Latest Articles by Sarah Canice Funke
Leave it to the BBC to mix celebrities and conducting. Also leave it to the BBC to promote an interactive conducting game. See what kind of score you can get. No pun intended....
So a friend of a friend gave me two tickets to Tilly and the Wall last night. And so, not ones to pass up free tickets of any sort, even if the only Tilly song I had seriously listened to was Rainbows in the Dark, Evan and I went to check them out. After all, a band that was named after a children's book has got to be good, right?
Well, we were thankful the tickets were free.
It wasn't that the quintet from Omaha itself was a bad deal. In fact, they were quite good, especially since one of their musical "instruments" was a tap dancer, Jamie Pressnall, who clicked out the drum beats with her heels on a mini stage.
It wasn't that there was a horrible opener. Well, one involved bad mixing/sampling with a vocalist sporting muffin top, knee brace and a chain mail headpiece. The other opener, however, was extremely good, resembling what might happen if Panda Bear and Geologist ever struck out together.
No, what killed the evening was the sound technician, who apparently was either 1) a sadist or 2) utterly deaf. The guy didn't know how to mix anything and apparently thought oppressive house music at glass-shattering decibels was a good idea for intermissions. Good thing I didn't go in there with an arrhythmia. We wondered how anyone could hate music so much. The second opener band pleaded with them for better mixing. And eventually they got the lower register frequencies fixed only to have the mikes jacked up for Tilly. It wasn't as bad for me, who was simply relieved the tortuous house music was finally over, but Evan was withering in pain over the upper range voices (Tilly has two female vocalists). We eventually cut out after about a half an hour of Tilly.
I almost stopped at the box office to ask who the sound tech was and plead with Paradise to fire him/her. The most fun Evan and I had was standing outside the 'Dise waiting for the Green Line and watching the bouncers change the letters on the marquee to tell the world that Wolf Parade was sold out for Saturday.
Some things may be free but I suppose you get what you pay for.
Well, despite the tire issues that cheated me out of a night at "Carterpolooza," at least the Boston area is full of musicians who did manage to attend Tanglewood and provide great detail on the happenings.
Well, here I am waiting for Evan's flight back from Chattanooga to come in. He was supposed to be back by midnight, but the weather has hampered incoming flights. The handy-dandy flight tracker says he is over New Jersey with about 27 minutes to go. In the meantime, I amuse myself with the newly discovered (for me) and highly addictive MouseHunt game (a FaceBook application). And try not to fall asleep.
Yesterday I went to Harvard Square and bought me a banana yellow collector's edition LP. You can guess what the album was. I also got Silver Jews. And M. Ward's Post War. It was a productive day.
For music nerds only.
Coming this July...
I really want to see 100-year-old Elliott Carter. $75 for a full-ride pass to the festival seems too good to be true. I may never have done Woodstock, but camping out in Western Mass in July with hoards of people who love early 20th-century music sounds heavenly.
Note: The Suite101 website is experiencing some problems, so please ignore the formatting issues that seem to be plaguing the article I linked. For example, the lead paragraph is showing up in the same font as the rest of the article. I am not trying to stutter.
So my extra-hip friends in the downstairs office alerted me to the amazing world of Muxtape.
It's simple. You upload your songs. You create a playlist. You open your account at work and listen to your music all day long. Or you can browse other people's music.
I think what tickles my fancy most is the image of a cassette tape--generating enthusiasm for cutting edge technology through nostalgia for the not-so-distant archaisms of the past.
...in the library, someone apparently has a cell phone with a Kill Bill ring tone...
...Dr. Atomic *did* premiere at the 2007 British proms, but it was the symphony version, not the full opera...
...Steve Reich is the minimalist's Monkees, but I love him anyway...not gonna say LaMonte Young or Xenakis to please anyone...
...Across the Universe was filmed by someone who just got a brand new Mac for Christmas and went crazy with the editing features...
...The Beatles sound better as a band than as "East Hastings"*...so much for Broadway Musical arrangements...
...singing Weezer on I-93 makes me forget about the possibility of the tunnel collapsing on my head...
