Briefs
Thursday, May 31st, 2018
The Dawn of Day
Friedrich Nietzsche
This is a delicious book to pick up in spurts — BMW punchy as Emerson is Rolls-Royce bubbly — but I couldn’t say what it’s chiefly about, where it starts, where it ends, how it fits in with Nietzsche’s other books, nor whether I’ve even read it before (I do remember particular points but perhaps they’re also mentioned in the other books). As usual this 19th-century giant sounds as if he writes… this morning.
Monday, May 28th, 2018
Having just seen Sam Smith on a televised weekend concert, I was reminded of Spectre and went and found a podcast episode where they satisfyingly eviscerate his lazy theme song, “The Writing’s on the Wall”.
Friday, May 11th, 2018
“The Moment” is an occasional column/blog by novelist Amit Chaudhuri in The Paris Review.
Saturday, April 21st, 2018
We have entered an uncanny valley of algorithmic culture. I believe it’s still easy to step out of, but even easier not to. And maybe it’s merely a speeding up of how things have always worked.
Saturday, March 17th, 2018
Check it out, How We Made, a weekly series by The Guardian interviewing two collaborators on a seminal work of art — from 2001: A Space Odyssey to the Swatch watch.
Thursday, March 15th, 2018
The Bloomsbury set thought about work and leisure, with ideas for today as we wrestle more universally with these issues.
Thursday, February 8th, 2018
Quincy Jones on Michael Jackson’s bullshit and everyone else’s too. Oh and famous friends.
Saturday, August 12th, 2017
On golf, drunk driving in Phoenix, and “the hillbilly passover Seder”: Alice Cooper eulogizes his good friend Glen Campbell.
Tuesday, August 8th, 2017
The world’s most rhinestone cowboy, Glen Campbell, has died at 81. He is one of my favorites.
Friday, June 23rd, 2017
Tainted and beloved: Terry Teachout on the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras’ participation in the Nazi project..
Thursday, June 15th, 2017
David Arnold speaks to collaborating with Chris Cornell on “You Know My Name”, the theme song for the James Bond movie Casino Royale: “We needed someone who could sing the way Daniel acted…” This has become my #3 favorite, after Carly Simon’s Marvin Hamlish number and Nancy Sinatra’s John Barry one.
Sunday, May 7th, 2017
Sunday, April 23rd, 2017
“Even The Beatles have sort of faded for this generation, but Billy hasn’t. Billy’s still cranking,” observes cover band leader Mike DelGuidice. Billy Joel is outearning the likes of U2 and Adele.
Monday, January 30th, 2017
It seems to be a deceptively hard song to cover, but here’s a good one with a man, a woman and a ukulele on a living-room sofa, deceptively casual, deceptively perfect. Nobody’s done it better, not even Radiohead. And for something completely different: a great ‘Nobody Does it Better’ series montage by Rik Moran.
Tuesday, January 10th, 2017
David Cripps, the London Symphony Orchestra’s horn soloist, on playing the Star Wars music, and particularly “Leia’s Theme”. Seems clear from this and an interview I read on “Rey’s Theme” that John Williams is inspired by charismatic actors.
Tuesday, August 30th, 2016
Speed of Dark
Elizabeth Moon
I was brought to this most non-sci-fi of sci-fi novels by the Brighton Science Fiction Discussion Group. Narrated in character by its autistic protagonist, Speed of Light initially reminded me of Mr Robot. Yes, I did like it, but wasn’t sure if the thinness of the other characters is due to our narrator’s limitations or those of the author; I don’t know her other work so can’t say. A mostly unsentimental decency permeates — actually it’s an exploration of decency — which gives it an appreciable pre-cyberpunk, almost square feel.
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2016
FYI: Prokofiev was the best. By Bruce Turlish.
Friday, July 29th, 2016
New for me and rather swish and great: Arturo Márquez’s Danzóns. This is #2, as played by the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and conducted by the charismatic Gustavo Dudamel.
Friday, July 1st, 2016
For those of you about to Sabbath I salute you with Dead Best: 10 Top Performances of ‘Terrapin Station’ by Deadhead Peter Wendel.
