The Genius of Brian Eno On Display in 80 Minute Q&A: Talks Art, iPad Apps, ABBA, & More

in Art, Music | May 13th, 2013

Four years ago, I expe­ri­enced musi­cal poly­math, rock pro­duc­er, “drift­ing clar­i­fi­er,” and high-tech painter Bri­an Eno’s gen­er­a­tive-art instal­la­tion 77 Mil­lion Paint­ings in Long Beach. I also saw him give an enter­tain­ing talk there on his obser­va­tions of and ideas about sound, images, and cul­ture. This year, he brought the show to New York City, giv­ing it the largest stag­ing yet, and then sat down for an equal­ly enter­tain­ing 80-minute Q&A for the Red Bull Music Acad­e­my. Per­haps it sounds a lit­tle odd that a cre­ator who has based the past few decades of recent solo work on qui­etude, reflec­tion, and men­tal recep­tive­ness would appear at such length in a forum spon­sored by an ener­gy drink, but hey, we live in inter­est­ing times, and Eno has inter­est­ing thoughts, no mat­ter where he voic­es them.

Sit­ting back on a sofa (whose side table comes stocked with cans of Red Bull), Eno dis­cuss­es com­pos­ing music for hos­pi­tals after meet­ing a great many chil­dren born to his 1975 album Dis­creet Music; the ama­teur cho­rus he runs and with whom he some­times invites famous singer friends to sit in; “sce­nius,” or the spe­cial kind of genius that emerges when large num­bers of enthu­si­asts cohere into a scene; the DJ as cul­tur­al “lubri­cant”; his love of ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry Russ­ian paint­ing; what makes pop­u­lar music, from Abba to Bey­on­cé, sound pop­u­lar; the impor­tance of dead­lines; and his new iPad app Scape, which, to his mind, should soon dis­place the tire­some con­ven­tions of Hol­ly­wood film scor­ing entire­ly. While this pro­vides a stim­u­lat­ing intro­duc­tion to Eno the intel­lec­tu­al, long­time fans will want to catch up with his lat­est thoughts on sev­er­al favorite sub­jects, such as the val­ue of sur­ren­der in not just expe­ri­enc­ing but cre­at­ing art, and the coun­ter­in­tu­itive bursts of cre­ativ­i­ty that come when work­ing with few­er options, not more.

H/T goes to Heather

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bri­an Eno Once Com­posed Music for Win­dows 95; Now He Lets You Cre­ate Music with an iPad App

Bri­an Eno on Cre­at­ing Music and Art As Imag­i­nary Land­scapes (1989)

Watch Bri­an Eno’s “Video Paint­ings,” Where 1980s TV Tech­nol­o­gy Meets Visu­al Art

Day of Light: A Crowd­sourced Film by Mul­ti­me­dia Genius Bri­an Eno

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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In 1969 Telegram, Jimi Hendrix Invites Paul McCartney to Join a Super Group with Miles Davis

in Music | May 13th, 2013

McCartneytelegram

Click above for a (slight­ly) larg­er image

A trend­ing sto­ry this week­end brings to light what could have been a pret­ty super 1969 col­lab­o­ra­tion between Miles Davis, his phe­nom­e­nal long­time drum­mer Tony Williams, Jimi Hen­drix and Paul McCart­ney. Davis and Hen­drix had already been jam­ming togeth­er infor­mal­ly in New York, plan­ning to record an album. The pair­ing seems nat­ur­al con­sid­er­ing this was Davis’ Bitch­es Brew psy­che­del­ic fusion phase.

