The 20 Most Awesome SciFi TV Theme Songs

Neal Hefti, the jazzy trumpeter behind such TV theme songs as the propulsive ditty that introduced the 1960s Batman series, has passed away. His composition—with its singular staccato lyric, itself a paean to Adam West’s be-spandexed superhero—may have been intentionally campy, but it’s proven both indelible and award-winning. (Hefti won a Grammy for it in 1966.) What other title tunes for live-action TV shows rock our world? Below, a list of our 20 favorites. Foggy memory? Click on any title to hear the tune.

Alien Nation (by Steve Dorff)
A chorus swells over bongos that settle into a calypso/merengue beat. Aurally taxing or delightfully ballsy? Discuss.

The Avengers (by Laurie Johnson)
The spy-fi series’ anthem begins with a sexy swagger then moseys into a brass-tickled swinging-sixties delight.

Battlestar Galactica (by Stu Phillips)
We’re talking about the 1978 TV series, with an intro that plays like a wistful film score.

The Bionic Woman (by Jerry Fielding)
It’s an ambling jazz set, man. Because Jaime Sommers is that cool.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (by Stu Phillips)

Token straight-guy narration lends way to aggressive horns, then a delicious orchestral creation straight out of one of those ’80s night-time soaps.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (by Nerf Herder)
What could’ve easily been a goth travesty (given the subject matter) became a rousing, pop-punk track that still smells like teen spirit.

Dark Angel (by Chuck D and McLyte)
As with the Alien Nation intro, we can appreciate the use of unlikely genres in sci-fi theme songs. Admittedly, this rap-inspired endeavor quickly devolves into a low-rent take on Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise.” (Maybe that's because it was co-written by the group's frontman.) However, it’s the only one we can think of that boldly takes on the hippity-hop, so we’ll give it mad props and stuff.

Dr. Who (by Ron Granier)
Dr. What? Dr. Who? Switcha flow, getcha dough. (A little Jay-Z humor to jump off that Dark Angel entry, folks.) The original Who song is the sci-fi equivalent of a galloping Western tune rendered enigmatic by way of a menacing, repetitious guitar riff and haunting synths.

The Greatest American Hero (by Joey Scarbury)
So cheesy, predictable, and pedestrian that it brilliantly straddles the line between sincerity and parody—which is precisely why Seinfeld aped it spectacularly some 15 years later.

Knight Rider (by Stu Phillips)
This slow-burning, pulsating offering from the Hoff incarnation is to auto-centric crime-fighting what the Miami Vice theme song is to motor-boat-propelled sting operations.

Lost in Space (by Alexander Courage)
Best use of flautists (presumably on piccolos), who tango puckishly with their brassy cohorts. Jethro Tull should be so talented.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (by Joel Hodgson, Josh Weinstein, and
Charles Erickson)
Decidedly lo-fi, it plays like an ’80s one-hit wonder. As such, it’s impossible to get out of your head.

The Outer Limits (by Dominic Frontiere)
Kinda like the unsettling Twilight Zone theme— “There is nothing wrong with your television, do not attempt to adjust the picture…” Only a bit jauntier.

Star Trek (by Alexander Courage)
Opera lady’s kooky, high priestess melisma makes for memorable karaoke recreations.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (by Dennis McCarthy)
Ambitious, majestic, and frontier-evoking—just like the show’s raison d’etre. Make it so, y'all!

Stargate SG-1 (by David Arnold/Joel Goldsmith)
Swelling, almost military, orchestrations settle into a soaring, totally hummable instrumental.

The Twilight Zone (by Marius Constant)
Unmatched in its creepiness, the iconic composition sonically spirals as a voiceover (courtesy of Rod Serling, we presume) promises bewildering tableaus of "things and ideas" unknown.

The X-Files (by Mark Snow)
The eerie atmosphere-setter evokes images of an ominous alien spaceship looming over Earth. Also, it's easy to whistle.

Xena: Warrior Princess (by Joseph LoDuca)
A chanty, percussive world-music offering that mercifully resides in a galaxy far, far away from the Enya/Tesh/Yanni oeuvre.

Wonder Woman (by Normal Gimbel and Charles Fox)
“In your satin tights, fighting for your rights”? Ridiculous lyrics aside, this disco-infused tune here’s a booming classic that’s almost as fun to sing as the Good Times theme song. Almost.

Rumors resurface of a Facebook music store

As anyone who has held up a lighter alongside friends during a second encore can tell you, social networking and music are meant to sing together. MySpace reminded everyone of its roots last month with the launch of MySpace Music, and inside sources say that Facebook may finally rock out with its own duet soon.

Music has always been one of MySpace's shining features, so well-known that it's part of a supposed social networking divide. Long before News Corp. purchased it, MySpace became the place for independent—and increasingly mainstream—musicians to build a community with their fans. Now, with last month's introduction of a 5 million-strong catalog of downloadable and streamable songs from all the major labels and (arguably not enough) indies, MySpace finally took its next logical leap into becoming a full-blown social hub for music.

With Facebook's roots as a private bulletin board for college students, it has yet to cross into MySpace's territory when it comes to music. While additions in recent years of "Pages" have allowed users to become "fans" of products or musicians, Facebook has never held a candle to MySpace's integration of tools for artists to promote themselves and their music. Sure, Facebook's recently-opened platform has opened a few doors for users to stream music and share their favorite artists via apps such as iLike (with 5 million monthly users) and Rhapsody. But this middleware still means that music isn't an integral component of the Facebook experience.

