Everybody Can Hear It
Q. Armando Bayolo asked: What about John Adams recent cry of “the emperor has no clothes” towards Eliot Carter on his blog? Is that okay because they’re two grand old men of contemporary American music?
A. No. It’s okay because Elliott Cook Carter Jr. clearly and self-evidently lacks even the most rudimentary scintilla of musical talent. Everyone knows it. Everyone can hear it. It’s long past time someone just said it.
Comment #54 via mclaren at Rude Question of the Week–Is Nico Overrated? at Sequenza21.com
sometimes the commentary about the commentary is much more interesting. in the future if i were a musicologist i would spend my time reading the blog comments
Bookmarks for December 11th through December 17th [del.icio.us]
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Bookmarks from December 11th through December 17th:[del.icio.us]
- ‘Wire’ A Study Topic At Colleges – Baltimore Sun – [del.icio.us]
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“We did not design the show purely as an entertainment, but as a political treatise and social critique,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Baltimore Sun. “To the extent that academia has found the work and is intent on extending the discussion, we are, of course, pleased.” Simon said he’s also happy that the social themes he worked into the series will be getting more attention – themes including “the fraud of the drug war, the evisceration of the working class, our inability to reform our political infrastructure, the inequality of educational opportunity and, lastly, the declining ambitions and viability of high-end journalism.”
- Los Angeles News – Truck vs. Church and State: Kogi Bites Back – page 1 -
“Wow! Little did our Squid Ink food blog editor, Amy Scattergood, know what she was getting into when she asked Church and State chef Walter Manzke a simple question, “Is there anything you won’t eat?” Manzke answered thusly and in the process set off a mini commentary storm: “Anything off a truck. L.A. seems to get caught up in these trends, when one person has great success with something and then no one can come up with anything new so they just copy it. And the most ridiculous one seems to be the truck. I mean, it was maybe cool when the first person did it, and it fits the economy because it’s cheap to operate and all that, but I think it’s everything that takes away from the purpose, the enjoyment and the passion of eating.”
- Scott Brown on Film Reviews Written Before Cameras Roll | Magazine
“Can we talk about how much the new Cameron Crowe movie sucks? I mean, seriously, what was going on with that freakin’ volcano? And all that nonsense about the Chinese antisatellite device? And hoo-boy, that far-fetched third-act turn — oh, hang on. You haven’t seen the movie? No worries, neither have I. Neither has anyone. It hasn’t actually been made yet — but the reviews are already in at Scriptshadow. A no-frills Hollywood blog, Scriptshadow is diabolically simple: An anonymous figure who goes by the nom de Net of Carson Reeves harvests scripts from a network of industry contacts (including hype-conscious writers and their reps). He reviews the screenplays, critiquing structure, story, and character development …”
- Judge denies awarding $391,150 to teacher’s defense team | court, corbett, attorneys – News – The Orange County Register -
“Corbett, an Advanced Placement European history teacher at Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo, was found to have violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause when he referred to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” during a fall 2007 classroom lecture.” don’t you think this might have a chilling effect of “free speech”
- Facebook is the new Compuserve -
“The real concern is that we share so much behind the closed doors of Compuserve-esque Web “sites” that serve as Hotel Californias for our content. Yes, I want to keep some conversations private, but as more of my ramblings move to Facebook and other closed corners of the Web, I want to broaden the conversation beyond the borders of my “friends” list. I can’t. I’m stuck. What happens on Facebook, stays on Facebook. Even content that is cross-posted elsewhere: the ensuing commentary (often of equal or greater value to the original post) is trapped. Professor Jonathan Zittrain raises a warning voice about this in his “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It”, but I can’t help but think that the convenience of Facebook will trump the social benefits of broadening conversations beyond the borders of such services.”
- Jazz: The Music of Unemployment: How saving a farming village from bandits in feudal Japan is like being in a big band circa 2009 -
“Because good musicians playing in a big band are like samurai deigning to fight without hope of glory, of course. They have to really love what they do, and they have to be willing to be paid in rice if need be.”
- Logic made fun A new comic romps through one of philosophy’s greatest debates -
“What “Logicomix” niftily demonstrates is how well the graphic novel form is suited to mounting sprightly explanations of abstract concepts. Thinkers often employ concrete metaphors as tools to convey difficult ideas — the “infinite hotel” of mathematician David Hilbert, for example, an establishment that, although full, always has room for another guest. In “Logicomix,” Hilbert’s paradox is further visualized by a character checking into an actual hotel and drawing arrows on the posted floor plan. That character is the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, and the scene is played for laughs with Russell’s bemused new bride shaking her head and a German porter exclaiming “They are crazy, these Britons!”