The inclu­sion of McCartney’s pop sen­si­bil­i­ties seems odd, though, and pos­si­bly inspired. It could have result­ed in some real­ly fas­ci­nat­ing music, or a mess of per­son­al­i­ties and ideas. But alas, it nev­er came to pass. Davis and Hen­drix sent McCart­ney an impromp­tu Octo­ber 21st, 1969 telegram request to record with them in New York: “We are record­ing an LP togeth­er this week­end. How about com­ing in to play bass stop call Alan Dou­glas 212–5812212. Peace Jimi Hen­drix Miles Davis Tony Williams.” [Alan Dou­glass was the osten­si­ble pro­duc­er.] But, as Rolling Stone explains:

It’s unclear if McCart­ney was aware of the request….  Bea­t­les aide Peter Brown respond­ed the next day, telling Hen­drix and Davis that McCart­ney was out on vaca­tion and was­n’t expect­ed back for two weeks.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the only repro­duc­tions of the cor­re­spon­dence avail­able online are the poor­ly vis­i­ble images at the top and below. Nonethe­less, you can make out Davis, Hen­drix, and Williams’ request on the right, and the response at the left (the order is reversed below). Both telegrams are locat­ed at the Hard Rock Café in Prague. For more on the sto­ry, read the Tele­graph’s sum­ma­tion. I’m sure it won’t be long before some enter­pris­ing music hack­er cre­ates the ulti­mate Davis/Hendrix/McCartney mashup and gives us a taste of what might have been.

McCartneyResponsetelegram

Click to (slight­ly) enlarge

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Rare Miles Davis Live Record­ings Cap­ture the Jazz Musi­cian at the Height of His Pow­ers

Pre­vi­ous­ly Unre­leased Jimi Hen­drix Record­ing, “Some­where,” with Bud­dy Miles and Stephen Stills

Paul McCart­ney Shoots New Music Video with Natal­ie Port­man and John­ny Depp

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

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Astronaut Chris Hadfield Sings David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” On Board the International Space Station

in Astronomy, Music | May 12th, 2013

Chris Had­field has spent the past five months on the ISS. And, if you reg­u­lar­ly fol­low our site, you’ll know that the media-savvy astro­naut has engaged earth­lings with a steady stream of tweets, a series of edu­ca­tion­al videos (see below), and the occa­sion­al enter­tain­ing rou­tine. In recent months, he has kib­itzed with William Shat­ner and even strummed a tune for Peter Gabriel. Now, before hand­ing over com­mand of the ISS to a Russ­ian cos­mo­naut, Had­field bade us farewell by singing a zero grav­i­ty ver­sion of “Space Odd­i­ty,” the song that helped launch David Bowie’s music career back in 1969. What could be a more per­fect pick? In case you’re won­der­ing, Had­field is play­ing a Lar­rivée Par­lor gui­tar, which he used to make the first album ever record­ed in orbit. We’ll even­tu­al­ly tell you more about that.…

 Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every­thing You Want­ed to Know About Going to the Bath­room in Space But Were Afraid to Ask

If Astro­nauts Cry in Space, Will Their Tears Fall?

William Shat­ner Puts in a Long Dis­tance Call to Astro­naut Aboard the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion

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Listen to The John Bonham Story, a Radio Show Hosted by Dave Grohl

in Music, Radio | May 10th, 2013

Rock and roll bands do have a ten­den­cy to burn through drum­mers. The phe­nom­e­non has been so notice­able over the years that Spinal Tap did a mem­o­rable par­o­dy of it. But when Led Zep­pelin’s pow­er­house of a drum­mer John Bon­ham died unex­pect­ed­ly at the age of 32 on Sep­tem­ber 25, 1980, there would be no replac­ing him. Bon­ham’s dis­tinc­tive play­ing was such an inte­gral part of the Led Zep­pelin sound that it was hard to imag­ine any­one else fill­ing his shoes. A few months after his death, the drum­mer’s grief-strick­en band­mates issued a state­ment announc­ing the break-up of the group. With­out Bon­ham, they said, “we could not con­tin­ue as we were.”

The John Bon­ham Sto­ry, first broad­cast on BBC radio in 2010, is an engag­ing one-hour pro­gram host­ed by Foo Fight­ers front­man Dave Grohl, for­mer drum­mer of Nir­vana and a life­long fan of Bon­ham. The show (above, in its entire­ty) includes musi­cal per­for­mances, many of them rare, along with inter­views of the sur­viv­ing mem­bers of Led Zeppelin–Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones–and oth­ers who knew Bon­ham well, like Vanil­la Fudge drum­mer Carmine Appice, Bad Com­pa­ny singer Paul Rodgers, Bon­ham’s younger sis­ter Deb­o­rah and his son Jason. The John Bon­ham Sto­ry is a nice­ly pro­duced pro­gram, a fas­ci­nat­ing look at the life and music of the man who is wide­ly thought of as the quin­tes­sen­tial rock and roll drum­mer.