*Those of you who have seen Slings and Arrows will know what I am talking about...
Well, there may not be any amazing candidates to vote for come November 2008, but at least, my friends, we have good musicians to vote for. In the RPS Music Awards, that is. I offer a quick overview of who's on the ballot here, but my own personal opinions/commentary I bring to my soapboxy blog. I should start The A Daily Show about classical music. Maybe I could get somewhere, as there is an amazing breadth of quirkiness that happens all the time.
Jirí Belohlávek: Hm...another European. Well, I guess most of the music DOES belong to them...
Christine Brewer: Not a fan. When you sound less like an elephant, I will maybe listen to you again.
Alice Cootes: You are beautiful and your voice is amazing. I do believe that I am a mezzo fan.
Stephen Isserlis: He has games on his website! Help the cellist find his D string! Oops. Didn't want to give away the answers. But in case you don't find his interactive website reason enough to crown him king of the RPS, try listening to clips of his Bach cello suites on itunes. I want more!!
Mark Padmore: After he stole BlackAdder's profile, how could I resist voting for him?
Lawrence Power: A violist on the list? I thought those were about as common as an F string on the cello...
Gwilym Simcock: Mmm, where'd that jazz come from? You can catch a clip of his music here.
Llyr Williams: Can't say that I am a fan....not every piece by Brahms has to sound like the Lullaby....
If I were a disciplined person, I would be finishing my homework right now. But I've passed the busy weeks and I'm sliding into the final stretch with very little on my plate. The absence of panic means I type meaninglessly while I wait for House to lend legitimacy to my procrastination.
Life these days consists of hitting refresh on the "Boston area Radiohead tickets" webpage on Ticketmaster. And I discovered that Colin Meloy must love me, because he decided to come back to Boston after the whole Decemberists tour got canceled last fall. So I have tickets to that, too.
Other potential trips include New York and DC. And I'm moving. Did I mention that? Down the block a bit. I'll still be only a T's length from Cambridge and the bookstores and music I've come to associate with head-in-the-sand elitism--the stuff I'd grown to know and love in academia. Not really, but I find myself occasionally escaping to this familiar channel via a quick train trip across the Charles River to the "other side of the tracks."
The other day I discovered that MIT's bookstore has a sizable collection of music and cognition texts, all with authoritative titles such as "The Origins of Music" and "What We Mean By Music." I was tempted to buy the "The Idiots' Guide to Mashups" but the software was only compatible with PCs. Stupid techie bookstores. They need to get with the Mac program.
And now I leave you with a good note for the night. Animal Collective. In French.
I was pulling for the record, but alas...to have come so far and lost the SuperBowl. Reminds me of the time my mom was directing drama at Local Rural High School and one of the prospective actors told her "Well, I can make all the rehearsals, but unfortunately I'm gonna be out of town on the day of the performances." So close, but in the end, who remembers the hard work leading up to the show if the curtain goes down on disaster?
But on the bright side, the post-game news ticker mistakenly proclaimed "Massive Update" for about three frames before being corrected. I've never received a massive update before. I suppose the news *was* a little overwhelming.
And now, back to life and work. Although I fear the office will be a little depressed this morning.
In other news, I've been watching a little of Boston Legal. Reminds me of Orange County for high-powered professionals. My mom said Alan Shore reminds her of Lord Goring. Good call. And William Shatner, this might be your best role yet!
Also, for all those who were hoping for pictures of the Blue Hills Reservation, I regret to inform you that I didn't take my camera. But that just means we will have to go back! Evan and I got hopelessly lost when we went on Saturday, discovered an abandoned highway (I expected to find the head of the Statue of Liberty...), and eventually stumbled upon a major artery trail and followed our noses back to the trailhead before dark set in and we froze to death. All very dramatic and exciting after the fact.
