For Bob Dylan’s 70th Birthday, Footage From His Earliest NYC Days

in Music | May 24th, 2011

Rock star, folk singer, poet, and nation­al trea­sure Bob Dylan turns 70 today, and just in case you haven’t made plans to mark the occa­sion, we’ve got a few options for you: If you’d like some com­pa­ny, you can check out this Google map of all the sep­tu­a­ge­nar­i­an cel­e­bra­tions world­wide to see if there will be one in your home­town. Or you can re-read Joe Queenan’s bril­liant­ly incor­rect assess­ment of the rebel at 50 in Spy Mag­a­zine. And if you’re feel­ing soli­tary and reflec­tive, there’s always Chron­i­cles Vol. 1 and Dylan­Ra­dio by can­dle­light.

We chose to go with the love­ly “Guess I’m Doing Fine” from the singer’s ear­li­est days in New York City (now avail­able on “The Wit­mark Demos: 1962–1964,” the lat­est install­ment of The Boot­leg Series. Watch the trail­er here). The 20-year old’s voice sounds a bit thin and plain­tive, and the lament per­haps under­cut by the many miles of road he has­n’t yet trav­elled, espe­cial­ly when he moans:

No, I ain’t got my child­hood
Or friends I once did know.
But I still got my voice left,
I can take it any­where I go.

But don’t be too hard on young Bob­by Zim­mer­man… He was a whole lot old­er then, and he’s younger than that now.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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3 Dreams of Black: A Mind-blowing Interactive Music Video

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | May 20th, 2011

So this is def­i­nite­ly not your grand­ma’s MTV. The clip we’ve post­ed above explains the mak­ing of “3 Degrees of Black,” an inter­ac­tive video made for your brows­er, which was the prod­uct of a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the mul­ti-hyphen­at­ed artist/filmmaker Chris Milk and a group of 20-some­thing genius­es at Plan­et Google. But before you delve into the (admit­ted­ly fas­ci­nat­ing) back­sto­ry, be sure to expe­ri­ence the video for your­self and move your mouse around a bit.

“Three Dreams of Black” is a song from the new album “Rome,” itself a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Amer­i­can pro­duc­er Dan­ger Mouse and Ital­ian com­pos­er Daniel Lup­pi, fea­tur­ing Jack White and Norah Jones. The song is a per­fect choice for a trip­py, mul­ti-faceted project like this, which com­bines video, 2D and 3D graph­ics, and the user her­self. And yes, we know the whole “exper­i­ment” is basi­cal­ly just an adver­tise­ment for Google Chrome, but after spend­ing some time in their dream­scape, we’re cool with that.

via Metafil­ter

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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The National Jukebox: Play 10,000 Songs Released Between 1901 and 1925

in History, Music | May 19th, 2011

The Nation­al Juke­box, the new dig­i­tal musi­cal play­er of the Library of Con­gress, fea­tures more than 10,000 songs released by the Vic­tor Talk­ing Machine Com­pa­ny between 1901 and 1925 (with the promise of more to come). You can build your own playlist from the many gen­res of music avail­able, which include some extreme­ly rare record­ings from dif­fer­ent gen­res includ­ing 0pera, blues, yodel­ing, jazz, and much, much more.

We also love the dis­claimer on the web­site’s front page: WARNING: His­tor­i­cal record­ings may con­tain offen­sive lan­guage. It’s quite easy to see why the warn­ing is nec­es­sary, espe­cial­ly after some time spent lis­ten­ing to the com­e­dy sec­tion.

If you want to see a Vic­tor Talk­ing Machine in action, you can watch one get­ting demoed here.

via @kirstinbutler

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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A Paul Simon Feelin’-Very-Groovy Moment

in Life, Music | May 15th, 2011

Play­ing in Toron­to last week, Paul Simon did some­thing, well, awe­some. A fan asks him to play “Dun­can,” his 1972 clas­sic, and lets him know that she learned to play gui­tar to that song. So Simon agrees. And, even bet­ter, he invites her on stage to take over gui­tar and vocals. Ner­vous, almost hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing, she hes­i­tant­ly gets going, as does the crowd. From there, a big feel­in’ groovy moment unfolds, and it just gets bet­ter as it goes along. Kudos to NPR’s All Songs Con­sid­ered for mak­ing this great find …

Relat­ed Con­tent:

13,500 Sing “Hey Jude” in Trafal­gar Square

Paul Simon’s Christ­mas Gets Ani­mat­ed in April

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Bob Dylan Answers China Charges

in Current Affairs, Music | May 14th, 2011

Just last month, Bob Dylan played his first con­cert in Chi­na at the Worker’s Gym­na­si­um in Bei­jing. It was­n’t exact­ly a big show. Rough­ly 2,000 peo­ple attend­ed, but it became a big affair at home when NYTimes colum­nist Mau­reen Dowd wrote a caus­tic op-ed, accus­ing Dylan of play­ing a cen­sored set stripped of his rev­o­lu­tion­ary anthems. In short, she declared, Dylan went to Chi­na and sold out his 60s soul:

Icon­ic songs of rev­o­lu­tion like “The Times They Are a‑Changin,’ ” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” wouldn’t have been an appro­pri­ate sound­track for the 2,000 Chi­nese appa­ratchiks in the audi­ence tak­ing a relax­ing break from repres­sion.

Spooked by the surge of democ­ra­cy sweep­ing the Mid­dle East, Chi­na is con­duct­ing the harsh­est crack­down on artists, lawyers, writ­ers and dis­si­dents in a decade. It is cen­sor­ing (or “har­mo­niz­ing,” as it euphem­izes) the Inter­net and dis­patch­ing the secret police to arrest willy-nil­ly, includ­ing Ai Wei­wei, the famous artist and archi­tect of the Bird’s Nest, Beijing’s Olympic sta­di­um.

