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Playing the Building
Thanks to the folks at Creative Time, this installation will finally open in NYC at the end of this month. Here is the press release: Playing the Building, a 9,000-square-foot, interactive, site-specific installation by David Byrne, will transform the interior of the landmark Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan into a massive sound sculpture that all visitors are invited to sit and “play.” Byrne’s project will consist of a retrofitted antique organ placed in the center of the building’s cavernous second-floor gallery that will control a series of devices attached to its structural features—metal beams, plumbing, electrical conduits, and heating and water pipes. These machines will vibrate, strike, and blow across the building elements, triggering unique harmonics and producing finely tuned sounds. As Byrne explains, it is an elaborate system for “activating the sound-producing qualities that are inherent in all materials.”
Playing the Building marks the first time in decades that the second floor of the Battery Maritime Building will be accessible to the public. The space will be open and free to all visitors on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday throughout the summer of 2008. Everyone will be invited to sit at the organ, tap on the keys, and create a unique array of sounds that travel through the space. In addition, David Byrne and Creative Time will invite guest musicians to challenge his creation through a series of performances and jam sessions.
A new page on davidbyrne.com contains more info on this project, including the location and hours, pictures, videos, interviews, and all that.
Here Lies Love Continues…
Cyndi Lauper came in to the studio last week to sing 1½ songs for the Here Lies Love album. She was about an hour and a half late to the session, so I fully expected to be in for some prime diva behavior. But, as I’d run overtime on the earlier brass sessions, it all worked out great, and Cyndi gave an amazingly fine-tuned performance. Not only is she a wonderful singer from a technical point of view, but she can tailor her attitude and performance to suit the character and the character’s emotional state.
This is exactly the skill set I need for this project. After giving Cyndi the back-story on a particular song and establishing the context of the lyrics, I would give directions like, “Yes, she’s a little angry, but also heartbroken and confused.” Cyndi would then incorporate these complex emotions into her performance with seeming ease. She’d ask, for example, “You want more anger in this verse?” And sure enough, she’d dial a little more in. Very impressive.
Stay Awake and Standards
This Wednesday, I’m participating in a benefit concert for St. Ann’s Warehouse, a performance center in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Last year’s benefit consisted of performances of sea shanties and pirate ditties curated and musically directed by Hal Willner. This year he’s been brought in to (sort of) recreate Stay Awake, a record he produced in 1988 featuring unexpected singers and musicians performing songs from Disney films.
The song selection is drawn primarily from the vintage classics, movies like Snow White and Cinderella, rather than The Little Mermaid and Enchanted. For some, these older Disney tunes have become standards, and many were in fact written by the classic songwriters of that period. I would argue that the grammar and lexicon of the classic pop songs would become the classical music of the 20th Century. These songs were often innovative and complex in their construction, but always tuneful. Sophisticated short symphonies were balanced by equally sophisticated jazz and blues compositions, which at that time, held the public enthralled.
In the last couple of decades, the Disney songs are more convoluted in structure — more a mix of sung banter and hook and less compact. I prefer the old tunes, but that could be because I heard them on red and yellow kiddie vinyls as a child.
Years ago, I eventually joined the ranks of millions of others who found many of these standards moving and beautiful. I often dislike the way they were performed, all schmaltzy and with swing in inappropriate places. I don’t care for Sinatra, for example. It was probably Willie Nelson’s Stardust produced by Booker T. Jones that finally won me over. I started picking up the songbooks and fakebooks and learning the songs at home.
I have no ambition of following Bryan Ferry or Rod Stewart and recording a series of standards’ albums. But, by playing these songs, I began to sense how they were constructed, how they used certain devices to pull at the heartstrings and others to keep a melody interesting. I suspect I began to incorporate some of these “tricks” into my work, but in my own way, and with my own lyrics, which are usually miles apart from the lyrics of the traditional pop song. Although, Cole Porter’s “list” songs, and similar ones by Gershwin and others, take on a form I find easily adaptable to a lot of styles.
Under African Skies
The following week, I will join Paul Simon for a series of performances at the BAM where he currently holds a month-long residency. Simon invited a number of guest performers to cover his material, and divided the shows into three series: the Latin and doo-wop influenced material, the African and Brazilian influenced material (the nights I’m performing), and his own classic songs.
Like many others, I grew up listening to and learning the Simon & Garfunkel repertoire. However, it was one of his more recent records — You’re the One — that really knocked me out, even more than Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints, which one might expect me to identify with, since I was also collaborating with musicians from Africa and Brazil around the same time. The record didn’t sell that well, but to my ears, he had finally internalized all he’d learned from his earlier collaborations. He had made something that didn’t sound like any of his sources or inspirations, yet couldn’t have been made without them. We crossed paths somewhere and I told him how much I liked that record and maybe that helped break the ice.
Some months ago, we started meeting occasionally and we’d fall into talking about how we write and what the process is and where we get stuck and when it’s easy. I would sit, rapt, as I felt like I was hearing the words of a master songwriter, a kind of magician who was going to reveal to me, over lunch, some of his best tricks. Here was a more contemporary Gershwin or Cole Porter who was going to tell me a little of how it was done. Listen up.
Well, it didn’t happen exactly like that. Specific harmonic devices don’t always work for everyone in the same way, for example. At times, Paul and I might actually use very similar ways of writing words, but in the end, what we gravitate to — the lyrics we choose to be best and most suitable — is unique to each of us. So his tricks are essentially useless to me. I could, however, extrapolate, and find common ground in the decision-making process along the way. Our discussions yielded more about what might drive an artist to continue creating than they did songwriting advice. What does one do when confronted with a problem? And how can an artist remain passionate and interested in writing little songs?
Model Number 7: Fan Supported Label/Distribution
Just read the second of a number of articles on Maria Schneider, the jazz composer, and the release of her new album. She’s up for a Grammy, which probably prompted these articles, as her lovely new CD — which isn’t actually a CD — is only available as a download through ArtistShare, her current “record label”. The album, Sky Blue, is a suite composed for a seventeen-piece jazz orchestra, so it must have cost something to record and mix.
ArtistShare offers yet another alternative to the traditional record label deal — another possibility to add to the ever-growing list of other possibilities. Again, it probably wouldn’t work for everyone, but it certainly seems to be working for her. ArtistShare asks the fans of an artist to contribute to the making of a future record. (Obviously, this means the artist must have some fans to begin with, so emerging artists might give this one a pass.) A donation of $9.99 gets you a download of the album when it’s done, along with some texts, notes and images and a few other extras.
But then the deal ramps up in steps. A deeper investment gets you concert tickets and other perks and the highest you can go is 18k, which wouldn’t fund a mega pop record or a project in the cash only business of hip hop, but in this case it gets you a credit as a producer. You can attend the recording sessions, obtain tickets to live shows, and can even attend the Grammy’s with Maria and her producer or label guy.
I imagine that in Maria’s case, she spends a lot of time composing (with either a computer or with pencil and paper). And then the actual recording process might be fairly straightforward — some band rehearsals in any large room before renting a large studio to record the stuff more or less live over the course of a few days. Mixing and post-production could be done in a smaller, cheaper studio. So, though I doubt that 18k for example would cover it all — she works with a large ensemble — the sum would at least take a big bite out of the recording costs.
For the most part, distribution is through digital downloads, so those costs are kept under control (though I think the larger investors get signed hard copies as well as their downloads).
How did she do? Well, pretty good I’d say, though she didn’t win a Grammy this time (she got one in 2004). She got 200k from fan/participants for her record, of which 15% went to the “label”. The rest, 170k, went directly to the artist. (I suspect the recording costs come out of that as well, which must have been at least 20-30k). AND, she didn’t have to give up any of her publishing, which traditional labels often manage to get a big piece of.
Anyway, add this one to the list of possible distribution models.
(See the original article published in Wired Magazine here)
Recently, I wrote a piece for Wired magazine about some of the changes in the music business from an artist’s point of view (see article here). Amongst other things, I laid out a variety of possible distribution models, while also claiming that the lower price of recording these days leaves artists less dependent on record labels to bankroll the studio costs than in the past.
I was called on this latter claim by two folks — curiously, they’re both Canadian. Here are some excerpts from the email exchange.
From Issa (formerly Jane Siberry, who did a pay what you wish offer for her recording a couple of years ago):
“Make records for almost nothing? I suppose. I’m already at 40K and I'm keeping it extremely lean. Just working with an engineer in a hotel room at $300 a day for him. And I still have to sing and mix. I really don't think I could do it for less.”
My reply:
"Yeah, you're right. I exaggerate. I could make a record here in my home demo studio for nothing, but I haven’t yet. Yes, I too pay an engineer when I’m recording other singers, other musicians and adding strings or mixing and the costs add up."
From Howard Bilerman (who played with Arcade Fire and is now an engineer/producer and co-owns the hotel2tango studio in Montreal):
“While it's true that the laptop recording setup made self-produced recordings worlds easier than before, the simple truth is that laptops alone don't make records. First off, there is the peripheral equipment needed...microphones, stands, cables, pre-amps, sound cards, headphones, speakers, hard-drives, instruments, etc. And while the cost of the aforementioned has cascaded in the past decade, a complete and flexible home studio setup still comes at a price. Then, of course, there is the issue of know-how — recording skills and technique — two incredibly important factors in making a decent sounding recording, and two things that don't come "with the laptop". Lastly, there is mastering, currently hovering (at the low end scale) at around $750-$1,000. Even these moderate costs can make recording out of reach for many bands.
