december was an intense head month for me. i had the vertigo-inducing good fortune to write at length about two of the most important musicians / bands in my listening life. at the same time. hair-pulling enthusiasm.
the velvet underground piece was for the brooklyn rail, an excellent monthly in, well, duh, brooklyn. i've done a few pieces for them. check it out, check them out, look around, scroll down to 'music' for my vu piece:
the threadgill article is, well, it's massive. it covers his whole discography and my whole two decades of listening to his whole discography. it's in the first issue of burning ambulance, an interesting jazz and metal journal edited by phil freeman and available through lulu.
sweet, huh?
20100210
Shit From an Old Notebook (Chocolates and Flowers to D. Boon)
This brief paragraph was written some years ago while watching a favorite musician of mine debut a new band that was just (I thought) terrible. The band has built a following but I still don’t like them.
Porn Rock- designed to make you like it, if only in a visceral way. Not to surprise you or challenge you but to just fucking grind a pelvis in your face. Like AC/DC, but they at least might get credit for perfecting the form when it was still in its ascendance. But like what the fuck were The Strokes about except giving you the same shit that got your dad off before he met your mom, and maybe after? Pornography is a simple formula, tried and true, and doesn't need to be anything else. At least not to attract and keep a certain audience. The same thing's true with porn rock. The only thing that changes over time is the haircuts.
Porn Rock- designed to make you like it, if only in a visceral way. Not to surprise you or challenge you but to just fucking grind a pelvis in your face. Like AC/DC, but they at least might get credit for perfecting the form when it was still in its ascendance. But like what the fuck were The Strokes about except giving you the same shit that got your dad off before he met your mom, and maybe after? Pornography is a simple formula, tried and true, and doesn't need to be anything else. At least not to attract and keep a certain audience. The same thing's true with porn rock. The only thing that changes over time is the haircuts.
20100203
Shit From an Old Notebook (Milk and Cookies to D. Boon)
My story on Sam Shalabi was accepted by a magazine in editorial upheaval. I interviewed Sam the morning after a fantastic show he did with his band and the Stooges-esque Montreal group The Donkeys on stage at the same time at the 2004 Victoriaville festival. I was watching him at the hotel bar after the show thinking he'd never make it to our breakfast interview the next morning, but he poured himself out of bed and met me. Then the magazine killed the story. Here is some of what he told he through his morning-after haze, bless his soul.
"I wanted to write something for specific people and use The Donkeys. It's the first time I composed something or put something together like that.
"I just play what I like - I think the older I get, the more I'm trying to play music that I like. In the past, I was trying to just do improv, which I love, or do electronic stuff.
"A US printer refused to do Osama [his record that uses his given name as the title]. They said it was in bad taste, which was kind of funny. I wanted some of the text [on the recording] to be for someone who's really paranoid about what's going on in politics in the States. There's a message in it.
"I can't believe how many people think the first song is about Osama bin Laden, when it's about guitar collecting.
"There's a lot of improv going on that's not documented at all, that's not free jazz or actuelle. There's all this other stuff that's a younger generation that's not documented.
"At this point I don't really see - whatever 'political' is, how do you avoid that? I don't do political music. Either you ignore it or it's banal - what you write about, what you choose to say. When people use the word 'political' they think it's got to be one thing - either it's party political or Communist. In daily life, it's the choices people make and what they do. When you do an up song, there's an element of politics in that. That happens all the time - world politics affect what people write about or choose not to write about. Even a year after 9/11, there were huge artists like Radiohead talking about globalization. There was this event, media, cultural, that they could have said something about, they could have investigated it in their own work. Bono is a good example: There's a guy who's supposed to be socially conscious and there was nothing. In interviews, in this vague way that has nothing to do with their work, they say their concerned about the world. You had this event that touched on everything that a band like Radiohead talked about and they don't want to touch it. Put your money where your mouth is. You're spouting this watered-down activism and you have this cultural event that's tangible. That's a decision. Either say something or just shut up. It was almost embarrassing. With these bands like U2, Radiohead, Peter Gabriel, there's this thing where they're supposed to be political and when there's this thing that demands a response, there's no response.
"Probably some people are going to think I'm a 'political' artist. I just don't see how you can avoid it. Art is supposed to be a reflection of life, and these things are really big in people's lives."
"I wanted to write something for specific people and use The Donkeys. It's the first time I composed something or put something together like that.
"I just play what I like - I think the older I get, the more I'm trying to play music that I like. In the past, I was trying to just do improv, which I love, or do electronic stuff.
