The Project is dead! Long live the Project!

R.I.P.

The Great Listening Project™

July 15th, 2006 - July 15th, 2013

When we last spoke I was nearing the end of the Great Listening Project™. As you can see above, the Project ended exactly seven years after it started. Wow. Perhaps some day I will write some grand sweeping thoughts about the entire experience, but that day is not today. However, in order to get to the purpose of today's musings I must reflect a bit on how the Project changed me in an unexpected way. To wit, the Project changed my relationship with listening to music. (Come again Jubb?) One of the reasons for starting the Project was to break my listening habits. It was started at a time when I was commuting to work, and my car stereo was firmly locked on Morphine, Gnarls Barkley, and Kings of Convenience. All solid choices, but the scope of it makes me no different from an aging young rocker clinging to Bon Jovi with a soft spot for NKOTB. I take pride in the depth and breadth of the variety of music I listen to, and that just wasn't cutting it. Not only did the Project force me to re-evaluate all of the music I own, but it also got me interested in the idea of listening within parameters, which finally brings us to the point of this post.

For the month of February I only listened to Black Artists and Pop Records.

Black Artists should be fairly obvious, February being Black History Month and all, as for Pop Records, Harry & I decided to participate in the RPM Challenge (the idea being to record an entire album in the month of February) and we decided to make a Pop Record, the results of which can be found here. So, here are some of my findings.

In the category of "Here we have an entire country whose music I had no I idea that I loved:" Mali. Wow. Tinariwen, the Touré-Raichel Collective, Salif Keita, ... I can't express how much I love this music. I've done some minor exploration of African Music in general before this last month, but I was continually struck by the fact that I would be listening to something, wonder where it was from, and then discover that it was from Mali. It was a real "the more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know" moment for me.

In the category of "Why the fuck haven't I been listening to this music all along!?:" Allen Toussaint, Nina Simone, Frank Ocean. Southern Nights stuck in my head for days, swimming in the beauty of Ocean's sounds, and Nina, dear lord Nina hits in all the right places. There's something that I love about the artistic expression of African-American suffering, a grace, a grittiness, strength. James Baldwin, Gil Scott-Heron, Langston Hughes, Charles Mingus. These are artists that inexplicably resonate with me, and I'm very happy to finally be adding Ms. Simone to that list.

In the category of "Damn Nostalgia, how you doin'?:" early 90s hip-hop. Oh, that smooth hip-hop/jazz fusion and those sweet, sweet voices. Digable Planets, Arrested Development, Tribe, De La,... yes please! I had forgotten how much I loved and still really enjoy that music.

In the category of "What the Fuck? Am I seriously enjoying this?:" Giorgio Moroder. I blame Harry.

And the the greatest surprise of all, was Pop Music in general. I listen to so much Experimental Music (heck, I've got Dockstader & Myers on right now) that I forget how satisfying good Pop Music can be. I manage to isolate myself from being bombarded with too much mainstream music, so I'm afforded the opportunity to appreciate it on my own terms, but that also means that I don't often seek it out. I'm glad that I did. And this love of Pop Music has continued post-February; lately I've been hooked, HOOKED on Pharrell Williams' disc. Have you heard "Lost Queen?" Wow. So. Good.

These self-imposed listening restrictions helped be gain a deeper appreciation of some music that I might have otherwise overlooked. The pleasure in listening to a wide variety of music is actually LISTENING to the music. I said earlier that the Project changed my relationship with listening to music, and this is a small part of that. By creating different, focused restrictions I can explore music in a whole new way. Any suggestions?

The Good, The Bad, and the Zappa

Almost seven years ago I started the Great Listening Project™. As of today (July 4^th, 2013) I am almost done with Zappa. My goal, which seems so close now, is to finish the project on July 15^th, the seven-year anniversary of the project. The journey has been a fascinating one, and hopefully soon I’ll write more about that, but today I’m here to talk about good ol’ Uncle Frank.

