Music

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      A Summer of Live Music, From Stadiums to Clubs

      by

      Hear songs from Beyoncé, Alvvays, Mdou Moctar and more.Beyoncé, a master of ballads and addition.The New York TimesDear listeners,I sincerely hope I am not the first person to break this news to you, but it’s true: Summer is almost over.Let us not mourn what is lost, though. Let us celebrate the summer that was. And what it was, for me at least, was a time to go to a lot of concerts. Most of them outdoors!While the post-lockdown summer concert has made its gradual, necessary return over the past two years, this season it felt back in full bloom. The news was, of course, dominated by a few extremely high-profile ones (Taylor Swift’s cultural juggernaut Eras Tour; Beyoncé’s first solo outing in seven years, the Renaissance World Tour) but there were plenty of simpler (and cheaper) pleasures to be had, too. I caught some incredible free shows over the past few months in New York City parks, from the likes of Mdou Moctar and John Cale. And in a smaller club environment, I was introduced to the up-and-coming singer-songwriter Blondshell.Today’s playlist is a kind of sonic scrapbook of my summer of shows. I’d encourage you to make your own, too; even as this season fades out (sob), it’s a great way to hold onto its most tuneful memories.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Alvvays: “Easy on Your Own?”Let’s start with the most recent one: Last Wednesday, I caught an excellent double bill in Prospect Park, as a part of BRIC Arts Media’s annual Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival. The Canadian dream-pop band Alvvays played first; its last album, “Blue Rev,” was one of my favorites of 2022, and I especially love this fuzzed out, gently melancholic second track. (Listen on YouTube)2. Alex G: “Gretel”And here’s the other half of that double bill, the Philadelphia indie musician Alex G, who also released one of my favorite albums of last year, the strange and poignant “God Save the Animals.” Alex’s live shows are always a bit louder and more raucous than his records would lead you to believe; I have actually seen mosh pits break out when he plays this seemingly subdued standout from his great 2019 album, “House of Sugar.” (Listen on YouTube)3. Taylor Swift: “The Archer”I have been known to refer to this one as “The Sagittarius National Anthem.” The more I think about Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour — and there are plenty of opportunities to do so; it’s still all anybody wants to talk about — the more I think my favorite stretch of the concert was the first one, when she finally got to play some songs from her 2019 album “Lover.” Here she is at her most minimalist, and her most antiheroic, as she punctures her own good-girl image on “The Archer”: “I see right through me, I see right through me.” (Listen on YouTube)4. Tanya Tucker: “Delta Dawn”When I traveled to the Gorge in Washington earlier this summer to catch Brandi Carlile’s Echoes Through the Canyon festival — and, you know, a certain very, very special headliner — I was lucky enough to catch an early evening set by the country icon Tanya Tucker. My second favorite part of the show was when she played “Delta Dawn,” which she recorded at age 13, and every single person there sang along at the top of their lungs. My first favorite part was when Tucker uncorked a bottle of her signature tequila and passed it around the front row. (Listen on YouTube)5. Amanda Shires & Bobbie Nelson: “Always on My Mind”The headliners that final night of Echoes Through the Canyon were the Highwomen, a country supergroup that features Carlile, Maren Morris, Natalie Hemby and the fiery fiddle player and singer-songwriter Amanda Shires. Each Highwoman played a solo cover during the set, and Shires wowed me with a poignant rendition of “Always on My Mind,” which she dedicated to Bobbie Nelson. Luckily, you didn’t just have to be there: The studio recording of the song, on which Nelson played piano shortly before she died last year, is gorgeous, and quite close to the version Shires played live. (Listen on YouTube)6. John Cale: “Heartbreak Hotel”Another brilliant show in Prospect Park: Earlier this month, 81-year-old John Cale treated Brooklyn to a spellbinding concert on one of the most temperate evenings of the whole summer. His set pulled from decades of his own material, but one of the most memorable moments was when he played an eerily deconstructed reimagining of “Heartbreak Hotel,” similar to this version that appeared on his 1992 live album “Fragments of a Rainy Season.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Blondshell: “Dangerous”I already knew, from listening to her 2023 self-titled debut as Blondshell, that Sabrina Teitelbaum was a sharp songwriter with a distinct take on the dark side of young adulthood and an easy way with minor-key melodies. What I didn’t realize until I saw her live this summer, though, is that she can really sing. She belted out “Blondshell” highlights like “Salad” and “Sepsis” (two great titles for songs), but the finely calibrated pathos she brought to the haunting “Dangerous” lingered with me long after the show. (Listen on YouTube)8. Mdou Moctar: “Tarhatazed”Mdou Moctar, the Tuareg guitar wizard whose last few albums have gained him much-deserved recognition in the West, leads what I believe to be one of the best rock bands in the world right now. I’ve seen them live a few times, and they’ve never sounded tighter than they did at the free — what a bargain! — show they played in July at Central Park’s SummerStage Festival. The new material was amazing and has me very excited for whatever the group decides to release next, but in the meantime, here’s an epic jam from the band’s 2019 album “Ilana the Creator.” (Listen on YouTube)9. Beyoncé: “1+1”As I pointed out in my review of the North American opening of her dazzling Renaissance World Tour, Beyoncé began a show that honors the vast history of dance music with, unexpectedly, a mini-set of slow, piano-driven torch songs. I confess I was getting a little impatient with the Queen — didn’t we come to dance?! — until she played a transcendent “1+1,” one of her greatest ballads. Then I had no choice but to bow down. (Listen on YouTube)I’ve got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“A Summer of Live Music” track listTrack 1: Alvvays, “Easy on Your Own?”Track 2: Alex G, “Gretel”Track 3: Taylor Swift, “The Archer”Track 4: Tanya Tucker, “Delta Dawn”Track 5: Amanda Shires & Bobbie Nelson, “Always on My Mind”Track 6: John Cale, “Heartbreak Hotel”Track 7: Blondshell, “Dangerous”Track 8: Mdou Moctar, “Tarhatazed”Track 9: Beyoncé, “1+1”Bonus tracksI purposely left off the summer concerts to which I’d already devoted entire playlists, but in case you missed those, the Cure and the Pretenders were both amazing.Also, my beleaguered New York Mets are still giving me little to cheer about, but I continue to be amused by the special walk-up songs they choose for “Women’s Day” (which was March 8 everywhere else in the world but, for some reason, was Aug. 26 at Citi Field). Each player changed his walk-up song to one by a female artist, and for the second year in a row, Daniel Vogelbach’s pick was the one to beat. This year he chose Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles,” and last year, he went with Kelis’s “Milkshake.” Daniel Vogelbach, I salute you. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      The Only Thing That Helps Me Be in the Moment

