Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Radio Spectrumized 2

This series of posts explores the widened world of radio technology::


A quick one today.

60 Minutes reports that, apparently, radio waves can cure cancer!
"The last thing John Kanzius thought he'd ever do was try to cure cancer. A former radio and television executive from Pennsylvania, he came to Florida to enjoy his retirement...

...And on an August day in 2005, Curley and Kanzius put them to the test. Would the metallic nanoparticles heat up enough to kill cancer? 

"So we take the nanoparticles, we put 'em in the radio field. And in about 15 seconds, they’re boiling and heating and Steve Curley couldn't contain himself. He called Rick Smalley and he said, 'Rick, you’re not going to believe this. He just blew the smithereens out of your nanoparticles,'" Kanzius recalled. 

Smalley's response? "The only thing that I got out of him after this pause was, “Holy s…,'" Curley recalled."


Bonus: Modern Mechanix shares a report from 1932 concerning radio's ability to cure rheumatism. Link.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

The Merritt Parkway Music Reviews - Pink Floyd's The Wall


Everyday, I commute down and back the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, spending two hours trapped in the prison ship known as an automobile with only an 80GB iPod to keep the insanity at bay. The wear and tear on my car and my mind is horrific, but at least I have the opportunity to listen uninterrupted to entire albums at a go.

The Artist: Pink Floyd
The Album: The Wall (Released November, 1979)

Frame of Reference:
My first exposure to Pink Floyd was courtesy of a highschool party thrown by older teenagers in Aleph Zadik Aleph. In true, faithful Jewboy tradition, we ate Taco Bell and watched porn. The party-host and chief smut-monger threw on Dark Side of the Moon around 3:00 AM just as food poisoning, sleep deprivation, and blue balls set it. Needless to say, I didn't like Pink Floyd at all. My opinion changed when I picked up a well-worn original pressing of The Wall and threw it on the family turntable weeks later.

My Thoughts:

The Wall has already been thoroughly reviewed, critiqued, dissected, deconstructed, praised, and damned over the last thirty years by wiser and more competent writers than I. However, few have approached the work from the perspective of a crazed motorist in search of a diversion to keep him from plowing into the grey-haired granny in a Ford Explorer who keeps drifting into his lane. From that viewpoint, The Wall is an unmitigated success. In fact, The Wall so succeeded in occupying my brain during last Friday's commute, that I was only marginally aware that I had been sitting in stand-still traffic for 35 minutes inhaling the exhaust fumes from the sputtering cars around me.

The Wall begins strongly with "In the Flesh?", an excellent framing piece that comes crashing down with a potent guitar that propels you into the album. Roger Waters' opening lines simultaneously deride you for your expectations of the album while daring you to continue deeper into the narrative that awaits. As the track closes, the sounds of a crashing plane overpower your speakers followed by a transition into the superficially gentler "The Thin Ice."

The transition between these tracks is the first of many well-executed bridges that connect the songs of The Wall. Save for the pauses between the songs "Mother"/"Goodbye Blue sky", "Goodbye Cruel World"/"Hey You", and "Comfortably Numb"/"The Show Must Go On" which arise from the album's original presentation as a 2 disc, 4 sided set, and the deliberate brief silence between 'Bring the Boys Back Home"/"Comfortably Numb", the music and narrative flow neither falters nor fades out. Instead, each track transitions and evolves smoothly into the next. As a listener who is actively seeking to become enveloped by music to avoid going nut-ball psycho on the commuters around me, I appreciate the transitions as a means to keep me enthralled. Also, Nick Mason's drumwork on the brief bridges between "Thin Thin Ice"/"Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)" and "The Happiest Days of Our Lives"/"Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" is far more distinctive and colorful than the fairly straight-forward percussion he plays on the tracks themselves.

The first two tracks also define the manner in which The Wall settles into a stimulating cycle of high-tension electric rock and acoustic guitar/piano songs. Lyrically, Roger Waters and David Gilmour will alternatively deliver sardonically malicious turns of phrases and wistful longings for peace of mind for most of the album. The ebb and flow between vitriol fueled rock and the strained sanity of softer music evokes a physical response that prevents me from allowing the album to fade into background noise. Instead, it keeps me focused on the music as it evolves.

The Wall succeeds throughout it's near 90 minutes run time of keeping me engaged and interested. Thus, the album is a perfect soundtrack for my commute.

In Closing:

The Wall is a near-perfect concept album that has been destroyed by commercial radio. Taken out of context, the single cuts of many of the songs lose their meaning. "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" becomes a mindless anthem for rebellion instead of a narrative entry on how enforced conformity deranges the album's protagonist. "Young Lust" becomes a lewd sexual brag instead of the impotent lashing-out of a man whose self-imposed isolation has destroyed his relationship with his wife. "Comfortably Numb" becomes a nostalgic reminiscence on drug-induced oblivion instead of the turning point in which the album protagonist has lost most of his humanity. "Run Like Hell" becomes a rabble-rousing hate rant instead of the critical commentary on the insanity and derangement required to even formulate such thoughts.

Experience The Wall as intended - as an artistic whole, and you might remember why The Wall is the highest-selling double-album of all time.

