Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years.

It has a kind of Godfrey Reggio/Philip Glass (Powaqqatsi) feel to it. A study in ritual and organization, with a focus on continuity of an idea and follow-through.
Brilliant, if you think about it.

Digitally distributed environments

How to create an aerial panorama from Google Earth

From the blog: Visualising the city - from the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London

The concept is simple — grab a series of screen shots while rotating above the earth and then stitch the images as if they were normal photographs.

A day is a long time in Internet based tutorials and this is now an update of the original as a result of Gaby, a digital urban reader, writing a kmz tool to dramatically simplify the process of capturing screen shots. The whole process should take approximately 40 minutes.
[Read more]

Blogmusik

Someone has finally done a favor for those of us who rush out of the house on our way to work without our trusty iPods.
Now you can go to Blogmusik and listen, make playlists and share those lists (once logged on).
It's sort of like iHeroin for music junkies.
Enjoy!

NEWSFLASH: Sam Rivers will announce new drummer, soon…

So … we're left to wonder what happened to the amazingly talented and telepathic genius of Anthony Cole and his main gig as legendary Sam Rivers' drummer. Sources reveal that the band has been playing for the past 8 weeks or so with a new, mysterious drummer. Sam's web site indicates only that " New Drummer coming soon...".
Stay tuned.

Photo © Claudio Casanova

September 11

September 11 is the 254th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (255th in leap years).
There are 111 days remaining. It is usually the first day of the Coptic calendar and Ethiopian calendar (in the period AD 1900 to AD 2099). However, just 5 short years ago our country experienced a tragedy that can simply be described as barbaric, cruel and evil. Think what you will about the politics and such surrounding this day in history, the bottom line is that is was unjust. There's been a tremendous amount of speculation to the "hows" and the "whys." The issue is sure to further separate what little political and/or social cohesion that still remains. Let's not dwell on the issues today, instead let's remember those who were lost and those who were left behind in the wake of such a tragic event.

—Zealous

The terms "September 11th", "11th September", and "9/11" have been widely used in the Western media as a shorthand for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon in the United States of America.
In other places of the world the media also uses it as shorthand for other events, for example, the September 11, 1973 Coup D'Etat in Chile is referred to as "El 11 de Septiembre" or "El once" ("September 11" or "eleven" in Spanish) as shorthand for the Coup events.

Other significant events that fall on this same date thoughout history are listed below:

• 1185 - Isaac II Angelus kills Stephanus Hagiochristophorites and then appeals to the people, resulting in the revolt which deposes Andronicus I Comnenus and places Isaac on the throne of the Byzantine Empire.
• 1226 - The Catholic practice of perpetual adoration begins.
• 1297 - Battle of Stirling Bridge: Scots led by William Wallace defeat the English.
• 1541 - Santiago, Chile, is destroyed by indigenous warriors.
• 1609 - Henry Hudson lands on Manhattan island.
• 1609 - Expulsion order announced against the Moriscos of Valencia; beginning of the expulsion of all Spain's Moriscos.
• 1683 - Battle of Vienna
• 1649 - Siege of Drogheda ends: Oliver Cromwell's English Parliamentarian troops take the town and massacre its garrison.
• 1708 - Charles XII of Sweden stop outside Smolensk heading (by the lack of food since the Russians use the tactic of the burning soil) to the south, culminating in the disastrous battle of Poltava, the end of Sweden as a major power.
• 1709 - Battle of Malplaquet: Great Britain, Netherlands and Austria fight against France.
• 1714 - Barcelona surrenders to Spanish and French Bourbonic armies in the War of the Spanish Succession.
• 1773 - The Public Advertiser publishes a satrical essay titled Rules By Which A Great Empire May Be Reduced To A Small One, which is written by Benjamin Franklin.
• 1776 - British-American peace conference on Staten Island fails to stop nascent American Revolution.

[Read more]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brice Marden: A Retrospective of Paintings and Drawings

October 29, 2006–January 15, 2007

The Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Gallery, sixth floor
The Paul J. Sachs Drawings Galleries, third floor

This retrospective of the artist Brice Marden is an unprecedented gathering of his work, with more than fifty paintings and an equal number of drawings, organized chronologically, drawn from all phases of the artist's career. Two new large-scale paintings exhibited for the first time are included. The gradual, deliberate evolution of the artist's work becomes evident, as well as the constant exploration of light, color, and surface at every turn. The work of the first twenty years, characterized by luminous monochrome panels, which first won the artist acclaim, is now seen in balance with the celebrated work of the past twenty years. In the mid-1980s Marden shifted to calligraphic gestures embedded in shimmering grounds before moving to heightened color in the past decade. An installation of drawings is installed in the Paul J. Sachs Drawings Galleries on the third floor. A major publication accompanies the exhibition.

Organized by Gary Garrels, Senior Curator, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

The exhibition is sponsored by Lehman Brothers.

Major support is also provided by the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund.

Additional generous funding is provided by The Henry Luce Foundation and Jerry and Emily Spiegel.

Hothouse Flowers

Brooklyn's Grizzly Bear migrate north and maul a few mint juleps
by Andy Beta
August 21st, 2006 3:32 PM

There's a gruff thunk! of a needle to wax, and a vaudeville piano starts to plink a tune you could imagine emanating from a Prohibition-era speakeasy in the Tenderloin. Over a hesitant waltz, a quavering female voice wails a curious ditty about misplaced items like a French horn, clamshells, and a sheepskin coat. Grizzly Bear's Edward Droste auditions this song his Great-Aunt Marla recorded some 70 years ago so that I might hear the original in juxtaposition with his band's own cover. The original title now lost to time, "Marla" throbs as the emotional core of Grizzly Bear's new album Yellow House; in their hands, this now elegiac dirge discloses the silent despair beneath her whimsical veneer.
[Read more]

CMJ 2006: Register now!