- In search of Eva Tanguay, the first rock star. – By Jody Rosen – Slate Magazine -
“To call Tanguay a “rock star” is anachronistic but appropriate. She was not just the pre-eminent song-and-dance woman of the vaudeville era. (One of her many nicknames was “The Girl Who Made Vaudeville Famous.”) She was the first American popular musician to achieve mass-media celebrity, with a cadre of publicists trumpeting her on- and offstage successes and outrages, and an oeuvre best summed up by the slogan that appeared frequently on theatrical marquees: “Eva Tanguay, performing songs about herself.” She was the first singer to mount nationwide solo headlining tours, drawing record-breaking crowds and shattering box-office tallies from Broadway to Butte. Newspaper accounts describe scenes of fan frenzy that foreshadowed Frank Sinatra at the Paramount Theatre and Beatlemania. At the height of her stardom, Tanguay commanded an unheard of salary, $3,500 per week, out-earning the likes of Al Jolson, Harry Houdini, and Enrico Caruso. “
- Giving tourists a look at gang culture — latimes.com -
“A group of civic activists, united by faith and a belief that the poor economy in the interior of Los Angeles is a social injustice, is preparing to offer bus tours of some of the grittiest pockets of the city, including decayed public housing, sites of deadly shootouts and streets ravaged by racial unrest. After a VIP preview last weekend, L.A. Gang Tours expects to open to the public in January, giving tourists a look at the cradle of the nation’s gang culture — the birthplace of many of the city’s gangs, including Crips and Bloods, Florencia 13 and 18th Street.”
Bookmarks for October 24th through October 31st [del.icio.us]
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Bookmarks from October 24th through October 31st:[del.icio.us]
- Brow Beat : The DORF Matrix: Towards a Theory of NPR’s Taste in Black Music -
“In the weeks since the publication of the All Songs Considered list, I have been puzzling over NPR’s musical coverage—in particular, its approach to black music. I wondered: Could NPR’s musical taste be as lily-white as the “The Best Music of 2009 (So Far)” list? After scouring NPR’s Web site and studying its broadcasts—All Things Considered profiles, Fresh Air interviews, even the music interludes played between segments on NPR’s marquee programs—I can report that the answer is no. It’s not that NPR doesn’t like black music. It merely maintains a strict preference for black music that few actual living African-Americans listen to.”
- why i’m not afraid to take your money« by amanda fucking palmer -
“I know this for myself – it’s something you’ve done since you were six years old, and there’s a sense that if you stop giving 100% you are doomed to failure, and that is unacceptable. No wonder so many players hate their sport – the surprise is that so few admit it.” And despite all the kudos, money and silverware, there’s a reason it’s the top players who suffer most – because they’re the ones playing the most tennis, as they don’t get knocked out in the first or second round. So they have the least free time, the most mental stress and suffer the most physically. Agassi’s avowed hatred for his sport is far from exclusive to tennis. British cyclists Chris Boardman, the former Olympic pursuit champion, and Tour de France star David Millar have both admitted to not really liking cycling. “In Boardman’s case,” says William Fotheringham, the Guardian’s cycling correspondent, “he liked the winning not the cycling itself, and he drove himself to win.”
- Why did Andre Agassi hate tennis? | Sport | The Guardian -
“I know this for myself – it’s something you’ve done since you were six years old, and there’s a sense that if you stop giving 100% you are doomed to failure, and that is unacceptable. No wonder so many players hate their sport – the surprise is that so few admit it.” And despite all the kudos, money and silverware, there’s a reason it’s the top players who suffer most – because they’re the ones playing the most tennis, as they don’t get knocked out in the first or second round. So they have the least free time, the most mental stress and suffer the most physically. Agassi’s avowed hatred for his sport is far from exclusive to tennis. British cyclists Chris Boardman, the former Olympic pursuit champion, and Tour de France star David Millar have both admitted to not really liking cycling. “In Boardman’s case,” says William Fotheringham, the Guardian’s cycling correspondent, “he liked the winning not the cycling itself, and he drove himself to win.”
