Click here to subscribe (free) via iTunes and other podcatchers

In Desert Island Scientist episode four, Jim and molecular virologist Dr David Hawkes from The Florey Institute at the University of Melbourne somehow manage to squeeze hoverboards and Rage Against the Machine into a discussion of viral vectors and post-traumatic stress disorder. Here’s Dave’s playlist on Spotify. Download links below.

Dear Science – Seth Sentry

Catch My Disease – Ben Lee

Norgaard – The Vaccines

Khe Sanh – Cold Chisel

Testify – Rage Against the Machine

Desert Island Scientist #4: Dr Dave Hawkes

Dessert Island Scientist #4: Anzac Cookie

  Click here to subscribe (free) via iTunes and other podcatchers

Desert Island Scientist number three is Dr Jon Winfield from the Bristol Robotics Lab at UWE. Jon’s research is on microbial fuel cells – basically, it involves turning poo into power. He joins Hayley to talk about the sweet smell of waste water treatment, how to use a condom to make a fuel cell, biodegradable robots and the electrical conductivity of wee. We start off all high-minded and polite and fairly quickly descend into silliness and dirty words. Sorry about that. Here’s Jon’s playlist on Spotify – for extra treats, we’ve included a few from his list that didn’t quite make the podcast. Download links below.

New World Water – Mos Def  [EXPLICIT]

How to Disappear Completely – Radiohead

Electricity – OMD

Sleeping Lessons – The Shins

Ghost Town – The Specials

If you’re interested in finding out more about Jon’s fascinating and dirty work, here are some starter links to some of the projects he mentions: Biodegradable robots project in partnership with the University of Bristol Botanic Garden [link] / Ecobots on Wikipedia [link] / Microbial fuel cells project with Wessex Water [link] / Bioenergy project [link]

Next month: Jim podcasts all the way from Australia, with a new Desert Island Scientist!

Image: Riddy

Desert Island Scientist #3: Dr Jon Winfield

Dessert Island Scientist #3: Chocolate Tiffin

  Click here to subscribe (free) via iTunes and other podcatchers

It’s episode two of Desert Island Scientist and we’ve invited another real life researcher to join us on our imaginary island. Suzi Gage is the lady choosing the tunes… and eating pudding, in our feature Des(S)ert Island Scientist. She talks to Jim about her research on tobacco and cannabis use, as well as her second career as a musician. The conversation flies from stoners to spider goats, and fashion to philosophy. Here’s Suzi’s playlist on Spotify. Download links below.

Smokin’ – Super Furry Animals

Being Boiled – The Human League

Genetic Engineering – X-Ray Specs

8 1/2 minutes – Dismemberment Plan

Snapshot – Cabaret Rat ft. Suzi Gage

Image: Alana’s Vintage Collectibles

Desert Island Scientist #2: Suzi Gage

DesSert Island Scientist #2: Floating Island

  Click here to subscribe (free) via iTunes and other podcatchers

We’re kicking off 2013 with the first podcast in a new series that we’ve been banging on about for months… Yes, Desert Island Scientist is finally here! Every month for the next six months, we’ll be welcoming a bone fide scientist to the podcast. They’ll be picking the tunes, introducing them and talking about the science behind them in a much more knowledgeable way than we ever do, while we butt in with stupid questions. To go with the brand spanking new series, there’s also a brand spanking new feature that we like to call “DesSert Island Scientist”, where a scientist eats a dessert in the shape of an island. Do not adjust your podcast catcher – it’s all on the same old Geek Pop feed. Our first deserted scientist is Owen Rackham, who works in computational genomics (oo-er). He joins Hayley to talk about mud towers, chromosomes, orange spaniels and experimenting on himself. Here’s his playlist on Spotify. Download links below.

Next month: Jim quizzes epidemiologist Suzi Gage about sex, drugs and rock and roll (ish)

Scientists – Jeremy Messersmith

DNA – Darwin Deez

Just Like A Drummer – The Wave Pictures

You Don’t Have To Be A Scientist To Do Experiments on Your Own Heart – Jeffrey Lewis with Jack Lewis and Anders Griffen

Ode to Kettle – Rachel Freeman

Image: Alana’s Vintage Collectibles

Desert Island Scientist #1: Dr Owen Rackham

DesSert Island Scientist #1

Happy Christmas and bye bye to @jimothybell for now. He’ll be experiencing Christmas upside down in a hot place, which is just wrong. Anyway, as has become tradition here at Geek Pop, for the festive period we’re bringing you a selection of the most niche songs ever – Christmas science songs. Extra props to Jonny Berliner for writing a power ballad about Michael Faraday’s Christmas lectures.

In January, we’re kicking off a new series called ‘Desert Island Scientist’. Here’s a trailer. Stay tuned to the same podcast feed and it will reach your earholes very soon.

