Pandora. Inc.
Fans of the Pandora internet radio service should check out this month’s issue of Inc. Magazine. Founder Tim Westergen is on the cover as part of a very interesting story about the company’s future.
Classical Music is not Scary:
I’ve been frightened of seeing classical music most of my adult life. Convinced attending a performance would be a perfect meeting of my three least favorite things (sitting still too long, wearing uncomfortable clothes and not understanding why), I stayed far away, feeling that if I didn’t feel welcome, I didn’t want in anyway.
This year I began dating a wonderful woman who is trained as a violinist. Classical music is her passion. I figured if she liked it, it couldn’t be as soaked in snobbery as I thought and hell, relationships are about sharing interests, no? So I’ve been attending symphonies, learning about composers and realizing that music played by an orchestra can be downright thrilling. Especially if it’s real loud, which I seem to favor. It’s reinforced for me that classical music is not an offering on the altar of a dead art, to be worshiped then shuffled away from, head down.
Case in point: The San Francisco Conservatory of Music invited me and a bunch of local bloggers last weekend to the opening performance of their BluePrint Festival, which focuses on new music by living composers. It’s the brainchild of Nicole Paiement, who conducted several of the pieces we saw.
While I didn’t love all the music we heard, I was captivated by the idea of a living classical tradition, of musicians and listeners in dialog with composers as part of our contemporary culture. If the last decade in music has taught us anything, it’s that the razor wire we used to hang between genres of music is now an illusion instead of a barrier. Asking "Is this pop/indie/hip-hop/electronic/classical is now a silly question. On a given album The Roots or Radiohead contain elements of all of these.
The performance we saw featured a piece by Philip Glass (whom I love) complete with multimedia visualizations, and an interpretation of a Rimbaud poem featuring vocals by spoken word artist WiseProof. Some of it lifted me out of my seat and some left me cold. But I did have a feeling we should all have in the presence of music but rarely do–that anything could happen and if it doesn’t, we can imagine someone making it so. Next time. Or sooner.
Ms. Paiement said to be during the Q & A afterward "Art is a living thing. We’re building a place for music to be talked about, thought about but most of all experienced. So don’t worry if you don’t "get it." What do you experience? How do you feel?"
What a blessed relief.
The Blueprint Festival has two more shows this season. Tickets are way affordable and there’s about 90 places nearby to have dinner beforehand.
Congratulations to the staff of the San Francisco Conservatory and my fabulous girlfriend for making this possible. I look forward, in a little wonder and a lot of gratitude, as the possibilities of what’s next.
R.I.P DRM:
If you needed any more proof that DRM (i.e. why you cant transfer a song you downloaded from iTunes to another computer) is dying, try Amazon’s new DRM-free music store (where I will do all my music downloading from now on), check out Radiohead’s new plan to offer their new album for download (DRM-free) for whatever you’d like to pay for it. And check out Yahoo Music VP of Product Development Ian Rogers’s presentation "Convenience Wins, Hubris Loses" which says, without hesitation that Yahoo is no longer doing business with locked-down music or its providers.
Game over. We win. Nah Ne Nah Ne Boo Boo (via TechCrunch).
The Sound of Pain:
Perhaps you heard the fabulous segment on On the Media this week about the music used to harass and interrogate combat detainees at places like Guantanamo Bay. If not, please do. It’s a real eye (ear?) opener.
The part that hit me hardest on this assessment of "sonic suffering" was the musical choices military officers made as they seemed as boneheaded as the logic behind torture as appropriate foreign policy. Neil Diamond’s "America", Bruce Springsteen’s "Born in the USA" and Eminem’s "White America" are all on the sonic harassment playlist ostensibly because repeating the word America to a Muslim detainee the height of offensive. Never mind that "America" is a paean to immigration, "Born in the USA" an excoriation of oversees war and "White America" a bludgeon aimed at racism. Rage Against the Machine, a band composed of outspoken liberal activists wrote the state department letters to ask them to stop using their music as a weapon against prisoners of war.
