THREE INSANELY GREAT MUSIC SITES: Chromewaves , with weekly covers, copy, right?, a very savvy survey of ongoing mashups, covers and remix paraphanalia, and Brat Productions, "obligatory web clutter" (check out "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Baby You're A Rich Man"). … [Read more...]

We were imprressed with Garret Dillahunt when he played Jack MacCall, the dazed dumbfuck who up and shoots Wild Bill. Last week he showed up on ER as Sam's Ex Steve Curits (they pulled a Bewitched switcheroo), another dazed df. Suddenly he's back as dapper perv Francis Wolcott, and goner Crop Ear as well, although you wouldn't learn that from the official web site. "GET'EM OFF ME!" (from "Get Your Rocks Off") Robert Levinson's Discussing Dylan class at the New School (NYC) … [Read more...]

HOW COME the NYTimes puts out such a good Circuits section but still runs vapid editorials like this... ESPECIALLY WHEN there are ALREADY intriguing alternatives to sending lawyers' kids to college for all eternity like this...? Nina Totenberg did a much better job explaining the opposing arguments facing the Supreme Court today, with a giant caveat: shouldn't a story like this include the fact that the parallel Napster case from several years ago resulted in BMG BUYING the Napster brand? … [Read more...]

I'm behind on this, but it's worth noting: Springsteen inducts U2 into the Hall of Fame: Oh, my God! They sold out! Now...what I know about the iPod is this: It is a device that plays music. Of course their new song sounded great, my guys are doing great, but methinks I hear the footsteps of my old tape operator Jimmy Iovine somewhere. Wily. Smart. Now, personally, I live an insanely expensive lifestyle that my wife barely tolerates. I burn money, and that calls for huge amounts of cash flow. But I also have a ludicrous image of myself that … [Read more...]

CLASSICAL Brahms Viola Sonatas, Kashkashian and Levin (ECM 1997) Leon Fleisher, Two Hands (Vanguard 2004) Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto, Lazar Berman, Abbado, LSO (Columbia, 1976) Brahms Second Piano Concerto, Rudolf Serkin, Szell CSO (Sony) Mahler Second Symphony, Claudio Abbado, Chicago (DG) Mahler Ninth Symphony, Bruno Walter, Columbia Symphony (Sony) Mahler First Symphony, Leonard Bernstein, NYPhil (Sony) Mahler Fourth Symphony, Claudio Abbado, Chicago (DG) Chopin Waltzes, Dinu Lipatti (Angel) Chopin Mazurkas, Nocturnes, Artur … [Read more...]

I agree that there's a far "cooler" sensibility alive in today's pianists, but the "newness" is a stretch (Pollini epitomized cool a generation ago), and the influence of rock is a wayward swipe: "But there is something more going on now. The new coolness seems generational: a contemporary, anti-Romantic, unsentimental stance. Having grown up in the age of rock, younger performers may place a high value on rhythmic crispness and clarity..." This is like saying "the influence of television on novels," as though rock is a single, monolithic … [Read more...]

Among the new titles in Continuum's 33 1/3 series, Erik Davis's treatment of Led Zep's ZOSO walks the line Xgau called "genius dumb": Of all the guitar heroes from the 1960s, Jimi Hendrix took this transformative potential the furthest, both onsteage and in his obsessive and almost extraterrestrial studio work. Still, it seems important to note that Page had Roger Mayer build him a fuzz box in 1964, years before Hendrix pushed Mayer's gear into the purple haze. Mayer's excellent machines also give us a different perspective on page's "guitar … [Read more...]

I Can See For Miles and Miles [RA] Pete Townshend on Petra Haden in today's Boston Globe: "I was a little embarrassed to realize I was enjoying my own music so much, for in a way it was like hearing it for the first time," Townshend said in a lengthy e-mail interview. ''What Petra does with her voice, which is not so easy to do, is challenge the entire rock framework: the traditions, the processes, the decor, the accessories, the entirety of the established dynamics of traditional pop-rock. 'I Can See For Miles' is powerful not for the … [Read more...]

from Billboard's new blog, PostPlay: The RIAA's False Mathematics Here's another great post by Barry Rotholtz on The Big Picture. He takes a look at the paid subscription models like Rhapsody and Napster-To-Go and shows that the actual P2P losses to the industry are much much smaller than the RIAA trumpets...If you rationally analyze the 'unlimited downloads for a fixed monthly fee' business model, you get pretty convincing evidence that the maximum damages are only around $10 a month per person. "Here's a little secret the RIAA would rather … [Read more...]

from Artifice Eternity: You know your surround sound system is good when the semi-psychotic, spouse-abusing British actor/writer who lives upstairs confronts you in the hallway and screams that you are "A PATHETIC LITTLE MAN!" with "ABOMINABLE TASTE IN MUSIC!" And I didn't even have it turned up loud. Man, that subwoofer rocks. … [Read more...]