Zappa’s was easily the largest catalogue I tackled, listening to over 70 titles, some of which are two or three disc sets. Going into this stretch, I had a fairly sizable FZ collection (45 titles) but what really put this over the top is that Spotify has the entire collection of works released during Frank’s lifetime and a small smattering of the posthumous releases. I was able to listen to everything through Civilization Phaze III, a few of the later releases, and a few of the Beat The Boots series. All in all, quite a lot of Zappa.

So, what did I think about all of this music? To begin with, it’s fair to say that I have quite a respect for Zappa’s work, but this listening had the odd effect of both reinforcing and diminishing that respect. So, in true Listening Project fashion, let me begin all the way back at the beginning. (don’t worry, I’m not going to write about EVERY album)

I started with Frank’s appearance on the Steve Allen show. There are a number of things that are interesting about this piece. First is the fact that as a complete unknown he was bringing the music of the avant-garde into the living rooms of America. It incorporates tape music, free improvisation, and Cagean notions of noise as music. The other interesting thing about this performance is it showed that he thought he could become a “serious composer” in the same way one becomes a “pop musician”: by just doing it. Academia still to this day has a strong hold on the “right” to be considered a “serious composer” and very few artists have earned that label without the official stamp of academic approval. Zappa eventually earned that right, and did it his own way, but he had to sneak his crazy musical ideas into comedy tinged Rock music.

The Mothers were a truly great Rock & Roll band, and I could go on about the awesome power of the different combinations of musicians that came through that outfit, but I’m going to focus on just one work from that era: 200 Motels. This truly represents the best of what Zappa was all about. It rocks HARD, is filled with experimental tape music, and has plenty of dissonant orchestral writing. Zappa was never a great lyricist (more on that later) so we’ll ignore the lame penis jokes for now, but this was shining moment in a dense career. Sure he had other bands that had greater technical skills, but let’s face it, Rock loses something when it becomes too technical. And in this one instance he had it all, a band that rocked on one side of the stage, and an orchestra on the other. Power and skill. And when considering the movie as well, we get to add musique concrète passages, experimental dance, and (for the time) cutting edge video work. I wish there were more like this, but I’ll take the one.

Much of the Mothers material through the first seven years of the Zappa material continues to delight me in it’s playfulness, intricacy, and occasional insight. But then things start to take a turn for me after about 1978. While Zappa’s “lyrics” have always had an interest in sex acts and organs, this is when he really starts to go full blown into the Titties & Beer type tunes that would dominate his later Rock records. While his satire sometimes showed us some mankind’s flaws in a humorous way, it was also often misogyny thinly disguised as misanthropy. Again, these themes dominate his 80s output, which there’s a lot of in the form of many long live double disc sets. I found the Stage series to be pretty excruciating for this reason. Unfortunately, this material is often very catchy once you’ve memorized all the twists of words and music, so even as I thought about how wrong on so many levels some of this material is, I had that same music running through my head on a regular basis.

And then he dies, and we finally get a glimpse at what could have been. His work with both the Ensemble Modern and the Synclavier show us a version of Frank’s music that’s free from the necessity to play Rock music; or at least his perception that he needed to and his record company’s insistence that he did. And it retains quite a bit of humor, though usually not in a way that’s making fun of other people, except for maybe the American government or the American people writ large. But it’s here that the instrumental music fully comes to the front. This music, to my ears, really shows that Zappa was much better without the words. Of course, completely subtracting the lyrics from Frank’s work is impossible; I just wish the percentages were at least the other way around.

As I’m finishing this post it is three days after I started it, and I’m right this second listening to the very last entry for me, The Subcutaneous Peril from Finer Moments on Spotify. It’s an instrumental Rock number and it reminds me that no matter how high minded others or I can get about Zappa his main aesthetic was pleasure. Be it the delight in strange sounds, a solid groove to dance to, or laughing at the foibles of mankind, there’s a sense of pleasure that informs all of his work.

Clerical error in row 17

I've been picking up the pace a bit again in the Great Listening Project™ and the other day I moved on to a very personally significant album, Too Much Sugar For A Dime by Henry Threadgill. This was one of, if not the first avant-garde Jazz albums I ever owned, and it showed me a new way of hearing music. Not only that, but I heard it for the first time on WRIU and it was a definitive moment in drawing me to the station. It was even the sort of disc that I listened to twice for the Project. But then I noticed something awry. I looked ahead in the collection and saw that They Might Be Giants were up next. Wait, what? That's not how the alphabet works. The part that troubles me about this is that this must have happened years ago. However, on the plus side, not only does this mean that I get to move on to TMBG, but it also means that I get to listen to the Threadgill disc again!

