No More Papyrus Font, PLEASE

This week, some improvised signage went up at the yoga studio where I practice. As you might guess, since it's a yoga studio, it MUST be in papyrus font.

Why oh why? Anything healthy, organic, non-GMO, vegan, progressive, socially conscious, etc. needs to be represented in papyrus font. Now it just makes anything look like it was made by stupid hippies. And why do most things marketed to vegans assume that we're all birkenstock loving white people with dreadlocks? Maybe I just feel that way because they ALL USE PAPYRUS.

For more info:
Wikipedia
http://deckchairs.net/2006/04/papyrus.html
http://tenning.com/top_ten_misuses_of_the_most_misused_font_papyrus
http://www.iheartpapyrus.com/

Jazz Cat

An adorable piano playing cat. What could be better? Too bad her human counterparts aren't better at improvising with her... Nora doesn't care about our silly tonality or functional harmony. She's way past that stuff, man. Dig?

The Vegetable Orchestra

I just got back from an arts coference. The closing night included a performance art piece that used lots of animal entrails in an effort to be revolting and shocking. Yawn. Here's something much more veg friendly.

Jon Stewart on Bill Moyers Journal

The dream team... Stewart and Moyers - oh what they could accomplish together. So, yesterday I posted a few clips of David Byrne. Today, two other "heroes" of mine...

Part One


Part Two


Part Three


Part Four

David Byrne - Nothing But Flowers

You've probably heard recent press about Alan Weisman's book "The World Without Us." Mr. D.B. actually wrote it many years earlier - as a five minute pop song. A perfect little gem of a five minute pop song.

Well, ok, it's not really about a world without humans, but a possibly post-apocalyptic future where humans live in harmony with the earth and are nostalgic for the old days. Even better.

David Byrne - Knee Plays - In The Future

Byrne's "Music from the Knee Plays" is finally being re-released this month. (but I've been able to enjoy it all along because I'm soooo cool and have it on vinyl)

don cherry/james blood ulmer/rashied ali - live 1978

James Blood Ulmer (with Allion Krauss) - blues

Ornette Coleman Quartet :: Roma 1974 #1

ornette coleman live 1979

Sonny Rollins and Jim Hall (part 1)

Sonny Rollins and Don Cherry

with Henry Grimes (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums).

The Shock Doctrine by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein

Another Battles Video

Yep I still love the math rock.

Hancock and Zawinul duo

Miles Davis and Friends - In A Silent Way

from a show in 1991... I prefer the orig. recording but this is nice, too.

Today we say goodbye to Joe Zawinul - who, among other things, wrote this amazing (timeless, revolutionary, brilliant) piece of music.

Haas v Blake USOpen 2007

How I spent my holiday weekend: on the couch watching tennis. Monday was a sad sad day and here's why.

Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?

click through for full text of an article published in Ladies Home Journal, August 1921.
Written by Anne Shaw Faulkner, head of the Music Department of the General Federation of Women's Clubs.

some highlights:

Still another proof that jazz is recognized as producing an evil effect is the fact that in almost every big industry where music has been instituted it has been found necessary to discontinue jazz because of its demoralizing effect upon the workers. This was noticed in an unsteadiness and lack of evenness in the workmanship of the product after a period when the workmen had indulged in jazz music...

The human organism responds to musical vibrations. This fact is universally recognized. What instincts then are aroused by jazz? Certainly not deeds of valor or martial courage, for all marches and patriotic hymns are of regular rhythm and simple harmony; decidedly not contentment or serenity, for the songs of home and the love of native land are all of the simplest melody and harmony with noticeably regular rhythm. Jazz disorganizes all regular laws and order; it stimulates to extreme deeds, to a breaking away from all rules and conventions; it is harmful and dangerous, and its influence is wholly bad.

A number of scientific men who have been working on experiments in musico-therapy with the insane, declare that while regular rhythms and simple tones produce a quieting effect on the brain of even a violent patient, the effect of jazz on the normal brain produces an atrophied condition on the brain cells of conception, until very frequently those under the demoralizing influence of the persistent use of syncopation, combined with inharmonic partial tones, are actually incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, right and wrong.

West Side Story - America

the more things change...

Learning to play music is a bitch

and even worse when documentation survives...

On the WFMU blog, here's a post of school bands and choirs wrecking all kinds of pop music. Don't miss a junior high chorale tackling Lionel Richie's "You Are" (a song that I've been grappling with myself for many years), and a junior high band mangling "Beat It." Like being a teenager isn't hard enough... at least there's no video to embarrass these kids for their whole lives.

Pops Staples on NIghtmusic

This was an incredible show... it featured a diversity of talent like nothing else. So of course it didn't last long on network TV. Seems that most Americans like to watch karaoke contests instead. Anyway, here's a great clip of Pops, solo.

Battles - Atlas

math rock is awesome. i am not ashamed.

Don Caballero, Live, 2000

mmmmmm tasty.

