Mike Davis has an article on the recent spate of car bombings in Iraq in today’s Guardian, here. My interview with Davis is here.
Archive for April, 2007
21
Apr
Mike Davis has an article on the recent spate of car bombings in Iraq in today’s Guardian, here. My interview with Davis is here.
18
Apr
Went to the Olympia on Saturday night to see Nevada City, California harpist and songstress Joanna Newsom, who played an extensive set based around her recent, and brilliant, album Ys. I was interested to see how she’d recreated the highly orchestrated songs from Ys, and was amazed to find out that she produced similar sounds from a three-piece band who accompanied her onstage.
Now, I’ve been brought up on a steady diet of indie rock, often involving guitars. This form of music often comes with the sort of mythologisation that can praise a skinny pale, moderately talented chancer with a handful of tunes as a ‘musical genius’ (I’m thinking of Richard Ashcroft here).
But as I sat, rapt, while listening to Joanna Newsom I did think that this just might have been a musical genius at work. I know stuff doesn’t have to be the work of a genius to be good, but I think when you see something like this you should call it as you see it. Newsom sat and played highly complex patterns on the harp, while her childlike tones (for want of a better description – as her last album revealed a depth to her voice that hadn’t been plumbed on the first collection.
The arrangements for her band often meant that Newsom was the only person moving onstage, as the others sat and patiently waited for their parts to occur.
And the audience’s reaction was unlike anything I’d ever witnessed before, with an ovation occuring just after the first song. Subsequent songs were greeted in much the same way. And yet, on reflection, it’s hard to say that this reaction wasn’t deserved. A landmark gig.
10
Apr
A quiet weekend, really. Spent a lot of Sunday cycling: up the mountains, back to my house in town to watch Monty Python. The equivalent of solitary strolling, but with a bike and access to digital TV. A bit of reading: Nelson George‘s Hip Hop America, which is a good overview of the influence of hip-hop in American and global terms. Continued reading Jonathan Raban‘s Hunting Mr Heartbreak last night, after putting it on ice for a while. Now on the chapter where he heads to Seattle – a place that he still makes his home, I believe.