I Want an Alien for Christmas – Fountains of Wayne

Post Apocalypse Christmas – Gruff Rhys

Merry Christmas if that’s Okay – Mystery Science Theater 3000s (YouTube link)

Mistletoe – Colbie Calliat (iTunes link)

The Christmas Power Ballad of Michael Faraday – Jonny Berliner (Bandcamp link)

Click here to choose from iTunes and other podcatchers. Subscription is free – it just means that whenever you open iTunes, it will automatically check for updates and download new podcasts. The online archive is here.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: ufos-&-aliens

You might have heard us jabbering on about something called Desert Island Scientist in the last few months. Well, it’s finally coming! In January 2013, we kick off the series with an episode co-hosted by real, bona fide scientist Dr Owen Rackham. Here’s a sneaky earful of the sort of thing you can expect.

If you’re a scientist and would like to visit our (pretend) desert island, get in touch and we’ll see if we can put you on a show.

Image: Alana’s Vintage Collectibles

Nyawww, ickle wickle cutey wutey spider… In honour of Jim, ahead of his imminent departure to the southern hemisphere, this month’s episode is themed entirely (well, almost – when did we ever stick to a theme?) around the things he loves best: ANIMALS… And, perhaps predictably, there’s a considerable amount of spider chat. Jim does, however, underperform spectacularly in Hayley’s game “Does Jim really know as much as he thinks he does?” Other questions answered this episode include: “Are snakes soft in the middle?” and “Can a dove be noble?”

Some links for this month: Looking for the crazy robots made by the team at MIT? Here’s their web page. And here’s more about the baby raft spider programme at Bristol Zoo. Our musical find of the month was Paul Mosley’s bird song-based album, which comes out in early 2013. Otherwise, the music got quite obscure, so most of the songs don’t appear on Spotify, but go here for the big bumper list covering 2009-2012.

Bohr – Sleepy Valley

Spider Lovin’ – The Mighty Boosh

Snake – Frightened Rabbit [or on Spotify]

A Robot Meets the Tree of Life – Ben Prunty

FULL PLAY: A Chattering of Birds – Paul Mosley

Click here to choose from iTunes and other podcatchers. Subscription is free – it just means that whenever you open iTunes, it will automatically check for updates and download new podcasts. The online archive is here.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: The fen raft spider walks on water. But it’s protected in the UK because it’s so rare. Our local zoo has recently been hand-rearing some raft spiderlings (feeding them with flies) to get them ready to go back to the wild.

Something kinda funny happened a few weeks ago. The British Library contacted us to ask if we would send them a copy of our record. Yes, the one that we made with just a little bit (*cough* a lot) of help from some awesome artists, in March 2011. We couldn’t quite believe our emails. This surely, would be the ultimate endorsement of our geek recording – being collected by a LIBRARY. *Does a little dance* And not just any library… THE BRITISH LIBRARY! *Does chair spin until dizzy*

Of course, we didn’t waste a second. We packaged up a copy of Geek Like Me and sent it off to Andy Linehan, Curator of Popular Music at the BL (coolest job EVER), right away.

When we asked Andy why he wanted a copy, this is what he said:

“We’re always on the lookout for new music to add to our collections, particularly when released by smaller independent labels that might otherwise slip under the radar. Compilations such as Geek Like Me allow us to represent types of music or scenes that might not be widely-known or celebrated but form an important part of the national musical culture.”

Apparently the BL has been receiving all sorts of rare and random recordings of late. So… if you’ve made your own under-the-radar recording, why not ask Andy and co whether they’d like a copy? As far as we’re concerned it’s nothing less than an HONOUR to have our own British Library catalogue number! (Why, yes, we do!)

Can you tell we’re happy?

THE SONG: The Nature of Things by Helen Arney

Hello! We’re back again with another live session from friend of the podcast, Helen Arney. Here’s one she wrote for the Bright Club Bristol event “The Nature of Things”.

And here’s another big ol’ plug for the Festival of the Spoken Nerd tour, featuring Helen, which starts tonight at the Concert Hall in Reading.

Click here to choose from iTunes and other podcatchers. Subscription is free – it just means that whenever you open iTunes, it will automatically check for updates and download new podcasts. The online archive is here.

Intro/outro music: Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: Andy Clarke.

Vote for our local science centre’s hold music!

When you ring your bank or internet provider or washing machine helpline you know you’re going to get stuck listening to some crappy hold music that’s going to make you want to chew your own arm off before anybody anwers.

But NOT when you ring Bristol’s local science centre! Not anymore. If you ring At-Bristol, you’re going to get something geeky, poppy and utterly delectable. And WE ALL get to decide what that is. Yes, the folks from At-Bristol have sought help from the foremost connoisseurs of science music *cough* (us) and we’re turning this into a democratic vote.

