Though Zinn is best known for his seminal A People’s History of The United States, it is his 1970 book The Politics of History that has had the most profound effect on me. In this book he notes “Historical writings always have some effect on us. It may reinforce our passivity; it may activate us. In any case, the historian cannot choose to be neutral; he writes on a moving train.”

Zinn’s work is one of the things that activated me, and led me to conclude that, as an artist, I too write on a moving train.

So there I was, with four months to write an opera that would premiere in six months. Do I like challenges? Apparently, I do! 2009 ended—and 2010 began—in a sleep-deprived frenzy.

First, of course, I needed a libretto. So I contacted my trusted collaborator Royce Vavrek to see a) if he wanted to write one, and b) if he had any ideas for what it could be about. After much discussion and many possibilities being tossed around, he sent me a Wikipedia entry on the strange sport of finch sitting.

Finch sitting (or “vinkensport” in Flemish) is a sport that developed in the late 1500s in Flanders. Basically, the competitors sit in front of a caged bird and mark on a tally stick how many times said bird tweets a specific song—called a “susk-e-wiet”—during the course of an hour. Then they do it again—round two—and so on. It’s like golf, but with birds, and more boring.

But here’s the thing: people who play it get completely obsessed; or at least it would seem so based on the numerous reports of cheating. These incidents—including someone injecting testosterone into their bird so they’d sing more frequently—were what first drew Royce and me to the subject; made us ask, what is it about the need to win that would push people to such an extent? Especially since—hello—it’s finch sitting! It’s not like we’re talking about the Olympics here.

This is ultimately what Vinkensport, of The Finch Opera, is about: why people think they need to win. Some of the characters in the opera just like to win—because winning feels good—while others do it to fill void that they feel in their life. Starting off with these questions/this theme afforded us an opportunity to explore issues of dramatic character in a way he hadn’t been able to in previous collaborations—i.e. the in-progress Dog Days. We get into their lives and experience their joys and sorrows, delusions and all-too-stark realities. Still, at its core, Vinkensport is a comedy. We hope you will laugh.

Vinkensport, of The Finch Opera will be premiered on February 26th at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College alongside a new version of my dear friend Missy Mazzoli’s haunting Song From the Uproar, and L’enfant et les sortilèges by some guy named Maurice Ravel. James Bagwell will conduct all three operas, and Dan Rigazzi will direct the fully-staged productions…(which, as far as I know, will all involve puppets!)

Back in 1996, when I was still a high schooler, The Vandals released a Christmas record called “Oi To The World.” I happened to randomly pick it up, and fell instantly in love with it. It’s been a holiday tradition for me ever since.

This year, I’m in Australia for the holidays, and completely forgot to pack it! Lucky for me, the whole record seems to have been uploaded in gloriously poor quality to YouTube in one of those weird I’m-really-an-audio-file-in-disguise-since-there’s-no-real-video-to-see-here files. Regardless I’m glad to have found it, and I thought I’d post a track or two here.

You might already know this song. No Doubt covered this track a number of years ago, skanking it up as they do, but I definitely prefer this original. And if you like this, the whole record seems to be up. My favorites: “Nothing’s Going To Ruin My Holiday,”"Thanx for Nothing,” and “Hang Myself From The Tree,” which totally has a Tuba solo! Their cover of “Here I Am, Lord” is also pretty amazing. (The easily offended might want to stay far away from C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S, and some others, which should be clear from the titles.)

But what sort of lefty curmudgeon would I be if I didn’t post the delightful rant against commercialism, “I Don’t Believe in Santa Claus”?

Happy Holidays All!

As a composer, the idea of intellectual property is a complex one. I am all for giving stuff away for free, but ultimately, I have to survive. Survival takes money, money takes work, and my work is writing music. But I also see the very real harm that can be done to culture when numbers start being crunched inside of office buildings, and when the people crunching these numbers—most of whom have no business dictating culture at all—start deciding what is culturally allowable. This is one of the things that I like about Creative Commons; it allows the artist to decide upfront how their work is to be used, and the number crunchers, theoretically, stay out of it. Controlling the means of (re)production, you might say.

Well, as you know from watching the video in the previous post, The Winstons would have benefited greatly from Creative Commons licensing. When “electronica” went mainstream and started making money, everyone wanted a cut of it. In the end, the artists got nothing, but some random music companies–who seem to have just stolen the samples (but had good lawyers I guess)–ended up making a bundle. Keep it classy, music industry. Ultimately, the question is: what was the cultural value of the Amen break (or any other samples) remaining free of charge, and, in the end did the good outweigh the damage?

I don’t have a specific answer to this question, but it does bring us to our discussion of UbuWeb. Do you know about this amazing thing? UbuWeb is anti-corporate utopian Internet hub full of amazing avant-garde treats. It’s like the best college radio station you’ve ever heard, and it never goes off the air. On-demand pirate radio for the “aughties.” It was founded in 1996 by a bunch of crazies—(and who doesn’t love crazies?!)—and all materials up there are entirely free for your listening/reading/viewing pleasure. Also, they haven’t asked permission to post any of it.

