Movies We've Just Watched discussion
LISTS, LISTS, AND MORE LISTS
>
Stuff We've Just Listened To
Baxter wrote: "It looks like Aphex Twin has been dropping an insane amount of unreleased tracks on Soundcloud for free listening the past couple days. Like, more than 100 so far. So that's kind of neat.
https:/..."
cool - did you like that last record, SYRO?
Robert wrote: "Now, where was I?10. Godflesh, A World Lit Only by Fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PqXB...
9. Aaron Martin, Comet's Coma
https://eileanrec.bandcamp.com/album/...
8. Delain, Th..."
Dog Lady Island reminds me of the Soundtrack of Roman Polanski's MACBETH--I think that was something like the Third Ear Band? Some weird name like that.. Swans will be here in Florida in March , I think.
I actually had to look it up, because I'd forgotten Polanski had even done a version of Macbeth (which I now must see because Polanski does Macbeth, and before he got stupid even). It was indeed the Third Ear Band, and the clips I'm listening to, I can definitely see where you're coming from. Another reason to go hunt down Macbeth. Not expecting much from Netflix, but they've surprised me before.edit: nope, thought they do have Wajda's Siberian Lady Macbeth, which I've been hearing good things about for a few years. On the list it goes!
That is still my favorite version of MACBETH, very moody--he made it very near the time his wife Sharon Tate was killed by Charlie Manson's minions. Adds atmosphere?
The phrase "Charlie Manson's minions" is doing really, really bad things to my head. I wish I could photoshop, because the pictures I see right now would be really hilarious/offensive. Squeaky Fromme would be a GREAT minion...
listening to some hadyn piano sonatas (adras schiff) and reading BLEEDING EDGE on the couch while it rains (finally) in what would normally be sunny oakland.
I managed to get my hands on a copy of a new work by John Adams, ABSOLUTE JEST, scored for string quartet and orchestra, based on snippets from assorted Beethoven string quartets. I'm just nuts about it, last night I played it straight through three times.
i'm a huge fan of the beethoven quartets - especially opus 131 - that last set just makes me crazy it's so good. i'm sure i will like those - thanks for mentioning.listened to more of the penerecki - greenwood disc that tom burned for me recently.
listened to a lot of BITCHES BREW this week, especially that track MILES RUNS THE VOODOO DOWN .. transcribed it for my students, we gave it a reading through on thursday.
i know a lot has been said about BB over the years, but damn if that isn't some of the very best electric miles davis ever. the level of listening in that big group is astonishing throughout.
Grammys -- whatever, but at one point Annie Lennox turned to the microphone and said six magic words: "I Put A Spell On You!" and proceeded to make life worth living again. Ass was kicked.
I just slapped a work print of the new Plague Mother release on so I can pick stuff out to do a remix with for a bonus disc. Harsh and bitter as can only be created by someone who moved from the frying pan of Cleveland to the fire of Milwaukee.edit: stealing loops from, and titles of, two different tracks to create "Rust Is Steel's Deathwish." The way I've been feeling the past couple of days I may actually be able to do justice to the source material. I never think that about Joey's stuff (one of his 2014 releases just made Album of the Year on my list).
Tom wrote: "Grammys -- whatever, but at one point Annie Lennox turned to the microphone and said six magic words: "I Put A Spell On You!" and proceeded to make life worth living again. Ass was kicked."Great cover and performance of one of those most covered songs around.
Did anyone see this Slate article ? Do you think the writer's right?http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2015...
Been checking out a Bernard Herrmann film score: OBSESSION has been getting a lot of play on my iPod lately. OBSESSION is a big blowout orchestral score complete with blasting pipe organ and wailing choir, madly romantic and lush and furious with some of Herrmann's loveliest music, there's a little waltz in there that pops into my head occasionally. From the DePalma film that, not unusually for DePalma, bears a more than passing resemblance to a Hitchcock classic, this is a real treat. The album contains the entire score, every single music cue and a couple of unused takes as a bonus. It actually makes me want to check out the movie again.
This year I have been utterly obsessed with Margaret Chardiet, aka Pharmakon. I've seen her twice, once in January in Cleveland and once in March in Oberlin, and I've probably listened to Bestial Burden at least fifty times; at one point last week I just stuck it on infinite repeat. It was #7 on my Best of 2014 list, but now I'm thinking it should have been #3, maybe even #2. It's like Diamanda Galás sitting in on a session witht he newly-reformed Godflesh, but if Broadrick were still as pissed off as he was in 1992. Absolutely enchanting. Dave was obsessed with watching live Phrmakon videos on YouTube for a bit. I was too dumb to get the whole set from the Oberlin gig, but I got thirteen minutes of it. Terrible footage.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezdcs...
