Category: Music

Not really, but wouldn’t that be nice? As Henry Thomas (and apparently Taj Mahal) would say, “Big fish bites if you got good bait.” I don’t know what the hell it means but it sounds profound.

1. Cat Power, “Wild is the Wind” (The Covers Record)
2. New Dominions, “Burning Down the House” (Bon Time)
3. David Byrne, “Dirty Hair” (Lead Us Not Into Temptation)
4. Hilliard Ensemble, “Sanctus” (The Old Hall Manuscript)
5. Mark Eitzel, “Steve I Always Knew” (The Invisible Man)
6. Monty Python, “I’m So Worried” (Contractual Obligation Album)
7. Henry Thomas, “Fishing Blues” (Anthology of American Folk Music)
8. The Rolling Stones, “Wild Horses” (Sticky Fingers)
9. Spoon, “Stay Don’t Go” (Kill the Moonlight)
10. R.E.M., “Burning Hell” (Dead Letter Office)

Two additional Moses und Aron reviews. The Boston Herald review is effusive: Levine’s Moses is stunning, honest to God. T.J. Medrek writes, “But head and shoulders above all was the visceral, virtuoso performance of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Called upon to whisper, growl, shout and, yes, even sing, portraying everything from the Voice of God speaking to Moses, from a Burning Bush to orgiastic revelers worshiping a Golden Calf, the chorus excelled and reveled in each unusual opportunity.”

Contrast with this insightful post from Matthew Guerrieri at Soho the Dog, This is Cinerama:

The mob took a while to come into focus. The biggest casualty of a concert, as opposed to a staged, performance of Moses is the protean character of the chorus. In their first big scene, rumors of possible liberation race through the people, factions form and dissolve, and conventional wisdoms are settled upon and then cast aside. With the chorus a massed block at the back of the stage, Schoenberg’s careful delineation of the desperation and fickleness of each requisite group was largely a wash. Hearing the Tanglewood Festival Chorus this past summer in Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, my sense was that they were struggling to adjust to Levine’s minimalist, undemonstrative conducting style. That uncertainty seemed evident in the first act of Moses as well; thrilling sounds (particularly from the women) were in abundance, but so were lagging tempi and blurry rhythms. But a few minutes into Act II, everything clicked into place, and the chorus suddenly began to peal forth. Their cry of “Juble, Israel” (“Rejoice, Israel”) at the initial appearance of the Golden Calf was filled with a sure beauty as well as a chilling fanaticism.

Who’s right, TJ or Matthew? If I’m honest I have to say Matthew. There were quite a few small glitches in the chorus, which are perhaps attributable to the cause Matthew suggests as much as to the incredible difficulty of the writing.

It’s an interesting point-counterpoint. While the review in the Herald does an excellent job of conveying the overall impression of the concert, Matthew gives a far closer reading and identifies both the true strengths and weaknesses of the performance. A good example of the value of blogs from focused individuals to dig deeply into unfamiliar subjects and provide more valuable coverage.

Posted at Art of the Mix and iTunes. This one took a while to put together but mines some material from some recordings I’ve had forever—a benefit of going back to listen to all of my ripped CDs on shuffle is that tracks like the one from Shu-De surprise you. And then there’s “Red Clay Halo,” which might as well be a family anthem.

The overall may be a little heavy on what someone I know has called “moody man-rock,” but I think it works.

Back from a quick trip to DC (Crystal City to be exact), footsore and tired, but still pleased with what I found in the paper (online) this morning: BSO brings prowling Schoenberg opera to life. Key paragraph (emphasis added):

But of course what gives this parable its weight and power is Schoenberg’s bracing 12-tone score, some of the most urgent and vital music that he ever composed. The part of Moses is written in Sprechstimme, a vocal style between speech and song. Sir John Tomlinson was magnificent in this role, his somber declarations chiseled into the music around him. Aron was sung by the sweet-toned tenor Philip Langridge, who made the giant leaps in the vocal part seem effortless. Sergei Koptchak was a standout among the other soloists , but at the true heart of this performance was the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, which brought this fiercely difficult music to life with riveting delivery and admirable polish. Levine led the proceedings with expert pacing. If the Golden Calf orgy did not pack the visceral punch of other performances he has led at the Met, he made up for it with a luminous ending that held the hall in a deep silence. After everything that had transpired, the moment had an eloquence all its own.

