Quand Bill prends de la hauteur, c’est un peu tout le monde qui respire. Son dernier album en date est vraiment à la hauteur de nos attentes. Que ce soit sous Smog ou Bill Callahan, je suis fan, j’avoue. Son dernier est juste sobrement magnifique. Sans aucun rapport, j’ai commencé la semaine à écouter du Brian Eno (d’ailleurs, je suis tombé par hasard sur un chouette papier de Lester Bangs sur Eno ici) et je pensais à tous les nouveaux groupes qui pointent le bout de leurs nez, je ne vais pas les citer, mais tous sont dans une veine électro-rock assez marquée, Health, Clues et consorts, tout comme Liars, il y a quelques temps. Non pas que ce soit faible, mais on peut compenser une certaine lacune d’écriture ou de technicité, par l’énergie. Et là j’en ai un peu ma claque de tout cette mayonnaise de claviers, de batteries énervées, de guitares saturées et de chants déstructurés… Je suis revenu à Eno et enfin à Bill Callahan comme on revient en pèlerinage sur un lieu de vacances pour y ressentir l’essentiel.

Détendu et avec ce sentiment d’être à la maison. Et ça fait du bien.

www.myspace.com/toomuchtolove

‘T’he Chemistry’ ‘ Ini Baru Namanya Super Band

Ipang BIP di vokal, Baron di gitar, Kim The Fly di gitar, Yuke Dewa di bass dan Eno Netral di drum. Semuanya ngumpul di satu band yang dikasih nama ”The Chemistry”. Ideologi rock mereka berkumpul dan menjadi satu yang melahirkan lagu ”one chemistry”. Kebayang kahan gimana dasyatnya lagu yang diciptain mereka. Dan lebih dahsyat pas lihat semuanya ada di satu panggung main bareng….mantabbbbb!!!.

Pasti bingung dan gak percaya kalo mereka bikin band khan??? Semuanya punya band masing-masing tapi kq bikin band baru lagi??? Jawabannya gampang sebab kelimanya jadi brand ambasador salah satu minuman khusus dewasa. Awalnya memang agak rumit dimana masing-masing personel yang udah terikat band saling bersahabat sat U sama lainnya dan pingin bikin proyek sendiri dengan band baru dan lagu baru awal tahun 2008.

Waktu berjalan, latihan, ngumpul, bikin lagu jadi aktifitas mereka, dan terwujud lagu ”one chemistry” yang bertema persahabatan. ”lagu ini kami ciptakan hanya tiga hari dan langsung rekaman” ungkap Baron sang gitaris. Waktu rekaman gak disangka ada satu produk minuman khusus dewasa yang sangat tertarik dengan konsep dan lagu yang di ciptakan. Tarik ulur dan berakhir dengan happy ending dimana lagu dan band jadi brand ambasador yang di kontrak eklusif.
Lagu ama klip bisa di downlod gratis kq di www.boldchemistry.com

This was the first night of a double bill, in which the main item was Bartok’s one-act opera performed by the English National Opera.

Bluebeard’s Castle is an extraordinarily dark work for two singers: Bluebeard and his new wife Judith. I thought this production by Daniel Kramer, with designs by Giles Cadle and lighting by Peter Mumford, worked very well, amply showing the light, the darkness and the blood. The castle has seven locked doors and Judith demands they be opened. When the fifth door was opened, out poured nine children, neatly arranged in increasing sizes, and behind the seventh door were the three former wives, each mother to three children. This production suggests that the wives were sadistically abused by Bluebeard, and just as he is about to do the same with his fourth wife, the opera ends. It’s intense and disturbing, and from the orchestra pit, Edward Gardner gave the music great power and lyricism. Clive Bayley sang an autistic and threatening Bluebeard, with Michaela Martens as a powerful Judith. This production was well worth the price of the ticket, and I only wish it had been followed by something more worthy.

Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was given a tremendous rhythmic intensity by Edward Gardner, and in some ways the music complemented Bartok rather well. Unfortunately the dance-work accompanying the music — a co-production with the Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, directed by Michael Keegan-Dolan — was a disappointment. A young man is killed, three women are drugged and gang raped by men dressed in animal heads, who later strip naked and put on women’s dresses. I liked the March Hare heads for the three women — the ones who drank the drugged tea — and the juxtaposition of March Hares and tea reminded me of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, but overall I found the interpretation unnecessarily crude. I prefer to see the performers dancing, rather than writhing horizontally on stage, because I find that more abstract choreography carries more power.