For the past 25 years CMJ Music Marathon has been a beacon for the world’s best new music, introducing thousands of rising stars at showcases and concerts at New York City’s most important venues. Early Marathon performances by bands from R.E.M. to the Beastie Boys, Green Day, Radiohead, the Black Eyed Peas, Eminem, the Killers, Arcade Fire and so many others helped launch some of music’s biggest and brightest careers, while legends like Patti Smith, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and James Brown have also graced CMJ’s stages, inspiring younger artists and seasoned professionals alike.

Today, more than 100,000 music professionals, artists and fans converge on the music capital of the world every autumn for CMJ Music Marathon and CMJ FilmFest, celebrating the very best in new music, film and pop culture.

CMJ is honored to have presented keynote speakers such as David Bowie, Brian Wilson, Marilyn Manson, Moby, Queen Latifah, George Clinton, Ice-T and Perry Farrell to offer their insights on music, politics, technology and culture. As it has throughout its history, dozens of panel discussions are offered covering critical issues affecting all aspects of emerging music and the music industry.

[Sign up now!]

Afghan Whigs Reunite

Your attention, please. Now turn off the light. The Afghan Whigs are back! Understand, do you understand?

It was announced today that Greg Dulli will reunite with the beloved (and, OK, pretty strongly hated, too) 80s/90s alt-rock band that made his decadent, quasi-misogynistic leerings famous. Dulli, bassist John Curley, guitarist Rick McCollum, and drummer Michael Horrigan plan to gather in the band's former homebase of Cincinnati, Ohio in two weeks to work on their first new songs since their final album, 1998's 1965. (Check the vintage promo photo up there!) Although it's not the "classic" Gentlemen-era lineup, hey, we'll take what we can get.

After four days of rehearsal, the band will head to Ardent Recording Studios in Memphis, Tennessee to record with Jeff Powell, who worked with the band on Gentlemen, Black Love, and 1965. The new material is slated to be included on an Afghan Whigs retrospective collection entitled Unbreakable, due out in March or April on Rhino. As of right now, only two songs are scheduled to be recorded, but hopefully the sessions will result in more.

However, Dulli hasn't abandoned his current band, the Twilight Singers, as they are set to kick off their second American tour of the year on October 24 at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. (They'll play Los Angeles' House of Blues the next night, October 25; the full tour itinerary will be announced next week. The Twilight Singers will also head to the UK and Europe this winter.) Dulli drinking buddy Mark Lanegan will join the band for the entire tour.

[Read more]

Posted by Amy Phillips in reunion, greatesthits, tour on Fri: 09-08-06: 04:57 PM CDT

The Pitchfork Effect

How a tiny web outfit became the most influential tastemaker on the music scene.
By Dave Itzkoff
[From WIRED, Issue 14.09 - September 2006]

… Ryan Schreiber, the site's editor in chief, reviewed Broken Social Scene's US debut album, You Forgot It in People, in 2003. He began by lamenting the fact that he was receiving more promotional CDs than he could possibly write about or even listen to, and he acknowledged that he had plucked this record from the slush pile at random. He chastised the group for its gloomy packaging and liner notes ("How could they not be the most unimaginative, bleak, whiny emo bastards in the whole pile?"). Then he conceded that he'd been listening to the record obsessively for months. It "explodes," he wrote, "with song after song of endlessly replayable, perfect pop." Schreiber awarded it a score of 9.2 points out of a possible 10. An indie rock star was born.
[Read more]

Old Joy

OLD JOY is the story of two old friends, Kurt (Will Oldham) and Mark (Daniel London), who reunite for a weekend camping trip in the Cascade mountain range east of Portland, Oregon. For Mark, the weekend outing offers a respite from the pressure of his imminent fatherhood; for Kurt, it is part of a long series of carefree adventures. As the hours progress and the landscape evolves, the twin seekers move through a range of subtle emotions, enacting a pilgrimage of mutual confusion, sudden insight, and spiritual battle. When they arrive at their final destination, a hot spring in an old growth forest, they must either confront the divergent paths they have taken, or somehow transcend their growing tensions.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

Clell Tickle: Dreamweaver

You will love Tapes N Tapes right now!
(Tongue firmly placed inside cheek.)

Black Mountain

After founding Jerk with a Bomb in the late '90s, Stephen McBean had by the mid-2000s transformed the Vancouver-area band into a group called Black Mountain. Drawing on blues, psychedelia, acid rock, and the Velvet Underground, Black Mountain's sound was a cross between the darkness and grit of the Warlocks and Brian Jonestown Massacre's trippiness. After debuting in October 2004 on Jagjaguwar with the 12" Druganaut, Black Mountain stayed with the label for an eponymous full-length, issued the following January. Joining McBean for the album were local players Matthew Camirand, Jeremy Schmidt, Joshua Wells, and Amber Webber, listed collectively to preserve the band's communal ethic. (Black Mountain ran concurrent to and intermingled with McBean's other band, lo-fi classic rockers Pink Mountaintops.)
— by Johnny Loftus/Allmusic.com