He has uploaded 23 videos so far and Kertson's got a distinctive voice. Someone you might want to keep an eye on.

Ray William Johnson just uploaded the first video to his new channel Yourfavoritemartian called "My Balls". It turns out it is a music channel (with Ray singing) and animation. If you haven't seen it yet, here is the video: What do you think? I watched it shortly after it was uploaded and then started reading the comments. Most are highly complementary but after getting past the die-hard fans declaring it the best thing they've ever seen (high praise indeed) you notice that there are comments here and there about it being disappointing. Actually, looking at the likes/dislikes, as I write this it is 4,095 thumbs up wth 789 thumbs down. That means about 20 percent disliked the video enough to actually dislike it which is quite substantial. Will have to see what the percentage is after those who are more casual Equals 3 viewers have had a chance to see it to gauge the overall opinion. As far as the music part of the video, it is a catchy little song and it is availa...

One of the cool things about Youtube is that you can stumble across a channel or a person who you have had no idea was on the website at all. There are TONS of people who are having an impact musically and artistically and getting lots of subscribers just by doing their own thing. One is lights a Canadian musician who recently completed a tour (called the "Are We There Yeti") and captured a lot of footage which she has uploaded to Youtube. Take a look: I always like seeing people on Youtube who are still at the point before betime fame finds them and in the video you see Lights interacting with some of her fans (like that part where she sneaks up on some people waiting outside and surprises one girl). Really an interesting video. She is finding some success as she goes along, and a couple of her music videos got into the rotation on Much Music (sort of like Canada'a MTV). Make sure you check out her channel as she's uploaded a lot of music. There's also her...

It's about time we got something new from The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer & Jorma Taccone) and this is the first song off their 2nd album called "I Just Had Sex" and the song is also carrying that name. The video features Akon, (yummy) Jessica Alba, (equally yummy) Blake Lively and (not-quite-so-yummy) John McEnroe. What do you think? Hit or miss? You can pick it up on iTunes . "She Put A Bag On My Head!" "Still Counts!" I don't know what they caught at the end of the video where they were shooting off fireworks, but I think both Lady Gaga and Katy Perry have the same thing - except their fireworks were from their breasts. The Lonely Island is Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer & Jorma Taccone

Some would knock the sisters Jessica and Ashlee Simpson lately that their fortunes were on the decline, but here we get to hear the actually sing together on one of the best Christmas carols "Little Drummer Boy". News on Jessica Simpson is that her clothing line is starting to turn some enormous coinage. Check this headline: Jessica Simpson's Fashion Company Worth Nearly $1 Billion . Yes, Jessica is doing okay I think. Simpson Diversifies Her Billion-Dollar-Worth Collection . It won't be long before we will be saying "Did you know that billionaire Jessica Simpson started out as a singer?"

Yes guys, you can be a manly man and still be sensitive enough to allow your tears to fall. At least that's what Kevjumba , Nigahiga and Chestersee would have you believe after watching their music video for their song Shed A Tear available on iTunes . If you're on Youtube for any length of time you already know who Ryan Higa (nigahiga) and Kevin Wu (kevjumba) are, but you might not be familiar with the 3rd dude in the video: Chester See. He's a talented singer/musician with over 100 videos uploaded on his channel, so check out his music over on the link given above. Here's one of his great songs you might like: God Damn You're Beautiful . Of course, you may be thinking "If he's so talented, what's he doing with those two knuckleheads?" Well, both Kevjumba and Nigahiga are not lacking in talent themselves - The Nigahiga channel is the most subscribed channel on Youtube (Ryan's closing in on 3 million subscribers) and Kevjumba's num...

Here's another group of Youtubers who you may not know about, but probably should keep an eye on. Most have less than 50,000 subscribers, although some have 70K or so. Like many people on Youtube, I'm always looking for new music and this is a group of talented musicians. There are tons more that also deserve to be featured and I'll get to the all I promise. Well, maybe not all at once though. Kate Laura McGill Kate, known as katem3 on YouTube does her own songs as well as some covers. The video below is a cover of Cheryl Cole's Promise This and she also just uploaded another, Rihanna's Only Girl (In The World) . You can go to her website at katemcgill.co.uk where she also has a blog (unfortunately not updated since August). She's also going to be doing a tour of the UK and Europe in January and February 2011 with some tour dates in the U.S. during March 2011, but specifics need to be nailed down. Where can you stalk her? TWITTER: @katem3 FACEBOOK:...

Sometimes I just dunno what to make of Shane Dawson lol. This is Shane doing a "Harry Potter" rap for the folks over at take180com (aka Electric Spoofaloo). And, yes, that's Shane as Hermione Granger - odd that he always chooses the female roles lol. Wonder what all the little Harry Potter freaks will think about this? Just in case you don't know, the song is based on the song Straight Outta Compton by NWA. And of course there's a "behind-the-scenes" video showing how they made this: And, just in case you are one of the few who hasn't seen the Harry Potter video Shane made back in July 2009 with Brittani Louise Taylor . Actually, I think this was the first video I noticed Brittani in and a year later, she's got 622K subscribers and is number 37 on the Most Subscribed Chart. If you do watch the following clip, Shane's got a little bit of a potty mouth, but you already knew that. I think that has to be just about one of my fav...

