Holiday Weekend (Microphones In The Trees, and Much More)

Kim phoned me at work Friday to remind me that a three-day holiday weekend was coming, which, of course, I had forgotten.  This meant, at a minimum, that I might have an opportunity to troll for some fresh music.  Yesterday, as it turns out, mostly was spent catching up on bookkeeping, bank reconciliations, and other computer administrivia, but I was able to concurrently search the likes of YouTube and DailyMotion for special sounds.  I ended up spending most of my time multi-tasking at La Blogotheque (fast becoming one of my favorite 'Net destinations) and Black Cab Sessions, then I was able to cap it all off with the as-always-supreme pleasure of sharing it all with Ivi (until I noticed that she had fallen asleep well before I finally shut down just before 3am).  There is so much to report on and to share that I will probably have to spread it over several articles, but let's start with a band totally new to me: Silver Mt. Zion -- or is it Three Silver Mt. Zion, or even Tra-La-La Band? -- doing "Microphones In the Trees" ...

Back On Stages 3-A Silver Mt Zion-Microphones in the trees
by lablogotheque

(btw, if like me, you don't have all the bandwidth in the world, you might need to hit the HD button on the player to avoid trying to render in the highest quality.)

The Second of Six Degrees of Separation

A couple of days ago, I brought up the matter of Nico Muhly; see the August 19 posting. Last night, Chika fired off a message, which I will quote in part here:

>It's funny that you mention Nico Muhly on your >blog- I went to camp with him! That summer I >spent at the Tanglewood Institute in the >Berkshires doing an art program - it was mostly >a music camp, so there were some budding >composers there too. Anyway, the 6 of us in the >visual art program buddied up with the 6 >composers and did a partnered project, and my >boyfriend at the time was Nico's partner. > >Nico was certainly memorable then, but I didn't >realize until recently that he's kind of a big >deal now! Working with Bjork and the like!

Then, today she added more detail:

"... you can add that my friend got some original hand written sheet music out of the deal, but he gave it to another friend of ours who still has it, and is kind of thrilled that Nico Muhly is doing so well. I was buddied with Ken Masur, who's father, Kurt Masur was a well known conductor. When he visited, he gave out a lot of autographs. It was funny to be a music ignorant visual arts person in an classical orchestra camp."

Thanks, Chika, for helping round out that blurb on N.M.

(Well, as luck would have it, Kurt Masur is one of my favorite conductors, whose work I have been hearing since the 70s, when I first discovered him on a classical radio station in Los Angeles, and have since added some recordings to my music collection..)

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btw ... Six Degrees of Separation, in case you're wondering, refers to the proposition that if you are one degree from anybody you know, two degrees from people known by those you know, and so on -- then each of us averages being only six degrees of separation from anyone else on the planet.

You Know How One Thing Just Leads To Another ...

Did it start with my interest in the music of Leonard Cohen in the 60s and 70s?  Fast-forward to the wonderful Cohen bio-film, "I'm Your Man", of 2005, I think.  One of the superb performers of Cohen music in that film was Antony, of Antony and the Johnsons.  So while trolling the Web for more Antony music, I blunder upon a mesmerizing snippet of sound, sung by Antony and written by one Nico Muhly.

As it turns out, I can't get enough of Muhly's music at the moment. Perhaps the best place to hear Nico Muhly is on his MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/muhly. Here are some YouTube examples of some of his collaborations:

Then there is Muhly's blog, where I find not only that he listens to some of the same music that I do (e.g., Rachmaninoff vespers, Bach chorales, etc.), but he also works with Philip Glass and was influenced by Steve Reich and John Adams, all among my very favorite composers.  We also find that that he is a budding chef, and readily dispenses far-ranging, brash opinions on just about anything.

A New Yorker piece has quite a good backgrounder on this young whippersnapper.

... And then I discover that Muhly's blog shows he was in Portland last Friday!

UPDATE: 8/19/08 - 2:40pm:  Just found two recent pieces from The Oregonian, one before the Portland concert, one following.  As usual, it looks like everybody else has known about this guy all along ...

UPDATE: 8/21/08 - 2:25PM: See Chika's unexpected but most welcome input

Toby at Grammy Camp Showcase

Dennis passes along these pics of Toby in action in Los Angeles.

How the Italians Do It

An Italian Motorcycle Police performance sometime in the 1950s (in keeping with our dance interest) ...

Look Ma, No Cameras!

Even if you are not a Radiohead fan like me, you might find this interesting:

First, the performance itself ..

Then, how it was done ...

George Lives On

Last night Ivi and I stayed up for Saturday Night Live. They reprised a show from the mid-seventies, featuring some great old music from Billy Preston and Janis Ian ... and several George Carlin pieces, including this (rare) family-rated example: