Photographer and programmer Justin Ouellette (one of the forces behind the excellent video sharing site Vimeo) just announced his latest programming project: Muxtape, a simple and elegant way to share mixtapes online. Justin reports that over 1,000 members have joined in just 4.5 hours!
It looks like the photoblogosphere has taken a liking to it; find Noah Kalina’s here, Raul Gutierrez’s here or Joerg Colberg’s here.
And see my very own Muxtape here (though, I’m sure it’ll be different by the time you look at it).
Check out Vintage Vanguard‘s great online archive of record sleeves for albums by various jazz musicians. Nice use of color, image placement and typography in some of these LPs.
In case you were wondering, “ジャズレコード館” translates from Japanese to English as “Jazz Record Mansion.”
In the age of downloadable albums and iPods, some people might find it surprising that I occasionally buy LPs. Sometimes I find it kind of surprising myself.
When the rare occasion comes, however, I tend to justify my purchase by reassuring myself how wonderful the particular album would sound on vinyl. You see, there are albums out there that lend themselves especially well to the record format and the good ‘ol phonograph – that simply should be played along with the beautiful crackling of a needle. Maybe you know what sort of albums I’m talking about?
Just a few days ago I picked up an album at a local record shop: The Sound of the Trio (Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen). I knew the record would be good; there’s really nothing like listening to an Oscar Peterson album on vinyl. Nothing at all.
putting on an Oscar Peterson album in my old apartment, April, 2007
In fact, one of my favorites is another of his (pictured above). I think I’ve played that record more than any other album that I own on vinyl.
Well, you can imagine the sadness I felt today when I read the article in the Times about Oscar Peterson passing away yesterday, at the age of 82. The death of one of the greatest jazz musicians to live leaves a lump in my throat that is hard and unmoving. When I looked at the record I thought to myself, “how great it is to hold this in my hands.”
What better time than now to dust it off, let the needle down and have his sweet music playing through the night.
It seems as if a lot of people I know are going through hard times. If you’re one of them, this is for you (from one of the greatest songwriters of our time, Neil Young, Live at Massey Hall, 1971):
I enjoyed watching this new music video for the The Cave Singers‘ song “Dancing On Our Graves” from their album Invitation Songs, released just last month on Matador Records. The video was directed by Mike Ott.
One of the most beautiful things about blogging is that naturally, I end up reading a lot of other blogs. The wealth of knowledge that is delivered free of cost right to my RSS-doorstep never ceases to amaze me. I’ve discovered a few really nice blogs lately, one of which is called Horses Think.
And thanks to Horses Think, I’ve found this great iTunes plug-in – iConcert Cal. iConcert Cal “monitors your music library and generates a personalized calendar of upcoming concerts in your city.” Just switch over to the Visualizer in iTunes and you can take a look at your personalized calendar. The plug-in can also show you CD release dates.
Brilliant (assuming you listen to good music)! I wonder, is this available as a direct plug-in for iCal? That would be nice.
Here are some upcoming concerts that it recommends for me in the Boston area, a few of which I had already planned to attend (good sign):
Nothing like finding good editorial work. If you don’t think you’ll have a chance to look at the magazine on the shelf, you can actually download the whole thing here (PDF).
Around the time that The Americans was first released, Robert Frank began to pursue filmmaking. His 1959 short film Pull My Daisy documents the beat generation, and then there’s Sins of Jesus (1961), Keep Busy (1975), and Candy Mountain (1988), to name the more known of the bunch.
Among Frank’s contributions to the film world was a commissioned documentary titled Cocksucker Blues (1972), which chronicles The Rolling Stones’ 1972 North American tour in support of their album Exile on Main Street. Shot cinéma vérité, with film lying around so that sometimes anyone could just pick up one of the cameras and shoot, the still unreleased documentary captures backstage debauchery, group sex, the boredom of touring (televisions thrown off of hotel balconies), the Stones nodding out, and assorted tour friends and band members shooting up. Reportedly, Jagger said to Frank:
It’s a fucking good film, Robert, but if it shows in America we’ll never be allowed in the country again.
The band refused to permit its release. Eventually Frank secured the right to screen it five times a year and only if the director — Frank, himself — was physically present for the screening. After this, he would sometimes show one reel of the film and not the three that made up the complete edited footage and eventually became too busy to show it at all. Though there are bootleg copies of the film in its entirety out there, these are incredibly hard to find and it’s near impossible to see the film screened from beginning to end. Cocksucker Blues is now considered to be one of the most important and real accounts of Rock n’ Roll ever documented.
Excerpt from Robert Frank interview with BorderCrossings Magazine, 1997:
BC: I’ve got a question about Cocksucker Blues. Those scenes on the plane are pretty wild and it occurs to me that some of them were orchestrated. Were they set up or were you just present as a documentarian?
RF: They really didn’t want me to make the film. They enjoyed having us around but not to film. I was with my friend Danny and he had good connections for dope, much better than they had. And at one point I said to him nothing ever happens on these plane trips. It would be nice to have something happen.
BC: So you were a director then, not just a shadow?
RF: That was one of the few things I said in all the time we spent on the plane. When the film came out the Stones agreed not to cut anything, although I had to cut some things with the officials from the record company. That’s what adds up; your experiences. Making a film is an experience really; more so than going around photographing. Making a film is a real trip.
Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to sit in on full-length screening of this and one other short film by Frank. The footage was borrowed, due to proper connections, from the Harvard Film Archive. My first reaction to the film was an attempt to see where this and The Americans fit together. And I concluded: for the most part they don’t at all.
After watching the whole film, I was struck by Frank’s ability to faithfully capture the loneliness and despair of life on the road amidst the glamour of being in a popular rock band. This ‘darkness’ is something that Frank has, throughout his career as a photographer, eloquently captured. I’ll admit, it was actually rather fun to watch the debauchery — but this sense of an underlying melancholy and dashed hopes for the band members and groupies, to me, was the most redeeming aspect of the footage.
Bill tells me that he hears word that most of Frank’s films will be coming out in multiple volumes via Steidl as “Robert Frank: The Complete Film Works.” He says to look out for Cocksucker Blues sometime in 2008.
I’ll end with this clip of Jagger eating ice cream (keep an eye out for Frank as he takes a moment to film himself):