All tolled, in addition to the laptop, a band is looking at between $5,000 - $10,000 in extra costs just to have the ability to record themselves (I am talking about having enough equipment to record a four-piece band live with enough channels to mic a drum-kit). Yes, there are alternatives, rental being one of them. But, that still doesn't account for the skills and technique part of the equation. The only analogy that comes to me is, you can buy a cheap pair of scissors at every corner store, but that doesn't mean everyone (wants to or) should be out there cutting their own hair."
My reply:
You’re the second person to correct me on this issue. I confess that I myself haven’t been able to make a record for “nothing”, and I’m improving as an engineer. I still add stuff in a proper studio and have someone else mix it. As you said, it’s valuable to have other ears involved and I have no interest in learning how to do everything DIY. And yes, I have invested in some gear over the years — not a whole studio (I can’t record drums or anything), but a computer, a pre-amp, a couple of good mics and some software. So yeah, about 10k right there.
But I’m getting close, depending on the record. I’m working on one now and the cost is way lower than it would have been. So I haven’t had to go to a record company, for example, to cover the costs. And, in general, though I exaggerated too much in the Wired piece, the costs have indeed come down dramatically — as you say the days of a regular band spending 100k are probably over.
Howard:
“The people who come through my studio most often are people in their very early twenties who find it hard to even cobble together enough $$$ for their rent and school, let alone any fancy recording equipment or a proper studio session. In these cases, I have seen bands take $7,000-$15,000 advances from labels, in exchange for their masters in perpetuity. It's pretty much low level crime, and certainly in those cases I WISH recording merely cost the price of a laptop. You are absolutely right...compared to 20 years ago, recording does indeed cost next to nothing. But, that still doesn't stop the industry from hoodwinking the kids for their own benefit. It makes me sad. Maybe we are on the cusp of a change?”
Caetano Veloso
Saw Caetano’s show last night. It was his version of a rock show. He had the audience singing along in Portuguese, “I hate you, I hate you”. Caetano mixed in some older songs with songs from his last record, Cê, which is lyrically angry and sad, and takes a minimal rock approach quite unlike anything else. There’s lots of space in the sound — sometimes the chords and harmonies, often pretty sophisticated in Caetano songs, are here barely hinted at. I wasn’t sure how this band — all young musicians centered around the amazing guitar player Pedro Sa — would handle the older stuff more familiar to the audience. They changed some of the older songs, giving them spikier and more fractured textures, but it worked. Lyrically, the differences may be more radical; the older stuff is generally sweeter than this new batch of songs, more often filled with turmoil and testiness. But this initial feeling of disquiet leads inevitably to captivation — even the cries of “I hate you” were somehow beautiful. They weren’t snarled as a punk or Emo band would do, but sung almost sweetly, and with a bewildered sadness that somehow those heavily charged words and feelings are bursting forth — the sadness of watching yourself say you hate someone.
It was my first time in the Nokia Theater, a weird underground corporate space. I ran into Stokes, who remembered that it was a big Times Square movie theater years ago. He said this was where he saw Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. For this show the “orchestra” area was standing, with some VIP balcony tables and then rows of theater seating further back. The sound was so good I didn’t even notice how clear it was until after the show. I don’t know if the theater’s remodeling should be credited for the sound clarity or Caetano’s sound mixer.
Tall and/or Wide News
On the way up to Times Square I passed the new NY Times building, whose lobby was all lit up. Beyond the atrium I could see masses of black-suited people at the far end. They must have been there for a grand opening — this new building, designed by Renzo Piano, has been under construction in my neighborhood for years. The Grey Lady gets a punk haircut is how I would categorize it. I’m sure there are some lovely spaces inside, and it will be a great relief for the employees to have more light, but the building seems unremarkable outside, and pretty big, imposing and tall too. Rather than being sequestered in a mere 14-story block of rabbit warrens, now the news media can gaze down on their former haunt and on the rest of us, as befits the US national newspaper (not counting USA Today and The Onion.) There is a new auditorium space adjacent to the tower, so it will be interesting to see if the Times begins to present music, speakers, symposiums and other events in that new space. That would be a welcome addition.
I can’t help but look at this new skyscraper and think, “They sure are optimistic ‘bout print journalism”. Or maybe they have plans, and are diversifying in ways I am unaware of. I myself read the NY Times and about three other newspapers online most mornings. I also look at a few blogs and other sites fairly regularly. I paid to be member of Times Select for a while, until they decided to make all that material available again without charge. I also pick up newsstand copies once or twice a week. I don’t know if I am typical, but if I am I suspect not too many people will be buying print journalism for much longer — most people will become accustomed to getting the news for free, as many folk already feel that they do when they turn on a TV in the morning as they get ready for work, or as they listen to the car radio on their commute.
Of course, much TV and radio is paid for by commercials, so the “free” part is a bit of an illusion. “Television Delivers People” as Richard Serra (yes, that Richard Serra, the iron man sculptor) wrote in a video piece he did decades ago. Television “delivers” the viewers, the audience, to the advertisers. The content, whether news or American Idol, is generally just sufficiently interesting to hold your attention through to the next commercial. Federal laws mandated that TV networks give a certain amount of time to news and “public affairs,” the latter usually relegated to dead time on Sunday mornings. Legislators in the past realized that an informed populace is essential for a democracy, or some semblance of one. Without those mandates I wonder how much less the populace would know. In other countries it’s easy to see that when one controls the news media one controls what people think. When it works best, the populace barely knows the news their getting is filtered and skewed.
In print, ads are massive and expensive. I admit, I occasionally glance at them and sometimes I read the ad copy. I suspect that the print newspaper costs a little more that its newsstand price of $1.25 to write, print and distribute, and those ads cover the losses. In glossy fashion and art magazines there are more pages of ads than there are of copy; the copy seems more like interruptions among the pages of gallery ads or pictures of petulant models. It’s fairly easy to see how these pages might pay for the rest of the newspaper or magazine.
Google has tiny ads on the sides and tops of their search pages. They’re fairly unobtrusive, which means they load quickly, don’t take up much room and can give the appearance of not being ads, but instead more unbiased, useful information. If I’m looking for something — tent poles maybe — and an ad at the side of my search names a retailer that sells them, I have been known to click there. These ads are generally filtered to be relevant to your searches; they prey on (or cater to) your interest at that moment. Online versions of newspapers and magazines have slightly larger, more intrusive ads than Google, though nothing like the full-page movie or fashion ads in the print media. There are often just a few per page. Here are some from a page in the Arts section of the NY Times. Two movie ads are paired with a (fascinating and hilarious) review of a Polish metal band.
I assume, without any justification, that to some extent these ads pay for the “newspaper”, or whatever one calls an online news source. They allow me to go to these sites for free. Once in a great while I do indeed click on those movie ads in order to see the trailer. I wish there was also a link to the Behemoth (the Polish band) website, or a streaming version of some of their songs, or a video clip of the concert. Sometimes there is. Whether a review can remain objective and link to the bands website or to their record company is an unanswered question. I think it’s risky, but it seems obvious and easy, UNLESS that record company pays for the link.
Anyways…this is a long round about way of asking if these teeny little ads pay for that big skyscraper and all the news trolls working in it? Is that really possible? Economically how does that work? It boggles my mind. It doesn’t seem feasible, but maybe I don’t know how much these little banner ads cost.
I also ask myself, if it is as unfeasible as I imagine, what will happen to print, or any form of journalism, as everything migrates online? The writers’ strike accurately points out that, at least for many of us, our computers are now our TVs. We watch streaming programs, from either a network site or You Tube or wherever, anytime we please. Some of these have adjacent ads and some have ads before the “show” starts. One doesn’t, to be honest, feel quite as captive to the ads as one did on traditional network TV, but that could be an illusion.
I wonder if a wiki online newspaper could work? Wikinews already exists, and its articles consist of both original and hybrid (i.e. cobbled together from other sources) pieces. If eventually it becomes impossible to have investigative reporters, foreign correspondents and writers spend time performing extensive research — as is the case more and more — then does the news media necessarily have to turn into a version of a White House press office handout, as it sometimes seems these days? Maybe not. Much reporting from various parts of the world already originates from bloggers and other “amateurs”. Admittedly, much of it is celebrity sightings and gossip, or tales of personal woe or prurient interest, but sometimes major stories and opinions missed by the official media erupt from blogs and other outside sources. And sometimes the truth emerges, as opposed to official lies. Danielle says that Wikinews was way ahead of the traditional media reporting for Katrina. If all the folks in every far flung town who have local knowledge, digital cameras, and an ability to write clearly (and accurately?) contributed a wikinews site, or to the Wikinews site, then wouldn’t that save the cost of correspondents, some investigative research (lots of folks adopt digging up info as a personal obsession), office space (that skyscraper), etc., etc.?