- don’t care about old composers-rogerbourland.com -
“I asked Aaron Copland what he was composing in fall 1976: “Nothing, and I am not accepting commissions; if people want to play my music, there’s plenty of it available in my catalog.” Today I went through an old journal, listing old UCLA Music faculty and their appointments and salaries. I looked at all the composers and saw their careers over a span of decades. I sighed and thought about how none of their music is heard these days. And I’m sure that this is true for every music school in America.”
- Brand (Dis)Loyalty « The Quick and the Ed -
“A couple of days ago a message popped up on my Tivo informing me of a new service, “Blockbuster on Demand.” Ah, Blockbuster. That takes me back, to that period of about four years when all of the mom and pop video rental stores had been driven out of business but Netflix hadn’t yet arrived, so the only way to rent a movie was to drive to the nearest Blockbuster, spend ten minutes trying to find a place to park, discover that your first eight choices were unavailable, wait in line for fifteen minutes, and be informed by a surly, inattentive clerk that you owed the Blockbuster corporation 27 dollars in late fees and other assorted charges. snip This is what happens when organizations use their monopoly status to mistreat customers. Sooner or later the world changes, your monopoly is gone, and you pay the price… If there’s one thing that’s pretty certain, it’s that people will have more education choices in the future than they’ve had in the pas
- Music review: ‘Einstein’ at the beach | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times -
So “Baby Einstein” won’t make your kids smarter after all. Last week, the Walt Disney Co. confessed that plopping kids in front of its video does not count as instant education and offered to refund gullible parents their money. But the few enlightened parents who tried “Einstein on the Beach” instead may have a wiser tale to tell. Saturday night, Jacaranda, the West Side’s new music series, concluded its first concert of the season at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica with excerpts from Philip Glass’ groundbreaking opera he conceived with director Robert Wilson in 1976. Glass offers the option of replacing the women’s voices at the end with a children’s chorus and that is what Jacaranda did. Asking youngsters to show up late at night to sing the last eight minutes of a five-hour avant-garde work is, obviously, unreasonable. Then again, little about putting on “Einstein on the Beach” has ever been practical…”
Bookmarks for September 28th through October 1st [del.icio.us]
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/a>Bookmarks from September 28th through October 1st:[del.icio.us]
- Taruskin, vol.5, page 220 « The Rambler
“I’ve just recently, and belatedly, started leafing through Richard Taruskin’s monumental History of Western Music, one of the musicological banner publications of 2005. Now, I’ve been an occasional fan of Taruskin’s work – his Grove article on Nationalism is flawed, but significant, and Defining Russia Musically was an inspirational book for me… There’s far too much to go into here about what winds me up about this book (how about the laughable Europhobia, in which European music after 1950 is merely a Cold War sideshow, and after 1960 non-existent), much of which will have been said elsewhere, but I just wanted to get my reaction to one page in particular off my chest. This is page 220 of volume 5, on which Taruskin is discussing (speculating on) the Cold War implications of Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. I fear, as an example of the lazy thought and downright falsehoods of this book, it may not be unique.”
- Music Apps Blur the Gap Between You and Clapton – NYTimes.com -
“And this is where it gets back to being like a video game. Many musical apps offer the ability to record a track, then add layers on top of it. Doing this between disparate apps is impossible without external recording software, but a multi-instrumental app like Moocow’s Band gives novices the opportunity to record and edit tracks with drums, bass and guitar, and make sure it all sounds pretty good (even if one doesn’t know how to play a lick of music). It’s as much a game as Guitar Hero, only instead of trying to keep up with prerecorded music, the goal is to make music of one’s own.”
Bookmarks for September 6th through September 20th [del.icio.us]
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Bookmarks from September 6th through September 20th:[del.icio.us]
Bookmarks for July 3rd through July 5th [del.icio.us]
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Bookmarks from July 3rd through July 5th:[del.icio.us]
- Daily Kos: Scientists Visit the Creation Museum – “Tamaki Sato was confused by the dinosaur exhibit. The placards described the various dinosaurs as originating from different geological periods — the stegosaurus from the Upper Jurassic, the heterodontosaurus from the Lower Jurassic, the velociraptor from the Upper Cretaceous — yet in each case, the date of demise was the same: around 2348 B.C. “I was just curious why,” said Dr. Sato, a professor of geology from Tokyo Gakugei University in Japan” Poor Dr. Sato. Has he never read the Bible? Doesn’t he know that 2348 BC was the year of the Great Flood?