Beats hell out of the Carly Rae Jepsen/ Trent Reznor thing I just watched---I can't believe he went for that..
Robert wrote: "He didn't, 'twould seem.http://www.xfm.co.uk/news/trent-rezno..."
Well thank god for that.
Tracy wrote: "Did anyone see this Slate article ? Do you think the writer's right?http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2015..."
i stopped reading the article, mostly because i think this notion that jazz is dead is total bullshit. jazz no longer resembles the dance hall thing that was the hallmark of its popularity in the 1930's swing era. jazz no longer resembles charlie parker. jazz no longer sounds like KIND OF BLUE. but the music has continued to evolve and i know countless musicians in numerous countries that are making great music that comes out of that tradition.
unlike wynton marsalis, i refuse to join the ranks of anyone that says the music you find in jazz bins today no longer resembles jazz. those neo-cons can wear their suits and parade around imitating the greats of bygone days all they want, but they are not going to revitalize the music by trying desperately to make jazz sound like it sounded in 1958. all living things grow and change with the seasons or they die. if anyone killed jazz, it's those motherfuckers with so little imagination. my greatest contention with those fools is that from the get go jazz musicians were listening within and doing their best to sound like no one other than themselves. so this notion today that you have to transcribe every solo by whomever your hero is and sound like them or you're not legit is madness. if charlie parker had done that, he would have sounded like jimmy dorsey and frankie turnbower ... he would not have become the revolutionary he became. and that's just one example. miles davis' fans came and went, as his music changed radically over the decades. his core fans remained, but when he went electric, for example, like bob dylan in the same era, he lost oodles of listeners. did he give a shit? he did not - he kept turning on young players and listeners and selling out concert halls. he was one of the last great jazz musicians with guts. sonny rollins is still alive! how can jazz be dead when he is still blowing his ass off??? how can jazz be dead when roscoe mitchell keeps making innovative, daring music? braxton, muhal richard abrahms and the rest of the original AACM crew continues to make astonishing music. do the record companies promote those artists? NO. they get mac arthur awards, fund their own projects and struggle like the rest of us, unless they've landed a gig teaching at a university. the fact that roscoe has to teach at mills college to survive is the fault of the music industry, not the man. he's still making great music. do the jazz journals write about him? largely, they do not.
the problem is also the record companies. they don't know how to market anything new these days. they are terrified to invest in their artists. admin personnel at most labels make more than the artists. even a good selling artist like charlie hunter gets fucked by the record companies. if he didn't tour constantly, he wouldn't be able to put food on the table for his family. record companies pay these A&R guys and producers, who have no imagination at all and know very little about music, to get bands to sound like bands that sell well. we have traveled so far from any vibrant, urgent culture on a mass level.
but it's not just music - look around - i'm sure you all have remarked at the trends in cinema: remake, remake, remake! as long as these industries are seen as such, and not as artistic endeavors that offer something vital to humanity, we're fucked. completely fucked.
nowadays if you want to know what's going on you have to go underground. that's where all the cats are who are taking care of business. you won't find us on the radio, unless it's a college station, you won't find us at davies' hall, you won't find us on the cover of TIME magazine (amazing to consider that thelonious monk once graced the cover of that rag!), you won't find anyone discussing us on the 6 o'clock news. gotta make way for fear inc.
a few hours later and i'm thinking jazz has never desired to be popular since the be-bop era. after the swing era jazz put improvisation at the forefront, and in doing so it moved from being a popular artform to an artform. revolutions have rarely been the stuff of popular music.
Phillip wrote: "Tracy wrote: "Did anyone see this Slate article ? Do you think the writer's right?http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2015..."
i stopped reading the artic..."
Phillip: There are quite a few points you are making that resonate for me. I don't know how many (amateur) musicians I know that think "playing jazz", which I assume they want to do for the challenge of making music more complicated than standard 3 or 4 chord rock, just pull out the REAL books and feel like they have to do a note for note rendition from what the book says. No wonder it often sounds like the dried up meat from the back of the fridge.
And now that you started on the entertainment industry--heavy on the word industry. How can they not understand what they are doing? The saddest part is I see my students losing their ear for good music. Thank god for my international students who still listen to more good stuff than American kids do.
Even knock around people like me and my friends--we get turned down if we play covers, even if we make them our own, because "the companies" send people around to intimidate bar and venue owners..so the first question is always , "what percentage of your music is originals?" You don't need much imagination to see how this is keeping kids from starting bands and getting out there to gain experience.
