Frippertronics

Wikipedia - "Frippertronics was a specific tape looping technique used by Robert Fripp. It evolved from a system of tape looping originally developed in the electronic music studios of the early 1960s that was first used by composers Terry Riley and Pauline Oliveros and made popular through its use in ambient music by composer Brian Eno."
Wikipedia, Fripp & Eno, Signs & Symptoms, Interview with Robert Fripp in Guitar Player, YouTube - Robert Fripp: Frippertronics, Interview, Fripp & Eno - The Heavenly Music Corporation, Eno & Fripp - Air Structures (Live Paris Olympia May 28th 1975), Eno/Fripp - An Index Of Metals, SoundCloud: Frippertronics - Soundscapes - Bleeping & Droning (Video)

Christian Wolff

Wikipedia - "Christian G. Wolff (born March 8, 1934) is an American composer of experimental classical music. Wolff was born in Nice in France to German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S. in 1941, they helped found Pantheon Books along with other European intellectuals who had fled Europe during the rise of fascism. The Wolffs published a series of notable English translations of mostly European literature, as well as an edition of the I Ching that would prove influential upon John Cage after Wolff gave it to him as a present."
Wikipedia, vimeo - Roulette TV: CHRISTIAN WOLFF, vimeo - Changing the System, part 1: discovering the possibilities

San Francisco Renaissance

Kenneth Rexroth, 1957
Wikipedia - "The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others (e.g., Alan Watts, Ralph J. Gleason) felt this renaissance was a broader phenomenon and should be seen as also encompassing visual and performing arts, philosophy, cross-cultural interests (particularly those that involved Asian cultures), and new social sensibilities."
Wikipedia, University of Virginia - The Beats and the San Francisco Renaissance, City Lights, A Brief Guide to the San Francisco Renaissance, amazon - San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, 1955-1960, amazon - The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century, Google - The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century

Jerome Bel - Veronique Doisneau (2005)

"A woman stands onstage at the Paris Opera. She talks with a quality that is soft, open, a bit hesitant. A light pink rehearsal sweater, reminiscent of little girl dance tights, frames her 42 year-old woman’s body. This uneasy relationship between girl and woman is one of the elements that choreographer Jerome Bel elicits so naturally and poignantly in Veronique Doisneau (both the name of the performer and the name of the performance). In his piece, seen in a film version at Baryshnikov Arts Center on Sunday, Mr. Bel literally gives voice to an artist whose primary job has been to be beautiful and quiet, not drawing attention to herself."
Reflections on Dance, YouTube - Veronique Doisneau, 1, 2, 3, 4

The War of the Worlds - Orson Welles

Wikipedia - "The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938 and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds."
Wikipedia, YouTube - War Of The Worlds radio spoof by Orson Wells

Decaying Yusuf Hawkins memorial mural renewed by Gabriel Specter

""In the wake of the 22nd anniversary of Yusuf Hawkins’ brutal murder, Gabriel Specter acts to ignite the teen’s memory, once more, in New York City’s collective consciousness. On August 23, 1989, a racially motivated mob murdered 16-year-old Yusuf Hawkins in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. A mural in his honor has stood in Bedford-Stuyvesant since then, but years of neglect, vandalism and aging paint have left it unrecognizable. The murder shook modern race relations in New York City and is linked to the undercurrents that sparked the Crown Heights Riots and the election of New York’s first black mayor, David Dinkins."
Wooster Collective, Wikipedia, NYT: The Death of Yusuf Hawkins, 20 Years Later

Bascom Lamar Lunsford

Wikipedia - "Bascom Lamar Lunsford (March 21, 1882 - September 4, 1973) was a lawyer, folklorist, and performer of traditional (folk and country) music from western North Carolina. He was often known by the nickname 'Minstrel of the Appalachians'."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Dogget's Gap, Bascom Lamar Lunsford Minstrel of Appalachia Festival, Step Stones, Lost John Dean, Swannanoa Tunnel

Jay-Z and Alan Lomax

"Why does folk music collector Alan Lomax have a copyright interest in 'Takeover' by Jay-Z? I learned the answer from Creative License: The Law And Culture Of Digital Sampling by Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola. It’s a companion book to the invaluable documentary Copyright Criminals. The story of Jay-Z and Alan Lomax isn’t quite as epic a copyright fail as the Biz Markie lawsuit or the story of 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' but it’s still pretty absurd. So here’s Jay-Z’s 'Takeover.' As you might expect, it contains salty language."
Ethan Hein's Blog (Video)

