Queen front­man Fred­die Mer­cury died 19 years ago today. So a quick remem­brance seems in order. We bring you Mer­cury and Bri­an May (now astro­physi­cist and uni­ver­si­ty chan­cel­lor) dri­ving along the crowd at Live Aid, the mega con­cert staged in Lon­don and Philly, back in 1985. Get the remain­ing parts of the vir­tu­oso rock per­for­mance here, here, and here. And keep an eye out for the upcom­ing film that will fea­ture Sacha Baron Cohen in the Mer­cury role.

Going viral right now: 3 year old Jonathan con­duct­ing the 4th move­ment of Beethoven’s 5th, and doing a pret­ty good job of chan­nel­ing the spir­it of Her­bert von Kara­jan. What you hear in the back­ground is a record­ing of Kara­jan and the Berlin­er Phil­har­moniker. And below we give you this: The real Kara­jan lead­ing the Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic through the same move­ment of Beethoven’s mas­ter­piece cir­ca 1966.

via @neatorama

Richard Grayson, an Amer­i­can com­pos­er and pianist, has a knack for impro­vis­ing on the piano. Ask him to play Darth Vader’s theme from Star Wars in the style of Beethoven, and he has it cov­ered. (Watch above.) The same goes for The Mup­pets’ Theme in the style of a Bach fugue; “Sin­gin’ in the Rain” in the style of Wag­n­er, or Wag­n­er’s “Ride of the Valkyries” in the style of a Tan­go. You will find 70+ impro­vi­sa­tions on Grayson’s YouTube Chan­nel. Find it here.

via Metafil­ter

Next week, Bob Dylan will release The Wit­mark Demos: 1962–1964, a col­lec­tion of 47 songs that the artist record­ed for the M. Wit­mark & Sons pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny, all before his 24th birth­day. The young Dylan knocked out these tracks in a sparse 6x8 foot stu­dio, accom­pa­nied only by his acoustic gui­tar, har­mon­i­ca and piano. And, right now, you can stream 23 of these demos (for free) on NPR’s First Lis­ten site. The line­up includes some of his finest ear­ly sin­gles – Blowin’ In The Wind, A Hard Rain’s A‑Gonna Fall, Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, Girl From The North Coun­try, Mr. Tam­bourine Man, The Times They Are A‑Changin’… You get the gist.

If you’re inclined to pur­chase the album, then you’ll want to con­sid­er this Ama­zon deal. Buy The Wit­mark Demos on CD or vinyl before 10/18/2010 and you will also get a live con­cert CD – Bob Dylan: In Con­cert, Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty, 1963 – that has “nev­er been heard, boot­legged or cir­cu­lat­ed in any way.” Not bad for $13.99. Find more details here.