LOL, davedays and Sammah singing Olive You on BlogTV. This is just a short video clip. olive you - Broadcast your self LIVE Dave of course is referring to Kimmi Smiles who sang on the video with him (see this post: DaveDays ~ Olive You With Kimmi Smiles ) but with Sammah taking Kimmi's part here. If you want to check out some more clips of Dave on BlogTV, you can go to Dave's BlogTV channel to watch some of his other clips, but if you go there and also subscribe to his channel, you can get updates of when he has posted stuff and get notification of when he is "on the air" which is fairly frequently. And if you want to pick up the song on iTunes, (um, the original version with Kimmi, not the one with Sammah, although if enough people demand a copy of this one, I'm sure Dave will put it on iTunes or his own website) go to Olive You to download it from iTunes.

Looks like Fred has just released his album with this song called Tater Haters leading the way. Fred was always something of a cartoon with his high-pitched voice and now he's morphed to animated mode for this video. I would really like to know what you think about this development. In case you don't know who Fred is (you been living under a rock or what?), he is a character by Lucas Cruikshank that is a highpitched and very hyper kid who gets into many misadventures and seems to get left alone a lot. I admit I watched quite a few Fred videos when I first joined YouTube, but never subbed to his channel. If you simply gotta have it, Fred's songs are available on iTunes and the album is called Who's Ready to Party? . Me, I think I this may be a party I'll skip, thank you very much. The animation is okay I guess and reminds me of something that we would get from Ren and Stimpy , but even though the "Tater Haters" part is oddly catchy, I don't t...

I'm a bit of a sucker for Flash mobs and unexpected singing and dancing and this video by MobilUK strikes the right note. And it was all done without using any instrument except the human voice. Awesome! What a way to be welcomed home! The looks on some of the peoples' faces are priceless and the music is great. This is part of an ad campaign by the MobileTV and it is accomplished brilliantly in a way that should bring a smaile to anyone's face. It sorta reminds me of the Facemob in the Antwerp Central Station. Check out this post for that one: Hairspray & Central Station Antwerp Flash Dance Mobs .

One of my favorite youtubers surprised me today. Liz aka SupaDupaFlyGirl sang - yes, I didn't know she could sing. I usually put her videos on and sorta blank out because of those eyes, but SDFG can also carry a tune. The dude doing the rap part of the song was SidekickFlip also known as Andre, so check out his channel. I don't usually like too much rap, but his flowed excellently. Usually when you watch Liz she does the talkin' vlog thing and that's why I'm subbed to her (as are 41K other youtubers) but she's very multi-faceted (as you can see from this video) and has another channel for her photography, so check that one out at flytographer . She also just announced that she was starting another channel called asksupadupa . She gives details in the video below: I've watched several of her other videos and she is an intelligent person willing to share straightforward advice, so you might want to tune in to her new channel. Me, I'm going to l...

It seems that DaveDays is coming out with new songs just about every other week! Actually his most recent video was released about 2 weeks ago, see my post about What Does It Take . And yes, that was Kimmi (last seen in Dave's Olive You video) and Sammah of "Do It Float?" fame hidin' out in the shower. Actually, Dave credits Sammah and Cyr for doing the filming. This looks like it may be part of the Ecomagination Challenge and you have to like Dave's style: "yeah, we gotta turn the lights off baby. Don't you wanna save the environment?" And you can pick up the newest DaveDays song (and his others too) over at davedays/itunes (actually Dave's giving this one away for FREE and that link takes you to his website).

This is a new song from Amy Kuney that was recently featured on the television series One Tree Hill (season 8, episode 2). The song is called Hope A Little Harder and is available from iTunes . My suggestion? Buy it and support an up-and-coming singer who has a lot of videos and songs on her YouTube channel. I received a friend request on YouTube from her and I always check out the other person's channel to see whether or not I should accept their request and I was very happy to click on her video of this song. I immediately accepted her as a friend and subscribed to her channel. She currently has 17,904 subs and should have more. Her channel states she is an unsigned singer and hopefully if you check out her music and maybe subscribe to her as well, it will help persuade the muckety-mucks in the recording industry that she should get signed! There are a number of great artists on YouTube with varying levels of success and by subscribing to them you will get some great musi...

This is awesome. Youtuber Nice Peter shows some clips from one of his shows. I haven't had a chance to see him live but it looks like it would be a great show. Love the part about the Fresh Prince of BelAir theme. I don't think he needs a backup band because he can fill in just about anywhere in his songs. He didn't give himself credit playing the harmonica either as he played that very well too - hey he played part of the song doing 2 harmonica parts in harmony, so that's worth something right? And that silly bandz thing you blow? It looked like a clarinet to me, but it mine have been slipped in from the silly bandz porn collection - I dunno lol.

One thing you have to say about the vlogbrothers is that they do make science and other nerdy stuff seem interesting. In this clip, Hank Green has put together a catchy song about what quarks are and their place in the universe, which is no mean feat. And if you don't know who "the vlogbrothers" are, they are brothers Hank & John Green, who have been vlogging to each other on alternative days for at least 2 years. They were instrumental in putting together the recent VidCon online media conference held in Los Angeles during the summer of 2010 that brother hundreds of youtubers (probably thousands actually), and it looks like there may be another one coming up in 2011.

Here's the latest music video from Nice Peter . Below you'll see how to play the song as well. I always look foeward to seeing what new song Nice Peter has put out and this one is pretty good. It's no Best Spot In The Lot (still my fav Nice Peter song so far), but it's still good. He posted it to the channel of The Station , but the "How To Play Man-Made Lake Of Love" (with chords & lyrics) was posted to his own channel. Take a look: