Igor Stravinsky wrote this ballet to be the soundtrack to a sacred pagen ritual in which a young girl dances herself to death. The piece is filled with intense rhythms and melodies. My favorite passage occurs about 4 minutes in. A driving, repeated rhythmic chord that can’t be explained in standard musical notation. An octatonic scale, of sorts. Whole and half steps stacked on top of each other pounded on the strings with an intoxicating rhythm. It is the most beautiful type of dissonance.

||: Bum, bum, bum, BUM, BUM bum, BUM, bum, bum, BUM, BUM, BUM, BUM, bum, bum, bum :||

Igor can explain it better than me, in his words …

“… there arose a picture of a sacred pagan ritual: the wise elders are seated in a circle and are observing the dance before death of the girl whom they are offering as a sacrifice to the god of Spring in order to gain his benevolence. This became the subject of The Rite of Spring.”

The premiere was in 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris with original choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky. The Parisian audience was not used to such primitive rhythms and melodies. From the very beginning bassoon melody, there was loud talking, arguing and booing. Throughout the entire piece people were throwing chairs and fighting in the aisles. They attempted to regain orderin the house by flashing lights. The police came at intermission.

By then, it was all over. This was the first mosh pit. This was punk ballet. Paris in 1913 couldn’t handle it. Amplified music and the electric guitar was still a dream.  It was disruptive to conventional thinking. It was Beethoven breaking the form, Charlie Parker running laps on the alto, Chuck Berry on Johnny B. Goode, Miles Davis electrifying the trumpet, Jimi Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner. The Rite of Spring changed how people write and listen to music. Conventional form had been broken before, but never this violently. Never with so much passion and controversy. It’s hard to write music for strings and winds that is this intense. Igor hit it out of the park.

Personally, I discovered this piece of music in the winter and spring of 2003. I was a senior at the UW finishing up my music and political science degree. At the time I was taking music history classes, atonal music theory and international relations classes. I found a copy of this on vinyl and started listening to it. A lot. That time in 2003 was depressing. I was quite upset about the unnecessary drive to war against Iraq. Listening to music was the only way to make sense of the world. My Music studies were lining up in my mind with my political science classes. The tension that Stravinsky (and others) created in the early 20th century felt like an appropriate soundtrack for the bullshit that was arising in our political world.

In case you were curious, there is a wikipedia page dedicated to classical music riots. Think about that next time you attend the symphony.

1. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest :: Gets better with every listen.
2. Mos Def – The Estatic :: Really glad he’s back, the last two have been phoned in. This one is solid.
3. Phish – Joy :: My favorite band is back together, and that makes me happy. They could have had 4′33″ on here and I would have listened intently.
4. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Palivion :: I couldn’t stand this when I first listened. Saw them at Bonnaroo, thought they were still bad. After some encouragement from Lincoln, I listened again. It is actually really really good.
5. Passion Pit – Manners :: Fun.
6. The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You :: You can play this for every member of your family, and they’ll love it. Even Grandma.
7. Beirut – March of the Zapotec EP & Realpeople – Holland EP (the Holland EP is better) :: This kid makes me jealous of his talent. The ethnomusicologist in me loves the Oaxaca inspired EP. The ears like the Holland EP better.
8. Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears – Tell ‘Em What Your Name is! :: Saw them at Bumbershoot. Sweet jesus, I was sold. Reminds me a lot of Buddy Miles.
9. Built to Spill – There is no Enemy :: Don’t believe they can make a bad album.
10. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic :: Different. Saw them at Marymoor this summer. Wayne started the show by climbing out of a … nevermind, don’t want to ruin it.
11. Wilco – (the album) :: Looking forward to getting old with Wilco.
12. The XX (self titled) :: What’s a VCR?
13. Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You :: She is genuinely funny, and can write a really good pop song. However, usually requires headphones.
14. Super Furry Animals – Dark Days/Light Years :: The Welsh version of the Flaming Lips are great. See them live if you can.
15. Jay – Z – The Blueprint 3 :: But really, only ‘Empire State of Mind’. The rest of the album is kind of dull.

My favorite list of the decade is coming.

The muppets and rock ‘n roll will save us all.

The original premise for this came up through him mentioning (or at least how I remember it) the classic Radiohead album, OK Computer. Some would argue that it isn’t the best Radiohead album, but few would argue that isn’t a classic. He’s never listened to it. That’s cool, I didn’t listen to it until well after it had been released. My only regret about it is that I didn’t discover it earlier. He doesn’t seem to think that it’s what everybody cracks it up to be.

