If you have any interest in Frank Zappa, Kill Ugly Radio is a great resource for news, information and gems like this – young female musicians attacking and conquering The Black Page – easily one of the hardest Zappa drum parts in the entire repertoire.
Here’s Heather Thomas with the Washington University Percussion Ensemble:
And Lucy Landymore with a solo performance and some interview footage:
Check out the whole post (with more video) at Kill Ugly Radio.
Because, you know, when I have to find out about new music from the New Yorker, then I finally get a chance to realize how FUCKING PATHETIC I am. Fortunately, good music doesn’t give a rat’s ass.
When was the last time you watched a movie for over an hour-and-a-half and then just bailed out on the last 40 minutes because you didn’t give a shit and life is to damn short? At least this way, I didn’t have a problem with the ending – because I didn’t watch. There is NO ending that could redeem such a bland, uninteresting, boring and foolish piece of filmmaking. I just didn’t care.
‘From Beyond’ which I watched earlier in the day, was so good, it kinda makes up for the unfortunate (and now incomplete) nightcap.
Pure, wonderful silliness.
A good comic book or graphic novel is a phenomenal work of art. It can be literary, subversive, disturbing, titillating, all while being potentially very accessible.
The idea of taking a great comic book and presenting it in real-time, such that the audience experiences the visual presentation freed from the confines of a small page – that’s an idea that CAN work. Usually this comes about as a movie adaptation.
Music, especially rock music, has a great ability to enhance emotion and communicate drama in extreme measures. A real-time presentation of a comic book or graphic novel cries out for an ambitious musical component.
Performance, true performance, happens on a stage and has always been 3-D. True performance places musicians and actors in the same physical space as the audience. True performance does not get to rely on computer editing, or special effects animation. True performance provides a more direct experience to the audience.
I believe that a project which combines all of these values is not impossible. I believe there are risks that ‘The Theater’ has expectations and baggage which will necessarily detract from and harm this project. Even without worrying about a schmaltzification, the project may literally collapse under the weight of it’s own ambitiousness.
And yet, I understand why it should be attempted.
Both of these apps are incredible! The multi-touch interface of the iPad just makes it all come together, even for me – someone who has no idea what he is doing. First check out this jam from Saturday morning using Rebirth from Propellerhead:
Although I find the sounds of Rebirth to be more historically relevant / important (Roland TB-303 x2, TR-808 and TR-909), the Korg iMS-20, which is an emulation of an analog synth called, not surprisingly, MS-20, is a little easier to nuts with. Plus, the super-slick Soundcloud integration has me thinking about upgrading to a premium account. Uh-oh…
New Session 2010-11-20 10.27.42.wav by mpomy
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… and everything is going great. I’ve just been all about this browser from Scandinavia for so long (could it be, on and off, ten years?), that I can’t let it go. I’ve just finished many months using Safari because the earlier version of Opera 10 could not handle Google Calendar. Although that problem is not currently solved, it is being very well managed. The calendar simply has a tendency to be a bit too wide, so a little scrolling allows you to see everything clearly. The one other issue I’m having is with the Nike+ page that I use to keep track of my running. Opera, at least for Mac, can’t see that page at all. Also, legal research at Lexis is still being done on Safari, but I haven’t tried the latest update Opera. It may work, but the folks at Lexis have one of the worst websites of all time, so I’m inclined to not challenge it with anything remotely out of the ordinary.
Before going back to Opera, I did give the Firefox 4 beta a go and it was lovely, showed every page I could think of, but was slow with extensions. In fact, it was slow without extensions. I know everyone loves Firefox, but I’ve never had a good experience with consistent use. Maybe once 4 is finalized I’ll give it another go. It’s got tremendous features.
I haven’t gone back to Chrome for a long time, and I really don’t know why. My main issue is that I have an aging computer (almost three years!!) and I need the lightest software available. Chrome advertises itself as such and I liked it while I used it, and now can’t remember why I stopped. Maybe I should give it a go again.
But Opera is like an old friend, like a certain band that is so cool, but nobody else knows about it. Plus, stuff from Scandinavia are awesome!
Minisynth from Yonac Software is an extremely powerful synth for iPad – it was one of the first ones I picked up. The interface is beautiful and easy to use and the keys are nice and big. Since I installed this bad boy, I’ve been thrilled with the quality of sound manipulation available – it’s phull on PHAT.
Now Apple is getting ready to add midi to the iPad, which means that we’ll be able to control the powerful music machines, like Minisynth with a standard midi controller keyboard – thus eliminating the need for a PC or laptop in performance. The next version of Minisyth will interface with the iPad’s new midi capabilities.
To demonstrate just how far you can take this, Yonac has released the following video showing the next version of Minisynth, jamming with the next version of iOS for the iPad. The performance also benefits from another Yonac app, Minidrums, which I have not yet tried.
But in this video, my heart has been stolen. So many years ago, when I was just at the earliest moments of my music education, I came across Pink Floyd’s A Saucerful of Secrets, the title track from their second album. The song is a cacophonous arrangement of sound effects and rhythms through it’s first half, but resolves into a beautiful progression played by the late Rick Wright on Hammond. The juxtaposition enhances the effect, but even on its own, the progression is a haunting thing of epic beauty. That finale of the Floyd’s early masterpiece forms the basis of the synth jam you see below. I have also attached a video of the original, as performed by Gilmour, Mason, Waters and Wright at Pompeii in 1970. Watch them in whatever order you see fit.
(h/t the amazing Synthopia)
I would be all about this for the soundtrack alone, but then factor in the extraordinary imagery of this trailer for “Beyond The Black Rainbow” and it simply takes my breath away. Get more details at Quiet Earth, but here’s the trailer that was shared earlier today:
I’m posting this more for my benefit, as Kurt takes you through how to build a song with ReBirth for iPad. I’d messed with the iPhone version, but it’s too damn small. This looks beautiful and I can’t wait to start messing.
How much do love @peff? I kinda wish he would do a similar review for the Korg iMS-20, which I picked up yesterday. It also sounds pretty hot and has huge versatility. Hopefully I’ll be posting jams (complete with resonator slide guitar parts?!?) from both of these killer apps soon.