And the best thing is, the performance will only get better, since on Saturday we’re certain to get some of the uncertain entrances that marred last night’s performance from the perspective of those on stage.

Another review from blogger Vana Jezebel: “Last night I went to see Moses and Aron (Schoenberg) at the BSO and it was pretty crazy — an incredible performance.” I’d say that pretty well sums it up.

Boston Globe: BSO’s epic undertaking. The numbers the article provides are fairly daunting even from the outside. But here’s how those hours break down for me, as of this week:

12 rehearsals for the TFC… of which I had to miss four thanks to work, including two runthrough rehearsals.

5 rehearsals this week… one Monday night, one Tuesday, two today, one more tomorrow, constituting…

17.5 hours of rehearsal. This week.

5 product demos for work, to be done in the few remaining hours at the office.

3:45 in the morning on Friday, when I have to get up after the concert the night before to fly to DC for a meeting.

At this point liking the Moses und Aron is largely irrelevant. Surviving it is rather more to the point.

I have a running playlist in iTunes that was destined to be a mix, consisting of odd cover songs that actually work (or don’t). I was all excited to work on it this weekend until I saw the 66 Alt-Rock Cover Songs list on the iTunes Store, which took all the wind out of my sails. Not only did it include some of the covers I was already planning to use for the next mix, it also included some I didn’t know about. “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” by the Violent Femmes? “Everybody Hurts” by Dashboard Confessional? “Lithium” by the Polyphonic Spree? Oh, it hurts us, precious…

When I read a note on a French Sting fansite that the man formerly known as Gordon Sumner would be releasing an album of classical lute music, I stopped, goggled, then giggled. Then I got depressed. Sting has been going down in my estimation since Ten Summoner’s Tales—a decent album, but with the seeds of his spiral into adult alternative toothlessness sown within. More ominously for Tuesday’s release of Songs from the Labyrinth, an inside page of the booklet featured Sting posing with a lute and looking faintly ridiculous.

Why am I so down on this concept? Let’s just say it’s not new to me. In 2000 when Lisa and I visited London over a long weekend, we took a tour of the reconstructed Globe Theatre, which was hosting a benefit concert later that night. As we emerged into the actual theatre, our guide paused, went ahead, then came back and told us that we were being permitted to sit in on the rehearsal for the event. On stage: Vinnie Jones (of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and X-Men: The Last Stand), James Taylor, and Sting, among others. The theme of the day was Elizabethan entertainment, so we got to see Jones play Mercutio in a Romeo & Juliet pastiche; Taylor sang an original but period-influenced tune; and Sting played and sang a Dowland tune. Badly. In his defense, he was clearly not feeling well (it was a little chilly, but he had an orange scarf tightly around his neck and was not doing a lot of moving around), and he gave himself a self-deprecating kick in the ass as he left the stage. The whole experience boded ill.

So now comes the actual album. My Dowland touchstone is probably his “Come, Come Again,” which the Virginia Glee Club regularly performed. The curious should download track 16 of Songs from the Labyrinth, which basically sums up the whole album: odd arrangement, featuring the lute totally dropping out behind Sting’s voice, and deadly vocal performance full of apparently-intended-to-be-emotive diphthongs and toothless fricatives. Seriously, there are vocal lines that sound as though they’re sung through dentures. Worse, there’s no variation to the vocal lines: the performances are note-note-note with little or no vocal inflection and no phrasing. And then there’s the overdubbing: awkward as the solo lines are, they sound like sheer genius compared to the same voice in two part harmony.

Still, the whole thing isn’t bad: there are some interesting solo lute numbers.

After the travel this week, I feel like catching a breath, so I’m going to let the music speak for me. See you on Monday

1. Smithsonian Chamber Players (Marin Marais, composer), “Suite d-moll – Menuet” (Pièces à deux violes)
2. Shu-De, “Shyngyr-Shyngyr” (Voices from the Distant Steppe)
3. The Velvet Underground, “Train Round the Bend” (Peel Slowly and See)
4. M. Ward, “Let’s Dance” (Transfiguration of Vincent)
5. Lou Reed and John Cale, “Forever Changed” (Songs for Drella)
6. Clemencic Consort, “Regina celi letare” (Dunstable: Cathedral Sounds)
7. Joe Henderson, “Teo” (So Near, So Far)
8. U2, “Bullet the Blue Sky” (Rattle and Hum)
9. Soul Coughing, “Maybe I’ll Come Down” (El Oso)
10. Neko Case and Her Boyfriends, “Duchess” (The Virginian)

A few tunes on today’s mix speak to my feeling of total disillusionment with the Senate, particularly the Johnny Cash, the Monk, and the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet.