Also on Saturday, the Kaufwomen and I checked out a new venue, the PA Lounge. This little-known place appeared to be frequented primarily by friends and family of the musicians. It's a good place to enjoy a quiet beer, but not such a good place to actually hear music, unless you are into plaster-n-concrete surround sound. The first two bands were complete mush, but the "feature artist" whom we had come to see managed to beat the sad acoustics. Perhaps because White Hinterland had more acoustical instruments to begin with. With a voice like Jolie Holland's, and a backing ensemble like the Decemberists (violin, guitar, drums and keyboard), White Hinterland made the long wait worth it. Her closing song was accompanied by ukelele and a little violin. Since her ukelele was not miked, you had to strain to hear it, but the trick worked. She captured our attention entirely and when the last strum faded from her uke, you could hear a pin drop.
And then we had to walk about a mile back to the T and ended up on the last train of the night, which meant frequent announcements and long stops at each station to ensure that everyone made it home that Saturday night. But sleep came in the end.
Hello blogging world. My latest Suite101 article was found and linked by the artist, but I just wanted to add a caveat before all my loyal readers think "Oh cool--Sarah's articles are gonna skyrocket in page rankings." While I toned everything down in the article, if you click on the links under "Sources" (which I had to include for reasons of good documentation), you must be prepared to be shocked. The artist is interesting from a sociological/historical/genre-mashing point of view (which is why I wrote about her), but I wouldn't recommend checking her out for yourselves, unless you have a high tolerance for garishness.
There. Consider yourselves warned.
Ever since I first heard Spoon's The Underdog off a mix Abbie made for me over the summer, something tickled the part of my memory that is reserved for Simon and Garfunkel. But I couldn't remember which song I felt resembled the opening riff in Spoon so much. Perhaps it is a matter of stylistics rather than any sort of harmonic/melodic similarity...
Does my family want to help me out on this?
Radiohead, see below.
I managed to catch some of the webcasting from Oxford or wherever it is that Thom and the boys are right at this moment. In addition to some dramatic reading stuff, I also got to hear Thom singing me All I Need. My year can end now.
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I am also pleased to discover that my blog is the source of sophisticated vocabulary words including the (apparently) popular "hott." Here's to another year of educating my devoted stalker-readers. You know who you are.
So living in Boston does have its perks: The New England Conservatory offers free concerts nearly every day of the week. On Wednesday and Thursday, we have the Steve Reich mini-festival, featuring some good stuff like Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians. Supposedly Reich himself will be hiding out in the audience.
And if one classical superstar were not enough, Renee Fleming is also giving a free masterclass earlier that same afternoon (Wed). But sadly only the NEC students, staff, faculty folks get a slice of that amazing pie. Maybe I can pull the old hide-behind-a-corner-slug-the-next-worker-who-walks-by-and-steal-his-uniform trick. That certainly worked for Luke Skywalker.
Interestingly enough, my degree in music criticism has prepared me for my current place in life in ways I wouldn't have really considered before. Though my current job has nothing to do with music, it is highly self-conscious regarding social issues. And as a grad student in music criticism (in Canada), I spent two years absorbing life through the cultural studies lens. So when we learned about British punk, we learned about class strife. When we studied heavy metal, we learned about the voicelessness of white poverty (since class mythically "doesn't exist" in America, a poor white male can't put precise wording to his dissatisfaction--after all, he is supposedly "privileged"). When we researched Asian hip-hop, we learned about racial tensions between Asian-Americans and African-Americans. When we studied reggae, we learned about diasporic musics and immigrant cultures.
The issues, absorbed through the music, seemed relevant to me. Now, living in an urban "salad bowl", I must actually encounter them in practice. Seems to be a fitting next step, in God's providence.
Sarah Moerman introduced me to Doug Riley today. Given that he died in August, I will have to become a post-humus fan. But he was pretty big in the day and since one of my favorite contemporary jazz pianists modeled after his style, I guess I need to check out more of his stuff.
Saturday afternoon I made the trek down to the Orpheum Theatre in order to purchase Decemberist tickets from the box office and avoid the ridiculous surcharges. I got a little mixed up, because a bunch of buses were obscuring the entry way and crew members were hauling in a band's equipment. I got called out for wandering unattended into the entry way, but was directed to the box office. I wondered who the band was, but didn't see any markings on the bus or band equipment. So I tucked the observation away and enjoyed Architecture in Helsinki later that night, despite the screaming Ottawans behind us. Then tonight I was browsing through the page I'd ripped from a Boston Metro I had seen lying around a restaurant: the band whose equipment I had nearly tripped over?