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

Angela Davis
"The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is an incredible documentary with an equally incredible story behind it. The film, which opens in New York this week, is constructed entirely from hundreds of hours of archival footage of the black power movement, footage that’s not just rare, but unseen; it was shot by a Swedish news crew in the 1960s and 1970s, then left untouched in a Swedish TV station’s cellar for 30 years, where it was discovered by documentary filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson."
Trove of Unseen Footage Revives History in ‘The Black Power Mixtape’ (Video), NYT: Power to the People, but Quietly, Netflex, IMDB: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Video), Angela Davis: The Black Power Mixtape, Democracy Now: Interview with Danny Glover

The Encyclopedia of 9/11

"Here in New York City, we heard it first, the drone of the plane down the West Side, surprisingly loud. Then, if we were outside, our heads pointed in the right direction, we could see it: the dull-red gash in the North Tower, smoking ominously. Just as we’d begun to absorb this strange sight, wondering what pilot could have been so dim as to steer his plane into one of those towers on what seemed the clearest, bluest September day anyone could remember, came a second plane, then a terrible blossom of flame, then the billowing smoke enshrouding downtown."
The Encyclopedia of 9/11 - New York Magazine

Being There - Wilco

Wikipedia - "Being There is the second album by Chicago-based rock band Wilco. Despite its release as a nineteen-song double album, Being There was sold at a single album price due to a deal between lead singer Jeff Tweedy and Reprise Records. Released on October 29, 1996, the album was an improvement for the band in both sales and critical reception as compared with their first album, A.M.."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Misunderstood, Far, Far Away, Monday, Outtasite (Outta Mind), Forget The Flowers, Red-Eyed and Blue, OUTTASITE (OUTTA MIND) - LETTERMAN 1997 TV, I Got You, What's the World Got in Store, Hotel Arizona, Say You Miss Me, Sunken Treasure, Someday Soon, Someone Else's Song, Kingpin, (Was I) In Your Dreams, The Lonely 1, Dreamer In My Dreams

Dispatches (1977) - Michael Herr

Wikipedia - "Michael Herr (born 1940, in Syracuse, New York) is a writer and former war correspondent, best known as the author of Dispatches (1977), a memoir of his time as a correspondent for Esquire magazine (1967–1969) during the Vietnam War. The book was called the best 'to have been written about the Vietnam War' by The New York Times Book Review; novelist John le Carré called it 'the best book I have ever read on men and war in our time.'"
Wikipedia, amazon, NYU, YouTube - Dispatches by Michael Herr (Book Trailer)

Adrian Sherwood

"Adrian Sherwood (born 1958 in London) is an English record producer best known for his work with dub music as well as for remixing a number of popular acts such as Coldcut, Depeche Mode, The Woodentops, Primal Scream, Pop Will Eat Itself, Sinéad O'Connor, and Skinny Puppy. Within his role as a record producer, he has worked with a variety of record labels, however his most well-known label is On-U Sound Records. Sherwood has been a member of the band Tackhead."
Wikipedia, Adrian Sherwood, Obsolete, On-U Sound, YouTube - Boogaloo, LEE "SCRATCH" PERRY & ADRIAN SHERWOOD, Adrian Sherwood At The Control, ADRIAN SHERWOOD & LITTLE ROY "TRIBAL WAR", Adrian Sherwood"monastery sound", Animal Magic, Zoo Time - dub reggae dub, Adrian Sherwood vs Tackhead vs Grimey Rob "Technology works"

The Miners' Hymns

"Above is a trailer for Bill Morrison's film The Miners' Hymns, a melancholy celebration of coal-mining culture in the great northern English city of Durham. The film is centered on the Durham Miners' Gala, an annual summertime meeting which, from the late nineteenth century until the Thatcher era, brought thousands of celebrants into the city. The gala was famous not only for its union activism but for its carnival atmosphere, its massed choral singing, and its myriad brass bands."
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise (Video), Johann Johannsson, 12 Tónar, Tribeca Film

"Poses" - Yolanda Dominguez

"'Poses' is a direct criticism of the absurd and artificial world of glamour and of fashion that magazines present. Specifically, the highly-distorted image of women that they transmit through models that do not represent real women and that avoid all those who are not within their restricted parameters. These images are virtually the only feminine reference in the mass media and they have a great influence in both men and women when building our roles in terms of behavior and ways of thinking."
Yolanda Dominguez (Video), Yolanda Dominguez - Works, It's Nice That

WNYC's Guide to 9/11 Arts Events

Thomas Hirschhorn's "Mondrian Altar", 1997. MoMA PS1.
"This month, cultural institutions around the city are paying respect to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks through literature, visual arts, theater, dance, music, and film. Here's our guide to what's happening around town..."
WNYC's Guide to 9/11 Arts Events (Video)