      by

      A writer struggled with being present. This Brazilian drum helped her pay attention.Earlier this year, Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” came on at a party I was at. I didn’t recognize the song at first; the room was crowded, and making out Simon’s strumming over multiple streams of chatter and conversation proved difficult. But then I heard it: a sharp noise, cutting through the track’s major chords in jagged intervals like a pair of blunt scissors. When I asked my friend what she thought the sound was, she paused, then guessed it might have been a duck. Another friend likened it to throat singing. They didn’t expect that the alien noise came from a type of drum — the cuíca.The cuíca is an odd instrument. It can buzz, hum, squeak and squawk; it can moan or creak; sometimes it even sounds like it’s weeping. If we’re being specific, cuícas are Brazilian friction drums, and although the word “friction” refers to the method used to play the instrument (musicians reach inside the drum to manipulate a wooden stick while their second hand applies pressure to the other side), the word also describes the abrasive effect it can have on listeners. Punching through songs as if it disagrees with how they’re supposed to sound, the cuíca is a key instrument in the bateria, the drumming wing of Rio de Janeiro’s samba ensembles during Carnival.I can’t remember the first time I heard it. Maybe it was in my grandmother’s living room in Brasília late one Christmas Eve, when, after a few drinks, my aunt Patrícia would put on Chico Buarque’s “Apesar de Você.” Or perhaps I heard it when I was still a baby, when my mom would play one of her favorite songs, “Carolina Carol Bela,” by Jorge Ben Jor and Toquinho. The particular moment hardly matters. The cuíca’s central role in most Brazilian music — from samba to Tropicália — means it has swathed me all my life. While I’ll never know where I first heard the drum, I keep going back to that sound, searching it out.I left Brazil when I was 1 and have spent most of my life outside the country. Though I now live in London, I’m still sensitive to sounds and smells that remind me of my birthplace. I would be lying if I said I like to listen to the cuíca for that reason, though. When I hear the cuíca, it doesn’t take me back to Brazil; it takes me somewhere else altogether.I struggle with being present, and often gravitate toward things that demand my attention in quick bursts: fountains, spicy food, the color orange, Leos. Cuícas fall into that category. They swallow me whole one moment, only to cough me back up the next. Hearing the sound feels like the aural equivalent of driving over a pothole. For a second or two, I jump in my seat. My stomach clenches. I lose track of space and time. Then, after a few measures, I’m back in the real world again, only now everything around me feels clearer and louder — and emptier, too. Sometimes I feel as though I may have misplaced something in the process. But when I rack my brain for what that might be, I can never figure out what I’m looking for.It can buzz, hum, squeak and squawk; it can moan or creak; sometimes it even sounds like it’s weeping.In some ways, the cuíca’s ability to transport listeners is part of its appeal. When Paul Simon was recording “Me and Julio” with the Brazilian jazz percussionist Airto Moreira, he said he wanted something that sounded “like a human voice” in the mix — a noise that would surprise and move people, making the song’s characters come alive. After Moreira played the cuíca for him, Simon knew he’d found what he needed. He wasn’t the only one who liked the way it sounded either: In 1972, the song charted in the U.S. for nine straight weeks.It’s a strange yet pleasant sensation, often making me think of the different processes that move sounds across space and instruments across continents. Pain and joy commingle in the history of the cuíca. Some historians believe that, like many percussion instruments in the region, enslaved Africans brought it to the Americas; it took root in Brazil in the form of samba. It’s believed that people originally used the drum to hunt lions, hoping that the animals would mistake the noise for another living being. After all, not many instruments sound like weeping or laughing, ducks or singing.The more I reflect on the uniqueness of the sound, the more I find myself reckoning with the complex history of migration — both forced and otherwise — that underpins it. It makes me think of how, in the Americas — where most of us are migrants or descendants of migrants — it’s hard to know exactly where or what “home” is. Sometimes it’s beans and bay leaves and strangers whose voices undulate when they talk. The cuíca, though, reminds me of my own history of movement. It complicates the idea of home.A few months ago, I was out at a bar when I heard the instrument again — this time in the form of Jorge Ben Jor’s “Taj Mahal.” Seated at the table with my friend, I couldn’t keep track of what we were talking about. That strange noise — laughing? gasping? weeping? — in the background commanded my attention. Once the song was over, I returned to the conversation in full. Secretly, though, I’d been carried to a different time and place entirely, and found myself wishing I could stay there a while longer. Carolina Abbott Galvão is a writer based in London. More

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      Florence Welch Says She Had Emergency Surgery

      by

      Florence Welch, the front woman of the band, apologized to fans for canceling her recent shows after undergoing what she said was lifesaving surgery.Florence Welch, the front woman of the English indie rock band Florence + the Machine, announced on Instagram that she had undergone emergency surgery, which is why she had canceled some of her recent shows.“I had to have emergency surgery for reasons I don’t really feel strong enough to go into yet, but it saved my life,” Welch wrote.“I’m so sorry that I had to cancel the last couple of shows,” she added.The singer said she plans to return to the stage for the Meo Kalorama festival in Lisbon, Portugal, where she is slated to perform on Sept. 1, and close out her Dance Fever tour in Malaga, Spain, on Sept. 2.The Dance Fever Tour was initially postponed in November, when an X-ray revealed that she had been dancing on a broken foot, Welch said on Instagram at the time.“It is not in my nature to postpone a show, and certainly not a U.K. tour, but I’m in pain and as dancers know, dancing on an injury is not a good idea,” she wrote in November.In her most recent Instagram post, she assured fans that her feet were fine but said that upon her return to the stage she might not be jumping around as much, adding, “you can do that for me.”“Suffice to say I wish the songs were less accurate in their predictions,” she wrote. “But creativity is a way of coping, mythology is a way of making sense. And the dark fairy tale of Dance Fever, with all its strange prophecies, will provide me with much-needed strength and catharsis right now.”The band is most known for its hit “Dog Days Are Over,” which peaked at 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2010, and “Shake it Out,” which peaked at 72 in 2012. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Oliver Anthony Music’s ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Stays No. 1