Well, I can’t imagine how that obsessive network of lunatic amateur reporters could be filtered to yield an approachable, readable, and vaguely trustworthy experience, but somehow dispersing and widening the net that catches news seems to have already happened, whether it’s in Wikinews or not. It merely awaits a structure, an (self-) organizing principle of which there may be some examples we can borrow from nature, from our neurons, from the various biological and ecological systems that surround us. (Lots of poop jokes based on intestinal based algorithms here, but anyway…) I can’t figure out why Wikinews isn’t filled with gossip, or news according to a retired Czech schoolteacher (which might pass their criteria test as well as anything) or hundreds of thousands of articles of purely local interest.
Someone, some group, or something is, I suspect, make selections and acting as a filter. There’s an aggregate of wikieditors out there making what amounts to a (partially comprehensive) news source. Would the wiki world be using some algorithm to sort through contributions? Surely news shouldn’t be featured according to what is the most popular — if it were we’d be seeing mainly to gossip, gadgets, sport, videogames and porn in a minute. As it is, it doesn’t seem anywhere near as comprehensive as, well, the NY Times, but time will tell. By policy the wiki world excludes reviews and such: there are no movie reviews, concert or CD reviews, or theater reviews. It might be opening Pandora's box to make the people’s choice available, but it might be all the more interesting. To some extent a critic’s job is to help us see (or hear) something we might otherwise pass over, or not take the time to investigate, and I doubt the herd will likely fulfill that function. But who knows?
Went to see Sufjan Stevens’s piece at the BAM. The first half was a new “cinematic suite” called “The BQE”. Various elements evoked semi-romantic film soundtracks and the Phillip Glass movies (there were three projected videos running simultaneously). But it didn’t matter; the nutty celebration was so inventive and wacky and sometimes genuinely loving that none of those connections affected my enjoyment.
The inclusion of hula hoops, both live and on-screen, juxtaposed with car wheels, Coney Island rides, fireworks and traffic at night, was out of left field and pretty wonderful.
The second half was a sort of greatest hits with expanded orchestrations. Essentially similar to, though shorter than, his last touring show, which was good.
Today was the NY marathon.
Wanted to bike to Long Island City, but the Queensboro Bridge bike lane was closed (for the handicapped they said, though it was completely empty). Took the Roosevelt Island tram instead (the view is from there), and rode down by the abandoned lunatic asylum. There was no one around. From the tip of the island one has a great view of the UN building and a rocky island filled with cormorants — an odd sight for NYC.
We had a snack at a nice Hunters Point café and watched outside as the cleanup crews picked up the piles of paper cups and tissues that had been handed out to the runners. Here the streets ran bright yellow with Gatorade — it looked like the marathoners had all peed themselves. A few stragglers limped and walked by, and I wondered if I would be privileged to see the very last person in the marathon, a sight more rare and more difficult to establish than who came in first. I think it was a man in a multicolored headwrap with a few-days-growth beard, who might have been smoking a cigarette as he made his way up the street, listing slightly towards the curb.
Went to see an act named The Blow, which is essentially one woman, Kaela Maricich. Her initial collaborator, Jona Bechtolt, made the beats and has since moved on. What a great show! She was the only one on stage in her all white outfit, but she held everyone’s attention throughout. Her act is a little hard to describe — containing elements of hip hop and pop, she rhymes and sings catchy choruses over loopy beats. She also reminded me of Miranda July (who happens to be her friend), and Ellen DeGeneres, but with a lot of really unique dancing, or throwing shapes, as they say in the UK. There was a lot of patter between songs, stories that flowed and connected the music — sometimes the punch line of a story would seem to trigger a beat and a song. The timing, the flow, was perfect. In that sense, it was almost a musical, though not like anything else out there. Sometimes she used props, like a dry-cleaning bag or a plastic water bottle. (Here is a picture from her Flickr page.)
The songs, some of them, are super catchy, and as a result she attracted a healthy sized, and fairly young audience in this alt-rock venue (The Blender Theater) — but her act is pretty damn eccentric and arty for a pop act, even for an alt-pop audience if you ask me. But here it was, something that was determined to be what it was and not pander to pop performance expectations. Yet, she jumped into a pop context and succeeded.
Shot a video with live audio of me riding through the streets of Times Square to Town Hall with a camera mounted on my helmet. The final video will be used as a show-beginning gag at Saturday night’s “How New Yorkers Ride Bikes.” After the third take, just as we were leaving, Steve Earl entered the theater with his new wife Allison — Lucinda Williams was doing a three-night run there and Steve was guesting. We chatted and on the way out Lucinda’s guitarist invited me to sit in that night.
I couldn’t, not that night…but last night I did. I gave them options of three tunes we could do — Buck Naked, Heaven and Overtime (the latter is one of hers, a duet with Willie Nelson) — and they said, “We’ll take all three.”
She’s been doing these shows where she plays an old album top to bottom, then takes a ten minute break and does about another half hour with guests, etc. Last night she did her Lucinda Williams album. I realized I could sing along with almost every song — God she’s written a lot of memorable songs!
I came in after she’d started and took a seat. Immediately she played a song I knew that gave me chills. Another song almost had me in tears. Her voice was a little ragged, but sometimes that just made it seem more real. She stopped a few times in that part of the show, sometimes feeling that a song was not off to just the right start, and then she’d start it over. She made some jokes about her perfectionist insecurities, quipping that she was keeping her legend intact. Sometimes she’d stop and then change the key to make the song more comfortable to sing. Whatever. Her insecurities vanished in the second half and she relaxed and smiled and had fun.
David Johansen was the other guest in that section, which goes to show how widely Lucinda’s influences range. They sang a hilarious Jailbird song duet, and then David performed “Lookin’ For a Kiss,” an old New York Dolls song. Somehow it all made sense.
In the end, they dragged me out as Lucinda wanted to do “Take Me To The River” (she had the words printed out and everything). She has a great band, so with a few hand signals from me they pretty much nailed it. Susan, L’s backup singer also sang with Cat Power and said Teeny Hodges, who joined Chan Marshall on her last tour, would be happy I had announced that he wrote that song.
Went to see Animal Collective and Vampire Weekend at Webster Hall last night. VW was really good — poppy, but fairly skewed too, with bits of soukous guitar thrown in from time to time, as if it was just a way of playing lilting guitar and not a specific African style. They’re not a “world music” act by any stretch; these various styles of playing are all just out there now, to be used when appropriate. I wondered if they sounded a little like early Talking Heads, a little bit, maybe, which of course wouldn’t bother me. They got the crowd moving, which is pretty impressive for an opening act. Catchy tunes too. I’d heard some on an EP or demo CD. They said they’re working on an album now.
In the past, Animal Collective were very briefly lumped in with the freak folk crowd, but they couldn’t be further from that now. Very few acoustic instruments remain — a cymbal got hit and a guitar appeared briefly, but the rest was all pre-recorded tracks, loops and samples. Their instruments were an array of tiny mixing boards and electronics that played Mini Discs or samples. “Playing” mainly consisted of pushing faders up and down. To be fair, two of the three guys took turns singing, though I couldn’t make out any of the words; so yes, there was more to focus on than just faders moving. Musically, it was an enjoyable sonic collage that never stopped, rather it ebbed and flowed, building up to big washes of sound with echoey singing and then sinking back to a single shimmering loop before building up into a new song.
It was a funny mixture — they arrayed themselves on stage as if they were a traditional rock band. They’re more akin to laptop DJs than a band, though a band can be anything these days, I guess. The singing and dancing about are not usually part of the laptop scene, so that part energized the show in a good way.
I think, as of this afternoon, I have finished scoring the 2nd season of Big Love. (Mark Mothersbaugh did the first season.) The last cue for the last show, which is episode 212, got posted today (they’re in LA, so I upload the music files to an FTP site.) I’ve been working on it since the fall, though actual writing to picture didn’t start until the winter. It was an education. At first I had grand ambitions, the scores of Herrmann, Rota and others swimming in my head. I had an idea to base my scoring loosely on Mormon hymns. That would presumably hint at the unspoken spiritual underpinnings that motivated many of the characters’ actions — or justified them, in several cases. I got hymnals and CDs, read up on the Mormon Church and practiced writing “fake” hymns.
I wrote a half dozen of these — not for specific scenes — and had them arranged and recorded with the aim to create a library from which the TV people in LA could draw. I would give them complete freedom to splice and dice my cues, but it would also allow me to be more creative. Few of those themes were actually used. I had to agree with the decision; as score they were outside the characters, they were meta-themes, which, as it turned out, were not suitable when the aim was to get you to empathize with the characters. Big or highly melodic themes like those take you outside the intimate world of individual characters, and the music pulls you back — you view the spectacle from a slight distance. An epic distance, in the Brechtian sense, but it’s hardly intimate.
Walter Murch, the film editor and sound designer, mentions how Nino Rota’s music for The Godfather almost got pulled for this reason. He would write music that played against a scene. In the scene where the guy finds the severed horse head in his bed Rota had composed a sweet waltz. The studio hated it; because it was a counterpoint the music viewed the scene from a removed vantage rather than expressing the guy’s revulsion and horror. (A compromise was reached.)