Long overdue Project update

Well my friends, the Great Listening Project™ has been moving at a much slower pace these days however, I am pleased to announce that after one year, four months, and 21 days I am finished with the letter S.

Co-eds Darren, co-eds

So, for those of you who might not have heard, ol' Uncle Jubb is finally back in school. About two years ago I enrolled at URI's Continuing Education campus (or Old People's College as I like to call it) in Providence, but never got around to taking any classes. This August I proposed a show to a radio station in NYC but never heard anything back from them. Rather then sit around and mope about it I took that as the kick in the ass I needed to get back to school. Since I was already in the system from two years ago, all I had to do was register for classes and go. Pickin's were slim getting into the game that late, but I was able to get into four classes, some of which are actually pretty cool. I'll refrain from commenting on which classes I like and which I don't since this is a public forum and I have shared this blog's URL with some of my professors, but here are some thoughts on my experience so far.

First and foremost, I absolutely friggin' love it. I am so glad to finally be doing this, and maybe it took a long time for me to get here, but maybe this was just the right time. Not only am I more focused as a student, but I'm also more focused personally. I now have a clear idea of "what I want to do when I grow up." Radio. Period. Now that may take several forms or have different possible career outcomes, it's the clear answer for me. When I got back on the air a little over a year ago the on-air light in my head went on. And while URI doesn't offer a lot in terms of audio or broadcasting classes per se, it does offer me some very cool opportunities.

The most obvious is the radio station itself. As a student (as opposed to a community volunteer which I was before) I am eligible to be on the Executive Board and I have already secured the position of Production Manager. This means that I am in charge of our live room and ProTools equipped recording studio. In addition to that, one of my Communications professors has set up a Sound Lab for students to use which is currently a small room with four ProTools computers and some basic recording equipment. I am also manager for this Sound Lab, which means that I am basically the resident ProTools expert on campus. These two things will give me lots of opportunity to work hands on a variety of equipment and will look excellent on a resume. Oh, and I get paid for both.

So, that's the gist of what's going on with me these days. Now if you'll excuse me, this place is just crawling with college girls... o.O

Two days I waited ten years for

In 2000 I saw two bands I never expected to see again; Orchestra Morphine and Gil Scott-Heron. In early August I saw them both within the span of 24 hours.

Orchestra Morphine is the remaining members of Morphine along with members of Either/Orchestra performing the songs of Mark Sandman. At this point in my life I can pretty safely say that Morphine is my favorite band. No small statement. And to see this music performed live again is nothing short of mind blowing for me.

Russ Gershon has a tendency to send out emails about E/O performances mere days before a show. On a Tuesday morning I saw a notice he had sent out the day before about an Orchestra Morphine show the next day! I got on the phone and rounded up Kyle, Martin, and Linda and off we went. We get up to Boston with no problems, circle the block once and get a spot right in front of the club. To say the Lizard Lounge is intimate is to say Jimi Hendrix was a guitar player. Grab some seats, blah blah blah, they play. Oh. My. God.

These nine musicians both have this music in them and put themselves into this music. They are those songs. Which gives them  the ability to explore while they're playing. Because no matter how far out they take these, well, Pop Songs, they can still turn the train right around and lock it back in. And I dare you not to dance. Go on. Don't dance.

Then the next day:

Erica & I picked up Harry & Bill and we headed to NYC. Pleasant trip down the Merritt (Harrison, You Are Here) got into the city no problem, found $10 parking, went to the MOMA, had awesome salads on 125th, then headed over to Marcus Garvey park in Harlem to see Gil Scott-Heron. Hoe. Lee. Shit. 

Another group of excellent musicians, and at least from my perspective towards the back of the park, Gil looked fairly healthy. When I saw him in 2000, eh, not so much. I spent the oughts assuming I'd one day hear that he had died, so to see him perform live again is also mind blowing to me.