It was Smashing Pumpkins.
I downloaded the album for the price of my choosing, an amount that is probably the equivalent of some cheap fish and chips. I can't let Jonny starve in the gutter, can I? But now it's in my ipod and work today will just be all the sweeter. It's been three long years, friends, if you don't count Thom's attempts to solo it.
Oh my! A private concert. The price looks a little steep at first, but if all 499 of your friends chipped in, you could pull the event off for a mere $3,180 a piece. That's like going on a cruise. Or a missions' trip....
Rumors are flying about a new Radiohead album called In Rainbows. Supposedly you can pre-order it here, although other rumors say this is all just a hoax. I wish we could write Thom and Jonny and find out for sure, but wishful thinking has me hoping it's true. EDIT: Even the CBC is chasing rainbows.
Also, catch NPR's airing of Animal Collective. Their concerts resemble the traditional bride: something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. Strawberry Jam is the latest album, now available on itunes for those inclined to download.
I have to admit to indulging in a bit of westo-centrism when I read titles like that. I expect to find a story bemoaning poor concert attendance and alienated artists in a strictly white higher income setting. But this seems to be more of a worldwide phenomenon.
I think feminists could have a field day with this video, but I just want to say that I found the scene with the basket arrangements (panned back to reveal 50 more such baskets all the same) so depressing, it was hilarious...I also like the fact that some of these images are so overly sensualized, it seems ridiculous.
It's so weird to watch this video of "America" considering where I am at now. This is such a tiny slice of the whole pie...and an dream slice at that.
Brought to you by someone who has suddenly developed an insane passion for cooking...
I'm listening to the Kronos Quartet play Sigur Ros' "Flugufrelsarinn." Go and find the album on itunes (where the track appears coupled with the Kronos playing a Jimi Hendrix-inspired Star Spangled Banner). Shivering, glimmering, hovering, quivering colours in the air. It will be the best $1.99 you spend today.
Note: if you are fond of melodies and not abrasive sound distortion, you might be well-warned to skip the 2nd track and just get the Sigur Ros. It will still be the best 99 cents you spend today.
So I know everyone and their mother is already chuckling over this article, but I have to say it myself: Sometimes the Onion is just sheer genius. Or at least a 6.8...
Happened early this morning. I knew he was suffering from cancer. I knew he had been in the hospital the last few weeks, but I thought that reports indicated he was doing better.
Alas! No more Nessun Dorma for the world.
This summer has been bad for opera: at least five major figures in the opera world have died over the holidays.
The album this string ensemble put out a few years ago reminds me of Tim Burton, Edward Gorey, and Hector Berlioz rolled into one.
You should at least head over to itunes and listen to the sound clips of Danse Macabre by Two Star Symphony. Or you can try their myspace page. If you like the dark, absurd, and fantastically humoresque, you will find this ensemble intriguing.
Then I could hear the world premiere of John Adams' Doctor Atomic Symphony. Guess I will have to content myself with small sound clips.
Tickets start at 6 quid, too.
This has got to be close to being one of the world's worst music videos ever. I don't know whether it's the horrible lip synching, overused mickey mousing, corny framing, or really tight white pants, but something about this video sends me into gales of laughter, and I can't stop watching...
Meg White wears a beret! Also demonstrating that Meg White is my alter-ego is the fact that I, too, have a black coat and long straight hair. My true calling in life must be to wear red, black, and white.
Stumbled across Impossible Shapes, a band from Indiana. If you like mellow indie pop, I'd suggest taking a listen. The band appears to be into Egyptology and the Orient...
I personally want one of these, if only to achieve the satisfaction of the Ultimate Career Move: "In the career mode, you can rise from playing in park gazebos for church picnics to performing in the halftime show of the Harvard-Yale game," Hendleman said. "If you score enough points, you can unlock the ultimate level: playing in the John Philip Sousa–led Marine Band at Grover Cleveland's inauguration."
