Archives for August 2010

It’s August. It’s Monday. Delay it for 6:20.

Later on if you want to get all philosophical around the water cooler, segue from here into a discussion of sampling, appropriation of pop culture reference points, and what defines art and culture in 2010. Then take it to licensing and legal complexities if you’re nasty.

Has your board asked you to craft a social media strategy for your organization? Are you unable/unwilling to stop and think through what options make the most sense in light of your mission? No problem!*

*(Be advised that the site employs coarse language, if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing.)

I have joined forces with two fellow amateur gourmets and started blogging about my kitchen exploits. It took a swift kick (from a certain friend we’ve heard from in this space before) to convince me that there was enough time in the day to add this activity, and now that I’m in it, I am hooked. So where previously I have tried to sneak the occasional pseudo food posting into this space, now things will be neatly divided–just as the internet intended!

This divide and conquer mentality, however, got me thinking about a day last winter when Orange County Register music critic Timothy Mangan posted his martini recipe to his newspaper’s dining blog but also made mention of it in his usual classical music space. Audiences meshed, and music and cocktail fans came together to passionately debate the subtle variations between vermouth distilleries. The community expanded (if briefly). It was as if we went on a field trip together. It was a beautiful thing.

So when I read about how we are trading the open internet for app-specific content delivery, I got a bit of a sinking feeling similar to the one I get every time I look at the 12-deep stack of unopened Harper’s magazines on my coffee table. I still feel like I read a lot each day, but now that I sit at my computer every morning and don’t commute to work, gone are those unexpected but powerful moments when I read about people and places I would never otherwise have known about, and do so simply because they are profiled in the magazine that I have stashed in my bag for when my subway train is “held momentarily” for 20 minutes. You may be able to Google your way to any bit of information you could need, but accidental enlightenment seems to take some serious commitment and concentration in 2010. There may be 800 unread posts in my Google reader, but I know from experience that most of them will be just more of the same. This seems to indicate the need for an active readjustment of how I distribute my attention every day if I am to have any shot at continuing to grow as a person. I can’t imagine I am alone in this frustration.

Circling this all the way around to music then (hey, I was getting there), no matter what genre or artist we are advocating for, do we need to be adjusting our efforts due to declining opportunities for chance discovery? Will there be a reaction to this boxing up of information and an audience hungry for something new that we can be prepared to feed when the time comes?

While you’re thinking that over, feel free to stop by the kitchen for a snack anytime!

The last time I cruised through NYC I had the chance to chat with Tristan Perich about his 1-Bit Symphony in advance of its official release on Cantaloupe next week. The article and video that resulted are online now on NewMusicBox.

I have to say the music itself is fantastic, but the trappings it comes packaged inside add a great deal to think about as well. Plus there’s something amazingly powerful as far as audience connectivity is concerned in getting to do something as simple as launching the performance by physically turning the thing on. To me, it was like being invited to knock down the first domino of an elaborately set chain. Immensely fascinating stuff.

I’ve managed to miss all the installments in the Step Up movie franchise (aside from the over the top trailers showcasing the struggles of dancers working out rich/poor, uptown/downtown, ballerina vs the street cliches), and the latest “now-in-3D!” chapter doesn’t quite sound like the place to wade in:

Preposterous plot devices, leaden acting, and clunktastic dialogue are acceptable in a dance movie, but bad choreography is not, and it’s during the dance scenes that Step Up 3D fails. (from the Slate review)

Even though I like dance, I’m not quite sure that the best things happen while you’re dancing when you’re simultaneously trying to advance a plot. (SYTYCD and Dancing With The Stars made me think that adding a panel of judges to the mix was also a bad idea, but clearly I’m in the minority on that one.) All of that is an overly long way of explaining why I, an avid Hulu user, had also been avoiding the internet channel’s special made-for-Internet production THE LXD. I may love new media experiments, but the name alone–The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (!)–was much too much more than my jaded mind could take.

Still, battling a bout of insomnia the other night, I noticed that the episodes didn’t require much of a time investment and I caved to taking a sample. And then I proceeded to watch them all. It was a fun ride! I started to wonder about all those conversations we have in the wider performing arts field about the work we love and the public we know we need to find new ways to reach. Will THE LXD and slickly packaged productions like it do anything to help advance that audience-building cause? Here’s a sample to help you decide:

When I saw this tonight, I thought it was a commercial advocating in favor of net neutrality, which is, um, kinda weird, considering.

From The Independent:

German, Austrian and Finnish musicians have created an audio/visual symphony played literally from the heartbeats of 12 musicians in São Paulo, Brazil using ECG sensors.

And…cue song.

But seriously:

The FILE site explains that the “software analyses the data and generates via different algorithms the real-time musical score for the musicians, the electronic sounds and the computer graphic visualization.”

[via John C and Kelley G]

In this weekend’s news feed: The New York Times follows a BMI licensing executive around the American Southwest on bar, club, and coffee house calls. Anecdotes involving strippers and guns ensue, but the deeper issues resonate beyond the clichés. The law vs. common perceptions vs. recession budgeting vs. kill-them-with-patience strategies: Getting paid–it’s…complicated.

It struck me as kind of odd that ASCAP got little more than an “oh, yeah, and them too” reference, since I think it might have been interesting to hear more on how their philosophies and enforcement styles differ in the current era. Still, even though the article provided a pretty elementary outline of PRO activities, for those not already deeply in the know I’m sure it’s bound to generate some discussion–if for no other line than this one, re: new technologies that improve tracking music usage, whether for commercial gain or not. The author notes that:

Friends I talked to had a similar reaction. To a one, they said: “Jesus. Sounds like Big Brother.” When I mentioned this to [BMI’s former Vice President of Business Development David] DeBusk, he smiled ominously. “Yes. Well. We’re here to help.”

In the end (of this article, at least) the barkeep with the heart of gold signs on the dotted line.

Through writer angst and ice cream truck melodies, I have adored One Ring Zero’s output. Now, just on the heels of Dr. Dre’s revelation that he’s been looking to the heavens for musical inspiration, ORZ drops their own set of odes to the solar system. You can listen in and sample here.

From Vibe:

ON A COMING INSTRUMENTAL ALBUM:

You mentioned a hip-hop album without rapping. Will we ever hear a Dr. Dre instrumental album?

Oh yeah, that’s in the works. An instrumental album is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I have the ideas for it. I want to call it The Planets. I don’t even know if I should be saying this, but fuck it. [Laughs.] It’s just my interpretation of what each planet sounds like. I’m gonna go off on that. Just all instrumental. I’ve been studying the planets and learning the personalities of each planet. I’ve been doing this for about two years now just in my spare time so to speak. I wanna do it in surround sound. It’ll have to be in surround sound for Saturn to work.

My favorite comment on this so far is someone hazily and/or sarcastically pointing out that it “seems like this has been done before“, here and there, one or twice. Perhaps a Dr. Dre/Kyle Gann collaboration would be appropriate here?