But the thing that *really* blew my mind was that fact that these two show were back-to-back. These are two of my absolute favorite artists, one of whom has been living with a crack habit for decades, and the other has been gone since '99. And they were both near perfect shows in every aspect that I can think of; personal importance of artist, performance, company, parking, over-all experience, etc ...

A listening crisis

I never thought I'd say this, but I think I might have too much music. I currently have three main modes of listening which roughly fall along format lines. There's the Great Listening Project (compact discs), research for my radio show (digital/internet), and what I simply want to listen to for pleasure (vinyl). There's overlap obviously, and primarily in that I'm buying cd's under the pretense of it being for the show, and then listening to them for pleasure.

Anyway.

I feel like I've actually hit a point where I have more music than I have time for. In other words, my addiction to obtaining new music seems to have gotten out of hand, and it's due to the confluence of three forces.

First, my re-discovery of the beauty of vinyl has led to an enormous amount of record shopping. A large part of that is because I work in a well stocked record store, but even beyond that I've picked the thrift store habit back up. And when I see a sign that says "Records: $1 each or 30 for $20" you bet your ass I'm buying 30. The result being that I still have several Randy Newman, Duke Ellington, and Enoch Light records that I haven't even touched yet.

Then there's the radio show, which I feel deserves the majority of my attention. In doing this show and focusing on Classical music of the last 30 years I've put myself in a position of presenting a music that I was not all that familiar with before hand. This means I'm constantly learning new names, listening to works on websites, buying new cd's, rifling though the library at the station, etc.. Just last week, for example, I probably loaded about ten discs from the station library onto my hard drive, set aside a dozen lp's to listen to, received one disc that I bought online, and contacted several composers asking for music for the show. Additionally, I'm planning on ordering two or three more discs this weekend.

Third is the temptation of the internet. It's far too easy to grab a discography of, say Slayer, simply for nostalgia's sake, but how long is that then going to just sit there un-listened to? And this extends to "research" for the show. Sorry, Famous Name Composer™ I need my fifteen bucks more than you do. (If it makes you feel any better, Famous Name Composer™, now that I have 27 of your discs on my hard drive I'm sure to play you on my show with some regularity.) But again, when am I going to get around to listening to it all.

Finally, (yeah, I know I said "three forces") for approximately 40 hours every week I'm forced to listen to pop garbage that I would even know existed otherwise. One of the results of that is I often sit in silence after work, cutting into what would normally be listening time.

And this isn't even taking into account all of the music that I would like to explore simply out of my own insatiable curiosity. The Rough Guide to Africa & Middle East that I have on right now as Official Project Listening is reminding me that I need to explore various World Musics, and every time I go downstairs and my roommate is listening to some wonderful piece of music I'm reminded of how vast the Classical Cannon is.

So there's my crisis. I have no solutions or potential answers, except maybe relinquishing all obligations (other than my show) and just dedicating myself to sitting in front of the stereo for ten/twelve hours a day. Which sounds like heaven to me, but I suppose I still need to eat.

the new '92

I'm officially calling it. 2010 will be the new 1992.

'92 was the year that Grunge became the mainstream music, however, it was really just that the mainstream media caught on to what most of us were listening to already. As I commented last year, when Nirvana became big, it was no great revelation. The sounds of Grunge were everywhere, down to the littlest local band.

And I'm getting much the same vibe now with the current Indie scene/sound. It's everywhere, and everyone I know who cares about their music is listening to it. There's also a sort of unification of sound with folk and country influences abounding, while at the same time each individual artist/band has it's own distinct approach. All it takes is a look at the rosters of the last two years of the Newport Folk Festival to get an idea of the bands I'm taking about. Deer Tick, Calexico, She & Him, the Low Anthem, Neko Case, Fleet Foxes, ... the list goes on.

Culturally we are in a similar place too. One of the beautiful things about the Grunge Moment was that it was a major sea change from the highly commercial crap we were being bombarded with. Much like now. Grunge, like today's Indie Rock, was an attempt to get back to something "real." And today's over-produced pop crap bears a striking resemblance to the over-produced pop crap of the late eighties. Even fashions are worth mentioning. Mainstream culture is filled with neon colors and spandex. Meanwhile the hipsters are wearing an awful lot of plaid these days.