Personally, I am disappointed that the projected Steam Calliope Hero had to be shelved because of Sousaphone Hero's sluggish sales...
And....Happy White Rabbit!
AiH has posted their tour schedule over on Pitchfork. I'm normally not one to schedule my social calendar months in advance, but for this Australian indie-pop (twee pop?) band, I might make an exception. If I were living in a perfect world, I would attend the Helsinki venue. What could be more appropriate? You can also stream their latest album, Places Like This on AiH's myspace.
For a more colorful review, see Brae.
...is that David Byrne apparently spent his toddlerhood there.
I must admit that this video makes me a tad queasy, but fun, fun, fun, nonetheless. Ashley Rattner gave me the tip-off on this band, but after some investigation, I realized they were on the Polyvinyl Label, with the likes of Architecture in Helsinki and Of Montreal. Good company.
EDIT: Ashley and I were having a debate over whether this guy is playing a uke or not (1:42). Ashley claims there are six strings, making the instrument a guitar, but I feel that since there appear to be only four tuning knobs, this instrument is a ukulele. Opinions?
Look what I got at the thrift store today...I may never be able to actually play it, but just looking at the cover makes me smile...
I'm not sure that I actually like this guy, but I found it interesting that he chose Baroque music for rapping. Vivaldi, unlike, say Chopin, has a very steady, predictable rhythm...a groove, if you will...
Apparently I am not the only one who felt that every singer-songwriter goes by Ben these days. Thanks to Happy Frappy for giving me the scoop on an EP whose main claim to fame is the name.
Please, however, do not confuse this album with anything released by Radiohead...
The clarinet is so sexy.
Sarah Harmer: Around This Corner
If you like French and children's songs and salamanders, listen to Salamandre (you will have to click "Play Mp3" when you arrive). Sarah Harmer wrote this song as part of her I Love the Escarpment project. Since I lived next to the Niagara Escarpment for two years, I enjoyed the song. Yes, I am feeling nostalgic for Ontario.
I have to agree with some of Robin Wallace's theories that the growing inaccessibility of chamber music is largely due to the context, but I disagree somewhat with his reasons. I don't think that chamber music fails to inspire an audience seated in a large and impersonal hall because chamber music isn't meant for an audience. I think the reason that chamber music fails in a large concert hall these days is that we associate small ensembles with images of intimacy. Really, who can meet a stranger across a crowded room, unless of course, he/she is performing a number from an insanely popular musical. And of course, there is the name: "chamber" is another term for a room in a private house. Privacy and intimacy were assumed through the genre's development.
In early film music (which relied on many techniques from opera), the small ensemble was used to back scenes highlighting the individual or the particular, whereas large orchestras represented the transcendent, the state (oo...sounds Hegelian), or the universal.
A small ensemble sounds like it is speaking just to me (I know it isn't, but I can persuade myself that it is). Why throw the group across the alienating gulf of a stage? I will fail to connect. So much more rewarding to throw the CD in my player while I do dishes in the privacy of my own kitchen.
I am so on a White Stripes craze right now, thanks to Icky Thump coming to me in the mail this afternoon. Their peppermint Goth aesthetic never fails to arrest my eye. The title song surprised me with a pointed message regarding immigration, although the lyrics are still obscure enough to let the fan base have the fun of hashing out the meaning. The buzz word for this album is "epic" and I think that, with the addition of a bagpipe and winding, extended solos, the description is apt. "Unsettling" might also apply here, because Jack White's playing with some insane time signatures. I might write more when I have listened more. For now I leave with one question that always puzzles me about the White Stripes: what's it like working with your ex?
Also, something is wrong with my computer speakers. A ringing buzz adds a lot to garage rock like the White Stripes but my Bach suffers (dare I say that I have Bach pain??). I am going to have to get this fixed.
I was looking through the list of concerts scheduled for the Denver area this summer. ZZ Top, Bob Dylan, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Loudon Wainwright III--I'm sensing a trend....
