...an awesome couple of hours immersed in Charles Bradley (thank you, Amazon Prime) after watching the live-stream Roseanne Cash-Buddy Miller-Jim Lauderdale concert in NYC (thank you, Lincoln Center). But felt terrible for the local band that stole the Lincoln Center show. I realize that we ran out of band names around the time of Vanilla Fudge. But, The Lone Bellow? Really? Would you walk across the street to see an outfit called The Lone Bellow? You know you wouldn't, unless you thought you were going to see a Shel Silverstein cover band or a reading of Humboldt's Gift. Maybe, before they release their new album, they could sponsor a naming contest. The Zach Williams Band would work (he's the band's leader). "The Zach Williams Band stole the show at Lincoln Center last night." See? Or, if there's never been a band named Brooklyn, like Boston or Kansas, that'd work: "Brooklyn stole the show at Lincoln Center last night." The Lone Bellow? Not so much. In any case, if you're a Prime member, add Charles Bradley to your Amazon Music playlist now, and get the several Anthony Hamilton albums while you're at it. And, at least for now, it's still possible to watch Jim Lauderdale, Buddy Miller, Roseanne Cash and, yes, The Lone Bellow at Lincoln Center.org.
The Lone Bellow, Mill City Nights 10/29/13 (full concert):
Turns out, there has never been, apparently, a band named Brooklyn. There was, however, Brooklyn Bridge.
Showing posts with label live music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label live music. Show all posts
Obscurities: Fraser & DeBolt with Ian Guenther
A documentary about the phenomenal but little-known Canadian (for-lack-of-a-better-word:) folk-rock duo Fraser & DeBolt is scheduled to air this Sunday evening on CBC Radio. Produced by Vancouver writer and photographer Rachel Sanders, it recounts the history of Fraser & DeBolt with Ian Guenther, a 1971 Columbia album that is beloved 
by the handful of people who remember its original release and the untold numbers since who have found it still shrink-wrapped in used record bins.
"One of the many sad secrets of the popular music business is the way this little gem languished in obscurity," Mark Allan writes in a 4+ star review on allmusic. "It should have been heard by millions, but disappeared at the height of psychedelia. Two years later, The Band found an audience with haunting tales of bygone rustic North American life with their seminal, self-titled second album. Widespread acclaim eluded the earlier outing by this unheralded Canadian trio. The songs, most written independently by Daisy DeBolt or Allan Fraser, are poetic. DeBolt's slowly unfolding, album-opening "All This Paradise" is a marvel, introducing listeners right away to her commanding voice and the sinuous fiddle of Ian Guenther.
The album was out of print for years, scratchy vinyl platters still treasured by a small but fervent number of fans."
At least one cut on ...with Ian Guenther, "Them Dance Hall Girls," has poptential, with only the album's obscurity keeping it from being covered more often (among others, roots singer-songwriter Tom Russell does a great rendition on Songs of the West, and the eclectic Duhks do a version, but in my mind's ear I always hear Willie Nelson, who hasn't gotten around to it yet). A few copies of ...with Ian Guenther can be found on line. Their even more obscure follow-up, With Pleasure, is a lot harder to find and to me not worth the effort. In 1971, they appeared at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.
Both DeBolt and Fraser have continued to make music, mostly up north, although Montrealer Fraser has been seen in New York.
I was interviewed for the documentary because of over-the-top liner notes I did for the original album (this off-the-cuff piece, referred to more than once in print, as "the greatest liner notes ever written" -- I know, I know, but such they were called -- having taken on a life of their own, can be accessed on Grown So Ugly, an essential blog that digs up lost musical treasures). On the sleeve, I called Fraser & DeBolt with Ian Guenther "one of the best pop albums I have ever heard," an assessment I stand by. I still listen to the record frequently. Most of the originals sound as fresh and compelling as they did nearly 40 years ago; the only non-original, Don't Let Me Down, affectingly rethinks the Beatles' approach to the tune. Of course, I also said, this album "will help shape the music of the coming decade," so what did I know.