If the New York Post's sources are on to something, Facebook may be about to take a serious step into becoming a music outlet. Not much is known about exactly how or what features Facebook will offer, but a Facebook music store or service would probably work along the lines of the rumors we reported in October 2007. In other words: not like MySpace's.

Digital music distribution is experiencing a resurgence of competition now that DRM has all but been eliminated (we're looking at you, iTunes Store), but we aren't banking on Facebook playing second fiddle to MySpace Music. Considering Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's reported reluctance to give up the same equity control to the labels that MySpace did to create its new store, the company would probably opt to partner with established services like iTunes Store, Amazon, or even Real's Rhapsody. Facebook has already tested these waters, too, with brief partnerships with iTunes and Ticketmaster. Why sweat it out with the labels when your best feature is a platform, and everyone else has already done all the licensing work for you?

Of course, anything Facebook introduces—be it a full-blown music store or branded applications from established outlets—will probably be at least marginally successful. Its chances for long-term growth for music sales improve when you consider the fact that Facebook just edged out MySpace in worldwide unique visitors in August. If Facebook wants to ensure a hit, though, it'll have to leverage its unique advantages of a rich, integrated application ecosystem and initiatives like its Facebook Connect platform that lets users take their data to other sites and services.

Eminem: “I’ll vote for Barack"

After a lengthy period away from the spotlight, Eminem is set to return with his new Dr. Dre-produced album Relapse. “For probably the past five months pretty much straight I've been working with Dre,” he announced earlier this month, before dropping the first taster for the album in the form of “I’m Having a Relapse.”

But now Eminem has turned his attention to the forthcoming presidential election, announcing: “I’ll vote for Barack." Speaking with characteristic frankness to DJ Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1, he said: “I know we are going into a recession. Pardon the cliché but we need something to change. I think Barack would be a breath of fresh air, to get in there and actually get what's left of the Bush administration out the door."

Reunited, Loud and Finding the Love

Everyone entering the Stardust Ballroom on Sunday afternoon at the Catskills hotel Kutsher’s was urged to take a pair of earplugs, and for good reason: the music at the last day of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival here was loud and about to get louder.

The headliner was My Bloody Valentine, the 1980s Irish post-punk band that surrounded its heartsick songs with bristling layers of noise. It has released only two full-length studio albums; the second was “Loveless,” back in 1991. At the festival My Bloody Valentine was playing its first United States concert in 16 years, starting an American tour after blasting its way across Britain this summer. The band finishes a two-night stand at Roseland Tuesday night.

Earplugs were justified. My Bloody Valentine ended its terrific set with a version of “You Made Me Realise” that incorporated a flat-out 17-minute roar: Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher on guitars and Debbie Googe on bass scrabbling frantic, unremitting tremolos and Colm O Ciosoig battering his drums nonstop, with overtones and subtones rolling through the ballroom like tsunamis.

My Bloody Valentine had also chosen the other bands for Sunday’s festival lineup, and its tastes are not dulcet. The lineup included Dinosaur Jr., ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead, Yo La Tengo, Mogwai, Spectrum and Mercury Rev, all unleashing dense drones and formidable crescendos. That meant overdriven amplifiers all day long.

Mr. Shields, 45, who leads My Bloody Valentine, is soft-spoken and shy, and he rarely gives interviews. But he spent much of the festival amid the audience, eager to hear the music he had booked. Occasionally he was recognized by respectful fans. In a brief conversation a few hours before his band’s set, sitting on the hotel lawn, where he could smoke, he spoke about the re-emergence of My Bloody Valentine.

Formed in Dublin in 1984, the group developed its initial sound as a reaction against what other bands were doing, Mr. Shields said. Most were using the cushy sounds of flangers and chorus pedals; My Bloody Valentine, using an effect called reverse reverb, strove for something “ambient but upfront, with a dryness,” Mr. Shields said. Later the band would pile up countless other effects — loops, echoes, distortion boxes — creating the sonic onslaught that has been cited as an influence by virtually every collegiate or indie-rock band that knows how to set off feedback.

“Loveless” was difficult and expensive to make. Its songs are filled with emotional turmoil and enveloped in otherworldly sounds that had Mr. Shields recording in studio after studio, perpetually dissatisfied. The album’s cost has been estimated at £250,000, about $458,000, which helped to bankrupt its independent record label, Creation. “It was a very, very damaged time for everybody,” Mr. Shields said.

His band mates have described Mr. Shields as a perfectionist, and he was equally obsessive over what would have been the band’s third album, after signing with Island Records. Ms. Googe and Mr. O Ciosoig left My Bloody Valentine in 1995; Mr. Shields kept recording on his own. But in 1997, Mr. Shields said, “the record company refused to pay for any engineers or anything.”

“That was it,” he added. “It was like the plug was pulled, ‘No money for you anymore.’ ”

But he was still under contract, he said, and extricating himself took four years. Around 2000 he started talking with the band members about restarting My Bloody Valentine, but they were all involved in other projects. Years drifted by.

In 2006 Mr. Shields started remastering the My Bloody Valentine catalog and revisiting unreleased songs to be added to a compilation album. When he listened again to material from the aborted third album, he was heartened. “I realized that all that stuff I was doing in 1996 and 1997 was a lot better than I thought.” He now plans to complete that album, and to start recording new material with the band in the fall. He has been writing songs steadily over the years. “I definitely don’t think you need to suffer to be creative,” he said. “I’ve written some of my best songs when I’ve been happy.”