- DJ Cheshire Cat / www.djcheshirecat.com

LAST SHOW OF 'DON'T CRY FOR ME, ANGELINA'


Dearest friends and fans,
Tomorrow (Tuesday, May 13) is the last show ever of 'Don't Cry For Me, Angelina,' the only celebrity gossip show on WESU. Now in it's fourth season, DJ Tanner and multiple cohosts have survived everything from the death of Anna Nicole Smith to the Paris Hilton sex tape and everything in between and beyond.
Please tune in for the 2 hour extravaganza (7:30pm-9:30pm) that will include up-to-date gossip, a retrospective of past cohost and listeners, and a retrospective of the insanity that has persisted in the celeb world since we first began.
We are very sad to be leaving the air, but hopefully will live on in all your hearts and ears. Farewell!
Love,
DJ Tanner

Thursday, May 8, 2008

The Merritt Parkway Music Reviews - The Breeders / Mountain Battles


Introduction: Everyday, I commute down and back the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, spending two hours trapped in the prison ship known as an automobile with only an 80GB iPod to keep the insanity at bay. Although the costs to my soul and, with rising gas prices, to my wallet are steep, at least I get the chance to listen to entire albums in one sitting. What follows is the first in a series of reviews of albums I listened to during my daily commute.

The Artist: The Breeders
The Album: Mountain Battles (released April, 2008)
Frame of Reference: I was a junior in high school when The Breeder's Last Splash spawned the single "Cannonball". For the next year, "Cannonball" became the audio equivalent of lands mines in Afghanistan - it was everywhere. And it was damn catchy and fun to listen to. But I never got past that single and into the band itself. I don't mean that I never "dug" the band, but that I never, ever listened to a single other piece of music by the Breeders until 2003 and their contribution of "Wicked Little Town" to the Hedwig and the Angry Inch charity tribute album.

My Thoughts:
Having no experience with The Breeders, I was not sure what to expect from Mountain Battles. However, as the first track "Overglazed" came on, I felt a bit underwhelmed. The percussion occasionally becomes obscured by the repetitive guitar riffing, the vocals are a combination of the phrase "I can feel it" interspersed with "AAAAAAHS," and the bass meanders happily in an almost unrelated groove of its own. As the second track "Bang On" queued and played, I became concerned that the iPod was on album shuffle; the opening rhythms seemed to be very similar to the opening of the Offspring's "Keep 'em Separated" with some Beck-style distortion on the beats. A similar similarity sprung out at me as a I listened to the central chord progression of "We're Gonna Rise"; the conclusion to the repeated melody strongly evoked A Perfect Circle's "The Outsider" albeit with less instrumentation and noise. The more I listened to the album, the more I was surprised that this was the work of a full 4 piece band- the instrumentation was much sparser than I expected.
I did heartily enjoy "Walk It Off" whose simple beat well complimented the side-to-side head sway of confusion the song evoked in me. "Regalame Esta Noche" was also a very beautiful piece that I enjoyed. However, I was slightly put off by the crisp enunciation of the lyrics in the song; I would have preferred such enunciation on the songs whose lyrics were in English, rather than a foreign language piece. "Mountain Battles", the final track on the album, is as engaging as the rambling of an escaped mental patient whose sedative doses haven't been monitored very well. (That's a compliment, I enjoyed the song.)

Closing Thought
: I will listen to Mountain Battles around the house, but on the long, long drive down the Merritt, I'll need something that grabs my attention a bit more if I'm to be distracted from the voices in my head.

- DJ Cheshire Cat / www.djcheshirecat.com


Anthony Braxton - Impressions (Live, 1981)

This is an absolutely mind-blowing rendition of Coltrane's "Impressions" done by a group featuring Wesleyan's own Anthony Braxton on alto sax. It's from 1981 at the Woodstock Jazz Festival, which was put on to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Creative Music Studio. This performance features Chick Corea on keyboard, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and Miroslaw Vitous on bass.



Aside from Braxton's blistering solo (during which you can see him circular breathing beginning at 3:30), keep your ears open for Corea's oddly beautiful accompaniment at around 2:00. The drumming and bass playing is amazing all the way through and there are some really great shots of Vitous' fingers spidering up the neck of his bass and DeJohnette wailing at lightning speed.

I've had a hard time finding other recordings of Braxton playing like this (equal parts Ayler, Coleman, and Coltrane), so if you know of any please leave a comment. If you enjoyed this video so much that you want to pay someone for it, it looks like DVDs are still in print. Enjoy!

-Ian Staub

Ticket Give Away: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band

Tune into Wonderland this Saturday night into Sunday morning from midnight to five AM for a chance to win tickets to see Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band perform live. The band is touring in support of their new album 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons and appearing with The Trials and Tribulations on May 18th at Pearl Street in Northampton.

From the Iron Horse Entertainment Group's website:

Often referred to as Silver Mt. Zion for simplicity, they are a post-rock band from Montreal formed in 1999, and include three members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Their debut album He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms… was released in 1999 and was mostly instrumental record but the subsequent three albums and one EP has seen them evolve from a sequestered trio to a boisterous septet. The group is now overwhelmingly vocal in its style, sometimes having all seven members sing on tracks


Check out Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra online at their web page: http://www.tra-la-la-band.com/

Check out the schedule for Pearl Street, part of the Iron Horse Entertainment Group here: http://www.iheg.com/schedules_main.asp




- DJ Cheshirecat / www.djcheshirecat.com

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Amanda West on WESU at 8 pm tonight!

After a brilliant performance at the Alpha Delt Society last night, burgeoning singer/songwriter Amanda West, who hails from sunny California, will be joining DJ Tanner for an exclusive interview on "Then and Now: A Traditional and Contemporary Look at Music from Around the World." She will talk about her influences, play some of her songs, and generally be her beautiful self! Don't miss it. 8-9 pm tonight.

REVIEWS:
"In full-fledged support of the Socratic statement, 'the unexamined life is not worth living,' local singer-songwriter Amanda West releases her debut LP. The disc, aptly entitled, The Way to the Water, is a bold examination, both outward and inward, that delves deep into such universal themes as trusting one's instincts in the face of expectations, the search for truth and satisfaction and love's palpitations and travails. Sparse instrumentation, lush and intimate, focuses the attention on West's voice, gorgeous, selfless and emotive."
~ A. Martinez, Santa Cruz Good Times