Sanders' documentary tribute will be broadcast Sunday May 23 on the program Inside the Music (CBC Radio 2 at 3 pm, CBC Radio 1 at 9 pm, with five time zones to catch it in). Both stations are streamed online at the CBC Radio website, and the doc will also be posted there on or around the 23rd and for a few weeks after, so there'll be time to catch it after it airs.
Fraser & DeBolt with Ian Guenther at Amazon.
Update: An Overnight Sensation: Fraser & Debolt on Inside the Music, CBC Radio One and 2 (53:58 MINUTES / 8.1 MB).
by the handful of people who remember its original release and the untold numbers since who have found it still shrink-wrapped in used record bins."One of the many sad secrets of the popular music business is the way this little gem languished in obscurity," Mark Allan writes in a 4+ star review on allmusic. "It should have been heard by millions, but disappeared at the height of psychedelia. Two years later, The Band found an audience with haunting tales of bygone rustic North American life with their seminal, self-titled second album. Widespread acclaim eluded the earlier outing by this unheralded Canadian trio. The songs, most written independently by Daisy DeBolt or Allan Fraser, are poetic. DeBolt's slowly unfolding, album-opening "All This Paradise" is a marvel, introducing listeners right away to her commanding voice and the sinuous fiddle of Ian Guenther.
The album was out of print for years, scratchy vinyl platters still treasured by a small but fervent number of fans."At least one cut on ...with Ian Guenther, "Them Dance Hall Girls," has poptential, with only the album's obscurity keeping it from being covered more often (among others, roots singer-songwriter Tom Russell does a great rendition on Songs of the West, and the eclectic Duhks do a version, but in my mind's ear I always hear Willie Nelson, who hasn't gotten around to it yet). A few copies of ...with Ian Guenther can be found on line. Their even more obscure follow-up, With Pleasure, is a lot harder to find and to me not worth the effort. In 1971, they appeared at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.
Both DeBolt and Fraser have continued to make music, mostly up north, although Montrealer Fraser has been seen in New York.I was interviewed for the documentary because of over-the-top liner notes I did for the original album (this off-the-cuff piece, referred to more than once in print, as "the greatest liner notes ever written" -- I know, I know, but such they were called -- having taken on a life of their own, can be accessed on Grown So Ugly, an essential blog that digs up lost musical treasures). On the sleeve, I called Fraser & DeBolt with Ian Guenther "one of the best pop albums I have ever heard," an assessment I stand by. I still listen to the record frequently. Most of the originals sound as fresh and compelling as they did nearly 40 years ago; the only non-original, Don't Let Me Down, affectingly rethinks the Beatles' approach to the tune. Of course, I also said, this album "will help shape the music of the coming decade," so what did I know.
Sanders' documentary tribute will be broadcast Sunday May 23 on the program Inside the Music (CBC Radio 2 at 3 pm, CBC Radio 1 at 9 pm, with five time zones to catch it in). Both stations are streamed online at the CBC Radio website, and the doc will also be posted there on or around the 23rd and for a few weeks after, so there'll be time to catch it after it airs.
Fraser & DeBolt with Ian Guenther at Amazon.
Update: An Overnight Sensation: Fraser & Debolt on Inside the Music, CBC Radio One and 2 (53:58 MINUTES / 8.1 MB).
Saturday Catchup 2010-05-08
Perceptions: Let’s start with a game. It's called 'Imagine.' Playing is simple: Take recent happenings in the news, scenes where white people are the main actors and imagine they were black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to predict the public reaction to events or incidents in the news if the persons who are driving the action were of color rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America wins. -- Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black by Tim Wise (Ephphatha Poetry 2010-04-22). An effective antidote to the mainstream media's habitual, mindless racism.
Give Arizona back to Mexico: "When conservatives...think of racial profiling, they seem to think of a straw man. The image is something like an evil officer out of the Jim Crow South, full of 'prejudice' (itself a fairly silly and inaccurate way to describe racism), enacting his hatred by stopping black people or Latinos arbitrarily. Although it is arbitrary and unfair in terms of who gets targeted, racial profiling also fits into a set of structures guiding police behavior. If cops want to stop someone, they'll be able to cite some legitimate-sounding suspicion, whether it is actually legitimate or not. Profiling doesn't need to feel like profiling to the police, and they don't need to be secret Klansmen to enforce racial discrimination. It shows up way before you get to that point, among ordinary officers who probably just think they're doing their duty." -- E-mail reveals Arizona law was designed to maximize harassment by Gabriel Winant (Salon 2010-05-03).