During the remastering the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California made a big offer for a reunited My Bloody Valentine. “We could actually buy equipment and rehearse properly and do it really well,” Mr. Shields said. “That put the idea into our head. Last time we toured we never had equipment. It didn’t sound right. We didn’t have control of the environment. So we were kind of excited to play the songs properly.”

But the band wasn’t ready to appear at the Coachella festival in April, Mr. Shields said. All Tomorrow’s Parties had been courting Mr. Shields for years, and having attended its festivals in Britain, Mr. Shields decided to bring My Bloody Valentine to the upstate New York festival. “We had intentions to do new stuff when we started rehearsing,” he said. “But it was about finding who we were again, and that became way more important than anything intellectual.”

The band spent £200,000, about $366,000, on equipment for the tour, and Mr. Shields laughed when asked how many effects pedals he owned. “Hundreds,” he said. He only uses 30 onstage, he added.

There were no new songs in My Bloody Valentine’s set on Sunday, but as in the ’80s and early 1990s, My Bloody Valentine’s music flashed simultaneous, contradictory signals: the songs were bruised and hurting at their core but exultantly propulsive, catchy like punk and pop but spiked with fearsome cacophony. High, looping sounds skirled like Celtic reels; guitar chords hurtled forward, heaved back and forth, screeched with fury and exaltation; the drums were triumphal and implacable. “You can’t do anything with sound,” Mr. Shields had said, “unless there is emotion.”

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON

Sheryl Crow wants your vote - and figures she can get it for a song.

The Grammy Award-winning singer is offering a free download of her politically charged tune "Gasoline" to anyone who logs onto the Rock the Vote Web site or anyone on the group's mailing list.

And the first 50,000 people who register three friends to vote will get a free digital copy of her album "Detours."

"I hope people wake up and emotionally engage in issues," Crow said in a telephone interview during a visit to Los Angeles.

Crow's giveaway is a kickoff to Rock the Vote's voter registration drive, said the organization's executive director Heather Smith.

Crow, 46, was one of the founding artists of Rock the Vote 18 years ago. She said the "Detours" album fits perfectly into the group's cause since the lyrics touch on topics such as adoption, breast cancer, the war in Iraq, the environment and Hurricane Katrina.

"It's about the issues that everyone's talking about, but there's a lot of hope," Crow said. "At this moment in my life, writing about anything else would be uninteresting and impossible because I feel such urgency."

Rock the Vote aims to register 2 million young people to vote by November - the largest youth voter drive in history by three times, Smith said. Anyone who recruits three people to vote will have to log onto the Rock the Vote Web site and go through a verification process before receiving Crow's album, Smith said.

No Doors Without Jim Morrison

In 1970, The Doors got into a fight over Buick, the lumbering auto manufacturer that wanted to use the apocalyptic Los Angeles quartet's "Light My Fire" to sell cars. The agreement that resulted demanded that no business decision be made without approval from all the of band members. Decades after Morrison's death, that detente has just been fortified by the California Supreme Court.

The remaining Doors have been embroiled in a rerun of that earlier dispute ever since keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger hit the road in 2002 with The Cult vocalist Ian Astbury and clumsily called themselves The Doors of the 21st Century, grossing $8 million in the process. Drummer John Densmore complained, arguing that "of the 21st Century" was barely visible on the tour's promotional materials and that it used Morrison's image at length, a clear no-no. Then he sued.

On Friday, according to the Associated Press, he won.

"You can't call yourselves The Doors because you can't have The Doors without Jim Morrison," argued Densmore's attorney S. Jerome Mandel, summing up the legal conclusion of the disagreement that has torn the already fragmented legend into further shreds.

Densmore's rationale was simple: Jim wouldn't have approved. Morrison was the lone holdout against the Buick deal, and it was shelved over his disapproval. And while Densmore was originally for the Buick deal, when General Motors offered the surviving members of The Doors $15 million to use "Light My Fire" in 2001, he kept Morrison's wishes alive by killing the offer. He did the same for a proposed iPod campaign with Apple.

It is bizarre that nearly 40 years after its first copyfight, The Doors are still at war with each other over money. But Manzarek and Krieger have run out of options, now that Densmore and Morrison's estate have teamed up to convince the California Supreme Court not to take up the case.

It is bizarre that nearly 40 years after its first copyfight, The Doors are still at war with each other over money. But Manzarek and Krieger have run out of options, now that Densmore and Morrison's estate have teamed up to convince the California Supreme Court not to take up the case.

When the music is over/Turn out the lights, the Lizard King once sang. Time to hit those halogens!

Barenaked Ladies' Singer Walks from Plane Crash

Barenaked Ladies' frontman -- not the one just busted for drugs -- Ed Robertson survived a plane crash early this morning north of Bancroft, Ontario by the skin of his barenaked butt.

Sgt. Jeff Mackinnon of the Bancroft OPP told the Intelligencer, "At 12:30 PM a Cessna 206 was taking off from Baptiste Lake, lost airspeed and entered a wooded area west of the lake." Mackinnon said all four passengers, including Ed, walked out of the woods and then reported the crash.

The Intelligencer's sources say Ed was piloting his own float-plane -- the kind with pontoons -- but police won't release any details because an investigation by Canada's Transportation Safety Board is underway.

A new era of music

Online music is a complex and constantly-morphing beast, especially from the perspective of the bands and artists who create it. For small indie bands, that beast can be quite a challenge to wrangle. Without a label and a team of execs whose entire job it is to make sure your stuff is everywhere it should be, dealing with all the intricacies of online music sales is just one (or 20) more thing(s) to do—on top of making sure the proceeds from that last show will pay your rent. But times, they are a' changin', and if the artists who've recently shared their digital music industry experiences with us are any indication, indie bands are becoming increasingly savvy at navigating the online music world. From distribution to promotion to actually making money, indie bands are doing more than just getting by without the major labels—they're actually thriving.