So. The brief was:

“a cute quirky song about science that is pretty accessible to non-scientists”

We’ve whittled it down to five for them. They’re all songs that have at some point featured on the Geek Pop podcast – so they’ve already undergone rigorous review, as listeners will know… Now here’s where you come in. Have a little look at the list of songs below, have a listen to the clips, or listen here to the full songs (Spotify). And then VOTE for the song you think At-Bristol should use as its hold music. Bear in mind the brief but also, consider what you would like to hear if you rang your local science centre. We’ll be taking your votes until next Wednesday at noon. THIS IS IMPORTANT DUDES! GO!

Oh and for tweeters the hashtag is #scienceholdmusic.

CLIPS!

SPOTIFY LIST!

Image: wax115

As it’s nearly Halloween, we’ve gone for the slightly morbid theme of Dead Scientists. And you’ve all done a grand job of bringing the best Dead Scientist songs to our attention. EXCELLENT WORK, TEAM GEEK! We’ve compiled an extended Spotify list including some of the suggestions we had to leave out.

So. Along the twisty twiney turns of this podcast we stumble across: a lady who wants to make love to Nikola Tesla (presumably whilst he was still alive), Einstein’s mum and dad, and a man driven to murder by linguistics. Plus, Geek Pop’s first ever stab at some sort of Poetry Corner, thanks to Lara Charles.

Some links for this month: Helen Arney off of Geek Pops past is on tour with Festival of the Spoken Nerd – tickets on sale now. If you want to read more about the whole Tesla / Edison pantomime go to this excellent Oatmeal cartoon thingy. And here’s the whole sad story of Feynman and his wife.

There are now well over 100 tracks on our all-time podcast list. It’s here or on Spotify.

Nikola Tesla – 8in8 (Amanda Palmer, Damian Kulash, Ben Folds & Neil Gaiman)

Hermann Loves Pauline – Super Furry Animals

A POETICAL INTERLUDE! Moments of Great Importance by Lara Charles

What Do I Care? – Johnny Cash

The Death of Ferdinand De Saussure – The Magnetic Fields

LIVE SESSION: Sailing Back to Spain – Intercontinental Music Lab (Cambridge, 2009)

Click here to choose from iTunes and other podcatchers. Subscription is free – it just means that whenever you open iTunes, it will automatically check for updates and download new podcasts. The online archive is here.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: The rather dashing Nikola Tesla sits in his Colorado laboratory in around 1900, apparently oblivious to the CRAZY HUGE sparks flying from his “magnifying transmitter”. It turns out this photo is a double exposure, so Tesla wasn’t actually there at the same time as the sparks. In Tesla’s notes was written: “I did not like this idea but some people find such photographs interesting. Of course, the discharge was not playing when the experimenter was photographed, as might be imagined!”

Hello ladies and gents. What are you doing for the next couple of months? Tell you what… don’t do ANYTHING until you’ve booked to go and see Festival of the Spoken Nerd on tour. In fact, why not just take October and November off and go to all 21 shows? Huh? Well, okay, not the ones that are already sold out. And obviously not Swindon. (JOKING!)

FOTSN, as those in the know call it, is the comedy science show hosted by our friends Helen, Matt and Steve. You’ll probably know geek songstress Helen Arney from last year’s Geek Pop EP Geek Like Me and her many performances at Geek Pop festivals. And you may know Steve Mould  as the host of our Geek Pop launch event a couple of years back. He was the guy who decided to light a FIRE on stage in the world’s oldest surviving WOODEN music hall.  (“It’ll be fine – I’ve got a risk assessment!”) Matt Parker is the other one. He’s a massive maths nerd. And funny too.

Anyway, here’s some blurb:

“After a year of sell-out shows in London and science festivals, we’re coming to a venue near you to ask: When can you use a parabola to set stuff on fire? How does the angler fish make love? And how dangerous can things get with just numbers?”

“A riotously funny show about science… brimming with unashamed. ****” – Three Weeks

We’ll be heading over to the one in Bath on 21st November. There are still TICKETS everywhere except Coventry. So Coventry is WINNING – clear contender for nerd capital of the UK… Anyway, this will be ACE, so book soon.

P.S. To celebrate the start of their tour, we’ll be publishing a new Geek Pop session featuring a song we commissioned from Helen back in May. Listen out for that on our podcast feed.

We experience the best and worst of science songwriting, barely avoid comparing Usher to Stevie Wonder, learn why we should be more afraid of cows than spiders and find ourselves doing some live and unprogrammed sports commentary on the man practicing sprint starts behind Hayley’s house. Oh and there’s some real Mars-based science stuff.

Some links for this month: Ever fancied building your own Mars Rover out of LEGO? Now you can. Thanks to Ben from @NakedScientists for this Higgs boson vid, which he says “might help when people expect you to understand and explain all of science again”. Check out our last post for the latest geeky releases, including from The Standards.