Can you say putz?: "Joe Lieberman's latest exercise in demagoguery -- his plan to strip citizenship rights from Americans allegedly involved in terrorism -- has been quickly and incisively condemned (as "madness" by Andrew Sullivan, among others). But like Arizona's dangerous, unconstitutional immigration law, it seems likely to garner support from a majority or substantial minority of Americans who will assume that they won't be victimized by it -- that it will only target other people, namely presumptively guilty terrorists. In fact, Lieberman's proposal, combined with an obscure network of federal laws enabling the executive branch to designate individuals and groups as terrorists, with no due process, would put millions of innocent Americans at risk of arbitrarily losing their citizenship." -- Joe Lieberman Means You by Wendy Kaminer (The Atlantic 2010-05-05).
Coffee break:
Or go to YouTube.
What, me worry?: "The roots of mass apathy are found in the profound divide between liberals, who are mostly white and well educated, and our disenfranchised working class, whose sons and daughters, because they cannot get decent jobs with benefits, have few options besides the military. Liberals, whose children are more often to be found in elite colleges than the Marine Corps, did not fight the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 and the dismantling of our manufacturing base. They did nothing when the Democrats gutted welfare two years later and stood by as our banks were turned over to Wall Street speculators. They signed on, by supporting the Clinton and Obama Democrats, for the corporate rape carried out in the name of globalization and endless war, and they ignored the plight of the poor. And for this reason the poor have little interest in the moral protestations of liberals. We have lost all credibility. We are justly hated for our tacit complicity in the corporate assault on workers and their families. Our passivity has resulted, however, in much more than imperial adventurism and a permanent underclass. A slow-motion coup by a corporate state has cemented into place a neofeudalism in which there are only masters and serfs. And the process is one that cannot be reversed through the traditional mechanisms of electoral politics." -- No One Cares by Chris Hedges (truthdig 2010-06-03).
Our fragile polity: The decline in Congressional oversight stems from a complete break from the historical perception within Congress itself that first and foremost it is a separate branch of government. Once upon a time, very powerful Democratic chairmen would have no trouble going after Democratic or Republican administration wrongdoing. And, at least as importantly, they were aggressive at preserving their power in the Congress to access information from the Executive branch. But now they've become so deferential -- both Democrats and Republicans -- to the executive branch, especially when it comes to national security, that it's appalling. The fundamental problem is that Congress doesn't have the same sense of itself that it used to -- certainly not when brash leaders like Lyndon Baines Johnson were in charge. They took their power really seriously and they were not afraid to use it. -- Congressional Oversight Crippled By Institutional Anemia, Reformer Says by Dan Froomkin (Huffington Post 2010-05-05).
What Jed Bartlet would do: How Hollywood Presidents Would Solve America’s Problems by Peter Baker (New York Times 2010-04-30).
"Britain needs change" was the refrain of the hotly contested election in the U.K. this week. But did that mean changing the name of the Isle of Man to "the Isle of Men, Women, Children and Some Animals?" That is just one of the questions posed by the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, a lampoon of the British political scene that has been running for nearly three decades. While the big parties cross swords over deficits and immigration, Loony proposals include knighthood for Ozzy Osbourne, adding the Loch Ness Monster to the endangered-species list and creating a 99-pence coin (to end the nuisance of carrying pennies). -- In the Longest-Running Joke In Politics, Life Imitates Farce -- Britain's Loony Party Feuds Over Bookies And Term Limits; Glue and Chocolate by Paul Sonne and Alistair MacDonald (Wall Street Journal 2010-05-06).
And speaking of jokes, lets hope Paul Campos is right that, if she is nominated to be one of the Supremes, Elena Kagan will be laughed out of town: The Next Harriet Miers? by Paul Campos (DailyBeast 2010-05-01).
Freedom of the press has declined for the eighth year in a row, according to Freedom House’s annual report. And while the media has focused on the lack of media freedoms in such suspect locales as China and Venezuela, they’ve virtually ignored the U.S. position – No. 24 (PDF).