The other side of it came last week, he asked me about an album called Destruction of Puppies or Appetite for Puppies or something like that, can’t remember exactly. Nonetheless, in all my 28 years of listening to almost all types of music, it had slipped through. He was noticeably shocked and disturbed by my lack of knowledge of said album.

Over beers we decided that we should duel over discuss these albums publicly on our blogs and continue the discussion to two other albums. We both agreed to give well thought out critiques that are fair to the music and not to look to score cheap hits. I’m not intent on changing his opinion, rather I’m intent seeing him acknowledge the choices I give him as important and/or interesting pieces of music. OK Computer is first. There will other choices afterwards and I’m totally undecided on what direction to take. Think I’ll just wait on it and see where to go.

His side of the discussion is here. Stay tuned, this will be fun.

Santigold:
I almost bought this a couple times when i saw it at the top of the best seller list on iTunes. Apparently the 30 sec samples didn’t sell me the way her live show . After seeing her recently, I immediately came home and bought the album. This is an album for the summer. It’s loud, obnoxious (sometimes), there are some cool dub sections, and it’s catchy. Sometimes you just need to listen to obnoxious catchy music. This is new territory for my ears, and they’re reporting back good things.

Mos Def
The Estatic
I didn’t listen to hip-hop until the summer of 2004. I feel bad about this. While I don’t regret any music I listened to before that (except that Right Said Fred single I purchased when I was 10), I think I could have dabbled a little bit while in music school. Two of the first albums I bought were Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides and his collaboration with Talib Kweli Black Star. I listened to these two albums a lot that summer. I’ve grabbed every Mos Def album that has come out since that summer, and I’ve been disappointed every time. I’m glad I didn’t give up, because this one is killer. Good rhymes, great production by Madlib and others, and nice guest appearances. I need some more time with it, but I can already tell that this one is a keeper.

still in the bin …Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III; Ray Charles Modern Sounds in Country and Western; Bright Eyes, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn

I spent this past weekend in the middle of Tennessee. It took me 24 hours to get there via plane, and I spent the next 24 hours without any luggage. But I’m not going to talk about that here, I’ll save that for a future post about how American Airlines could have used Social Media to get my business again. I want to talk about Bonnaroo, the best music and arts festival in North America.

The music lineup was top notch. I have extremely eccentric tastes in music. My philosophy when someone asks me what I listen to comes from Duke Ellington, “there are only two kinds of music in this world, good and bad.” So yes, there was one band that made me buy a ticket to the festival, Phish. But it was the diverse and deep lineup that made it a great weekend. In just two hours on Sunday I bounced between Merle Haggard , Erykah Badu, Andrew Bird and Okkervil River. My ears are constantly open and Bonnaroo does not disappoint.

The highlights:

My name is Brad and I like Phish. I used to hide myself as a Phishhead, I was tired of being pigeonhold but since Phish has come back, I just don’t care anymore. I was awfully excited to see them on Friday night. I utilized my semi-secret way to get down to the front of the stage, ending up 40 feet back on Fishman’s side. These guys are hot right now. They had a 3 hours to play, so I assumed we would hear 2 sets with a short break in between. That turned out to not be the case. We we’re given 3.5 hours of both classic and new songs. The jams were contained to the right songs and the right places. When I would find my mind wandering, someone would always come through and bring my attention right back. This was a good show. The new songs, Kill Devil Falls and Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan are good tunes with lots of opportunity to grow into being classics. I had never been so close to the stage during Divided Sky, so it was neat to see the silent jam that close. I’d only heard that at the Gorge, while the sun was setting so I can’t exactly complain. Harry Hood, YEM, Silent in the Morning and Down with Disease all were awesome. They were hitting everything with authority and meaning. It sounded like Phish, it didn’t sound like they were trying to be a pop band or a funk band or a cover band. This is the band that I grew up on, and this is the band that I know. They’re going back to being themselves, and everybody should be happy about that.

I love Wilco (the band). Last time I saw them, I believe I said, “this is a band I’m looking forward to getting old with.” Everything they put out is great, and the new album is no different. I was lucky enough to be down in front for the show again. You could tell that everyone was having lots of fun. Nels Cline is one of my favorite guitar players, and did not disappoint. Jeff Tweedy was very chatty, at one point he said, “we’re pretty happy about playing before Bruce, because if you boo, we can’t tell a difference.”

Grizzly Bear translated their lovely new album to the stage perfectly. Wish I could have seen their whole set, but I was transitioning from seeing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, on my way to see King Sunny Ade and Santigold. All were excellent and they were all at the same time. That’s the wonderful and frustrating thing about these festivals, you can only see so much.