It's already widely acknowledged that you don't need a Universal or Sony BMG behind you to enter the online music market, thanks to services like Tunecore. Tunecore enables just about everyone (and we mean everyone) to sell their wares through the big dogs of digital music: iTunes, Amazon MP3, eMusic, and Rhapsody, to name a few. But getting online is just the first (and now, the easiest) step. "The struggle is no longer getting it there, but trying to market and promote once it is there," Panda Riot band manager and guitarist Brian Cook told me.

Panda Riot is a Chicago-based electronic distortion band originally founded in 2005. After recording its first full album in 2007 "in a tiny bedroom in Philadelphia" with the help of a MacBook Pro and Apple's Logic Pro software, Panda Riot began selling music—simultaneously in both CD and online form—in November. Since the band's music sales adventure is still quite young, its perspective on online music is a little different than the old guard that runs, say, the Big Four music labels.

Panda Riot uses Tunecore to sell its music through iTunes in the US, Canada, Japan, and Italy, as well as Amazon MP3. But, as we mentioned in our Tunecore feature, the real key to success online is promoting your music—otherwise, no one has a reason to be aware of it and buy it. "It's all social network type stuff. Blogs are a huge part of the equation too, and Internet Radio (like WOXY.com) also plays a big role," Cook said. "It's all about finding avenues that are global."

Independent artist Ryan Lindsey agrees. The Oklahoma-based musician has been playing in indie bands for over a decade and started doing his solo thing about four years ago. Perhaps because he's slightly more seasoned (although coincidentally about the same age as Panda Riot's members), he utilizes some of the more "traditional" online methods to promote his music, which he sells through a service called CD Baby that operates in a similar manner to Tunecore. "I just send out bulletins on MySpace, and I have an e-mail list that I send out," he told me. "If I have enough money, I'll send posters." (Yes, real ones.)

MySpace, unsurprisingly, has been a strong force for both Lindsey and Panda Riot by providing a place for bands to promote their wares and for fans to interact directly with them. Cook said that MySpace is particularly useful on the band's end because it provides a play counter on their embedded music that lets them measure reaction to certain things (new reviews going up, a feature on Internet radio, etc.) on a day-to-day basis. And since it is one of the most well-known and well-trafficked social networks for bands and artists, that likely won't be changing anytime soon. With the advent of MySpace Music and a built-in user base in the millions, the site will likely continue to serve as a major portal for indie bands, even as they continue to explore other avenues of promotion.

Okay, so it's easy to sell and promote your music in this newfangled Internet world without being attached to a big label. But as a comparatively small artist, how do you cope with all of the bad things about the Internet, like the ease with which people can get your music without paying for it, if you're trying to make a living? If Big Content had its way, we'd all believe that our entire society would collapse into Sodom and Gomorrah part deux if it weren't for DRM. Panda Riot doesn't seem to think so, though, and they believe the world is a better place without it. "DRM doesn't help anyone," Cook said. "In my opinion, DRM was the scapegoat for the music industry not adapting to all the avenues that the Internet opened."

Not only do many indie artists hate DRM, but they view P2P is a force to be harnessed, not something to waste energy fighting. The folks from Panda Riot recounted a story about their album showing up on BitTorrent and a number of other P2P networks—somehow, they found a site that listed how many times the album had been downloaded and they saw that it was relatively high. "At first, we were going to send a takedown notice, but then we decided to keep it up and see what happens," Cook said. So... what happened?

"Well, our sales doubled."

Before anyone gets all worked up, there are a few caveats to that claim. For one, a relatively small band can see major changes in sales volume very quickly, so even a small amount of free promotion in the form of BitTorrent can have a significantly more potent effect on sales than it would on, say, Madonna. Cook added that the album's arrival on the BitTorrent scene coincided with some reviews of the album, so the non-P2P exposure deserves some of the credit. However, the main point is that BitTorrent (at the very least) didn't seem to hurt sales.

"The funny thing is that we've actually had people say to our faces, 'Yeah, I downloaded your album off some website. It's awesome!'" Cook told me. "It basically translates to 'I stole your music and I like it.'" At least those people are coming to the shows after stealing said music, though. For an indie group, obscurity is most definitely the enemy, and Cook believes that the exposure is worth it in the end.

Ryan Lindsey in the studio

Lindsey agrees. "I'm all about people getting my music however. I'll make more money in playing shows," he said. "The more people steal my record, hopefully the more people come out." Not that either of them want you to steal their records—if you like the albums, they would love for you to buy them. But both Lindsey and Cook seemed to think that wasting time fighting the P2P monster would sap time and energy away from doing what they (and the fans) love: making music.

Online music isn't the only way that Panda Riot and Lindsay sell their music, of course, as they both do CD sales to some degree or another. Lindsey said that his online sales far outweigh his CD sales—a revelation that was not too surprising, since he is considerably fresher to the scene than, say, Metallica. Panda Riot said it was a little more balanced. "Our CD sales are just as much, if not more some months, than our iTunes sales," Cook said. "We still feel CDs are relevant. People like to have a physical object. Its like a artifact of the music." This, of course, is true, although given the success of online music, it's obvious that not everyone requires that physical artifact in order to enjoy an album. Cook agreed, pointing out that those who buy the CDs tend to be "the hardcore music lovers."