Julian Bream - Bach

Bream + Bach = Crazy Delicious.
Too bad I couldn't find any clips of Barrueco playing Bach. I think he's the only human to do it better than this...

What Am I Here For - Billy Taylor and Max Roach

A straight-ahead clip of Max Roach to round things out. I'm usually partial to the further out stuff... but you can't go wrong with Billy Taylor!

Max Roach - Freedom Now excerpt

Awesome. Also check out his two duo records with Anthony Braxton, "Birth and Rebirth" and "One in Two - Two in One" if you can find them. They're incredible.

Max Roach Clip - drum solo over Marthin L.King speech

Max Roach. Brilliant.

Greg Osby Sanctus

Greg Osby sure plays that alto sax real nice. Joined by Jim Hall AND Andrew Hill among others. Niiiice.

Complaints Choir of Birmingham

The greatest choral music of our young century.

(yawn)

WPAS (the Washington Performing Arts Society) has announced their schedule for the upcoming season. To this I say, "oh." Followed by a big yawn and a scratch of the head. The acronym may as well stand for White Pretentious And Safe -- clearly these are the criteria for their programming choices.

An article in the Post today, attributed to chief classical music critic Tim Page, was probably written in its entirety by the WPAS marketing department. And it even concludes with a fundraising pitch from WPAS executive director, Neale Pearle. Advertisement or article? you decide.

Woo hoo! more events in Bethesda (where those rich white people live... now they don't have to come into the big scary city to attend events at the Kennedy Center. Phew, Foggy Bottom is a rough neighborhood!). And those events in Bethesda, at the massive Strathmore Hall, are largely chamber music events. What could be better? A small chamber recital in a two-thousand seat hall! Tickets only a zillion dollars each! Sign me up! Oh, did I mention the boring standard repertoire? That's all we'll be hearing! Yay! Nap time for wealthy seniors!

Of course the photo with the article is of Step Afrika - so a casual glimpse looks like they have a nice diverse season. These "diverse" events are patronizing at best... Eartha Kitt, Wynton Marsalis with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (I heard this last season... great players playing boring standards in the most conservative manner possible. Nice that jazz is on stage at the Kennedy Center, but does it have to be so stale in order to qualify for this "honor"?) Now, of course I'm delighted that WPAS is presenting Step Afrika... I think I'm playing in that show, and getting paid for it. And thankfully it's not in February. They'll do their annual gospel blowout at the Kennedy Center for black history month.

But seriously... the season is almost completely standard rep. classical music played by big name celebrity soloists ("celebrities" in the classical music world... which means less and less in the grand scheme of things). Snooze. I guess their plan is to try and work their way into the estate planning of as many old, rich, white folks as possible? So I guess taking the show to Bethesda is the way to go. They could save themselves some money and take me off their mailing list. I ain't buying tickets to any of this boring crap.

Battles, Mary Timony

Battles (First Set) at ATP
Originally uploaded by Oye.

at the Black Cat, 3/23/2007

I had to work at an ACF concert that night, so didn't make it over to the club until Mary Timony's set was almost over. Fortunately, I got to hear two songs. Her trio lineup (with Devin Ocampo, drums, and Chad Molter, bass & keyboard) is terrific. They sounded much much tighter than at Fort Reno last summer. The little bit I heard sounded great and I'm sorry I missed most of the set.

Battles were terrific. I'm a total sucker for "math-rock" so it's no surprise that I gobbled up everything they served us and still wanted more. Ty Braxton was totally on. Adding processed vocals to their arsenal seems to make a lot of sense. It's hard to imagine a band that would be a better fit for Ty. It sounds to me like a logical extension of his solo music, but I haven't heard his recent solo work. This was the first time I heard him play since, was it 2003? Could be that long ago... Both Ty and Ian Williams did lots of playing keyboard and guitar simultaneously (left hand tapping on the neck of the guitar, right hand on the keyboard). Sometimes doubling the same material, sometimes playing different material with each hand. Nifty trick.

You can hear their new single, "Atlas" on myspace or catch the video on pitchfork or youtube.

Leroy Jenkins (1932 - 2007)

Found this nice article / appreciation about Leroy Jenkins.

(the explanation of what A.A.C.M is and does is far from complete, though)

Crackberry

I knew it!! Your blackberry makes you stupider.

Expect Delays

So things have pretty much ground to a halt on this little bloggy project. Pardon the delay while "repurposing" is in progress. I'm not sure what I want to do with this space, exactly, but it sure looks like writing down a few thoughts about each concert I hear isn't doing it for me anymore.

I'm thinking about some kind of online resource for "under the radar" events... maybe some kind of guide to the best-of so-called underground music and other performing arts in town? I don't know, we'll see. If I'm going to put the time in to build something like that, I want to figure out how to make it commercially viable, which seems hard.

In the meantime, the Upcoming.org feed in the sidebar will continue to be updated with cool and interesting events around town, and there's a link there to subscribe to the "upcoming events" feed.