Murch: “When music makes an entrance in a film there’s the emotional equivalent of a cutaway. Music functions as an emulsifier that allows you to dissolve a certain emotion and take it in a certain direction.”
So, increasingly I wrote less overtly melodic pieces, and more pieces that could play as underscore and gently create a mood or add some tension without resorting to melodrama. I wrote tunes that were less busy and that tried not to draw attention to themselves, though they were still rather melodic, if you cared to listen. As the episodes progressed — I would get sent locked edits on DVDs as they were completed — it seemed that even less melody might be what they were after. I got pretty good after a while at knowing what was wanted, sometimes because a temp score “borrowed” from another film had been plopped into the rough cut to determine what musical mood might work.
News to me, these kinds of TV shows are a writers’ medium. It was usually the producer or the two writers who gave me feedback, and it was obviously within their power to say yes or no. Good for them. In film, at least up to a point, it is a director’s medium; much has been made of referring to the director as the auteur — the author. In film the writer is more or less a hired hand who is dismissed once his or her contribution is done, but in TV, maybe because it is episodic and the characters and setting will need to be consistent for years, the writer sort of has the final say, and it is the director who is the hired hand. I never once spoke to the director of any of these episodes!
Towards the end, in the final few episodes, it seemed to me that there were fewer musical nods to Americana, to an idealized U.S. family (even if this one was polygamous) and to the spirituality of the Hymns. As we neared the season’s end the whole thing became darker and more tragic: sons betraying fathers, evil rival clans emerging from the wilderness and child brides. What began as a study in how to manage having 3 wives in an orderly disciplined manner, and how those wives got along and dealt, devolved into a morass of widespread crisis, bitterness and jealousy — and in some ways the changing moods of the music — and what was needed — reflected that.
I will probably release the best of this music as a CD within a year, maybe by February. To make that CD play better some cues may get expanded a little or amalgamated if they are super similar to one another. It won’t be a pop record by any stretch, so its audience might be limited — but I’m proud of some of it, so we’ll see.
Mastered the Knee Plays recordings for a re-release this fall (October). Last week we dug into the archives to see what was available as bonus tracks and unseen visual materials — there’s a truckload of stuff. My hoarding pays off!
There are early sketches by Bob Wilson (probably can’t use those) and some by myself and Adelle, quite a few unused texts, storyboards and lots of photos, notably a set of 400 B&W shots of the whole production taken by JoAnn Verburg (who has a show at MoMA now!) that were taken every 30 seconds or so. These can therefore be turned into a slideshow of the stage production, accompanied by the music. Conveniently, JoAnn was in town for her MoMA opening, so we met and discussed that possibility — which it turned out was exactly how she had hoped to use those shots, although when she took them there was no web or other simple means of presenting them that way.
On the music end, Frank discovered a couple of reels of multitrack analogue tape that contained my aborted attempts at using Kabuki percussionists (augmented by stuff I added) as the music for this project. There were about 7 pieces on the tape. Pat Dillett and I mixed about 5 of them for this re-release. They’re pretty nutty-sounding — mostly spacey atmospheric pieces with piercingly loud percussive explosions. Some of them also have the percussionists vocalizing as they would during a specific scene in a Kabuki play. Groaning and moaning ominously, for example, in a scene meant to evoke ghosts. The vocal sounds are remarkably similar to the way kids at Halloween presume that ghosts go “ooohhhhhh”.
Interactivity vs. Storytelling
In a NY Times article the writer ponders if videogames will ever move us as much as traditional art forms (he sites a Mahler symphony as an example). The writer appears to be an avid game player — so he’s not looking down his nose at gamers.
I would say, for the most part, no — at least in their present form games cannot be as emotionally engaging. I would hazard that all interactive forms and self-generating artworks, as beautiful and amazing as they might be, lack the “story” that touches us — whether that “story” is narrative or more abstract, as in a symphony or piece of art.
Seems to me that, as with myths and fairy tales, we marvel and get sucked into minor but infinite variations of the same limited set of tales. The Joseph Campbell “Hero with a thousand Faces”. We can listen or watch or hear the same story re-told over and over, with the characters replaced and the settings updated, and we are endlessly engaged and moved. How those narratives resonate in our own hearts and minds seems almost genetically predetermined, it’s that strong — like when we feel a filmmaker “pushing our buttons”.
Here is one way how the games allow you to engage with the narrative. As the characters interact you are given some options as to how they might respond to a given situation. In some cases this gives them character/personality — ruthless, caring or passive. This from Mass Effect: 
Songs don’t have narratives in the sense that books or films do. They are emotional snapshots of a moment, augmented by a little bit of context that gives specificity to the emotion. Likewise in other forms — art — it’s a snapshot, a slice. We listen to the same pieces of music over and over; maybe because they’re more abstract we can insert ourselves in varying ways into their “narrative”, or the implied little piece of a presumed narrative that they present.
We don’t really want to decide how a story goes or ends by ourselves, as is the mode in videogames, because the arc of the narrative is what moves us: how the characters struggle, how they are transformed and grow. The characters in videogames don’t change — so far — so there is no transformation, there is nothing there to resonate in that part of us.
That could change. A game that had a story, and arc built in, in which we as a character — a different one each time — play out the same narrative in slightly differing ways. A game like that might have the emotional pull of a movie or opera or a song, yet it would reward repeated viewings, which movies usually don’t. The Times writer marveled that videogame players devote hundreds of hours to playing a game, far more (at one sitting anyway) than one would ever devote to a piece of music or a movie. He also ascribed the lack of emotional involvement to the limited surprises that we are given — if we choose the branching outcomes ourselves they’re not a surprise. (But an element of surprise could be programmed in, no?) Likewise, if we believe it’s all random then it’s less engaging, too. Cage and Cunningham may feel that chance is nature’s way, but look at all the order that has emerged out of chaos.
Of course, we assign cause to effect on our own, and seem to have an inbuilt tendency to ascribe story to what are chaotic random events — our need for narrative or connection is so strong. So any videogame, for example, that left that open as a possibility might connect to that part of ourselves. Maybe narrative is like a religion — it is a way of explaining that things happen for a reason.
I wonder if there is a part of the brain that connects the perception of narrative to the amygdala — the center of ancient animal emotions like lust, pleasure and fear. Strands of connectivity that gives these forms their power…and their reason for existence.
Emergent narrative? Can there be such a thing as a narrative that emerges, by itself, from a seemingly random or chaotic structure or series of events? The way forms, fractal shapes and complex structures arise out of certain kinds of chaos. Are there “forms” — narrative cells I guess you could call them — that in sufficient quantity spontaneously give rise to what we call stories? If the existence of these things is possible then perhaps emotionally moving arcs, transformations and series of events could simply emerge by themselves given the right conditions — and could those conditions sometimes be man-made?
The Living Rock
Is there any difference between what is living and what is dead? Are rocks living, but changing so slowly that we will never ever perceive it as life? Is everything alive but moving on vastly different time scales — super fast or incrementally slow compared to out own sense of time? Is what we call life merely what transforms and evolves and reproduces in a time frame we can measure? Is this what the Gaia idea is about — that the planet is a hive of living things if one somewhat broadens one’s definition of what is living?
CS and I biked around town all day. Started off at the Tate Modern where there were some giant themed shows, which were not what we came to see. One of them was about minimalism — we gave that a pass — and the other was called States of Flux — a headline that seemed in this case to encompass just about everything in no particular order. It was the weirdest mish-mash of a show either of us had ever seen. One room was filled with lovely Matisse paintings, but then on one wall of the same room protruded 4 Maurizio Catalan manikin arms giving Hitler salutes. Huh? Maybe there was some intellectual or academic construct at work here, some thread tying this disparate work together, but it remained invisible to us.
I’d read that somewhere in the museum there was a show of contemporary art from Kinshasa, and that was what drew me there. That show was not listed anywhere on the walls or listings — but there it was, tucked in a room inside the States of Flux show. Huh again? Here’s one of the Kinshasa paintings: 
The most well known of this group is the painter Cheri Samba, whose paintings are funny, political and inventive. Many of the paintings impart advice, or offer lessons or allegories of the crazy times we live in.
Next to this was a room devoted to the artist Dieter Roth, who lived part of the time in an extremely remote village in Iceland. He had some great images made from postcards which were then painted or silk-screened over. Here’s one based on a postcard of Piccadilly Circus: 
And then (wall texts said these were all part of the same large States of Flux show) there was a room of spreads from a Russian magazine published in the 30s and designed by Rodchenko and other fairly radical artists of the time. The layouts were beautiful — obviously propaganda (printed in a few languages), and sometimes corny as hell, but gorgeous.
At the time, if one didn’t know other things, one might look at these beautiful and radically innovative layouts and think, “Wow, what a cool place, what a hip scene it must be and what an enlightened government they must have to produce such a cool magazine.” Here is a layout featuring images of a tractor factory that featured “illuminations” for the enjoyment and excitement of the workers. Google, the current hip place to work, has some catching up to do.