For all this month’s songs on Spotify, go here or if you want a list of all the songs we’ve ever played on the podcast, try this one.

Mars vs Venus – Usher

Lightning Bolt – Jake Bugg

Muscle Dysmorphia – Gary War

DLZ – TV on the Radio

FULL PLAY: The LHC Song – Jamie Ough (see our #SSotF winners post)

Click here to choose from iTunes and other podcatchers. Subscription is free – it just means that whenever you open iTunes, it will automatically check for updates and download new podcasts. The online archive is here.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: Earlier this year, the test rover “Scarecrow” helped scientists from the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) team work on the rover’s driving capabilities by rolling around the California sand dunes near Death Valley. By NASA/JPL-Caltech. (For a LEGO version of this, see Mashable).

A Slight Distraction by The Standards (album)

Released: 27th August on Schnapps House Records

Arrived at Geek Pop HQ looking tasty enough to eat, courtesy of vintage-style artwork by Ben Pinwill. Delivered earworm upon earworm of rocking tunage. With songs about Mice and Drowning, the links to science are tenuous to say the least, but when has that ever stopped us from sticking something on the GP playlist? Ace.

See also: Geek Pop Live Session November 2010, 11 Dimensions (free Geek Pop festival download)

Fishes/Wasps by Emperor Yes (single)

Released: 8th October on Tape Club Records

From the same indie label as Bronze Medallists, Emperor Yes brings together musicians from Three Trapped Tigers, Summer Camp and House of Strange. Bleepy bloopy noises, lyrics about the evils of Hymenoptera and did we mention it comes on a limited edition CASSETTE TAPE? These dudes are IT.

See also: Moon Song by House of Strange (Geek Pop Podcast – August 2011), official video for Wasps

The day is upon us! Yes, today we announce the results of The Science Songwriter of the Future! competition that we’ve been running over the summer. And those right there are the medals – lovingly crafted by Lynn at Tuck Shop – that our winners will soon be receiving… But before we get down to it, a massive thank you to EVERYONE who has been involved in organising, supporting and judging SSotF. We’ve had oodles of fun, but it’s involved lots of people’s time and energy, some fervent head-scratching and some very long Skype conversations.

In particular, we at Geek Pop would like to thank: co-organisers Sociable Physics, Institute of Physics, I’m A Scientist Get Me Out of Here, Green Man Festival, House of Strange and our magnificent panel of judges.

Of course, deciding on a winner has been made all the more head-scratchingly difficult by the influx of brilliant entries we’ve had from talented, enthusiastic and generally awesome young people. The aim of SSotF was to get you guys writing about, singing about and having fun with science and we’re so pleased to see that all of those things have been happening! You’re all winners in our eyes (no cheese intended). *Virtual hugs!*

“Just tell us who has WON!” you cry! Alright, alright. So…

FIRST PRIZE: The LHC Song by Jamie Ough

Jamie told us:

“I’m glad you thought my song about particle smashing was particularly smashing. I’m 18 (just left school), and from Hertfordshire. I used free software (Mixcraft) to make the song… I played and recorded the ukulele and accordian, the glockenspiel and hand claps were synthesised through Mixcraft. It’s hard to say where exactly the idea came from. I guess it’s something to do with how much the awesome stuff happening at CERN has been in the news recently.”

And judge Tom Robinson was mighty impressed:

“Crisp, focussed and memorable. Like the best scientific laws & formulae it’s brief and to the point…  I’d play this on the radio.”

CONGRATS! Jamie wins tickets to Green Man Festival to see some awesome bands, and also to attend a special science songwriting workshop in Einstein’s Garden. PLUS, he’ll get the chance to record his song at the incredible House of Strange studios, which have hosted the likes of Mumford and Sons, Noah and the Whale, Ash and Emmy the Great. Talk about in good company!

SECOND PRIZE: Lab 13′s science song

THIRD PRIZE: Zero Air Resistance by Alannah Cowley

SOCIAL PHYSICS PRIZE: Infinite by Ben Lambert and Furat Aziz

Judge for the Social Physics category Helen Arney said:

“Marvellous… It has a few nice touches of humour and I enjoyed the structure and style – it broke out of classic verse/chorus/bridge placement.  The overdubs at the end I also really liked, where he’s trying to get across two ideas at once and that’s really hard to do.”

iTunes vouchers will be winging their way to Lab 13, Alannah, Ben and Furat very soon! Well done!

And it’s not over yet… Expect some words about the winners from our judges, field reporting from the songwriting workshop in Einstein’s Garden and the all singing, all dancing, fully produced-up version of Jamie’s LHC Song a la House of Strange. Too much excitement!

Image: Tuckshop

From drum and bass to Mama Cass, from the Higgs boson to supervolcanoes via Ghostbusters, it’s all here in the Geek Pop Podcast. There’s a sort of impending doom theme this month… so that there in the photo is Mount St Helens, a sleeping beauty before her famous blowout in 1980. Don’t forget to vote for the end of the world below.

