The Essential Guide to Soca

"The musical engine driving today’s Caribbean Carnival celebrations from Barbados to St. Vincent, soca began its life as an experiment in 1970s Trinidad & Tobago. Seeking to create a musical unity between his twin-island republic’s East Indian and African populations, Trinidadian music icon Lord Shorty inserted the dholak and dhantal into the Afro-Creole rhythm of calypso on 1973’s 'Indrani,' sketching out a new hybrid sound he first dubbed 'the soul of calypso.' Other calypsonians would follow Shorty’s lead, putting aside the pointed political commentary of Trinidad’s original musical export to turn up the party vibes. It would be a decade, however, before soca crystallized into its modern form, incorporating – and then digitizing – the sounds of the street-level brass brands and iron-beating rhythm sections heard at Carnival time to create a sound specially geared for masqueraders to 'chip' and jump up to. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily (Video)
W - Soca music
How Soca Is Absorbing Afrobeats To Create A New Subgenre (Video)

Borough Hall Ceiling Collapse Shows How Badly Subway Is Deteriorating

"Back in January, the city’s Department of Transportation prepared a list of 'priority' subway stations that ought to be renovated. At the time, a few members of the MTA Board, including DOT commissioner Polly Trottenberg, were opposing an MTA project originating from Governor Cuomo’s office called the Enhanced Station Initiative (ESI). There were several points of contention, including a failure to propose installing elevators or finding other ways to make stations accessible, but Trottenberg and others also complained that the MTA wasn’t clear on how it had chosen the 33 stations for the $1 billion project. So, DOT prepared their own list and compared it with the stations chosen by the MTA. There was almost no overlap between the two lists. Yet, Borough Hall was on neither of them. This is worth revisiting now, because the ceiling at Borough Hall collapsed this afternoon. A giant pile of roof stuff fell onto the Manhattan-bound platform a couple of hours before the evening rush hour. ..."
Voice

Matt "Guitar" Murphy

Wikipedia - "Matthew Tyler Murphy (December 29, 1929 – June 15, 2018), known as Matt 'Guitar' Murphy, was an American blues guitarist. He was associated with The Blues Brothers and Howlin' Wolf. Murphy was born in Sunflower, Mississippi, and was educated in Memphis, Tennessee, where his father worked at the Peabody Hotel. Murphy learned to play guitar when he was a child.In 1948, Murphy moved to Chicago, where he joined the Howlin' Wolf Band, which at the time featured Little Junior Parker. In 1952, Murphy recorded with Little Junior Parker and Ike Turner, resulting in the release, 'You’re My Angel'/'Bad Women, Bad Whiskey'(Modern 864), credited to Little Junior Parker and the Blue Flames. Murphy worked a lot with Memphis Slim, including on his debut album At the Gate of Horn (1959). ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Matt Murphy - Murphy's Boogie 1963 (live), Memphis Slim & Matt Murphy - Matt's Guitar Blues, I'm lost without you - Memphis Slim, Matt ''Guitar'' Murphy ~ ''Born Under A Bad Sign''&''Going Down'' Live 1986, Matt ''Guitar'' Murphy ~ ''Low Down And Dirty'' & ''Blue Walls'' 1990

How Nietzsche Explains Turkey

"In 1989, a small Islamist party called Refah, or 'Welfare,' holds a conference titled 'National Consciousness.' In the crowd are mustached men with lean faces; many of them are old, wearing skullcaps Muslims use during prayer. Soon, a tall, thin young man dressed in a well-tailored suit rises to speak. 'May the peace of God be upon all believers,' he says. His polite bearing, however, belies his firm message. He invokes the ur-enemies of Turkishness— 'Agop,' the Greeks, and 'Jacques' and 'Hans,' a reference to the Europeans. They distribute birth control to the villages, corrupt the youth, and scoop up Turkey’s national wealth, he claims, adding that Turkey’s bureaucrats, farmers, widowers, and orphans are all forced to pay them interest, 'that which will facilitate the reign of the Jew.' Meanwhile, the ruling class lies around on nude beaches, sips fancy alcohol, and gawks at exotic dancers from the far corners of the earth, he says. All the evil, theft, and corruption in the country, the man says, can be traced to a mentality of surrender to the West. But Turkey’s true heirs will eventually take their country back. ... In the years to come, the young man, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, would be elected mayor of Istanbul, prime minister of Turkey, and, in 2014, president. ..."
The Atlantic
NYBooks: Will Turkey’s Voters Give Erdoğan the Imperial Presidency He Seeks?

