This week’s New Yorker has an incredible article by Oliver Sacks on amnesia and music. Memento flashbacks aside, it deals with the true case of Clive Wearing, a British musicologist and musician who due to a brain infection, was left with a memory span of only a few seconds, yet retained his musical talent intact.
The passage about Wearing’s notes is crushing yet fascinating.
Again, an amazing story.
Read it here here.
I just got back from the Manu Chao concert in Brooklyn and it was awesome. I have seen him several times before (including once at the same venue) and he always outdoes himself.
If you’re in the city tomorrow Wednesday, don’t miss it, even if you have no tickets, just go, buy them on the street, it’s well worth it!
Nothing like some good old ‘white-house bashing’ in a public venue.
View some bad-quality pics and some short-low res clips of it after the jump below.
For some reason we’ve been into concerts these first days of spring/summer. We just got back from seeing Air play at the Garden and I have to admit, they just sound amazing. This is the second time we’ve seen them and it still doesn’t cease to amaze me how good they are.
Inframince has very kindly notified me of a new Vladislav Delay world tour for his new album Whistleblower (and yes, by our accounts, the world also includes the U.S.). NYC will be May 30th, in what seems to be as of yet an undisclosed location. View the complete tour dates for the rest of the planet
here.
Mara outdid herself this week by getting us impossible-to-get-tickets to Bjork’s concert at Radio City Music Hall.
The theme was like King Arthur’s court meets Nine Inch Nails, flags/banners hanging in the back, electronic wizards to the left and an Icelandic brass band to the right. The stage had a few screens that displayed in real time the ‘electronic dudes’ pinching sonar-like screens.
Two songs really rocked the place, ‘Declare Independence’ , from the new album Volta, and ‘Army of Me’.
Here is VERY a low-fi phone recording of Declare Independence.
The NYT has a long interview with Bjork, check it out here.
I also noticed today Other Music has gone digital too. Good news for those who hate stacking piles of old cd boxes around. Check it here.
I’ve seen Manu Chao perform a few times (twice in Rock al Parque in Bogota, his first time in the US at Central Park, and last year in Brooklyn), the more I see him, the more I dig him.
Tour dates are in his site: tour dates
Mara and I will be there this coming June too!