by David Burn | Oct 16, 2005 | Go Big Red
eHow: Experiment with the freedom of buying nothing and embrace Henry David Thoreau’s sentiment that “he who owns little is little owned.”
Practice reverse snobbery. Express contempt for people who mindlessly buy things. This has two benefits: It raises the act of not buying things to a lofty moral height, from which you can denigrate others, and you get to enjoy the irony of simultaneously being a snob while making fun of other snobs.
Take pride in being an eccentric recycler.
Thanks to Lifehacker for the pointer.
by David Burn | Oct 15, 2005 | Music
Chris Morris for MSNBC: Seeing Sarah Borges blast through her show was not unlike seeing Maria McKee knock the joint down when she fronted Lone Justice during the glory days of L.A. cowpunk in the early ’80s. Borges brings a similar star power to her own brand of contemporary roots-rock, which draws on a wealth of sparkling musical influences.
“It’s like a square meal,” says Borges, calling from Henrietta, Okla., on her way to a show in Oklahoma City. “You’ve got to have your meat and your potatoes and your vegetables.”
Just 27, the raven-haired singer-guitarist has been performing for a decade, since she went off to Emerson College in Boston, where she studied musical theater (which may account for her enormous stage presence). She got her start in indie-rock bands but gravitated toward the more interesting mix of sounds at play in a solid group of originals and covers.
Borges is an enormous fan of the L.A. punk band X and performs a smoky rendition of the group’s “Come Back to Me” in her set.
by David Burn | Oct 15, 2005 | Digital culture, Music
The Nashville Nobody Knows is a great interview series hosted and produced by Candace Corrigan. She also features music by the artists she interviews. Artists like Darrell Scott, Tim O’Brien and Sam Bush. You can get the MP3 files for your pod directly from her site, or via iTunes.
I wouldn’t say “nobody knows” about this music, but I get Corrigan’s drift. As bright as someone like Sam Bush’s star does shine, he’s no Dolly Parton.
by David Burn | Oct 15, 2005 | Music
According to two grateful blogs, Uncle John’s and Knockin’ on the Golden Door, Ann Coulter is a genuine Deadhead. Their evidence? A photo from the pundit’s own site.
Coulter in Berlin
I suggested on Uncle John’s that she might just be posing next to Grateful Dead’s slice of Americana and not really be a Deadhead. Mark Firestone of the Knockin’ blog wrote to me to say, Coulter is a Deadhead. He also said, “Those who can’t see beyond one facet of a person’s character, in my opinion, are the true posers.” I happen to agree with that, while having no appreciation whatsoever for Firestone’s open admiration of Ann Coulter.
Whether Ann is or is not a Deadhead does not concern me. There are conservative Deadheads. For a fact. They are but one of a dozen or more easily identifiable sub genres of Deadheads.
I got in to the band at Franklin & Marshall College, where another more prevalent subset, Establishment Deadheads (who liked the band at Choate!) were strongly concentrated. Bobby and Barlow’s prep school-spawned friendship indicates just how interwoven this “type” is into the scene.
Other types of Deadheads include:
– Trustafarians (white dreads with a mil or more on ice)
– Lot Rats (prefer the lot scene and may or may not go in to the show)
– Red Heads (beer swillin’ rednecks)
– The Spinners (cult members)
– Locals (Bay Area residents only need apply)
– Wharf Rats (sober Deadheads)
– Change Agents (heads with a political agenda)
– Swingers (high priests of the drug world)
– Old Timers (real Hippies)
– Rainbows (“What’s yours is mine, brother.”)
– Jocks (sports, shows, it’s all the same street)
– Gear Heads (Skiers, kayakers, bikers, climbers, sailors, etc.)
– Techies (the Peninsula’s inventor class)
– Tapers (serious archivists)
– Students (just passing through)
– Rockers (out for a good time…band is secondary)
– New Agers (the crystal krewe)
– Fashionistas (click the link)
If you have additional ideas, please leave a comment.
by David Burn | Oct 14, 2005 | Digital culture
What Does Tropolism Mean?
Tropolism means Metropolism.com was taken.
Tropolism means believing that cities are the crowning achievement in our civilization. After ultrasuede, of course.
Tropolism means urban life is a glorious mess, as are the buildings and spaces that enable it.
Tropolism means addicted to density.
Tropolism means loving the works of architects, and all the public conversation that surrounds it, while retaining a healthy skepticism for what architects say about their work.
Tropolism means writing about loving works of architects, and about skepticism for what they say.
Tropolism means calling bullshit.
Tropolism means no complaining.
Tropolism means proposing new alternatives.
Tropolism means finding beauty everywhere it exists.
Tropolism means making the hidden city visible.
Tropolism is edited by NYC-based architect/writer Chad Smith. It’s published by Josh Rubin, who also puts out Cool Hunting and Needled.
by David Burn | Oct 14, 2005 | Digital culture
Halley’s Comment: You’d have to live under a rock, or have a brown paper bag as your favorite hat, not to notice that things are getting very bullish and “dot com-like” in the blogosphere these days.
