The documentary The Viking of 6th Avenue chronicles the life and musical career of legendary New York icon Moondog. As a girl, I used to see him in front of Saks Fifth Avenue and other corners around town, a blind man in full Viking regalia. Many years later I would discover his music and learn his story…
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Working hard? Why not take a break and listen to what the guys hanging out under the trees on 124th street in Harlem listen to on summer nights: Motown. You’ll findthe Complete No. 1’s HERE at rdio. SORRY, THE GREAT RDIO CLOSED IT’S DOORS IN 2015. You can read all about the inspired site…
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Composer Phillip Glass Glass worked his make-a-living-job while still making time for composing. Here’s his compelling story + music from Einstein on the Beach, which he wrote while driving a cab to pay the bills.
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Cy Kuckenbaker compressed one hour’s worth of surfing footage into a two minute film. Ahhhhhh, such a nice break, especially viewed full screen. We were going to find some music to go with it, and then realized the music is built in: the ocean’s surf. via Design Boom
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(Video link HERE.) Our friend Holton Rower wanted music to listen to while he fried his morning eggs. He couldn’t think of one band. Then he remembered a kind of Indian fusion music he liked from a dj with a name like Baad-something. So he typed B-a-a-d into Youtube and struck gold. He and his wife…
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(View video HERE.) Susan Dworski sent this as an antidote to “Blues”. Hamburg-based classical quartet Salut Salon perform “instrumental acrobatics” that push the limits of what violin, cello and piano are SUPPOSED to do. The inherent question that each new unexpected use of an instrument asks: WHY NOT?
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Every April, I start thinking about ramps, the first wild food to peek through the cold ground in early Spring, and the focus of equally wild festivals throughout the Appalachian mountains. For decades, I’d travel down to West Virginia to the Helvetia Ramp Supper to get a transformative blast of ramps, both raw and cooked.…
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In the summer here in Harlem, there’s an old guy that’s rigged his bicycle with a little trailer in which he hauls a boom box. Around dusk, he rides around the park playing Motown hits. It has a very different effect than the usual blaring boombox, illuminating and brightening things as he glides by. He…
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(Video link HERE.) We just found this note from Susan Dworski: when you need a touch of the celestial to offset some practical DIY. music’s a tad OTT, I’d turn it off, but the visuals are superb.
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The magnificient James Brown’s soulful groovin’ mantra, I WANT TO GET UP AND DO MY THING! seems like the perfect way to get going on a Monday (or any) morning.
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Céleste Boursier-Mougenot produces music in surprising and unexpected ways through large-scale acoustic environments and immersive sonic installation. From Ear to Ear at the Peabody Essex Museum employs a flock of 70 vividly-plumed Zebra finches to play iconic Gibson Les Paul and Thunderbird bass guitars. Boursier-Mougenot tunes the electric guitars to rock and blues chords so they are musically…
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Our friend Josh Eisen alerted us to the great birdsong.fm, a site that streams only birdsong (you can also download its app or mp3):
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Our goodbye with deepest thanks to Pete Seeger, with one of his best songs.
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This great compendium of soul dancing from the 70’s: mellow music with endless, fabulously expressive improvisations…in dance moves…fashion…hair do’s…is a morning groove to carry on through the day.
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As we find ourselves looking around at a New Year, we’re thinking about what we want to do, make, see…As always the world offers endless possibilities. Sometimes only thing to do is.. dance!
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(Video link here.) Paul Simon’s ‘Getting Ready For Christmas Day‘* seems like a fitting ALT song for the run up before Christmas. It’s upbeat, secular, a tad political, full of social commentary and interwoven with excerpts from a 1941 sermon by the Rev. J.M. Gates, an influential preacher and Gospel singer. There’s also a lot of things leaping…
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Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow: Pop Music Wisdom excerpts wisdom and advice from 250 pop songs. Some of them are spot on. Here are two, with the music.
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When sound artist Jim Wilson slowed down a recording of crickets, he discovered stunningly beautiful celestial choir that sings like humans. Just listen.
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We were very moved by Laurie Anderson’s Farewell to Lou Reed in Rolling Stone. We’ve excerpted a chunk, but it’s well worth reading the whole beautiful thing: rich insight into two very original people improvising a life together. Anderson’s words need no commentary: “How strange, exciting and miraculous that we can change each other so much, love…
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Viewing the moment as a wonder or miracle can shift, soften, and transform the way you view things: a curiously powerful mindfulness practice.
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