- Wonkette : Insane Sarah Palin, Late At Night On July 4, Threatens To Sue Entire Internet, Via Twitter – he he she said snowbilly grifter. “Sarah Palin, a snowbilly grifter who spent her entire adult life desperately trying to become a Public Figure, apparently wants her attorneys to stupidly and pointlessly threaten American practitioners of free speech regarding our public figures and elected officials.”
- musoc.org home: music, society, music society -interesting un-authored site that tries to push an unique “art music” worldview. right now the general consensus is that its a parody (at NNM)
- 1. define all music in only two categories; pop and art (really no folk music?)
- 2. has a hall of shame for the “individuals and institutions who debase art music” (why not in good fun?)
- 3. have a set of criteria for all art music (there definition of art music is ambitious but fatally flawed, they trip themselves up in the complexity argument, also by giving any music/idea a fixed criteria pretty much makes it dead on the spot to be dissected in a vacuum sealed bell jar and not a living breathing ‘art’ form)
- 4. have a list of ‘approved’ art music (not a bad idea, but looking at their list makes me confident i wouldn’t ever want to be a member of their ‘club’)
- 5. have a list of neglected classics (see #4)
- 6. have a mailing list (why not… it would be interesting to see what they think)
- ‘Freebird’ ultimately unforgettable — chicagotribune.com -Lynyrd Skynyrd released the song 35 years ago. Since then, it has been an anthem, a demand, an ode to personal independence and the lamest heckle in the history of rock.
- Feed Us A Live Insect: I will always love you Mr. T’s-Bowl – great post (by eli of the monolators) on the ups and downs on my favorite venue to play in Los Angeles.
- This Is Why You’re Fat and other great single-topic blogs. – By Farhad Manjoo – Slate Magazine -
The allure of crowd-sourced, single-topic blogs.
- The BRAD BLOG : EXCLUSIVE: PALIN RESIGNATION ‘DAMAGE CONTROL’ FOR COMING ‘ICEBERG SCANDAL’ … MORE: EMBEZZLEMENT INDICTMENTS COMING? -since i posted this the FBI has come out to say that there is no truth to the online rumors. after seeing the press conference i still think she was out of her mind scared and quit for a pretty good reason. only time will tell.
- YouTube – Music plays with the listener -interesting youtube video on music cognition (via @laputean)
- Poisson Rouge’s sense of musical adventure | Culture Monster | Los Angeles Times -Marc Swed checks out the poisson rouge in NYC. “The place isn’t merely cool, as the New York Times has dubbed it, the venue is a downright musical marvel. I wasn’t miserable on Monday, which I might have been with this program. Instead, I found the evening such a pleasure that I hope there is room on the crowded Poisson Rouge bandwagon for yet another critic.”
Bookmarks for July 1st through July 3rd [del.icio.us]
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Bookmarks from July 1st through July 3rd:[del.icio.us]
- Jazz: The Music of Unemployment: Twitter killed the video star – christopher weingarten makes the point that crowd sourcing killed great music. because there is lots of “who” you should listen to, but not much “why” (via andrew durkin)
- AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com -a good cure for the summertime blahs
- Los Angeles Eat+Drink – Snook Attack: La Chente – johnathan gold again tempts me with his food porn. “Have you ever encountered pescado Zarandeado? Because it is as intimidating as an entrée can get, a vast, smoking creature split open at the backbone and flopped open into a sort of skeleton-punctuated mirror image of itself, wisps of steam rising around the onions and lemon slices with which it is strewn, served on the kind of plastic tray you may remember from your high school cafeteria, which is probably the only vessel broad enough to handle the fish. As served at Mariscos La Chente, a Westside restaurant specializing in the seafood dishes of Sinaloa and Nayarit, it is so menacing that you scarcely know whether to eat it or beat it to death with a stick.”
- Industrial Jazz Group – ReverbNation -now that i’m on break i’m looking forward to listening to the IJG’s latest album LEEF. “Frustrated by the limitations of “Jazz, the Institution,” but equally resistant to the confines of modern pop, the Industrial Jazz Group has slowly pioneered a middle way. Its music is an idiosyncratic blend of rock, bebop, cartoon soundtracks, blues, funk, Balkan music, doo wop, and, well, a lot of other stuff. (In the end, it’s neither “industrial” nor “jazz,” so don’t let the name fool you.)”