In the end, both parties consider themselves to be moderately successful at what they do, although they aspire to more. Whether any of them can truly make it big—like Trent Reznor big—entirely on their own, however, is another question. It does seem pretty unlikely—after all, bands like Radiohead have openly admitted that they still need a label's help in order to reach the masses. On the other hand, Nine Inch Nails, Oasis, and Jamiroquai have all decided to forego their labels. Of course, these are all bands that are already well-established (with the help of record labels earlier in their careers), but perhaps it won't be completely impossible for an independent artist to get to that level as the online music market continues to mature.

Wanna Be in the New Weezer Video?

Young rabblerousers in the greater Los Angeles region, have Weezer got a proposition for you. The nerd rock mainstays are looking for a whole hell of a lot of folks to join them August 21 in L.A. as they shoot the video for Red Album single "Troublemaker". The clip apparently uses their recent Hootenanny gigs as a jumping off point.

Interested parties are encouraged to e-mail weezervideo@gmail.com post haste and hope for the best. Many will enter and not quite as many will get the nod, so the location and other details are forthcoming for those lucky sods who get the invite.

The "Troublemaker" single is out in the UK on September 29. Weezer's forthcoming tour-- including those dates with spiritual heirs Tokyo Police Club and Angels & Airwaves-- is, uh, forthcoming.

Weezer:

09-13 Osaka, Japan - Intex Hall
09-15 Tokyo, Japan - Yoyogi Arena
09-23 Boston, MA - Tsongas Arena *
09-24 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden *
09-26 Atlantic City, NJ - Borgata Casino *
09-27 Camden, NJ - Susquehanna Bank Center *
09-29 Detroit, MI - The Palace of Auburn Hills *
09-30 Toronto, Ontario - Air Canada Center *
10-02 Rosemont, IL - All State Arena *
10-03 St. Paul, MN - Xcel Arena *
10-05 Denver, CO - Broomfield *
10-07 Salt Lake City, UT - E Center *
10-09 Portland OR - Memorial Coliseum *
10-10 Vancouver, British Columbia - GM Place *
10-11 Seattle, WA - Key Arena *
10-13 San Jose, CA - Events Center *
10-14 Los Angeles, CA - The Forum *
10-17 San Diego, CA - Cox Arena *
10-18 Phoenix, AZ - Arizona State Fair *
10-20 Austin, TX - Frank Erwin Center *
10-21 Dallas, TX - Nokia Theater *
10-23 Houston, TX - Reliant Arena *
10-25 Atlanta, GA - Gwinnett Arena *

Those Four Irresistible Strings

EVERYTHING began falling into place for Jen Kwok once she decided to buy a pink ukulele.

Last summer she was living in Hell’s Kitchen, working as a finance manager for a nonprofit arts company and having little success with her forays into stand-up comedy.

Then her boyfriend bought himself a natural wood ukulele. She started strumming it, and found it easy to play with little training.

Within a month Ms. Kwok had fulfilled a childhood desire to own a pink instrument, acquiring a ukulele in that color and adding it to her act. Her corny jokes (“I don’t understand why they call it lubricant. It should be lubri-can.”) worked better when she strummed.

By November, NBC was flying her to Burbank, Calif., to perform for casting directors at a talent showcase. She has since quit her job and is now auditioning for sitcoms and movie parts.

“The ukulele is a happy instrument,” she said last week. “People’s eyes light up when I step up with it.”

Suddenly there’s something irresistible again about ukuleles. What Ms. Kwok stumbled into is an international voraciousness for all things having to do with the tiny four-string instrument. From wildly popular Web videos to car commercials and concert stages, the ukulele, born in Hawaii more than a century ago, is gently plunking heartstrings everywhere.

“You can’t walk down the street with a ukulele without being asked about it,” said Chris Johnson, who plays the instrument with the Deedle Deedle Dees, a Brooklyn-based rock band for children. “I teach some kids music lessons, usually starting with piano, but they are all interested in ukulele.”

What the world seems to need now is something tiny, fun and inexpensive.

“In darker times there is something appealingly light about it,” said Jim Beloff, who wrote “The Ukulele: A Visual History” and sells ukulele merchandise at fleamarketmusic.com. “There’s a lightness and a sweetness about the sound, and it doesn’t hurt that the association people have is with Hawaii, which is a beautiful place. It’s kind of a vacation in your mind.”

SALES of ukuleles are up in recent years, said Chris Thomas, a spokesman for C. F. Martin & Company, the guitar maker. After stopping production on high-end ukuleles for about a decade, the company noticed resale prices for its vintage models were rising, reaching up to $8,000. Two years ago the company started making its “3” series again.

“There is an upsurge of interest in this instrument that has already had two major incarnations of popularity,” said Stan Jay, the owner of Mandolin Brothers, an instrument shop on Staten Island.

The ukulele’s first golden age started during World War I, when the instrument was demonstrated at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Soon Tin Pan Alley bands adopted it, and, by the 1920s, Roy Smeck, whose nickname was the Wizard of the Strings, became famous by playing it in early sound movies.

The second era started at the height of the cold war, in the 1950s, when Arthur Godfrey played the ukulele regularly on his show “Arthur Godfrey and His Friends” and recommended a plastic Maccaferri Islander model, which sold millions.

Tiny Tim had a 1968 hit with his ukulele version of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips With Me,” which played as something of a parody of 1950s earnestness, and managed, despite the song’s huge success, to render the instrument uncool, Mr. Beloff said.

