13 posts tagged “music”
Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" is one of my favorite pieces of music. Via (TypePad blogger and NYer music critic) Alex Ross comes news of Grand Valley State's new music ensemble's recording of 18, and this fantastic preview video that they've just posted on YouTube. I love the line "they turned the piece into somthing of a lifestyle."
Relatedly, please right now go read Matt Webb's story he doesn't tell too many people. Here are some relevant bits:
I'm shy of services like last.fm because I have a certain public image and letting people know I listen to Dire Straits isn't exactly in keeping with that. Ambient drone and Balearic house on the other hand, I'm happy for people to hear about. But how absurd! This is who I am! I got over identity issues and pretending to be someone I'm not in my early teens, like pretty much everyone. Hiding my musical preferences is like wearing a mask, right. I should just let it all hang out. Well, kinda.
It's official -- I want my own art ranch.
Friday afternoon we trekked up to Geyserville for a benefit for BAMPFA (UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive) at Steven Oliver's ranch. Oliver has about 100 acres of land in Geyserville where he's collaborated with some of the world's best living artists to commission site-specific architecture and sculpture. (Check out this sculpture.org profile / interview with Oliver for context.)
Oliver has just completed a 13 year collaboration with installation artist Ann Hamilton on an 8 story concrete tower that's now situated on the ranch. Hamilton is more well known for producing experiences than things -- and has never designed an outdoor architectural structure, as far as I know -- which is what made this piece so special. Dubbed "The Acoustic Tower Project," the tower is nestled in the hills on Oliver's ranch, is approximately 40 feet in diameter and 100 feet tall. The tower is lit inside through indirect windows, the bottom of the tower is a well-like pool of water, but the most amazing thing is that along the inside of the cylindrical tower are two staircases which wind in a double-helix structure from the water to the top of the tower.
Since it's an "acoustic" tower project, the whole point of the piece is to create an environment for sound. As part of the debut of the piece last night was a performance by the Meredith Monk Ensemble, with a set of new work composed by Monk. Monk has been a staple of the new music scene for 40 years, but I'd never heard her in person. And my God, I'd never heard anyone do anything like that with their voice. It was literally breathtaking. The performance lasted about an hour, with the audience was on one set of of the double helix stairs and the ensemble on another.
Here's Oliver in that sculpture.org interview from October 2002 about the (yet unbuilt) tower, and the relationship between it and a well on a piece of land they own in Italy:
We own a home near Orvieto, the site of the so-called Well of St. Patrick (1527–40), which was built by Clement VII to provide the city with a water supply in case of attack. The site has a traditional connection to St. Patrick. The well descends more that 60 meters: in order to get enough water to the surface the architect designed a double helix staircase. This means that the mule goes down one staircase, loads up with water, and comes back up the other staircase. The two staircases never touch; they are interlaced with each other so that the mule never has to turn around and never meets another mule. It’s the same form as DNA. Ann proposed a double helix staircase inside the stonework, descending to a water source: into the ground and up out of the ground. It looks rather agricultural in form, like a silo, and she wants to put it down by the barn. It will be a performance space, and she will curate poetry readings and concerts of a single voice or a single instrument.
Oliver does tours of his ranch about 35 times a year. I want to go back. Because even with the hour plus in the tower, I want more. Plus, I want to walk the Bruce Nauman steps, see the Richard Serra pieces Snake Eyes and Boxcars as well as the pieces by Martin Puryear, Fred Sandback, Andy Goldsworthy and a bunch of others. As I told Trina, I'm not the guy for a ranch with horses, but I could handle a ranch with sculpture.
Dear Sting,
Congratulations on your upcoming Grammy appearance as part of the reunion of The Police. I'm happy to hear that the three of you will be able to put aside jealousy, bitterness and years of built up resentment in the name of money the high art of pop music.