The pendulum swings back. And stays suspended mid-flight, a menace waiting for release.

malcolm mclaren – call a wave

space – carry on, turn me on

brian eno + david byrne – regiment

arto lindsay – complicity

Max Richter – Memoryhouse

A reissue of the astonishing debut recording from Max Richter, a composer whose mastery of tonality and melody place him alongside Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki and Michael Nyman in the modern classical catalogue. there are other elements of Max Richter’s work that recall Gavin Bryars, John Cale’s soundtrack projects and even Brian Eno in his use of electronics and ‘found’ voices. Memoryhouse is an invocation of old Europe, the ghosts of Sarajevo, even Versailles can be heard, orphaned voices reaching through the static, the faded grandeur of fallen empires and doomed campaigns. This is a work about reclaiming lost beauty, breathing new life into a past which has been devalued, a history that has been forgotten.

This video is from his album “Songs From Before” – see what you think…

FIVE CDS FOR AN ICON OF ECHOES: BRIAN ENO

Listeners recently voted for the 20 Icons of Echoes and topping the poll by a wide margin was Brian Eno.

Brian Eno In Studio

A few years ago I did a blog called 3 Degrees of Separation from Brian Eno.  Actually, for most musicians, that’s usually one or two degrees at most.  Brian Eno seems to have been everywhere, and if he’s not, his immediate collaborators are.  Roxy Music, Fripp & Eno, Ambient music, Obscure Records, John Cale, David Bowie, Cluster & Eno, No New York, Harold Budd & Brian Eno, Jon Hassell & Brian Eno, U2, Coldplay, Paul Simon, Baaba Maal, Geoffrey Oryema, 801, and the list goes on.  They are all projects Eno has engaged in or artists he’s recorded with, produced, and championed over the last four decades.  It seems that many of the most interesting music movements of the last 40 years have had a little of Brian Eno in them.   But he’s also produced seminal works, which, years after their release, are still beloved.  That’s why he was on top of my personal list and I suspect why he topped our 20 Anniversary Listener Poll for 20 Icons of Echoes.  For essential Eno reading, I suggest On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times fo Brian Eno by David Sheppard.  Or listen to our profile of Eno tonight 10/26 and this weekend on Echoes.

You can see the complete list of 20 Icons of Echoes here.

You can also download a podcast of our Brian Eno Profile/Interview.

To accompany our broadcast of Brian Eno: #1 Icon of Echoes tonight, here’s a list to get you in that Eno state of mind.

5 Essential Brian Eno Albums.

ONE
Another Green World
This is the album where Brian Eno began using his Oblique Strategy cards, conceived with artist Peter Schmidt.  When a creative impasse was reached, Eno would pull out a card and follow its instructions or philosophy, even if the card said “Emphasize the flaws” or “Do nothing for as long as possible.” He relates a  story about Oblique Strategies and “Spirits Drifting” in the Eno interview that runs tonight.  But despite the John Cagian aspect of Oblique Strategies, Eno arrived at an album that brought the worlds of song and ambience together. Instrumental tracks like “Zawinul/Lava” (named for Weather Report keyboardist Joe Zawinul) and “Becalmed” are haunting mood pieces with slow-drip atmospheres.  His songs range from the raging crosscut guitar of “Skysaw” to another one of his oddly affecting exercises in unsentimental nostalgia, “Golden Hours.”  If you have only one Eno album, Another Green World is it.  It has the seeds of virtually everything he’s done since.

TWO

Music for Airports
The blueprint for ambient music, Music for Airports is built out of layered loops of melodic fragments played on acoustic and electric piano, synthesizer and voice.  Deceptively simple in concept, it yields incredible depths of sound with a surprising melancholy for such a “functional” concept.  When Bang on a Can recorded an acoustic version of this album in its entirety, they cast a light on the complex relationships and tantalizing sound design of Eno’s original work.  Listening back to this, it also made me appreciate Discreet Music more, especially the title track.