When Mr. Beloff, a former associate publisher of Billboard magazine, became fascinated with the ukulele and published his first ukulele songbook in 1992, “people thought we were nuts,” he said. “The uke in 1992 was pretty off the pop culture radar.”

Then suddenly it was back on.

The dawn of this third great ukulele era can be traced to 2006, aficionados say, with the appearance of a video on YouTube by Jake Shimabukuro, a Hawaiian-born ukulele player. He had recorded a video for the New York cable access show “Midnight Ukulele Disco” that shows him sitting in Strawberry Fields in Central Park playing an astonishing virtuoso version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

In a phone interview from Kaimuki, the Honolulu suburb in which he lives, Mr. Shimabukuro, 31, said he had no idea the video had been posted on the Web until he started hearing from friends. As his fame spread, he was booked on Conan O’Brien’s show, went on tour with Jimmy Buffett, and earned the nickname Jimi Hendrix of the ukulele.

“When I was growing up, there was no such thing as a touring ukulele player,” said Mr. Shimabukuro, who last week played at the Newport Jazz Festival. “It’s been an amazing experience.”

“All of those places I go to, the ukulele is huge,” he added. “All these teenagers coming to the show with their ukuleles, asking me to sign them. It’s amazing to see that.”

A great thing about the ukulele is how easy it is to learn, said Warren Buffett, the Berkshire Hathaway chairman, who started playing in college. “You can learn how to play it very quickly, even if only badly, as in my case,” he wrote in an e-mail message. “It takes only 15 minutes to actually learn how to play simple songs. You can sing along with it and carry it around easily.”

On the current “American Idol” concert tour, Jason Castro, the fourth-place finisher on the most recent season of the television series, has been using a ukulele to play “Over the Rainbow,” an ode to the lilting version recorded by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, who had only small fame outside Hawaii before his death in 1997 at age 38. He did not live long enough to see his recording used in numerous movies and television shows.

The instrument’s popularity has spread not only across the Pacific Ocean, but also across the Atlantic. The popular United Kingdom-based Web site Ukulele Hunt last week posted ukulele sheet music for eight national anthems in honor of the Olympics.

A recent commercial for Saturn features the ukulele song “Five Years Time” by the British band Noah and the Whale. The song, with silly lyrics about elephants in love and sunny days, is a warm dose of frivolity. It delivers a similar message to the 1960s peace anthem “Give Peace a Chance” without saying anything about peace, or chance.

“And it was fun fun fun when we were laughing,” the song goes. “It was fun fun fun oh it was fun.”

In the case of ukuleles, it can also be inexpensive. Low-end ukuleles sell for as little as $40. Ones used by professional musicians start at about $200. Even sought-after models made from traditional Hawaiian koa wood, by Kamaka, a company founded in 1916 by one of the pioneering ukulele makers, can be had for about $600.

Many lapsed guitar players who learned the six-string in their 20s and now guiltily ignore it in the back of their closets, Mr. Beloff said, are attracted to an instrument that is — if you just go by the string count — one-third easier to play.

“If you were a poor guitar player,” he said, “you suddenly become a pretty good uke player.”

Ukuleles are easy in other ways. “You can throw them in the overhead compartment of the airplane,” said Becca Stevens, a folk singer who features a ukulele in her act. As a New York resident, she added, “it can be a hassle getting all of your stuff out of the apartment to the gig if you play tuba and harp.”

There is, Mr. Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway noted, one drawback to the ukulele that he learned early, something that might give someone pause before picking it up. “I thought it would impress girls,” he wrote, “but no such luck.”

Soundgarden Inadvertently Reunites At Area Cinnabon

SEATTLE—Members of the popular 1990s grunge band Soundgarden shocked critics and fans alike Tuesday, appearing together publicly for the first time in more than a decade after accidentally running into one another at the Northgate Mall Cinnabon.
The unplanned 15-minute reunion was the result of a number of unrelated events, including lead singer Chris Cornell stopping by the baked-goods franchise to buy a Caramel Pecanbon, drummer Matt Cameron taking a break from shopping at the nearby Banana Republic, bass player Ben Shepherd walking by and noticing his one-time bandmates in the food court, and former guitarist and Cinnabon daytime supervisor Kim Thayil working the 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. shift.

According to those in attendance at the packed fast-food venue, the highlight of the incidental Soundgarden reunion came when the rockers reconciled their differences and teamed up for the first time in years to finish off an order of Cinnabon Stix.

"At first it was pretty awkward and none of them seemed like they were really into it," said Al Helbling, 30, a Northgate Mall Sam Goody employee and Soundgarden fan. "But then the drummer comes in and right after that the bass player comes in, and it was like, 'Yes, Soundgarden is back.' It was so intense."

The former members of Soundgarden, who have not released an album together since 1996's Down On The Upside, reported that it was initially difficult to find common ground, but once they began exchanging ideas and riffing on which sugar-filled dessert they were going to order, the chemistry felt "as strong as ever."

While Shepherd told reporters he enjoyed seeing his old bandmates, he admitted to experiencing some last-minute doubts about going through with the encounter.

"I got all the way there, but then I just didn't know if I could do it," Shepherd said. "I had a huge lunch that day. And Cinnabon, that's some really sugary stuff, even if you have a sweet tooth like me."

Thayil, who joined the band shortly after it was formed in 1984, said some tension arose between himself and former front man Chris Cornell early on in the reunion, after Thayil scolded Cornell for entering the cinnamon-bun snack purveyor without a shirt.