As they say on the site: “Nothing is for sale on UbuWeb. It’s all free. We know it’s a hard idea to get used to, but there’s no lush gift shop waiting for you at the end of this museum.” (Having visited many of the amazing museums in London when I was there for the DCR concert, I definitely appreciate this analogy.) But wait. Hold up. Say what? So—they upload this stuff, without asking permission, then give it away for free? How is that possible? Well I guess in a utopian sense, the question would be: why would it not be possible? But really, here’s the deal:

“If it’s out of print, we feel it’s fair game. Or if something is in print, yet absurdly priced or insanely hard to procure, we’ll take a chance on it. But if it’s in print and available to all, we won’t touch it. The last thing we’d want to do is to take the meager amount of money out of the pockets of those releasing generally poorly-selling materials of the avant-garde. UbuWeb functions as a distribution center for hard-to-find, out-of-print and obscure materials, transferred digitally to the web. Our scanning, say, an historical concrete poem in no way detracts from the physical value of that object in the real world; in fact, it probably enhances it. Either way, we don’t care: EBay is full of wonderful physical artifacts, most of them worth a lot of money.”

Legal speaking, they can say that they are for educational purposes, which is true. (I actually downloaded the copy of Cardew’s out-of-print Stockhausen Serves Imperialism for my dissertation research form Ubu…speaking of crazies.) But really, the bottom line is, as they say, if they had to “get permission from everyone on UbuWeb, there would be no UbuWeb.” And how terrible would that be?! (I’ll tell you. It would be awful. Life would be exponentially more boring.)

As UbuWeb co-founder Kenny Goldsmith says “As long as we stay within the margins of culture, we’re pretty much safe. When we occasionally dip our toe into the more profitable or mainstream side of the avant-garde, do we get slapped around.” (Sound familiar? No one cared about the use of samples, until people realized they could get rich off of it!)

He continues: “Are we crazy? Yes. Are we exposing ourselves to great risk? Yes. Could we get screwed? Yes. What we’re doing is clearly wrong, and we wouldn’t have a foot to stand on in the court of law. But we think the good greatly outweighs any damage. … UbuWeb can be construed as the Robin Hood of the avant-garde, but instead of taking from one and giving to the other, we feel that in the end, we’re giving to all.”

The good outweighs any damage, indeed. I respect that they are taking a stand like this and saying: “you know what people? The world will be a better place if we upload this totally insane sound art piece, so we’re just going to do it.” If we need anything right now, it’s for the world to be a little bit better!

As a composer, the idea of intellectual property is a complex one. I am all for giving stuff away for free, but ultimately, I have to survive. Survival takes money, money takes work, and my work is writing music. But I also see the very real harm that can be done to culture when numbers start being crunched inside of office buildings, and when the people crunching these numbers—most of whom have no business dictating culture at all—start deciding what is culturally allowable. This is one of the things that I like about Creative Commons; it allows the artist to decide upfront how their work is to be used, and the number crunchers, theoretically, stay out of it. Controlling the means of (re)production, you might say.

Well, as you know from watching the video in the previous post, The Winstons would have benefited greatly from Creative Commons licensing. When “electronica” went mainstream and started making money, everyone wanted a cut of it. In the end, the artists got nothing, but some random music companies–who seem to have just stolen the samples (but had good lawyers I guess)–ended up making a bundle. Keep it classy, music industry. Ultimately, the question is: what was the cultural value of the Amen break (or any other samples) remaining free of charge, and, in the end did the good outweigh the damage?

I don’t have a specific answer to this question, but it does bring us to our discussion of UbuWeb. Do you know about this amazing thing? UbuWeb is anti-corporate utopian Internet hub full of amazing avant-garde treats. It’s like the best college radio station you’ve ever heard, and it never goes off the air. On-demand pirate radio for the “oughties.” It was founded in 1996 by a bunch of crazies—(and who doesn’t love crazies?!)—and all materials up there are entirely free for your listening/reading/viewing pleasure. Also, they haven’t asked permission to post any of it.

As they say on the site: “Nothing is for sale on UbuWeb. It’s all free. We know it’s a hard idea to get used to, but there’s no lush gift shop waiting for you at the end of this museum.” (Having visited many of the amazing museums in London when I was there for the DCR concert, I definitely appreciate this analogy.) But wait. Hold up. Say what? So—they upload this stuff, without asking permission, then give it away for free? How is that possible? Well I guess in a utopian sense, the question would be: why would it not be possible? But really, here’s the deal:

“If it’s out of print, we feel it’s fair game. Or if something is in print, yet absurdly priced or insanely hard to procure, we’ll take a chance on it. But if it’s in print and available to all, we won’t touch it. The last thing we’d want to do is to take the meager amount of money out of the pockets of those releasing generally poorly-selling materials of the avant-garde. UbuWeb functions as a distribution center for hard-to-find, out-of-print and obscure materials, transferred digitally to the web. Our scanning, say, an historical concrete poem in no way detracts from the physical value of that object in the real world; in fact, it probably enhances it. Either way, we don’t care: EBay is full of wonderful physical artifacts, most of them worth a lot of money.”

