I went to the Curiosa Festival last Saturday at PacBell park. I’ve never seen a baseball diamond converted for a rock concert, and I was a bit underwhelmed. We had seats in the balcony, which means they were seats and didn’t allow us to wander between the first and second stages. On the second stage, the best act by far was Head Automatica, although their strutting and prancing got a bit old after the second song. The main stage had Mogwai, The Rapture, Interpol, and of course, The Cure. All of them rocked.
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Tag Archives: music
i won!
tracks char
1. Speaking In Tongues I (Sheila Chandra)
2. Kanonen-Song (Kurt Weill)
3. Fit But You Know It (The Streets)
4. Gallop of a Thousand Horses (Kronos Quartet)
5. Head Rush on Lafayette (David Holmes)
6. Midnight In a Perfect World (DJ Shadow)
7. O Fortuna (Carl Orff)
8. The Girl at the Typewriter (Raymond Scott)
9. Seed 2.0 (The Roots)
10. Hang On St. Christopher (Tom Waits)
11. Take Me Home Country Roads (John Denver)
12. Mustang Sally (The Commitments)
13. Summer Song (Dave Brubeck/Louis Armstrong)
14. the pennycandystore beyond the el (Leonard Bernstein)
15. Promenade/Gnomus (Modest Mussorgsky/Vladimir Ashkenazy)
16. Ana Ng (They Might Be Giants)
17. P.P. (Picolo Pesos) (Ornette Coleman)
18. Fugue in C minor, BWV 847 (J.S. Bach)
19. Ain’t Nobody’s Business But My Own (Ella Fitzgerald)
20. Oh, Good Grief (Ellis Marsalis)
21. God Bless The Child (Billie Holiday)
22. Madness (Deltron 3030)
23. Fitter Happier (Radiohead)
24. I Am Superman (REM)
tracks drei
Yet another mix, a bit more eclectic perhaps:
1. 2010 — Cornelius
2. Bongo Bong — Manu Chao
3. Latin Simone — Gorillaz
4. I’m Beginning to See the Light — Bobby Darin
5. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat — Charles Mingus
6. Gritty Shaker — David Holmes
7. Sabotage — Beastie Boys
8. I’m Old Fashioned — Cassandra Wilson
9. The Penguin — Raymond Scott
10. Safety Dance — Men Without Hats
11. You Can’t Break My Heart — Hot Club Of Cowtown
12. Hard Time Killing Floor Blues — Chris Thomas King
13. Summertime — Billie Holiday
14. Bei Mer Bist Du Schon — Sholom Secunda
15. Disseminated — Soul Coughing
16. Communication Breakdown — Led Zeppelin
17. Spoonful — Charlie Hunter (with Theryl De Clouet)
18. There She Goes Again — The Velvet Underground
19. Seven Months — Portishead
20. All The Things You Are — Ella Fitzgerald
tracks deux
Another recent mix, this time heavier on the jazz and techno:
1. Count Five Or Six — Cornelius
2. Anarchy In The UK — Sex Pistols
3. No Diggity — Black Street feat. Dr. Dre
4. Turkish Mambo — Lenny Tristano
5. Changui — Charlie Hunter
6. Broken Skin — Nitin Sawhney
7. Life/Death (w/Mikah 9) — Prefuse 73
8. Annanas — Tosca
9. Mescal — Alter Ego
10. Since I Left You — The Avalanches
11. Moves — Charles Mingus
12. Fugata — Astor Piazzola, performed by Yo-Yo Ma
13. Boplicity — Miles Davis
14. Watermelon Man — Mongo Santamaria
15. Spybreak! — Propellerheads
16. Matter Of Fact — Roni Size/Reprazent
tracks
Here’s a recent mix CD I made. It’s a bit heavy on the pop standards and light swing, noticeably lacking in the classical and electronic ends of my listening habits, but it has some nice juxtapositions I think.
