Music | Kate's Queen City Notes

December 4, 2019
by allthenamesaretakensothisisreallyreallylong 1 Comment

More On Music

There’s evidence that we stop enjoying novelty as we age. Check out this or this. This expiration date for enjoying new things seems to exist in animals as well as humans. It seems that this desire for novelty in humans and animals corresponds to when they seek mates.

It’s entirely possible that’s why I haven’t enjoyed new music for the last 5 years. Maybe I should just feel happy that I made it to 38 before I lost this part of myself. I think the most disturbing aspect of this explanation is figuring out how to disentangle my sense of identity from music. It’s been one of the most consistent and strong parts of who I am since childhood.

But there’s another explanation that I referenced in my last blog post. As noted my disengagement from new music started around the same time I started playing drums. And as I have cultivated a more sensitive sense of time, I am wondering if I can hear music that has digital time vs music that has human time, or music that’s been digitally synched to have precise and accurate time to the millisecond vs the natural variations in time that a human drummer can keep.

I stumbled upon this theory while filpping dials on the radio. I came across a song that I could not flip past even though I didn’t recognize it. After a minute of listening, I heard a subtle inconsistency on the drums that lead me to believe it was a live recording. The crowd noise that came in at the chorus confirmed it. And despite the recording not being particularly good or to my personal taste, I was engrossed. I cannot put words to why I was so captivated.

It only occured to me later, that perhaps I was captivated by hearing the slight variations of a human drummer. My theory is strengthened by my sudden interest in 70’s rock. While I had respect for Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Three Dog Night, and Led Zeppelin, I’ve found myself extrememly eager to hear them on the radio. Synching to click tracks didn’t become prevalent until the 80’s and 90’s in music production; technology to execute the synching wasn’t readily available until then. So, I suspect my sudden interest in 70’s rock might also be my ear longing to hear slight variation.

I am not alone in being hungry for human time. The trans godmother of electronic music says:

“I find it a great tragedy that the drum machine has replaced real drummers, become so omnipresent to many listeners that they accept the notion of a completely rigid, fascist beat–something that’s like hearing a pile driver or factory equipment. Someone recently closed his jazz club in Berlin after being successful for a lot of years, but he said he’s leaving it now because the current jazz/pop music doesn’t swing. And it doesn’t: quantized rhythm is rigid and mechanical. We’ve become robots, and it’s tragic.” -Wendy Carlos

This woman is fascinating. You can read the whole interview here.

For now I am going to lean in to my new found love of 70’s rock. Life is too short for me to force myself to listen to things that don’t inspire me. Is it because I am too old to hear new music? Maybe. Is it because my ears are tired of the fascist beat? Maybe. Does it really matter which? Probably not. I needed to shed more of my ego anyway. I’ll just look at this as a step on the path.

September 25, 2017
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MPMF17 Sunday In Pictures

Lightening thoughts. Flint Eastwood dresses and talks like the little girl in True Grit, except for all the cursing. She commands the stage like the most epic arena rock god. That show was a whole bowl of stuff that makes no sense together. That’s what made it something I will never forget. Go. Go see her crazy ass.

Charly Bliss was super stinking fun. Also, go, go see them. Urban Renewal Project has an army of horn players, and a rapper who will improvise a rap about whatever flotsam and jetsam you have in your pockets or purse. Familiar refrain. Go. Go see them.

It was fun to shoot, although I am terribly out of practice. I forgot how to format my memory cards, that’s how long its been since I’ve done any shooting.

It was great to see so many different acts. This location is no MPMF of old, but it’s a massive improvement over the parking lot. The line-up was great. My only suggested improvement for next year is to get more food trucks. They had some, but considering how limited the options for quick evening eats are around The Taft, I think a wider variety of trucks would help.

See you next year!

MPMF17 Saturday

MPMF17 Saturday in Pics

September 24, 2017 by allthenamesaretakensothisisreallyreallylong Leave a comment

MPMF17 Saturday

This gallery contains 36 photos

September 24, 2017
by allthenamesaretakensothisisreallyreallylong 1 Comment

MPMF17 Sunday Schedule

First thing. Moving from the roasty toasty parking lot to The Taft and The Masonic Center is a big improvement. Second thing, It was a little weird to be in a daytime music fest inside. But, like I said this is hugely better than the parking lot.

