What if I saw two lights?

I truly love this song.

First, with normalcy intact:




Now with more Frisian!

Songs about buildings

David Byrne is doing the things I wish I had. Again. Jerk. Read:

The organ’s innards had been replaced with relays and wires and light blue air hoses. And when the key was pressed, a 110-volt motor strapped to a girder high up in the room’s ceiling began to vibrate, essentially playing the girder and producing a deafening low hum — like one of the tuba tones played by the mother ship in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Or, if you were less charitably inclined, like a truck on Canal Street with a loose muffler. Mr. Byrne ran his fingers up the keyboard, causing more hums and whines, moans and plunks and clinks until he came to a key that seemed to do nothing.

In all fairness, he's actually not the first person to do this. There's a long tradition of people making the spaces of industrialization into theaters of the avant-garde. Luigi Russolo, an Italian futurist of the worst kind, was all but demanding it as early as 1913:

We therefore invite young musicians of talent to conduct a sustained observation of all noises, in order to understand the various rhythms of which they are composed, their principal and secondary tones. By comparing the various tones of noises with those of sounds, they will be convinced of the extent to which the former exceed the latter. This will afford not only an understanding, but also a taste and passion for noises. After being conquered by Futurist eyes our multiplied sensibilities will at last hear with Futurist ears. In this way the motors and machines of our industrial cities will one day be consciously attuned, so that every factory will be transformed into an intoxicating orchestra of noises.

Speaking of unpleasant intoxicating orchestras of noise, here's Harry Parch making Jam.

Second post on the new blog. Already feeling overwhelmed. *deep breathing*

Here's something I stumbled across late last night. It looks to be Sam Amidon playing Sons of Levi with Nico Muhly (of New Yorker profile fame) providing chord organ accompaniment.

If you're not immediately enchanted, wait until about 1:38, when it suddenly gets amazing and stays that way for the next 40 or so seconds.



It may look easy, but its not, as I discovered in the shower this morning.

Hello all. This blog is intended to accomplish two things.

Thing #1: Document my adventures in Canada.

I will be studying at the University of Toronto this coming fall and I would like to document that experience for anyone who cares to know what I'm up to. I will do my best to avoid posting anything that will dampen your day, destroy my future career prospects, or ruin your marriage. Hopefully I'll have something insightful to say about Canada more than once or twice, but I wouldn't count on it.

Thing #2: Point out videos of good music on Youtube.

Other blogs exist to do this, and assuredly do it better than I can or will, so why add to the clutter? There really isn't a good reason, but lest we forget, the internet was settled by people whose sole mission in life was to fill cyberspace with trite, often narcissistic user-generated content. I am merely following in their footsteps the way I know best, i.e. redundantly.

Occasionally I may complain about religion, politics or philosophy as well, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum. Baby steps, my friends, baby steps.