This month’s Spotify list is right about here and the big ol’ bumper one is here. And here’s that link to AnAge – a list of all the oldest animals on the planet (see June ‘s podcast for old trees). Thanks to @brucew_o.

Hadron Collider – Nim Vind

Proton Pack – CERN & Nymfo

That Mountain is a Volcano – Eureka Birds

California Earthquake – Mama Cass

FULL PLAY: Avalanche in B – Cold War Kids

Click here to choose from iTunes and other podcatchers. Subscription is free – it just means that whenever you open iTunes, it will automatically check for updates and download new podcasts. The online archive is here.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: Held by NARA. Shows Mount St Helens around 1920-30. The sleeping beauty, peaceful and serene prior to her awakening in 1980. The people in the foreground are unknown, as is the author.

May 18th was Fascination of Plants Day. Okay, so we missed it… but we’re making up for it now. With sunflowers, aubergines and a tree-based Skype jam. Plus, Stevie Wonder’s secret plant songs and Jimothybell‘s new poll, celebrating Fascination of Plants Day AND the jubilee.

This month’s Spotify list is here and your download links are below. And if you’re wondering about that Methuselah article Hayley mentions, it’s from the San Francisco Chronicle. Enjoy!

Sunflower – Paul Weller

Methuselah – Dr Martin Austwick (full jam / proper version with annotations)

The Trees – Pulp

The Eggplant That Ate Chicago – Dr West’s Medicine Show and Junk Band

FULL PLAY: Same Old Story – Stevie Wonder

Click here to choose from iTunes and other podcatchers. Subscription is free – it just means that whenever you open iTunes, it will automatically check for updates and download new podcasts. The online archive is here.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: showing Indian scientist and knight Jagadish Chandra Bose with his beloved plants.

We’ve roped in some experts from the worlds of science and music to judge your songwriting skills. And there are some AWESOME prizes on offer. This year, there’s also a special Institute of Physics category for the best song on the topic of “The Social Physicist”, with its own mini-prize.

THE PRIZES:

Grand Prize:
Weekend-long tickets and train fares for the winner and a guest (or guardian) to go to Green Man Festival and take part in a science songwriting workshop in Einstein’s Garden.

A recording session at London’s House of Strange studios – to record the winning entry in style.

2nd Prize: £50 iTunes voucher

3rd Prize: £25 iTunes voucher

“The Social Physicist” prize: £50 iTunes voucher

THE JUDGES:

Isy Suttie is not only a star of Channel 4’s Peep Show, she’s also a very talented musician and comedian, and she’s been taking her mini-musicals to the Edinburgh Fringe since 2007. Her 2011 show, Pearl and Dave, made her audiences laugh and cry, so we’re hoping Isy will pick out a song with the elusive Smile Factor.

Tom Robinson is a veteran of the UK punk and new wave scene. He’s a Sony-award winning broadcaster and has DJed on all six of the BBC’s national radio stations. Since 2007, Tom has been a tireless champion of new music via his Fresh on The Net show. He can spot a good song at fifty paces with his hands tied behind his back.

Helen Keen, star of stage and radio, wrote and presented BBC Radio 4’s recent series It is Rocket Science, based on her one-woman show of the same name. She runs Spacetacular, a monthly science and comedy night, and this year takes her show Robot Woman of Tomorrow to Edinburgh Fringe. Helen has forgotten more about space than we’ll ever know.

MJ Hibbett has been writing and performing music for 15 years. His second studio album, This Is Not A Library, was named album of the year by Rolling Stone magazine. In 2009, he started performing a one-man stand-up show about dinosaurs that morphed into the two-man rock opera, and later album, Dinosaur Planet. If you’re thinking about writing a song about dinosaurs invading the Earth, make sure he hasn’t done it first.

Tom Whyntie is a real, honest-to-goodness CERN physicist, musician and performer. He’s a FameLab winner, and has appeared on Channel 4 and at the Cheltenham Science Festival, and will be looking out for songs that make science accessible, fun and interesting.

And judging the “The Social Physicist” category…

Martin Austwick researches social physics (using maths to understand human behaviour) at the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, and is a keen science songwriter. This prize is especially close to his heart; he wants to use it to convince his friends that physicists aren’t so bad after all.

Hayley Birch curates and commissions music about science for Geek Pop, and manages the Solar Stage in Einstein’s Garden at Green Man Festival. Her day job is writing about science but she’s listened to more physics songs than you’ve had hot dinners and knows a quark when she hears it.

Once upon a time, Helen Arney was a lowly physics student – now she’s a science songstress, and something of a wizard on the ukulele. She is one third of Festival of the Spoken Nerd and has shared stages with the likes of Brian Cox and Tim Minchin. Helen will be on the look out for the kind of wry, bittersweet songwriting she’s known for herself.

