I've been toying with an idea that I should diagram out the current state of my music collection. The outer circle describing the entirety of music I own, subcircles for that which resides on vinyl, CD, tape and digital (some commonality there), then another layer of what's available on which device for playback (iPod, phone, PC, laptop...), with entangled and knotted subcircles there. Not even getting into WAV, MP3 and M4A formatting....
This is a lethally nerdy thing to do, and seriously who cares?
Still, I find myself drifting toward the player-specific singularity that tech observers have been predicting for a couple of years now. (This being, basically, everything will end up on the phone sooner or later.) I unlocked my Droid PowerAMP for about $5, seemingly fixed an annoying problem where the music would randomly fast-forward to the next track (hardly random, as it turns out - the app has a 'headphone control switch that allows for playback options controlled by headphone commands, which of course is something I have never heard of...anyway, I turned it off and it doesn't fast forward anymore.) and have started loading it up. I configured the EQ and now have at least one piece of music (U2's The Joshua Tree, which I cloud-purchased from Amazon and actually isn't as good as I remembered it...) that resides on my phone and nowhere else.
This shit used to be a lot less convenient, and a lot simpler.
And, of course, this is one reason I stubbornly refuse to even look at a tablet PC.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Roach clips
I went ahead and ordered a couple of new Steve Roach CD's - SoundQuest Fest, which is a live recording made at his tribal-synth-New Age musical gathering just about a year ago in Tuscon, and The Road Eternal, a collaboration with Scandanavian guitarist Erik Wollo, who is a frequent co-conspirator with Roach in his various experiments trimming expansive synth excursions with more traditionally melodic instrumentation.
I'm about halfway through SoundQuest, it's not bad. We'll scribble a line or two about both when we get around to spinning them more thoroughly.
In doing a little search on the SoundQuest show (specifically, if this was going to be a regular event, and so so far it doesn't appear so) I came across a review of the SoundQuest "experience" (calling it a concert may be appropriate shorthand, but probably understates the vibe) by a writer for Sonora Review named Mike Powell. It's actually a two part piece, the second half is here , although I found Part 1 a better read.
If Powell strikes a somewhat ambivilent posture toward Roach's music, or at least the cheerful audacity of hosting an essentially melody-less, lyric-less concert of eight hours duration, he at least thoughtfully approaches and confronts the probably arcane distinction between ambient music and New Age music.
One complaint I might lodge is Powell's seeming implication that Roach straddles both New Age and ambience disciplines, applying the Brian Eno ethic of ambient music (“as ignorable as it is interesting”) to New Age's barbitual pleasantries and higher-power conceits.
The fact is that New Age music (if we're using the tag taped to record-store bin dividers) has a significant tradition in folk and classical underpinnings - you'd be challenged to find much relationship between Roach and the coterie of Windham Hill artists from 25 years ago, playing vigorously melodic and usually structured instrumental music on acoustic guitars and grand pianos - while the electronics sustaining Roach's music harkens back to the lengthy and largely improvised sonic forays of Tangerine Dream and (especially) Klaus Schulze of nearly forty years ago, both of whom staged brutally long shows of tonal abstractions coaxed from primitive sequencers and Moogs.
If you find musical comraderie between George Winston and Steve Roach, you may looking at both from too far away. A more deeply cynical observer might suggest that both music's ability to bore the average listener to stone reveals a common DNA - we're not sure if Powell hates the stuff that much, but he at least has the tact not to suggest it outright.
For me, I see Roach as more purely a product of the latter tradition - true, he borrows the ancient-culture/tribal influences like drumming and didgs reflective of the New Age lost-wisdom gestalt, but musically they usually seem to be textural dressing, secondary to the electronics.
Maybe it all seems a little different when experienced live - a lot of things do - and certainly a generous strata of gem-gazing New Agers at the concert likely influences the casual observer's perceptions of what they came to hear. For my part, while I like Roach's music and actually buy it and listen a lot to it, I don't care for all of it. The didg-'n-drumming thing usually doesn't do much for me. And whether or not I could sit through several hours of it, percussive or not, remains a speculation not likely to be tested in the near future.
Powell, at least, took a lengthy break to go home and fry up a couple of eggs. For now, all I need do is hit the Stop button on my CD player, and if whatever Roach is doing fails within that lamentably earthbound constraint, I'm not persuaded that it will be because I heard three hours too little of it.
I'm about halfway through SoundQuest, it's not bad. We'll scribble a line or two about both when we get around to spinning them more thoroughly.