Halley showing Scoble some love
So what to do about this atmosphere of fame and fortune suddenly being visited on blogging? A bunch of us were talking about that at dinner Monday night in Seattle at MSN Search Champs Camp. The “champs” included Chris Pirillo, Robert Scoble, Mary Hodder, Liz Lawley, Gina Trapani, Andru Edwards, Raymond Chen and yours truly, Halley Suitt.
I guess we all wondered Monday night if these newly arrived MEN WITH MONEY will twist, divert or blow up the bridges on this natural path of innovation we have been walking in the blogosphere. We made editorial decisions and built blogs based on passion — because that’s all we had in the beginning — when there was no money and the need to amuse and entertain one another was the key motivator in blogging.
The dinner plate said it all to me … it was surf and turf and Mary Hodder and I looked down at it, shocked to see such a plentiful plate, an amazing piece of prime rib WITH a gorgeous piece of salmon. An embarrassment of riches really for bloggers who were used to the old days, when we were throwing together blogger dinners of cheap Chinese food and hoping to hell when the bill came we could each come up with $9.00 or less.
by David Burn | Oct 13, 2005 | Music
Americana Roots turned me on to Tim O’Brien’s new release, Cornbread Nation.
I purchased it on iTunes today. It’s well worth one’s hard-earned $9.99.
Searching iTunes’ podcast directory is how I came across Americana Roots in the first place. Turns out the Rootsters are also streaming their content and bloggin’ it up. That’s getting the word out.
Speaking of heady podcasts, Umphrey’s McGee and Hot Buttered Rum String Band have material available for free download on iTunes. Give ’em a click and a listen.
by David Burn | Oct 13, 2005 | Music
Austin American-Statesman: During the Americana Music Association Honors & Awards ceremony in Nashville last month, Jim Lauderdale joked that the association had sought a slogan to pin down the elusive genre.
The runner-up, he said, was “Americana what’s not to dig?”
And the winner: “So that’s Americana!”
Both slogans say much about the conundrum of Americana, as a genre, a radio format, a retail label or … whatever. The fact that the association, formed by 30 people during a 1999 South by Southwest Music Festival gathering and now boasting a membership of nearly 1,200, exists at all and drew 901 attendees to its fourth conference is a testament to this music industry faction’s conviction that Americana (formerly known as alternative country) is a distinct category worthy of nurturing.
Several Texas stations identify themselves as Americana and report their playlist information to the Americana radio airplay chart, published weekly in Radio & Record magazine. Among them is New Braunfels’ KNBT-FM (92.1), KFAN-FM (107.9) in Fredericksburg, KTXN-FM (98.7) in Victoria and Austin’s KGSR-FM (107.1) consider themselves “Americana/AAA” a combination of roots music and Adult Album Alternative; KGSR reports to R&R’s Americana and Triple A airplay charts. Austin public radio station KUT-FM (90.5) also reports its weekly Americana song spins.
“We’re in discussions with Arbitron (which measures radio listenership) about getting Americana a formal format designation,” Americana Music Association’s executive director, Jeff Green, says. “We think we have an excellent chance of that happening. We’re trying to set some kind of a threshold to validate this as a real format, rather than just a representation of what airplay is out there in this spectrum of artistry.
“If we can show that a radio station can make money with this music, I believe it’s gonna grow,” Green says, adding, “Americana’s never gonna be the next big thing, but if it’s the next medium thing, that’s still very lucrative, it’s a very viable business, and meanwhile, you’ve got a lot of wonderful music to enjoy.”
by David Burn | Oct 12, 2005 | Music
BeatnikPad started compiling a list of “cool musicians who blog.” Personally, I think most musicians are pretty cool, but whatever. Here’s a smattering of results.
Bob Mould
Pete Townsend
Mike Doughty
Radiohead
David Byrne
Sleater-Kinney
Robert Fripp
John Mayer
Steve Earle
Jason Mraz
Belle and Sebastian
Nickel Creek
I added Peter Case and Tony Furtado in the comments on BeatnikPad. It occurs to me now to add Robert Hunter. Can you think of any other musicians from “our sphere” who keep a web log?
by David Burn | Oct 12, 2005 | Go Big Red
From the comments to a post on Dave Pollard’s blog, “How to Save the World”:
Leonardo da Vinci was not a genius because of his imagination. His genius lay in his ability to OBSERVE nature and THEN create. It was this humility that was the doorway into his inventions. He did not invent anything that hadn’t already been created in nature. He simply looked more closely at how nature did things and then tried to do the best he could with human tools to copy it. This power of observation came through his initial interest in painting and sculpting, which taught him, more than anything else, to observe. Why does the human species today believe that they no longer have anything to learn from nature and that the human imagination can somehow go beyond nature? We have but scratched the tip of the iceberg in our observations. Reality is far more complex than anything we could possibly imagine. Human arrogance has grown to such an extent that we believe we are no longer operating within the laws of nature! Of course disaster will result from that assumption. –Kerry Somers
