Music

“Music companies which use copy protection may be denying the artists under contract to them legitimate play time on radio stations, if the happenings at one outfit are any indication. This radio station, which recently received its regular bag of freebies from EMI, finds that it is unable to play any of the CDs it received – the copy protection on the discs gets in the way.” [Lockergnome Bytes]

Afro Celt Sound System (now simply called Afro Celts) has a new CD. It’s being discussed in alt.music.peter-gabriel, and unfortunately people report it’s copy protected.

This is one CD I would really want to buy, but since it’s copy protected and won’t work on my Mac, I won’t buy it. Unfortunately it looks like other releases from Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records will also be copy protected. That’s one of my favorite labels & I’m really disappointed.

Shostakovichiana. Documents and articles about one of the twentieth century’s greatest composers, some of them focusing on the problems he encountered working under a totalitarian system. Some highlights :- ‘Do not judge me too harshly’: anti-Communism in Shostakovich’s letters; ‘You must remember!’: Shostakovich’s alleged 1937 interrogation; About Shostakovich’s 1948 downfall. More related material can be found at the Music under Soviet Rule page.
There are a number of interesting sites dealing with music expression and censorship generally. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum has a site on the music of the concentration camps – ‘While popular songs dating from before the war remained attractive as escapist fare, the ghetto, camp, and partisan settings also gave rise to a repertoire of new works. ‘ Here’s a Guardian article on the Blue Notes, who ‘fought apartheid in South Africa with searing jazz’. Here’s a page about the Drapchi 14, Tibetan nuns who ‘recorded independence songs and messages to their families on a tape recorder’ (and were subsequently punished). Finally, a page on records which were banned from BBC radio during the 1991 Gulf War (example :- ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’). [metafilter.com]

A history of Malian pop music. Confused by the interlocking names and associations of the stars of West African music? This lively account by Lisa Denenmark should help (and a follow-up is promised). Via the indispensible Afropop Worldwide. [metafilter.com]

What’s up with Wynton Marsalis? And what’s up with jazz? 20 years ago he was the genre’s Boy Wonder, driving force behind a new Classical Jazz movement; today he’s label-less and has gone years since his last new CD. Then, Jazz clubs across NYC and across the US still played bebop, now their numbers are dwindling. Is jazz doomed, permanently embalmed by those who tried to save it? (Has it been doomed since 1945?) Will it rise from its ashes nu jazz? Will it be subsumed into world music and lose its identity? How are any musicians and listeners out there finding the current scene? [metafilter.com]

I never cared much for Wynton Marsalis. His music always struck me as cold & emotionless. Although he’s a great musician, his music has no feeling & doesn’t affect me the same way as Coltrane or Miles Davis.

due to the impending threat of war between the usa and iraq, youssou n’dour & the super etoile de dakar have cancelled their 38 city tour of north america. a press release is forthcoming by youssou n’dour explaining his position.

pray for peace.

mickey [WorldBeatPlanet]

This truly sucks. I was really looking forward to seeing him again.

Konono No. 1 “This band is one of the main exponents of a spectacular style of music which has developed in the suburbs of Kinshasa (DR Congo). The Congolese call it “tradi-modern”, in other words: electrified traditional music. These are musicians who left the bush to settle in the capital and who, in order to go on keep fulfilling their social role and make themselves heard by the ancestors (and, more concretely, by their fellow citizens) despite the high level of urban noise, have had to resort to DIY amplification of their instruments, and to megaphones (conical speakers). This makeshift electrification has provoked a radical mutation of their sound, as it has introduced distortions which they have integrated to their style. […] The band’s line-up includes three electric likembés [thumb pianos] (bass, medium and treble), equipped with hand-made microphones built from magnets salvaged from old car parts, and plugged into amplifiers.” Via womanonfire. [metafilter.com]

Who Gets Hurt When You Pirate Music?

“There’s a case study in the NYDaily News — apparently a propos nothing but this Sunday’s Grammy Awards — that breaks down the cash flow of a hypothetical hit album by a hypothetical rock quartet. It illustrates all the people that get paid along the food chain, including some odd recoupable record company expenses, like a 25 percent ‘packaging deduction’ and a 15 percent ‘free goods charge,’ off the top, most of which the label keeps.

The bottom line is that a gold record (500,000 copies) selling at $16.98 will gross roughly $8.5 million, of which each member of the hypothetical quartet will pocket about $40,000. (The case study doesn’t take songwriting royalties into account.)

So for every $16.98 album you rip, you’re costing a performing artist about 34 cents, and the lawyers, producers and labels about $16.64.” [Over the Edge]

As Will says, “Kind of makes you want to just toss $0.34, or a share of Covad, in the guitar case of a starving artist, doesn’t it?”

[The Shifted Librarian]

Are Jazz And Gay Culture Antithetical? When an American friend of mine told me recently that gay men hate jazz, although that’s not my experience in my part of the world, it got me thinking. But the article I found, by Francis Davis, only added to the mystery. Is the audience for Jazz overwhelmingly and creepily white, bourgeois, straight, macho and middle-aged (which, embarrassingly, just about describes this Jazz fan…)? If it is, why the hell is it? Why are there so few outed gay Afro-American musicians, for instance? Is there still a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” mentality? Or, more interestingly, does it have something to do with Jazz itself? Or even being gay? And what about the other musical stereotypes (Garland, Streisand et al.) used in caricatures of gay men? Is there anything in them? [NYT reg. required for main link; atrocious text garbling in the second.] [metafilter.com]

Thione Seck returns to New York City for one final
appearance this Sunday Feb. 23 at SOB’s. Advance: $20. Door:
$25. Doors open at 7 pm. Showtime:
9. Highly recommended. Look for the Afropop crew at SOB’s (Houston
and Varick). Reservations and more info: 212-243-4940. [WorldBeatPlanet]

I wish I was in NYC this weekend. Thione Seck is one of the world’s greatest singers. I really want to see one of his shows. He makes amazing music, with his calm, laid-back vocals floating over some really wild rhythms.