Foxhole humor: Here is a swell video by some U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan doing an affectionate send-up of Lady Gaga:
Or watch it on YouTube.
Time to pack in AfPak: The pilots waging America’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan could be liable to criminal prosecution for “war crimes,” a prominent law professor told a Congressional panel Wednesday. Well, no wonder. The CIA has been allowed to use drones to attack a broader range of targets, according to the L.A.Times. Previously, drones were only able to fire on enemies on an approved list a few dozen times a year, but now they are able to attack several times a week. Danger Room reminds us that once upon a time, the CIA had to know a militant’s name before putting him up for a robotic targeted killing. Now, if the guy acts like a guerrilla, it’s enough to call in a drone strike; it’s another sign of that a once-limited, once-covert program to off senior terrorist leaders has morphed into a full-scale -- if undeclared -- war in Pakistan. And finally, less well known, but perhaps equally dubious, is the State Department’s counter-narcotics air force, staffed by mercenaries.-- Drone Pilots Could Be Tried for ‘War Crimes,’ Law Prof Says by Nathan Hodge (Danger Room 2010-04-28)
At least "Pakistan is not an ungovernable Somalia. The numbers tell the story. At least 55% of Pakistan's 170 million-strong population are Punjabis. There's no evidence they are about to embrace Talibanistan; they are essentially Shi'ites, Sufis or a mix of both. Around 50 million are Sindhis - faithful followers of the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, now President Asif Ali Zardari's centrist and overwhelmingly secular Pakistan People's Party. Talibanistan fanatics in these two provinces -- amounting to 85% of Pakistan's population, with a heavy concentration of the urban middle class -- are an infinitesimal minority. The Pakistan-based Taliban -- subdivided in roughly three major groups, amounting to less than 10,000 fighters with no air force, no Predator drones, no tanks and no heavily weaponized vehicles -- are concentrated in the Pashtun tribal areas, in some districts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and some very localized, small parts of Punjab." Although, wait until we're done with it. -- The myth of Talibanistan by Pepe Escobar (Asia Times 2010-05-01).
Activism: The New York Times reported on a lesser-known Big Apple tradition –- one that has nothing to do with hot dogs, Broadway or spitting obscenities at strangers. For the last 330 Wednesdays, a group of elderly women (and a couple of elderly men) have met on 5th Avenue to protest the American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. The demonstrations began Jan. 14, 2004 and are still going strong. -- Badass Anti-War Grannies Still At It, After 330 Straight Weeks by Byard Duncan (AlterNet 2010-05-07).
This has been around a while, but despite the poor quality of the picture it's still fun to watch Marty Robbins' reaction to Merle Haggard's impersonation of him:
Or go to YouTube.
Serpico Redux: Two years ago, a police officer in a Brooklyn precinct became gravely concerned about how the public was being served. To document his concerns, he began carrying around a digital sound recorder, secretly recording his colleagues and superiors. He recorded precinct roll calls; his precinct commander and other supervisors; street encounters; small talk and stationhouse banter; in all, he surreptitiously recorded hundreds of hours of cops talking about their jobs. Made without the knowledge or approval of the NYPD, the tapes provide an unprecedented portrait of what it's like to work as a cop in New York City. They reveal that precinct bosses threaten street cops if they don't make their quotas of arrests and stop-and-frisks, but also tell them not to take certain robbery reports in order to manipulate crime statistics. The tapes also refer to command officers calling crime victims directly to intimidate them about their complaints. -- The NYPD Tapes: Inside Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct by Graham Rayman (Village Voice 2010-05-04)
It's reassuring that even in the noughts a mainstream band could still upset the fuzz. Rock and roll!:
Or go to YouTube.