Tuesday, April 19th, 2016
(All YouTube links…) You’ve heard the accordion, now hear:
- the piano: Rey’s Theme
- two oboes (sweet though sound isn’t great even to my ear)
- mocked-up full orchestra (awesome)
- two harps (not quite as sweet as I’d hoped, but still, harps)
- a nice composite of all the theme’s appearances in the movie
- the coolest (video of this one’s worth watching too)
- some conspiracy theory musical analysis
And in the LA Times, an interview with John Williams about the soundtrack.
Thursday, April 14th, 2016
So the neighbor Brian is playing his and I thought, you know what, John Williams’ “Rey’s Theme” from Star Wars: The Force Awakens kind of lends itself to the accordion. And here it is on YouTube, very nicely done by Adam Matlock in his bedroom. Commendations to you, sir.
Wednesday, April 6th, 2016
Derek Sivers’ MusicThoughts. Prepare, good friends, for a bombardment of enhanced civility.
Monday, January 18th, 2016
A bit of a fun mindbender. Queen’s Greatest Hits performed by what I guess is a Beatles tribute band using the latter’s idioms. Full album.
You owe it to yourself and to the rest of us to watch and listen to “Bohemian Rhapsody” played on a church organ by blind organist Bert van den Brink.
Oh my, the entire Star Wars symphonic suite played by one man on a Wurlitzer.
Monday, January 5th, 2015
0n the 70s forty years later: “The depression can seem not like confinement but a kind of freedom; the aimlessness can seem like spaciousness, a shambling kind of grace.”
Tuesday, December 16th, 2014
Everybody, everybody, you’re gonna love this account of the making of Boogie Nights, long enough to read like a small book. My only qualm is that they totally should have put Michael Penn’s final comment at the end.
Saturday, January 19th, 2013
Wow. Dan Kois, a senior editor at Slate, heads to Portland for a week of serious karaoke.
Thursday, December 13th, 2012
All 8 Kraftwerk shows at Tate Modern, £60 per, sold out quicker than the museum’s servers could handle.
Sunday, December 2nd, 2012
Loudness, pitch and timbre: in a study, newer pop music really does all sound the same.
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012
Look forward to some naughty chords: Jeff Lynne is coming out with new stuff.
Sunday, April 29th, 2012
Marc Martel of downhere does justice to Queen’s “Somebody to Love” backed by, among others, Brian May and Roger Taylor.
Monday, February 20th, 2012
Nice review of Scorsese’s documentary on George Harrison, Living in the Material World. “Scorsese is making a film about something that matters, but never quite succeeds in conveying that.” Here’s Variety’s smarter review.
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
Friday, December 23rd, 2011
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
Monday, December 12th, 2011
Irit and I were discussing this regarding ET, which still feels contemporary: in arts, entertainment and style, it’s been Groundhog Day for 20 years. “Now that we have instant universal access to every old image and recorded sound, the future has arrived and it’s all about dreaming of the past.”
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
Saturday, October 29th, 2011
Friday, October 14th, 2011
The symphony, the novel, and the end of their affair due to one of them’s demise.
Thursday, October 13th, 2011
Arstechnica, the iOS 5 review. Featuring game-changers Siri and the iCloud.
Sunday, October 9th, 2011
Sober breakdown of the viability of the streaming music business model.
Best of the Steve Jobs eulogies: John Siracusa, David Pogue. And one about his house. A favorable comparison with Thomas Edison.
Sunday, October 2nd, 2011
Peggy Lee interprets Toots Thielemans “Making Whoopee”. Ms Lee again, warming up Dinah Shore. And a Disney documentary recreating the composing of “The Siamese Cat Song”.
Monday, August 22nd, 2011
I’ve been subjected to the horror that is contemporary BBC Radio 1 lately, wherein they talk about the #1 single. I was skeptical, but it turns out the UK charts are real, and more singles are sold than ever.
Friday, August 19th, 2011
Good Shabbes to everyone, and a song from and by Jeff Lynne.
Monday, April 25th, 2011
Friday, March 25th, 2011
Visual breakdown of The Kleptones’ A Night at the Hip-Hopera (requires Flash).
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011
The Kleptones “Come Again”.
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
A perfect, dense explosion of James Bond fun and some copycats 1, 2, 3, 4