Questions…

Who is it open to?
Anyone who is 18 or under (so is at school or has just left school/sixth form college) and lives in England, Scotland or Wales. And you must be able to come to the Green Man festival (August 17-19th 2012).

If you win, and are under 18, you must use your second ticket for an accompanying adult (over 21) to attend Green Man Festival.

What do we want?
Science songs, written by you, and recorded. Your song can be about anything related to science – good science, bad science, famous scientists, discoveries, inventions, your favourite science fact, anything.

When do we want it?
By July 13th, please.

What’s this “Social Physicist” prize?
It’s a prize for the best song about “social” and “physics”! This could be about a friendly physicist, a way physics has affected society, or how you can use physics to understand society (which is sort of what judge Martin Austwick does at his home in UCL-CASA)… You can interpret this any way you want. We want to show that physicists think about people as well as physics and can be useful (at least sometimes)…

How do I submit my song?
Send your finished song as an MP3 to sciencesongwriter@gmail.com, along with the lyrics. You could alternatively send a download link if you prefer.

When will I know whether I’ve won?
We’ll announce the winners by July 27th. But hopefully before then.

Does the song have to have words?
Yes please.

Does the song have to have instruments?
No. It can be just people singing. Or rapping. Or rap-singing. (Is rap-singing a thing?)

What will songs be judged on?
Sciencey-ness. Music-y-ness, including melody, lyrics and rhythm. And the all-important Smile Factor. You won’t be judged on the production values of your recording.

Does it have to be professionally recorded?
No, we’re interested in the quality of the song not the quality of the recording. Of course, we want to be able to hear it! But a recording on a phone is fine if you don’t have professional equipment.

Can I get help?
Of course! You can write the song yourself, and ask a friend to sing it. And if you’re in a band, you can play a song together. But the prize is for the songwriter, so you should write the song.

But then who wins the prize?
You must nominate a songwriter who will win the prize if your song is picked. We only have so many prizes, sorry!

Do I have to bring my mum/dad/guardian if I win?
If you’re under 18, I’m afraid you do. They’ll have a lovely time.

Can I take a famous/existing song and just change the words?
No, please don’t do that. Songwriting is writing music as well as words. If we think your song is too much like a popular song we won’t like it as much and it probably won’t win.

Can I submit a song from my 1982 album Disco Science?
Ha! Trick question! If you were around in 1982 you’re TOO OLD to enter! But more generally… your song must not have been released (or otherwise made widely available) before the competition deadline. If it’s been in your attic for a year, no probs. If it went double platinum in 2010, not so much.

Can I swear and schnizet?
Please don’t. (Is “schiznet” a swear?) Nothing that would upset your grandmother.

Is the judges’ decision final?
It sure is. MWAH HAH HAH HAH <splutter>

Who are the people who have made this wonderful thing possible?
Why only Martin Austwick at Sociable Physics, Hayley Birch at Geek Pop, Einstein’s Garden at Green Man Festival, I’m A Scientist Get Me Out of Here!, the Institute of Physics and House of Strange. Not to mention our lovely judges.

Photo credits:

Isy Suttie by salimfadhley (licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0.). MJ Hibbett by W Stone. Hayley Birch by Alex Davis. Helen Arney by Idil Sukan.

You may remember us running a songwriting competition over the summer a couple of years ago. We had some unbelievably good entries and crowned a worthy winner in comic book illustrator Naomi Fearn, who went on to join the line-up for the Geek Pop 2011 festival.

Well, the songwriting competition is back, but this time we’re working in collaboration with friend, sociable physicist, fellow podcaster and star of Geek Pop festivals past, Dr Martin Austwick. And we’re on the hunt for the science songwriters of the future – you have to be 18 or under to take part. (Sorry, everyone else!*)

The prizes are going to be bigger and better than before. Thanks to our links with Green Man Festival, we’re able to offer two free tickets for the festival this August. The winner (accompanied by a guardian) will get to join a special science songwriting workshop in Einstein’s Garden, the tippest, toppest, artsiest science garden you ever did come across at a music festival… And most probably anywhere else.

And if that’s not enough, we’ll play the winning song on the Geek Pop Podcast. Fame and fortune await!

Songs can be based on any scientific topic, but there will be a bonus prize for songs about “sociable physics” – that’s the Dr’s specialist area and he’ll be explaining more about it when we announce full details in the next week or so. For now though, get writing… You have about two months to put together your science songs! For inspiration, check out our archives of songs from the podcast and festival.

Thanks to the Institute of Physics and I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here! for supporting the competition.

*If you have a science song you’d like us to hear and you’re over 18, why not send it in for us to play on our podcast?