Give Arizona back to Mexico: "When conservatives...think of racial profiling, they seem to think of a straw man. The image is something like an evil officer out of the Jim Crow South, full of 'prejudice' (itself a fairly silly and inaccurate way to describe racism), enacting his hatred by stopping black people or Latinos arbitrarily. Although it is arbitrary and unfair in terms of who gets targeted, racial profiling also fits into a set of structures guiding police behavior. If cops want to stop someone, they'll be able to cite some legitimate-sounding suspicion, whether it is actually legitimate or not. Profiling doesn't need to feel like profiling to the police, and they don't need to be secret Klansmen to enforce racial discrimination. It shows up way before you get to that point, among ordinary officers who probably just think they're doing their duty." -- E-mail reveals Arizona law was designed to maximize harassment by Gabriel Winant (Salon 2010-05-03).
Can you say putz?: "Joe Lieberman's latest exercise in demagoguery -- his plan to strip citizenship rights from Americans allegedly involved in terrorism -- has been quickly and incisively condemned (as "madness" by Andrew Sullivan, among others). But like Arizona's dangerous, unconstitutional immigration law, it seems likely to garner support from a majority or substantial minority of Americans who will assume that they won't be victimized by it -- that it will only target other people, namely presumptively guilty terrorists. In fact, Lieberman's proposal, combined with an obscure network of federal laws enabling the executive branch to designate individuals and groups as terrorists, with no due process, would put millions of innocent Americans at risk of arbitrarily losing their citizenship." -- Joe Lieberman Means You by Wendy Kaminer (The Atlantic 2010-05-05).
Coffee break:
Or go to YouTube.
What, me worry?: "The roots of mass apathy are found in the profound divide between liberals, who are mostly white and well educated, and our disenfranchised working class, whose sons and daughters, because they cannot get decent jobs with benefits, have few options besides the military. Liberals, whose children are more often to be found in elite colleges than the Marine Corps, did not fight the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 and the dismantling of our manufacturing base. They did nothing when the Democrats gutted welfare two years later and stood by as our banks were turned over to Wall Street speculators. They signed on, by supporting the Clinton and Obama Democrats, for the corporate rape carried out in the name of globalization and endless war, and they ignored the plight of the poor. And for this reason the poor have little interest in the moral protestations of liberals. We have lost all credibility. We are justly hated for our tacit complicity in the corporate assault on workers and their families. Our passivity has resulted, however, in much more than imperial adventurism and a permanent underclass. A slow-motion coup by a corporate state has cemented into place a neofeudalism in which there are only masters and serfs. And the process is one that cannot be reversed through the traditional mechanisms of electoral politics." -- No One Cares by Chris Hedges (truthdig 2010-06-03).
Our fragile polity: The decline in Congressional oversight stems from a complete break from the historical perception within Congress itself that first and foremost it is a separate branch of government. Once upon a time, very powerful Democratic chairmen would have no trouble going after Democratic or Republican administration wrongdoing. And, at least as importantly, they were aggressive at preserving their power in the Congress to access information from the Executive branch. But now they've become so deferential -- both Democrats and Republicans -- to the executive branch, especially when it comes to national security, that it's appalling. The fundamental problem is that Congress doesn't have the same sense of itself that it used to -- certainly not when brash leaders like Lyndon Baines Johnson were in charge. They took their power really seriously and they were not afraid to use it. -- Congressional Oversight Crippled By Institutional Anemia, Reformer Says by Dan Froomkin (Huffington Post 2010-05-05).
What Jed Bartlet would do: How Hollywood Presidents Would Solve America’s Problems by Peter Baker (New York Times 2010-04-30).
"Britain needs change" was the refrain of the hotly contested election in the U.K. this week. But did that mean changing the name of the Isle of Man to "the Isle of Men, Women, Children and Some Animals?" That is just one of the questions posed by the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, a lampoon of the British political scene that has been running for nearly three decades. While the big parties cross swords over deficits and immigration, Loony proposals include knighthood for Ozzy Osbourne, adding the Loch Ness Monster to the endangered-species list and creating a 99-pence coin (to end the nuisance of carrying pennies). -- In the Longest-Running Joke In Politics, Life Imitates Farce -- Britain's Loony Party Feuds Over Bookies And Term Limits; Glue and Chocolate by Paul Sonne and Alistair MacDonald (Wall Street Journal 2010-05-06).
And speaking of jokes, lets hope Paul Campos is right that, if she is nominated to be one of the Supremes, Elena Kagan will be laughed out of town: The Next Harriet Miers? by Paul Campos (DailyBeast 2010-05-01).
