My Gadget Life

Friday night David and I went to a free concert by the Boston Village Gamelan. If you’re not familiar with what a gamelan orchestra is, here’s the definition from “answers.com.”

gamelan: An Indonesian orchestra composed mainly of tuned percussion instruments such as bamboo xylophones, wooden or metal chimes, and gongs.

I heard them play once before at First Night a few years ago. This concert was more interesting than the one I remember because it included singing. What was really fun was watching a group of 4 men seated in the back who sang and clapped rhythms for certain sections and a young boy (maybe 6 years old) who sang and clapped with them. He was good and obviously having such a good time!

Also there were quite a few kids in the audience and since it was fairly informal, they laid on the floor in the front and drew pictures or stared at the musicians (who were also sitting on the floor). It was fun looking around at the audience and listening to the music.

Here is a sound sample (not of this concert, but of some gamelan somewhere on the Internet): http://alek.zipzap.ch/gamelan/s/jawa_sm.wav

Last night I went with a group of friends to see a play written by Pat Gabridge (my friend and coworker’s husband) called Blinders. It’s a political satire about the “scientific” discovery of 2 supposedly identical human beings and the lone reporter who sees that they aren’t really identical. It’s sort of an Emporer’s New Clothes theme, and very timely, even though it was written a while back (1997 or 98?). I thought of the corporate media and how so many lies are portrayed as truth with everyone jumping on the bandwagon of what’s popular. When chatting with Pat after the play he mentioned that he thought at the time he wrote it that it would be less relevant in the future, but instead it’s become more relevant. (sadly) It touches upon everything from presidential debates, to the pope, to believing in your own vision in a time of mass brainwashing. I highly recommend it! It’s at the Boston Playwright’s Theatre…. Out of the Blue Theatre Company.

Tonight I went to a wonderful concert by the “radical vocal trio” called “Charming Hostess.” I was intrigued, because I love a capella singing, and I sometimes miss the old days when I used to do a lot of choral singing myself. They were excellent, combining rhythmic breathing, clapping, tapping, and sounds, with very tight harmonies from Eastern Europe and the Balkans, mostly. You can hear some samples on their web site…. but the songs they did tonight were actually much better than those samples.

Last night my friend David and I went to a talk/video show by Mark Hosler, a member of the group, Negativland. It was great! If you don’t know about Negativland, here’s a quote from The Unofficial, Unnecessary Negativland Page.

What is Negativland? As a group (Mark Hosler, Chris Grigg, Don Joyce, David Wills, and Richard Lyons), they do create music, but calling Negativland a mere “band” doesn’t do them justice. On their recordings, they appropriate, dissect, juxtapose, scramble, reassemble, and regurgitate sonic material culled from a variety of sources–anything from network and shortwave broadcasts to private phone conversations and family recordings made in the kitchen. They mix this with an equally eclectic variety of instruments–keyboards, guitars, effects boxes, samplers, tape loops, squeeze toys, and so on. The end result is incredibly funny, often making a wry social comment; but it also has a strange coherence among its myriad layers, unparalleled by similar efforts of other groups.

And they don’t just record. They perform on-stage. They write amazing essays. They even produce a weekly live radio show, Over The Edge, heard early Friday mornings on KPFA-FM in Berkeley, California.

Years ago (late 80s) I was a fan and collected a few of their tapes. I had forgotten about them until I saw that they were coming to the Coolidge Corner Theatre. They have been sued for copyright infringement (and lost), since they “appropriate” music and sounds from other sources. What they are doing seems more and more relevant given the changing political evironment, with media consolidation and crackdowns on “piracy” of music and copyrighted materials.

This week at work (MIT) I also sat in on a class where a video of a Larry Lessig talk was shown. (totally relevant to this same issue) You can watch the movie online here. Here’s a site where you can find links to several of Lessig’s talks