2016 February: The Feminist, Democratic Leftists Our Military Is Obliterating -  Debbie Bookchin, 2016 May: Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn, 2016 July: How Turkey Came to This, 2017 March: As repression deepens, Turkish artists and intellectuals fear the worst, 2017 July: A Long March for Justice in Turkey, 2017 July: Radical Municipalism: The Future We Deserve, 2017 September: Istanbul: Memories and the City - Orhan Pamuk, 2018 January: Turkey’s State of Emergency, 2018 April: The Unlikely New Hero of Turkeys, 2018 June: How My Father’s Ideas Helped the Kurds Create a New Democracy

Horace Silver Quintet - Song for My Father (1962)

"One of Blue Note's greatest mainstream hard bop dates, Song for My Father is Horace Silver's signature LP and the peak of a discography already studded with classics. Silver was always a master at balancing jumping rhythms with complex harmonies for a unique blend of earthiness and sophistication, and Song for My Father has perhaps the most sophisticated air of all his albums. Part of the reason is the faintly exotic tint that comes from Silver's flowering fascination with rhythms and modes from overseas -- the bossa nova beat of the classic 'Song for My Father,' for example, or the Eastern-flavored theme of 'Calcutta Cutie,' or the tropical-sounding rhythms of 'Que Pasa?' Subtle touches like these alter Silver's core sound just enough to bring out its hidden class, which is why the album has become such a favorite source of upscale ambience. Song for My Father was actually far less focused in its origins than the typical Silver project; it dates from the period when Silver was disbanding his classic quintet and assembling a new group, and it features performances from both bands. ..."
allmusic
W - Song for My Father
amazon
YouTube: Recorded live in Copenhagen, Denmark, April 1968. Song for My Father

Separating Migrant Families Is Barbaric. It’s Also What the U.S. Has Been Doing to People of Color for Hundreds of Years.

Woman and child on auction block, 1800s
"Like most of you reading this, I am deeply appalled at what I see happening right now in the United States — immigrant children being snatched away from their parents and sent to separate detention centers, often locked in cages with strangers, with no real idea of when they’ll ever be reunited with their families. It’s an abomination. But I often see two troubling responses to this crisis that show just how aloof and asleep millions of Americans are right now. The first is a statement that goes something like this: This is not the America I know and love. The second is a question, rooted in the same ignorance, that goes something like this: How could this ever happen in the United States? What’s happening right now in our country is, without question, a human rights catastrophe. Yet every deeply entrenched mechanism used in these policies and the spirit fueling this catastrophe are as American as Facebook and Disneyland. Let me break it down. At least five troubling factors are at play here. All five were fully and completely present before this current crisis ever began. They set the tone and created the culture in which something so heinous could ever take place. ..."
The Intercept
The Atlantic: Watch the U.S. Turn Away Asylum Seekers at the Border (Video)

The Byrds - The Original Singles: 1965–1967, Volume 1

Wikipedia - "The Original Singles: 1965–1967, Volume 1 is a compilation album by American rock 'n' roll band The Byrds. Originally released in 1980, it offered, for the first time, all of the mono single versions of the Byrds' singles released between 1965 and early 1967. The tracks on the album are laid out chronologically by release date of the single, and features the A-side first, then the B-side. For example, the Byrds' first single was 'Mr. Tambourine Man' with 'I Knew I'd Want You' on the B-side. The next single was 'All I Really Want to Do' with 'I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better' on the B-side, and so forth. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Columbia 45 RPM Records - 1965 - 1967 1:08:56

There’s More Than One Way to Strike the Boss

"Sorting the Mail" by Reginald Marsh at the Ariel Rios Federal Building, Washington, D.C.
"Last month, bus drivers in Okayama, Japan began an unusual work action. They didn’t walk off the job or stop driving their bus routes, and they continued to pick up passengers as normal. But, in a subversive twist, they covered their fare collection boxes and refused to take money from those who boarded. Riders would still get where they needed, but the company would not profit from the trip — with the drivers unilaterally imposing free fares for all. In the United States, teachers on the picket line this spring have set a high bar for militancy, showcasing the importance of the conventional strike. Whether in West Virginia or Oklahoma, North Carolina or Kentucky, these red-state teachers have provided an inspiring example of how working people can use well-planned collective actions to demand respect and win gains previously considered out of reach. There is no doubt that if the US labor movement is to reverse its declining fortunes, it must revive the strike as a feared and frequently deployed tactic. ..."
Jacobin

