music (571)

University of Iowa Farm Machine Music

March 6, 2012 at 4:28 pm

This turns out to be phony. Thanks to Chris D for the comment (see below).

“This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa. Amazingly, 97% of the machine’s components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft Iowa, yes farm equipment.

It took the team a combined 13,029 hours (6.26 years) of set-up, alignment,calibration, and tuning before filming this video…

It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.”

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Fox With Diamond Eyes, Dan Hicks With Hot Licks

February 23, 2012 at 8:31 pm

Running by headlight Tuesday night, I spotted a grey fox in a field alongside the trail. I moved a little closer to him and he stood his ground and looked at me (at my headlight, that is). His eyes glittered like (white) diamonds. Eyes of the cat family (bobcat, very occasional mtn lion) are green or yellow when reflected at night, as I recall…

Driving home along the coast later, this Dan Hicks song somehow hit the spot: https://grooveshark.com/s/Hey+Bartender/49mg1O?src=5

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Sweetwater Saloon Rocks Again

February 11, 2012 at 8:48 pm

 Sweetwater Saloon was a much-beloved Marin County (California) music venue for 30 years until it closed down 5 years ago. It has now reopened in the old Masonic Hall in Mill Valley and is ramping up its schedule. Last night I was on my way home around 8PM and I stopped in to take a look. Well — Ausitin Leone and friends were scheduled, there was a  $5 cover, and what can a poor boy do?

   It was a great night. The room is twice as big as the old place and doesn’t have the cozy ambiance, but it feels good, muchly helped by leaving the rough timber ceiling beams (joists for upper story) uncovered. Full house, happy people, great rock and roll and blues by the hometown band.

  Here’s the new schedule: https://sweetwatermusichall.inticketing.com/events

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Allan Lomax Global Jukebox Goes Digital

February 1, 2012 at 10:53 pm

“The folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax was a prodigious collector of traditional music from all over the world and a tireless missionary for that cause. Long before the Internet existed, he envisioned a “global jukebox” to disseminate and analyze the material he had gathered during decades of fieldwork.

A decade after his death technology has finally caught up to Lomax’s imagination. Just as he dreamed, his vast archive — some 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes, 5,000 photographs and piles of manuscripts, much of it tucked away in forgotten or inaccessible corners — is being digitized so that the collection can be accessed online.

Read More …

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Thomas Dolby’s Solar and Wind Powered Recording Studio on Lifeboat

January 28, 2012 at 2:14 pm

Thomas Dolby‘s recording “…studio on a solar and wind powered lifeboat moored in Dolby’s garden in Suffolk, England.…Dolby named the boat Nutmeg of Consolation, after a book from Patrick O’Brian’s naval fiction series and transformed it into a sustainable recording studio, powered by a 450-watt wind turbine and two solar panels on the mast and renovated with interior with reclaimed wood.”

This is a great article, at:

https://www.treehugger.com/green-home/thomas-dolbys-sun-and-wind-powered-musical-lifeboat.html

From Lew Lewandowski

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