TWO

Apollo-Atmospheres & Soundtracks
This is arguably the most perfect album that Brian Eno has made.  And since Eno isn’t a musician who strives for perfection, it’s a real rarity.  Written for a documentary about the Apollo space missions, Eno, along with his brother Roger and producer Daniel Lanois, crafted a set of melodically charged mood pieces, that weren’t ambient, but had that yearning, never-ending melancholy of works like the Pachelbel “Canon.”  Using synthesizers, piano and lap steel, each piece is a sublime gift that holds together better than any other Eno album besides Music for Airports, which, after all, only had four pieces.  In 12 tracks, Eno and company leave you breathless, from “An Ending (Ascent), the most haunting of Eno works to “Always Returning.”  I hadn’t thought of it until now, but in using Lanois playing lap steel guitar, Eno may also be responsible for creating the Ambient Americana subgenre.  “Deep Blue Day” was used in Trainspotting when Ewan MacGregor dives into the filthy toilet.

FOUR

Fripp & Eno-No Pussyfooting
We forget that this album actually preceded Eno’s better known ambient works.  I could make an argument for the follow-up, Evening Star, as equally essential, but I’m going with No Pussyfooting for the innocence and purity of it’s concept and the accent on Robert Fripp’s endlessly undulating sustained guitar leads.  It’s just two tracks, “The Heavenly Music Corporation” and “Swastika Girls,” played live, the former just with guitar and the later with guitar and synthesizer.  Using a tape-loop system similar to Terry Riley’s in “A Rainbow in Curved Air,” Fripp and Eno would play, their signal recorded on one tape machine which then looped to a second machine which played those notes back into the first deck accompanied by further improvs from the musicians which proceeded to get layered up.  While Fripp has captured the magic of this technique, now updated to digital looping systems, on several albums and performances, subsequent Fripp & Eno recordings after Evening Star always sounded like sketches and outtakes.    Recently released, the new edition of No Pussyfooting contacts additional half-speed versions of “The Heavenly Music Corporation,” and reverse versions of both tracks

FIVE

Here Come the Warm Jets
Brian Eno’s solo debut was somewhat calculated to play off the reputation he’d build with Roxy Music so it was based around songs with something like a pop structure.  But Eno was already bending and twisting those structures into new forms.  “Baby’s On Fire” revealed his lacerating lyric sensibilities and one of Robert Fripp’s most shredded guitar solos.  But Eno was also revealing a more introspective, almost nostalgic side with the affecting bittersweet “Some of Them Are Old” and the reverie of “Some Faraway Beach.”  But then there’s the hallucinogenic sprawl of “Driving Me Backwards” that puts the angst that’s always in Eno’s music smack in your face.

These are only five albums out of around 30 that Brian Eno has made, not including his productions.  But they are the ones that continue to resonate, many of them some 37 years after they were produced.
John Diliberto
((( echoes )))

Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois Remember the Making of U2’s Unforgettable Fire

da Pitchfork

Il concept di questo festival che si è appena svolto a Toronto è “la nozione di cooperazione nel fare musica attuale, in opposizione alla glorificazione del genio individuale”. “In contrast with the stereotype of the solitary composer locked in his attic railing against the ignorant outside world, some of today’s most innovative music is forged out of communities — through co-operation, collaboration and unexpected convergences of mutual interests and ideas”. Se ciò è certamente ottimo e degno di essere lodato e appoggiato, va però anche detto che non da oggi la musica appare un ambito spontaneamente propenso alle pratiche collaborative, molto più, ad esempio, che non le arti visive, o che almeno le modalità collaborative appaiono storicamente prevalenti nei contesti di tipo “extracolto”, ove – diversamente da quanto è in uso nella tradizione classica – non sembra essersi mai attestata una rigida e netta divisione tra la figura del “compositore” e quella dell’”esecutore” (o degli esecutori).

Un aspetto che invece il festival suddetto non sembra aver tenuto in considerazione – perlomeno non nella stesura del programma – è la riflessione sui modi attraverso cui le pratiche collaborative si stanno attualmente ampliando e trasformando grazie allo sviluppo tecnologico, ad esempio con la possibiltà di realizzare composizioni e dischi senza essere presenti nello stesso posto fisicamente e lavorando a distanza – approccio di cui un esempio seminale è costituito da un disco come “A Face We all Know” (1992) dei Cassiber – oppure di utilizzare i vari sistemi di social networking per prendere reciprocamente contatto tra musicisti disseminati in diversi angoli della terra ed avviare così progetti concertistici e tour, in cui può anche accadere che non ci si incontri fisicamente se non in occasione del primo concerto, e che la prima volta che ci si trovi a suonare insieme sia sul palco e di fronte al pubblico. Sarebbe tra l’altro molto interessante trovare parallelismi ed eventuali differenze tra queste nuove modalità di lavoro collaborativo in ambito artistico e quelle in uso nei progetti di sviluppo sui software “open source”, oppure studiare le pratiche in uso in tali ambiti per trarre nuovi spunti da applicare al lavoro artistico.