Of course, there is a downside to Indie music becoming popular. It means that by 2011/12 we'll be seeing all sorts of Corporate Indie Rock™ And you know what else is supposed to happen in 2012? That's right, the end of the World. And if Corporate Indie Rock™ isn't a sign of the apocalypse, I don't know what is.

It's official

I've run out of room on my CD shelves.

Justin H Brierley dislikes this.

Alphabetic musing

At work I get to watch people trying to find music. In addition to the sometimes tricky questions of where a certain section is, what section something is filed under, or why does Mickey Hart warrant his own header card and Jerry Garcia doesn't, this also means observing people's interactions with the alphabet. Now personally, it would never even occur to me to look for an artist by their first name, but lots of people do. And what's more, I've noticed that kids in particular will even sneer and laugh that the discs are in "no order at all." I think this is a result of the iTunes Generation, where alphabetization by first name is the norm. It makes me wonder if that system will eventually win out, since all things computer are becoming the way of the world.

Yes, Gil, I could

Last night as I walked home from work I was listening to John Coltrane ~ Kulu Se Mama. During the song "Vigil" I was thinking about an article that I scanned earlier in the day about sexism in indie hip-hop which mentioned Sage Francis. This lead me to think about the over-all anger in Sage's music towards, well, anyone who isn't him.

..and then the song "Welcome" came on..

And it was so beautiful that it literally slowed my pace, made me stop thinking about anger, and made me look around in wonder at the beauty of the world around me. I even had a minor hallucination that a box by the side of the road was a diorama with ballet dancers. (& let me point out that I was 100% sober at the time) It was truly transcendent.

Could you call on Lady Day?
Could you call on John Coltrane?
'Cuz they'll, they'll wash your troubles away.
~Gil Scott-Heron~

Lessons from the Project pt. 2

The Collection is History
In a film, a well placed song can help guide us to a desired emotion. The same cinematic moment can also imbue that song with that feeling. This creates an external storage space for that moment, that emotion. When we hear that song again, if the connection is strong enough, the scene floats into one's mind as if the movie were contained in the song rather than the song being part of the film. As someone who has incessantly sound tracked his own life, my music collection serves as a vast reference library to all those moments, all those emotions, that make up a life. As I go through the project, scenes will leap out at me, sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes with warning. Other times I'll be reminded of a whole period, place, or person. But regardless of how minute or macro the memory is, it's as if it's 'stored' in the music. All I have to do is think the line "ridin' my bike to the depot" and I see Sophie in the kitchen at Gould St., crank the the Chili Peppers in the car and I'm back in high school, or hear the opening of Princess Superstar Is to evoke Renee the First. And it's not just extra-musical associations. Listening to say, the Primus catalogue in one day (not recommended) can lead to a deeper understanding of where I was at as a listener at the specific time that ___(fill in the blank.. band/artist/album/song)... was important.

The Project becomes History
One of the points of the Project is conscious listening. As such I frequently have a heightened awareness of what else is happening. This means that Official Project Listening takes on the memory of the moment it happens in. For example, in a previous post I mentioned how the Oranj Symphonette version of A Woman & A Man reminded me of a painful time. Now, as I think back on the Project I have the memory of painting the stairs, listening to that song as Official Project Listening and of having that painful memory. In essence what it does is create yet another map or outline by which I can recall events, only in this instance they are the very specific events of a specific time in which I listened to a given album.

Numeric predictions

In the last year or so the Listening Project has been moving rather slowly. During the last six months I have progressed by merely one shelf. At that rate it will take me another three & a half to four years to finish. So I've decided to kick start this thing a bit and will be making the effort to listen to at least one disc per day. I have about 300 discs actually in the collection to go and I'll most likely be adding 100+ titles to the project. Which means I'm currently predicting a much more reasonable year and a half until the project is complete.

