April 2006

April 28, 2006

If you happen to be in Seattle today, come see my talk at 2 pm at the Pop Conference! The title of my presentation is “Shame on the Brain: Music, Guilty Pleasures, and Cognition,” and the venue is the JBL Theatre at the Experience Music Project, 325 Fifth Ave. N.

Read the full article →

April 24, 2006

Way late to the party on this one, but Silverdollarcircle is back, and is attempting to blog about all of the music he hears each day. An effort of herculean proportions, but one he’s fulfilling with panache, for sure.

Read the full article →

April 23, 2006

I’m going to be traveling a lot over the next few weeks–here’s where you might see me, thanks to frequent flyer miles: April 27-30: Seattle (EMP Pop Conference) May 5: Boston (Steer Roast) May 6: London May 7-8: Glasgow May 9-13: Berlin May 13-15: London

Read the full article →

April 19, 2006

Interesting musings on music and food on Blissblog–including a footnote on serotonin’s role in depression, eating, and anhedonia. The wrinkle in the theory here is that serotonin-acting antidepressant drugs don’t suppress the appetite the way they suppress libido. In some cases they might, but more often than not, they promote eating and extreme lethargy; a [...]

Read the full article →

satie -> mondrian -> eno -> food

April 18, 2006

I’ve been thinking far too much about this music-food thing. On Saturday night, I woke up with a start. There was a missing link in my Eno-Mondrian food connection, I realized, and that missing link was Erik Satie, the modern father of ambient music! How could I have forgotten about Satie and his tortured relationship [...]

Read the full article →

discover the recipes you are using and abandon them, part II.

April 11, 2006

Here’s the extended remix of the paragraph I wrote below. To understand Eno’s techniques in the studio, the worst thing to do is to read up on how records are actually produced. There are two recent books of note on the role of the producer — The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular [...]

Read the full article →

discover the recipes you are using and abandon them.

April 9, 2006

I’ve been going through reams of old Eno interviews and writings and picking out every reference to cooking. Why? Don’t ask. Noticed: a definite tendency for making improvisational, intensely flavored (but not terribly spicy) dishes with odd combinations of ethnic ingredients, with a blatant disregard for recipes or notions of authenticity. Gobs of garlic. Lots [...]

Read the full article →

April 5, 2006

I’m speaking on a panel next month at the annual literary festival of the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective. The topic is “Supporting Your Habit: Making a Writing Life.” Ha ha! Now I’ll be damned if I know much about that as a perpetually broke music journalist, but I’ll do my best. The best tip [...]

Read the full article →