Photos: A Tent City for Detained Children in Texas

"Twenty miles outside of El Paso, Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border, sits the Tornillo Port of Entry, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility which was selected by the Trump administration to be the first site for temporary housing for the overflow of unaccompanied minors and the children of detained migrant parents, under the new 'zero-tolerance' policy. A quickly erected tent city inside the facility is currently set up with 450 beds, according to NBC reporting, but is built for expansion. At the moment, it is unclear how many children are being held in Tornillo, but Reuters photographer Mike Blake was able to photograph several dozen teenage boys moving between tents yesterday as he flew over. Via NPR, the reporter John Sepulvado attempted to have a look inside the new tent city, but officials asked him to leave. He spoke with Texas State Representative Mary Gonzalez, who had toured the facility, saying that the tents were air-conditioned and she 'felt the kids were at least safe.' The extended weather forecast for Tornillo predicts high temperatures up to 106 degrees Fahrenheit. For further coverage in the Atlantic, see also 'Audio: Hear the Voices of Children Detained at the Border' and 'The Outrage Over Family Separation Is Exactly What Stephen Miller Wants.'"
The Atlantic

History Refused to Die

Thornton Dial, “History Refused to Die” (2004)
"This exhibition presents thirty paintings, sculptures, drawings, and quilts by self-taught contemporary African American artists to celebrate the 2014 gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art of works of art from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. The artists represented by this generous donation all hail from the American South. History Refused to Die features the mixed-media art of Thornton Dial (1928–2016)—whose monumental assemblage from 2004 provides the exhibition's title—and a selection of the renowned quilts from Gee's Bend, Alabama, by quilters such as Annie Mae Young (1928–2012), Lucy Mingo (born 1931), Loretta Pettway (born 1942), and additional members of the extended Pettway family. Among other accomplished artists to be featured are Nellie Mae Rowe (1900–1982), Lonnie Holley (born 1950), and Ronald Lockett (1965–1988). ..."
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Exhibition Objects
NY Times: At the Met, a Riveting Testament to Those Once Neglected

Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing (1968)

"While many texts are readily available chronicling the Black Power Movement, the same cannot be said for its 'aesthetic and spiritual sister,' the Black Arts Movement. Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing is a rare exception that documents and captures the social and cultural turmoil of the period. Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal, co-editors and contributors to this volume, saw Black Fire as a manifesto to bring about change in Black thought and action, generated from a Black aesthetic. Often considered the seminal work from the Black Arts Movement, Black Fire is a rich anthology and an extraordinary source document, presenting 178 selections of poetry, essays, short stories and plays from cultural critics, literary artists and political leaders. Many of the contributors became prominent, nationally and internationally. Others receded into the cultural landscape, even before Black Fire's first publication in 1968. Included in this groundbreaking volume are the essays of John Henrik Clarke, Kwame Ture (Stokely Charmichael), Harold Cruse and A.B. Spellman; the poetry of Askia Toure, Sonia Sanchez, Gaston Neal, Stanley Crouch, Calvin C. Hernton, and suprisingly Sun Ra; the fiction of Julia Fields and drama from Ed Bullins. Sixty-three additional contributors round out this comprehensive work."
Africa World
ChickenBones: A Journal - Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing
amazon

Afro-Soultet - Afrodesia (2011)

"Afrodesia is the lone album by the Afro-Soultet, which may or may not have been officially released by Banyon sometime between 1968 and 1971 (no one still breathing can remember the exact date). What we do know is that Johnny Kitchen (aka Jack Millman) licensed the record to Banyon's Betty Chiappetta (Vee-Jay Records), and the record received a test pressing. The Afro-Soultet originally hailed from Texas and recorded several albums under the name Afro-Blues Quintet +1, who had previously recorded three albums and seven 45s. After some personnel changes, the band relocated to L.A., where Millman caught them playing the Living Room. ... Afrodesia is a true lost classic and belongs in any soul or Latin jazz collection, as well as in any serious groove digger's crate. ..."
allmusic
amazon
YouTube: Afrodesia, Afro Revolt, Mozamba, Chocolate Drop, Soul Rockin'

Searching for Soul: Soul Funk & Jazz Rarities from Michigan 1968-1980

"Alcohol is a killer vice, and Robert Jay knows it. When the Detroit funk legend wrote the infectious 'Alcohol' in 1969, he was hungover and mad as hell. Yet Jay’s blues-funked 'Alcohol' became one of the most beloved, and nearly impossible-to-find sides in the funk music canon. While a few 7-inch singles can still be located, California’s Luv N’ Haight, a Ubiquity Records offshoot, just made the process much easier. With the release of this insane comp, jazz, funk, and breakbeat lovers finally have access to some of the rarest grooves from Michigan’s funk underground. Jay’s 'Alcohol' is featured, as is the Detroit Sex Machine’s 'Rap it Together.' Many songs are from rhythm sections overshadowed by Motown; yet some here were more skilled than the Funk Brothers and Parliament. ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
Discogs
amazon
YouTube: Searching for Soul: Soul Funk & Jazz Rarities from Michigan 1968-1980 49:28

