Ramblin’ on holiday
Right, y’all, I’m on holiday from about ….
NOW….
I’m off to Croatia for a week for some belated summer hols; have a good ‘un in the mean time. Everything in the sidebar is worth a few moments of your time while I’m away.
Archive for September, 2005
Manchester City 1-uh
Just when we’re all about to give up on the dratted game, this news comes in (via Assistant).
Mark E Smith’s found himself so popular he’s been asked to read the footy scores on BBC1.A longtime football fan and supporter of Manchester City, Smith will read the results on BBC One’s Final Score television programme on Saturday, November 17th.
All that remains between now and then is to imagine how many Fall titles could be slipped into the football results… As a starter, how about ‘The Birmingham School of Business School’ City?
Underground Overground Underwater
London geography obssesives (that’ll be me, then) should take note of this first part of an account to be serialised (I suppose that’s the term) on Londonist over the next couple of days of two bloke’s journey by bike to all 316 Underground and DLR stations - used and disused. Oh, and randomly swims in London’s 6 lidos at the same time. Day 1 (Chesham to Uxbridge) passes through the areas I was brought up in and has already had me yelp at the screen “I know exactly that road you’re talking about” twice now. I suspect the section of the Northern Line that covers my current whereabouts will have a similar effect too…
A thought on British music and politics
Here’s a thing that occured to me late yesterday evening: 10-or-so years ago, everyone was sick to the back teeth of John Major’s Conservative government. At the same time, the britpop, jungle and triphop scenes were flourishing.
Ten years later, everyone is sick to the back teeth of Tony Blair’s Labour government. At the same time, the dubstep, grime and, er, britpop scenes are flourishing.
This suggests two things: 1) bad politics seem to foster good electronic/urban music in often unpredictable ways, but 2) the cycles of British guitar bands and their popularity is eminently predictable, and dull.
Gerald Barry: The Bitter Tears of Petra Kant
Gerald Barry’s new opera, The Bitter Tears of Petra Kant has been causing one heck of stir, featuring as it does that unbeatable combo of lesbianism, a giant purple kangaroo, and uncompromising music. For reasons of wallet and being out of the country all of next week I don’t think I’m going to get to see it (although there are two shows left when I get back, so we’ll see), but there is plenty of comment to tuck into nevertheless:
Independent: “‘Do you like this kind of music?’ asks Petra von Kant, who, inevitably, gets the evening’s most knowing laugh. Gerald Barry’s unhinged sound and fury is an acquired taste, but its singular mix of basic materials and extreme treatment, concise wit and ruthless logic, can grow alarmingly addictive.”
Times: “the cumulative effect was strangely gripping. You began to find your way back into this bizarre world, bizarrely painted. Barry’s music might put you through the wringer, but you feel a palpable exhilaration, and not just of the hair-shirt kind.” [not a review, more a preview piece this one]
Telegraph: “a repellent opera, stuffed with cheap contempt, arty pretensions and hideous music.”
Guardian: “one of the strangest but most satisfying of recent operas”
Londonist: “the chatty, anti-poetic words, the aimless melodies… this is an atonal, lesbian Umbrellas of Cherbourg!”
On balance I think the opera wins. Plus, bonus points to ENO for [part-] commissioning something tough, original, and apparently worthwhile from a genuine composer, unlike some other well-known London Opera Houses.
More on relating your music collection
Continuing from yesterday’s post on the Pandora system, I spotted on halvorsen Duke Listens!, which has a bunch of links to very cool-looking systems for mapping - in 3D, no less - your music collection.
The music genome project
Pandora media’s music genome project has been around for a while, but a recent Independent article article has only just alerted my interest. I’m glad that there’s a corporate role for 400 trained musicologists, but I can’t help thinking that the tendency of all technology like this is to homogenise, to find connections and to keep people’s music selections similar. Which is not at all how people actually listen to music - viewed from the perspective of ‘if you like this, you must like this’, most people have at least some surprises within their music collections. 21st-century technology, skills and marketing techniqes are being employed in the service of a particularly 19th-century idea: that there is one single key to unlocking the personality, tastes and style of an individual. Mapping one’s music tastes under a single set of parameters is the same as reducing Stravinsky’s oeuvre to a small collection of intervals in order to ‘explain’ how the same man could have written The Rite of Spring, Pulcinella and In memoriam Dylan Thomas. It’s arbitrariness disguised as scientific enquiry. The best way to introduce new music to people (and, perhaps, to ‘explain’ the blips and ruptures in their CD racks) is to look at the tastes of people who they trust; if someone you trust hands you a tape and says ‘you must listen to this, you’ll love it’, you will listen, and you probably will love. You’ll at least give it a fair shout, even if you’ve walked past it on the racks of HMV a hundred times.
Links for the week
Interesting links I've been clicking recently:
Observer article on Baile Funk
Dave Stelfox on DJ Screw in the Telegraph
Classic albums given thumbs down in 'overrated list'
News of a BBC 6 Music poll to find the most overrated album of all time. Hmm - only read the submitted user comments if you fancy shouting at people who are apparently already deaf…
Kyle Gann writes on a new version of Charles Ives' Universe Symphony
Interview with Kim Gordon
NewMusicBox article on the end of the road for Kalvos and Damian
One of the great new music websites and radio stations comes to a close
