Back in late of 2019, I was part of a late night puppet show at Rhizome in (very) NW DC. They are a venue that I wish I lived closer to and which I hope survives the LuxuryCondoBorg that has already made their backyard smaller. It is a good venue for DIY synths, avant jazz, noise music, and puppets. And being just about 100 yards from Maryland, it gets Baltimore folks. While I was there, I picked up two copies of District Noise Vol.4 on vinyl.
I delivered one of those copies to my buddy, Jerr when I went to visit family and friends for the holidays. Seeing as I hadn’t listened to it yet, we decided to check it out together, which we didn’t get around to on that trip, which was too bad, because when we lived in the same neighborhood, we enjoyed listening to new things together.
We still shared music, but in the way less fun “here’s a link, check it out” kinda way. One of the treats Jerr sent me around this time was for Blind Tom Wiggins.
BLIND TOM WIGGINS
This piece of music is pretty amazing. I recommend it if you are into history, Americana, remixes (he “samples” DIxie), or experimental music. The collage effect and the use of the piano to evoke the sounds of war is not something I was expecting for a piece written in 1861. He played the Whitehouse when Japanese diplomats visited, he toured Europe and South America. If you want to know more, here is Wiki page
MAGICAL POWER MAKO
Not much about this Japanese Prog master from the 70’s, but here’s a little write up from Julian Cope to get get you started: Magical Power Mako by Julian Cope
Here is a track with very some lovely piano and some very strange prettiness
DISTRICT NOISE VOL. 4
But although these nuggets are great, sending things back and forth is not as fun as listening to something together, so we decided that even though we were going to see each other the next weekend, we should listen to that record I got when I went to go that puppet thing. And we should listen to it together. At the same time. So...
On March 5, 2020:
- RI (where Jerr is) had two confirmed cases total
- Maryland was added to the list of COVID positive states
- DC was still two days away from announcing its first “presumptive” (remember that?) positive
- Pence blathered, Wall Street freaked, and other news seemed foreboding. March 5, CNN Link
- My buddy and I did a simultaneous needle drop.
Note: I am having a tough time embedding the player into this diary, so if you are into experimental music that is sometimes kooky, sometimes angry and sometimes jazzy…
CLICK HERE to get the bandcamp player for this title
Yay! Music!
Yay! Hanging with a friend!
Yay! Shared experience across a distance!
So, I guess noisy experimental music is not the best thing for determining if the pitch is wonky on your turntable. We got on the same page for side two.
After our listening, we firmed up our plans to meet in Princeton, NJ the next weekend.
This post is a bit of a rework from an older post on my personal website. Trying to figure out how to write posts that will play nicely with the two different environments.
Here is a link to my original post where I get the details about puppets and forgetfulness correct.