"Honestly, I didn't even recognize Chris at first," Thayil said. "All I saw was this bare-chested guy entering the store, and that's unacceptable in the food-service industry. I hate to be the enforcer, but just because we were in a band together doesn't mean I can allow him to create an unhygienic environment."

The heated situation was quickly settled, however, when Thayil offered Cornell a complimentary 12-oz. CarmeLatta Chill. In turn, the 44-year-old lead singer responded by serenading Thayil with a version of the group's hit song "Black Hole Sun" in which he replaced the titular phrase with the word "Cinnabon." Cornell, former singer for the now-defunct group Audioslave, then stuffed his pockets with napkins, saying he needed them for a later solo project.

The two soon moved to a back table, where they joined Shepherd and drummer Matt Cameron, the latter of whom said he was overjoyed to see his old bandmates, since he had to "kill some time" before Pearl Jam practice.

Although Tuesday marked the first time the group has fully reunited, the members of Soundgarden have had a few near-misses in the past 10 years. In August 2000, all four members were seen entering Seattle-area Arby's restaurants, but the reunion never materialized: Cornell and Cameron visited the Meridian Avenue location, while Thayil and Shepherd decided to visit the Michigan Street franchise. The afternoon did, however, mark the largest Temple of the Dog reunion to date, when Cornell and Cameron ran into the rest of the supergroup's members in the restroom.

After the success of the Cinnabon reunion, Soundgarden is reportedly planning a tour of the Sunglass Hut and Piercing Pagoda.

Metallica Try To Recapture Old-School Hunger On Death Magnetic, But Not To Please Fans

For the Metallica faithful, 1996's Load marked the end of an era.
The album was largely panned by the band's allegiant fans but hailed by critics, who praised its inclusion of melodies and exploration of new sounds. Meanwhile, the people who wore Metallica shirts, bought their albums and supported the band from its earliest beginnings claimed the boys were losing some of their grit — something they erroneously connected to the members' decision to hack off their glorious metal hair. And those fans have been grumbling ever since, calling on Metallica to return to their earlier sound.

In short, fans have longed for another Master of Puppets, and they've never been satisfied. But could Metallica's forthcoming album, Death Magnetic, be the next best thing, seeing as the bandmembers themselves have publicly stated that the LP would signal a return to their old-school sound? Frontman James Hetfield is not so sure.

"I don't know — in a way, yes, and in a way, no," he told MTV News last week. "The last thing I want is someone to think, 'Oh, they had to go back to Puppets because that was the best album, and they're doing it because we want it.' If we start writing songs for our fans, something's gone wrong. The fans may think they know best, but hey, I'm the armchair quarterback when I'm watching my team too. At the end of the day, we have to write it because we love it and it's coming from our heart. That's why people connect with it. If you start doing it for the fans, you've lost the plot."

But at the same time, Hetfield does acknowledge that the band did try to find its way back to that Puppets mind-set. (Read about the video for the album's first single, "The Day That Never Comes," here.)

"We recognize there was an essence, there was a youth, there was a something about that record, and this is a perfect time for a record like this," he said, "because old-school metal is huge and coming back, and there's so many people wanting to play, and get riffy again, get solo. ... I love that, so [with this record], it's like us starting over again."

Producer Rick Rubin, he said, was instrumental in helping the band find that old fire again. "His mission statement was to get to the essence of Metallica," Hetfield said. "He told us, 'Think back to Master of Puppets — what were you doing? What were you thinking? What were your influences? What bothered you? What was around you? Where did that hunger come from?' And that was a little bit of homework for us that was a little impossible to get to. You could dress up like you're in 1986, [but] you just can't be there again. We've been through so much — you can't erase the learning we'd done.

"What made sense to us was the hunger, the quest to impress," Hetfield continued. "He said, 'You're going to write a set list. Your next album is a set list of your best songs, and you're going to try and go get signed, do a showcase and impress people.' And that was a great mission statement for us."

But did criticism from fans bleed into the writing and recording process? Did Metallica feel as though they had something to prove with Death Magnetic?

"It's possible, but we just go with our feelings every time," Hetfield said. "You can't go wrong if you go with your heart, and that's pretty much it. We're very comfortable with our fanbase sorting itself out. We don't have to make sure they're happy, because that's like trying to control the world. You can't do it. If people connect with what you're doing, they'll be there. If they don't like this record, they might go away, and that's OK — that means there's a seat for someone else."

For guitarist Kirk Hammett, Death Magnetic isn't so much a return to the band's old-school sound, but rather an update.

"We were looking at the past and seeing what worked for us and updating that sound," he said.

According to drummer Lars Ulrich, people have been slagging the band for so long, he doesn't even hear the criticism anymore. At the end of the day, the band evolved — it had to because its members did. He's proud of the fact that no matter what they've done, they've always been sincere.

"There's always been a melodic side to Metallica, a side that has been reflected in a desire to break free from any of those stereotypes, and to just go where we could go musically and creatively," he said. "I think some of what we've done goes against a lot of the conservative elements in heavy-metal and hard-rock thinking, and that's OK. We've always hovered in our own little bubble, and we've never really had to answer to anybody other than ourselves, and we have an amazing relationship with our fans.

"Listen, we're not in the toothpaste-selling business — it's not about a product," Ulrich added. "The people who really relate to us, they know we have this awkward — some even call it perverse — need to break free from stereotypes, and to be able to go wherever we want, and sometimes, to a fault, but at least it's been a varied, honest ride. We've never bullsh---ed anybody on a creative front. But to be pigeonholed and held in to a particular thing people expect from you, that's certainly not what I'm interested in."

