[contextly_auto_sidebar] HERE is a piece I had not even heard of: "Lagrime di San Pietro," a chorale work by the ambiguously Italian composer Orlando di Lasso (who is usually described as Flemish). The Los Angeles Master Chorale put on this Renaissance work, directed by classical wildman Peter Sellars, about a week ago at Disney Hall. Despite my lack of knowledge of most chorale music, I took … [Read more...]
In Praise of Nuci’s Space
[contextly_auto_sidebar] MUCH of the time, it’s hard to know who the good guys are. Other times, essential things become clear. A few weeks ago I attended an event for the Athens, GA, musicians resource called Nuci’s Space, which was formed in honor or a young man, Nuci Phillips, who took his life in 1996. The place is dedicated to keeping musicians from despair. That night, we heard from a … [Read more...]
The Creative Class Thrives in Ancient Greece
[contextly_auto_sidebar] The second of my histories of the creative class just went up on the website for Radio Silence, the Bay Area journal dedicated to music and literature. Here's a passage from it: Greece saw a kind of civic society of music and dance. Every class from king to serf took part; the children of citizens were educated to sing and play the lyre; and guests at a drinking party … [Read more...]
Where did the creative class come from?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="H6GVlMAv9FbtIDTE6yRckcn9TVgOyWzQ"] YOUR humble blogger has been absolutely swamped with a cross-country move and writing about pop culture (mostly) for Salon. I hope to never leave CultureCrash fallow for nearly this long. At least, I've got something I'm proud of to post: Here is a piece on the site of the Bay Area music-meets-literature journal Radio Silence. It … [Read more...]
Where to Start with Ornette Coleman
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="vGiRx28JEAJa3NJAi6uPVSLuqhSRvvpA"] THE great Texas-born jazz musician, who died last week, worked in a number of genres -- free jazz, symphonic music, funk -- and it can be hard for newcomers to get a sense of him. Here's how I began my Salon piece on Coleman: Miles Davis said he must be “all screwed up inside” to play that way he did. Max Roach punched him in … [Read more...]
The Craftsman: Musician Matt Keating
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="EdVjbY1oGn33X3u5XD2sNfMAvy9nGcGd"] HERE at CultureCrash, we've been admirers of Matt Keating's music since we saw him play at a barbecue at South by Southwest in the '90s. I'm especially fond of his music from that period -- the Candy Valentine EP is an essential document that I don't think could be improved -- but he's been remarkably consistent in his pursuit of … [Read more...]
The Collapsing Fortunes of the Club Deejay
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Am8vEARmW7HozjXX5GcmuHgcQEc0fAD8"] WHEN people try to destroy my argument about a crisis in culture, one of their most common tacks is to suggest that I'm describing just the fading of an old world -- classical music, literary writing, print journalism and so on -- that is being eclipsed as a new, more democratic pop-culture-driven world rises, bestowing its … [Read more...]
The Horatio Alger Myth: Amanda Palmer
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="81zgKnkFndNWR6ZZyt0SEf1pDSPSHyWh"] DO musicians and artists need an equitable structure around them, or can they make it by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps? The latter point of view has been promoted -- perhaps incessantly -- by onetime Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer, a talented musician and canny businesswoman who has become a Horatio Alger hero for the … [Read more...]
Does Quality Exist? Does it Matter?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="wQDbiK53WLrcRyDIHLNO7bs9fTuwmnMY"] THE novelist Rick Moody tracked me down recently and asked me to go back and forth with him over the issue of aesthetic quality. He -- as an emissary of the literary blog The Rumpus -- was especially interested in the notion of art that was "born to be bad." We chewed on this issue for a while -- connecting the argument of my … [Read more...]
Fear of Music, Then and Now
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="gK38C6GBzzOfcwaZG1ZznJWnGv9vKRrO"] VIOLENT, authoritarian and fascist regimes often target artists, musicians, and the arts themselves -- this is something we see East and West, ancient and modern. The latest outbreak of what Talking Heads called "Fear of Music" seems to be taking place in the Middle East, where the Islamic State is destroying drums and other musical … [Read more...]