Tompkins Square Park

Wikipedia - "Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre (42,000 m) public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the west by Avenue A. St. Marks Place abuts the park to the west."
Wikipedia, W - Tompkins Square Park Riot (1988), YouTube - Tompkins Square Park Riot

Southern Gothic

'The Ghost of Bernadette Soubirous,', 1890, photograph
"To grow up in the South is to be fed a steady diet of grits and ghost stories. Ask any household in Alabama, and they’ll tell you about a friend or family member with a rogue phantom that blows out candles or stomps around in the attic. Being haunted is a permanent condition below the Mason-Dixon, one that defines the region as much as the voracious kudzu and the iced tea so sugary it hurts your teeth. William Faulkner, who was known to spin particularly scary fireside stories, described the Deep South in Absalom, Absalom! as 'dead since 1865 and peopled with garrulous outraged baffled ghosts.'"
The Paris Review - Margaret Eby

Can

Wikipedia - "Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music. Can constructed their music largely through collective spontaneous composition –– which the band differentiated from improvisation in the jazz sense –– sampling themselves in the studio and editing down the results;[1] bassist/chief engineer Holger Czukay referred to Can's live and studio performances as 'instant compositions'."
Wikipedia, Spoon Records, YouTube - Hier und Heute 1971, Mother Sky, Don't Turn On the Light, Leave Me AloneDeadlock, Bring Me Coffee or Tea, Song Swan Song, Paperhouse, Spoon (1971), Vernal Equinox, Don't Say No.
The Can (from "Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany" Documentary).

Workers Wearing Toeshoes

Edgar Degas, The Dance Lesson, c. 1879
"In 1903, when ballet had been a prolific subject of Edgar Degas for over 30 years, an American collector, Louisine Havemeyer, asked him, 'Why, monsieur, do you always do ballet dancers?' His quick reply was, 'Because, madame, it is all that is left us of the combined movements of the Greeks.' This already said much: in ballet he had found a modern source of classicism. Yet Degas’s body of work shows that he had found far more. His views of dance — in oil, sculpture, pastel, gouache, lithographs and other mediums — include those who aren’t dancing, those who can’t dance well yet, those who once danced but can do so no longer, and a great many of those who can but happen not to be doing so just now."
NYT: Workers Wearing Toeshoes, Royal Academy of Arts: Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement

Fame megamix

"EPMD vs Lady Gaga & Lady Starlight vs David Bowie & John Lennon vs Jay-Z vs Irene Cara vs James Brown vs Ultramagnetic MCs vs Godfather Don vs Sage Francis. It's widely believed that David Bowie ripped the guitar lick off of James Brown, but actually it's the other way around."
SoundCloud (Video)

Henry Flynt

Wikipedia - "Henry Flynt (born 1940 in Greensboro, North Carolina) is a philosopher, avant-garde musician, anti-art activist and exhibited artist often associated with Conceptual Art, Fluxus and Nihilism."
Wikipedia, Henry Flynt, Stewart Home Society, YouTube - Sky Turned Red, Violin Strobe, Missionary Stew (1966), You Are My Everlovin' (1981) / Part 1, Part 2.
Henry Flynt in New York (vimeo)

Paroles -Jacques Prévert

"This edition was translated by Beat godfather and proto-Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and was published by his own press, City Light Books. Paroles struck a chord with the young people who lived through Pétain, the Occupaion, la Resistance, even though Prévert, who was born in 1900, was part of an earlier generation. The book sold hundreds of thousands of copies."
The Coffee Philosopher, amazon

Public Image Ltd.- Poptones & Careering (American Bandstand 1980)

"ABC, 'American Bandstand'. PiL's, hilarious, and now infamous, 'performance' on the prime time US pop show is broadcast on National TV. Pre-recorded on 3rd May, PiL mime to 'Poptones' and 'Careering.' Presenter Dick Clarke introduces the band as, 'a memorable moment in rock n roll, something special and interesting'. The longstanding mainstream music show is thrown into chaos as Lydon invites almost the entire audience up to dance with the band on stage! John barely pretends to mime, and the band swap instruments."
YouTube

Exposition Monet 2010

"An amazing website featuring works of Claude Monet, the famous French Impressionist painter. Browse the gallery in Galeries Nationales, Grand Palais to discover Monet’s work through this unique digital experience."
Exposition Monet 2010