Ozzy Osbourne dishes on 'Guitar Hero' and technology

The latest artist announced to join Guitar Hero World Tour? Ozzy Osbourne. He and guitarist Zakk Wylde will appear in the game, due this fall, as will songs such as Crazy Train and Mr. Crowley. Those songs will be playable in a virtual Ozzfest venue. Osbourne chatted on the phone — just days before this year's Ozzfest Saturday in Dallas — with me about video games and technology.

Q: So you are going to be in a video game?

A: Yeah. I've been involved with it for quite a while. They (Activision) liked my music and I have a big young following, I've been told. I'm from the old school. I don't own a computer. I just got an iPod that I've organized. I have got to learn how to turn it on. That's about it, you know. I can't download. I can't do any load.

Q: So it's really you in the game, right?

A: I had to put on this black suit with all these little ping-pong ball-like things all over me, motion capture. I had to dance around like I'm on stage when one of my songs are on. I don't really know how it works, but I have seen a run of it. It is really interesting. The image of me, I wish I had the energy it has. The graphics are really, really good.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Oklahoma | Dallas | Christmas | Fox | iPod | Sharon | Larry King | Metallica | Mama | Osbournes | Ozzfest | Crazy Train | Pro Tools | Zakk Wylde | Guitar Hero World Tour

Q: What do you think of these video games as a way for music lovers to interact with music?

A: The music thing is OK, but there are so many other video games. Like I went "wow" at the one with carjacking and all of that. Some desensitize kids, you know. It's a changing time. Of course, I used to see horror films when I was a kid and to lie that you were over 16 to get in.

My son Jack, he won't return your call. You have to text him. I have a cellphone, but I can't say I'm in love with the thing. You have to be pretty bright to keep up with the changes, and just when you learn something, it's time to learn something else.

Q: Do you see video games as a good way for musicians to get their music heard?

A: I guess it is. The download epidemic has killed record sales. It's kind of like the new thing to do, I suppose, because it's one way of getting your music to kids and keeps the tours going. I used to make a record, and more or less it would sell a million and it would go a while, you know. Now, it's like you get 750,000 or 800,000 and it slows down. For every one you sell, 10 get downloaded. But it's technology. You ain't gonna stop it now.
Q: Anything new you can tell me about your upcoming Osbournes' TV project (a six-episode hourlong variety show on Fox)?

A: There's a word that scares me a little (used to describe the new show), the word "variety." If we do a Christmas show, believe me, I'm not going to be sitting at a cozy fire with a scarf on and singing, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas." I'm making that perfectly clear right now. I'm not singing any (crappy) little f—-ing Christmas songs.

It's kind of like an unscripted (thing). I hope it turns out because Mama, Sharon, is kind of the TV person. She said it would be great if we could all get back together and put this thing on. You know what? OK. We nearly lost her a few years ago when she had cancer. So her passion is for TV. She loves it, so we all love it with her, you know. But I'm not going to become the weatherman or the next Larry King. I'm just going to check it out.

Q: Can you say anything about next year's Ozzfest? (This year's is a one-off concert with Metallica and System of a Down Saturday in Dallas).

A: I guess my wife has a plan up her sleeve. There will be something next year. I think it will be the Ozzfest again, back to normal (a multi-date tour). But I don't know at this point.

Q: Anything else in the works?

A: I am recording another album soon. I've got a Pro Tools machine downstairs in my house now, which I record from home now. I can't turn the f——ing thing on. (Laughs). It's like the brain of the house. But when you have somebody who knows what they are doing, it's so easy to make records now, it's not even funny.

The art of making records is somewhat diminishing. It's taking the passion out of it. But I will try to give it as much real me as I can. There's so many tricks I can use.

I want to make two albums. Make one and go out on that one, and make another one and go out on that. Time is very valuable to me now. I'm 60 this December. It does not seem 10 years since I was 50. It really doesn't. My mission now is to do as much as I can.

Jay-Z Debuts New Song from Blueprint III

Kanye West surprised his New York fans at the Madison Square Garden leg of his Glow in the Dark tour by bringing out Jay-Z to close out the show. Concertgoers probably expected a memorable performance, but what they didn't expect was Jay-Z's announcement of his upcoming album, Blueprint III, his last album on Def Jam.

A video posted on Kanye's blog last night shows the two rap greats performing a song Kanye produced for Jay-Z's new album, Blueprint III. The song which is stacked atop an SUV-friendly bass will surely set clubs ablaze this summer.

Jay-Z kicked off his verse by touching on the Glastonbury controversy that led Oasis singer Noah Gallagher to criticize his inclusion at the festival. Gallagher stated that rap had no place at Glastonbury, a traditionally guitar-heavy event. In response, Jay-Z put on a show by launching his Glastonbury set with a mock performance of Oasis' "Wonderwall," guitar in hand.
"That bloke from Oasis said I couldn’t play guitar. Somebody shoulda told ‘em I’m a fucking Roc star," raps Jay-Z on his new Blueprint III song. Kanye repeatedly chanted a hook that sounded like "Jockin' Jay-Z, jockin' Jay-Z."

Ask any Jay-Z fan and they'll tell you that his 2001 CD, The Blueprint, remains one of his greatest albums ever. Jay has been trying to recapture the magic of that album to no avail. The first Blueprint follow-up, 2002's Blueprint 2: The Gift and The Curse, marked a low point in Jay-Z's catalog, as the album suffered from excessive filler material and forced collaborations. Let's hope he can deliver the goods this time.