Other spreads were elaborate foldouts, duotones of smiling peasants next to Stalin and one incredible spread of a paratrooper in which the top of the page unfolded to become a duotone of the round parachute sail.
On to the Whitechapel gallery (in renovation), a delicious lunch on Brick Lane (very busy as it’s market day — but good for people-watching), St Paul’s cathedral (very spooky organ music playing — big ominous chords). The revolving entrance door had these words on it: 
That’s quite a claim for a revolving door!
On to the ICA, which was closed for installation, then lastly a Paul Chan show at the Serpentine. Lovely animated projections onto the floor, mostly of semi-recognizable objects and people floating up or down, as if gravity had lost its grip and things had become unmoored. The one below featured a kind of pageant along the bottom, with mainly just the flags and banners visible. 
That evening we had dinner with C’s former gallerist here, an American woman and her Italian husband, who both now have galleries across the river near the Imperial War Museum. Christine Amanpour, the CNN talking head, came in with some swanky-looking folks. The restaurant (Scott’s, a renovated traditional fish place) was a mish-mosh of styles, too: there were blobby sculptural objects holding beds of crustaceans, shiny mid-century lighting fixtures and dark woody walls on which hung contemporary art given in trade for meals. Down near the toilets was a Tracy Emin that said something like, “I WILL eat my fish sticks”. Mostly, though, the artwork disappeared, blending into the décor and the dark walls. It made me realize how ubiquitous the typical white walls have become for displaying art, as anything else swallows it whole. Contemporary art seems to be all the rage — every joint and everyone has got to have some, even if it gets a bit lost.
The next day CS hung her show while I went off to the Design Museum for a meeting — the director had visited my studio in NY, saw the chairs and drawings of chairs, and had offered a show. The museum, if fairly off the beaten track (there are no tube stations nearby) has done nice shows over the years, so I was pretty excited. I’d seen a Peter Saville show and a Helen Jongerus show and the former director even did one of the Queen’s flower arranger.
One of the current shows was of an Italian designer, Luigi Colani, who was mainly active in the 60s and 70s doing incredibly prescient blobby biomorphic streamlined objects, most of which were never built. The show, therefore, was mainly of his self-financed prototypes: futuristic flying machines that looked like sea creatures and aerodynamic cars. 
CS and I have lunch with two youngish guys who run CS’s gallery here while the owners are otherwise disposed or are out of town. A thin German man who has moved here a few months ago and an Englishman transplanted from another local gallery. The gallery is in Mayfair, the zone of gilt-framed stodgy landscape paintings, antiques and antiquities, luxe designer boutiques and shops that seem peculiarly British — one is called the Cufflink Connoisseur, while another displays polo gear and riding crops in the windows.
The gallerists ask me what I’m up to. It’s always a little weird when people obviously think you haven’t done much since the hit records they remember from their childhood. The subject turns to live music we’ve seen lately and the German man says he’s only been to about 5 live shows in his entire life; he grew up on techno and electronic dance music and that’s pretty much all he listens to — DJs. I ask what time those “shows” begin and he says the name DJs usually don’t go on before 1. I feel a little old fashioned — I’m usually in bed by then.
The Englishman mentions that techno is a very German obsession, which gets a slightly puzzled and possibly annoyed look.
I think to myself how very different our concepts and uses of music are, how varied they can be. I assume that for him music is a sort of machine, a tool, that facilitates dancing and some kind of release. It’s simple, clear-cut, and it either does its job or it doesn’t. I imagine it’s pretty context-dependent, too — not too many offices have booming techno bouncing off the walls. Music, in this case, is pretty much something that is confined to certain spaces at certain times of day. Maybe there is some social interaction at the dance clubs as well, so the music helps that happen, too. Music, in this case, is definitely not about the words, that is obvious.
What then is music for in my case? Well, I like dancing to music, too, though I suspect I find that more syncopated rhythms — funk, Latin, hip-hop, etc. — get me moving more often than the repetitive thump of house or techno. But if it’s well done the genre doesn’t really seem to matter. More often I listen to music with singing, and I find the arc of a melody, combined with harmonies and a pulse, can be incredibly emotionally involving. Sometimes the words help, too. So that’s two “uses” I have for music. Lastly, I sometimes listen to soundtracks, contemporary classical and vaguely experimental music as a background, a mood enhancer or facilitator. We get doses of music this way in films and on TV all the time. I forgot to mention to the gallerist my recent collaboration with Paul Van Dyk, the techno master — I would have scored some points and cred if I had.
I mentioned that the waiter seemed to be wearing eyeliner and the subject turned to the local Abercrombie and Fitch store where I was told all the shop assistants must be models to be hired. This former bastion of wasp outdoor wear — which used to be about as unsexy as the boxy Brooks Brothers look — has remade itself as a kind of homoerotic fascist-chic outpost. Talk about a makeover! Is there a Tom of Finland lurking behind every buttoned-down square? Two male models stand at the entrance of the shop in hot pants and the walls inside are plastered with photos and paintings (paintings!) of shirtless male models. The ploy has paid off handsomely; youths of all types fill the place daily. It sounds like a wonderful kitsch theme park, like a Leni Riefenstahl film come to life. But what does it mean that gay kitsch sells to straight youth? Calvin Klein has been doing it for decades. Surely using this sales tool is intentional. Do the straight kids who shop there think, “Oh, they’re just cute guys”?
Later we have drinks with Verity M from the Roundhouse, a local venue that might be perfect for HLL, and Matthew Byam Shaw, the producer of the theater production Nixon/Frost, amongst others. We meet at a private club in Covent Garden called Hospital, apparently thrown up recently by Dave Stewart (Eurythmics). Almost all the patrons have their laptops out — they’re socializing, e-mailing (I guess) and drinking, all at the same time. There’s a laptop open on almost every table! Maybe they’re all trying to figure out what to do later in the evening? Or maybe interaction with live people just isn’t quite enough stimulus. The folks here love their private clubs, and they’ve only admitted women to some of them since the 80s, so I was told. It must be a legacy or spin-off from the class system, which lingers obstinately in many forms. One must separate oneself from the hoi polloi if possible — in speech, in dress and where one drinks. Even if you’re not upper class you need to wall yourself off from those slightly beneath you. Another remnant of class and caste is the notion that everyone has their place and station — to get involved in areas and jobs and even (or especially) ideas beyond your station is bad form, frowned upon — it is viewed as pretentious (if you’re going from low to high) and inauthentic (if you’re going from high to low). A film on the life of the late Joe Strummer brings out his diplomatic and vaguely upper-class upbringing, and how he did a perfect job of hiding it — or at least of keeping it quiet — as it would not have sat well with the image of the anarchic justice-seeking punk hero he was to become. I always found that pure rogue pose a little suspect regardless of anyone’s upbringing, but in later years Strummer and his collaborators ventured into other musical areas that didn’t require carrying the burden of that image of a working-class hero. What difference does it make anyway where you come from? Can’t you be judged by what you do, make and say and not by what caste you come from?
Anyway — the meeting is about Here Lies Love and I do a very short pitch and various ideas and opinions are tossed about, some of which are illuminating. Matthew confirms what Scott E. in NY said, that any video or film image of the historical person portrayed by the actress on stage would steal from the actress, which would be bad.
Matthew has to deal with a reluctant actor, so CS and I have dinner by ourselves at a hip restaurant where she is spotted by another former gallerist who later says he was dying to introduce her to Lucien Freud, who was also dining there. We are sitting next to a largish couple from Northern Ireland who, to be honest, don’t seem to belong in such a groovy temple. (Here I go applying my own class evaluation.) He’s an IT functionary in town for business meetings and she’s riding on the expense account tab, or so I would guess. They look like northerners on holiday in the big city, but they mention that they’re staying next door at the Ritz, which is more than an ordinary branch manager could afford. They explain some of the local dishes — Jersey Royals are a miniscule type of potato only available at select times of year. Either from a glass of wine or something medical the woman has turned bright red — all over, face, neck, arms — but they’re so unassuming and easygoing and lacking all pretense that her redness doesn’t register after a minute or two.
The restaurant has doormen, dressed in traditional English tails, as does our hotel. I love the juxtaposition here between the two opposing poles of dress and manner: the reserved, polite, perfect and solicitous staff contrasted with the world of theatrical shock and gross-out represented by Chapman bros., Damien Hirst, chavs and football hooligans. It all has to come out, I guess — the bigger the front the bigger the back. I’m reminded of the ads that plaster the phone booths offering spankings and humiliation. One assumes that, for a Lord, keeping it all in and maintaining that reserve can get to be a bit much sometimes so one needs to be put in one’s place to redress the balance. I’m jumping to national stereotypes, here.
The next day is gorgeous and sunny so we’re off on the bikes again. The Queen’s Gallery (the royal collection of renaissance Italian painting and drawing — Titian, Caravaggio, etc. — hung on bright crimson red walls!) and the Imperial War Museum (a great show of camouflage that includes two of the outfits used in True Stories!) Here’s a ship in full “dazzle” camouflage: 
…as C said, “where would THAT be camouflage? In a circus?”
