aworks :: "new" american classical music

aworks ordered list :: general entertainment links for 2/25/11

market share image via Wikipedia

1. CDs are dead because of the broader economic engine, ipod listening, less mass behavior, and major record labels aren't trustworthy. hypebot
2. Britney Spears will perform outside the Castro Theatre for Good Morning America. Ok. sfist
3. The sound from snapping your fingers comes from the impact of your finger hitting your palm. Ask a Scientist
4. Photos of people enduring the lines at Disneyland. (By the way, I have an iphone app which says the current line for Peter Pan's Flight (at 8pm on a cold Friday) is now 30 minutes). arin fishkin
5. Late breaking news: Disney announces an initiative to ultimately allow reservations for "attractions, show, and character interactions." Disneyland News Today
6. Apocalyptic films e.g. Threads, Testament and more. Neither of the first two are on Netflix Instant Streaming; I just checked. Nor is The Day After. Fortunately, I think I'll re-stream Right at Your Door --  a sometimes scary film about a "dirty bomb" in LA. MetaFilter
7. Libraries lose a battle in the e-wars. Librarian in Black
8. Orb and Sceptre coronation march for full orchestra - William Walton. The local 10-year-old asked that I lower the volume on this one. rdio

Related articles

• aworks unordered list :: new releases on rdio (rgable.typepad.com)
• aworks ordered list :: rdio "heavy rotation" /see also, henry brant/ (rgable.typepad.com)
• aworks unordered list :: new releases on rdio #2 /hello dolly!/ (rgable.typepad.com)
• aworks ordered list :: new releases via rdio /everybody wants to be a cat/ (rgable.typepad.com)
• Disney Passes Explained / Toy Story Playland Opens - Paris, France (travelpod.com)

aworks links etc. :: march 17, 2009 /in non-recognition of st patrick's day/

britney spears by minifig via Flickr

I start to actually listen to Britney Spears and the next day, Sacha Frere-Jones declares her career over. (New Yorker)

Probably the the nerdiest bloggingheads.tv yet -- two economists agreeing to meta-disagree. (bloggingheads.tv)

Speaking of electrons, here's how many there are per song on an iPod. (Fine Structure via Anil Dash)

I still can't figure out who composed A Banjo Song from yesterday's last ten artists playlist after incorrectly assuming it was Stephen Foster.

Thomas Hampson sings Foster's My Wife Is a Most Knowing Woman. (lala)

aworks links etc :: march 3rd, 2009 /lesser max mix etc./

grinding wheel via Wikipedia

Lesser grinding would be most welcome. (Nico Muhly)

I have no idea what "Max Mix 70" is/was but the photo is retro-interesting. (DTYBYWL)

From a Wooden Shjips interview on the Amoeba blog: What has been your best find at Amoeba? ...I went in to find some Carl Ruggles and came away with a nice copy of Sun Treader for under 5 bucks. Didn't expect that answer. And I wonder if I'm the only one who listens to both Carl Ruggles and Wooden Shjips.

The Wooden Shjips guy also recommends this psych-rock album but I can't mention the group name in this post as the local eight-year-old is lately reporting to me every bad word she sees or hears.

Quadraphonic Freakout (MP3)...Listen in your car for the full quad effect. Please don't try to drive if you're listening with '70s-style appreciation enhancers. (WFMU).

This really isn’t my area; I’m an Earlyist, and my dissertation was on pitch bending and blues inflections in the Tony Sheridan sessions, so this is well outside my sub-specialty… (Dial M for Musicology - Beatles degree edition).

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• Nico Muhly: Composing from the A.D.D. Camp (pastemagazine.com)
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aworks links etc :: february 27, 2009 /auto nostalgia edition/

Pacer Image via Wikipedia

I spend entirely too much time these days at The Truth About Cars. It's partially my MI/IN auto-town nostalgia coupled with a need to forecast the outlook for the the local eighty-seven-year-old's pension checks from GM and Chrysler.

A post today encouraged readers to list their car ownership history. In particular, this one caught my attention:

1988 Audi 5000 - This was my first car. I was a teenager. I had never had a car. My parents forced me to go to a used car dealer. I remember thinking something about how I didn’t want to participate in society or something. I looked around. Something caught my eye. There it was - a Bauhaus slab of somber silver subtle gloom and non-conformity. The German Leadsled. I drove this quite well in my teenage years. Not even one traffic ticket, no accidents, tapped a bumper. I remember going to Hastings to purchase CD’s in the 90’s quite a lot with that Audi. I purchased weird music, like Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works 2. The car had a few electrical problems, however, on the whole, was a nice ride.

