Over at Ear Farm, Goes Cube gives up on From the Inside Looking Out: Goes Cube (premiere of “Clenching Jaws”) : EAR FARM :: music information helps grow ears: “Not long ago, we decided that ‘Goes Cube Song 58’ should be called ‘Sorry, Were You Sleeping?’, ‘Goes Cube Song 59’ should be called ‘Read Right,’ ‘Goes Cube Song 61’ should be called ‘Loose Ends,’ ‘Goes Cube Song 62’ should be called ‘Gravestones Like Chess Pieces’ and ‘Goes Cube Song 63’ should be called ‘Clenching Jaws.’ ‘Goes Cube Song 60’ will change, too, but it’s an instrumental and not recorded, so we’re taking our time picking out a real interesting title for that one.”
I will be horribly disappointed if they never get around to writing and recording “Goes Cube Song #√-1” (square root of -1, in other words, the imaginary number i)
Zombie Stalin
This video has been making its way arund the web and is pretty awesome. Fear Zombie Stalin!
GORBACHOV: THE MUSIC VIDEO – BIGGER AND RUSSIANER from Tom Stern on Vimeo.
Keeping Score
Here’s a mashup that re-contextualizes scenes from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off by combining them with the score from Requiem for a Dream:
This demonstrates how strongly music affects mood and how we perceive scenes synced with a score.
In the Star-Ledger, Alan Sepinwall interviews the composers for Lost and Battlestar Galactica: Michael Giacchino and Bear McCreary, score keepers: “The trend in television music of late has been towards wall-to-wall songs, like on “Grey’s Anatomy.” But a handful of series still use traditional scores, and some composers – notably Giacchino on “Lost” and Bear McCreary on “Battlestar Galactica” – have been able to do transcendent work in an area that’s too often underappreciated. On most TV shows, the music is the most important dramatic element that you notice the least. With “Lost” and “Battlestar,” it’s impossible not to notice, or to think of either series without some composition or other by Giacchino or McCreary coming into your head.”
And here are Sepinwall’s transcripts of the interviews with Giacchino and McCreary.
Mancino: Bringing the Awesome
Mancino is one of the most interesting and fun bands playing rock music in New York these days. Their songs tend to veer off in unexpected directions, but always rooted in a groove and built around strong melodies. They don’t take themselves too seriously, but also have a very unique sound. Plus, I have to at least give props to any rock band that uses some clarinet.
Last night’s show at The Delancey shows that the Mancino train is rolling along with some great new songs and a polished and musical live show.
I can’t add much about Gold Streets set since I was running late and the venue has actually starting bands on time. The Delancey upgraded the sound in the live room somewhat recently, which is a nice change.
Via Stereoactive NYC, here’s video of Mancino playing “Buy My Product” at an earlier show at The Delancey.
Old 97’s play Cylon-occupied club
The video for “Dance With Me,” off of Blame it on Gravity– Rhett Miller and company’s first studio album in 4 years– features Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer (“Number 6”) and some cool nerd kung-fu fighting :
The Old 97’s play Webster Hall on August 1.
Opera Today
The NY Times reports on a rare occurrence at the Met– an encore of an aria, Ban on Solo Encores at the Met? Ban, What Ban?: “After the tenor Juan Diego Flórez popped out his nine shining high C’s in “La Fille du Régiment” at the Metropolitan Opera on Monday night, the crowd rose and cheered. Mr. Flórez obliged with something not heard on the Met stage since 1994: a solo encore. He sang the aria “Ah! Mes Amis” again, nailing the difficult note — a kind of tenor’s macho proving ground — nine more times. It was one of those thrilling moments that opera impresarios live for.”
The Journal goes behind the stage to explore the rarely-seen world of opera prompters– which aren’t screens scrolling libretti, but people prompting the singers, It’s Not Over (Yet) for Those Who Cue Divas: “The prompter’s job combines the skills of a conductor, musicologist and linguist, with an unusual ability to listen to the orchestra, keep time with the hands and deliver the singers’ lines a moment before the downbeat.”
Six Degrees of Jay Landsman
In the midst of my all-consuming cram session to catch up with 5 seasons of The Wire, I also picked up David Simon’s book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.
