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Anthonie Tonnon’s new album: Successor
I have been enjoying Anthonie Tonnon’s new album, “Successor,” for the past few days. Tonnon is a New Zealand musician with a previous CD and EP under his belt with “Tono and the Finance Company.” In his most recent CD he’s embraced a meandering sort of ballad writing that digs underneath characters and settings with verses that seem, at first glance, to be made up of a series of asides. and her beauty is the only thing her whining generation has given to the world oh but you would pay off her loan if it could make her yours The songs are all about frustrated, strange and somewhat horrible people surviving the…
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Jaroslav Kral and Antonin Prochazka in Spilberk Castle
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Christopher Hogwood died a few months ago
I missed the news. But still, it’s worth a mention here. He was committed to preserving the past, and now he has become it.
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Vesti La Giubba – Enrico Caruso (1907)
Laugh Clown at your broken love. Laugh at the grief that poisons your heart.
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Amarrass records
A new record label selling South Asian field recordings has attracted some attention. Here’s the NYT: Mr. Sharma and Mr. Malhotra, both 37, said they want to preserve the music of the Manganiyars, whose songs — devotionals as well as stories of births, deaths and love, often about the Hindu families that are their patrons — have no written record. The two men said they were inspired by Alan Lomax, the musicologist who more than half a century ago traveled the American South recording previously unknown blues musicians. And like Lomax they hope to preserve the music and to bring it to a wider audience through a small, independent record label…
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Spirits of the Red City, As Animal
Driving around today, I listened to As Animal on repeat for about 20 minutes. Buy the CD.
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Spirits of the Red City
Spirits of the Red City played San Jose last night (8/14/2012), and are playing San Francisco tomorrow (8/16/2012). Then Berkeley on Saturday (8/18/2012). The band sits somewhere between the music playing in the hotel at the end of the world, and the angry shouting of a schizophrenic lost in the wilderness of Montana. They are almost certainly the soundtrack to a Denis Johnson book. Needless to say, it’s very good. .
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Semafor, or why the Czech Republic in the 60s was amazing
A music video from the Semafor theater in Prague, 1960. The Semafor theater was also where Milos Forman filmed his first movie. The theater is still open, with much the same crew as they had in the 60s. Most of their other music videos are equally amazing. Which leads again to the question. Why isn’t real life like this?
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Bascom Lamar Lunsford, “Swannanoa Tunnel”
The Swannanoa tunnel was built in North Carolina in 1879 and 1880 by convict labor. During the construction 125 people lost their lives. The song ghostly feeling to it. Violence sits shapeless in the air, in the sound of a bird or the growl of a dog. “That woman” is not a dream, though it isn’t so obvious that it doesn’t have to be said.