Freedom of the press has declined for the eighth year in a row, according to Freedom House’s annual report. And while the media has focused on the lack of media freedoms in such suspect locales as China and Venezuela, they’ve virtually ignored the U.S. position – No. 24 (PDF).
Foxhole humor: Here is a swell video by some U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan doing an affectionate send-up of Lady Gaga:
Or watch it on YouTube.
Time to pack in AfPak: The pilots waging America’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan could be liable to criminal prosecution for “war crimes,” a prominent law professor told a Congressional panel Wednesday. Well, no wonder. The CIA has been allowed to use drones to attack a broader range of targets, according to the L.A.Times. Previously, drones were only able to fire on enemies on an approved list a few dozen times a year, but now they are able to attack several times a week. Danger Room reminds us that once upon a time, the CIA had to know a militant’s name before putting him up for a robotic targeted killing. Now, if the guy acts like a guerrilla, it’s enough to call in a drone strike; it’s another sign of that a once-limited, once-covert program to off senior terrorist leaders has morphed into a full-scale -- if undeclared -- war in Pakistan. And finally, less well known, but perhaps equally dubious, is the State Department’s counter-narcotics air force, staffed by mercenaries.-- Drone Pilots Could Be Tried for ‘War Crimes,’ Law Prof Says by Nathan Hodge (Danger Room 2010-04-28)
At least "Pakistan is not an ungovernable Somalia. The numbers tell the story. At least 55% of Pakistan's 170 million-strong population are Punjabis. There's no evidence they are about to embrace Talibanistan; they are essentially Shi'ites, Sufis or a mix of both. Around 50 million are Sindhis - faithful followers of the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, now President Asif Ali Zardari's centrist and overwhelmingly secular Pakistan People's Party. Talibanistan fanatics in these two provinces -- amounting to 85% of Pakistan's population, with a heavy concentration of the urban middle class -- are an infinitesimal minority. The Pakistan-based Taliban -- subdivided in roughly three major groups, amounting to less than 10,000 fighters with no air force, no Predator drones, no tanks and no heavily weaponized vehicles -- are concentrated in the Pashtun tribal areas, in some districts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and some very localized, small parts of Punjab." Although, wait until we're done with it. -- The myth of Talibanistan by Pepe Escobar (Asia Times 2010-05-01).
Activism: The New York Times reported on a lesser-known Big Apple tradition –- one that has nothing to do with hot dogs, Broadway or spitting obscenities at strangers. For the last 330 Wednesdays, a group of elderly women (and a couple of elderly men) have met on 5th Avenue to protest the American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. The demonstrations began Jan. 14, 2004 and are still going strong. -- Badass Anti-War Grannies Still At It, After 330 Straight Weeks by Byard Duncan (AlterNet 2010-05-07).
This has been around a while, but despite the poor quality of the picture it's still fun to watch Marty Robbins' reaction to Merle Haggard's impersonation of him:
Or go to YouTube.
Serpico Redux: Two years ago, a police officer in a Brooklyn precinct became gravely concerned about how the public was being served. To document his concerns, he began carrying around a digital sound recorder, secretly recording his colleagues and superiors. He recorded precinct roll calls; his precinct commander and other supervisors; street encounters; small talk and stationhouse banter; in all, he surreptitiously recorded hundreds of hours of cops talking about their jobs. Made without the knowledge or approval of the NYPD, the tapes provide an unprecedented portrait of what it's like to work as a cop in New York City. They reveal that precinct bosses threaten street cops if they don't make their quotas of arrests and stop-and-frisks, but also tell them not to take certain robbery reports in order to manipulate crime statistics. The tapes also refer to command officers calling crime victims directly to intimidate them about their complaints. -- The NYPD Tapes: Inside Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct by Graham Rayman (Village Voice 2010-05-04)
It's reassuring that even in the noughts a mainstream band could still upset the fuzz. Rock and roll!:
Or go to YouTube.
Music: The National play out
The National are in London, performing last night at Electric Ballroom and tonight at Royal Albert Hall.