I'm envious of this one:

1966 Corvette Stingray Convertible, with the 454 and side pipes.

And I wonder about the guy who owned, among other fine driving machines, a Corvair, an AMC Pacer, a Lincoln Town Car and two Plymouth Volares. "Dude."

For the record, here's what I've owned:

• 1975 Plymouth Duster - Way fast with a 318 cubic inch engine. Good handling as long as you never had to actually turn. Wired up a cassette tape deck so I could listen to Al DiMeola. Was asleep in the trunk when my friend drove it off the road on I-75 in the middle of the night on our way to spring break in Florida.
• 1983 Renault Alliance - Designed by the French, assembled by Wisconsin's finest, sold by American Motors; not so good after that. No radio and no air conditioning. Barely enough power to make it "over the hill" on Highway 17, back when regularly attended the Cabrillo Music Festival in Santa Cruz. Rode public transportation for several years after it broke down. The fact I mildly miss that car astounds me ("Despite the auspicious Car of the Year award, the car would not live up to expectations of owners, who may have assumed that the award also reflected on the reliability of a car.")
• 1993 Mercury Tracer station wagon - Assembled in Mexico complete with discarded cigarette pack wrapper in Spanish. A true factory-installed cassette deck to allow listening to George Lloyd tapes. Durable enough to have visited The Magic Flute in Vancouver BC, the Princeton Record Exchange in NJ as well as all three Amoebas in CA. Finally totaled when rear-ended in CA while listening to Aphex Twin.
• 2009 Toyota Camry Hybrid. Assembled in TN or KY, forget which. Purchased 4 months before gas prices tanked. The local eight-year-old likes it since it doesn't pollute (more or less). A true factory-installed input jack for iPod. Has a CD-R permanently stuck in the four-disk changer. Has also visited all three CA Amoebas. 

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Update: I'm still reading that Truth About Cars post and remembered that the Duster only had AM radio until I installed the cassette tape/FM radio combo. So, that meant several years of only WLS (Chicago), CKLW (Windsor, ON; "the blackest white station in America"), WJR (Detroit) and WNDE (Indianapolis). I can't recall the fifth radio button. It's also possible I've suppressed until now memories of all those Karl Haas Germanic Adventures in Good Music shows on WJR. To this day, I don't really like German classical music and this may be why.

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aworks links etc :: february 23, 2009 /it's an idiosyncratic world/

Image via CrunchBase

Clusterstock links to what is supposedly economist Paul Krugmans' Amazon wish list. I agree it's a bit on the "wussy new age" side of the musical spectrum. But hey, even mine is idiosyncratic (and reminds me I still want to buy the punk rock version of West Side Story.

Composer David Schiff comments about The Rest Is Noise: Instead of examining how Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington, among others, cultivated the new form to an astonishing early maturity, he focuses on the trans-atlantic imitations of Satie, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Poulenc, Hindemith and Weill. 

I've decided to catalog every link I find related to American classical music (as well as standout tracks from lala). More or less. Until I get bored with delicious again. Still, it seems like a better idea than trying to compensate for my underdeveloped sense of identity.

Renegade photographers run amok at Alice Tully Hall. Me, I still don't know what to make of the guy behind me at Music in Twelve Parts who described how he was appalled when some kid wore a white t-shirt.

links, quotes etc. :: february 22, 2009

Image via Wikipedia

The former Mystery Science Theater 3000 writer and performer has pledged to eat only bacon throughout February...To avoid dehydration, Nelson will allow non-bacon fluids such as beer, wine, martinis and water. (Wired)

The interface immediately below will stream in sequence six recent favorites from the site’s Downstream section, which focuses on legally free downloads on the Internet — all six are solo recordings of guitar-based music, ranging from unmediated live performance to sounds that are heavily processed digitally. (Disquiet). The new streaming interface is enticing and useful and the music is well-chosen.

