like the moon
Gavin’s throwing darts again, and he hits a couple bullseyes — or offers some sharp prodding at any rate. The post is on par with his thoughtful and provocative ruminations on the ethics of musical tourism from almost exactly a year ago, and we can read it as something of a follow-up, a continuation not […]
Read More →You may have heard, somewhere in the background perhaps, that Muzak filed for bankruptcy. Here’s an MOR-perspective podcast about it, bordering on inanity — A better use of your time & in the pdf-blog spirit, here’s a musicological analysis, written 20 yrs ago (!) by me ol’ advisor — >> Radano, Ronald M. 1989. “Interpreting […]
Read More →Not long ago, w/r/t global gobbledecrunk, I referred to an interview I gave recently to a Brazilian journalist. The journo in question is Camilo Rocha, who doubles as a DJ (& has a fab disco mix over @ Spannered). The piece was just published in Folha de Sao Paolo, apparently Brazil’s biggest newspaper. I don’t […]
Read More →In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was […]
Read More →Tonight at the E Room :: Brandeis Beats ! As my blogger-DJ-applied side attests, I like to combine the hands-on production of music with an approach that grounds any such creative engagement in historical study and an appreciation for music’s social and cultural contexts. This semester, my first term at Brandeis University, has been no […]
Read More →when i say that ghislain poirier is one of my favorite global ghettotechies®, i think i mean that unsardonically, but i’m not sure where that leaves us ghislain’s music, however, usually leaves me grinning if not spinning keep it blazin, g —
Read More →As promised last week, what follows here is my review of Michael Veal’s recently published book on dub. It won’t appear in print for perhaps another year, which is a little silly and unfortunate, but that’s how it goes. I see no reason, at any rate, not to share it now that it’s written, especially […]
Read More →Been working on a review of ethnomusicologist Michael Veal’s recently published book on dub (it’s called Dub [BUY!]), which I will share with y’all before too long; meantime, as I jot down some excerpts, I thought I’d share some of my favorite passages — insightful thoughts and neat narratives and such. To wit, a nice […]
Read More →“Hipster hedonism takes many forms,” wrote Ned Polsky in reply to Norman Mailer’s hipster manifesto of 1957. “Some hipster groups,” Polsky continued, “have everything to do with motorcycles, whereas others have nothing to do with them.” Similarly, but more in the abstract, in his genealogy of the hipster, “Hip and the Long Front of Color” […]
Read More →“To swing with the rhythms of another is to enrich oneself — the conception of the learning process as dug by Hip is that one cannot really learn until one contains within oneself the implicit rhythm of the subject or the person.” “(And yet crazy is also the self-protective irony of the hipster.” “the nihilism […]
Read More →Been enjoying the ASA conference in Philly for the last few days. Our panel on Thursday went pretty well, I think. We actually seemed to have some coherence across our papers and although we had a rather compromised a/v situation (holding a Shure 58 to laptop speakers don’t really cut it in a ballroom), I […]
Read More →Next week (Thursday, Oct 11, from 12:00pm – 1:45pm to be exact) I’ll be presenting at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association, being held this year in Philadelphia (at the Marriott, natch, which is offering a lovely “conference rate” of $200/night). I’m not so excited about the hotel deal, but I’m excited about […]
Read More →Did I say something about “counter” canons? I think I like “loose” canons better. But the gist remains: that is, if we listen to some genre of choice through the ears of another, it can tell us a great deal about both genres (which is to say, about the producers and devotees of both). — […]
Read More →Some readers might remember that I participated in a panel about ego trip’s White Rapper Show earlier this year at the annual meeting of IASPM-US. I’ve been wanting to share my thoughts / comments from that session here for a while, but haven’t had a moment to collect (or transcribe) them. Well, I just spent […]
Read More →This Friday night, here in Cambridge (on the banks of the Charles no less), techno legend Juan Atkins will make the music move the people c/o a new effort in town called 12 Inches of Pleasure. This is very exciting for those of us who like our four-on-the-floor as much as our funky-drummer. I’m quite […]
Read More →On 8/2/07, Sonjah Stanley-Niaah, Dr wrote: And this one, check this out.. I am interested in your analysis of the dance and music… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKxhKhLhlb0 Sonjah Stanley Niaah, Ph.D. Lecturer, Cultural Studies University of the West Indies, Mona Campus Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 2008: www.crossroads2008.org Wadabagei: www.lexingtonbooks.com/Journals/wadabagei/Index.shtml To which I replied: This one’s (more) interesting […]
Read More →make way: american express meets el angel de la independencia uptown Allow me a little (belated) unpacking, now back from Mexico City, where I swear I will return, clunky español and all, que pronto es posible. !Que ciudad! My principal reason for going was, as mentioned, to attend the biannual international meeting of the International […]
Read More →In a recent issue of the SEM Newsletter (March 2007, to be precise), Phil Bohlman addressed the issue of cultural translation and how it presents a paradox to ethnomusicologists — or perhaps more broadly, to those of us who mediate musical representations in myriad ways (including via links and mp3s): Should we understand our acts […]
Read More →The text below was written in spring 2007 and delivered at EMP and IASPM. Since its initial publication, I have learned of many additional instances of the “zunguzung” meme, often thanks to readers. I will continue to update the tally at the end of the post, and searching “zunguzung” on this site will lead to […]
Read More →Gotta love distributed research technics — Thx to Mark Calaguas for a few more notches in the Zunguzung tree, including a slippery interpolation by Ninja Man on “Funeral Again.” And, get this, two uses by Nice & Smooth — in the same way, and on CONSECUTIVE TRACKS (?!) on the same album: “Nice & Smooth” […]
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