Music

Christmas 2012

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Newgrange  is  an ancient structure in Ireland so constructed that the sun, at the exact time of the winter solstice, shines directly down a long corridor and illuminates the inner chamber. More about Newgrange  here  and  here.

Grim  has an Arthurian passage about the Solstice.

Don Sensing has thoughts astronomical, historical, and theological about  the Star of Bethlehem.

A wonderful 3-D representation of the  Iglesia San Luis De Los Franceses. Just click on the link–then you can look around inside the cathedral. Use arrow keys or mouse to move left/right, up/down, and shift to zoom in, ctrl to zoom out.

Vienna Boys Choir, from Maggie’s Farm

Lappland in pictures, from Neptunus Lex

Snowflakes and snow crystals, from Cal Tech. Lots of great photos

A Romanian Christmas carol, from The Assistant Village Idiot

In the bleak midwinter, from The Anchoress

Rick Darby  has some thoughts on the season. More  here.

A Christmas reading from  Thomas Pynchon.

The  first radio broadcast of voice and music  took place on Christmas Eve, 1906.  Or maybe not. But  on the other hand…

An air traffic control version of  The Night Before Christmas.

Ice sculptures  from the St Paul winter carnival

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, sung by  Enya

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Jeff Sypeck  on a winter garden

Music for 2012 (Carl’s List)

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With Youtube it is easy to try out new music so I recommend that you check on some of these links and see what you think. iTunes is also just a couple of clicks away.

Bob Mould – The Silver Age – Album

Bob Mould was the lead singer and guitarist of Husker Du, the seminal punk (?) band. After they broke up he went solo, formed the great band Sugar, and then got weird. He’s back now, guitars blazing, and it sounds great. Here he is playing the lead single “The Descent” on Letterman.

Calvin Harris – Feel So Close – Single

This simple, hypnotic song with a very humanistic video is one of the best songs of the year (see it here). The sparse use of electronics in all the right places is what moves it into something great.

LCD Soundsystem – Shut Up and Play the Hits – DVD

The great electronic band LCD Soundsystem fronted by James Murphy disbanded this year and he had a farewell tour and DVD of their final shows in New York City. I had the privilege of seeing LCD Soundsystem three times and they put on a great show every time. Here is a clip of them playing “All My Friends” from the DVD.

Soundgarden – King Animal – Album

When Soundgarden came back to Lollapalooza I was amazed at how great Chris Cornell’s voice sounded. This is their first album in many years and it is as if they never left. Here is “Been Away Too Long” on Letterman.

M.I.A. – Bad Girls – Video

The video for MIA’s song “Bad Girls” was completely original and new. Talk about doing your own stunts… check it out here.

Afghan Whigs – “Lovecrimes” – Song

The Afghan Whigs were a great alternative band back in the day known for “Gentlemen” and other hits. Front man Greg Dulli is still out there making great music and he reformed the band – this is their cover of a Frank Ocean song “Lovecrimes” You can download it for free at their web site here.

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Beauty and Ugliness

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Here’s a Christmas-y song that I think is beautiful:

2000 Miles

The song was written and sung by Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders.

Here’s what Hynde said at a rock concert in 2003, not that long after the 9/11 attacks:

“Have we gone to war yet?” she asked sarcastically, early on. “We (expletive) deserve to get bombed. Bring it on.” Later she yelled, “Let’s get rid of all the economic (expletive) this country represents! Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win!”

I like several Pretenders songs (Back on the Chain Gang, for example), and this pretty much spoiled them for me. I’m not boycotting the group…I don’t turn the radio off if one of their songs comes on…it’s just…sad.

Fast forward to 2012. The Korean rapper known as Psy (“Gangnam Style”) was scheduled to perform at a Christmas concert (a benefit for Children’s National Medical Center) which is traditionally attended by the President of the United States. It turns out that in 2002, he smashed a model American tank onstage “to oppose 37,000 U.S. troops that descended on the Korean Peninsula” (in the words of a CBS Local writer who seems to be as ignorant of history as Psy himself evidently is)…and a couple of years later, he rapped:

Kill those f***ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives/Kill those f***ing Yankees who ordered them to torture/Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers/Kill them all slowly and painfully

This rant was apparently inspired at least in part by the murder in Iraq of a Korean missionary by Islamic terrorists after the SK government refused to cancel its plan to send troops in support of the Iraq war.