      by

      The song by Oliver Anthony Music played a role at the Republican primary debate, though the musician clarified he doesn’t identify with “people on conservative news.”“Rich Men North of Richmond,” the out-of-nowhere viral protest song by Oliver Anthony Music, is the country’s No. 1 single for a second time, after playing a key role in last week’s Republican primary debate.“Rich Men,” a spare acoustic track uploaded to YouTube just weeks ago by the largely unknown Anthony, quickly caught fire as an angry cry against corporate and political elites, though it also took shots at welfare recipients. Embraced by conservative commentators, the song shot to the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, with big download and streaming numbers.Last week, the first question at the Republican debate was about the significance of “Rich Men,” and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida spun it as a sign of policy failures by the Biden administration.In a video response posted to YouTube, Anthony — real name Christopher Anthony Lunsford — said he was bothered by how his song has become a political talking point. “It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I’m one of them,” he said. “I see the right trying to characterize me as one of their own. And I see the left trying to discredit me.” The song, he added on Facebook, “is about corporate owned D.C. politicians on both sides.”“Rich Men” repeats at No. 1 on the all-genre Hot 100 with 23 million streams and 117,000 downloads, according to the tracking service Luminate. It is also No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart.On the Billboard 200 album chart, Travis Scott’s “Utopia” marks a month at No. 1 with the equivalent of 161,000 sales, including 92 million streams and 92,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to Luminate, driven by discounted vinyl sales on the rapper’s website. According to Billboard, “Utopia” is the first rap album to spend its first four weeks at the top since 2018, when Drake’s “Scorpion” had five. (In 2021, Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” spent its first three weeks at No. 1, then returned to the top for another two weeks later on.)Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” holds at No. 2, while the singer-songwriter Hozier opens at No. 3 with his new “Unreal Unearth.” The “Barbie” soundtrack remains in fourth place, and Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” is No. 5. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Music

      Queer History Was Made in ’90s Clubs. These Fliers Captured It.

