Cousin Bob

I'm such a trendy music blogger. Someday I hope to get my own ideas. Nevertheless, my recent Dylan kick actually preceeded all the hubbub over his new album Modern Times. I haven't heard it yet, but the sense seems to be either "You better watch out, Jesus is risen!" to "You better watch out, Grandpa's going inside to get his shotgun!". It should be noted that the latter doesn't really say anything about the album itself, more about his Rolling Stone interview.

I haven't heard Modern Times yet, but have heard Time Out of Mind and Love & Theft, Dylan's two most recent discs. Supposedly the new CD is a rough and tumble cowboy band like the last two. That's fine and all, but it's been nine years since Time Out of Mind came out. Nine years! Earlier in his career that's the same span it took him to go from the sparse arranging of John Wesley Harding to the big band sound of my current stage in my Dylan phase, the oft-maligned Street Legal. (That I actually investigated on the suggestion of the Rolling Stone article! Might as well put tape on my glasses)

Why have I taken to this ugly duckling of his catalogue? It's closer to Foghat than "Masters of War", but the songs are still there. My personal favorite, "No Time to Think", is reminiscent of another 70s Dylan trainwreck "Jokerman" in that it holds a slavish devotion to a verse-chorus ad infinitum format, much like a Minnesota hymn one might think. The downside is that without a bridge the song seems so damn long, hammering just two hooks into the deepest parts of your soul. Another thing that makes it seem long is that it is long, about seven and a half minutes.

Unlike some acts that have earned their carte-blanche through numbing consistency (*cough*AC/DC*cough*) Dylan has changed styles so much that, much like Bowie or eventually Radiohead, he could put out a album of farting and have reviewers peeing their pants over it. It might be a little disappointing that he's not taking more advantage of his invincibility star, at least he's putting out quality albums. And, you know, not the farting album.

Facebook/Shenanigans/Sounding the Alarm

I've publicized this blog to all of my private students, some of whom are as youthful as 8. So no more cussing. I'll try at least.

I'm also taking advantage of Facebook's mirroring feature or something. So no cussing from you guys either.

In more musical news Alarm Will Sound announced their 06/07 season, and they come within striking distance. As in two blocks.

Friday, February 16, 2007 at 7:00pm
Composer Portrait: Conlon Nancarrow
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 280 The Fenway, Boston, MA

Conlon Nancarrow, Piece No. 1 for Small Orchestra
Conlon Nancarrow, String Quartet No. 1
Conlon Nancarrow, Sonatina for Piano
John Orfe, piano
Conlon Nancarrow, Septet
Conlon Nancarrow, Three Movements
Conlon Nancarrow, Player Piano Study No. 2 arr. Gavin Chuck
Conlon Nancarrow, Player Piano Study No. 6 arr. Yvar Mikhashoff
Conlon Nancarrow, Player Piano Study No. 3A arr. Derek Bermel

But who's this Conlon Nancarrow guy? I only know him from his player piano studies, which are supposed to be beyond human ability. That's the sort of hubris I like from a modern ensemble, but those studies are beginning the taxing slope of academicism in my mind. I'll go anyway.

Unacceptable hiatus

I thought since Alex Ross was taking the summer off I might as well too. Not really, I'm still just biding my time until arriving in Boston. I'm writing a book too, but his will be cooler than mine. Unless you live in Oshkosh. However, on his blog I did stumble upon a column concerning Frank Martin, whose "Quatre Pieces Breves" I've been working on throughout the summer.

In the column Alex Ross freely admits that Frank Martin is no household name, but he holds a special place in the hearts of many guitarists since his "Pieces" is one of the first great breaks with the Iberian tradition that Segovia firmly enforced during his tenure as "the" guitarist. Martin wrote the gnarly, angular work in 1933 for Segovia, who promptly rejected it, and it wouldn't see much light until Julian Bream (who service to post-tonal music is often overlooked compared to his work with early music, funny how those always seem to go together) championed it in the 60s just before Martin's death.

However like most guitarists I haven't explored much beyond that, so when Alex Ross describes him as "one of the greatest religious composers of the past two hundred years" it's a bit like being handed a locked box. Is there anything it? Does it matter? Such concepts are harder to decipher when you don't have, you know, words. Searching for meaning within the brambles and tone rows should be a acceptable musicological challenge until I arrive on the East.

Sorry if it's a bit anti-climatic. I found $5.