In compenso, il programma del festival prevedeva però uno “hip-hop/new music summit”, e dato che al momento l’ambito hip-hop e annessi e connessi mi sembra essere quasi sicuramente più innovativo di quello della musica “colta”, mi chiedo come mai iniziative simili non siano organizzate più spesso (ad esempio, trovo scandalosa l’assenza anche di qualsiasi menzione all’hip-hop all’interno del festival Copyright/Copyleft, del quale si è parlato qui).

Altro punto significativo: è difficile dire se è vero – come afferma il blog da cui ho tratto la notizia – che il concept del festival sia stato ispirato dalla nozione di “scenius” elaborata da Brian Eno – ne dubito, in effetti – ma in ogni caso la nozione in questione e le relative considerazioni di Eno sono piuttosto interessanti.

Eno ne ha parlato ad una recente lettura in Australia – della quale qui sono reperibili alcuni appunti – in cui si è trovato ad occuparsi di “governance issues” in materia di finanziamenti alle arti rispondendo ad un gruppo di contestatori che protestavano per il fatto che il suo viaggio in terra australiana fosse stato finanziato dal governo. Deplorando il fatto che le richieste di finanziamento per progetti artistici spesso non fanno sufficiente chiarezza sui possibili benefici che la società – intesa in senso ampio – dovrebbe trarre da tali progetti, ed anche l’approccio deliberatamente mistificatorio adottato dagli artisti a riguardo delle proprie metodologie e tecniche di lavoro, Eno ha preso spunto dall’”Origine delle specie” di Dawin – indicandolo come modello di chiarezza che ha rivoluzionato la nostra visione scientifica – per esprimere l’idea che gli artisti dovrebbero definire in maniera più chiara e dettagliata il loro approccio metodologico. Descrivendo la storia culturale occidentale come evoluzione e interazione di artefatti funzionali e di forme estetiche, ha poi inserito in tale quadro la nozione di “scenius”, definita come “a proxemic subculture which diffuses from an aesthetic response and evolves into a unique design space to solve complex social problems”. Per Eno, il clima culturale della San Francisco dei tardi anni ‘60, il Manhattan Project ed il suo proprio ruolo di curatore e mentore nella scena no-wave newyorchese nei tardi anni ‘70 sono esempi di situazioni descrivibili nei termini di tale nozione. Secondo Eno, inoltre, le questioni aperte dai cambiamenti climatici e dai “limiti dello sviluppo” comportano la necessità di diffondere più profondamente metodi artistici di problem-solving, e rispetto a tali problematiche ciascuno deve potersi sentire in possesso delle abilità e risorse necessarie per contribuire alle situazioni in corso.

Pur tenendo conto della nota tendenza degli artisti moderni e contemporanei ad approcciarsi alle questioni scientifiche con eccessiva disinvoltura e notevole ambiguità, mi pare che siamo comunque a tutt’alto livello a confronto della piega caricaturale che ormai qui da noi tende a prendere qualunque discorso mediatico riguardante questioni come il finanziamento pubblico alle arti o le politiche culturali…

After a full day of eating at Taste of Atlanta, I thought it would be a good idea to try out ENO in Midtown. My foodie friend, Hilla, joined us to test out the food prepared by one of the still-standing Atlanta Top Chefs, Eli Kirshtein.

why hello sir

Appetizer was an easy choice for me: Octopus! (with watermelon and lemon vinaigrette)

let's run away together

not your average ensalada

Hilla went with the Garlic Pork Sausage, Blis Maple, Pretzel Strusel, Mustard: and she sincerely liked the combination of the pig with the pretzel and mustard.

Entrees:
Yellowtail Tuna Nicoise, Tobiko Gremolata, Wild Lettuce, Egg Yolk

side view

bird's eye view

the back side

totally tuna

Hilla’s Painted Hills Short Rib Ravioli, Leeks, Pickled Scapes, Wild Mushrooms:

She loved the pasta, liked the sauce & mushrooms, but stated that the short rib filling was too simple tasting – merely shredded meat with mirepoix (carrots, onion, celery).