"A US printer refused to do Osama [his record that uses his given name as the title]. They said it was in bad taste, which was kind of funny. I wanted some of the text [on the recording] to be for someone who's really paranoid about what's going on in politics in the States. There's a message in it.
"I can't believe how many people think the first song is about Osama bin Laden, when it's about guitar collecting.
"There's a lot of improv going on that's not documented at all, that's not free jazz or actuelle. There's all this other stuff that's a younger generation that's not documented.
"At this point I don't really see - whatever 'political' is, how do you avoid that? I don't do political music. Either you ignore it or it's banal - what you write about, what you choose to say. When people use the word 'political' they think it's got to be one thing - either it's party political or Communist. In daily life, it's the choices people make and what they do. When you do an up song, there's an element of politics in that. That happens all the time - world politics affect what people write about or choose not to write about. Even a year after 9/11, there were huge artists like Radiohead talking about globalization. There was this event, media, cultural, that they could have said something about, they could have investigated it in their own work. Bono is a good example: There's a guy who's supposed to be socially conscious and there was nothing. In interviews, in this vague way that has nothing to do with their work, they say their concerned about the world. You had this event that touched on everything that a band like Radiohead talked about and they don't want to touch it. Put your money where your mouth is. You're spouting this watered-down activism and you have this cultural event that's tangible. That's a decision. Either say something or just shut up. It was almost embarrassing. With these bands like U2, Radiohead, Peter Gabriel, there's this thing where they're supposed to be political and when there's this thing that demands a response, there's no response.
"Probably some people are going to think I'm a 'political' artist. I just don't see how you can avoid it. Art is supposed to be a reflection of life, and these things are really big in people's lives."
20100129
Facebook Announces Launching of Alternate Reality
by Keith Blakely (UPI)
Coming under increasing scrutiny from media watchdogs and social realists alike, the Facebook corporation announced today that it would be launching an alternate reality to compete with the earthly existences familiar to most users of experiential-based atmospheres.
Facebook users have increasingly been commenting on their profile pages about links that have taken them not to another Web page but to an entirely different environ, noting either frustration at or fascination with the experience. Event invitations, for example, a popular way to let fellow users and people tagged as “friends” on the site about parties, performances or other terrestrial occurrences, have been seen recently to take the user to the actual event, rather than another Web page containing relevant information.
“This is just an example of the inventiveness of our community and the possibilities created by using open source protocols,” said Facebook CEO and co-founder Matt Zuckerberg. “It’s the same thing as all of the savvy developers out there creating apps for iPhones, only these are more submersive.”
But critics have blasted the new applications, saying there are inherent risks in blurring the lines between actual and chosen life situations.
Frantz Beacon, an academe with the accredited online reference think-tank database Wikireality, said that the new interfaces pose some serious problems, although as with anything those problems are the result of user carelessness and not the program itself.
“It’s true that you shouldn’t be interacting in online communities when you’re trying to get something else done,” Beacon said. “Just as it’s true that you shouldn’t be breastfeeding while operating a car, or sending text messages under anesthesia. These things have their times and places. Web sites don’t kill people, people do.”
But to some it’s not as easy as that. Blogger Jenny McClems was doing research for her popular New York nightlife site when she accidentally clicked on a pop-up ad and found herself in the middle of an unidentified casino.
“It was terrible,” she said. “I’m not anti-gambling, but it was 11 in the morning and I was only wearing a robe. I didn’t have my purse, I didn’t have any money, I didn’t have an ID. And once you get there, with all the lights and activity, just try finding an ESC key.”
According to programmer and new media theorist Evelyn Marie, however, these changes are the wave of the future, and people should get used to negotiating different reality complexes at the same time while they can still be turned on and off.
“By 2020, most people will concurrently be interacting on terra-based and cybernetic platforms, probably several of each,” Marie said. “It’s going to be a totally rad network of overlapping instantaneousnesses, where everyone is free to cross-rationalize varying circuitries of interactivating realizations. It’ll be crazytown.”
Coming under increasing scrutiny from media watchdogs and social realists alike, the Facebook corporation announced today that it would be launching an alternate reality to compete with the earthly existences familiar to most users of experiential-based atmospheres.
Facebook users have increasingly been commenting on their profile pages about links that have taken them not to another Web page but to an entirely different environ, noting either frustration at or fascination with the experience. Event invitations, for example, a popular way to let fellow users and people tagged as “friends” on the site about parties, performances or other terrestrial occurrences, have been seen recently to take the user to the actual event, rather than another Web page containing relevant information.