Taking it to the Streets

Pick-up soccer on 61st St.
"Energized by freedom from schoolwork and drawn out of homes by the streetside squeals (and text messages) of friends, Brooklyn’s children, in the summer months, bound down stoops and dash onto pavement, with soccer balls, checkerboards, and pool toys in tow. On a recent weekend, I patrolled the borough’s blocks, on the lookout for kids doing what they do best."
BKLYNR

Florian Fricke – 1981 interview by Sandy Robertson

"Here’s an interview from the September 26th 1981 issue of a music magazine called Sounds by Sandy Robertson. There is no abundance of interviews with him so this is great! Below the photo scans is the transcribed interview. Original scans are from John Hubbard’s blog enso-on-com – Florian Fricke 1981 interview (archived link to waybackmachine as the original post and site are down). ..."
Sanjin Đumišić (Video)

Experience the Mystical Music of Hildegard Von Bingen: The First Known Composer in History (1098 – 1179)

"The German abbess, visionary, mystic poet, composer, and healer Hildegard von Bingen 'has become a symbol to disparate groups,' writes Brian Wise at WQXR, including 'feminists and theologians, musicologists and new-age medicine practitioners. Her chants have been set to techno rhythms; her writings on nutrition have yielded countless cookbooks (even though she never left behind a single recipe.)' She did leave behind an astounding body of work that has made her improbably popular for a 12th century nun, with a lively presence on Facebook and her own Twitter account, @MysticHildy ('very into technology, love to travel'). Her fame rests not only on the beauty of her work, but on her extraordinary life story and the fact that she is the first composer to whose work we can put a name. ..."
Open Culture (Video)
W - Hildegard Von Bingen

Wire at Maxwell's (06-12-1987)

"On June 12, 1987, Wire played at Maxwell's! At this gig, the band debuted several songs that would appear on their 1988 album 'A Bell Is A Cup Until It Is Struck.' The balance of the set mostly consisted of songs from 1987's 'The Ideal Copy.' Unfortunately, no tracks from 'Pink Flag,' 'Chairs Missing,' or '154.' Nevertheless, this tape sounds really great! Set list: Intro. Silk Skin Paws. Advantage in Height. Come Back In Two Halves. Cheeking Tongues. Madman's Honey. Ahead. Kidney Bingos. Over Theirs. Still Shows. A Serious of Snakes. It's A Boy. Ambitious. Drill I. A Vivid Riot Of Red. Drill II."
The McKenzie Tapes (Audio)


2009 January: Wire, 2012 January: On the Box 1979., 2013 September: Chairs Missing (1978), 2014 June: 154 (1979), 2014 July: Document And Eyewitness (1979-1980), 2015 April: The Ideal Copies: Graham Lewis Of Wire's Favourite Albums, 2015 July: Pink Flag (1977), 2015 December: The Peel Sessions Album (1989), “Dot Dash”, "Options R" (1978), 2017 June: Outdoor Miner / Practice Makes Perfect (1979), 2017 November: Live at the Roxy, London.

Nine literary cafés to visit in Italy

Caffè Florian, Venezia
"Although it opened in France, the first literary café in Europe was the endeavor of an Italian man: young Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, from Sicily, opened Le Café Procope in Paris in 1686. The Procope was located opposite the Comédie Française theater, which had been built only a few years earlier, and soon became one of the centers of the Ville Lumière’s political life, as well as a favorite meeting point for intellectuals of the Enlightenment and leading figures of the French Revolution, from Marat to Danton, from Robespierre to Diderot, from D’Alembert to Mirabeau. Italy’s own tradition of literary cafés – where the cultural and social destiny of the Old Continent was written – began in the 18th century. That is when cafés provided a jolt of caffeine to the revolutions of the century, and became intellectuals’ and patriots’ tribunes, schools, theaters, libraries, political headquarters, and literary salons. ..."
Italian Ways

Why African and Caribbean sounds are dominating British music right now

"About five years ago, the British media sent itself into a frenzy when it was announced that Cockney – a derided but traditional London dialect – was entering its final days, to be replaced by Multicultural London English (MLE). Today, MLE is the sound of the city’s youth, a vocal mix of the capital’s past and diverse present. It’s not just slipping in some slang, but the effortless and subconscious meshing of West Indian, African, and South Asian sounds to make a hybrid, homegrown voice. Predictably, the music coming out of the city has begun to tell the same story. Over the past year, the British charts have become dominated by songs with a West African and Caribbean flavour. It’s not quite the Afrobeats sound rising from West Africa and going global, nor is it bashment, even if it owes some of its melodies and rhythms to sounds hailing from Jamaica. ..."
Dazed Digital (Audio)

