Archive for the ‘East Bay Express’ Category
One for the archives:”Yoga-Tainment for the BlackBerry Generation” (@ East Bay Express)
I keep an archive of all my published writings (with a few exceptions — encyclopedia entries for example) but somehow this piece from 2010 got overlooked.
Yoga-Tainment for the BlackBerry Generation
A plethora of events highlights music’s growing role in yoga.
Late night in the Mission, the class begins with the sound of kirtans accompanied by slowly pumped chords on the harmonium. The class members respond hesitantly, repeating back the unfamiliar sounds chanted by the teacher. The call-and-response chanting subsides and the teacher announces the first asana as tinkling sounds from a kora replace the languid chords of the harmonium. For the next two hours, the class moves forward with the musical accompaniment of the kora and manipulations of its sounds through a small array of electronic devices. It’s not the background music typically heard in an American yoga studio, but it’s not quite foreground either. Solidly in the middle, it works sometimes, fitting perfectly with the slow movements; other times, it seems distracting, an extraneous element unconnected to the physical activity.
Every Friday night since October 2007, the Midnight Yoga class at Laughing Lotus Yoga Center in San Francisco’s Mission district has offered live music as accompaniment to yoga. Developed by the yoga center’s parent studio in New York City, the class features various genres and musical configurations: kora and electronics; freestyle guitar, bass, and keys; cello, voice, loops, and percussion toys. Yael Kievsky, who has taught the class since December, says that live music to accompany yoga is simply an extension of the use of taped music as background that has been a part of yoga classes in the United States for decades.
But the addition of live music changes things: The class becomes an event — a “full-on experience”… (to read more go to East Bay Express)
Watcha Clan at the Jewish Music Festival
I’m only posting this to add to my archive of published work (no matter how short). And, btw, it was a great show!
From East Bay Express:
Watcha Clan
Sun., July 18, 8 p.m. 2010
$23, $25
The final night of this year’s Jewish Music Festival features performances by two groups that stretch the usual definitions of diasporic music (Jewish or otherwise). French “world & bass” group Watcha Clan is dedicated to making music that advocates for nomadic peoples, for whom national boundaries are an inconvenient detail. It’s roots music where the roots intertwine with each other, creating a technologically enhanced vision of a world of unfettered movement. In that context, the idea of a “pure” music, or culture, is an anomaly. Sephardic and Ashkenazi music are integral parts of the mix, brought to the band by vocalist Sistah K (daughter of an Algerian Berber Jewish father and a Lithuanian Jewish mother). Opening the night is the San Francisco-based punk/funk/Balkan/Jewish band Charming Hostess, presenting their own take on diasporic music. Sunday, July 18 at YerbaBuenaCenter for the Arts (701 Mission St., San Francisco). YBCA.org
— Jeffrey Callen
Watcha Clan performs at the Jewish Music Festival
From East Bay Express
Watcha Clan
Sun., July 18, 8 p.m.$23, $25
The final night of this year’s Jewish Music Festival features performances by two groups that stretch the usual definitions of diasporic music (Jewish or otherwise). French “world & bass” group Watcha Clan is dedicated to making music that advocates for nomadic peoples, for whom national boundaries are an inconvenient detail. It’s roots music where the roots intertwine with each other, creating a technologically enhanced vision of a world of unfettered movement. In that context, the idea of a “pure” music, or culture, is an anomaly. Sephardic and Ashkenazi music are integral parts of the mix, brought to the band by vocalist Sistah K (daughter of an Algerian Berber Jewish father and a Lithuanian Jewish mother). Opening the night is the San Francisco-based punk/funk/Balkan/Jewish band Charming Hostess, presenting their own take on diasporic music. Sunday, July 18 at YerbaBuenaCenter for the Arts (701 Mission St., San Francisco). YBCA.org
— Jeffrey Callen
Yoga-Tainment for the BlackBerry Generation (@ East Bay Express)
Yoga-Tainment for the BlackBerry Generation
A plethora of events highlights music’s growing role in yoga.
Late night in the Mission, the class begins with the sound of kirtans accompanied by slowly pumped chords on the harmonium. The class members respond hesitantly, repeating back the unfamiliar sounds chanted by the teacher. The call-and-response chanting subsides and the teacher announces the first asana as tinkling sounds from a kora replace the languid chords of the harmonium. For the next two hours, the class moves forward with the musical accompaniment of the kora and manipulations of its sounds through a small array of electronic devices. It’s not the background music typically heard in an American yoga studio, but it’s not quite foreground either. Solidly in the middle, it works sometimes, fitting perfectly with the slow movements; other times, it seems distracting, an extraneous element unconnected to the physical activity.