While my synth virtually weeps

Greetings from the other side of February. In short: I did it! I basically stuck to my original plan of one new song a day for the first ten days (with one skipped day for good reason) and then edited for the rest of the month. I even finished a few days early. The first draft was done on the 21st, the first printing was done on the 26th, and the discs got mailed to rpmchallenge.com on the 28th. w00t! Also on the 26th I built The Chicken for the upcoming CockSlap show. Over-all a busy and successful month.

So, the new album.
It can be heard here at last.fm,
and there's a Facebook music page here.
Physical copies will be limited and, for now at least, only available in person.

Hopefully you can take the time to give it a few spins and don't forget to leave me a comment letting me know what you think.

Until next time, sleep tight and don't piss on the electric blanket,
<3 Uncle Jubb

Feb-tastic!

Well my dears, it's been awhile since I've talked about my music here, and oh so much has happened that I need to step into the way back machine to recap. Last July I ended Banter/3.1 as I reported here. Soon after I began working on a new live show entitled Horses Changed My Life which was to be part music, part storytelling, with some sort of film in the background. Then, as many of you know, in November my Mac crashed, leaving me with access to none of the work I had done for that show. As of this writing the data issue is still unresolved (anyone got a spare two grand for recovery?) Then along came xxxmas, and despite always striving to be naughty, santa brought me the new version of Pro Tools that I asked for. However. It requires 1gb of memory and my old pc only had 512mb. At that point I had a bit of extra scratch from working my ass off over the hollandaise, so I bought a barebones kit and built a new computer. And just in time, because February is going to be a busy month.

First, I am taking the Recording Project Month Challenge. The idea is to write and record an entire album in the month of February. I ain't scared. After all, I did record Beyond Beautiful Mountain in only three weeks. My plan is to write a new song every day for the first ten days, and then edit the shit out of them for the remaining 18 days. A tease of the new sound can be heard here. It's the last song in the player, appropriately called A taste of what's to come. The resulting work will be the first album by Something Like Banter & the Cybernetic Inevitable All-Stars.

In CockSlap news, we have a show coming up at AS220 on March 4th. Be there. Trust me. We are currently building The Chicken which is an interactive beast controlled by you the audience! You won't want to miss this exciting opportunity to be a part of the CockSlap experience.

"Well, what about the horses?" you may ask. Horses Changed My Life is now going to become a feature length silent film with an all original soundtrack. In many ways it is going to be the sequel to Sweeping up the Popcorn only this time set in a record store. Pre-production will begin in March after I get past the enourmous amount of work I mentioned above.

So, as you can see, I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me. But, that's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it.

Dear Mr. President

In honor of our new leader I was able to get away with an all black playlist at work today. This was actually more difficult than it would seem, but keep in mind I have a very limited palette to work with, and loose guidelines about current popular music being played at certain times of day. Again, seems easy right? However, we basically do not play rap at all, so as popular as say T-Pain may be, it would never get played in the store. (Not that I'd want to, it's just an example.) The mornings are a little easier, and to my liking, because we can play a bit of Jazz and Blues. So here, with commentary, is the list:

Herbie Hancock ~ The Joni Letters It's Herbie, what more need I say?
Buddy Guy ~ Skin Deep An excellent disc, and the message of the title track made all the more poignant by the significance of today.
Tracy Chapman ~ Our Bright Future I haven't had much chance to absorb this album yet, but what I've heard has been decent.
Al Green ~ Lay It Down My biggest coup of the day, the Reverend was playing as Obama was being sworn in.
Keyshia Cole ~ A Different Me This is where things start to get crappy.
John Legend ~ Evolver Although, for some inexplicable reason, I really like this album. I think it might be because it doesn't have the standard lame guest rapper thing. (correction: Andre 3000 is on Green Light, but I'm ok with that)
Beyonce ~ I Am... Sasha Fierce Dear Mrs. Z, please go away.
Seal ~ Soul The man can sing, and is surprisingly well suited to this type of material, but the song choices are mostly horrible.
Jennifer Hudson The fact that I'm qualified to say that this is one of the worst Idol related discs out there scares me. "Ima hit you with my pocketbook"!!?? Seriously? Are you secretly 85?
Alicia Keys ~ As I Am Gotta say, I don't mind this one. I'd never go out of my way to listen to it outside of work, but she's ok. On a liner notes aside; pictures of a pretty lady in a tight Miles Davis t-shirt surrounded by top-notch keyboards are ok by me.