      by

      “Getting In,” a new book from David Kennerley, collects the edgy advertisements for parties at clubs like the Palladium and records a culture forged from defiance.In the new book “Getting In,” the journalist David Kennerley takes an electric visual stroll through New York’s 1990s gay club scene. Not with photos, exactly, but through fliers — more than 200 of them — featuring polychromatic drag queens and come-hither hunks who enticed him to dance to Frankie Knuckles and Junior Vasquez remixes at popular nightclubs like Twilo and the Palladium, and parties like Jackie 60 and Lick It!“People threw the fliers on the ground,” Kennerley, 63, said in a recent interview at a Midtown cafe. “I thought, why would you throw this out? It’s going to be a memento.”Kennerley assembled the book from his collection of over 1,200 fliers that he acquired from several sources — promoters outside clubs, now-closed gay shops and bars, club mailing lists — all before social media. A self-described “bit of a hoarder,” Kennerley considers the book an act of queer music history preservation.“We weren’t all snapping pictures at clubs back then, so we don’t have much of a visual record,” he said. “These provide some sort of visual evidence of what went on.”Kennerley and other ’90s club veterans recently shared memories of some of the fliers, and the era. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.via David KennerleyDivas Fight AIDS, Palladium (1992)LADY BUNNY, D.J. and CLUB KID Back in the ’80s and ’90s, we felt we needed to come together as a community to fight AIDS. The fear of AIDS made us party with greater abandon. For an entire generation of gay men, especially those connected to the club world, we weren’t saving money. We assumed the odds were against us. Loleatta Holloway and Lonnie Gordon — that’s quite a lineup in terms of what songs packed dance floors.MICHAEL MUSTO, NIGHTLIFE CHRONICLER We learned the power of graphic art from ACT UP and Queer Nation. They knew how to use slogans and imagery to get a point across. Promoters used that know-how to sell their parties.DAVID KENNERLEY It feels like she’s a superhero in a way. That’s what people needed to be then because of the stigma and persecution.via David KennerleyPurgatory, Sound Factory Bar (1992)KENNERLEY At first glance it would be muscle boys in short shorts. It is, but someone Photoshopped on the heads of Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Notice it was about getting out to vote. This one has credits of Jon McEwan and Jason McCarthy, the photographer and the promoter. They did one of George Bush spanking Dan Quayle, too.MARK ALLEN, GO-GO BOY and MODEL This was taken during a session where I was photographed with Richard, this kid from Venezuela, whose body was Al Gore. Mine was Bill Clinton. And Jon goes, I want to photograph you in cutoff shorts, the kind that were popular on Fire Island then. It sounded like something Spy would do in the ’80s. They took three shots and we went on to the next thing.You saw T-shirts of this image on cards. It was a good example about how something could go viral before the internet. I didn’t mind being anonymous. I thought it was art.SUSAN MORABITO, D.J. I don’t remember that particular party but I remember the flier.via David KennerleyThe Saint at Large, Tunnel (1992)MORABITO Back then, fliers inspired conversation and controversy sometimes. When the Saint at Large party used to send them in the mail, you couldn’t wait to get it. You’d get on the phone with your friends and talk about it.KENNERLEY Marky Mark had a song called “Good Vibrations” that went to No. 1. He was the Calvin Klein model for a while, and he would pull down his trousers and show off his tighty whities.The promise of the poster is, he’s going to show off his muscular physique. I paid a lot of money to go that night but I was very disappointed. He got onstage and he strutted around in a dark hoodie. Before you knew it, the song was over. I was like, wait, what about dropping the pants? I guess you could say it was misleading advertising.via David KennerleyCopacabana (1992)CHIP DUCKETT, PUBLICIST and PRODUCER Susanne [Bartsch, the club promoter and hostess] has a deep love of all things party. Inside Copa it was this perfect mix. There’s a baroness over here, a real one. Here’s a hooker and here’s a fashion model and it’s really gay but it’s also not gay. I don’t think Studio 54 did it in the same way. She’s still hosting parties every week.In those days I printed 50,000 fliers a month. Some guys in Queens who ran a club opened a printing company called Nightlife Printing. They did fliers for everybody. When I think of the amount of paper that got delivered to my office …Pork, The Lure (1994)KENNERLEY The Lure was leather and Levi’s oriented and they had a dress code. The party on Wednesday was geared toward the younger crowd, to get them involved in the scene. They also had B.D.S.M. shows on occasion. It got racy.MUSTO The way people forged a sense of communal identity was by going out. It was vital to have niche parties, where you had an exact type of gay, like twinks or bears. Now everybody has sex via Grindr, so that if you walk into a gay bar there is zero sexual urgency in the air.via David Kennerley‘Big’ Opening Night Party, Roxy (1996)ALLEN This was me, taken by the photographer Hans Fahrmeyer. I made some money on that one. It was on greetings cards and posters. I remember being in a cab and somebody had plastered on scaffolding 50 or 100 of the posters. I saw it for a few seconds. I thought, this is the closest I’ll ever get to my picture being in Times Square. I went back a week later and it was gone. That captured the fleetingness of the whole scene.LADY BUNNY This was a time when record companies would send D.J.s records to see what was a hit with our crowd. Gays has such good taste in dance music with zero promotion and a cover that didn’t even have the artist’s picture on it!ALLEN I thought it would lead to something incredible. It didn’t. But now it makes me think of my youth and the passage of time and how important the memories are. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      A 12,000-Year-Old Bird Call, Made of Bird Bones