Relat­ed con­tent:

John Bon­ham’s Iso­lat­ed Drum Track For Led Zep­pelin’s ‘Fool in the Rain’

‘Stair­way to Heav­en’: Watch a Mov­ing Trib­ute to Led Zep­pelin at The Kennedy Cen­ter

Jim­my Page Tells the Sto­ry of “Kash­mir”

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Tom Waits Sings and Tells Stories in Tom Waits: A Day in Vienna, a 1979 Austrian Film

in Film, Music | May 8th, 2013

The film begins at a derelict gas sta­tion. A paper sign, peel­ing from the wall, warns in Ger­man that open flames and smok­ing are dan­ger­ous and strict­ly for­bid­den. In walks Tom Waits, smok­ing a cig­a­rette.

“This reminds me of a place I used to work in Nation­al City, Cal­i­for­nia, called Spot­co Self Ser­vice,” Waits says as he leans against a pump. “I worked for a gen­tle­man named Charles Spot­co. I was always late for work. I used to stay out at night. I’d come drag­ging to work, used to get there about ten-thir­ty in the morn­ing. He’d chew me out and scream at me for being late. He always said I’d nev­er amount to noth­ing. I nev­er thought I’d be stand­ing in a gas sta­tion in Vien­na Aus­tria. If I’d of told him that one day, Spot­co, I’ll be lean­ing on a gas pump at a gas sta­tion in Vien­na Aus­tria, he would have said you got­ta be out of your mind.”

The scene is from Tom Waits: A Day in Vien­na, a half-hour Aus­tri­an TV film shot on April 19, 1979, and shown above in its entire­ty. Film­mak­ers Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossach­er approached Waits when he arrived in Vien­na on a short Euro­pean tour, accord­ing to Bar­ney Hoskyns in Low­side of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits. “He came in from Ams­ter­dam say­ing he had­n’t slept all night, but he agreed on the spot to let us film him,” Rossach­er told Hoskyns. “He did­n’t want to do a prop­er inter­view but instead he want­ed to tell sto­ries.”

Dolezal and Rossach­er drove Waits to the old gas sta­tion and lat­er to a Greek cafe, where he told a com­ic sto­ry about a sax­o­phone play­er. At the Konz­erthaus that night they filmed Waits and his band per­form­ing “Sweet Lit­tle Bul­let From a Pret­ty Blue Gun,” “Shake, Rat­tle and Roll” and “Christ­mas Card from a Hook­er in Min­neapo­lis.” Back­stage before the encore, Waits is shown pac­ing back and forth, singing “When the Saints Go March­ing In.” After­ward, in a lounge, he sits down at a piano and plays a few bars of “I Can’t Wait to Get Off Work” before danc­ing with a bar girl and retir­ing for the night.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tom Waits Reads Charles Bukows­ki

Tom Waits and Kei­th Richards Sing Sea Song “Shenan­doah” for New Pirate-Themed CD: Lis­ten Online

Tom Waits Shows Us How Not to Get a Date on Valentine’s Day

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Glenn Gould Offers a Strikingly Unconventional Interpretation of 1806 Beethoven Composition

in Music, Television | May 7th, 2013

Here’s a strik­ing­ly uncon­ven­tion­al inter­pre­ta­tion of Lud­wig van Beethoven’s 1806 com­po­si­tion, 32 Vari­a­tions on an Orig­i­nal Theme in C minor, by the Cana­di­an vir­tu­oso pianist Glenn Gould. It was record­ed in Toron­to in March of 1966 for a spe­cial pro­gram, “Con­ver­sa­tions with Glenn Gould,” which fea­tured an in-depth dis­cus­sion between Gould and the BBC arts reporter Humphrey Bur­ton. You can find the com­plete pro­gram bro­ken up into pieces at the CBC Web site. And for an espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing 35-minute seg­ment, in which Gould explains and demon­strates his idio­syn­crat­ic approach to inter­pret­ing Beethoven, see below:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Video: Glenn Gould Plays the Gold­berg Vari­a­tions by J.S. Bach