Dylan said noth­ing about Weiwei’s deten­tion, didn’t offer a reprise of “Hur­ri­cane,” his song about “the man the author­i­ties came to blame for some­thing that he nev­er done.” He sang his cen­sored set, took his pile of Com­mu­nist cash and left.

Now, in a note to fans, Dylan took the rare step of respond­ing to these (and oth­er) accu­sa­tions in a short let­ter pub­lished yes­ter­day. He writes:

As far as cen­sor­ship goes, the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment had asked for the names of the songs that I would be play­ing. There’s no log­i­cal answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the pre­vi­ous 3 months. If there were any songs, vers­es or lines cen­sored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intend­ed to play.

I’m guess­ing this response will only part­ly sat­is­fy Dowd. Per­haps Dylan did­n’t change his set to please the appa­ratchiks. But did he miss an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make the right state­ment? Just maybe. But no mat­ter, we’re putting this behind us and get­ting ready for Dylan’s 70th birth­day on May 24. We still love him, warts and all…

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Keith Richards Interviewed at The New York Public Library

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | May 13th, 2011

For a cer­tain kind of per­son (that means you, Dan C.), a straight hour of Rolling Stones gui­tarist Kei­th Richards expound­ing on the rock n’ roll life is about as close to heav­en as one can get with­out mag­i­cal­ly trans­form­ing into Richards’ favorite gui­tar. Here is the 66-year old leg­end being inter­viewed at the New York Pub­lic Library, fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of his crit­i­cal­ly-acclaimed mem­oir Life, which no less severe a judge than Michiko Kaku­tani called “elec­tri­fy­ing.”

In the inter­view (see the remain­ing parts here, here and here) Richards comes off as wit­ty, artic­u­late, and espe­cial­ly elo­quent when speak­ing about his pas­sion for Amer­i­can blues, but one of the most charm­ing ear­ly moments comes thanks to his inter­locu­tor, Antho­ny DeCur­tis. DeCur­tis is some­thing of a rock star in his own field, but he fights a los­ing bat­tle with his nat­ur­al fan­dom for the first 15 min­utes of the con­ver­sa­tion, then final­ly starts to implode at about the 22:2o mark. His mini-melt­down is imme­di­ate­ly fol­lowed by Richards’ hilar­i­ous riff on the Stones’ ear­ly Bea­t­les-envy, and it all just gets bet­ter from there, cul­mi­nat­ing in the expect­ed wild applause at the end of the hour.

A foot­note: Richards’ col­lab­o­ra­tor on Life is the respect­ed British jour­nal­ist named James Fox. Fox spent five years work­ing with the gui­tarist, or rather, chas­ing him from con­ti­nent to con­ti­nent, record­ing hun­dreds of hours of their con­ver­sa­tions, and then shap­ing those hours into a book that is not mere­ly coher­ent or inter­est­ing but gen­uine­ly lit­er­ary. He deserves a round of applause as well.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hunter S. Thomp­son Inter­views Kei­th Richards

John Lennon and The Rolling Stones Sing Bud­dy Hol­ly

Pat­ti Smith at the New York Pub­lic Library

via NYPL

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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The Legend of Bluesman Robert Johnson Animated

in Animation, Film, Music | May 12th, 2011

Robert John­son, the leg­endary blues­man, would have turned 100 this week. That’s well beyond the age he actu­al­ly lived to – a very young 27. Dur­ing his short life (1911–1938), John­son record­ed 29 indi­vid­ual songs. But they could not have been more influ­en­tial. Songs like Cross Road Blues, Sweet Home Chica­go, and Kind Heart­ed Woman Blues (all found in this new­ly-released Cen­ten­ni­al Col­lec­tion) had a remark­able influ­ence on musi­cians grow­ing up gen­er­a­tions lat­er. Kei­th Richards, Eric Clap­ton, Robert Plant – they all acknowl­edge a deep debt to John­son.

Speak­ing of debts, you can’t talk about Robert John­son with­out talk­ing about the famous dev­il leg­end. The leg­end holds that John­son made a Faus­t­ian bar­gain with the dev­il, sell­ing his soul in exchange for bound­less musi­cal tal­ent. It’s a great tale, and it all gets brought back to life in “Dev­il­ish Detail,” a new ani­mat­ed film (above) fea­tur­ing illus­tra­tions by Christo­pher Dar­ling. You can view it in a larg­er for­mat on Nowness.com…

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Classical Music: A History According to YouTube

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | May 9th, 2011


Three cheers for cura­tion. Lime­light, an Aus­tralian cul­ture web site, has select­ed “40 of the most infor­ma­tive, rep­re­sen­ta­tive and enter­tain­ing videos” avail­able on YouTube. And they’ve strung them togeth­er in such a way that they offer a “chrono­log­i­cal his­to­ry of west­ern clas­si­cal music from the twelfth cen­tu­ry to the mod­ern age,” tak­ing you from The Mid­dle Ages and The Renais­sance, through the Baroque, Clas­si­cal, and Roman­tic peri­ods, and end­ing with The Birth of Mod­ernism and Post-WWII inno­va­tions. The clip above comes from Anton van Mun­ster’s film on Vival­di, I Musi­ci, which is avail­able on Net­flix. (If you’re not a sub­scriber, a one month free tri­al is avail­able here.) Oth­er clips put a spot­light on Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Ver­di, Wag­n­er and oth­ers.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

85,000 Clas­si­cal Music Scores (and Free MP3s) on the Web

The Com­plete Organ Works of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach

The Great­est Com­posers: Accord­ing to The New York Times

via Metafil­ter

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