The only flop of the night was the dessert course, which we shared:

looks can be deceiving

ENO uses a variety supremely fresh ingredients, applying the most interesting cooking techniques to an ever-changing inventory. Some of that pizzazz get lost, mostly because the secrets remain in the kitchen. Ask lots of questions and you will be privy to a slew of facts, standards, and operations that don’t shine through the food. At the end of the night, you will feel well-treated and satisfied (just stay away from the pistachio dessert).

David Byrne & Brian Eno – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (2008)

This is what you get when  Eno and Byrne get together once again.

Both geniuses in music, I can never get enough of what they do.

Keep ‘em coming!

bbb

Website

rrr

eee

ggg

Track List

David McVicar’s atmospheric production with dark lighting designed by Adam Silverman gives an excellent view of this disturbing story. The designs by Tanya McCallin, involving sliding walls and screens, with black costumes for everyone, are very effective, and the performers all conveyed the haunting nature of this opera. With thirteen musicians in the pit, under the direction of Charles Makerras, the musical rendering could not be better — Makerras conducted the original English production at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in 1954, so he knows very well what Benjamin Britten intended.

The singers formed an excellent cast. Rebecca Evans was wonderful as the governess, portraying her sympathy and closeness to the boy, Miles, who was beautifully played by Charlie Manton. Ann Murray was suitably prosaic as Mrs. Grose the housekeeper, who sees no ghosts, and Nazan Fikret was the girl, Flora. Cheryl Barker, whom I recall in the main role of The Makropulos Case three years ago, sang an excellently ghostly Miss Jessel, and Michael Colvin sang lyrically as the insidious Peter Quint, and as the man in the Prologue.

The story is that Miss Jessel and Quint both died in mysterious circumstances some time before the events of the opera take place, yet they still haunt the children. Only when Miles finally rejects Quint is he cured, though he dies immediately after. It’s a disturbing story that one might wish to avoid, but this production shows what a superb opera it is, very well worth a visit.

Could be giving away part of my location with the possible new blog title.  But, I will have to make the change when I figure out how to transfer the thing, as it appears I partly share my blog-title with another treadmilling tune enthusiast. He’s being awful nice about it, but in the interest of preventing any confusion for the reading public out there… (hello… are you out there?) I’ll endeavor to swap the name soon.

Back to the tunes: 1st up a good rockin’ piece from Tool – Undertow, which got me back into things after a week or so of treadmill inactivity (mostly due to a couple of major events in my life, but also sheer laziness).  Got a bit of a run going early on, great powerful drumming and choppy metal geeetar.  This all happened yesterday btw – this session extends into a walk I did in the outside world earlier today, so not quite treadmill later, but still tunes.  Nice ones too.

Like the next one Brian Eno – A Clearing, from one of the very ambient albums.  I had to slow things right down to hear this one, which sounds like, well… a clearing really.  I was thinking that when people hear this they might say: “I could do this”, like when they see a Picasso or some other ‘primitive’ abstract art.  I feel a bit like that myself sometimes, but I guess Eno was at the forefront of this sound, and like a lot of innovators it’s  sometimes hard to appreciate what they’ve achieved when so many have come after him and been influenced by him.

Le Tigre – FYR Ah-ha had to google that – fifty years of ridicule according to the lyrics.  A feisty feminist anthem, with a rallying cry to the womyn out there to keep fighting the good fight.  Nice to have a bit of rrriot grrrrl inspired stuff on here. Finishes with a joke from the collective.

John Coltrane – Mr Knight.  I haven’t had much jazz come up yet, but I’m in the same camp as Tsiolkas on this genre.  He wrote recently that sometimes it just clicks – you might not understand it, but when it works it really works. And other times it can leave you cold.  Coltrane rarely leaves me cold, and I went with this one all the way.

Next up more Worldbeaters Los Yorks – Muy Facil, which from my very basic Spanish would be ‘very easy’… maybe. From Lima, Peru apparently with some nice 60s crooning and twangy guitar, singing about love – amore no doubt. They have a Spanish wikipedia page hmmm.

Some long ones from Coltrane and Eno there meant  not much writing, but the walk today had more to give.  Starting with Love – My Little Red Book, all about Arthur losing his girl and finding his list of pretty girls didn’t fix his problems after he lost that girl. What a cool band, and they sound pretty wild when they get cranking.