1. There’ll Be Some Changes Made (Dave Brubeck/Jimmy Rushing)
2. The Anchor Song (Björk)
3. Croon Spoon (Eddie Vedder/Susan Sarandon, music by Mark Blitzstein)
4. Maggie’s Farm (Bob Dylan)
5. Frontier Psychiatrist (The Avalanches)
6. Daphné (Django Reinhardt)
7. Wondering Where (Don Byron, music by Scott Kirby)
8. Got My Own Thing Now (Squirrel Nut Zippers)
9. Let’s Do It (Ella Fitzgerald, music by Cole Porter)
10. And She Was (Talking Heads)
11. Re-Hash (Gorillaz)
12. Yo Mama (The Pharcyde)
13. Alabama Song (Ute Lemper, music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Bertholt Brecht)
14. Go To Sleep (Radiohead)
15. Wandering Star (Portishead)
16. The Very Thought of You (Billie Holiday)
17. Beyond The Sea (Bobby Darin)
18. Sympathique (Pink Martini)
19. Coney Island Baby (Tom Waits)
magnetic fields
I went to see the Magnetic Fields play at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, just south of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was one of the better shows I’ve seen, and just what I wanted — relaxing, yet exciting, funny banter, and a surprisingly good opening act by Australian Darren Hanlon. They played Papa Was A Rodeo, Yeah Oh Yeah (with choreography even!), Chicken With Its Head Cut Off, I Die, I Looked All Over Town, I Thought You Were My Boyfriend, Busby Berkeley Dreams, Reno Dakota, and many many others, including some from earlier albums that I had heard only once, songs from the Pieces of April soundtrack, and one from a Lemony Snicket audiobook. Apparently Lemony Snicket used to be in the band.
The Palace of Fine Arts is one of those venues with a huge wide stage and only 25 rows of seats. I’ve been very happy with concerts in San Francisco — most places are pretty small so that you don’t have terrible views, unlike the Shoreline in Mountain View, which wins the prize in my book for Worst Concert Venue Ever.
If I hadn’t just blown $60 at Amoeba I’d be tempted to buy one of Hanlon’s CDs and/or the Charm of the Highway Strip. Alas and alack…
Romanian
Yesterday I went to my friend Alexandra’s house for lunch with her, her father, and her grandmother, where she cooked up a storm — the heartiest lunch I’ve had in a while. Afterwards her father made some Turkish coffee in an Ibrik, which was quite tasty. He told me that he had some mp3 samples of his music on his homepage, which I’m listening to at the moment. I really need to go to CNMAT more often — I miss the computer and contemporary music scene.
After lunch we helped Alexandra with her Romanian flashcards. Romanian orthography is very complicated — in the 19th century they switched from Cyrillic to Roman letters in an attempt to assert nationalistic pride in their Roman heritage (Romanian is a Romance language). When they were under Soviet influence, the orthography was changed to make it more Slavic, although they stopped short of moving back to Cyrillic. Now that they are out from under the boot, the orthography has switched back to the pre-Soviet spellings. As as result, the contemporary student of Romanian must learn alternate spellings for many words, and many words have interesting stories behind them, like cerneala, which means ink and comes from the Russian word for “black.” Or so I was told.
It’s fun to learn new things, even if they are of dubious use…
mundane and mysterious
I spent most of yesterday hanging out with Abby, who was in from out of town. We went to the Castro and up Noe Valley to catch some of the crazy hilly street views and work up an appetite for the ultra cheap sushi at Yokoso Nippon (15th and Church). Nothing like $5 for a 7 piece nigiri combo, although now it’s more like $6 since they raised their prices. We pretty much ate ourselves silly, drank all the tea, and probably overstayed our welcome. One of these days I will learn to eat octopus nigiri in one bite. It was nice to catch up over a meal, and it felt very comfortable, even though we hadn’t talked in months really.
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hemiola
Johannes Brahms is the master of the hemiola. I’m listening to the Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra in A minor, Op. 102, and it’s rocking my world. I heard it at the SFSO last year with two fantastic pieces by Brahms, but when the orchestra really weighs in during the first movement it’s like being lifted out of your seat.
An Ergodic Walk 