“This is just an example of the inventiveness of our community and the possibilities created by using open source protocols,” said Facebook CEO and co-founder Matt Zuckerberg. “It’s the same thing as all of the savvy developers out there creating apps for iPhones, only these are more submersive.”
But critics have blasted the new applications, saying there are inherent risks in blurring the lines between actual and chosen life situations.
Frantz Beacon, an academe with the accredited online reference think-tank database Wikireality, said that the new interfaces pose some serious problems, although as with anything those problems are the result of user carelessness and not the program itself.
“It’s true that you shouldn’t be interacting in online communities when you’re trying to get something else done,” Beacon said. “Just as it’s true that you shouldn’t be breastfeeding while operating a car, or sending text messages under anesthesia. These things have their times and places. Web sites don’t kill people, people do.”
But to some it’s not as easy as that. Blogger Jenny McClems was doing research for her popular New York nightlife site when she accidentally clicked on a pop-up ad and found herself in the middle of an unidentified casino.
“It was terrible,” she said. “I’m not anti-gambling, but it was 11 in the morning and I was only wearing a robe. I didn’t have my purse, I didn’t have any money, I didn’t have an ID. And once you get there, with all the lights and activity, just try finding an ESC key.”
According to programmer and new media theorist Evelyn Marie, however, these changes are the wave of the future, and people should get used to negotiating different reality complexes at the same time while they can still be turned on and off.
“By 2020, most people will concurrently be interacting on terra-based and cybernetic platforms, probably several of each,” Marie said. “It’s going to be a totally rad network of overlapping instantaneousnesses, where everyone is free to cross-rationalize varying circuitries of interactivating realizations. It’ll be crazytown.”
20100127
Shit From an Old Notebook (Winks and Nods to D. Boon)
Notes from Keith Rowe press conference Festival Internationale de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, 2004
This press conference really should have been video-taped. A stare-down between a handful of journalists and an artist is, more often than not, a pretty drudgerous thing, especially if it happens before noon. But Rowe is a fantastic conversationalist, and would much rather be interesting than be bored. The meeting culminated in him taking one of us witless scribes to the doorway to look at a vase of flowers in the hallway and to consider how they change with just the slightest shift in vantage. It really should have been filmed. Below are the direct quotes I managed to gather.
"If you put four very clear things together, you get chaos. If you take four very clear colors and spin them, you get brown.
"The fetish of sound of the Berlin school in the last three to four years is beginning to break down. The fetish of volume that get in Tokyo in the last two or three years is beginning to break down, just in the last few months.
"What is the meaning within this? What is profound?
"When we listen to Brahms, we have a sense of what profound is, but what is profound electronic music?
"Personally, I think interplay with other people is horrible. I really don't like it. We have interactions and we have juxtapositions. I think juxtaposition is much more interesting.
"If I'm sitting here playing and listening to the piano, suddenly I'm not here as much. The interesting thing is to listen without thinking about the history of the piano.
"When I laid the guitar flat, it changed from an expression to a reflection. The consequence of that is I think we ditched gesture very early on. You tend to be reflecting the environment rather than reflecting your expression of the environment. I can put an electric motor ext to the pick-up and it reflects the environment.
"The room is a highly complex concept. The room involves the physical nature of the room you're in but it also includes the history of painting, the history of music. It includes you and whoever is in the room. It probably also includes the war in Iraq and all the Palestinians that have been killed. It doesn't just include the acoustic properties of the room.
"The most profound music that has been made probably has been in quartet form ... you could argue that.
"Tal Farlowe, Charley Christian, Wes Montgomery, all my favorite guitar players, they really developed their own languages. You have festivals where they're supposed to pay homage to Django Reinhardt, and they rip him off."
This press conference really should have been video-taped. A stare-down between a handful of journalists and an artist is, more often than not, a pretty drudgerous thing, especially if it happens before noon. But Rowe is a fantastic conversationalist, and would much rather be interesting than be bored. The meeting culminated in him taking one of us witless scribes to the doorway to look at a vase of flowers in the hallway and to consider how they change with just the slightest shift in vantage. It really should have been filmed. Below are the direct quotes I managed to gather.
"If you put four very clear things together, you get chaos. If you take four very clear colors and spin them, you get brown.
"The fetish of sound of the Berlin school in the last three to four years is beginning to break down. The fetish of volume that get in Tokyo in the last two or three years is beginning to break down, just in the last few months.
"What is the meaning within this? What is profound?