After the information about Psy’s past performances came out (and Psy issued a standard pro-forma apology). some people thought that Obama might have declined to attend a concert at which Psy was a star attraction. But they were wrong, and he did attend.

One would think it would be obvious that for the commander-in-chief to attend a Psy concert..given the above backstory..is highly disrespectful to American military people, and indeed to Americans as a whole. What would have been most appropriate would have been for the concert organizers to disinvite Psy. Failing this (and there might have been contractual reasons making it impossible even had the organizers been inclined this way), Obama could have issued a brief statement of regret that it was impossible for him to attend given Psy’s comments about Americans. This would have demonstrated that the President has respect for his own country, and that he expects such respect to be shown by others.

No one familiar with Obama’s history would really be surprised that he did not choose this course. What is slightly surprising, and more than slightly disturbing, is that Obama’s attendance seems to have been just fine with many Americans, and with most of the old-line media. This Atlantic writer, for example, uses the Psy-Obama handshake to bash any “right-wingers” who might see anything wrong with Obama’s presence at the concert.

Of course, when a couple of months ago Americans in Benghazi were actually killed, as opposed to just being threatened with being killed, most of the old media showed great lack of interest in digging into the feckless Administration behavior that led to this debacle.

What is pretty clear is that we have a substantial number of people in this country who simply do not identify as Americans. They may identify with their profession, or with their social class, or with their educational background and asserted intellectual position, or maybe even with their locality…but identification with the American polity is missing. (And this phenomenon seems to be strongest among those whose self-concept is most closely tied in with their educational credentials.)

What such people do generally care about…a lot..is coolness, which means they care about entertainers and celebrities. We now have a President who apparently cares more about the transient glory of being associated with a flash-in-the-pan rapper (and whoever else sang at this concert) than about showing respect to those he has the responsibility to command. And this is evidently just fine with many among the media and academic elites.

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Rolling Stone is Laughable on Hip Hop List

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From time to time I have to report out on the insanity of the Rolling Stones lists and their fixation with Bob Dylan, the sixties, and other obscurities. Here I had to revise their top guitarist list which was comically irrelevant, as well as their equally terrible top guitar songs list.

While I know hardly anything about hip hop relative to my knowledge of rock everyone knows that putting Eminem on the cover is a gaffe in that community. Even Eminem himself would probably cringe at being the face of hip hop, when you have icons like Jay-Z, Tupac, Biggie, Snoop, Dr Dre, and Kanye. Sure he’s the best white rapper alive but really…

Then onto the list. These songs are so old I even remember them.

1. “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash from 1982

2. “Rapper’s Delight” by Sugarhill Gang from 1979

3. “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambattaa from 1982

4. “Sucker MC’s” by Run-DMC from 1983

5. “Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang” by Dr. Dre and Snoop from 1992

It is hilarious that Rolling Stone put their “musty test” to rap just like they do to rock (Bob Dylan) and guitar (Jimi Hendrix). They are really saying that those first four songs that are 30 years old or even older are the best hip hop songs? They are definitely old and were pioneers but that isn’t the best. Fine I’ll agree with #5 but the first four gotta go.

Luckily the list is so laughably bad right from the top and with Eminem on the cover I don’t need to spend even five minutes thinking about it. This post basically wrote itself.

Cross posted at LITGM

R.I.P. – Brubeck

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Dave Brubeck, whose music’s wit so delighted my parent’s generation died at 91. He reminds us of another era, when smoking meant subtle lights in a dimmed room and when pauses spoke as couples in quiet clubs paid thoughtful respect to a music that moved and innovated and then returned to its roots before launching out, reaching out, again.

The obituaries seem fewer he played long into a different culture. But Brubeck and Theolonious Monk and Jerry Mulligan were the sound tracks of the Baby Boomers’ parents and remind us of a vision that took notes, creating again and again a new order, a new beauty. Improvisations are grounded on Youtube: the interaction between musicians and an engaged audience lost, they remain to explain that time and those people. As the sixties became the seventies, we thought the fifties plastic, conformist, simple. All those vinyls my father loved remind us it was more complicated than we knew – perhaps because they were, themselves, like the music -laconic, cerebral even. Elvis and the Beatles, rock and country for decades they all lived side by side with Brubeck.

Born Dec. 6, 1920, Brubeck grew up on a ranch, planed to become a veternarian. He died Dec. 5, 1912 in Connecticut. His life appears full and generative: New York Times, NPR. YouTube from the Times.