      by

      In flight, the Eurasian kestrel is mostly silent, a small falcon that seems to defy physics as it faces the wind and hovers in midair, tail spread out like a fan. Flapping its wings vigorously, the bird of prey catches every eddy of the breeze while scanning the ground below for quarry.Perched in its breeding grounds, however, the kestrel emits a series of raspy screams, each note a single-syllabled kik-kik-kik. In June, a team of Israeli and French archaeologists proposed that 12,000 years ago the Natufians, people of a Stone Age culture in the Levant and Western Asia, mimicked the raspy trills of the Eurasian kestrel with tiny notched flutes, or aerophones, carved from waterfowl bones.The flutes, which were discovered decades ago at a site in northern Israel but were inspected only recently, may have been used as hunting aids, for musical and dancing practices or for communicating with birds over short distances, according to the study’s authors, who published their paper in Scientific Reports.“This is the first time a prehistoric sound instrument from the Near East has been identified,” said Laurent Davin, an archaeologist at the French Research Center in Jerusalem who made the discovery.The theory is largely based on fragments of seven wind instruments that were among 1,112 bird bones unearthed at Eynan-Mallaha, a prehistoric swamp village in the Hula Valley, which is still an important passageway for the more than two billion birds that annually migrate along the African-Eurasian flyway. The Natufians inhabited the Levant from 13000 to 9700 B.C., a time when humans were undergoing a massive shift from nomadic hunter-gatherers to more sedentary, semi-settled, open-air communities. The society featured the first durable, stone-based architecture and the first graveyards, with funerary customs that changed through time.Seven bird bone flutes from Eynan-Mallaha, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.The Hebrew University of Jerusalem“The Natufians bear witness to a completely crazy period in human history, abandoning the nomadic lifestyle practiced since the dawn of man to settle down in one place,” said Fanny Bocquentin, the lead archaeologist on the dig since 2022. “It’s a big responsibility, a challenge they successfully met, since in a way they gave rise to our way of life and our food regime.”Dr. Davin noted that the settlers of the valley had to find regular sources of food before they even knew how to cultivate them. “Before that time, they relied on game such as rabbits and foxes and gazelles,” he said. The lake and seasonal swamps that nearly covered the valley provided fish and an abundance of birds, most of them wintering waterfowl.The swamp was drained by Zionist pioneers as part of an infrastructure project in the early 20th century, and first excavated by a French mission in 1955. Since then, careful sifting has yielded bones from a wide range of local animal species. The flutes went unnoticed until last year when Dr. Davin observed marks on seven wing bones of Eurasian coots and Eurasian teals. Only one of the instruments was fully intact, and that was all of two and a half inches long.Closer inspection revealed that the marks were tiny holes bored into the hollow bones, and that one of the ends of the intact flute had been carved into a mouthpiece. Initially, Dr. Davin’s colleagues dismissed the holes as routine weathering. But when he subjected the delicate bones to micro-CT scans, he realized that the holes had been meticulously perforated and were spaced at even intervals. The bones had been scraped and grooved with small stone blades, he said, and they bore traces of red ochre and had microscopic wear patterns suggesting that the aerophones had seen considerable use. “The perforations were finger holes,” Dr. Davin said.To test out his theory, a team of archaeologists and ethnomusicologists fashioned three replicas of the intact bone flute. Unable to obtain carcasses of Eurasian coot or teal, the researchers used the wing bones of two female mallard ducks. Blowing into the replicas produced sounds that they compared with the calls of dozens of bird species plying the Hula Valley. The pitch range was very similar to that of two kinds of raptors known to nest in the area, Eurasian kestrels and sparrow hawks.