But the big news for us is a show May 15, a benefit for the Red Hot Organization, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Documentary makers D.A. Pennebaker (Don't Look Back, Monterey Pop and The War Room, among other amazing films) and Chris Hegedus will be piloting a live-to-the-internet simulcast of the concert on YouTube.
Starting today (May 6) at 10am advance tickets for the BAM show will be available through an exclusive pre-sale site (the password is VIOLET - all caps). The general public on-sale begins tomorrow (May 7) at 10AM from BAM's website.
The band's newest album, High Violet, comes out next week. Through May 11 it's being streamed at NPR.org.
But the big news for us is a show May 15, a benefit for the Red Hot Organization, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Documentary makers D.A. Pennebaker (Don't Look Back, Monterey Pop and The War Room, among other amazing films) and Chris Hegedus will be piloting a live-to-the-internet simulcast of the concert on YouTube.
Starting today (May 6) at 10am advance tickets for the BAM show will be available through an exclusive pre-sale site (the password is VIOLET - all caps). The general public on-sale begins tomorrow (May 7) at 10AM from BAM's website.
The band's newest album, High Violet, comes out next week. Through May 11 it's being streamed at NPR.org.
Audio: Pristine Classical remasters vintage music
Pristine Classical, a company that remasters vintage classical, jazz and blues recordings, is the biggest historical music download site on the net. The website streams substantial full-quality audio previews of its hundreds of titles 
(at the moment, for example, I'm listening to a remarkably clean remastering of a 1930 recording of Tchaikovsky's 5th, with Leo Blech conducting the Berlin State Orchestra). You can choose between high quality MP3 files -- mp3 technology is much improved -- or lossless FLAC files to get CD-quality downloads, then click on artwork to download and print out CD covers. You can also order custom-made CDs priority air mail, if you can stand the wait. Pristine Audio Direct Access is a paid streamed audio service that provides hundreds of additional historic recordings that can be streamed and/or downloaded by subscribers. Pristine Classical.
Listen for free to the Pristine Audio Direct Access Radio Player.
(at the moment, for example, I'm listening to a remarkably clean remastering of a 1930 recording of Tchaikovsky's 5th, with Leo Blech conducting the Berlin State Orchestra). You can choose between high quality MP3 files -- mp3 technology is much improved -- or lossless FLAC files to get CD-quality downloads, then click on artwork to download and print out CD covers. You can also order custom-made CDs priority air mail, if you can stand the wait. Pristine Audio Direct Access is a paid streamed audio service that provides hundreds of additional historic recordings that can be streamed and/or downloaded by subscribers. Pristine Classical.Listen for free to the Pristine Audio Direct Access Radio Player.
Nightlife: Main Street, Santa Monica.
No. Really.
If you say nothing happens on Main Street in Santa Monica, nobody's going to argue with you, but it's not really true. The World Cafe has returned to its roots midweek evenings in the no-cover front lounge, with "Hump Day Comedy" stand-up Wednesdays at 9 and live acoustic music Tuesdays at (I think) 8 (I chanced on a terrific singer-songwriter there a couple of weeks ago). Meanwhile, starting in May, Enterprise Fish Co. introduces "The Lounge," with live DJs, wine and cocktails, and tapas that, if up to the FishCo's usual standards, will be terrific.
In the shorter run, at Powerhouse Theater on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. until May 10, Hal Ackerman takes a frank look at his own mortality in his "poignant and often humorous" play, Testosterone: How Prostate Cancer Made a Man of Me, joined by supporting cast members Dennis Lee Kelly and Lisa Robins. Co-chair of the screenwriting program at the U.C.L.A. School of Theater, Film and Television where he has been on the faculty for 22 years, Ackerman completed treatment for prostrate cancer in 2001.
Powerhouse Theater, 3116 2nd, 310-396-3680.
Enterprise Fish Co., 174 Kinney, 310-392-8366.
The World Cafe, 2820 Main, 310-392-1661; carldegreg@yahoo.com
If you say nothing happens on Main Street in Santa Monica, nobody's going to argue with you, but it's not really true. The World Cafe has returned to its roots midweek evenings in the no-cover front lounge, with "Hump Day Comedy" stand-up Wednesdays at 9 and live acoustic music Tuesdays at (I think) 8 (I chanced on a terrific singer-songwriter there a couple of weeks ago). Meanwhile, starting in May, Enterprise Fish Co. introduces "The Lounge," with live DJs, wine and cocktails, and tapas that, if up to the FishCo's usual standards, will be terrific.