Second thing. Good god Broken Social Scene is great. You know how talented musicians who play prog-rock-like stuff tend to have like thirty instrument changes and many minutes between songs to tune? THEY DIDN’T DO THAT THING. They literally passed 2 bass guitars around between members as they all switched out playing different stuff. They passed around a Fender Jazzmaster too. And! They clumped together the songs in which they were each on a particular instrument. OMG. Thank you for thinking of your audience, who doesn’t really want to watch you tune fifty times. THANK YOU.

Really, I enjoyed almost everything I saw yesterday. So, good on you whoever negotiated the line-up.

Here’s what I want to see today:

2:10 Coastal Club
2:45 Moonbeau – Taft
3:55 Sphynx – Taft
6:00 Automagik – Taft
6:30 LEDGES
6:50 Charly Bliss – Taft
8 Urban Renewal Project – Taft Ballroom
8:25 Flint Eastwood – Taft
8:30 Noname – Masonic Cathedral
10 BADBADNOTGOOD – Masonic Cathedral
10 Walk The Moon – Masonic Cathedral

September 23, 2017
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MPMF17 Saturday Schedule

How is it that The New Pornographers and Broken Social Scene overlap? HOW? After a run through of the bands this morning I have to say, this is probably the most diverse mix of music they’ve had in recent memory. Cheers to that.

One observation, sounding like The Breeders, aka woman led 90’s guitar rock, must be a thing. So many bands in that neighborhood. Literally ran by Filthy Friends in my listen fest and thought HEEEYYYY Corin Tucker inspired vocals. HEEEEYYYYY.

2:45 Blossom Hall – Skyline Chili Stage
3:20 Even Tiles- Taft Ballroom
430 Kid Stardust- Taft Ballroom
5:05 DYAN – Skyline Chili Stage
6 Preoccupations – Masonic Cathedral
6:30 The Cactus Blossoms – Masonic Ballroom
8:25 Frightened Rabbit- The Taft
9 The New Pornographers – The Taft
10 Broken Social Scene – The Taft
1130 Citizen – Taft Ballroom

September 22, 2017
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MPMF17 What I Will See

Alrighty, into the depths with this year’s line-up. Frightened Rabbit is spectacular. I’ve seen them several times across the years, and I have never been disappointed. Local acts DYAN and Kid Stardust will give you a worthy hour of great music. Automagic put up a rousing show at MOTR a few years back, that featured some rocking out in underwear. Sphinx, when I last saw them, was so kind as to honor my request for “What Is Love” and sent The Drinkery into a 90’s dance party. All your troubles will float away on The Young Heirlooms vocal harmonies. That about rounds out everything I’ve seen before and know and love.

Valerie June, Noname, Bedouine, and Mad Anthony (I know they play out here all the time, how have I not seen them?) are on my most anticipated list. My super human ability to listen to recordings and know how it will translate to a live show is pinging off the charts on BADBADNOTGOOD. I’ve not seen them, but I bet their live show will entrance me. Unfortunately, this will probably make me split my time between these folks and Walk The Moon.

Now then. I’m off to try and remember how to work my camera, and write up my schedule.

September 21, 2017
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MPMF17 What I Wanna See

I’ve been hoping to see Broken Social Scene and The New Pornographers for years. After what I felt was a less than stellar Bunbury line-up this summer, I was ratcheting down my expectations for MPMF. The MPMF announcement of the fest shrinking to two days and significantly less acts was counterbalanced by The New Pornographers and Broken Social Scene as headliners.

Walk The Moon is headlining too. Don’t interpret my lack of excitement to mean they aren’t a great live show. It’s just that I’ve seen them at least 10 times now. BSS and TNP are just all aglitter with the unknown.

I literally have today and tomorrow to talk about what I am pumped to see, so tomorrow I am going to dig deeper into the line-up. Big picture, I think this line-up has packed in a ton of diversity in terms of sound and tone.

The format is changing this year too. Last year we all baked in a parking lot, so moving to some indoor and some outdoor stages is welcome. The fest will be relocated to 5th street using, MEMI’s own, The Taft and The Taft Ballroom as venues. I’m happy, as I thought it a reasonable risk that MEMI would relocate to one of the other venues in their stable, Riverbend. God, I hate that venue. It’s massive, soulless, and very far away from my home.