David Byrne brought the house down. I’m looking forward to seeing him again next week in Seattle. He had a number of interpretive dancers on stage with him, they were fun to watch. I wish the drunk assholes from Jersey next to me weren’t yelling every lyric. Then again, I think drunk assholes from Jersey make the world go round (yin ‘n yang?).

The last time at Bonnaroo, I neglected to go to the comedy tent. This year I opted to go to see the Daily Show cast; John Oliver, Rob Riggle, Wyatt Cenac, Kristen Schaal and some others. All the standup sets were hilarious and a nice change of pace.

It would be wrong to neglect the excellent set from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I’ve never been a big fan of The Boss, but I’ve always respected him and his band. They’re hard working and lots of people are devout fans, so who am I to judge? That man knows how to put on a show. The only other person I’ve seen work so hard and fill such a big stage without any doubt of who is in charge is Mick Jagger. He puts performers half his age to shame. The other memorable part was watching Max Weinberg’s 18 year old son take over the kit half way through the set, this kid has a future.

The disappointments:

MGMT had the crowd at the tip of their fingertips. That Tent was as overflowed as I’ve ever seen in my two years of going to Bonnaroo. Everybody was asking for a dance party, but sadly, they didn’t deliver. Maybe I was too far away, and the sound wasn’t loud enough. I don’t think so though. These guys need to tour some more and work out their live show. Take a lesson from the jambands and pull the song out a little. The crowd was ready.

I’m bummed that I missed these shows; moe. (they played until 7am), MURS, Passion Pit, Public Enemy, Phoenix, Femi Kuti, Al Green, Galactic, Elvis Costello, Jenny Lewis, David Grisman, Citizen Cope, Neko Case and Band of Horses.

The roundup:

I’ve been to a number of festivals, all around the country, some better than others. For the most part, I generally get discouraged by the organization. Having to sit in a line for hours on end to get anything is not the way that most people want to spend their time at a festival. The good folks that run Bonnaroo know what they’re doing. Everywhere you go, the lines are manageable, the food is good, the beer is reasonably priced and the stages offer good sight lines, even if you show up late. You can tell that the organizers think about the experience and not just how they can make money. They’re taking the bet on the long term, not the short term. If they continue doing what they’re doing, Bonnaroo is going to be around for a long time. In the middle of June, there is no city I’d rather be in than Manchester, Tennessee.

everyone should learn how to play an instrument

Elliott Smith at the Oscars, 1998.

The lineup is below …

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Phish (two shows)
Beastie Boys
Nine Inch Nails
David Byrne
Wilco
Al Green
Snoop Dogg
Elvis Costello Solo
Erykah Badu
Paul Oakenfold
Ben Harper and Relentless7    
The Mars Volta
TV on the Radio
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Gov’t Mule
Andrew Bird
Merle Haggard
MGMT
moe.
The Decemberists
Girl Talk
Bon Iver
Béla Fleck & Toumani Diabate
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Galactic
The Del McCoury Band
Of Montreal
Allen Toussaint
Coheed and Cambria
Booker T & the DBTs
David Grisman Quintet
Lucinda Williams
Animal Collective
Gomez
Neko Case
Down
Jenny Lewis
Santogold
Band of Horses
Robert Earl Keen
Citizen Cope
Femi Kuti and the Positive Force
The Ting Tings
Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Kaki King
Grizzly Bear
King Sunny Adé
Okkervil River
St. Vincent
Zac Brown Band
Raphael Saadiq
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Crystal Castles
Tift Merritt
Brett Dennen
Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue
Toubab Krewe
People Under the Stairs
Alejandro Escovedo
Vieux Farka Touré
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
Cherryholmes
Yeasayer
Todd Snider
Chairlift
Portugal. The Man.
The SteelDrivers
Midnite
The Knux
The Low Anthem
Delta Spirit
A.A. Bondy
The Lovell Sisters
Alberta Cross

Joshua Bell, one of the world’s best violinist stopped in a subway station in D.C. a year ago and played a concert on a $3.5 million dollar violin. So, you say, “I didn’t hear about that.” Yes, that’s true. Hardly anybody stopped to watch. It’s a fascinating 3 minute video to watch. The Washington Post recorded and gathered phone numbers from the 1,000 that passed. Later that day they called to see if they saw anything unusual. Again, only a couple people realized what they were watching.

It’s a fascinating human study. Do we only recognize good art if we’re told it’s good? I guess so.

My favorite part: There was one common demographic that wanted to stop and watch. The kids. Too bad their parents didn’t notice what they were seeing.