      The research team determined that the finger holes had been made with a flint tool so precise that the holes could be sealed with a fingertip, the sine qua non of wind instruments. “For the Natufian to produce those flutes was a piece of cake,” said Anna Belfer-Cohen, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She added that the society produced a wealth of tools and highly sophisticated utensils, beaded jewelry, pendants of stone, bone, teeth and shells, as well as engraved bone and stone plaques.The flowering of music-making in the deep past is hotly debated. The oldest flute attributed to modern humans is a five-holed aerophone found in 2008 at the Hohle Fels cave in southwest Germany. Carved from the wing-bone of a griffon vulture, the flute may be 40,000 years old, making it one of the oldest instruments ever found.But some scholars point to a Neanderthal artifact known as the Divje Babe flute that was unearthed 28 years ago in a cave in northwestern Slovenia. That object, a young cave bear’s left thigh bone pierced by four spaced holes, is thought to date back at least 50,000 years. However, other scientists argue that the Divje Babe flute was simply the product of an Ice Age carnivore, possibly a spotted hyena, scavenging on a dead bear cub.Hamoudi Khalaily of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who collaborated on the bird flute study, has said that if the Natufians used the aerophones to flush birds out of the marshes, the discovery would mark “the earliest evidence of the use of sound in hunting.” In other words, the miniature flutes could have produced Stone Age duck calls.Natalie Munro, an anthropologist at the University of Connecticut, has an alternative hypothesis. “While we’re speculating, maybe the true purpose of the instruments was to communicate with a different animal altogether,” she said. Eynan-Mallaha was also home to a Natufian woman found buried with her hand resting on a puppy. The burial dates to 12,000 years ago and figures frequently in narratives of early dog domestication. “Maybe these bones and their high-pitched sounds were more akin to dog whistles,” Dr. Munro said. “They could have been used to communicate with early dogs or their wolf cousins.”Considering the flute’s harsh tone, few scientists maintain that it was intended as a melodic tool. Still, as John James Audubon observed of a pair of American kestrels, “Side by side they sail, screaming aloud their love notes, which, if not musical, are doubtless at least delightful to the parties concerned.” More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      An Orchestra’s ‘Ode to Joy’ Calls for Ukrainian Freedom