As do these guys Bird Blobs – Settle Down & Breed an antipodean band I don’t know much about, but this song is pretty impressive.  Makes me yearn for the days of rockin’ out at the pub to some scuzzy band.  I should try to get out now and then to see some of these local rawk bands, still flying the flag for Australian pub rock.  I suppose I’ve settled down, but no breeding for me, and no real desire to either.

Ah the first reggae I think from a free Mojo compilation Sugar Minott – Hang on Natty.  This one’s nice with trumpets and whirlygiggy smooth reggae sounds – just cruisin’ along.

One of the original Oz pub-rockers gone all soft and sentimental Cold Chisel – When the War is over an anti-war song I gather with the other guy on vocals, which is always a relief to me, although Jimmy is pretty smooth here – not the usual screaming from him.  Was never a fan when I was young, but they did write some great songs, and I can see what the stadium appeal would have been for many, and there were many over here.

This one just annoyed me Mystic Moods Orchestra – Cosmic Sea. Can’t really be bothered checking out what it is, from some pervy dance compilation.  Probably French, with some funky funk, and some violins.

Glen Campbell – You’ll Never Walk Alone The song made famous by Vera Lynn, but is now the song for the Mighty Reds of Liverpool – I should learn the lyrics really.  Gotta say it’s much more rousing when the kop sings it, than the old Rhinestone Cowboy here.

Beatles – Let it Be a classic, even though it’s a McCartney.  Hard to listen to these songs that are so ubiquitous – going for a bit of a gospel feel here isn’t he? Almost religious – church going music from Sir Paul.  Well they did think they were bigger than Jesus…

Finish off with R.E.M. – Oddfellows Local from the album that saw me moving away from the band I had been pretty obsessed with for a number of years. This is great atmospheric stuff, but was done better on Fables a few years earlier – the clean production, which got cleaner and cleaner for the next few albums continues to grate a bit.

Could be giving away part of my location with the possible new blog title.  But, I will have to make the change when I figure out how to transfer the thing, as it appears I partly share my blog-title with another treadmilling tune enthusiast. He’s being awful nice about it, but in the interest of preventing any confusion for the reading public out there… (hello… are you out there?) I’ll endeavor to swap the name soon.

Back to the tunes: 1st up a good rockin’ piece from Tool – Undertow, which got me back into things after a week or so of treadmill inactivity (mostly due to a couple of major events in my life, but also sheer laziness).  Got a bit of a run going early on, great powerful drumming and choppy metal geeetar.  This all happened yesterday btw – this session extends into a walk I did in the outside world earlier today, so not quite treadmill later, but still tunes.  Nice ones too.

Like the next one Brian Eno – A Clearing, from one of the very ambient albums.  I had to slow things right down to hear this one, which sounds like, well… a clearing really.  I was thinking that when people hear this they might say: “I could do this”, like when they see a Picasso or some other ‘primitive’ abstract art.  I feel a bit like that myself sometimes, but I guess Eno was at the forefront of this sound, and like a lot of innovators it’s  sometimes hard to appreciate what they’ve achieved when so many have come after him and been influenced by him.

Le Tigre – FYR Ah-ha had to google that – fifty years of ridicule according to the lyrics.  A feisty feminist anthem, with a rallying cry to the womyn out there to keep fighting the good fight.  Nice to have a bit of rrriot grrrrl inspired stuff on here. Finishes with a joke from the collective.

John Coltrane – Mr Knight.  I haven’t had much jazz come up yet, but I’m in the same camp as Tsiolkas on this genre.  He wrote recently that sometimes it just clicks – you might not understand it, but when it works it really works. And other times it can leave you cold.  Coltrane rarely leaves me cold, and I went with this one all the way.

Next up more Worldbeaters Los Yorks – Muy Facil, which from my very basic Spanish would be ‘very easy’… maybe. From Lima, Peru apparently with some nice 60s crooning and twangy guitar, singing about love – amore no doubt. They have a Spanish wikipedia page hmmm.

Some long ones from Coltrane and Eno there meant  not much writing, but the walk today had more to give.  Starting with Love – My Little Red Book, all about Arthur losing his girl and finding his list of pretty girls didn’t fix his problems after he lost that girl. What a cool band, and they sound pretty wild when they get cranking.