Glenn Gould Explains the Genius of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach (1962)

Glenn Gould Pre­dicts Mash-up Cul­ture in 1969 Doc­u­men­tary

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James Joyce Plays the Guitar (1915)

in Literature, Music | May 6th, 2013

Joyce and guitar

The work of James Joyce has inspired many a musician—from John Cage to Kate Bush, and Lou Reed to Irish band Ther­a­py?.  The famed Irish writer was him­self a great lover of song (his only col­lec­tion of poet­ry is titled Cham­ber Music); most read­ers of Joyce know that he packed his sto­ries and nov­els with thou­sands of allu­sions and quotes from pop­u­lar and clas­si­cal songs. Few­er know that if the ency­clo­pe­dic mod­ernist had not become James Joyce the heavy­weight author, we might know him as James Joyce, singer and com­pos­er. Joyce once shared the stage with opera singer John McCor­ma­ck and stud­ied and per­formed music through­out his life.

Joyce the singer is typ­i­cal­ly pic­tured “droop­ing over the keys” of a piano (as Shake­speare and Com­pa­ny founder Sylvia Beach put it). But he also played the gui­tar, as you can see from the 1915 pho­to above (tak­en in Tri­este by Joyce’s friend Ottac­aro Weiss). Joyce’s small-bod­ied gui­tar has been housed at the Joyce Tow­er Muse­um in Dublin since 1966, in an unplayable state.

Now, Eng­lish luthi­er Gary South­well has under­tak­en a restora­tion of the instru­ment at the behest of Tow­er Muse­um cura­tor Robert Nichol­son and Fran O’Rourke, pro­fes­sor of phi­los­o­phy at Joyce’s alma mater, Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Dublin. A musi­cian him­self, O’Rourke will per­form Joycean Irish songs dur­ing Bloom­sweek to off­set the cost of the project, accom­pa­nied on the restored Joyce gui­tar by Irish clas­si­cal gui­tarist John Fee­ley

Luthi­er South­well describes the gui­tar as “a fair­ly stan­dard instru­ment of the peri­od… not from any great mak­er of the past or any­thing like that.” In the video above from The Irish Times, see South­well, Pro­fes­sor O’Rourke, and Joyce schol­ar Ter­ence Killeen describe the state of the gui­tar and its his­to­ry. And below, lis­ten to Joyce’s only known com­po­si­tion, the melan­choly “Bid Adieu to Girl­ish Days,” sung by tenor Kevin McDer­mott.

h/t @faraway67 and @matthiasrascher

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Joyce, With His Eye­sight Fail­ing, Draws a Sketch of Leopold Bloom (1926)

James Joyce Reads ‘Anna Livia Plura­belle’ from Finnegans Wake

James Joyce’s Ulysses: Down­load the Free Audio Book

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

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Mick Jones Plays Three Classics by The Clash at the Public Library

in Music | May 5th, 2013

The venue isn’t as large. The head of hair isn’t as full. The beat does­n’t dri­ve as hard. But the song remains the same. Above, Mick Jones revis­its a Clash clas­sic, “Train in Vain,” at the open­ing of The Rock and Roll Pub­lic Library in 2009. If you want to see vin­tage Clash, then check out some of the clas­sic Clash con­certs we’ve high­light­ed below. Oth­er charm­ing songs played that day at the library include:

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Stay Free

Note: We orig­i­nal­ly post­ed Mick­’s library gig in March of 2012. I’m repost­ing it today to see if we’ve got some tech bugs worked out and because I love these endear­ing clips so much. Hope you enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Clash: West­way to the World (The 2002 Gram­my Win­ning Film)

The Clash Live in Tokyo, 1982: Watch the Com­plete Con­cert

Rare Live Footage Doc­u­ments The Clash From Their Raw Debut to the Career-Defin­ing Lon­don Call­ing

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