I agree with you about the underground--it's the only way. I tell the handful of kids I know who are dead set on music careers--you gotta go do it the way we did-- punk style--and not this fake, hipster punk style--the real deal, no sponsors, no craft beer sales,no light shows, no professional movers, no big budget anything, sleep on couches, squat, find an empty building, steal electricity--let the cops be called. Screw the man.
Just watched The Imitation Game Found it interesting, could not take my eyes off the sceen. Hard to believe it was based on a true story. Maryanne Raphael
Robert wrote: "Now, where was I?7. Pharmakon, Bestial Burden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i-Kl......"
someone sent a slough of tracks by pharmakon the other day ... enjoying them now.
ok, no big surprise here but i listened to bach's GOLDBERG VARIATIONS (for the millionth time) this morning and as usual, that is one brilliant study of theme and variation. i have three recordings: glenn gould (duh), andras schiff and my girl martha argerich ... all incredible performances.
i was featured on KALW 91.7 national public radio today, talking about some new works that i composed earlier this winter (january) while in rural maine. the pieces are called BARBEDWIRE - 37 graphic scores for trio. this is a link to a 10 minute segment where i talk about the pieces, how graphic scores work, and a little about improvised music. the music in the background is from my last solo CD, LINES COMBINEDhttp://kalw.org/post/bay-area-beats-p...
enjoy if you will
Phillip wrote: "i was featured on KALW 91.7 national public radio today, talking about some new works that i composed earlier this winter (january) while in rural maine. the pieces are called BARBEDWIRE - 37 graph..."That is incredibly interesting, Phillip-- Your students are lucky to have such a creative teacher.
Do any of you know a band called Naked City or a guy John Zorn?
Tracy wrote: "Do any of you know a band called Naked City or a guy John Zorn?"of course, i've known zorn for years. naked city was one of the bands that helped bring him BIG attention. part of the WHOA was the intensity of the music, like coltrane in his late period but with AMPLIFIERS. part of it was the extreme artwork (read: controversial) that pissed a lot of people off. but zorn is the real deal, he's been composing like a madman for decades, has created some really great music, started a label called tzadik, which releases "radical jewish culture" among other things - the label has various curation: composer's series, new japan series (documenting a lot of the noise scene there that was a response, in the 80's, to a lot of watered down american fusion that was putting people to sleep in the late 70's, music which paralleled the 80's punk scene in america and great britain), radical jewish culture ... in short, he's done a lot for the advancement of new music and is considered one of the central figures of the downtown post-jazz scene in new york.
in the height of his early popularity, he was commissioned by a BIG corporation to do some music for a few of their commercials (he doesn't like it to be known who this company is, so i'm not telling) and they paid him a TON of money, that's how he got his label off the ground in the late 1990's.
after TONIC closed, he bought a little building on the corner of 2nd and C in the east village a few years ago and started a mostly volunteer-run club called THE STONE, a prestigious place to play in new york for the weird kind of music i am also associated with. i've played there several times and will play there in early december.
http://www.thestonenyc.com/
Phillip wrote: "Tracy wrote: "Do any of you know a band called Naked City or a guy John Zorn?"of course, i've known zorn for years. naked city was one of the bands that helped bring him BIG attention. part of th..."
Thanks so much, Phillip, for all the great background. It's truly amazing sound. I have a former student who is really interested in this music, and feeling rather alone in his interests. I will pass this on if you don't mind.
of course - he should check out the entire tzadik catalogue! i am on a recording that zorn is currently considering for 2016 release. and he has released quite a few recordings by my contemporaries and friends.here is the link to the tzadik website:
http://www.tzadik.com/
went "back" to amoeba yesterday and picked up three volumes of THE COMPLETE ORGAN WORKS OF J.S. BACH ... that bio i just read really brought out the significance of bach's early contributions to the expansion of forms in church music and music for the organ, in general. sebastian bach was, by the time he was 19, one of the foremost organists in germany, and his early compositions are focused mainly on the instrument. numerous books of preludes and fugues and choral preludes occupy the main thrust of this activity, and the first three volumes of this series document that work. glad to have it! great music!
after reading lots of obits today on ornette coleman, i've spent the entire morning just clearing my schedule and listening to BEAUTY IS A RARE THING - THE COMPLETE ATLANTIC RECORDINGS. on disc three at the moment and happy i have three more discs to swim in before i start moving on to his recordings on other labels. can't think of a better way to prepare for a concert tonight of my own graphic scores, which i would never have conceived without ornette's influence. may the great mystery wrap him in all the love he gave to us.
