Ok, I've been slack here in May, but precisely because it's been quite so full on. If for no other reason than to refresh my own deteriorating memory, a quick round up of things read, seen, noted, attended over the last month...
The Brighton Festival is always something of a curate's egg, and as my friend Anno pointed out, it doesn't really feel like there's a festival going on at all. That said, I attended three cracking nights, two of them very special indeed. Gore Vidal was interviewed by Andrew Marr at the Dome; though plainly frail and unwell, Vidal remains gloriously angry - indeed, cantankerous - about the decline of the American republic since 9/11, and about the fool in the White House. "I want it written in the constitution that no-one who believes in an afterlife can be president." Quite.
Also at the Dome, The Necks - surely the greatest improv group on the planet, and seemingly at the height of their powers right now - performed a one-off show, with pianist Chris Abrahams taking on the Dome's mighty 1936 pipe organ. Earlier on the night, To Rococo Rot's Robert Lippok had performed an enjoyable set on the organ, but seemed tentative throughout; not so Abrahams wh played it like he'd been doing so for the past decade. There are some nice documentary photos of the event on the Festival blog.
The organ was also in use for Medeski Martin and Wood's show with percussionist Airto Moreira. I hadn't seen MMW for the best part of a decade, but retained fond memories of a late 90s show at the Astoria. Now I'm not sure that they do anything decidedly new, but my god they can play. John Medeski has always been impressive (and tonight had the best keyboards ever made around him, as far as I could see: a B3, a Rhodes, clavinet, minimoog and mellotron. And a melodica. And the reed organ, of course). But for me drummer Billy Martin and bassist Chris Wood were the real revelation, leaping from freeform improv into very deep grooves with stunning alacrity. If I'm frank, I'm not sure that Airto was needed at all and at times it looked as though he thought that too. Again, some nice pics up on the Festival blog.
Very, very excited, PT 1. Only few weeks out from Cult of Luna's UK tour with Devil Sold His Soul. Meanwhile, the title track from the upcoming CoL album, Eternal Kingdom is up on their MySpace page.
Not at all biased... My son Franck's Yout project seems to be going from strength to strength. His side project (Jesus, "side project"; he's not even 16... I'm going home now) Cassettes definitely bears the hallmarks of having been at the Necks show, with a more expansive, improvised feel to it than Franck's more beat-driven work. He has a new MySpace for it and the whole piece is available there.
Very, very excited, PT 2. All Tomorrow's Parties have announced that this year's Nightmare Before Christmas will be curated by Melvins and Mike Patton. The festival will be held at Butlins in Minehead on December 5, 6 & 7th. Not many acts announced yet, but what have are pretty enticing: Fantomas performing the Directors Cut is surely going to be worth the trip alone.
Props to my old team at Somethin' Else Interactive for their very sympathetic filming of three gigs at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. I was particularly taken with the Tim Berne's Science Friction performance, featuring Berne on typically obtuse alto, drummer Bob Rainey, keyboardist Craig Taiborn and - my favourite, inevitably - the phenomenal guitarist Marc Ducret. On a professional note, I have to say that this kind of light weight, small-crewed filming of gigs is the way forward. I've now got to the point where I'm disappointed to leave a great gig knowing that no-one captured it on film (the Necks show, above, was a great case in point). We'll most likely retain the need for high-end filming of gigs for TV for some time, but that's not the future. This is.
In a riveting, and highly in-depth essay, software engineer Ivan Krstić talks about his involvement with the One Laptop per child project and his ultimate disappointment in it. I won't even attempt to precis it - it's vastly too complex a series of arguments he presents but it's a fascinating peak into the unravelling of a utopian project as practical realities kick in. (Thanks to Justin Spooner for pointing this one out.)
The Register reported on MusicAlly and The Leading Question's poll which claimed that only 14% of their respondents regularly bought music downloads while 22% used P2P regularly. "“They might buy a few tracks from iTunes when they get a new iPod for
Christmas but few go on to become regular paying downloaders,” said The
Leading Question's Tim Walker." The Reg also point out that if 86% of people aren't downloading using P2P on a regular basis then perhaps the industry should be looking elsewhere to account for its declining sales. They talk about CD burning and price slashing by the likes of Tesco's but I remain sceptical; they're significant, of course, but I feel that the rise and rise of participation culture is a huge factor here. I'll find some time to expand on this, I promise.
And my thanks to Paul Schütze for pointing out this absolutely extraordinary Argentinian wall animation by the Bologna-based artist Blu. Watch the whole thing and marvel. It's a beautiful bit of animation but impressive-beyond-belief, too. I can't even begin to imagine how long this took. Blu has one of his enormous pieces currently adorning the side of the Tate Modern in London, which he's also photo-blogged here.
Last chance to see... Talking of Paul, his show Twilight Science, which we mentioned last month, is in its last week at Alan Cristea in Cork Street London - it finishes on Saturday June 7th. Get down there quick!
The Register article points out some interesting aspects of the "The Music Industry is dying because of software piracy" claim. I always suspected it to be because of an outdated business model more than anything else.
Posted by: Free Burning Software | August 19, 2008 at 11:18 AM