But as someone who grew up on The Police (and then after the initial benefit-of-the-doubt blue turtles thing proceeded to not only lose all respect for you but come to actively dislike your entire being -- so much so that hearing your voice when shuffling upon great tracks like No Time This Time makes me reach for the "next" button), would you mind heeding just a few pieces of advice?
- Get the hell out of the way and let them play. Look, even in the eighties you were a camera hog. We know you're beautiful, we know you do tantric sex things and we're entirely too familiar with the shape of your neckline. But this isn't about you, so get the hell out of the way and let the world see the other two guys. Kids need to see what a real drummer looks like, and even though you're the self-appointed genius of the crew, you know deep inside it was Andy Summers who gave the band its texture. Give the men some camera time.
- Skip the drama. Please don't do that thing where it's just you on stage where the audience goes "oh, look at that handsome Englishman doing the nice ballad version of that song that used to be on the radio all the time" and then bring the lights up on the rest of the band and start rocking out. Please.
- Don't talk. We know you care about the Brazilian rain forest and global warming and feeding the children, so shut up already. We'd rather hear you sing about hookers.
- No extra musicians, no backup singers. I know you're not afraid of extra musicians, and I know the Grammy producers will want to "fill out the sound." Don't. In case you've forgotten (and something tells me you have), The Police were all about making the most out of the least. One bass, one guitar, one drummer.
This Grammy performance is certainly an advertisement for your rumored summer reunion tour. If you have any shred of respectability left, you'll turn this into a real Police show, and not a solo show with some old mates backing you up. I don't have a lot of hope, but hey -- a boy can dream, right?
Best,
Michael
Stupid hack idea: a local script that pulls currently playing from one of your friends last.fm profiles and updates your IM status with what they're listening to. Have it update in real time for that creepy simulcast effect ("OMIGOD, we're listening to the same stuff"), or have it pull from the friends' playlist archive at random to leech off their coolness ("yeah, I'm into <cool hip band> too") or fake a shared interest for other purposes ("I can't believe we're both into <cool hip band>; we should get together some time").
Have I told anyone lately how much I love my Shuffle? So much more than my Nano. After a year of moderate use, the nano's battery is already not holding a charge, there's this really awful staticky sound in the right channel, and the case is all scratched to hell. All first world problems, I know. But it just makes it really not fun to use.
But the shuffle! I plug in the headphones, I press play, and songs I like come out, in no particuar order! Fun. Like just now I was inspired to write this because out of nowhere came Wilco's "Hell is Chrome." It was like a Friday early afternoon present, hearing that song.
I hope I like the new one just as much -- I pre-ordered one of the new shuffles with the clip. I'm hoping it will be like wearable joy.
Day I was born: Hey Jude. Day I turned 21? Milli Vanilli's Girl I'm Gonna Miss You. Is that poetic or what?
This one's easy.
You can be and to live in the gun of shot shack and you can in another part the world be and you can behind rad of a large car be and you can in a beautiful house, with a beautiful woman to find you and you can requests sich-gut…, as I received here? The days go with calms by/let water me the outward journey days to the bottom leaves more by/water which runs under ground in still Blaus/after the money gone once in Lebenszeit/in a water which runs under ground, holds. And you can wonder as work to me this one? And you can wonder where are this large car? And you cannot declare this one are my beautiful house! And you may not be declare this one are my beautiful wife! The days go with calms by/let water me the outward journey days to the bottom leaves more by/water which runs under ground in still Blaus/after the money gone once in Lebenszeit/in a water which runs under ground, holds. Even which was it indeed… even which it was indeed… even which it was indeed… even which it was indeed… even which it was indeed… even which it was indeed… even which it was indeed… even which was it indeed…
Behind rad of a large car be.
I think it was Rush, in 1983 in St. Louis, MO. I was a serious drum geek back then, so Neil Peart was my own personal demigod. All those drums! All those odd time signatures! Ahhh, heaven.
(Social software dilemma: is this admission only appropriate for friends and family?)
don't have one yet -- hoping to come across one soon -- it's summer, after all.