Went to see Brian Wilson's new tour last night -- some sound mixing issues marred the experience, as vocals had a bad habit of disappearing into the instrumentals. The best part of the evening was the opening set from Rodriquez, the star of SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN, who gave us an exquisite little performance of his music, accompanying himself on guitar, culminating in a lovely performance of "On The Street Where You Live."
super cool - you mean brian wilson is on tour? how did i miss that???
Yup, Mr. Wilson is on tour. Don't go if the venue is outdoors.
the last outdoor show i attended was pink floyd's ANIMALS tour in, what, 1978? never again. i loved the band at that point, of course, but the crowds and such, i just couldn't handle it. i swore i would never attend another stadium concert.
back from a few days on the road, where we listened to some great sounds in the car:stones - exile on main street
fletcher henderson - from the complete columbia recordings box set
billie holliday - volume 8 from the complete columbia recordings
outcast - speakerbox
ornette coleman - sound museum
beck - odelay
lester young - complete alladin recordings volume 1
monteverdi - missa in illo tempore
Phillip wrote: "the last outdoor show i attended was pink floyd's ANIMALS tour in, what, 1978? never again. i loved the band at that point, of course, but the crowds and such, i just couldn't handle it. i swore i ..."Yup. Good call.
The Wilson show wasn't in a stadium, it was at the Concert Venue at Jones Beach, which isn't all that huge, which made the sound issues even more inexplicable. The crowd was very well behaved, they weren't the problem.
one bad sound man can ruin a fleet of great musicians. i have numerous horror stories, but i'll refrain. with someone like brian wilson, you'd think they'd hire top notch people, or he would insist on traveling with his own crew. what a shame.
It seems that they got a new sound guy and he's still learning the ropes, but it was not good -- I'd have expected people operating at Wilson's level to make damn sure the sound mix was right, and right all the time.
I put on some music last night, Radiohead's AMNESIAC, and realized how I'd forgotten how great it is to listen to music on a room-filling system rather than headphones. Deelish -- I need to do it more often.
funny, i just bought that disc earlier this week (for the second or third time! ... don't know where the other copies went). that's certainly a great record to tickle your speakers.
Tom wrote: "I put on some music last night, Radiohead's AMNESIAC, and realized how I'd forgotten how great it is to listen to music on a room-filling system rather than headphones. Deelish -- I need to do it ..."Well, Tom, you made me listen to it over my new surround sound whatchamacallit. And I started working on "Knives Out" guitar chords again.
i have a chart for KNIVES OUT, if you want ... i could take a picture of it and send it to you as a message - the lost trio, a group i've been playing with for many years now recorded it a few years ago, well, like ten years ago maybe. we also recorded pyramid song. let me know if you want to check it out ... nice tune.
Went to a play last night, a "musical fantasia" about Rachmaninoff by Dave Malloy entitled PRELUDES. The play is basically a trip through Rachmaninoff's head, guided more or less by his hypnotist/therapist, as Rachmaninoff deals with his extended period of writer's block after the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony. A fascinating couple of hours, Mr. Malloy and his director managed to bring off one of the loveliest moments I've yet experienced in a theater.And of course I came right home and downloaded some Rachmaninoff. Malloy is a real magician -- he's quickly becoming an essential.
I like good old AMNESIAC -- it's probably the Radiohead I've listened to least, though. Modest Mouse had knocked Radiohead off my ipod pedestal for a few weeks. I like Mr. Brock's way with words.
10. Godflesh, A World Lit Only by Fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PqXB...
9. Aaron Martin, Comet's Coma
https://eileanrec.bandcamp.com/album/...
8. Delain, The Human Contradiction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2k-p...
7. Pharmakon, Bestial Burden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i-Kl...
6. Babymetal, Babymetal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDqaT...
5. Murderous Vision, Engines and Disciples
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wJLc...
("to be released in 2013"...heh. It came out December '14)
4. Atomic Cockbombs, Neural Interference
https://mortvillenoise.bandcamp.com/a...
3. Dog Lady Island, Dolor Aria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hLaT...
2. Raison d'Être, Mise en Abysme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6NZ2...
Album of the Year: Plague Mother, Departures
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkSE8...
(Honorable mentions: Behemoth, The Satanist; Dog Lady Island, Malone; Jenny Hval and Susanna, Meshes of Voice; Myrkur, Myrkur; Protestant, In Thy Name; Puce Mary, Persona; Spectral Lore, III; Swans, To Be Kind; Thou, Heathen; Triptykon, Melana Chasmata)