So I’ve been hanging out with Ripley lately, and her research in music and copyright issues reminded me of Jelinek’s second release on Faitiche. Under a new moniker called G.E.S. (Gesellschaft zur Emanzipation des Samples, or Society for the Emancipation of Sampling), Jelinek output a collection of brief, mirtfully sampled snippets into an album called Circulations.
Circulations; image from Faitiche.de
Jelinek pre-selected and then played a range of material in various public spaces, recording both the selections as well as the ripples of conversation, traffic, and other sounds commonly found in field recordings. In doing so, he challenged the notion of music copyright violation within the public domain.
You can preview the tracks at Faitiche’s website; ”hawaiian machine chant” is a new favorite.
Now I wish he’d visit the Bay area again, and visit the Musee Mecanique for even more incredible audio samples! Creepy puppets (like the one I caught below in 2006) would undoubtedly make rich fodder for another album.
The San Francisco Center for the Book is hosting its annual Roadworks event! Come check out this free street fair, which features a big steamroller as it drives over hand-inked linoeum blocks cut by several artists — including one of my favorites from last year, Rik Olson.
Plenty of local vendors will also be at hand with their books, broadsides, cards, and other wares for sale. Come by!
I started off with weekend brunch at Little Skillet, a tiny little window serving incredible fried chicken and fresh waffles — just steps away from 330 Ritch in SoMA.
Then booked tickets to go see the Boredoms play in New York! Yippee!
Thurston Moore
Sonic Youth proved that they could still rock out on Monday night (see photo of Thurston Moore above, from sfdavidz).
I can’t wait for Sunn O))) to slowly drone me away in a live setting. And speaking of Sunn O))), I was reminded of their homage to Southern Lord’s mainstay group, Earth when I came across a new word: Ouroboros.
According to Wikipedia, an ouroboros is “an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail and forming a circle.” I’d heard about this symbol in a few different ways, from Jung to Norse mythology — apparently even Plato found it significant.
Ouroboros
Earth produced a song called “Ouroboros Is Broken” on the slowly unfolding album, Extra-Capsular Extraction. Find it and listen closely for the tail…
This weekend, I checked out the YBCA party where I caught the Nick Cave exhibition. If you’re unfamiliar with his work, Cave combines Leigh Bowery’s outrageous fashions with the obsessive embroidery skills of Francois Lésage, brought to life with the sweeping fluidity of modern dance (Ronald K. Brown and Arcell Cabuag performed at an earlier date in the soundsuits).
I met up with my favorite queen — decked in black, sporting a silver wolfhead fingertip and ready to impale new victims — and together we jiggled to Honey Soundsystem under video projections showing the soundsuits in action.
Later, we hit up Kontrol’s fourth anniversary party just as the Wighnomy Brothers went on. Admist the sea of crappy music out there, the German techno duo still manages to produce some of the best dance music in the industry… Robag Wruhme, the group’s main musical genius, is a longtime favorite and I was most excited to see him live. His solo and extensive remix work are not to be missed.
Wighnomy Brothers at Sunset
On Sunday, I went to Treasure Island where the Wighnomy Brothers played a second set at the Sunset party. The two are so cute when they dance, like little techno bears! Robag ended the set by putting on Carmen McRae’s “I Left My Heart In San Francisco,” much to everyone’s delight. As we were leaving we paused to look out at downtown San Francisco, framed by the beautiful bay and its two iconic bridges, blissed by the late afternoon sun.