Bookmarks for June 26th through June 29th [del.icio.us]
Bookmarks from June 26th through June 29th:[del.icio.us]
- Los Angeles New Music Ensemble – looks like there is a new music group in town. welcome aboard! “The Los Angeles New Music Ensemble (LANME) is an organization created to promote new music, collaboration within the arts, the commissioning of new works, and the creation of multimedia presentations within innovative live performances. To further these goals, LANME is dedicated to learning and playing the best and most exciting new chamber music around.”
- New school board members ready for challenge – LA Daily News -former John Marshall High School colleague Steve Zimmer is interviewed as he prepares to become a school board member. “Zimmer admits that scarier than dealing with a billion-dollar deficit is the idea of not being on the campus of Marshall every day. It will be interesting to see if someone immersed on the ground level can translate that experience to doing a good job on the board,” Zimmer said.” As a teacher, Zimmer has also been a very active member of United Teachers Los Angeles, which has prompted some to believe his vote will always follow the powerful union’s stance. I don’t accept that voting on the side of the union is siding against students,” he said “
- laboratory tests of vegan restaurants in la | vegan food and living in Los Angeles -
very interesting blog post that tests a number of LA restaurants to see if their food was really vegan. (fyi: i’m not and my wife is a pescatarian) although there were some meals that were obviously misrepresented as vegan, it seems the biggest culprit might be the mislabeling and mistranslation of food from the taiwan to us markets.
- A Chapter from The Listen: Music for 18 Musicians – these excerpts are being touted as a new type of music criticism and a new way to attract audiences. i hate to throw a bucket of cold water on these ambitious young writer/composers, but the excerpts are overwritten and seem musically naive, trying to impress a faculty advisor in grad school. hence exhibit A and B: “
- And now melody. And now melodies. The melodies here being the playings-out of the harmonies. The harmonies being the on-ringing of all the melodic notes” “
- The harmonies are one harmony that absorbs the up-till-now waves of the other harmonies, that absorbs the leftover pulses. This accumulated on-ringing describes a recognizable environment… —a single addition to the bottom of the harmony—acts as a diaphragm, allowing this environment to open and to breathe in”
- this play by play description doesn’t work for me and its certainly not the way i would want people to read about my music. i think a better tack would be to try and distill what makes these pieces great.
- You balance the budget – Los Angeles Times -Try your hand at closing California’s budget shortfall, estimated at $24 billion. It’s not easy, but it can be done. Cut spending, raise taxes and/or borrow to get the state out of the red. For each choice — drawn from proposals from across the political spectrum — we’ve tried to give some sense of the effects. As you craft your proposal, the Deficit Meter will show your progress.
- The tragic end of Michael Jackson: The Jeruselum Post – very tragic michael jackson quote that is further proof that fame is not a replacement for love “I am going to say something I have never said before and this is the truth. I have no reason to lie to you and God knows I am telling the truth. I think all my success and fame, and I have wanted it, I have wanted it because I wanted to be loved. That’s all. That’s the real truth. I wanted people to love me, truly love me, because I never really felt loved. I said I know I have an ability. Maybe if I sharpened my craft, maybe people will love me more. I just wanted to be loved, because I think it is very important to be loved and to tell people that you love them and to look in their eyes and say it.”
- I’m in a band… -via S21, i’m glad to see other composer/performers starting their own groups
- Just Released: “New World Ardor”- NetNewMusic – willam houston’s new (and very enjoyable) post-apocalypse party music. reminds me of john oswald’s ‘plunderphonics’
welcome (beta)
welcome to the new site. this is a conglomeration (is that a word?) my old blog and and the info and music from the pbe site. overall i’m hoping the new site should make for a much better browsing experience, so let me show you around the new digs… the rest of the site is [...]
Bookmarks for July 16th through July 19th [del.icio.us]
Bookmarks from July 16th through July 19th:[del.icio.us]
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Jul 20, 2009 | Categories:bookmarks | Tags: acting, america, anne midgette, anorexia, art music, blog/musings, comedy, commentary, consumerism, cool, critic, cronkite, culture, design, diet, environment, firefox, funny, guy debord, gwbush, hillary clinton, hollywood bowl, humor, jenny bitner, journalism, koyaanisqatsi, lacma, latimes, los angeles, map, media, musoc.org, news, philip glass, photography, politics, popmusic, propaganda, recovery, retrace our steps, reviews/press, salon.com, state department, war, wnyc | 1 Comment »