In doing a little search on the SoundQuest show (specifically, if this was going to be a regular event, and so so far it doesn't appear so) I came across a review of the SoundQuest "experience" (calling it a concert may be appropriate shorthand, but probably understates the vibe) by a writer for Sonora Review named Mike Powell. It's actually a two part piece, the second half is here , although I found Part 1 a better read.
If Powell strikes a somewhat ambivilent posture toward Roach's music, or at least the cheerful audacity of hosting an essentially melody-less, lyric-less concert of eight hours duration, he at least thoughtfully approaches and confronts the probably arcane distinction between ambient music and New Age music.
Structurally, both new age and ambient music are a rejection of time. They go nowhere by design. In ambient, I usually read the defiance as intellectual; in new age, it’s usually cultural—Steve Roach has talked about his music as a way of liberating its listeners from the “bondage of Western time.” One good way to do this is to get your friends together for a concert that lasts for eight hours (including dinner break.)
Steve Roach is 55 years old. He has released nearly 50 albums since 1982. Three of them are called Quiet Music; many of them have cover photos that document portions of the natural world so expansive that they look abstract. Steve Roach is a mini-deity to fans of music like this, and when he gets on stage to welcome us to SoundQuest Fest 2010, we clap, we hoot. We have worn breathable fabrics for the occasion because we are ready to sit for hour after hour and do absolutely nothing.
One complaint I might lodge is Powell's seeming implication that Roach straddles both New Age and ambience disciplines, applying the Brian Eno ethic of ambient music (“as ignorable as it is interesting”) to New Age's barbitual pleasantries and higher-power conceits.
The fact is that New Age music (if we're using the tag taped to record-store bin dividers) has a significant tradition in folk and classical underpinnings - you'd be challenged to find much relationship between Roach and the coterie of Windham Hill artists from 25 years ago, playing vigorously melodic and usually structured instrumental music on acoustic guitars and grand pianos - while the electronics sustaining Roach's music harkens back to the lengthy and largely improvised sonic forays of Tangerine Dream and (especially) Klaus Schulze of nearly forty years ago, both of whom staged brutally long shows of tonal abstractions coaxed from primitive sequencers and Moogs.
If you find musical comraderie between George Winston and Steve Roach, you may looking at both from too far away. A more deeply cynical observer might suggest that both music's ability to bore the average listener to stone reveals a common DNA - we're not sure if Powell hates the stuff that much, but he at least has the tact not to suggest it outright.
For me, I see Roach as more purely a product of the latter tradition - true, he borrows the ancient-culture/tribal influences like drumming and didgs reflective of the New Age lost-wisdom gestalt, but musically they usually seem to be textural dressing, secondary to the electronics.
Maybe it all seems a little different when experienced live - a lot of things do - and certainly a generous strata of gem-gazing New Agers at the concert likely influences the casual observer's perceptions of what they came to hear. For my part, while I like Roach's music and actually buy it and listen a lot to it, I don't care for all of it. The didg-'n-drumming thing usually doesn't do much for me. And whether or not I could sit through several hours of it, percussive or not, remains a speculation not likely to be tested in the near future.
Powell, at least, took a lengthy break to go home and fry up a couple of eggs. For now, all I need do is hit the Stop button on my CD player, and if whatever Roach is doing fails within that lamentably earthbound constraint, I'm not persuaded that it will be because I heard three hours too little of it.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Written words
After a relatively slow November, we have pieces scheduled for Mickey Hart, Greg Harris, Leftover Salmon, Trace Bundy and the enigmatic Trombone Shorty coming up for December. Busy month coming up.
We were pleased that we managed to turn out a decent (well, at least my editor liked it) piece on Ginga for Boulder Magazine, the local sextet specializing in Brazilian samba. I had my doubts going into this assignment, but Greg and Francisco were expansive interviews and the band has this thing happening.
I can't say I'm a sudden convert to it....but I like the vibe of the stuff, and the players are true professionals. Hope the piece helps grease the skids a bit for them.
We were pleased that we managed to turn out a decent (well, at least my editor liked it) piece on Ginga for Boulder Magazine, the local sextet specializing in Brazilian samba. I had my doubts going into this assignment, but Greg and Francisco were expansive interviews and the band has this thing happening.
I can't say I'm a sudden convert to it....but I like the vibe of the stuff, and the players are true professionals. Hope the piece helps grease the skids a bit for them.
Welp...
Second snow of this still-young autumn is melting reluctantly around town. Several ski areas are open, and I just brought my Head Monsters dow to Ski Deals for their annual tune.
At the risk of stating the obvious...I guess rafting season is over.
At the risk of stating the obvious...I guess rafting season is over.
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