Blow, Gabriel: Music of the Apocalypse Lecture

Event for Mike McGonigal

description

Music Dialogue: Blow, Gabriel: Music of the Apocalypse
Wednesday, July 30, 7 PM
Auditorium
FREE to members; $5 general admission
Tickets available at the Henry Admission Desk beginning July 23; seating is limited.

What is the sound the world makes as it ends — a whimper or a bang? YETI editor and eMusic gospel music columnist Mike McGonigal presents a multimedia look at music and the idea of apocalypse in popular culture. This talk will cover many bases, from a look at gospel songs that celebrate the apocalypse to the music made by modern cults, including Jim Jones, Charles Manson, and (the allegedly apocalyptic) Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The ways that music figures in apocalypse-themed films will be looked at, as well as musical responses to the atomic bomb, from the infamous “Duck & Cover” PSA to Pere Ubu’s “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” and the Swan Silvertones’ “Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb.” The lecture will end with Pierre Henry’s musique concrete works Le Voyage and L’Apocalypse de Jean, two thrilling and visceral looks at the end of the world as we know it.

**PS: of course there will also be metal... And any suggestions are very welcome.**

Mike McGonigal has written about music since 1984, when he started the fanzine Chemical Imbalance. His book on My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless was published in Continuum’s 33 and 1/3 series. A former Seattle resident and Amazon.com music editor, today McGonigal lives in Portland, OR, where he oversees editorial for YETI publications. His books Buked & Scorned: The YETI Guide to Sanctified Blues & Gritty Gospel (YETI) and In Love With Those Times: The Chemical Imbalance Reader (Verse Chorus) will both be published in 2009.