Uncle Dave's House of Useless Crap

Whoa! it's been awhile. At least it's Still March

and you won't believe in this news, but

Spring Has Sprung in Michigan!

Well - sort of. It was warm today - yesterday it was warm enough that I had to turn the AC on in my
car for about two minutes. But Friday night we are supposed to get some snow, so I guess we are not
really out of the woods yet.

Uncle Dave a Star (of sorts) in Redford

Played in Scott Boatwright's basement in Redford, MI on Saturday night with de fenestra, opening for
a band from Chicago called TV Pow. They were really good -sort of like low-key industrial music utilizing
a lot of recognizable, natural sounds like ducks quacking, people talking, traffic. de fenestra was it's usual
powerful, free jazzy self, and I was asked to play a couple of numbers, which I did, to a very warm reception.
One of the guys, Bret from TV Pow, had actually heard of me through Spencer Yeh. It was nice to play for
someone who'd heard of me and wanted to see me, rather than the usual trying to win over a cold crowd.
One person can make a difference.

Say Goodbye Johnnie

Word came today - how could one avoid it - that Johnnie Cochran died today at age 67. Farewell you
cutthroat shyster bastard. Thank you for the most glaring, expensive and egregious miscarriage of
justice in modern jurisprudence.

Pardon me, but I lived in LA during that whole OJ freak show and can tell you most of us Angelenos
were nauseated to the core the way the media got down and kissed his ass in the wake of that legal
abomination. Well - media, this is your last chance. Get down, pay your tribute and kiss his ass one last
time. Kiss Johnnie's sorry ass goodbye, as he's going straight to hell, and no obstacles are gonna bar
his final journey.

No ARSC For Me This Year

For the first time in four years I will not be able to attend the Association of Recorded Sound Collections
Conference, which is this weekend in Austin. I was scheduled to deliver a talk. But I can't do it - the resources
simply aren't there this time. Sorry.

Scraps from Uncle Dave's Worktable

I produce a tremendous amount of material when I am writing reviews, so much I can't use it all. In the past
I've just cut it out and that was it. But lately I've been saving some things. I hope I don't get in trouble, but
here are some passages of some things that took me over my word limit, I had to get rid of, and am not likely
to resurrect in anything else. Consider it a sort of literary Freecycling.

From a review of a compilation combining old "academic" electronic music and "new," non-academic electronic
music:

It is not appropriate to apply the term “Plunderphonic” to old electronic music. Those generations of electronic composers did not view the pre-recorded sources that they modified as “plunder.” While the legal view may hold that there is essentially no distinction between “unfair use” in 1973 and that of 2003, the aesthetic difference is significant. In the days of pre-digital electronic music, not a lot of terms were devised to describe genres within the medium itself, as it was enough just to be able to do the work at all. We should not allow the current day mania for terminologies overtake our view of history.

A couple of fragments from a review of Walford Davies' 1903 oratorio "Everyman:"

terms that come to mind while listening to {&Everyman} include “guilty pleasure”

As a consequence Davies’ unbridled enthusiasm for the High German style of Romanticism in {&Everyman} is tough to stomach.

The rest are fairly self-explanatory:

For Penderecki to inhabit the headspace of Shostakovich for a time is certainly nothing new.

At the start of the twenty-first century, composer Beth Anderson is one of the most exciting personalities on the American classical music scene, bucking trends of formalism and attempting to make touch with her inner self, tastes and identity in her music.

Interest in the work of Toru Takemitsu has grown to an all-time high, even as a decade has passed since he unexpectedly joined the ranks of dearly departed composers. This can be heard in many a concert work produced since his death – a certain detail or gesture of orchestration will peek through a post-Takemitsu work to proclaim “Toru was here!” Takemitsu could raise the paper tiger as well as any of his more lauded colleagues in academia, but at times his music had a certain sweetness that helped leaven the headier material – much to the delight of the public. It is not surprising that those who have come after Takemitsu are, to some extent, following his suit as they attempt to regain hearers and admirers for music in a concert setting.

Hasta la vista, baby

Uncle Dave Lewis
uncledavelewis@hotmail.com