A niggling thing I cannot do without mentioning:

MEMI, yes you, I know and accept the fest has changed. Fine. Please rename it. I think you can leave behind the disappointment you’ve faced from long-time MPMF fans by just wiping the slate clean with a new name. Let us have the name as part of our nostalgia for the fest as it was years past. And I bet most of us will move with you into the present and future.

November 29, 2016
by allthenamesaretakensothisisreallyreallylong 1 Comment

Out West

We spent Thanksgiving in Denver visiting Jeannine’s brother and his family. We ate. We hiked. We ate some more. We experienced flight delays on Frontier, which seems the norm.

I am still having nightmares about going into hiding. But here’s these pictures. Who knows how long I have this ability.

Bear Lake is in Rocky Mountain National Park. I joked it will be the sight of the next Trump hotel. For a mere 2000 dollars you can play golf there. It will be great.

We climbed some rocks there, and it was great.

This is on the trail up to the top of Falcon Mountain. I don’t know it it looks like a falcon or was home to many falcons. Or none of the above.

John Brisben Walker built a 10 bedroom stone chalet there. It burned in a fire, and he said fuck it I am out.

It was super cool to wander the ruins. Apparently the fire places needed to be brick and not stone. Also, the brick aged better.

That fence is hampering my freedom to casually destroy the ruins. Don’t tread on me fence!

November 26, 2016
by allthenamesaretakensothisisreallyreallylong 1 Comment

100 Books While 40: DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL

Title: Diary of a Young Girl
Author: Anne Frank
Published: 1952

I always wondered why my fundamentalist school didn’t have us read this book. Now I know.

I already had these kinds of feelings subconsciously before I came here, because I remember that once when I slept with a girl friend I had a strong desire to kiss her, and that I did do so. I could not help being terribly inquisitive over her body, for she had always kept it hidden from me. I asked her whether, as proof of our friendship, we should feel one another’s breasts, but she refused. I go into ecstasies every time I see the naked figure of a woman, such as Venus, for example. It strikes me as so wonderful and exquisite that I have difficulty in stopping the tears rolling down my cheeks. If only I had a girl friend.

Anne Frank in The Diary of a Young Girl

It would be unacceptable to normalize same-sex attraction. More darkly, the strict obedience that’s enforced in fundamentalist communities is authoritarian in nature. Further the Jews are pagans just as much as Satanists, so fostering empathy for their marginalization and mass murder doesn’t serve their interests.

Anne Frank shares her deepest struggles to embrace true connection and to assert her independence from her parents all the while hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam. Her immediate family shares a set of hidden rooms in a warehouse with a few others for over two years. It’s after D Day when they are discovered, and unfortunately only Anne’s father survives their internment. Her last entry she shares her choice to believe in the goodness inherent in us all in spite of her keen understanding of the atrocities she’s attempting to escape. And then. Silence.

We have been pointedly reminded that we are in hiding, that we are Jews in chains, chained to one spot, without any rights, but with a thousand duties. We Jews mustn’t show our feelings, must be brave and strong, must accept all inconveniences and not grumble, must do what is within our power and trust in God. Sometime this terrible war will be over. Surely the time will come when we are people again, and not just Jews.

Anne Frank in The Diary of a Young Girl

Are we any better now? Are homosexuals people? Are Muslims people? Our vice-president elect attempted to redirect funding to treat AIDS patients towards conversion therapy, including shock treatment, to make gay people straight. Our president seeks to prevent Muslims from immigrating to the US. He has promised to register them, the first step that Hitler took in his campaign to eradicate The Jews. Are we any different now?

I don’t believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone, are guilty of the war. Oh no, the little man is just as guilty, otherwise the peoples of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There’s in people simply an urge to destroy, an urge to kill, to murder and rage, and until mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated, and grown will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again.

…

Oh, it is sad, very sad, that once more, for the umpteenth time, the old truth is confirmed: “What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does is thrown back at all Jews.”

Anne Frank in The Diary of a Young Girl

It is enraging and comforting to know that this false narrative persists: when someone from the majority commits horrible acts it is only a reflection of himself while when a minority commits horrible acts it represents all that is wrong with the entire minority population. This false generalization has been with us for ages. Resisting it is an old struggle. But that it still persists suggests I will die with it continuing to hold power.

History is sitting here telling us everything we need to know. The power hungry among us will continue to flatter and build resentment. And like those before us we will foolishly listen.

Stealing value from one life steals value from us all.