Legal speaking, they can say that they are for educational purposes, which is true. (I actually downloaded the copy of Cardew’s out-of-print Stockhausen Serves Imperialism for my dissertation research form Ubu…speaking of crazies.) But really, the bottom line is, as they say, if they had to “get permission from everyone on UbuWeb, there would be no UbuWeb.” And how terrible would that be?! (I’ll tell you. It would be awful. Life would be exponentially more boring.)

As UbuWeb co-founder Kenny Goldsmith says “As long as we stay within the margins of culture, we’re pretty much safe. When we occasionally dip our toe into the more profitable or mainstream side of the avant-garde, do we get slapped around.” (Sound familiar? No one cared about the use of samples, until people realized they could get rich off of it!)

He continues: “Are we crazy? Yes. Are we exposing ourselves to great risk? Yes. Could we get screwed? Yes. What we’re doing is clearly wrong, and we wouldn’t have a foot to stand on in the court of law. But we think the good greatly outweighs any damage. … UbuWeb can be construed as the Robin Hood of the avant-garde, but instead of taking from one and giving to the other, we feel that in the end, we’re giving to all.”

The good outweighs any damage, indeed. I respect that they are taking a stand like this and saying: “you know what people? The world will be a better place if we upload this totally insane sound art piece, so we’re just going to do it.” If we need anything right now, it’s for the world to be a little bit better!

The Amen, as he explains, was originally a drum break from a song called Amen, Brother, by The Winstons. This track was released as a B-side in 1969. The A-side, Color Him, Father won a Grammy. Amen, Brother, on the other hand, was pretty much forgotten. Until… well, you’ll see. Although it’s a little long (especially by YouTube and/or viral video standards), and can sometimes feel a bit like sitting in university lecture, it nonetheless provides an interesting history on the beat, played by the late drummer Gregory C. Coleman.

Almost more importantly, though, it offers an analysis of the legal and ethical issues behind the use of this break as a sample–and sampling in general—including a pretty direct attack on capitalism and its propensity for cultural co-optation. (Teh invisable hand iz steelin ur ideas; makin money off ov ur werk.) Following this, he makes a case for the use of Creative Commons licensing—which if you don’t know about you should totally check out here.

There is a part two to all this, but how ’bout watch the video first. Deal?

The scene (as the description says): “Filmed by at the Casa Verdi, these old long-retired stars re-enact the scene of Tosca killing Scarpia. After that they do a bit from “Rigoletto” Act 2, scene 4. Then the soprano Sara Scuderi listens to her old record of “Vissi d’arte” from Puccini’s “Tosca” and comments.”

Just watch. Especially from 3:10 to the end. So good.

Well, they’ve recently built a brand new concert hall. Inside sources tell me that it’s not quite ready for the public yet—still working on some landscaping around the space—but that the building itself is pretty great. While few on the outside would have been shocked if they’d named it “The James Tenney Memorial Concert Hall”—or something like that—that’s just not CalArts’ style. Quite to the contrary, they’ve named it “The Wild Beast.”

As this article mentioned, CalArts seems on the surface to just like naming its spaces after animals, cf. REDCAT. But as the CalArts site reports, it actually has very little to do with animals, at least not of the four-legged variety: “The new music pavilion has been named The Wild Beast by lead donor Abby Sher in honor of composer Morton Feldman’s metaphor for mystery of sound and silence from which the vibrant of music emerges.” According to illustrations, a sign outside the hall will display Feldman’s words: “I am interested in how this wild beast lives in the jungle, not in the zoo.” (My source suggests that this sign might not actually be erected, which would be a tragic shame. The sentiment stands all the same, I suppose.)

But what’s the space like? How does it sound? From what I can tell (and have heard) it looks and sounds great, and is extremely versatile. But don’t take my word for it! Watch this video for the proof:

As part of the competition, the London Sinfonietta has recorded my submitted piece, 1986, and starting on October 20th, the polls will be open for the people (that’s you!) to choose the 2010 Digital Composer-in-Residence. The polls will be closed and the winners announced on November 5th, culminating in a live performance of all of the works by the London Sin­foni­etta that night at Wilton’s Music Hall in London. Check out the event listing here, and keep an eye on the Dilet­tante blog for more information.

This morning, there was a feature on the competition on BBC3’s Music Matters, which you can listen to here for the next seven days. It includes clips of all three finalist’s works—all very different—as well as (earlier in the show) very interesting interviews with the Bang On A Can composers, Steve Martland, and a feature on In C.

Watch this space for more updates on interviews, podcasts, etc., as well as information on how you can vote!