3 Actresses 3 (hopefully not rubbish) albums

Nobody seems content mastering just one medium these day. It has become the norm for actresses to sing, rappers to act and artist tho direct. Most of the time when actors and actresses start making music it turns out to be sub par rubbish which wouldn’t get released if they weren’t famous. Anybody remember keanu reeves’ band dogstar? These three upcoming albums by actresses (one is more of a mix-tape than an actual album) sound like they are going to be worth downloading and maybe even paying for!

Zooey Deschanel

Deschanel stared in Almost Famous, Elf and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. She is going to release an album, called Volume One, as ‘She And Him’ alongside singer/ songwriter M. Ward in March. They met on the set of the forthcoming film The Go Getter. The album will be released on Ward’s record label Merge

Here is a clip of the pair at LA’s Disney Concert Hall:

Mp3: M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel - When I get To The Border Zshare download link

Stream: The Go Getter Myspace page.

Update: recently released track listing:

01 Sentimental Heart
02 Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?
03 This Is Not a Test
04 Change Is Hard
05 I Thought I Saw Your Face Today
06 Take It Back
07 I Was Made for You
08 You Really Got a Hold on Me (Miracles cover)
09 Black Hole
10 Got Me
11 I Should Have Known Better (Beatles cover)

Scarlett Johansson

Johansson is due to release an album of Tom Waits covers on May 20th. How on earth she is going to pull this off is anybodies guess, Tom Waits sings about two octaves lower than your average singer and sounds like he drinks whisky for breakfast (in a good way). The album will either be called Scarlett Sings Tom Waits or Anywhere I lay my head depending on who you believe and will be released by Atco (Rhino) records. I haven’t managed to find any clips of Scarlett’s Tom Waits impression and I’m still not convinced this is actually gonna happen.

The album is produced by David Sitek of TV On The Radio and features members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. No track listing details yet. Its also worth mentioning that Scarlett sang with The Jesus And Mary Chain at Coachella so she clearly has great taste in music. Here a very shakey video of the Coachella performance:

Natalie Portman

This one is kind of a cheat as its already released and its a compilation but its an excuse to see a photo of Natalie Portman, so stop complaining. Last October Portman curated an album which was released on itunes with all the profits going to FINCA (Foundation for International Community Assistance)

Tracklisting:

1. Be Good (Tokyo Police Club)
2. My Night With the Prostitute From Marseille (Beirut) [exclusive]
3. Plaid Lined Jacket (Tom Brosseau)
4. Tudo Bem Malandro (Curumin)
5. Australia (The Shins - Bjorn Yttling Mix) [exclusive]

6. Ain’t No Reason (Brett Dennen)
7. Turnaroundturnmeon (Sean Hayes)
8. Oh Yes, Another Mother (Thee More Shallows)
9. The Beast (Angus & Julia Stone)

10. Paddy’s Gone (Antony & The Johnsons)
11. Idle Ties (Vetiver)
12. Broken (Norah Jones)
13. There’s Always Something Happening (Devendra Banhart) [exclusive]

14. What Is a Soul? (M. Ward) [exclusive]
15. Forgiveness Figg (Bethany Hotel Blues) (Wooden Wand)
16. How We Landed (Rogue Wave) [exclusive]

itunes link

10 great online tools and resources.

1. Pixenate

Pixenate allows you to edit your photos online. Its useful when you don’t have access to photo editing software. I use it when I’m at work so that I don’t have to wait until i get home (where I use Photoshop). It’s quick and easy and doesn’t have lots of ‘advanced features’ which you need to register to use like a lot of other online photo editors. It is simple to use, simply upload your image from your computer, edit it using the menu (see below) which is quite straight-forward. Once you have, for instance, cropped your image and corrected the density, you just download the image back to your computer.

Pixenate - Online Photo Editor via kwout

2. Fat fingers

Fat Fingers is a site which helps you to find ebay bargains. Many actions go almost unnoticed because the seller has mistyped the name of the item they are selling. When you type what you are looking for into Fat Fingers it performs a search on ebay for lots of possible misspellings, allowing you to find items others may not have! Less competition = lowers prices.

Fat Fingers - eBay typos and spelling mistakes via kwout

3. Kwout

Kwout Allows you to grab a screen shot of any website to display on your blog, just like I have here. See the quote of Kwout below! You type in the address of the site you wish to quote, choose an area to show and Kwout outputs the code you need. This is much more straight forward than cutting down a screenshot then hosting it yourself.

kwout | A brilliant way to quote via kwout

4. Flickr color selectr

This site is perhaps more interesting than useful. It allows you to pick a colour (see menu below) then displays images from Flickr which feature predominantly that colour. The images are creative commons licensed so this site is helpful if you are looking for an image to use which will match a particular colour scheme. It is also an interesing way to browse images as you never really know what you are going to find.

Flickr Color Selectr via kwout

5. Skreemr

Skreemr searches blogs for free to download or stream mp3s. Simply type in the artist you are looking for and Skreemr presents you with a list of tracks to choose from. There is also an advanced search function but that never seems to work! The site gives you information about the files including the bitrate, this saves you from downloading an mp3 then discovering it is of a poor audio quality. This site is quicker and simpler than searching through sites like Last Fm for streaming tracks because of its simple design and lack of other features.

SkreemR Mp3 Search - World’s Greatest Mp3 Search via kwout

6. AlbumArt.org

Pretty straight forward this one: like google image search but for album (and DVD) artwork. Better than google image search as it takes you directly to the image.

Albumart.org - CD and DVD cover searchengine via kwout

7. Vector Magic

Vector Magic lets you upload an image from your computer then turn it into a vector. A vector graphic can be re-sized without any loss of quality. As an example, if you blow up a jpeg you can see the pixels and the image becomes distorted but this isn’t a problem with a vector. This tool is also useful to add a cartoon style effect to your images or avatars.

VectorMagic | Precision Bitmap to Vector Conversion Online via kwout

8. Remember the milk

Disorganized? forever writing lists then misplacing them? You need Remember The Milk! (do I sound like an infomercial yet?!) It lets you set reminders and create to-do-lists which you can access from anywhere (again this tool is useful for those of us who work at a computer). You can also use RTM offline and it will update when you reconnect.

Remember The Milk via kwout

9. Dynamic drive

Dynamic Drive has hundreds of free DHTML scripts to liven-up your website! They describe DHTML as ‘an advanced form of JavaScript.’ In practice this means you can add floating menus, thumbnail viewers and other such widgets to your site. You can even make it look like it’s snowing on your site, which is useful if you are trying to create the worlds most annoying webpage.

Dynamic Drive DHTML(dynamic html) & JavaScript code library via kwout

10. Money saving expert

A mine of information on Mortgages, car insurance store cards and stoozing (earning interest on money borrowed on interest free credit card deals). This site is worth visiting before making any kind of important financial decision to find out the truth behind all the jargon banks and large companies try to bewilder us with. Also worth a mention is the forum as some of the people who post actually work for the companies being discussed which means you can find out the best offers you might not be offered (if that makes any sense).

Money Saving Expert: Consumer Revenge - Credit Cards, Shopping, Bank Charges, Cheap Flights and more via kwout