      by

      Not long after the Berlin Wall fell, in 1989, Leonard Bernstein traveled to the once-divided German city and led a performance of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” replacing the word “Freude,” or joy, with “Freiheit” — freedom.In an echo of that historic concert, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, a touring ensemble formed in the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, presented Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the suburbs of Berlin on Thursday. And, for the famous “Ode to Joy” choral finale, the text was translated to Ukrainian, with the key word being “slava,” or glory, as in “Slava Ukrainii”: Glory to Ukraine.“I’m driven by my passion for Ukraine,” the orchestra’s conductor, Keri-Lynn Wilson, said on Thursday afternoon before the concert, at the garden of Schönhausen Palace. “And my desire to get rid of Putin and his regime through culture.”Around her was a bustle of activity: ushers laying pillows on chairs, sound technicians consulting in a booth, pink umbrellas being placed to shield an orchestra from the sun. The orchestra, made up of 74 Ukrainian musicians — some of whom live in that country still, some of whom have fled — was about to perform as part of its second summer tour of Europe.“Russia says there’s no Ukrainian culture, or music, or language,” said Anna Bura, a violinist in the orchestra. “They want to erase Ukrainian culture. We want to show people we are here.”The program included the second violin concerto by the contemporary Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych, and ended with the Beethoven. While on vacation three weeks ago, Wilson arrived at the idea that the “Ode to Joy” should be sung in Ukrainian, and worked with Mykola Lukas and the vocal coach Ivgeniia Iermachkova to create a new singing translation of the Friedrich Schiller text.Keri-Lynn Wilson, right, conducted the orchestra, whose performances featured Valeriy Sokolov as the soloist in Yevhen Stankovych’s Second Violin Concerto.Andreas Meichsner for The New York TimesThe orchestra’s stop in Berlin coincided with Ukrainian Independence Day. Kyrylo Markiv, a violinist in the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, helped rehearse the choir, the Ukrainian Freedom Chorus, which was assembled for the occasion from the Diplomatic Choir of Berlin and other singers. He serves as a first-desk violinist in the Odesa Philharmonic and is choirmaster at the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odesa, which was built in the early 19th century, reconstructed between 1999 and 2003 and then damaged last month by Russian airstrikes.The night the cathedral was bombed, Markiv had left his violin there in preparation for a concert the next day. “My colleagues wrote in a work chat that the building was on fire,” he said. “I got dressed and went with my brother, who is a deacon there, and saw destroyed cars, fire. In the building, I looked for my violin. Everything was destroyed, but my violin was about 80 percent OK.”Now, his violin is being repaired by a luthier in Lviv. The attack, he said, strengthened his resolve for the tour. “I’m proud that we came to show our art,” he said. “These times are hard for us. We’re strong, and the European people make us stronger.”Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and Wilson’s husband, helped to arrange and raise money for this tour and the one last summer. “The intensity of the war has raised the stakes this year,” he said. “These musicians all live there or have families there. The war makes everything more intense: their playing, their relationships with each other. Everything is magnified.”The violinist Anna Bura.Andreas Meichsner for The New York TimesKyrylo Markiv, the choirmaster of the Odesa Transfiguration Cathedral.Andreas Meichsner for The New York TimesAt a rehearsal on Thursday, as Wilson led the orchestra into a breakneck run-through of the Beethoven’s second movement, the two first-desk bass players, Nazarii Stets and Ivan Zavgorodniy, bounced along to the rhythm with broad smiles on their faces. Stets, who lives in Kyiv, said in an interview that this summer’s tour was less celebratory than he had hoped: “I expected it would be the victory tour, and it’s still a tour with continuous fighting.”A member of the Kyiv Camerata, a chamber orchestra that plays contemporary Ukrainian music, he had a solo recital scheduled on the day after the invasion began.