It looks like somebody at MSNBC finally listened to me. The AMP guys got some real press and here it is on YouTube…
previous posts… [1][2]
[The Afghan Music Project]
[YouTube - AMP on MSNBC]
Update on my previous post on the Afghan Music Project:
As of May 1st, 2006, the Afghan Music Project CD has climbed to No. 12 on the iTunes World Music Chart. All credit is due to Chris Becherer and Adam Gouttierre, 2 Berkeley students who traveled to Kabul in the summer of 2005 to record and produce an album of traditional Afhgani music. They’re not getting the press they deserve on this, but this NPR blurb is a start.
[NPR : Music from Afghanistan a Hit Online]
[The Afghan Music Project]
Chris Becherer, a friend of mine at Berkeley, spent last summer in Afghanistan with another Berkeley student producing a record of traditional Afhgan music. If that doesn’t sound fascinating to you, spend just a few minutes on their blog.
| They spent 10 days on the ground in Kabul, gathering famed Afghan musicians – long silenced by the oppressive Taliban regime – recording an entire professional album at Radio Killid Studio – hardly more than a shack – and blogging from internet cafes that were frequent targets of suicide bombers. | 
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The album they recorded is available on iTunes and Rhapsody and the proceeds all go towards funding music programs in Afghanistan in an effort to revitalize what was a dying part of their culture.
They got BoingBoinged last year, but those ass-hats won’t post a follow-up. Feel free to email them urging that they post something, because they obviously don’t like me. And then buy the songs on iTunes.
Jay Mohr – you might better know him as Bob Sugar, Jerry Maguire’s nemesis and one-time protege – goes on a diatribe about the winter olympics. While I don’t think he’s particularly funny and usually find his SI.com articles to be pretty worthless, this one, which could have been much better if he had spent more than an hour writing it, is worth reading if only for the conclusion…
“…if you are a man, and you are wearing sequins, I just cannot take you seriously. Unless of course you are Neil Diamond. If you put Neil Diamond in skates and team him up with a cute girl and he sings Coming To America as he competes, you just won yourself a viewer.”
Check that. You won yourself two.
[SI.com - Jay Mohr: I couldn't care less about the Olympics]