As do these guys Bird Blobs – Settle Down & Breed an antipodean band I don’t know much about, but this song is pretty impressive.  Makes me yearn for the days of rockin’ out at the pub to some scuzzy band.  I should try to get out now and then to see some of these local rawk bands, still flying the flag for Australian pub rock.  I suppose I’ve settled down, but no breeding for me, and no real desire to either.

Ah the first reggae I think from a free Mojo compilation Sugar Minott – Hang on Natty.  This one’s nice with trumpets and whirlygiggy smooth reggae sounds – just cruisin’ along.

One of the original Oz pub-rockers gone all soft and sentimental Cold Chisel – When the War is over an anti-war song I gather with the other guy on vocals, which is always a relief to me, although Jimmy is pretty smooth here – not the usual screaming from him.  Was never a fan when I was young, but they did write some great songs, and I can see what the stadium appeal would have been for many, and there were many over here.

This one just annoyed me Mystic Moods Orchestra – Cosmic Sea. Can’t really be bothered checking out what it is, from some pervy dance compilation.  Probably French, with some funky funk, and some violins.

Glen Campbell – You’ll Never Walk Alone The song made famous by Vera Lynn, but is now the song for the Mighty Reds of Liverpool – I should learn the lyrics really.  Gotta say it’s much more rousing when the kop sings it, than the old Rhinestone Cowboy here.

Beatles – Let it Be a classic, even though it’s a McCartney.  Hard to listen to these songs that are so ubiquitous – going for a bit of a gospel feel here isn’t he? Almost religious – church going music from Sir Paul.  Well they did think they were bigger than Jesus…

Finish off with R.E.M. – Oddfellows Local from the album that saw me moving away from the band I had been pretty obsessed with for a number of years. This is great atmospheric stuff, but was done better on Fables a few years earlier – the clean production, which got cleaner and cleaner for the next few albums continues to grate a bit.

Last Friday in our district we had an Eno Board Inservice for all faculty. Eno is an interactive whiteboard by Polyvision, that is similar to the Smartboard. It is a presentation device that interfaces with a computer. The computer images are displayed on the board by a digital projector, where they can be seen and manipulated. Users can control software both from the computer and from the board. Participants can add notations, and emphasize by using a pen and or highlighter tool. By using his finger as a mouse, the teacher or student can run applications directly from the board. Another user at the computer can also have input. Any notes or drawings can then be saved or printed out and distributed to group members.

This had me thinking what lessons are already out on the Web for teachers to use.

Links for Interactive Lessons:

http://www.amphi.com/departments/technology/whiteboard/lessonplans.html

http://its.leesummit.k12.mo.us/smartboard.htm#Interactive_Websites

http://www.globalclassroom.org/ecell00/javamath.html

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collection.jsp?id=447

http://www.internet4classrooms.com/smart_board.htm

unbelievably i actually managed to get into the concerto comp final. joys. am the only singer in the 10-strong line-up, and the thing starts at 1pm and finishes at 5pm. i’m on last. luckily i don’t have to stay and watch the whole thing – incidentally, it completely clashes with the dress rehearsal for Teseo which i was so helpfully -put- in last week (the possibility of a clash was actually one of the reasons i didn’t put myself forward in the first place. tits).

anyway, should be fun, despite having a full-blown cold at this point. whoops. i am having words with my mother for omitting to put her hand over her mouth when she coughs. >:(

in other news, i went to see turandot at ENO on thursday. was a fun evening – some really great singing, a naked guy, lots of cool fake blood/decapitated heads, and one of the best act IIIs i’ve seen in a turandot production. (for some reason, despite the fact that i’ll never be able to sing anything in the opera, i’ve seen it in no less than 4 different incarnations now. weird.) on the one hand i despise companies who attempt to make an opera more accessible to the populace by modernising it needlessly, but on the other hand i think, for the most part, it works in this production, and that it’s relevant to the plot and not just a gimmick to put bums in seats. (i know! let’s set giulio cesare on a council estate! augh.)

i’m quite excited about this season’s operas actually… for a start, there’s the schicchi/espagnole double bill at the opera house, which my teacher is in with another singer i know. also they’re doing rosenkavalier in december, which is my fave opera EVAR, and with the awesome lucy crowe as sophie who i saw in the same role at scottish opera a couple years back. at ENO there’s mafia rigoletto, which sounds like awesome fun, and turn of the screw coming up. yaye! now if only these things didn’t cost so much money. :p