One of the Baltimore homicide detectives Simon wrote about in Homicide was Sgt. Jay Landsman.
Landsman was the inspiration for Detective John Munch in the Homicide: Life on the Streets TV series. Richard Belzer has gone on to play Detective Munch in Law and Order:SUV as well as in cameos in Arrested Development and other shows.
In The Wire, Delaney Williams plays Sergeant Jay Landsman
Developing as a recurring role in season 3 of The Wire, Jay Landsman plays Lieutenant Dennis Mello.
Fader interviewed Landsman (the original) at the end of season 4.
The Wire, BSG and TV on DVD
All has been quiet on the blog front for me lately, because I’ve been too absorbed in catching up with the 5 seasons of The Wire that I somehow missed. How I managed to ignore the best and most important show on television is surprising, so I’ve been trying to catch up.
At this point, I’m up to the beginning of season 3. The first two seasons are full of brilliant little moments, broad strokes of observation about the global economy, modern urban crime environment, the criminal justice system and humanity with an attention to detail and continuity unmatched by another series on television. More than any other series (particularly because of the “naturalistic” approach to using music cues), The Wire feels immediate and real.
Watching TV on DVD is a fundamentally different experience than watching episodes as they first air. Instead of having a week or so to digest the last episode, you can jump right in and binge on a 3 episode marathon. For a hour-long drama on a commercial-free network, that translates to 3 hour viewing session. Sure, the average American television viewer watches 4 and a half hours of television per day, but 3 consecutive hours in a single evening is a lot.
The participatory aspect of talking about TV in person or on the internet is perhaps the main impetus for watching live– to be part of the community. There aren’t many live discussions going about shows that aired five years ago.
In contrast, for shows that are on now, being able to participate without being spoiled, is a major motivation for watching live or slightly delayed.
One of the leading contenders for title of “Best Show Currently on TV” is certainly Battlestar Galactica. (I’d put Lost, 30 Rock and The Office in the mix, too for different reasons.) Some insightful discussion of episode 4.01, “He That Believeth in Me” at Sepinwall and The House Next Door. Galactica composer Bear McCreary discusses the score on his blog.
SXSW Day 3
The culinary highlight of day 3 was lunch down at Polvos south of downtown. If nothing else, SXSW is a great excuse to eat a diet consisting exclusively of BBQ and Tex-Mex.
As far as music, the most notable day party was the Mercury Records one where I went to meet up with Mr. F and caught a couple of bands. The first, whose name I didn’t catch, is worth noting for no other reason than they do have a sax player in the band. Represent! And while I never caught up to Vampire Weekend (with a stake), the buzziest act I saw at the festival was probably Duffy. Pitched as the next Amy Winehouse, Duffy has the vocal chops to fill that role, but her backing band didn’t have anywhere near the soul of the Dap Kings.
Went over to catch up with Brooklynites Gold Streets who were sounding good, despite some equipment troubles and a venue that didn’t seem to host rock bands outside of SXSW week.
Ran from there over to the WFMU show to see The Homosexuals (the touring lineup includes members of NYC’s Apache Beat and the Unsacred Hearts.) This was a great energetic set that felt like it was in fact time-shifted from decades ago.
After having to consult iPhone’s maps a bit too much, ended the night over at the After the Jump house party to see These United States again — in a yard in a residential Austin neighrborhood. Outside on a Friday night, this was amplified music going on with other houses nearby and it wasn’t shut down by the police just after starting. Wow. Here, saw Salt & Samovar, Oliver Future, These United States and The Lisps.
And that was it for BRR at SXSW 2008. Because of waiting too long to book flights, the only reasonably priced flights I found required returning to NYC on Saturday morning. On a connecting flight, through Chicago.
SXSW Day 2
While I found a good amount of worthwhile music on day 1, day 2 was somewhat less useful.
The muical highlight of the day came early, at the CEA’s Digital Freedom Campaign DC day party, with These United States.
They were joined on stage for a couple of songs by Le Loup
Otherwise, just a couple of street scene photographs of note. No great finds yesterday as far as music.
Music seems to get significant support from the city of Austin:
The human parade milling about downtown Austin during SXSW may be more interesting in the aggregate than most– if not, any– of the bands performing.