Every Friday night since October 2007, the Midnight Yoga class at Laughing Lotus Yoga Center in San Francisco’s Mission district has offered live music as accompaniment to yoga. Developed by the yoga center’s parent studio in New York City, the class features various genres and musical configurations: kora and electronics; freestyle guitar, bass, and keys; cello, voice, loops, and percussion toys. Yael Kievsky, who has taught the class since December, says that live music to accompany yoga is simply an extension of the use of taped music as background that has been a part of yoga classes in the United States for decades.
But the addition of live music changes things: The class becomes an event — a “full-on experience”… (to read more go to East Bay Express)
Intimate Dialogue (@ East Bay Express)
Indo-Pak Coalition melds Indian music and jazz for a stylistically ambiguous sound.
Like most musicians who suddenly burst onto the scene, Rudresh Mahanthappa has been working on his craft for a long time. His reputation as an innovative jazz musician and composer took a major leap from the realms of the cognoscenti into popular culture with the enthusiastic reception of his 2008 album, Kinsmen. That album featured the Dakshina Ensemble, co-led by Mahanthappa and fellow alto saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath. Kinsmen, which melds jazz and South Indian Carnatic music, ended up on more than twenty top jazz CDs of 2008 lists, and the prestigious Downbeat International Critics Poll named Mahanthappa a rising jazz artist and alto saxophonist of 2009. He also became the subject of numerous features in The New York Times, the New Yorker, and Rolling Stone. That’s how the message used to come down from the cognoscenti to us hoi polloi and, sometimes, even in this age of viral marketing, it continues to do so — and sometimes, it still works. (to read more got to East Bay Express).
Local Bands Get a Boost at Noise Pop
Judgement Day and the Mumlers headline for the first time this year.
By Jeffrey Callen
From its humble beginnings in 1993 as a single club show of five bands, Noise Pop has grown into a week-long “celebration of indie music and culture.” It now includes a film festival, art shows, a music industry mini-conference, and a design fair and marketplace. However, music remains Noise Pop’s focus with more than thirty shows in large and small venues scattered around San Francisco and, for the first time this year, at the Fox Theater in Oakland.
While there are no designated headliners at Noise Pop, each year’s lineup includes internationally prominent performers. This year it’s the Yoko Ono Plastic Band and the Magnetic Fields. Star acts add excitement to the festival but Noise Pop’s national status is based on it being one of the premier showcases for that most loosely defined musical genre, indie rock. Noise Pop prides itself on bringing exposure to emerging bands, (to read more go to the East Bay Express).
“Postmodern Traditional Music”
Postmodern Traditional Music
How Tim Eriksen became perhaps the only musician to play with both Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson.
Without doubt, Tim Eriksen is one of the most original American singers working today. Once you hear his voice, it is impossible to forget; its richness and intensity seem hauntingly appropriate whether he is performing New England murder ballads, Bosnian pop songs, or punk rock. Yet, it is always distinctly his voice, the product of a wide-ranging set of musical experiences. Eriksen’s musical career began as the front-man for Massachusetts punk band Cordelia’s Dad in the Eighties and along the way to becoming a leading expert on Shape Note and Sacred Harp singing, he studied South Indian Carnatic music and fronted the Bosnian pop group Zabe i Babe. It is somehow not surprising that he may be the only musician to have shared a stage with Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson. Eriksen continues to perform in a diverse collection of genres, including punk and Bosnian pop, but his primary musical calling is a sub-set of Anglo-American traditional music that he calls “Northern Roots” music… (to read more click here for the East Bay Express article)
"Postmodern Traditional Music"
Postmodern Traditional Music
How Tim Eriksen became perhaps the only musician to play with both Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson.
Without doubt, Tim Eriksen is one of the most original American singers working today. Once you hear his voice, it is impossible to forget; its richness and intensity seem hauntingly appropriate whether he is performing New England murder ballads, Bosnian pop songs, or punk rock. Yet, it is always distinctly his voice, the product of a wide-ranging set of musical experiences. Eriksen’s musical career began as the front-man for Massachusetts punk band Cordelia’s Dad in the Eighties and along the way to becoming a leading expert on Shape Note and Sacred Harp singing, he studied South Indian Carnatic music and fronted the Bosnian pop group Zabe i Babe. It is somehow not surprising that he may be the only musician to have shared a stage with Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson. Eriksen continues to perform in a diverse collection of genres, including punk and Bosnian pop, but his primary musical calling is a sub-set of Anglo-American traditional music that he calls “Northern Roots” music… (to read more click here for the East Bay Express article)
Deciphering Culture
Deciphering Culture 