11/21
2009
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“Well, slap some Protools on that s#$% and you're good to go!”
An interview with Heather Anderson from Blue Rabbit.
11/2
2009
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Blue Rabbit rocks SPIN
SPIN Earth is featuring my band, Blue Rabbit, right now. Shortly after checking out this video, you will find yourself loving these girls. Don’t worry, it’s worth it.
10/27
2009
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A little something from my friend Star. She’s amazing at life.I’ll Let You Watch by Star St. Germain
- Has been played 1,292 times.
10/22
2009
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Lyric, a young guy recorded here at the Beacon Cafe Youth Showcase in Philadelphia. Now, if only I’d thought to use MY pencils for something other than writing and stabbing classmates…
10/14
2009
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“Say, Girl” — Faller.
The “I don’t even know what to say” lyric popped into my head a while ago, and I just found an acoustic-electric bass guitar that I needed to try out, so I made this today. It was pretty fun to write… I’d like to get the bass sounding better/funkier, but I’m pretty happy, this being the first bass line I’ve written/played/recorded. Also, the drums could be developed and some harmony and an instrumental breakdown added, maybe some verse lyrics, but I’ll shelve it for the time being to work on other stuff. If you’re down to play with it, let me know!
- Has been played 47 times.
10/12
2009
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"Burning Piano" and Fluxus
This is a performance of renowned avant-garde composer Annea Lockwood’s “Piano Burning,” which was first performed in 1968. Lockwood’s work is generally fascinating and pushes music —as an artistic element— in fresh directions. Imagine dancers incorporating a foam ball made with six speakers and a radio receiver into their work, or four didgeridoos accompanying images of a cave, or a piano getting drowned or burned…
“There’s something very symbolic about a piano,” notes Nicola Melville, Pianist and Professor of Music. “It’s not just a musical instrument. We all have this sort of universal respect for pianos—and seeing one on fire can be quite difficult to watch, yet quite mesmerizing at the same time. It’s both beautiful and disturbing.” (excerpt from the Spring 2009 The Carletonian)
Lockwood’s performance art was influenced by Fluxus, a group of anti-commercial, anti-art, DIY-positive, multimedia artists and composers brought together in the early 1960’s by George Maciunas. Maciunas (ma-chew-nas), a Lithuanian artist, organized Fluxus to explore concepts put forward in the experimental music of John Cage, and he became known for arranging avant-garde “happenings.”
One of the most notorious events performed at Wiesbaden was Maciunas’ interpretation of Philip Corner’s Piano Activities, the score of which asked a group of people to ‘play’, ‘scratch or rub’ and ‘strike soundboard, pins, lid or drag various objects across them.’ In Maciunas’ interpretation, with the help of Higgins, Williams and others, the piano was completely destroyed. This event was considered scandalous enough to appear on German television four times. The festival then travelled to Cologne, Paris, Dusseldorf, Amsterdam, The Hague and Nice. These concerts and events were to become integral to the legacy of Fluxus. (excerpt from Wikipedia)
The group attracted artists as diverse as Yoko Ono and George Brecht, who produced what Maciunas described as an example of “the best Fluxus ‘Composition.’”. While Maciunas was living, all fluxus work was unsigned and unnumbered, and many were not attributed to their creators. Posthumously, amazing artworks such as USA Surpasses all the Genocide Records! have been attributed to him.
He was also instrumental (ha!) in turning New York City’s SOHO neighborhood into an artistic sanctuary— in 1966, he began directing his private and government funding into buying up loft buildings and converting them into studios and affordable living spaces for artists. Way to go, guy!
And let’s add a little guilty pleasure bonus— why not! (Okay, not art (?), but… YEAH!)
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Burn your piano right the first time
If you have an old microphone you can afford to burn up, put it in the base of an upright piano. Piano burning should really be done with an upright piano; the structure is much more beautiful than that of a grand when you watch it burn. The piano must always be one that’s irretrievable, that nobody could work on, that no tuner or rebuilder could possibly bring back. It’s got to be a truly defunct piano.
So place your microphone, run it out to a recording device, and put a little wad of paper soaked in something flammable down in one corner of the piano. Don’t sprinkle lighter fluid or any flammable liquid over the whole piano. Götterdämmerung is not what we’re after. Start the piano burning with quite a small flame, just a little bit in one corner, and slowly the flames will spread through the whole structure and as they do, they burn away one layer of the structure after another, until finally you get down to the harp and it’s absolutely beautiful to watch.
Often I suggest that people overstring the strings, so when they pop they really resonate. It takes a long time, instant conflagration not being the idea; piano burning can take up to three hours. The flames are the most beautiful colors because of the different varnishes on the instrument, so you get violets and greens as well as reds and oranges. Sometimes I’ve seen smoke just spiraling up from between the keys. And the sounds are terrific. That’s piano burning.
Excerpted from an interview by Daniel Beban in White Fungus (#9), an experimental arts magazine; www.whitefungus.com.
10/11
2009
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Certainly, music demands a certain dedication. But this guy… wow.
10/10
2009
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“There Came A Moment” - Faller
The first song I ever recorded, thanks to Lara having GarageBand… that was almost three years ago
- Has been played 42 times.