How My Father’s Ideas Helped the Kurds Create a New Democracy - Debbie Bookchin

Kurdish women of the Kobani canton in Rojava marching in a demonstration calling for the release of the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, Syria, 2015
"One mild spring day in Vermont in April 2004, my father, the historian and philosopher Murray Bookchin, was chatting with me, as we did almost daily. ... My father, eighty-three years old at the time, had spent six decades writing hundreds of articles and twenty-four books articulating an anticapitalist vision of an ecological, democratic, egalitarian society that would eliminate the domination of human by human, and bring humanity into harmony with the natural world, a body of ideas he called 'social ecology.' Although his work was well-known within anarchist and libertarian left circles, his was hardly a household name. Unexpectedly, that week, he had received a letter from an intermediary writing on behalf of the jailed Kurdish activist Abdullah Öcalan, head of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). As its co-founder, sole theoretician, and undisputed leader, Öcalan had a larger-than-life reputation—but nothing about his ideology seemed in any way to resemble my father’s. ..."
NYBooks

2016 February: The Feminist, Democratic Leftists Our Military Is Obliterating - Debbie Bookchin, 2016 May: Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn, 2016 July: How Turkey Came to This, 2017 March: As repression deepens, Turkish artists and intellectuals fear the worst, 2017 July: mRadical Municipalism: The Future We Deserve, 2018 May: Bookchin: living legacy of an American revolutionary
2014 September: Anarchism in America (1983), 2015 August: The Prophet Farmed: Murray Bookchin on Bernie Sanders, 2016 October: Why Bernie Was Right, 2015 October: The Ecology of Freedom (1982), 2016 July: Murray Bookchin’s New Life, 2017 January: Reason, creativity and freedom: the communalist model - Eleanor Finley, 2017 February: Socialism’s Return, 2017 April: The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years 1868-1936 (1977).

Which New York City Borough Would Win an All-Out Civil War?

"New York City is a miracle. Somehow, 8.5 million people of every possible race, religion, political affiliation, economic class, and temperament live practically stacked on top of each other in relative peace. The murder rate is at its lowest ebb in decades. The ugly riots in Crown Heights in 1991 seem like a thing of a distant past; apocalyptic visions of the city a la The Warriors or Escape from New York are wildly outdated. So it seems safe to let your mind wander and imagine a scenario where the city turns on itself in an all-out civil war—not divided along class or racial lines, but something simpler: If the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island squared off in an epic fight to the death, which borough would come out alive? I put this entirely 100 percent hypothetical question to dozens of grizzled New Yorkers, reporters, conflict strategists, and historians, and they all had extremely strident opinions on it. But before we begin, let’s go over the ground rules. ..."
Vice

Jules Feiffer in Context

"Jules Feiffer was born in the Bronx in 1929, and recently told the Voice he had hated it. Rather than accept that he was a nebbishy kid from the outer boroughs, he preferred to believe he 'had been kidnapped by these Jewish people who claimed I was one of them, when I knew that I was like Freddie Bartholomew [a London-born child actor who became famous for his role as Little Lord Fauntleroy in a 1936 movie]. I wanted to return to my real home in Sussex or Surrey, some country house outside of London.' It’s a tale Feiffer has told many times, but it is also the sort of ur-story that helps explain the monologues he wrote for all the neurotic, self-absorbed, self-indulgent characters who populate his eight decades of comic strips, plays, and movies — people who are just not happy with their lot in life and don’t mind telling you so. ..."
Wikipedia
W - Jules Feiffer
The Atlantic: A Conversation With Jules Feiffer
amazon - Jules Feiffer

Gunnar Smoliansky // Diary

"Gunnar Smoliansky is a major Swedish photographer. He has devoted himself to photography since the early 1950s. Smoliansky has been an independent artist since the 1970s. Gunnar Smoliansky works exclusively in black and white and throughout his career, he has transformed his photographed motifs into completed photos in the darkroom. Stockholm is the main focus of Smoliansky’s photographic world, particularly the areas of Södermalm and Saltsjö-Boo. From a geographic point of view, the photographs of Gunnar Smoliansky are quite restricted in range. This has not, however, kept him from being regarded as one of the great world photographers. ..."
NevaBooks
A Life in Grayscale: Gunnar Smoliansky
Granta

Key Brixton Tracks: The Clash’s “Guns of Brixton”

"Brixton in South London is known as a defiant kind of place – all the more proud of itself in light of the slings and arrows of outrageous slander by outsiders. If there is one song that captures this spirit above all, and also doubles up as a useful soundtrack and shorthand for the area’s 1981 riots in TV clip show histories, it is The Clash’s 'The Guns of Brixton.' Both Mick Jones and Paul Simonon were from Brixton – and although it was often West London that came to be associated with the band, the Simonon-penned 'Guns' captures the band’s hit-and-miss, but always enthusiastic journey from straight-up, three-chord punk into the outer limits of Caribbean-influenced dub and experimental parts beyond. In fact, it’s an early peak in the journey – and perhaps not surprising that Simonon was behind it – the Clash’s bassist was always immersed in the ska, rocksteady and reggae of the South London he had grown up in. ..."