In the shorter run, at Powerhouse Theater on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. until May 10, Hal Ackerman takes a frank look at his own mortality in his "poignant and often humorous" play, Testosterone: How Prostate Cancer Made a Man of Me, joined by supporting cast members Dennis Lee Kelly and Lisa Robins. Co-chair of the screenwriting program at the U.C.L.A. School of Theater, Film and Television where he has been on the faculty for 22 years, Ackerman completed treatment for prostrate cancer in 2001.
Powerhouse Theater, 3116 2nd, 310-396-3680.
Enterprise Fish Co., 174 Kinney, 310-392-8366.
The World Cafe, 2820 Main, 310-392-1661; carldegreg@yahoo.com
Ambience Chasers: The Lower East Side
Until you make it to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, at 108 Orchard St. (below Delancey), console yourself with the museum's new CD, Folk Songs for the Five Points, a collection of experimental music capturing the sounds, and the spirit, of one of New York's oldest and most culturally diverse neighborhoods. The album was created from audio fragments caught on location in the Lower East Side and remixed by cross-disciplinary artist David Gunn. Featuring new compositions by Angolan composer and instrument-builder, Victor Gama, the CD combines oral histories, local music, and Alan Lomax-style ambient field recordings -- from the street cries of market sellers in Chinatown to the screech of the subway, from church sermons to buskers on Spring Street -- to create a unique document of my old stomping grounds. Gunn has reinterpreted and transformed these sounds, creating surprising and evocative pieces like a queasy re-imagining of ice cream van music and a deconstructed performance by celebrated Nuyorican poet Tato Laviera.
The CD has its roots in a Digital Artist in Residence Project commissioned by the museum and part of an ongoing series of works by The Folk Songs Project. For The Tenement, as it likes to be called, Gunn and his collaborators in the Folk Songs Project, Alastair Dant and Tom Davis, created an interactive site where users could remix various noises and music to create their own "folk songs." Gunn recorded a wide variety of sounds, based on the suggestions of local residents and chance events as he walked the streets of the Lower East Side. Gama was invited to New York to create a series of compositions inspired by the neighborhood. The results, performed on the "toha" (an instrument conceived and built by the artist), were recorded in one take on a hot evening in an unrestored apartment in the museum's historic tenement building. The album was conceived as a collection of "folk songs" -- field recordings is more like it -- not finished compositions, but snapshots of moments in time. With this in mind, Gunn avoided the rigid aesthetics of modern electronic music, using simple editing and effects processes to retain a sense of immediacy and the unpredictable aspects of the source recordings -- tape glitches, wind noise, and radio interference. The result is a powerful, compelling portrait of a living, breathing community of sounds: not for everybody, but fascinating if you like this sort of thing, and time-capsule ready, should the need arise.
The CD has its roots in a Digital Artist in Residence Project commissioned by the museum and part of an ongoing series of works by The Folk Songs Project. For The Tenement, as it likes to be called, Gunn and his collaborators in the Folk Songs Project, Alastair Dant and Tom Davis, created an interactive site where users could remix various noises and music to create their own "folk songs." Gunn recorded a wide variety of sounds, based on the suggestions of local residents and chance events as he walked the streets of the Lower East Side. Gama was invited to New York to create a series of compositions inspired by the neighborhood. The results, performed on the "toha" (an instrument conceived and built by the artist), were recorded in one take on a hot evening in an unrestored apartment in the museum's historic tenement building. The album was conceived as a collection of "folk songs" -- field recordings is more like it -- not finished compositions, but snapshots of moments in time. With this in mind, Gunn avoided the rigid aesthetics of modern electronic music, using simple editing and effects processes to retain a sense of immediacy and the unpredictable aspects of the source recordings -- tape glitches, wind noise, and radio interference. The result is a powerful, compelling portrait of a living, breathing community of sounds: not for everybody, but fascinating if you like this sort of thing, and time-capsule ready, should the need arise.
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