1. Johnny Cash, “I Hung My Head” (American IV: The Man Comes Around)
2. U2, “Spanish Eyes” (B-Sides 1980-1990)
3. Thelonious Monk, “Nutty” (Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane)
4. Ed Harcourt, “Black Dress” (Strangers)
5. Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet, “Job” (How Can I Keep From Singing)
6. The Philip Glass Ensemble, “Le Voyage du Père” (La Belle et la Bete)
7. Jesus & Mary Chain, “Sometimes Always” (Stoned & Dethroned)
8. Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, “Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Themse, S 123” (Liszt: Les Préludes)
9. Smashing Pumpkins, “X.Y.U.” (Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness)
10. Moby, “Very” (Hotel)

After a week on the road and some fun medical procedures (all diagnostic, nothing serious going on, except getting poked and prodded in places I’ve never been poked and prodded before), I’m feeling downright ornery. My iPod and its semi-random shuffle feature appears to be reflecting that in this playlist, both taunting me with some raging and even irritating numbers (“Blood Rag,” “Skid Row Wine,” an unnecessary club mix of a Sting song) and consoling me with some fine Willie Dixon-penned blues and even some gospel.

1. Porno for Pyros, “Blood Rag” (Porno for Pyros)
2. Willie Dixon, “Walkin’ the Blues” (Willie Dixon: The Chess Box)
3. Sting, “Sister Moon (Hani Commission Club Mix)” (Sting Mixes)
4. The Pearly Gates Spiritual Singers, “Not Alone” (There Will Be No Sweeter Sound: Columbia-Okeh Post-War Gospel Sound ’47–’62)
5. Lowell Fulsom, “Tollin’ Bells” (Willie Dixon: The Chess Box)
6. Boston Camerata, “Bransles de village/Il etait une Cendrillon” (New Britain: The Roots of American Folksong)
7. Virginia Glee Club, “The Good Old Song (Second Verse)” (Notes from the Path)
8. Maggie Estep and the Spitters, “Skid Row Wine” (Kerouac: Kicks Joy Darkness)
9. Koko Taylor, “Insane Asylum” (Willie Dixon: The Chess Box)
10. Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, “Surf Beat” (Greatest Hits)

I’m happy it’s Friday; so happy that I’m about to fall asleep sitting up. This week’s Random 10, drawn using iTunes 7 from my full library, has a lot of good time tunes, for whatever reason, but I’m not complaining:

1. Daniel Lanois, “The Deadly Nightshade” (Belladona)
2. G Love and Special Sauce, “Milk & Cereal” (Rappin’ Blues EP)
3. Original Five Blind Boys of Alabama, “Broken Heart Of Mine” (Oh Lord, Stand By Me)
4. Nina Simone, “Chauffeur” (Pastel Blues/Let It All Out)
5. John Coltrane, “Witches Pit” (Dakar)
6. Le Tigre, “All That Glitters (Remix By Rachael Kozak)” (From The Desk Of Mr. Lady)
7. Sting, “I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying” (Mercury Falling)
8. Bascom Lamar Lunsford, “Drinking Of The Wine” (Ballads, Banjo Tunes, And Sacred Songs Of Western North Carolina)
9. Duke Ellington, “The Deep South Suite: Happy – Go – Lucky Local” (The Great Chicago Concerts)
10. Frank Sinatra, “It Happened In Monterey” (Songs For Swingin’ Lovers)

I have nothing to say about the new Yo La Tengo album, except that it makes me happier than any record that I’ve heard for a while. And of course I Am Not Afraid of You And I Will Beat Your Ass is an title that instantly joins such fine names as Free Your Mind … And Your Ass Will Follow. One wonders if that’s what the band had in mind. In fact, is any album with ass in the title destined for greatness?

EMusic has a serious take, and a completely not-serious take, on the album as well.