Last night my friend Irene arrived from the states and we took her straight off to ENO for the sold out last night “Opera Macabre,” a show that looked like a lot of fun but was hideously marred by the sort of music (singing, really) that makes me want to stick knitting needles in my ears. What is up with modern composers and their desire to not bother with any kind of melody? Why is Squeak squeek SQUAWK foomp even worth singing, much less again and again? Now, mind you, seeing people fairly well having sex on stage, a man in drag being whipped by his mistress then forced to service her, and listening to Mr Death brag about being well hung may have been a different approach to opera, but it did not compensate for the horrible music. The cool set, the giant body of a woman who frequently had projections on her white skin (ie of all of the bones in her body), rotated, and had parts come off (the nipples), DID nearly hit the “cool enough” mark, but it would have all been so much better if we’d been wearing earphones we could have tuned to the kind of music we actually enjoyed. Spectacle it was and fairly watchable, but …. I leapt for the exit at intermission (gratefully leading my four companions) and headed to the pub next door for a consoling glass of wine and the comforting arms of “Disco Inferno.” Then we chatted (Obama, Nobel prize, why?) until it was time to head back to Tooting.

Really, modern opera. Next time I’m listening to the score before I buy tickets.

(This review is for a performance that took place on Friday, October 9th. It is now over.)

Well, you can’t win them all, but REAX Magazine has a review of Rotoscope Reflections in their September 2009 issue.  A friendly reminder that CD copies still remain and that you should snag one while they’re still available!

This Jonathan Miller production, revived many times in the past 27 years, sets the action in a Mafia crime family of the 1950s. It’s an interesting take on a story whose origin is Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s’amuse. Written in 1832 in the heady aftermath of the 1830 revolution that brought Louis-Philippe to power as the ‘citizen king’ of France, the title of the original play and its attitude to royalty were unacceptable in other parts of Europe. Kings do not ‘amuse themselves’ in this way and it was immediately banned elsewhere. When Verdi came to write his opera, in the years following the 1848 revolutions across Europe, he replaced the king by the Duke of Mantua but the censors still had concerns, not only about the portrayal of the ‘king’ but also the hunchbacked jester whose outward appearance reflected his corrupt nature and nasty streak while he remained a devoted father to his daughter Gilda. The concept of hedonistic, anti-social autocrats and their supporters was a far cry from the Western ideals of governance, but is not a million miles from crime syndicates that command murders when it suits them, yet treat their own with care and concern. With this in mind, Jonathan Miller’s production makes great sense, and the designs by Patrick Robertson and Rosemary Vercoe, with clever lighting originally designed by Robert Bryan, give an air of authenticity to the drama.

The jester, named Triboulet in Hugo’s play, becomes Rigoletto in the opera, and is one of Verdi’s great creations, sung here by Anthony Michaels-Moore, who played him with enormous sensitivity. His sneeringly lugubrious stage presence and lyrical singing gave just the right sense of conflict to this Lear-like character, and with Katherine White portraying Gilda’s vulnerability so well, these two became the centre point of the opera. The ‘duke’ was strongly sung and acted by the young Michael Fabiano, one of the six winners in the recent Metropolitan Opera competition, who seems to have just the right devil-may-care attitude for the ‘duke’. The cast balanced one another well, particularly with Brindley Sherratt as a darkly sinister Sparfucile, whose bass voice oozed menacing integrity — I was reminded of his excellent performance as Pimen in Boris Godunov last November. His sister Maddalena was also well sung and portrayed by Madeleine Shaw, but the lacklustre conducting of Stephen Lord was a disappointment. He seemed to have good control of the orchestra, and raised the tempo at significant points, but I didn’t feel the music breathed with the vitality of the plot.

In a recent BBC Radio interview, Jonathan Miller inveighed against the ‘concepts’ that some German directors bring to their opera productions. I agreed instantly, but the concept of a ‘concept’ is not well-defined, and I’d prefer to think of the opera itself inhabiting a domain, which each production represents in its own way. That Miller’s production of Rigoletto has lasted 27 years in the repertory of the ENO is evidence that its representation is a great success. What goes wrong with some German productions — and the Meistersinger and Tristan I saw recently in Bayreuth are cases in point — is that rather than represent the domain in which the opera lives, they transport it to a box that insulates it from all or part of its natural domain. Jonathan Miller doesn’t do this — he stays true to the original, giving us a way to understand and appreciate it.