A visit to CS’s gallery chums on the South Bank, Sadie Cole’s and Simon Lee’s galleries in Mayfair, and we’re done in….almost…we quickly ride to the Tate Britain to check out the Chapman brothers show. Bronzed casts of imaginary Rube Goldberg-like torture machines. Frozen contraptions that drive nails into brains — dildos, hammers and gears. None of it functions, and it’s all bronzed so these pieces must weigh a ton. I mention that I’d seen a series of toy soldier dioramas they’d done at the former Saatchi collection on the South Bank a few years ago, large vitrines with meticulous scenes of imaginary prison and death camps, scenes of hellish horror and depravity but done with little boys’ toys. I liked those better — to me they said more about “playing” war and the roots of depravity.
We head back. The winding side streets are pleasant to ride on, especially in sunny weather. The city is fairly human scale and cottage-like, as C calls it. It has sprawled beyond reason, but the scale of each neighborhood and the architectural details tell a story about how people see themselves as a people and as a nation. “We might be sophisticated, upper class or creative titans, world-conquerors and explorers, but at bottom we are all country cottage folks.” Not a literal story — I’m not talking about inscriptions on the walls — but metaphorical. A story told in lintels and windowsills. The Queen with her dowdy clothes and the royals’ country hunting attire. The windows everywhere with lots of little panes, which are more enclosing, comforting.
The big thoroughfares like Regent Street and Piccadilly are pretty hairy to ride on with those giant red buses and no bike lanes, but overall we’ve been lucky with the weather and riding. It’s glorious when the sun shines.
We meet Michael Morris of Artangel at a gallery opening. There are security people at the door and maybe a guest list — Michael e-mailed me earlier that he’d “put us on the list”. For an art gallery opening? Well, lots of NY galleries now have hired guards so I guess guest lists and velvet ropes are next.
It is a pretty spectacular place, floor after floor of exhibition spaces in an industrial zone, topped by a large room with one glass wall leading to a balcony that looks out over the skyline. Girls with trays offer glasses of champagne. The show is of paintings by Alice Neel, the late portrait painter who worked in NY for many decades — there is now a documentary film out about her. Until almost the end of her life she was scorned as working in a dead old-fashioned style, and then, near the end of her life, she experienced a short burst of appreciation, and now there is a new appreciation. Maybe the work looks prescient?
I am introduced to Grayson Perry, the transvestite potter who won the Turner prize a few years ago. “It’s about time a transvestite potter got this prize!” he said when he won. I have one of his pots — he covers them with images and often with rude texts. Here’s one called “Boring Cool People”:
He was in full baby doll little girl drag tonight — like Alice In Wonderland when she got big. A blonde wig, a floral pinafore frock, bare legs ending in little pink socks with ruffles and white patent leather Mary Janes. (Where does he get this stuff in his size? Someone must make them by hand.)
He knew that I had one of his pieces and he was thrilled when he heard that news years ago. I was thrilled to meet him. He is married and has a daughter — I saved a family picture that was in the UK papers when he won the prize of him in his dress alongside his perfectly nice and ordinary wife, the daughter in front of them, beaming a huge smile, obviously happy that dad had won. 
We chatted casually for a bit and then C suddenly unleashed a volley of what I thought to be pretty probing questions. “Do you do a bunch of different characters?” “When did you first start dressing up?” (A: He was 13 and he tried on his sister’s ballet outfit.)
I was asked a couple of months ago to help organize an evening at the end of a conference The New Yorker was putting together. 3 speakers on the subject of music was my directive and the evening was to be short — only one hour — and after the dinner.
I popped by the conference in the morning and heard Hans Ulrich Obrist talk about plans he has for some art shows in Europe, and then he read a list of statements about the future given him by a slew of artists. Then Tim Hu spoke about digital rights and copyright issues. Jonathan Haidt talked about morality and how democrats and republicans come from different social models and how that informs their moral and political choices and how democrats and liberals need to empathize more with the conservative moral POV if they are going to get anywhere.
The hall was full so I sat at a coffee table outside and watched the talks on a big video screen. Then I had to make further edits to my own presentation so I rushed home.
The music speakers were Daniel Levitin, neuroscientist; myself, and Issa, formerly the artist called Jane Siberry, who has taken some radical steps in how she distributes her music. At the end we sang 2 of her songs and one new one of mine. Daniel’s talk was concise and enlightening, mine got some laughs, and Issa’s was idealistic and vague in its specifics, but possibly the most radical. (Among other things she initiated a pay-what-you-will policy for her downloads.)
Sam bought a table at a benefit performance and dinner for the performance space St. Ann’s Warehouse and we joined him and some other friends. The music was incredible — it was Hal Willner’s Rogues Gallery project (pirate songs and sea chanties) performed by a wonderful band and some wildly divergent singers. I gather the project was initially linked to Johnny Depp and his pirate movies, which sounds pretty tacky, but he gave Wilner a wide berth and it ended up as a wonderful concept record.
There were no speeches; the music just started. It was a great band, all acoustic — fiddles, trombone and tuba, pump organ — though some electric guitar, too — and some of the combinations of singers were incredible. There was a version of "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" with Antony doing the “Who’s that knocking at my door?” part, and a woman named Kembra (in a kind of kinky superhero outfit) and a bearded man named Baby Gramps (who sounded like a Tuvan throat singer doing Popeye) sang the bawdy replies.
A different person sang each song, though there were some who returned and sang backup for their friends. Bryan Ferry with Antony, Robin Holcomb, Lou Reed and Laurie, Gavin Friday (he did a wild filthy Brechtian tune that was great).
As it was a bit of an all-star evening I doubt they’ll take it on the road or even manage to do it quite like that again…but if Carnegie offered…(I wrote and suggested this to Carnegie.)
Then dinner was served on lazy susans so everyone could help themselves. A really inspiring evening, sort of typical of St Ann’s programming, which made a lot of sense for any attendees who hadn’t seen some of the recent shows at that venue. The benefit became an example of what you were supporting, and for benefit prices you got something truly special, possibly unrepeatable.
Went with CS, as she had been given an invitation, to see the premiere of Peter Martin’s version of the Romeo and Juliet ballet at Lincoln Center. The ad campaign is terrific, and very clever — an image of a dagger in negative space made of tiny fencing male dancers and leaping maidens, with the tag line “tragic love”, but with no mention of the ballet or even of Romeo and Juliet. This makes the whole thing seem very hip and modern — a bit of what P Gelb has been trying to do at the Met opera. It isn’t. It’s an old narrative ballet with old music (though occasionally tuneful) and sets, décor and costumes by artist Per Kirkeby that look like a giant scale high school production (though NY high schools usually do better than this).
These old narrative ballets, of necessity, have lots of mimed drama and what is supposed to be acting, all of which is possibly needed in order to impart the narrative. The acting looks, to me, like a parody of silent film acting — lots of mugging and swooning. Some corny-ass shit. It was mentioned to me that I might have preferred Balanchine ballets as they are much more abstract. I might, but then there’s a very good chance I’m just not a fan of ballet.
I have a hunch that this production was driven by the ballet marketing department. I’ve seen the same thing happen in the music business — someone tries to figure out what the public might be seduced into paying for, and then the work is created to fit those criteria. Finding a cute young girl and having her sing emo-type tunes would be one example. A mainstream rock band with hip-hop cameos would be another. In this case a hoary standard with a story that every punter knows is (by the linking of the names Peter Martin and Kirkeby) brought up to date, dusted off, and therefore something classic is made new — supposedly, at least on paper — and the ad campaign is designed to reflect all that.
I focused on the music, which had two catchy themes that recurred over and over in various guises. I made a mental note to investigate one of them that seemed to be based on a series of ominous-sounding chords. (Odd that it first occurs during a sort of festive ball scene — as foreshadowing it’s a bit heavy-handed, and it’s far from festive.)
Ex-President Clinton was seated right above us in the presidential box (with Chelsea I think.) He was introduced and people stood and applauded. Wonder if he was as bored as I was? Wonder what his legacy will be — NAFTA (sort of a disaster for Mexico and U.S. manufacturing.) Dismantling welfare. Handgun registration. Assault weapons ban. GATT. Dayton peace accords. Kosovo. Banned research on human cloning. Strong air quality act. Global Warming Protocol signed (it was?) Saddam Hussein was bombed. Expanded NATO. Some pretty decent stuff and some serious compromises, too.
Back to the ballet. Truckloads of money are shoveled at this stuff — to keep these spiffy halls operating, hold these gala events and pay the massive union costs in the theaters. It seems the audience are a bit of an elite club here, which is fair, I guess — if they want to sponsor this sort of thing, to bankroll it, then they’re welcome to have it all to themselves if they want to.
[A special bulletin brought to you by DB and Danielle Spencer]
[Link to savenetradio.org]
The Copyright Royalty Board is proposing a large increase in the performance royalty rates for “non-interactive streaming services”. This means web radio, cable radio and satellite radio will pay more to SoundExchange in royalties. Presumably those royalties eventually dribble down to the artists getting “played”, but it’s never that simple. It’s a little complex and difficult to understand but let me see if I can describe what is in the offing. (My own streaming web radio would be affected, and since I derive no income from it, that, among other things, makes this an issue of personal interest.)
