He is a diamond geezer. When I would ask him to sign records for me he was always simultaneously surly and gracious (two of my favourite things!). My signed copy of “Mercury Poisoning” on coloured vinyl is one of my greatest fetish objects.

Kickstarter provides an easy and transparent way to fund projects. Projects ask for a certain amount of money to be pledged by a certain time. If those goals are achieved, the pledges are delivered and the project gets the money. If they don’t get the pledges in the time allotted, no money is delivered. You can sign in with Facebook if you want to.

Over the years, I’ve had my issues with Beck (check that great tartan backgroud!) and quite a few more with NPR’s generally bourgeois coverage of music (unabashed Radiohead fanboi-ism), but now it’s time for a hat tip or two. Via the NPR All Songs Considered (sic) blog comes “Five Great Cover Songs From 2010 (So Far)”, of which at least two are well worth the time of day.

When I was doing my nightly radio show “Forward In All Directions” I would start every show with a cover. The one above would have been perfect. A completely new way to look at an over-familiar song and make it fresh. Kudos to Beck and his Record Club gang, and thanks to NPRs ASC for the heads up.

Diplo coproduced a movie about Favela Funk / Funk Carioca

The Beeb has just posted a quick 8 minute video with Mary Anne Hobbs talking to the cats she brought with her to the Sonar Festival in Barcelona – Joy Orbison, Roska and Flying Lotus. Includes footage from the stage also. Of note: Flying Lotus making a point of mentioning the importance, to him, of playing Weather Report in his set. Yes, Weather Report. I knew that I was right to be so confused by his Cosmogramma record.

Unlike the earlier vid for “Woo Boost”, this one pretty much straight ahead. Featuring our hero on the decks and standard pix of kids having a good time at a rave. Ho-hum, but still a reeeeaaallllyyyy good track from his new LP. Features Amber Coffman from Dirty Projectors. What really makes it for me is the drop at 0:29. The vid expresses that nicely, with Rusko arriving at the gig and hitting the crowd with the bass.

They are readying release of his first full length “O.M.G.” for May 2010 and this will be the first single. As is the norm these days (and especially at Mad Decent), there will be a ton of collaborators on the project. The hope, obviously, is that his over the top, almost frat-boy, version of the noisy and wobbly end of dubstep will make it through to the US dancefloor and pop massive. Hey, if anyone can do it, he can.

But what about this vid? Directors Pomp&Clout have apparently found the video processing button labeled “Make-It-Look-Like-A-Tenth-Generation-Bootleg-Of-A-Video-Recorded-Off-Night-Flight-from-USA’s-Up-All-Night-in-1984″. then they threw in a couple of seizure inducing backgrounds from The Shamen or possibly Sunscreem in 1992

One thing is for sure, nothing else will look like this for several years. Which will make this stand out like nothing else. I dunno if that is enough to put it over the top tho…

The dedicated Pooplist reader(s) will know that we hyped the Major Lazer record to death and also mentioned many of the ML videos. We’ve been commensurately disappointed by the lack of uptake on those, can this version of Rusko do any better? We fear not.

But Lux Interior is missing. Wonder if the Grammys one will include him. Wonder how the Grammys one will match up with this one. I suspect that there will substantially more MJ in the Grammy one, what with his kids showing up and all. You’ll have to tell me, as I almost certainly won’t be watching.

Thanks to Lazygal for the spot.

A really good primer from one of the OK Go boys on the state of the music industry today. And why EMI / Capitol will not let YouTube enable the embedding code on their videos.

OK Go – This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

Try his dreader than dread Blood and Fire release Jesus Dread (unfortunately, the CD appears to be out of print) Find it at amazon.com (1972-1977) OR Download it from eMusic (much cheaper!)