The Late Greats has compiled a list of Father's Day songs, although most of them are really depressing. Aren't there any good songs about fatherhood? Besides Butterfly Kisses, I mean?
PS I hate to break it to the Late Great blogger, but um...My Heart Belongs to Daddy is NOT a Father's Day song...
Musicologists are such geeks.
You might want to read the previous entry for context, however.
The fact that I find this hilarious just means...well...let's not go there.
I don't often dream, but sometimes the last thing I encounter for the day will reincarnate itself into a rather amusing episode. Last night I dreamt I was going camping with a few people. I recognized one as a former classmate, but not one that I could even really claim as an acquaintance. She reminded me of the stereotypical "homeschooler," but as I talked to her, she revealed that her family not only owned Looney Tunes, but the Rolling Stones. And so she was wanting to know which songs were really popular (for marketing purposes, I suppose).
"Well," I said. "Everyone loves the Keith Richards gems: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction....You Can't Always Get What You Want...."
I woke up feeling I had left something out. Was I getting the Stones mixed up the Beatles that I had to pit one artist against another? Apparently while Evan's dreams make him smarter, mine just make me confused. The ancients blamed indigested meat for lucid dreams. I blame half-digested blog entries...
I do have to say though, that if Warner Brothers puts Brown Sugar behind Porky Pig, I want full credit...(and would LOVE to do an in-depth study on any and all race/gender issues entailed within....not)
Words are working hard for you
I don't know whether to laugh or be amazed at the [space] oddity.
For more tracks, stream the entire album of futuristic astronautical mash-ups.
And to get yourself ready for the beach....you are either going to love love love the Beach Boys/Beastie Boys mash-up or hate hate hate it.
Also, a word of caution to my gentle readers: some of the tracks receive an R rating from yours truly.
Kristen Chenoweth is fast becoming one of my favorite Broadway singers. I got to see her perform in The Apple Tree when I was in NYC. That sort of experience will go down in the family legend book. Almost like when my mom saw Dick Van Dyke perform The Music Man in Grauman's Chinese Theatre in L.A. She was a poor college student at the time and ending up eating ramen noodles for months afterwards, but I would have done the same thing in her place.
Kristen won a Tony for her performance of Sally Brown (You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown).
At first Evan's entry on deep structures in music reminded me of something out of a Schenkerian analysis textbook, upgraded to the 21st century, of course. But as I was playing around with the new iLike feature on Facebook, I was faced with another example of how music is categorized (by whomever). One of the features of iLike offers free mp3s, organized by similarity to music the user has already said she likes. So I was offered an mp3 of "Break Me In" by the Paper Street Saints under the rubric "Similar to Brahms." Some pretty serious metal greeted my ears. Not exactly what immediately comes to mind when I think of Brahms. But I have also held the somewhat hazy theory that metal and 19th century Romanticism share a lot in common. Does this have to do with deep structures in music or simply because the projects of both groups were similar enough to result in overlap of sound?
I also have a question for Evan: how much of breaking down music to its essential structures has to do with the ability to generate music per se and how much of it has to do with generating music that you like?
Because what the deep structure project seems to do is simply analyze what the researcher already enjoys. Certainly it yields interesting discovery regarding personal interest, but such projects always seem to define their limits before they even find them.
My family is going camping this week to escape the perils of re-doing wood floors. But we camped just outside of Denver last night so that I could attend the Animal Collective concert. I have to say chatting with the fans was almost as interesting as the concert. My dad's bluetooth/cellphone technology is getting me on the internet, but the connection is rather slow. So stay tuned for some juicy and excited words about last night.
I didn't want to use my flash, so this was the best I could do...I was sitting with my elbows on the stage...
Geologist and Avey Tare
Panda Bear
Bjork and Melt Banana are both coming to Denver in the near future. Sadly I decided to skip out on both because of $$. Fifty dollars per concert? Hmm. Who would I pay $50 to see? (I even neglected to see Ravi Shankar for this sum when he came to Toronto. Am I Philistine?)
I've got it. I would go see the Beatles. Mostly because this would entail a resurrection or time travel, both of which are probably worth about 50 bucks in my book...