Red Bull Music Academy Daily (Video)
Red Bull Music Academy Daily: The Brixton Riots and Music (Video)

Chosen Waves 013: Ann Annie – Modular Field Trip Ep. 1

"... The last years have been quite a bit of a journey for all of us here (both metaphorically and literally speaking), so it’s only fitting that our first post after the break is one about a journey as well. When I first saw one of Ann Annie’s Field Trip videos I was totally captivated (actually I should say hypnotised) by it. It’s such a simple, yet powerful idea and taking the synthesizer(s) out into the landscape is the perfect extension of Ann Annie’s musical approach. Episode 1 dates back to April 2017, but it’s a very interesting one on many levels, and definitely worth watching again in case you already saw it. The whole field trip idea was initially intended to be just an experiment, but it turned out much better than imagined (as Ann Annie tells me before starting the interview), so more of these were made in the months that followed (and can be seen on Youtube here). ..."
Horizontal Pitch (Video)
Soundcloud: Ann Annie
YouTube: Ann Annie

The Acoustic City

"How does sound shape urban life? What do soundscapes reveal about the experience of modernity? This innovative essay collection explores a series of critical themes including the diversity of urban soundscapes; acoustic flânerie and different ways of listening to the city; the emergence of specific associations between place, music, and sound; and the acoustic ecology of architecture, landscape and urban design. The collection and accompanying CD will be of interest to a wide range of disciplines including architecture, cultural studies, geography, musicology, and urban sociology."
Jovis
The Acoustic City
Acoustic ecology: the undetectable sounds of the city

White Heat Can’t Melt Black Steel: Public Enemy's Nation Of Millions Revisited

"Writing about the past is a free hit. You don’t have to risk anything. You know how it turns out. At any rate, you used to think so. Lately, I’ve been unable to read books or watch documentaries about recent European and American history with the same dispassionate fascination I once did. The comfortable sense I had that its worst horrors were safely in the past, its best lessons well learned in the present, has dissolved into vapour, into anxiety – into, often as not, dread. Yet at least, when it comes to the past, popular culture, popular music, remain solid enough. When, for instance, I settle down to begin one of these anniversary pieces, I invariably have a clear picture in my mind of what my subject is, what it stands for, where it fits. This will invariably alter in the writing, as it should; but I know where to begin, and I will discover where to end. Not here, though. Not with this one. For so many reasons. And those reasons are intimately and intricately connected both with the greatness and the significance of the work at hand, and with the grotesque and straight-up terrifying state of things. In particular, the state of the nation of millions.

 It’s a damn shame that Public Enemy’s second album still matters so much. Or at least that it still matters so much in the way that it does. ..."
The Quietus

The Accidental Avant-Gardist

The Album (detail), by Édouard Vuillard, 1895.
"The last time I was in Paris I went to pay a call on a writer I admire. Like Balzac, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, Isadora Duncan, Gertrude Stein, and dozens of other luminaries, Raymond Roussel keeps a permanent address at 8, Boulevard de Ménilmontant, in the Cemitière du Père Lachaise, one of art’s most famous final resting places. But you won’t find flocks of tourists reverently camped out at his grave. No one lights candles for him or leaves him flowers, messages, metro tickets, smooth stones, or any other tokens of gratitude for the strange poems and even stranger novels he left to posterity. Not for Roussel’s tomb, as for Wilde’s, a recently installed glass case to protect the marble from the red lipstick of his fans. The day I visited him, it was gray and rainy and cold. There were few people in the normally well-frequented cemetery. ..."
Laphams Quarterly
Raymond Roussel – Impressions d’Afrique, 1910 Impressions of Africa
Raymond Roussel’s “Impressions of Africa”
Raymond Roussel approached the commercial illustrator Henri Zo
[PDF] Project MUSE
amazon