If I had more control over the music I could have put together a bangin' list, but I worked with what I had.

p.s. Mr. President, I hope you do an excellent job. I wish you the best.

Top 9 of 8

2008 has been odd. The first two months were spent living in NYC, raising my lifetime out-of-RI living to nine months. The last eight months have been spent working at a record, nay, toy store that I've had a twenty year history with. Along the way I've seen some shows, listened to some records (presently side 3 of Exile In Guyville), and generally thought about music, as I tend to do. And since this tends to be the time of year for lists, here's mine.

First, my criteria. The list is mostly recordings purchased in '08, but not restricted to recordings that came out in '08, and performances attended and I stayed away from anything I've typed about before. So..

9) The Police & Elvis Costello ~ Great Woods, July 31st
tie
9) David Byrne & Brian Eno ~ Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

The Police/Costello show was epic for many reasons. For starters, I don't think I've ever known six months in advance that I was going to a particular show. Ever. Kyle texted me in January saying "Clear 7/31" He then informs me, by phone at this point, that the show is a birthday gift. So, the months pass, the show is thought about, forgotten, and suddenly here. I was in the situation of being the least responsible person, so I drank myself silly and got to see an artist and a band that I'd never seen before. Hot Damn!

Dear Brian,
Thank you for throwing us your scraps.
p.s. Tell David he did a pretty good job too.

8) The Residents ~ at the Fucking Mall!!!
As if my third Residents show wasn't a strange enough event on it's own, the show was at Showcase Live at Partiots Place. Yup, the giant fucking mall around the stadium formerly known as Foxboro. The notion started to really sink in upon hitting the parking lot and driving past all the huge brand stores, looking for the cinema multiplex.

7) East Village Opera Company
This disc was in the first employee purchase I made at my job. I adopted it for awhile as a pet record to sell at work. They (EVOC) then put out a new album this year. The combo of me selling the first album and having a new one earned them a header card in our mostly laughable classical section.

6) Dinaresade ~ Traditional Syrian
This one song from the box set Time of the Templars has been an iPod staple. There was a stretch this summer where I listened to this song almost everyday on my walk home from work, whistling out loud and drumming on my man purse.

5) Banter/3.1 ~ Medicinal Reverb
Oh no you didn't! Oh yes I did. While putting your own album on a year end best of list can seem a bit hokey, MedRev earns a place here for many reasons. First was the amount of time and effort that went into recording and mixing. Second, it is one of my proudest accomplishments ever, and certainly the best "album" I've recorded. And lately it has become an album that I simply enjoy listening to. One of the pleasures of making music is creating something that you enjoy.

4) My Morning Jacket ~ Evil Urges
Generally speaking, if someone tells me I should check out a certain band or album I don't listen. And yes, that sounds snobby, but I tend to be very good at discovering music on my own. However, Al mentioned My Morning Jacket and after listening to one and a half songs on MySpace I bought Evil Urges on vinyl. What a simply delicious album. Anyone who sings about sexy librarians and the interwebs is ok by me.

3) Mudcrutch ~ Mudcrutch
Of all the LP's I bought this year, this one is hands down the best object. Simply holding the thing is a pleasure. The artwork gives it the look of a lost album, which in a sense it is. Mudcrutch broke up in the early 70's without having recorded, and got back together to make this album. And the music kicks ass too. A bunch of old guys who know what they're doing layin' it down live in the studio. Sign me up!

2) An Evening of Charles Ives' Music ~ Central Presbyterian Church, NYC
Anyone who makes the mistake of mentioning Charles Ives in my presence is likely to get an hour long lecture. To say that I'm obsessed with Charlie is perhaps the understatement of the year. In January I got the chance to see an evening of his music at the church where he used to be the organist! Not only did that fact make it a special evening, but the performance was the best live Ives I've seen yet.

