Focus On Music: Metronomy

Named after the musical term for the measurement of time by an instrument, Metronomy are the dance-meets-rock project of London-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Joseph Mount. The live version of Metronomy also include keyboardist/saxophonist Oscar Cash and keyboardist/bassist Gabriel Stebbing. Prior to Metronomy, Mount and Stebbing played together in bands such as the Upsides, a pop group the pair described as "The Original Busted," and "The Customers", with whom they played in university. Using an old computer that his father gave him, Mount started Metronomy in 2002 as a side project to the other bands he played with. When his cousin Cash joined Metronomy, it became the trio's main project. With a sound inspired by everyone from Devo and David Bowie to N.E.R.D. and Pavement, Metronomy earned buzz for their engaging live show as well as official and unoffical remixes of tracks by Gorillaz, Architecture in Helsinki, Sebastien Tellier, Kate Nash, U2, and Britney Spears.

 

Metronomy's latest The English Riviera is due out April 11, 2011 and features the songs The Look and The Bay.

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Focus On: Circus Freak Show

A freak show is an exhibition of rarities, "freaks of nature" — such as unusually tall or short humans, and people with both male and female secondary sexual characteristics or other extraordinary diseases and conditions — and performances that are expected to be shocking to the viewers. Heavily tattooed or pierced people have sometimes been seen in freak shows, as have fire-eating and sword-swallowing acts.

Freak shows were popular in the United States from around 1840 to the 1970s, and were often, but not always, associated with circuses and carnivals. Some shows also exhibited deformed animals (such as two-headed cows, one-eyed pigs, and four-horned goats) and famous hoaxes, or simply "science gone wrong" exhibits (such as deformed babies).

Changes in popular culture and entertainment led to the decline of the freak show as a form of entertainment. As previously mysterious anomalies were scientifically explained as genetic mutations or diseases, freaks became the objects of sympathy rather than fear or disdain.