Image: Didi90

Inspired by some Barenaked Ladies lyrics, Hayley presents her top five crazy theories for dinosaur extinction. And Jim does some back-of-an-envelope calculations in an attempt at answering the question posed by Oxford popsters Alphabet Backwards: “If we all threw an ice cube in the sea, could we save the polar bears?”

Don’t forget to vote in this month’s *evil* Geek Poll.

The May Spotify playlist is down the bottom of this post. To suggest songs for next month’s playlist on the theme of PLANTS, email Jim and Hayley and crew@geekpop.co.uk.

For the Benefit of Mankind – Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band

Panic Plants – The Lovely Eggs

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Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: from 1781, the first published illustration of a polar bear in Die Säugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur.

So, things look up bit different round here don’t they? *Nodding wildly at shiny new website*

Geometry turned out to be a lot more interesting than we thought, what with fourth dimensions, hypercubes and wotnot. We even managed an enthusiastic explanation of how to make a dodecahedron out of bubbles. Better with bubbles than with paper, apparently, in case like Jim or Beth Jeans Houghton, dodecadedrons get your goat…

Watch out for some nearly-expletives in the Geek Poll. Here’s the offending link. Vote below.

Oh! And! More new things! Check out the Spotify embed thingamy containing our April playlist at the bottom of this post. Oooooh. The extended playlist includes a few late suggestions from Tweeters that didn’t quite make it onto the podcast, plus some of our own finds.

Fourth Dimension – LIGHTS

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*For more “What’s your favourite…?” polls, see previous podcasts. All of them. Or ask Jim. He has whole drawers full of them.

Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: Manfred Mohr (it’s hypercubes).

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It’s a work in progress, but you’ll see we’ve already done much of the heavy lifting… A few things have been left behind either because we’re planning to move them over in the next few days, or because they were just too big and awkwardly shaped.

We’re still trying to figure out how a few things work over here. It’s a bit like having turned up at your fancy new digs with a box full of casette tapes and discovering you’ve only got an iPod. But we’re getting there.

Many links will still lead back to the old site. We’re endeavouring to stop you ever having to go back there, but you may have to if you want to revisit old festivals. Other links may have gotten broken in the move. If you find any broken stuff do let us know and we’ll do our best to fix it.

Love,

Geek Pop.

This month, we take a trip down memory lane as we wander through Geek Pop festivals past. You can download all the songs from this podcast on our new ‘Music‘ page, which lists every song that has ever been played at the festival.

We’ll be back with a session cast, as well as the regular monthly podcast format, in April. For now, take some time to reminisce with us.

Walter Benjamin – Let’s Tea Party (Geek Pop 2009)

Nanobot – alatinpunkcircle (Geek Pop 2009)

Chromosome – Spirit of Play (Geek Pop 2010)

How to Prove a Point – Intercontinental Music Lab (Geek Pop 2009)

Science Songs – Jonny Berliner (Geek Pop live launch, Bristol, 2010)

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Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Anyway, to mark the place where the Geek Pop festival should have been, we’ve compiled the definitive uber-list of Geek Pop festival music – every song that has ever been played at the online festival, EVER. Searchable by artist, track or year.

From Jonny Berliner’s gruff re-working of ‘Dark Matter’ at our very first festival, to his handclapping ‘Genetics Calypso’ last year. From the dirty bass of Let’s Tea Party’s ‘Reptiles’ in 2008 to Jeff Lewis & Peter Stampfel’s ‘ toe-tapping ’20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ in 2011. They’re all there.

And what’s more, you can download them all on ONE PAGE! We know!

We’ve even made an extra page with links to all our Spotify lists. We’ve gone list crazy!

It’s not quite everything we’ve got though. We’re still working on a collection of the best live sessions from our podcast. Including some extra special Geek Pop-commissioned songs that haven’t even been heard yet.

Talking of podcasts, you’re due a new one, which will be with you in the next week. It will be a tear-jerking celebration of Geek Pops past. Tissues at the ready, listeners. And sorry for the delay (due to wasted weekends and sniffly noses).

Until then, don’t thank us, thank all the artists who’ve contributed their music to Geek Pop so far. Thank*:

Aidy | alatinpunkcircle | Amateur Transplants | Andrew Pontzen | Baba Brinkman| Being 747| Bert Miller & the Animal Folk | CraftLass| Dalamatian Rex & the Eigentones| Down with Gender | Dr Clandestino | Dr Martin Austwick | Dr Stu & the Neutron Stars | Eben | Emily Schulman | Fourwave Mixing | Grant Balfour | Great Big Science Gig | Hannah Werdmuller | Helen Arney | Intercontinental Music Lab| Jeffrey Lewis & Peter Stampfel | Jon Hamshaw | Johnny & the Chemists | Jonny Berliner | Karmadillo | Lamar Holley | Lårs & Marïse | The Layers | Let’s Tea Party| Logan Wright | Marian Call | Matt Westcott | The Missing, Inc. | MJ Hibbett | Mr Simmonds | Naomi Fearn | On Rails | Oort Kuiper & Phatmattbaker | Photomixers | Professor Elemental | Professor Science | Radium88 | Roadside Poppies | Robot Disaster | Science is Fiction| Sci-Fried | The Sound of the Ladies | Spirit of Play| The Standards | Symphony of Science | The Synchrotrons | Tales from the Birdbath | Tony Brown | The Ultraviolet Catastrophe | Vom Vorton | Weird Gear | Wolfington

*Bonus points to anyone who can spot the only artist on this list to get two credits. More bonus points for explaining why.