1) Patti Smith ~ Horses
One day at work Al handed me a pin that said "Horses changed my life." I deemed this most excellent and proceeded to wear it to work on a regular basis. Since this would frequently cause people to ask how horses had changed my life I came up with a series of mostly true stories involving horses and my life. This became the basis, or glue if you will, of a new, Banter related performance that I bagan working on. Now the truth of the matter, of course, is that the pin was a promo item for the Patti Smith album Horses which I don't believe I had ever heard. So a dl and an LP later I can say that is a truly outstanding record.

Well, there it is. The moments that effected me the most this year. Happy Listening.

Lost in the supermarket

or at least in the comfort of my own home. Lemme 'splain. Like a refugee, I'm writing this from my old PC because my Mac won't turn on. I'm taking it in to the Apple store on Sat, but in the meantime I have no idea what to do with myself. The whole ordeal is scary in a few ways. Obviously there's the potential data loss, including basically all of the data for the new show I've been working on, but it's also scary how at a loss I am. I mean right now I'm doing exactly what I would be doing if the Mac was working; smoking, listening to music, & blogging/interwebbing. Yet I feel lost doing it. Part of that must be the anxiety over what the end result of this may be. Oddly, the PC which has been f*'ed for years, is behaving fine. So, I'm listening to Zeena Parkins ~ The Opium War. It's a radio play about well, opium, in NYC during the teens. Delicious Avante-Garde Over-the-Topness.

A journey of a couple of discs

Two very good friends of mine currently live in an apartment that I once inhabited. A lotta shit went down in that apartment, and it's more than a little surreal visiting them. ("See that nail in the chimney? That was there when I lived here. I had a picture of Zappa hanging on it.") The other day they stopped by my house and ended up borrowing a few discs, including some Bowie and Sebadoh. I realized after they left that those discs were all in my collection at the time I lived there, and are now making a journey into an apartment where they too once lived many years ago. I find it interesting that those same discs will fill the air within the same walls some thirteen years later.

*a note about the title: When I first started the Project I made an attempt to keep a journal about every single discs I listened to. Needless to say, that task failed. However, the first entry started like this: It began with Rabih Abou-Khalil. Theoretically, it will end with Zuco 103. A journey of a thousand plus CD's. The Great Listening Project.

Lessons from the Project pt. 1

Over the last two years, three months, and seven days since I started the Great Listening Project I've learned a few things. Some of them are completely inconsequential, others have had profound philosophical impact. This new, semi-regular series will highlight those insights.

Tastes change. And of course I mean the obvious "I used to like Anthrax, now I like Radiohead," but I also mean that how we react to and interact with music changes. The criteria by which we deem something "bad" or "good" evolves as well. One inevitable result of listening to music all the time is an increased knowledge of at least the basics of theory and how music works in general, which leads to an appreciation of more technically sophisticated musics. But mood plays a part as well. Think of the way a specific song, album, etc.. can attach itself to a specific life event, be it "good" or "bad." And that opinion can change as one's feelings towards said life event change. Sometimes too it's just a general feeling. As I mentioned here, I've been feelin' the rock on vinyl vibe which means I'm more receptive to the Clash and Olivia Newton-John than I am to the William Parker disc I'm listening to right now. Another factor is surroundings, what you're being exposed to, voluntary or otherwise. Also, the process of discovery adds to a personal database of information, including who got what ideas from whom. "I used to think So & So was great till I heard Such & Such." And sometimes you just wonder "What the fuck was I thinking?"

Tastes remain the same. Some opinions really are forever. There are songs, albums, artists, etc.. that I will just plain dis/like for the rest of my life. Some of them because of their association with less than pleasant life events. For example. And all of the above factors (knowledge, surroundings, life events, etc..) can also influence the permanence of an opinion. Knowledge can reenforce an initial feeling. "See, I was right. This is good/bad." Same goes for being surrounded by people who share similar tastes. "We both, all, etc.. dis/like this. See, we're right."

Personally, my opinion seems to change from "bad" to "good" more than the other way around, and once something is considered "good" it tends to remain that way. Which could mean that I have no taste and think everything is ok, or that I seek the good in what I'm listening to.