Web radio is different than broadcast radio in that the hosting costs increase precisely as the listenership increases. With streaming web radio, information on the exact number of listeners accessing the stream at any given moment or period is available, and easy to obtain, unlike broadcast radio which is just out there and no one knows how many people are listening (so how do they determine ad rates?) The more listeners you have the more you pay in hard costs — some server’s gotta host the stream. Of course stations like mine and the network of NPR stations that have no commercial revenue eventually run into a financial wall once that audience figure reaches a certain amount.
With royalties it gets more complicated. While traditional terrestrial radio does pay songwriter/publishing royalties for the musical work itself, in the U.S. they don’t pay performance royalties for the sound recording under the rationale that airplay promotes the songs, which benefits the copyright holders. (This determination was mostly due to the radio industry lobbying congress not to collect these royalties.) Web radio, however, along with satellite and cable services, does pay performance royalties — these are the rates that are being raised now. (If this discrepancy sounds illogical, it’s because it is.) Now, broadcasters are eligible for statutory licenses for these new performance royalties. These statutory licenses set royalty rates so that each station doesn’t have to license each song individually. Until now, if a webcaster’s profit was below a certain amount, they have been eligible to pay a set yearly fee, and if they met certain criteria they have been able to pay royalties as a percentage of their profits, not as a per-song fee. Registered 501(c)(3) non-profits have been eligible for reduced rates regardless of their stream traffic.
With the proposed changes the royalties can no longer be based on a percentage of revenue, but on a fee for each listening hour — how many folks are listening and for how long — and there will be a minimum fee per radio “channel”. Also, above a certain aggregate listening hour amount, non-profits have to pay the same per-listening hour rates as commercial broadcasters. So now there will be no distinction between a large-scale non-profit station (like KCRW or WXPN) and Z100. The threshold for non-profits is proposed to be 159,140 listening hours per month. Where did this bizarre number come from?
For perspective, on my web radio I get an average of about 40,000 listener hours per month. At present I pay small mechanical royalty fees that go to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC (presumably these dribble down to the artists whose songs I stream); performance royalties that get dispersed via a company called SoundExchange, and a fee to Live 365 for hosting and doing all the paperwork. I pay about $2,000 a month, based on the above listening hours. That’s rent for an apartment for many people (at least in some cities.) I can afford it, I enjoy doing it, and people seem to like it, so it’s OK for me that I’m out of pocket. I do however realize that I am in a special position — not just anyone can afford to start a streaming web radio service if it has this many listeners. If this ruling goes through it’s likely that my costs would go up about 20%, which is not crippling, yet. But one can see where this road leads — the door will have been wedged open. It’s estimated that the per-play rates will put many webcasters out of business, all but the largest and most commercially successful.
For NPR stations it is a different story as they have wider listenership than I and would pay the same royalty rates as commercial broadcasters. KCRW estimates roughly that as this ruling is retroactive they would owe $130,000 in additional fees for 2006 and $237,000 for 2007. WXPN in Philly estimates $1,000,000. In some worlds this is not a big deal but as one can imagine many of these stations barely eek by as it is, so this could very likely shut down the webcasting side of many of them. That would be a shame, as these stations are the only source of, well, good music, alternative sounds and innovative and informative programming in the U.S. It would be a loss for, well, democracy, as democracy depends on availability of many points of view untainted by commercial concerns and pressures. A truly informed populace, in other words. It points to another victory for the oligarchs — the big 5 record companies and the media companies that own them. Count one more for the big guys. The reasoning that it’s for the benefit of the artists rings a little hollow as most artists heard this argument re: cracking down on file sharing, and most never see money from their record companies anyway — so the line about “we’re doing it for you” is pretty suspect.
Who is this agency that is proposing making this change? They are not an elected body — the Copyright Royalty Board is made up of a few people appointed by the Library of Congress Copyright Office. They used to be a group of arbitrators but since 2004 they are a group of judges. (I wonder if Gonzales, Cheney etc. have any pals in there?)
The new rates are supposed to have been based on the model of the so-called willing buyer and willing seller in the marketplace — this according to the wording of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1996. But where does this “market value” come from? Does it mean that if I play more popular music on my streaming radio I should pay more? I’m confused. (I think I’m supposed to be confused.) Who is determining this value? In this case the CRB seems to be looking towards agreements made between the major record labels and the largest commercial webcasters, but this is hardly a free market model. It also seems to ignore the fact that the “value” of a song would change depending on the context — if I’m listening to a web radio stream I can’t control what I hear, which is different from purchasing the track.
The new rates are being appealed — to join a petition (against the rate changes) or learn more about this, go to savenetradio.org.
—DB/DS
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Some further notes, for those who are really interested:
Commercial broadcast mediums in the U.S. mostly derive their income from advertisers. Nielsen systems — boxes attached to a random sampling of viewers’ TV sets — are supposed to determine what shows are being watched, and the more popular shows can therefore demand more money from the advertisers as they are “delivering” a larger audience to view their ads and presumably buy their products. I suspect it’s a more complicated algorithm than that, as some shows will have a wealthier viewership than others, and presumably one could market more expensive items to this crowd than to Super Bowl fans even though their numbers might be smaller. You might charge more to deliver potential buyers of jewelry and designer clothes than drinkers of Bud Lite. And with cable it might be possible to determine more accurately who is watching what.
From an audience perspective we are used to receiving radio and TV more or less for free. We see it as a God-given right, and our perception is that the stuff is simply “in the air” and there for the taking. Of course the fact that we “pay” by being forced to listen or watch lots of ads is somewhat ignored. Subscription services that reduce ads like Tivo, cable, and commercial-free satellite radio are increasingly popular, but I would argue that ads are not consciously viewed by the public as a cost. To some extent free programming is simply an elaborate means of getting us to sit still and tune in to the ads. With cable we pay a blanket fee, which helps fund the channels — and we still feel we can and should have complete access to the cornucopia of programs, some with ads and some without. NPR and PBS stations are funded by viewers like you, as we are often reminded, and by miniscule government grants. They don’t solicit ads. Though they pay a fee for their license and pay royalties for playing music, these amounts are not too high. And being non-profits they get a tax break. (I do not.) Broadcast radio has been traditionally viewed as a kind of free promotion of the artists and record labels’ products, and therefore the idea that the stations should be paying performance royalties was waived. The same “promotional” logic was applied to MTV in the past; the videos, for a certain period, were provided free and seen as publicity vehicles for CDs. After a while the big record companies extracted fees from MTV — which they didn’t share with the artists — and now there are hardly any videos shown at all. (Since, in the past, TV had no “product” to sell, this “promotional” reasoning was not possible in that medium. For example, Seinfeld or American Idol are not broadcast without ads under an assumption that folks will rush out an buy a video or DVD…it’s also true that, unlike music, TV shows are not quite as endlessly repeatable.) With web radio that logic seems to be partially being left behind.
—DB
The “promotional” rationale for not collecting performance royalties from terrestrial radio is more of a reflection of the radio industry’s powerful lobby in the 1940s than an ideological decision. The RIAA calls it “an historical accident”, and the U.S. copyright office has acknowledged the asymmetry of collecting publishing royalties but not mechanical royalties. We are one of the few industrialized countries that doesn’t collect these royalties. The EU nations do collect performance royalties for terrestrial radio, but because we don’t collect them here, they don’t distribute those revenues to U.S. artists.
There are of course many examples of broadcast mediums that are essentially promotional as far as the copyright holder is concerned and don’t earn direct royalty revenues. However, the songwriter/publisher royalty income from terrestrial radio is more than token. As for web radio, the “promotional” logic was never applied, dating back to the initial decision to charge performance royalties in 1995 with the DPRA (Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act). The performance royalty rates have always been significant for webcasters (12% of profit for commercial broadcasters above a modest profit threshold) even before these proposed rate increases, despite the fact that the revenues don’t amount to much for the artists.
—DS
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4.17.07
Here are some links/articles on the web radio issue that was decided yesterday:
The Death of Web Radio? [Business Week Online]
Net Radio Operators Lose Appeal Over Fees [c|net news.com]
Interesting that SoundExchange initiated the whole thing…and that they are a non-profit created by the big record labels. Hmmm. One could say conflict of interest but cleverly held at arm's length by the creation of this mouthpiece?
Did my “Record Companies — Who needs them?” slide talk as part of the music conference here. Got periodic laughs, which is a good sign…I think the pacing is improving, but I still don’t have an ending.
One of the questions from the audience afterwards made me realize that essentially it’s an optimistic presentation, despite delivering the (obvious) news that CDs will be gone in a few years and record stores will be gone well before that. The good news is that there are more and varied options for artists (and music business folks) in terms of distribution and marketing models. There is a whole spectrum of possibilities now, many more than when I was coming up. They range from the record company entity sharing in every aspect of the artist’s life — the T-shirts, the concerts and the music (this is the kind of deal Robbie Williams made) to the DIY scenario in which the artist or their manager or business rep essentially does everything (or contracts everything) themselves. Aimee Mann and Ani DiFranco are well known for succeeding in this way of doing things.