Raymond Roussel approached the commercial illustrator Henri Zo

We Are Getting Bad: The Sound of Phase One; Children of Jah 1977-79

"The HOLY GRAIL of reggae music. Full title - Sound Of Phase One - We Are Getting Bad. 2003 reggae/ragga compilation from one of the smallest but more revered labels to emerge in Jamaica during the late 1970's. What this label lacked in quantity it more than made up for in quality. Features 18 grooves including two previously unreleased DJ cuts, 'The Sons Of Man' & 'Gena'. Quality Late 70s Roots from Roy Francis. Roy Francis, who now runs the Mixing Lab label, created and ran the independent Phase 1 label in the 1970s. This is a compilation from the good folks at Motion Records, a reggae revive label that I don't think is around anymore which is disappointing. For their brief period of operation, Motion gave the reggae massive some excellent reissues, We Are Getting Bad included. My Phase 1 introduction came via Blood and Fire's Children of Jah 1977-79, an instant classic that presented a valuable collection of tracks not widely known at the time. ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
allmusic: We Are Getting Bad: The Sound of Phase One
The Sound Of Phase One (Video)
amazon: Children of Jah 1977-79, We Are Getting Bad: The Sound of Phase One
YouTube: Untouchables - Sea Of Love (Extended), Children of Jah - Album 1:05:04

Lost John Coltrane Recording From 1963 Will Be Released at Last

On March 6, 1963, John Coltrane and his quartet recorded at the Rudy Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey. The session was never released — until now.
"If you heard the John Coltrane Quartet live in the early-to-mid-1960s, you were at risk of having your entire understanding of performance rewired. This was a ground-shaking band, an almost physical being, bearing a promise that seemed to reach far beyond music. The quartet’s relationship to the studio, however, was something different. In the years leading up to 'A Love Supreme,' his explosive 1965 magnum opus, Coltrane produced eight albums for Impulse! Records featuring the members of his so-called classic quartet — the bassist Jimmy Garrison, the drummer Elvin Jones and the pianist McCoy Tyner — but only two of those, 'Coltrane' and 'Crescent,' were earnest studio efforts aimed at distilling the band’s live ethic. But now that story needs a major footnote. On Friday, Impulse! will announce the June 29 release of 'Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album,' a full set of material recorded by the quartet on a single day in March 1963, then eventually stashed away and lost. ..."
NY Times (Video)
Guardian: 'A new room in the Great Pyramid': lost 1963 John Coltrane album discovered (Video)

2015 March: Attica Blues (1972), 2016 June: Archie Shepp - The Magic of Ju-Ju (1967), 2011 November: John Coltrane Quartet, Live at Jazz Casual, 1963, 2012 March: John Coltrane 1960 - 1965, 2012 September: "Naima" (1959), 2012 October: Blue Train (1957), 2013 April: The World According to John Coltrane, 2013 November: A Love Supreme (1965), 2014 July: New Photos of John Coltrane Rediscovered 50 Years After They Were Shot, 2014 November: Coltrane’s Free Jazz Wasn’t Just “A Lot of Noise”, 2015 February: Lush Life (1958), 2015 May: An Animated John Coltrane Explains His True Reason for Being: “I Want to Be a Force for Real Good”, 2015 July: Afro Blue Impressions (2013), 2015 September: Impressions of Coltrane, 2015 December: Giant Steps (1960), 2016 January: Crescent (1964), 2016 April: The Church of Saint John Coltrane, 2016 July: Soultrane (1958), 2016 December: Dakar (1957), 2017 July: The John Coltrane Record That Made Modern Music, 2017 October: Live at the Village Vanguard (1962), 2017 December: Interview: Archie Shepp on John Coltrane, the Blues and More, 2018 March: Cannonball Adderley Quintet in Chicago (1959)

Zahed Sultan on Exploring Traditional Pearl-Diving Music of the Gulf

"Bridging the gap between traditional music and modern forms, Zahed Sultan’s Hiwar project is an exploration of pearl-diving music from the Gulf, created during a residency in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Intrigued by the relative simplicity yet undeniable complexity of the form, Sultan sought to document his collaboration with the musicians preserving this pearl-diving music, collaborating in pursuit of a contemporary, non-puristic vision of a genre that might otherwise be solely defined by its heritage. The result of these studio sessions and informal improvisations is Hiwar, meaning 'dialogue.' In addition to the eponymous short film, premiering below, Sultan and a troupe of musicians will be performing together live at the RBMA Weekender Dubai 2017, representing the latest step in their ongoing creative dialogue. In this interview, Sultan discussed the utilitarian purpose of much of this pearl-diving music, the evolution of related forms in the Gulf and how to celebrate cultural diversity without being a purist. ..."
Red Bull Music Academy Daily (Video)

