David Firth (born 23 January 1983) is an English animator, video artist, amateur filmmaker, and musician. As a cartoonist Firth's work is largely distributed via the Internet (most notably the popular Adobe Flash animation website Newgrounds, as well as his own personal sites). Several of his various works in cartoon Flash animation, as well as his multiple music videos and works of video art have garnered large followings, and include some of the most acclaimed video series online.
Notable animation sequences from Firth include Salad Fingers, as well as the comedic Burnt Face Man series. A number of Firth's works have been featured on the BBC in the UK, and the BBC has hired Firth on several occasions to work on TV programs and commercials. He also created a flash-series called "Jerry Jackson", which can both be viewed on Newgrounds and his own site, in which a cartoon character ironically pretends to be "a professional animator", even though the animation is intentionally poorly crafted. Jerry Jackson was also based on the people that would write badly written hate comments on his videos, as he would read them, he imagined that they spoke like Jerry Jackson. Firth also created Men from Up the Stairs.
David (Hebrew: דָּוִד, דָּוִיד, Modern David Tiberian Dāwîḏ; ISO 259-3 Dawid; Strong's Daveed; beloved; Arabic: داوود or داود Dāwūd) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel and, according to the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke, an ancestor of Jesus. David is seen as a major Prophet in Islamic traditions. His life is conventionally dated to c. 1040–970 BC, his reign over Judah c. 1010–1003 BC,[citation needed] and his reign over the United Kingdom of Israel c. 1003–970 BC.[citation needed] The Books of Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles are the only sources of information on David, although the Tel Dan stele records "House of David", which some take as confirmation of the existence in the mid-9th century BC of a Judean royal dynasty called the "House of David".
David is very important to Jewish, Christian and Islamic doctrine and culture. In Judaism, David, or David HaMelekh, is the King of Israel, and the Jewish people. Jewish tradition maintains that a direct descendant of David will be the Messiah. In Islam, he is known as Dawud, considered to be a prophet and the king of a nation. He is depicted as a righteous king, though not without faults, as well as an acclaimed warrior, musician, and poet, traditionally credited for composing many of the psalms contained in the Book of Psalms.
Salad Fingers is a post-apocalyptic psychological horror Flash cartoon series originally created by British cartoonist David Firth in July 2004. It gained rapid internet popularity in 2005. The San Francisco Chronicle ranked it in the "Top 10" pop culture phenomena for that year.
The cartoon revolves around the eponymous Salad Fingers, a thin, green, mentally troubled man who inhabits a desolate world. Already a well-known Flash animation series available on the internet, Salad Fingers premiered in Australia at the 2007 Sydney Underground Film Festival at the Factory Theatre. The first seven episodes were shown back to back, along with a variety of other animated short films, during the "Re-Animation" session.
The eerie music featured in the background is the tune "Beware the Friendly Stranger" by Boards of Canada. The dark music in the soundtrack that appears when Salad Fingers is scared is actually Firth playing the guitar, slowed down and reversed. Other music included in Salad Fingers episodes includes work credited to Brian Eno, Sigur Rós, Aphex Twin and Lustmord. David Firth frequently inserts references to Aphex Twin in his flash cartoons; for example, the Aphex Twin logo can be found on the telephone in Salad Fingers episode five. Firth has also cited the works of David Lynch, South Park, Tim Burton, The League of Gentlemen, and Chris Morris as sources of inspiration.
Flying Lotus (born Steven Ellison) is an experimental multi-genre music producer from Winnetka, California. His debut album, 1983, was released on Plug Research Records in 2006. He produced much of the bumper music on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block, for which he is uncredited, and he also contributed remixes for fellow Plug Research artists including Mia Doi Todd. He is often referred to as FlyLo by fans and critics. His grandmother was songwriter Marilyn McLeod. He is the great-nephew of the late Alice Coltrane, whose husband was John Coltrane. He is also the cousin of musician Ravi Coltrane.
In 2007, he announced that he signed with Warp Records. Following his Warp debut, the six-track Reset EP, he quickly became one of the label’s cornerstone artists and released his second album, titled Los Angeles, on June 10, 2008. In 2008, Flying Lotus also remixed "Reckoner" from Radiohead's album In Rainbows. His third album, Cosmogramma, was released on May 3, 2010, in the UK and May 4, 2010, in the US. In January 2011, Cosmogramma won in the Dance/Electronica Album category in the 10th Annual Independent Music Awards.
Richard David James (born 18 August 1971), best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is a British electronic musician and composer. He founded the record label Rephlex Records in 1991 with Grant Wilson-Claridge. He was described by The Guardian as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music."
Aphex Twin has also recorded music under the aliases AFX, Blue Calx, Bradley Strider, Caustic Window, DJ Smojphace, GAK, Martin Tressider, Polygon Window, Power-Pill, Prichard D. Jams, Q-Chastic, Tahnaiya Russell, The Dice Man, Soit-P.P., and speculatively The Tuss.
Aphex Twin has released recordings on Rephlex, Warp, R&S, Sire, Mighty Force, Rabbit City, and Men Records.
Richard David James was born to Welsh parents Lorna and Derek James in St. Munchin's Limerick Regional Maternity Hospital, Ireland. He grew up in Lanner, Cornwall, enjoying, along with two older sisters, a "very happy" childhood during which they, according to James, "were pretty much left to do what [they] wanted." He "liked growing up there, being cut off from the city and the rest of the world". James attended Redruth School, located in Redruth, Cornwall.