The Workers - MASS MoCA

"We all know what Rosie the Riveter looked like, and what she stood for. Ford-era production line labor -- and the rise of powerful unions -- left us indelible portraits of work in mid 20th century America. Before that, Dickens created searing portraits of labor in the proto-industrial era, as Millet and his followers recorded a vivid picture of agrarian labor in mid 19th century Europe. But what does work look like today in a global economy marked by outsourcing, rapid migration, disruptive economies, and a state of labor that seems fractured, precarious, and almost invisible? With video, sculpture, photography, and performance art from 25 artists, this exhibition examines the way labor is represented today (and how some contemporary workers choose to represent themselves)."
MASS MoCA, The MASS MoCA Blog, Bureau for Open Culture

Party Supplies "Firecrackers" Mixtape

"Party Supplies is part of the Fool's Gold family here in Brooklyn. Instead of writing a paragraph about what he does, watch the video below for some live Party Supplies remix action! He just released a new mixtape with his take on tracks of Arcade Fire, Taylor Swift, Kanye West, the Weeknd and more."
Brooklyn Radio, "PS", YouTube - Party Supplies "Home" Remix, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home (Party Supplies Remix), "Mama Don't Dance" LIVE, Remixing a few original ideas live...

The Time

Wikipedia - "The Time is a funk and dance-pop ensemble formed in 1981. They are close Prince associates and arguably the most successful artists who have worked with him."
Wikipedia, YouTube - 777-9311, JerkOut, The Walk, Jungle Love, Fishnet

Hurricane Irene 2011 (Hurricanes and Tropical Storms)

"Hurricane Irene, which first hit the Bahamas on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2011, is a slow-moving massive storm. It advanced at 14 miles an hour, half the speed of typical hurricanes along the coast, in an unusually broad path that extended more than 260 miles from the center in some directions. It has affected at least a dozen states along the East Coast of the United States."
NYT, NYT: Readers’ Photos of Hurricane Irene, NYT: Damage and Flooding Scar Atlantic Seaboard, CBS News (Video), YouTube - Hurricane "Irene" 2011 (Video)

Michael Nyman Band

"The Michael Nyman Band, formerly known as the Campiello Band, is a group formed as a street band for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's 1756 play, Il Campiello directed by Bill Bryden at the Old Vic. The band did not wish to break up after the production ended, so its director, Michael Nyman, began composing music for the group to perform, beginning with 'In Re Don Giovanni', written in 1977. Originally made up of old instruments such as rebecs, sackbuts and shawms alongside more modern instruments like the banjo and saxophone in order to produce as loud a sound as possible without amplification, it later switched to a fully amplified lineup of string quartet, double bass, clarinet, three saxophones, horn, trumpet, bass trombone, bass guitar, and piano. This line up has been variously altered and augmented for some works."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds, Water Dances, The Heart Asks Pleasure First, Dreams of a Journey, Wedding Tango, The Promise

Tolkien Library

"The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, may be the most important and influential fantasy books ever published. Next to these, Tolkien wrote and published an enormous amount of other books: Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wootton Major, Roverandom, Mr. Bliss, Children of Hurin, Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun... to name some. The aim of this website is to show all books which are curently inside the Tolkien Library."
Tolkien Library, YouTube

Horst Ademeit

"White Columns is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in the United States by Dusseldorf-based Horst Ademeit (b. 1937.) Working independently, and outside of the context of art, since the late 1980s Ademit has embarked on an obsessive program of collecting evidence – through photography and meticulous note-keeping – that would establish, in his mind, the existence of what he called 'cold rays,' unseen forces that he believed severely impaired and impacted upon his life and surroundings."
White Columns, Hamburger Bahnhof, ArtCritical, Galerie Susanne Zander

The Band - The Weight, Across the Great Divide, Rag Mama Rag...

"The Weight, Across the Great Divide, Rag Mama Rag. The night they drove old dixie down, Up on Cripple. Rockin' chair. Unfaithful servant. Whispering Pines, King Harvest."
YouTube, (2), (3), (4), (5)

David Byrne: How Architecture Helped Music Evolve

"Since the break-up of Talking Heads in 1991, David Byrne has made a good career for himself as a solo artist, working in film and music, and also becoming an active supporter of cycling. Overtly intellectual, Byrne has given lectures on a great variety of topics – from Carl Jung to the ways in which venue and context shape artistic creation. The TED talk above was given in February 2010 in Long Beach, California, and here David Byrne presents his ideas on the interrelationship between music and architecture."
YouTube - Open Culture

Lightnin’ Hopkins

Wikipedia - "Sam John Hopkins (March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982), better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Baby Please Dont Go, Goin Down Slow, Mojo Hand, Rare Performances 1960-1979 - Parte 1, Parte 2, Parte 3, Parte 4, Parte 5, Parte 6, Parte 7, Parte 8, Parte 9, Texas blues legend - Where Lightnin' Strikes