This is a really cool visualization of “similar artists”, as captured by the Last.FM API. Genres are represented as colors. Very tasty.
All posts by Mark
and in Viking news….apparently the Scots discovered Iceland before the Vikings!
Via Unreported Heritage News….
New archaeological discoveries show that Iceland was inhabited around AD 800 – nearly 70 years before the traditional dating of its Viking settlement.
One possibility is that these early inhabitants may have been related to Irish monastic communities found throughout the Scottish islands at that time, and described in Viking-Age and medieval texts.
My favorite music from this year
With the year coming to a close, here’s a collection of my favorite music from the year. In addition to listening to a lot of new discs, working on goby this year has led me to see a lot more concerts in person. Some favorites: Trixie Whitley, Rodrigo y Gabriela and Los Campesinos in NY, Solas, Eddie from Ohio and Angelique Kidjo all at the Somerville Theater and Jack Johnson down at the Comcast Center. A good year for music.
Black Dub – Black Dub – Black Dub is the new collaboration between legendary producer/musician Daniel Lanois (Dylan, U2, Peter Gabriel), and Trixie Whitley (daughter of the late great bluesman Chris Whitley). Trixie’s incendiary vocals bring to mind Janis Joplin or Billie Holliday. The album is a fantastic collage of jazz, blues, reggae and searing guitar work.
Mount Kimbie – Crooks and Lovers – Developed a taste for electronic music this year. Mount Kimbie threw off a hypnotic, ambient sound that periodically surfaces hooks and melodies that would be at home in much more mainstream music – but the melodies disappear as soon as they arrive, leaving you wanting more. Also the first time I’ve heard of the genre called “Dubstep”. Still don’t know what means, but I like it.
Solas – The Turning Tide – I got turned on to Solas (again) by seeing the newly formed lineup with a new vocalist play at the Somerville Theater. Irish acoustic music with a contemporary flair, these folks can jam. The band has been around for almost 15 years but the new lineup gives them great freshness.
Rush – Caravan – Not really a full disc, but even a couple of new songs from Rush are worth celebrating. No surprises here, you get just what you expect – thoughtful lyrics and tight, hard-driving rock from guys who’ve been playing together for 30 years.
Robert Plant – Band of Joy – Robert Plant has that “Lion in Winter” thing going. At a time when he could be sitting by the pool counting his millions, he’s constantly re-inventing himself and exploring things. Check out “Monkey”, then buy the disc.
The Aqua Velvets – Tiki Beat – Surf Noir California Beach Music. No vocals, just dreamy, often dark sounds.
Zoe Keating – Into the Trees. “Solo” cellist. I say solo in quotes, because there’s a lot of layering onto this disc. If the Lord of the Rings didn’t already have a soundtrack, this would be it. Hypnotic. I think it’s supposed to be “classical” music but way more accessible than that. Tip of the hat to Thomas (http://twjensen.blogspot.com/) for recommending.
OK, a couple of cheats – these aren’t from 2010, but I discovered them this year and I haven’t been able to turn them off.
Fink – Biscuits for Breakfast (2006) – Acoustic roots music with a Funk/Soul edge. Some wicked guitar playing and often-disturbing lyrics. Pretty sure that “Pretty Little Thing” is about a serial killer. “All Cried Out” is one of my favorite tracks this year.
Crystal Method – Divided by Night – Continuing the electronic theme. Mount Kimbie is the new school. Divided by Night is the old school, done perfectly. Drown in the Now is another one of my favorite tracks this year.
One extra track that’s stuck in my mind. Following a tweet from science fiction writer William Gibson I landed on Johnette Napolitano. “Poem for the Native” from the “Scarred” disc is another of my favorites this year. Dark, mystical song about the desert. The vocals are powerful and the guitar work. How a song manages be dark and funky at the same time is beyond me, but it is.
a trip to Phoenix
Went out last week to Phoenix for my third Phocuswright with goby. goby did well (we won our category and were a finalist for the final competition). As part of my demo, I showed a long weekend in Phoenix. Michelle’s brother lives there and so we decided to spend a long weekend there, and planned it as part of my demo. Before arriving at the show, we stopped at Los Reyes de la Torte (the Kings of the Sandwich), a hole in the wall Mexican spot between the airport and the Westin where we were staying. The “tortas” were roughly the size of a basketball – (apparently the Man vs Food TV show had a run-in with these sandwiches) – intimidated, I decided to go for the King Steak Tacos. Good choice. Conservatively, I’d say these were the best steak tacos I’ve ever had. Seriously.
After the show (if you’re interested in the show you can read more here), we bugged out of our fancy digs at the Westin and moved downscale, to the Hospitality Suites, near Tempe. $50 a night gets you a decent room, free cocktail hour, free breakfast, pool, tennis courts, shuffleboard, and about one hundred Germans in town for the Iron Man competition. Hotel prices are coming down…..! Thursday night we hit up downtown Scottsdale for a run past the art galleries. Lots of fun stuff there, although it was surprisingly uncrowded and a number of the shop spaces were vacant – perhaps the economy (especially the tourist economy) hasn’t completely recovered there. More steak tacos at Blanco’s Tacos & Tequila. Great margaritas and decent food. Not amazing, but decent.