Visually having Marin Alsop conducting upon a large stage populated by four flutes and an army of empty chairs was bad theater. (HurdAudio)

aworks links etc. :: february 8th, 2009 /21st century, more or less/

giant spoon image via Wikipedia

I'm still the top listener at lala for 20th/21st century music. But I'm not sure that William Goldstein recording belongs in the top albums chart for this category.

Don't forget to vote in the Amoeba vs. Rasputin poll. These things matter. Ok, not really.

Music must be for warm bodies; for live performers who play music by living composers for a live audience. (Roger Bourland). Conlon Nancarrow, notwithstanding.

Help! Help! The Globolinks! Is a science-fiction opera for children by Gian Carlo Menotti where strange alien creatures can only be destroyed by music. (WFMU).

They did however miss on Youtube, the real thing, a San Fransisco Cabaret Operatic Company (Goat Hall Productions) doing a straight operatic version of the Star Trek episode Amok Time (the one where Spock gets all illogical and want teh sechs). (freaky trigger)

links etc. :: january 30, 2008 /the real world/

Image via Wikipedia

Which is to say, it's a safe bet that Mehserle did not intend to kill Grant and that he felt remorse after doing so, hence a tragedy for everyone involved (sfist). May be true but I wouldn't yet call it a "safe bet."

For them, 21st-century music will likely come from where they least expect it. From somewhere out there in the noises of the world. (Sonatas and Interludes)

Frozen Speak - Andrew Deutsch (lala). Most interesting contemporary work I've heard on lala this week.

A bizarre cast of characters, including the centaur Chiron from Greek mythology, a pair of Siamese twins, a slave, a maestro, a virtuoso castrato, and Napoleon cavort for nearly two hours presenting snippets of historical narrative from this lengthy history, not so much acting out events, but relating them through a series of farcical interactions that include singing, dancing, throwing sand, and horrid costumes like something out of a John Copley-directed operatic nightmare. (Out West Arts)

(a) Zeppelin in the Bay Area (Horizontal Rain). Best photos yet. Multiple times, I've wanted to pull off the road and just watch. Tickets for an hour are ~$500.

Dude and kid go without "electronic technology" for 24 hours (Peter Rukavina - PDF)

Not to snark, but musicals don't count as part of the western classical cannon. That having been said, all I have at the moment is Mahler 1. (AskMetaFilter). aworks operational note :: musicals *do* count as part of the American classical canon. The MeFite goes on to redeem him/herself by suggesting Schnittke.    

Women's Prison - Loretta Lynn (lala). As always from the streaming service, no liner notes but I surmise this is a track from a Jack White-produced Loretta Lynn album. Electric guitar, organ and Loretta -- powerful. Roger Bourland confirms the White Stripes connection and has the video. I listen to a lot of music and am somewhat jaded but the song bowls me over.

I can hear the warden coming
From the clinging of the keys
...
Now they've strapped me in the chair
And covered up my eyes
...

aworks links etc. :: january 25, 2009 /collecting/

Cover of Trout Mask Replica

I collect books. I have over 180 different editions of Don Quixote, covering 17th-20th century. Safely in storage. Along with around 36,000 others. Ran out of money to build my library. One day…. (confused of calcutta). Impressive. He also admits why both he and Dick Cheney are lucky.    

Robert Gable Political Campaign Contributions 2008 Election Cycle (campaignmoney.com). For the record, this is not me.

Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica is apparently in the White House Record Library. Rolling Stone says Reagan had the collection moved to the basement. (The Captain Beefheart Radio Station).

aworks five-star links and tracks :: december 27, 2008 /art and life/

courage.campaign: Don't divorce Californians! I highly recommend the flickr slideshow.

Dragoncave: Songwriting is songwriting; poetry is poetry. They are not the same art, and poets conflate them to their critical and artistic peril.

Ask MetaFilter: Was Norman Rockwell a subversive artist?

The Urbanophile: Perhaps it is time for Indianapolis to think the unthinkable. Should it downgrade the ISO to a part time orchestra that operates on half the budget, more focused on a core classical repertoire, that is sustainable in the long term?

Overcoming Biases: I don't know if this story has ever been written, but you can imagine a Devil who follows someone around, making their life miserable, solely by offering them options which are never actually taken - a "deal with the Devil" story that only requires the Devil to have the capacity to grant wishes, rather than ever granting a single one.