Soda jerk

Wikipedia - "A soda jerk (or soda jerker) is a person—typically a youth—who operates the soda fountain in a drugstore, often for the purpose of preparing and serving flavored soda water or an ice cream soda. This was made by putting flavored syrup into a specially designed tall glass, adding carbonated water and, finally, one or two scoops of ice cream, or occasionally malt powder. The result was served with a long-handled spoon, most commonly known as a 'soda spoon', and drinking straws. The term 'soda jerk' was a pun on 'soda clerk', the formal job title of the drugstore assistants who operated soda fountains, and was inspired by the 'jerking' action the server would use to swing the soda fountain handle back and forth when adding the soda water. The soda fountain spigot itself typically was a sturdy, shiny fixture on the end of a metal pipe or other similar structure sticking out of the counter by several feet and curving towards where the glasses would be filled. The unflavored carbonated water was used to make all of the drinks. Consequently, the tap handle was typically large, as a busy shop would have the soda jerker using it frequently. This made the mixing of drinks a center of activity at the soda fountain counter. ..."
Wikipedia
The Lost Lingo of New York City’s Soda Jerks
Memories of Malcolm X, a Soda Jerk
Places to Get a Soda Jerk
NY Times: ECTOMORPHIC TOM LIKES COLLEGE LIFE (December 11, 1949), PDF
YouTube: Style: How to Be a Jerk, Rock Hudson on How to be a Soda Jerk

Townsend Drug Store, Boston. Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali - 1965

Meet the Rising New Housing Movement That Wants to Create Homes for All

"Crossing the Frederick Douglass–Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge on a brisk spring morning in Rochester, New York, the first thing one sees is a small tent city scattered about the banks of the Genesee River. It’s a sprawl of black tarps, folding chairs, and a charcoal grill, all set up on private land. The property’s owner, a cable company called Spectrum, has attempted for some time to tear it down, urging local officials to clear the encampment. In an effort to forestall the destruction of their fragile shelters, the homeless people who live there have hung a banner at the edge of a nearby highway that reads, simply, 'Forgive us our trespasses.' Continuing on toward the city’s southwest side, one finds a 48-unit building on Thurston Road. It’s a horseshoe-shaped structure of crimson brick; its facade is pleasing and clean. Inside, however, the mostly low-income tenants of color are subjected to bursting pipes, peeling paint, broken windows, and skittering mice—and the absentee landlord doesn’t seem to care much about correcting the problems. ..."
The Nation
The Nation: The Deep, Uniquely American Roots of Our Affordable-Housing Crisis
The Nation: 151 Years of America’s Housing History

Anthony Bourdain, Renegade Chef Who Reported From the World’s Tables, Is Dead at 61

"Anthony Bourdain, whose madcap memoir about the dark corners of New York’s restaurants made him into a celebrity chef and touched off a nearly two-decade career as a globe-trotting television host, was found dead on Friday at 61. Mr. Bourdain spent two decades in restaurant kitchens, at first shucking oysters and cleaning dishes in a Cape Cod seafood shack and later serving high-end meals in Manhattan, before accepting a friend’s offer to fly him to Mexico if he agreed to write a novel. It was the start of a second act as an author and then a host, redefining the staid genres of food writing and food-tourism shows with an inquisitive but profane bad-boy image that endeared him to fellow chefs, restaurant-goers and travelers. ..."
NY Times (Video)
W - Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain: “Parts Unknown”
NY Times: What Anthony Bourdain Can’t Travel Without (April 2017)
New Yorker: Don’t Eat Before Reading This By Anthony Bourdain (April 19, 1999)
Slate: Anthony Bourdain Wonders What He Could Have Done (Oct. 2017)

Self-Portrait with Halo and Snake - Paul Gauguin (1889)

"Self-Portrait with Halo and Snake, also known as Self-Portrait, is an 1889 oil on wood painting by French artist Paul Gauguin, which represents his late Brittany period in the fishing village of Le Pouldu in northwestern France. No longer comfortable with Pont-Aven, Gauguin moved on to Le Pouldu with his friend and student Meijer de Haan and a small group of artists. He stayed for several months in the autumn of 1889 and the summer of 1890, where the group spent their time decorating the interior of Marie Henry's inn with every major type of art work. Gauguin painted his Self-Portrait in the dining room with its companion piece, Portrait of Jacob Meyer de Haan (1889). The painting shows Gauguin against a red background with a halo above his head and apples hanging beside him as he holds a snake in his hand while plants or flowers appear in the foreground. The religious symbolism and the stylistic influence of Japanese wood-block prints and cloisonnism are apparent. The portrait was completed several years before Gauguin visited Tahiti and is one of more than 40 self-portraits he completed during his lifetime. ..."
Wikipedia

Buvette de la Plage in 1920