Signal to Noise
Ever wonder what lies in the other direction from the cross walk in front of Abbey road studios fixed forever in time by the cover to the Beatles Abbey Road album. Looking at my niece's giant Abbey Road poster I did. I stood blankly before the poster and wondered "what do you suppose lies up that road, what would you see if you turned around and looked the other way? Thanks to the advanced miracle that is Google Earth (and Map) questions like this are now almost pointlessly facile. Abbey Road Studios even has a webcam
Abbey Road Studios Abbey Road webcam. Pointlessness; however, is my reason for being. The crosswalk lies just above the intersection of Abbey and Grove End road. Which goes on up towards St. John Woods Subway station. A small fountain or sculpture of some kind is in the middle of the intersection. Handsome row house bound the southern end. It is not unlike sections of Washington DC. Old school suburban.
View Larger Map With the end of another Summer Schedule at WFMU pastishe absurdist dj, Ken Goldsmith, goes off the schedule. I at least will miss him. They've moved several people, and they're highly individualized shows, around. WFMU; that place is full of flux. For one recent show
Intelligent Design with Kenny G playlist | 09.26.07 Ken G played a piece which consisted of all the Beatles UK albums played thru at 800 percent normal speed but phase shifted down to normal tonality. The whole thing clocks in at about an hour. Its not bad, similar really to that Damned on 45 single that Captain Sensible put out. Parts of it continue to work as music even at this velocity altered rate. George Harrison's sitar pieces. Something innate to the overtones of the sitar I imagine. I promised Nicole (niece) I would put up a link back to this
Listen to this show (MP3 - 128K). For his last show he brought on as guest Alex Ross who has written a book
The rest is noise : listening to the twentieth century [WorldCat.org] . The premise of the book a histroy of 20th century composition is that while people generally contend that 20th century avant garde music has been a failure and rejected in the market place. It has not been, because it can be shown that it has been widely influential and has permeated popular culture. It may be true that compared to its aged cousins classical, and romantic music, or to todays fellow travellers who are willing to call themselves songwriters rather than composers the job doesn't pay as much. But for evey city orchestra dialing up another season of Mozart. Philip Glass is out there wrestling with life out of balance. Since my idea of musical good times can involve bands like Black Helicopter. I don't know how much stake I have in such debates, but given that I copy-catalog books for a university library I'll be looking out for this book when it comes through.
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