May 16, 2008
May 15, 2008
links for 2008-05-15
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"a Resource for Scholarship in the History of Photography"
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drawing on "online collections created by institutions in the U.S."
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from Square America
May 14, 2008
Wooten Bros
Darryl Landry sent me the link to this, in response to yesterday's excess:
...and I'll bookend it with
I don't find these as incomprehensible or inaccessible as the Die Like A Dog example, perhaps because I dimly grasp what the musicians are doing.
May 13, 2008
The outer limits
or maybe outré... Peter Brotzmann (alto & tenor saxophones, tarogato), Toshinori Kondo (trumpet, electronics), William Parker (double bass), and Hamid Drake (drums, percussion) are the Die Like a Dog Quartet. Their performance at the Berlin Jazz Festival 1995 is available, 9:31 of it. I know precisely ONE person who is equipped and inclined to appreciate this sort of thing. All I can do is shake my head in wonder. Can't say I like it, let alone understand it, but I guess I'm willing to accept that there's something to understand. From WFMU's Beware of the Blog.
Deceptively simple
Echidne of the Snakes sometimes includes links to YouTube musics. This one has a pretty remarkable guitar accompaniment by Senegalese wizard Hervé Samb, whose fingers are unfortunately not clearly seen in the video. His MySpace page has some more examples of his playing, but I haven't found any recordings for sale just yet.
May 12, 2008
May 11, 2008
Gliss
About 5 years ago I happened upon a Glissentar 
in a music store where I ummmm just happened to be (happens a lot...) and didn't resist. For those unfamiliar with the instrument, it's sort of a baritone oud (in terms of its string setup, with 5 unison pairs and a single bass string), fretless, with piezo pickup. I haven't really tamed it to my purposes, for reasons that I don't quite understand, and a couple of days ago I came close to deciding to sell it (not something I am in the habit of doing with instruments --I buy them, and have them). I've reconsidered that rash decision, and now I'm thinking about new departures I might assay instead. Since my chequered musical career has been almost entirely acoustic, I'm pretty clueless about what happens and could happen when an instrument is plugged in, but I guess it's not too late to learn. I've found several YouTubish bits that suggest possible directions starting with Robert Godin himself talking about the glissentar:
I also found some worthwhile bits on setup and string alternatives (n.b. Savarez Alliance).But how can a player actually use the instrument? It's interesting to see Michael Vick's guitaristic approach, but it's not what I want to do myself:
I'm more attracted to Fatih Ahiskali's approach to the instrument as a variety of oud, and his chops are pretty impressive (he uses both the traditional oud plectrum and an idiosyncratic finger style):
and this, where he ventures into classical guitar repertoire:
and THIS one is really spectacular:
May 10, 2008
May 09, 2008
Politics
via a link on Kate Beaton's deleriously wonderful Hark! A Vagrant:
