Semestrial Thoughts On Usdan
The list of visionaries who died young is long and tragic. Musically, John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix, at least in my experience, come up the most in conversation. Sadly, a great Belizean musician by the name of Andy Palacio was added to the list just a few months ago. Palacio died of a sudden stroke, leaving behind an impressive legacy of music and activist cultural influence in his native Belize.
I’m not really sure what it is about most straight-up dance music that pisses me off so much. A lot of what I thought was cool in high school was only so because most of my friends said it was. But even after sober parties became a thing of the past, techno and house never did it for me.
After 12 years, four record labels and a handful of genres, Boris, the Japanese sludge/doom/noise/drone/psychedelic trio ,is about to release its 15th full-length album: “Smile.” Prolific almost to a fault, Atsuo, Takeshi, and Wata have come to represent everything underground music lovers dig.
Yesterday marked the beginning of the 2008 Transmodern Festival in Baltimore, Md. The festival, which will continue until Sunday, is arguably the country’s most egregiously radical display of avant-garde performance, sound, film and installation art. Like a drunken cousin at your brother’s wedding, the festival’s wares seem to be a mix of hilarity, complete lack of taste, and occasional shining genius.
On March 4, Akron/Family’s extensive tour found itself at Beckham Hall in front of a mostly eager crowd of University students. The band has risen to international prominence over the last four or so years, and has now played at Wesleyan for two consecutive years, thanks to the sponsorship of seniors Max Horwich ’08 and Adam Tinkle’s ’08 music organization, the ICBM.
Labeling Tenniscoats “lesser-known relatives of Deerhoof,” as many have done, is sort of like saying Mussolini and Michelangelo were long lost brothers. I admit that both bands have at least one Japanese member, and play their individual mutations of pop, but the end result of the Tenniscoats and the husband and wife duo of Saya and Takashi Ueno, is about as far away from Deerhoof as possible.
Unless you keep solid tabs on European contemporary jazz, chances are you’ve never listened to Iain Ballamy or his main project, Food. It’s fairly depressing that such a talented performer and composer only got to me by the chance mailing of a promotional CD. Nonetheless, Food’s “Molecular Gastronomy,” which features Ballamy on saxophone, caught my ears at once.
Up until about two months ago, it seemed that 65-year-old British composer Gavin Bryars had practically done it all. From co-founding the deliberately ragtag Portsmouth Sinfonia to creating the found-sound wonder of “Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet,” Bryars " who’s been called everything from neoclassic to post-minimalist to avant-ambient " has had an enviable career.
Carla Bozulich may be the most transient performer and sound artist of the last 20 years. This isn’t hard to prove when you look through her discography, which documents her stream of collaborations with Nels Cline, Thurston Moore, Wilco and Christian Marclay, just to name a few.
I’m well aware that Public Safety has stepped up their parking violation stringency, and I’m also well aware that there’s been plenty of discussion about it. But, under the cloak of common sense, I was not aware that by parking in the visitor’s parking lot, a lot specifically designed for anyone with no parking pass of any sort, I would get a parking ticket because I have a Wesleyan sticker on my car.