After sleeping late Friday (roughly 12 hours sleep the last three days!), we cruised up to Taliesin West, the Arizona encampment of Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s a pretty amazing place, and he was an amazing guy. I had thought it was a “traditional” house, but apparently for many years the house was open to the elements – the windows were not windows, but open spaces in the building, often covered by canvas but not truly enclosed. It was built entirely by Wright and his students – as the early days were described, it felt much more like a commune, but with architects instead of hippies. They went there every winter, and basically had to set up camp, clean the critters out of the building, and almost start over. It was/is a place deeply focused on their work (Wright held court every day in a wool suit!), but out in the desert of Arizona. The architecture is amazing, and the list of interesting architectural memes invented by Wright was really quite astounding – I had no idea he’d come up with the idea for recessed lighting, integrated pathway lighting, carports, hinged doors, drive-up bank teller windows, and many others. The architectural/sonic design of the Caberet was amazing. The Caberet is an auditorium hewn completely out of rock, half underground. As I sat in the audience, the tour guide stood in the audience and played a music box. 2 feet from me and I could barely hear it. Yet when she went onstage 30 feet away, and put the music box into an alcove designed for a piano, and played the music box, it was 10 times louder. Really amazing sonic design, blasted out of rock and finessed by hand….All in all a really interesting view into a powerful character (sounds like he was a bit of a tyrant), who led the life of the mind until his early nineties (he had dozens of architectural commissions on his drawing board when he died at 91). Well worth a visit.
Friday afternoon we went on to Ponderosa Stables for a one hour horseback ride with Larry Michelle’s brother and his wife Wendy), to the T-Bone steakhouse, for a decent steak dinner. Coming over the ridge on horseback for some amazing views of the Phoenix valley and downtown was very cool. Then a ride back by moonlight to the stables and a ride home. My horse Q is apparently famous, having recently been in a local Powerball commercial as well as apparently having dressed up in medieval garb for a local church’s photoshoot as a knight’s horse (?!). Not entirely sure where that is coming from. Also learned that apparently there is a such a thing as a horse chiropractor, to which a number of the horses have been subjected/treated. Who knew? 
Last night Mexican dinner at Frank & Lupe’s in Scottsdale. Fun atmosphere, slightly cool and they had the heat lamps going which was nice. Good margaritas but the food was your basic, decent Mexican, nothing special.
You can see the things we did (and few we didn’t) at: http://www.goby.com/lists/Apres-Phocuswright/3ZV and photos are here.
Crossers, by Philip Caputo
On a trip to Phoenix recently, I pulled out Crossers from Philip Caputo for an airplane companion. It’s the story of Gil Castle, a 9/11 widower who retreats to the old family ranch in Arizona, near the Mexican border, to recover from the loss of his wife. There he reconnects to his family, to the Seneca he draws consolation from, and finally to himself. Then he stumbles across a Crosser, a Mexican making the crossing from Mexico to a hoped-for better life, and the trouble begins.
Crossers is deeply evocative of a time and place in history, much as Guy Gavriel Kay’s Ysabel does for southern France, or Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park does for post-communist Moscow. Like those novels there is a deep nostalgia for the way things were, as well as a recognition that those times are best not gone back to. The novel does a great job of conveying what it means to be a rancher in Arizona, to love the land, and to be bound to it in a way that money can’t buy.
The book is equal parts No Country for Old Men (comparisons to Cormac McCarthy are inevitable) and CNN news headlines. Most of the atrocities described in the book are factual or near so. The grim realities of those dying attempting to cross the desert and the border, and the horrific violence brought on by the drug trade, combine to produce a level of death and destruction that feels like it belongs to a medieval era in some other country, not 21st century America. The hierarchy of crime in Mexico also feels medieval – drug runners have guns & more money, and so determine who gets to traffics drugs or people along which route. They dominate the coyotes and the engranchadors that run human trafficking of illegal immigrants to the US, much as a feudal lord might direct a lower life form.
Interleaved with the current day story line are interleaved tales of Gil’s grandfather Ben from the turn of the century border – a time when men pretty much enforced their own law, and lived by a code that often coincided with the law (but often did not). Ben dominates the novel – a self-reliant cowboy who participates in Mexican revolutions, sheriffs on the American side, and constantly battles his inner demons and shifts between good and bad. I found the descriptions of that era, and it’s characters, as (or more) compelling than the modern story line. A quick snippet:
“Tibbets looked the part. Handlebar mustache, cat’s whiskers at the corner of his eyes, two pearl-handled Colt revolvers, and the air of someone who could summon up reserves of unpleasantness if the situation required it.”
Crossers is a powerful novel. If you have any interest in the reality of life on our southern border, read it. Whatever your perspective on the solution for that problem, Crossers will give you something to think about.