We caught Amon Tobin and Ghislain Poirer at Metropolis last night during jazz fest. Yes, tickets were $40, but we got three solid hours of DJ entertainment. I hadn’t heard Poirer before and liked his stuff a lot — more conventional than Tobin but with a good feel, as he mixed DJing with a live …
Category Archives: Music
Deep Purple in Space
Full disclosure: the last post came courtesy of Music Thing. This one comes courtesy of Emily Thompson. I rarely find this stuff on my own. If you scroll down through this article on the sonic characteristics of different atmospheres, you can hear a Deep Purple riff run through filters that model the atmospheres of Earth, …
Here Come the Leaping Lesbians
For each academic year since I’ve become a professor, the end of classes has been punctuated by a rock show. I have fond memories of sitting on the Carnegie-Mellon lawn in Pittsburgh, lazily watching a lukewarm set by Superchunk. Another year we drove to Cleveland to watch Shiner (one of my favorite bands at the …
So Very Academic Jet-Set
Last night, Carrie and I arrived in the airport on different flights 10 minutes apart and shared a cab home. It’s been that kind of month. In fact, the only reason I’m writing this morning is because the Quebec election has meant that classes today are cancelled. So much as been going on this month …
Off to Carbondale + Even Apple Thinks DRM is a Terrible Idea
Tomorrow I head off for Carbondale, Illinois to give a talk at their Center for Global Media. While there, I may have a chance to visit an anaechoic chamber. I hope I get to! In the meantime, I leave you with this new twist from Apple. For years, their iTunes Music Store has been solidly …
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…and a good halftime show, to boot
Yes, it’s nice that the Colts finally won even though they think god did it (that’s an old one) and Peyton’s a republican. And they bailed on Baltimore. But the halftime show was simply outstanding. Definitely the best I’ve ever seen. I’d forgotten what a great performer Prince is. I will have to dig out …
Not Exactly New Text
My essay “Urban Media and the Politics of Sound Space” appeared last year in the journal Open. It’s now available for free online, though the formatting is a little off. This is a revised version of the talk I’d been giving for years on the use of Muzak to chase people out of public spaces.