A Battle on Three Fronts

Sorry about the delay, it turns out the logistics of moving across the country take far more time than any sort of mental or artistic preparation. Crock of shit.

Either way, The Rambler draws my attention to a fire-and-brimstone sermon about the state of artistic politics from the Telegraph. (I hear they give papers names like that in the Ingleterre!) Powerful stuff, something I've definitely bothered my friends destined for education with.

But more importantly, I may not be able to make it in person but if you're going to be in the New York area this weekend you should go to the Full Force festival at Tonic. John Zorn has curated the "new rock complexity" and my former sensei Kevin Gallagher will be playing with his neato band Electric Kompany on Saturday at 8 PM. It might be the best thing ever.

Side note: I love these Augustine Imperial Blues.

Boycott Delta

Being admittedly green about all this, I've been wary of unions and societies and other congregations of people wielding mob power. I did finally bring myself to joining ASCAP today, we'll see if I can sneak by with those couple songs I did long ago with my rock band of questionable quality.

The Union, and by capital U Union I refer to the American Federation of Musicians, still weirds me out a little despite that fact that as mainly a performer it's probably a better fit for me than ASCAP. (And look at all those cool people on the titlebar! How can they be bad if they've got...uh...the guy from the Goo Goo Dolls? And Paul Shaeffer?) All I knew about them was when Bryan told me that Disney didn't hire union musicians, and that was four years ago. However, they've now raised the alarm on something that has actually affected me.

Delta Air, long known as the worst airline ever for all time forever, is being boycotted for explicitly ignored a polite AFM letter asking to allow musicians to carry on their instruments. Violinist.org has the most vitriolic post, and apparently been hollering about it for some time, but ANABlog has the real grit, photos of some of the instruments decimated by their throwers.

Guitarists have it rather lucky, my Stephen Kakos classical is a masterfully made instruments and yet I obtained it for a mere $2300. (This post may be edited for insurance fraud purposes.) Also, after an incident where a Boston to Appleton to flight left me stranded in Atlanta, it's not a hard sell to get me to boycott Delta. Alas, I'm still the tax bracket where I have to Priceline all my flights. Just another reason to buy a Calton case.

Lastly, if it seems like I'm stealing all my post ideas from Darcy James Argue, I am. He's cool, I suck.

How We Like Our Composers

I would scarcely be even close to attaining my goal of being a "modern concert music blog" without mentioning the passing of György Ligeti a couple days ago. Not to say that I just heard of it, I do try and pay attention. (Do The Math and On An Overgrown Path both give stirring eulogies) However as much embarrassmentt as it may bring me I wasn't really familiar with the man's work, and thus felt a little unable to add my praise.

My local library did manage to have some full length Ligeti pieces (most notably his opera Le Grand Macabre), but it of course had that most hallowed of Ligeti primers, the soundtrack to Kubrick's 2001. My feelings towards opera and my clearly patrilineal fondness for Kubrick will have to be different posts, but despite the soundtrack disc's feeling as though the Ligeti pieces were cut up into smaller pieces for easy chewing it's been haunting me for the past couple days. Is the Requiem seriously only six minutes long? What a bonebreaker!

Alas, what perhaps I regret the most is that the man still had to die before I discovered these riches. I'm not sure if his involvement with 2001 caused more notice in the mainstream media, and I'm sure if Kubrick had outlasted him he'd be making a scene. Just more of that "we prefer our composers/artists/poets dead" mentality. Requiem indeed.

My Goals Beyond

First posts are always awkward, especially for readability, but falling out the door is better than not coming outside at all. There's also a heavy sense of purpose, the need to make it some sort of manifesto. But the hell with that noise.

I'm a guitarist graduating from Lawrence University, a small liberal arts school in Appleton, Wisconsin, and moving in the fall to the big cit-ay of Boston Mass. I aim to use this space to chronicle my full-scale invasion of the contemporary concert music scene. My pedigree isn't necessarily lacking, having studied with Kevin Gallagher and Marcos Balter, but isn't going to turn any heads either. My initial attempts to find a community were lacking, but hopefully being in the thick of things rather than depending on the Inter-tron will help.

I hope to be able to start a podcast of some sweet sweet bleeding-edge music, to followed by putting together my own ensemble following in the footsteps of skull crackers like Icebreaker and Alarm Will Sound, but I imagine everyone's trying to do that now.

Anyway, let's see where this goes.