As per usual, I’ve been in meetings and on travel all day (in fact, I was in the Pittsburgh airport at 2:30 pm when I started writing this) and am just catching up on Apple’s announcements from earlier this afternoon. Briefly: new higher capacity iPods with click-wheel driven search, new thinner iPod Nanos, a Shuffle that doesn’t look like a USB stick, new radically overhauled iTunes, iTunes store with downloadable movies and games, and a preview of a set-top box.

So read between the lines. What you see is a company trying to answer to Wall Street how it will follow up the iPod, arguably the most successful new product of the first half of this decade. The answer is content and a wider footprint, and a clear statement that the iPod has become not just Apple’s music brand, but Apple’s consumer electronics brand (to use an awful phrase). The iPod/iTunes/iTV family is now solidly positioned in Apple’s product suite for people who watch and listen, but don’t necessarily create.

That’s not a bad thing, and the devices don’t lock out user created content; on the contrary, the embrace of podcasting within iTunes is as significant a factor of the meteoric rise of that phenomenon as anything else. But what this announcement illustrates is that it’s not just the MP3 player makers and the makers of competing DRM; it’s the living room electronics manufacturers who are squarely in Apple’s sights. And having screwed around with dizzyingly complex products for about 40 years now, these guys have a lot to lose. Should be fun to watch…

One last thought: The momentum with which other studios add movies to the newly renamed iTunes Store will probably be considerably slower than the rate at which music studios signed up, and that might really hurt Apple’s odds in this market. Bet Jobs didn’t figure on that when Disney bought Pixar…

Oh, and confidential to ZDNet’s David Berlind. Given the amount of energy the record companies have put into fighting iTunes, the number of alternative companies that are out there, and the still rapidly changing market, I’d say it’s a little precipitous to call for government intervention in the iTunes/iPod ecosystem. Particularly since there is nothing, device manufacturers’s claims to the contrary, that prevents any content manufacturer from getting their content onto the iPod. The format is called MP3, and it trades off restrictive DRM for support everywhere. Look into it. It seems to be working well for eMusic.

My iPod is getting increasingly flaky. In addition to spontaneous reboots it also occasionally refuses to sync, indicating that the disc couldn’t be read to or written from. The middle of a kitchen renovation is a bad time for any small electronics purchase that doesn’t also crush ice, so I’ll have to live with it for a while longer, I guess.

Besides, it still works for the Random 10. Lots of Elvis Costello still on the iPod from his appearance last week at Tanglewood with Marian McPartland.

1. Boston Camerata, “Thomas-Town” (New Britain)
2. Elvis Costello, “Brilliant Mistake” (King of America)
3. Elvis Costello, “Just About Glad” (Costello and Nieve)
4. Radiohead mashed with Ghostface, “Daytona 500” (Me and This Army)
5. Elvis Costello, “They Didn’t Believe Me” (Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz with Elvis Costello)
6. Elvis Costello, “Temptation” (Costello and Nieve)
7. Clifton Chenier, “Jole Blonde” (Bon Ton Roulet)
8. Elvis Costello, “Baby Plays Around” (Spike)
9. Don Cherry and John Coltrane, “The Invisible” (The Avant-Garde)
10. Nouvelle Vague, “Dancing with Myself” (Bande A Part)

It’s a slow Friday before a holiday weekend. Tomorrow will bring Elvis Costello with Marian McPartland at Tanglewood; Sunday and Monday some more kitchen demolition; Tuesday is back to the working week. So I’ve been catching my breath and organizing a few things.

For instance: my Flickr photos are now geotagged, allowing you to find them on the Flickr world map. So there’s that. (It’s a pretty damned cool feature, actually.)

So enjoy photobrowsing while this week’s random 10 plays:

1. Miles Davis, “Selim” (Live Evil)
2. Funkadelic, “Music for My Mother (Single Version)” (Funkadelic)
3. Lionheart, “Veste nuptiali” (Paris 1200)
4. Cathode, “Gravity” (Sleeping and Breathing)
5. Ayub Ogada, “10%” (En Mana Kuoyo)
6. Squirrel Nut Zippers, “Anything But Love” (The Inevitable)
7. Hilliard Ensemble, “Alleluya. V. Nativitas” (Sumer Is Icumen In)
8. Pulp, “Seductive Barry” (This is Hardcore)
9. Sufjan Stevens, “Holland” (Greetings from Michigan)
10. Sting and the Radioactors, “Digital Love” (Nuclear Waste)