"When we listen to Brahms, we have a sense of what profound is, but what is profound electronic music?
"Personally, I think interplay with other people is horrible. I really don't like it. We have interactions and we have juxtapositions. I think juxtaposition is much more interesting.
"If I'm sitting here playing and listening to the piano, suddenly I'm not here as much. The interesting thing is to listen without thinking about the history of the piano.
"When I laid the guitar flat, it changed from an expression to a reflection. The consequence of that is I think we ditched gesture very early on. You tend to be reflecting the environment rather than reflecting your expression of the environment. I can put an electric motor ext to the pick-up and it reflects the environment.
"The room is a highly complex concept. The room involves the physical nature of the room you're in but it also includes the history of painting, the history of music. It includes you and whoever is in the room. It probably also includes the war in Iraq and all the Palestinians that have been killed. It doesn't just include the acoustic properties of the room.
"The most profound music that has been made probably has been in quartet form ... you could argue that.
"Tal Farlowe, Charley Christian, Wes Montgomery, all my favorite guitar players, they really developed their own languages. You have festivals where they're supposed to pay homage to Django Reinhardt, and they rip him off."
20100126
Soundtrack to an Earthquake
Haitians Find Lifeline In Local Radio Station
by John Burnett
Read the full NPR story here.
by John Burnett
From the moment the earthquake struck in Haiti, one radio station has been on the air around the clock acting as a lifeline for Haitians in Port-au-Prince and around the world on the Internet. Signal FM 90.5 has evolved into a community bulletin board for missing person reports, rescues, body collection, survival tips and solace.
Mario Viau, who started the station 18 years ago, has become somewhat of a hero over the past two weeks. Graffiti on the wall outside the station in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville reads: "Viv Mario" ("Long live Mario").
"We were just like the phone; we were the phone of the country," says the 52-year-old owner and general manager. "There were people on one side and people on the other side, and we were just the instrument in the middle that was saying exactly what was going on in Haiti."
When the quake struck at 4:53 p.m. on Jan. 12, Signal FM was playing "Hotel California." The Earth groaned and the building shuddered, but just before the DJ ran out, he had the presence of mind to hit the "repeat" button.
So for the first 30 minutes of Port-au-Prince's descent into hell, the only thing you could hear on the radio was the Eagles' standard — over and over and over.
Read the full NPR story here.
20100120
Shit From an Old Notebook (Hugs and Kisses to D. Boon)
I got to speak briefly to Pamelia Kurstin in February, 2006 immediately after the first of Issue Project Room's Theremin Society evenings. What I hoped would blossom into a feature about the new wave of thereminists failed to garner much editorial attention. As I recall, the interview went very quickly over a beer and a fast walk down the street to an apartment that wasn't hers in Brooklyn, while she was packing and rushing to the airport. Here's a few lines that stood the test of time and saved notebooks.
"I didn't know what scene was out there. I just saw the documentary and thought, "oh, I want to do that.' I'd tried other instruments. I didn't understand that there weren't other people playing it.
"I wish I could sing and then I probably wouldn't play any instrument.
"If you go out on the street and there's someone playing a violin, you know more or less what to expect, but when people see a theremin they're just infatuated with someone moving around.
"I don't want it to sound like a theremin. I'd much rather it sound like a voice or something.
"I think a lot of musicians dismiss it as being a toy or think it's impossible.
"I would never criticize, even if someone is doing something that's giving you a splitting headache, as long as they're not murdering you.
"It's something that can be taken so extremely seriously and also it can be laughed at.
"After I saw the documentary, I saw Clara Rockmore play. She set a standard for it for her time and she was doing something that nobody thought was possible. It was so important, the documentary came out and there's a document of her playing."
"I didn't know what scene was out there. I just saw the documentary and thought, "oh, I want to do that.' I'd tried other instruments. I didn't understand that there weren't other people playing it.
"I wish I could sing and then I probably wouldn't play any instrument.
"If you go out on the street and there's someone playing a violin, you know more or less what to expect, but when people see a theremin they're just infatuated with someone moving around.
"I don't want it to sound like a theremin. I'd much rather it sound like a voice or something.
"I think a lot of musicians dismiss it as being a toy or think it's impossible.
"I would never criticize, even if someone is doing something that's giving you a splitting headache, as long as they're not murdering you.
"It's something that can be taken so extremely seriously and also it can be laughed at.
"After I saw the documentary, I saw Clara Rockmore play. She set a standard for it for her time and she was doing something that nobody thought was possible. It was so important, the documentary came out and there's a document of her playing."
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