I point out other obvious factors that affect the viability of these various models — that recording costs have shrunken, and that as on-line sales rise, distribution and manufacturing costs approach zero. Both of these costs traditionally necessitated funds that record companies provided for artists, but now that dependency is going away at least.
I am slightly surprised that some of this is news, but maybe I’m able to view it from a slight distance…or a time perspective.
Mauro had asked where his group Forro In The Dark should play down here so I arranged with Liz that they play the San Jose patio for an unscheduled late-night mostly acoustic set. It goes smoothly and is loads of fun. I sing a few songs — some from their CD and some from my own CD Uh-Oh that we’d previously done Forro-style. The hotel kept a lid on the crowd so it’s relaxed — and we’re not too loud and I think everyone had a good time. I got Joe Boyd in, who was down here talking about his White Bicycles book due out soon. Some of the crowd was dancing and what was photographer Bruce Weber doing here? [His Let’s Get Lost film was screening.] Went across the street to the Continental and caught the tail end of John Doe’s set and Jerry H. and Carol were hanging out, too. The streets are filled with music — coming out of doorways, from parking lots and vacant lots. Everywhere young hopefuls are walking to and fro, networking or performing. That’s an awful lot of guitars, a lot of young men and women pouring out their souls and a lot of gimmie caps.
The series of Carnegie Hall dates in the first week of February are ready for their post-mortem. I didn’t read the press, the various reviews, except for one piece on Here Lies Love in Time magazine that was sent to me and cheered me as it was by a Philippine writer.
The series sold out — so I was told — even the last one, opposite the Super Bowel on Sunday, so the sales alone made Carnegie Hall happy. I was happy about that too, but maybe moreso that artistically it all seemed to work. People heard things they’d never heard before, in a place they seldom if ever visited. Some of the events will be unlikely to happen again, which was exciting, too. Carnegie has mentioned the possibility of doing something in ‘08, so we’ll see what they have in mind. Apparently there were sound issues on the Here Lies Love night — the usual Carnegie problem with drums or anything of volume. We had worked hard all afternoon and had planned well in advance to beat these problems to a bloody pulp, but some remnant apparently stayed alive, especially for those in the “good” seats.
The other nights had no such problems. In the Dreamland night the artists rose to the occasion, creating an evening with no set changes and with a constantly morphing lineup reflective of a community, and with low volume that could still be heard in the furthest reaches of the hall. It was pretty magical, and it would be logical for some commercial promoter to take a lineup like that on a world tour. [Link to review]
The Knee Plays music-only revival went off well — I added a vocal to "I Bid You Good Night", inspired by others who had done the song previously — Joseph Spence, The Incredible String Band and The Grateful Dead. [Link to reviews]
The last night, One Note, was maybe the most hodgepodge: disparate acts held together by a musical concept — the root or drone note — that many times only musicians are aware of. But in the end the smörgåsbord concept worked — and the sound in Zankel was perfect. [Link to Review]
…
Saw Arcade Fire at Judson Church where they played for a few nights — they were introducing new material. They got slammed for sound issues in the press as I did recently, so at least it wasn’t just me who was getting the sonic criticism. Up in the VIP balcony the sound did indeed suck, so I wormed my way to within a few yards of the stage, in front of one of the PA speakers, and it was wonderful. The new songs are grand, personal, apocalyptic and totally heartfelt. Just to see and hear a band that is so obviously playing from the heart and not making career moves was incredibly moving — but of course the songs and arrangements are good, too. Yes, I could hear little bits of Talking Heads in their earlier material and shows — which was flattering — but now I think most of their influences are pretty invisible. They’ve become what they are.
Already I can sense I am being sucked into the prep for the four Carnegie Hall shows coming up in the first week of February. This week I’ve made the leap and have decided to add a small orchestra to the last 5 tunes of the Here Lies Love show. It’ll make a pretty spectacular last 20 minutes for that show, I think. Been thinking about adding these players for a while, but I needed to run the numbers and see if it was financially possible. Tony Finno is wrapping up some arrangements (some were already done for the German Century of Song dates in the fall.) We’re securing musicians, and my band is preparing for rehearsals beginning in about 10 days. I’m pretty excited about the show, as I am proud of the songs. They are also fun to play and sing — even though I’ll only be singing a third of them — Ganda and Joan will sing the 2 leads, which will be appropriate. I have already begun practicing the songs at home; some of the chords changes are tricky and I need to get comfortable with those. It’s a thrill to be able to do a whole concert of new material. Most of my life in concerts and tours I have gingerly mixed in new stuff with songs that are more familiar to an audience, which is what most bands and singers do. Occasionally we get overly enthusiastic and we play a whole new record, or most of it, on tour — our enthusiasm for the new material sometimes overwhelms practical concerns for the desires of our audiences. It’s a balancing act — we don’t want to give them only what they already know (and to be honest they’d get bored with that after a while, as would all of us) but one can only introduce new and surprising elements a little at a time so it becomes a mixing act. But in this case, as the material is all thematic, and it tells a story — of Imelda Marcos and Estrella, the woman who raised her — I might be excused for not playing the familiar favorites. Plus, if this ever gets produced theatrically there is no place for me performing in it, so this is a rare opportunity for me, too.
The drummer for The Knee Plays brass band playing on February 1st has just changed, so I’ll need to be sure he is up to speed. I’m going to begin speaking the texts for that piece around the house as well, as I haven’t performed the whole thing in many years.
Many of the acts for the February 2nd "Welcome To Dreamland" extravaganza happen to be touring together in the UK at the moment, so I will e-mail them and request that they think in advance how they might make an evening that will flow smoothly — ideally there won’t be any band or set changes, and each act will flow into the next with changing singers and rotating accompaniment. We’ll see. Good that a bunch of them are already traveling together.
I explained the concept of the final February 4th concert “One Note” to S&S last night over dinner. For non-musicians maybe it’s more confusing than I realize. I explained that an extremely wide variety of music has as its center a single tone or note. It could be an A or a Bb, but in many kinds of music — from Mississippi blues to contemporary classical — there is a constant tone, either played or implied, and all the other textures and melodies revolve around this tone. I used the example of Indian classical music, saying, “You know the guy that sits and plays the drone note and its harmonics on the tamboura? He never does anything else. He’s just there to provide the center point. It seems simple, but it’s not, and it’s critical that it be there. That’s the central tone and the soloist is free to improvise within the raga around that.” It apparently wasn’t a good example; maybe non-musicians — and S&S have seen and heard Indian classical music, I’m sure — maybe they don’t analyze what music’s made of when they listen the way musicians tend to do. Well, maybe this show will make that a little clearer. There are 3 acts in this high concept evening. Haale, a singer coming out of an Iranian tradition mixed with avant-post-rock stuff, has a central tone in many of her pieces, as does Camille, the French singer whose hit record Le Fil has a Bb going through the whole record, though you can usually only hear it in between songs, when it quietly connects them. Alarm Will Sound, an amazing local kind of chamber orchestra/band will round out that evening with instrumental pieces by G. Scelsi (Pranam II), electronica composer Aphex Twin (Cliff's) and a short drone-based early music work such as the Erart. So they’ll make a bit of a point with their contributions all by themselves. I’m hoping they can find a way to overlap with Camille and Haale, but we’ll see.
The late Italian composer Scelsi whose piece Alarm is playing is maybe the epitome of this one-note concept . He is most known for writing pieces in the 60s for orchestras and various ensembles that feel like giant single tones, cosmic emanations undulating and varying texturally. It’s far from static or boring — he does bend notes, add harmonics, and there are lots of dynamics. I’ve collected a few notes on this “outsider” classicist — thanks Alex Ross, Thomas B and LN. (LINK)
This has been an incredible opportunity to program this series of shows and be offered this kind of programming freedom. I sure hope I can pull it off. In the UK (Meltdown and All Tomorrows Parties festivals) and elsewhere in Europe these kinds of programming opportunities are not so unusual — but here, sadly, it is rare. This kind of risk-taking on this scale is exceptional. Ara Guzelimian is leaving Carnegie Hall soon, and he initiated some of the innovative programming changes there and at Zankel. I hope the creative initiative is carried on by his replacement.
Read a book called Capturing Sound by Mark Katz, which details how (mainly recording) technology changed music. Some of the information makes perfect sense in retrospect, but one often doesn’t ask oneself why or how music came to be the way it is, and his insights illuminate some of those mysteries.
He discusses vibrato in string players, which is a good example. Katz contends that in the pre-recording era vibrato added to a note was considered kitschy, tacky, and was universally frowned upon — unless one absolutely had to use it in the uppermost registers. As recording became more ubiquitous and common in the early part of the last century it was found that by using a bit more vibrato not only could the volume of the instrument be increased (very important when there is only one mic or a huge horn to capture an orchestra or ensemble) but the pitch, now painfully and permanently apparent on the recording, could be smudged by adding the wobble. The perceptible imprecise pitch of a string instrument with no frets could be compensated for with a little wobble. Soon enough, the conventional wisdom reversed itself, and now people find playing without vibrato to be painful, weird and unprofessional.
I suspect that the exact same thing happened with opera singers. I have some recordings made at the very beginning of the recording era and their use of vibrato is much |