All this tells me is that the US Military is either a) tone deaf or b) never thought these choices would be subjected to public scrutiny. A) is sad but laughable. B) scares me to death.
Remove the ‘M’ please:
I have no idea why MTV, according to this NY Times article is revamping the VMA’s to ‘return to its former days of glory’ (to me that was 1981-87. Does this mean a surprise appearance by Alan Hunter?) but I’m going to guess a near pathological unwillingness to invest in music-related programming is part of it.
Just sayin’
Matt Nathanson sings with The Indigo Girls:
So this is like the coolest thing ever. Matt Nathanson, one of my favorite singers, just sent this little note to his mailing list.
the only reason i play acoustic guitar is because of the indigo girls.
i always wanted to be in a band, until the day i heard their first record.
then i just wanted to BE them. i think i’ve seen them live 40 times.
and they never disappoint.
this week, i wanted to take a break from the pre-release roll out of
“some mad hope,” to share with all of you THE coolest moment in
my musical life so far.
over memorial day weekend, i was involved in an amazing
3 day retreat in new orleans with a handful of incredible artists,
including emily and amy (indigo girls). it was a workshop on
activism and the arts and it culminated in a concert to benefit
Sweet Home New Orleans. in the taxi on the way to the show,
i finally spilled the beans to them both about how influential
they had been to me and they asked if i wanted to “sing michael’s
(stipe… of REM) part on ‘kid fears?'”…
And he did. Here’s the video.
Isn’t it lovely when dreams come true?
Part of the (Fragile) Army:
Over two hours of music, sore backs and legs, one equally hoarse friend and a first trip to a stunning concert hall, The Polyphonic Spree remain the best live band in America. Do not miss them if you can help it.
Song of the Week: “The Polyphonic Spree”
Song: “Running Away”
Artist: The Polyphonic Spree
Sound: The old descripters of the Spree still apply–The ABBA Tabernacle Choir, Pink Floyd meets Up With People, the house band on Fraggle Rock. The percussion seems a little more up front in the mix. But not much.
Source: Reading the blog the band set up in anticipation of their third album The Fragile Army had me counting down the hours until June 19th when I could charge over to Amoeba and pick it up. Since I was at the TOC Conference on June 19th, I had to wait until the day after. I haven’t felt that way about a record since, eh, Styx’s Caught in the Act?
Listened to: SInce I’m now the proud owner of a vinyl-centric stereo system, I bought the record as a record. It came with a little card that lets you download the whole thing as MP3’s too.
Actions: July 17, The Great American Music Hall. The Spree will be there. So will I.
The Music from one of my Favorite Movies:
Composer Vangelis discusses the score from Chariots of Fire, one of my all-time favorite movies.
Gentrification and Hip-Hop’s Nursery:
This from the NY Times:
Will Gentrification Spoil the Birthplace of Hip-Hop?
Hip-hop was born in the west Bronx. Not the South Bronx, not Harlem and most definitely not Queens. Just ask anybody at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue — an otherwise unremarkable high-rise just north of the Cross Bronx and hard along the Major Deegan.
As D.J. Kool Herc, he presided over the turntables at parties in that community room in 1973 that spilled into nearby parks before turning into a global assault. Playing snippets of the choicest beats from James Brown, Jimmy Castor, Babe Ruth and anything else that piqued his considerable musical curiosity, he provided the soundtrack savored by loose-limbed b-boys (a term he takes credit for creating, too).
Mr. Campbell thinks the building should be declared a landmark in recognition of its role in American popular culture. Its residents agree, but for more practical reasons. They want to have the building placed on the National Register of Historic Places so that it might be protected from any change that would affect its character — in this case, a building for poor and working-class families.
Throughout the city, housing advocates said, buildings like 1520 Sedgwick are becoming harder to find as owners opt out of subsidy programs so they can eventually charge higher rents on the open market.