This month, the Geek Pop Sessions presents a re-working of a sci-pop “classic”, if you can call it that.

We’ll leave Simon from the rather wonderful Woe Betides to explain all. Also, check out their debut album ‘Never Sleep‘. We couldn’t help noticing that it features songs called ‘This Head, This Heart’ and ‘Bone on Bone’. Let’s just hope they’re anatomically accurate.

THE SONG: Biology by The Woe Betides

(Ahem, originally by Girls Aloud)

Lyrics:

Why don’t you fool me, feed me say, you need me without wicked games Come on and hold me, hug me, say you love me, and not my dirty brain Why don’t you fool me, feed me, say you need me without wicked games Come on and hold me, love me, say you love me, and not my dirty brain

I got one Alabama return, that’ll take me far away from you

Cause when you take me in your arms I turn to slave but I cant be saved

So I got my cappuccino to go and I’m heading for the hills again

Cause if we party anymore we’ll start a fire of pure desire

Closer, your minds firing blind, With your head in your face getting red in your heart beats, closer

You fall on your knees and the geek at your feet says your neat, and the beat gets closer

You dive for the thrill at the kill and your heart’s had its fill, But it still creeps closer

You wanted to freeze but your weak in too deep and the beat and the beat gets closer

Closer Closer Closer Closer Closer Closer Closer

We give it up and then they take it away A girl’s got to zip it up, And get her head in the shade

Baby we give it up, It’s just a matter of time Throw all the heavy stuff, Comes back to bite your behind

You can’t mistake my Biology

The way that we talk, The way that we walk, It’s there in our thoughts

The magic number is in front of me

The way that we talk, The way that we walk, So easily caught

You can’t mistake my Biology

The way that we talk, The way that we walk, It’s there in our thoughts

We’re gonna cause a controversy

The way that we talk, The way that we walk, So easily caught

Why don’t you fool me, feed me say, you need me without wicked games Come on and hold me, hug me, say you love me, and not my dirty brain Why don’t you fool me, feed me, say you need me without wicked games Come on and hold me, love me, say you love me, and not my dirty brain

You can’t mistake my Biology

The way that we talk, The way that we walk, It’s there in our thoughts

The magic number is in front of me

The way that we talk, The way that we walk, So easily caught

You can’t mistake my Biology

The way that we talk, The way that we walk, It’s there in our thoughts

We’re gonna cause a controversy

The way that we talk, The way that we walk, So easily caught

Click here to choose from iTunes and other podcatchers. Subscription is free – it just means that whenever you open iTunes, it will automatically check for updates and download new podcasts. The online archive is here.

Intro/outro music: Intercontinental Music Lab. Image: The Woe Betides. Click here to sponsor this podcast.

How do we do it? It all starts off very philosophical and high-minded, with talk of determinism and Islamic polymaths… and descends directly into sex robots and swearing. Sorry guys. The picture opposite is a design for Al Jazari’s drink-serving automatons, which Hayley mentions before Jim brings the tone down considerably.

Listen out for Jim’s Geek Poll for the results from last month’s Star Wars Star Trek-based poll and cast your vote in this month’s … *sigh* … sex robot-related ponderer below.

This is our February Spotify list but for all the songs we’ve ever played on the podcast, you want this one. And here are your download links:

DNA – Farrah

Coin Operated Boy – Dresden Dolls

Girl from Mars – Ash

There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards – Ian Dury & the Blockheads

What is Gravity? – Tom Glazer and Dottie Evans

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Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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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 Beswickand others for the listener-sourced badger artwork accompanying this post.

THE SONG: Underground by Andy Brown

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 (top), Martin (middle) and Beki (bottom). Do send us other badger art via the comments section – we’re quite enjoying it.

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

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)

 
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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

Lyrics: Currently being typed up by the lyric fairies…

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

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

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.

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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.

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

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

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)

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.

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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

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

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Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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***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

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.

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Image: Toho Company Ltd (1956).

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

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Intro/outro music by Intercontinental Music Lab.

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Image: Andrew Pontzen

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)

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.

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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

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

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)

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.

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

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‘.

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.

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.

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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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

[Click speech bubbles for captions]

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).

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.

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

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.

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 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)

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.

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.

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)