“My bass was already at the concert hall,” Stets said. “I spent the night in my house, and then the war started.” After two months with his family in the west of the country, he returned to Kyiv. Since then, he has played in “a lot of charity and benefit concerts,” he said — mostly for the Music Unites charity fund, which donates medicine and food to children, and cars and communications equipment to soldiers.Many musicians have used their art to raise money. The cellist Denys Karachevtsev now lives in Berlin but spent the first year of the war in his hometown, Kharkiv, the site of vicious fighting at the beginning of the conflict. More than 600,000 residents fled that city as Russian shells and rockets destroyed homes and public buildings. A video he recorded of Bach’s fifth cello suite among the ruins garnered attention and donations.From left, the vocal soloists Vladyslav Buialskyi, Vassily Solodkyy, Nicole Chirka and Olga Kulchynska.Andreas Meichsner for The New York TimesBut music, Karachevtsev said, was just one part of his efforts. “I had my car,” he added, “so I was evacuating people and taking them to the trains, bringing back medicine and food. We didn’t know how the situation would go on.”The videos brought him to the attention of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, which invited him to participate this year. “I think it’s a good way to continue helping our country,” he said. Now, Karachevtsev is studying in Berlin while continuing to teach students in Kharkiv online. It is still considered too dangerous to have in-person lessons. “The nearest Russian city is about 50 kilometers away,” he said. “It takes 30 seconds for the bombs to come.”As the sun began to set in Berlin, the orchestra ate dinner. Dignitaries, including Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makeev, and the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, arrived as audience members began to file in for the free concert. Some sat in the chairs, and others spread out picnic blankets. Children ate ice cream; the atmosphere was warm and friendly.Audience members at the concert included Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makeev, and the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.Andreas Meichsner for The New York TimesSome people wore Ukrainian flags and some a vyshyvanka, a traditional embroidered blouse. Viktoria Neroda, who arrived in Berlin as a refugee from Rivne in western Ukraine last year, said she was there primarily to celebrate Ukrainian Independence Day. “I love Ukrainian music,” she said in a German-language interview, “but I’m hearing this orchestra for the first time tonight.”This tour’s performances are taking place at an uneasy moment for Ukrainians. The war has dragged on far longer than many expected, and hopes for a quick victory, heightened by the success of Ukrainian self-defense early on, have faded. Life is lived between air raid sirens. Every week brings more bad news: friends killed fighting on the front, family members’ homes destroyed by drone strikes or rocket attacks.European solidarity, too, is shifting. Berlin is 10 hours by train from Przemysl, the Polish city near the Ukrainian border where, in the war’s first weeks, refugees poured in.Berlin citizens swung into action: operating welcome centers, bringing supplies to train stations, offering rooms in their apartments. Governments announced special visa rules for Ukrainian refugees. German lawmakers spoke of a “Zeitenwende,” an epochal change in German defense policy, and sent, if sometimes reluctantly, weapons and tanks to the Ukrainian army.At the Berlin State Opera, the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko withdrew under pressure from a new production of Puccini’s “Turandot” because she had not, the house stated, adequately distanced herself from the invasion. She had said that she opposed the war, but didn’t go as far as criticizing the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, whom she had supported in the past.Denys Karachevtsev, a cellist in the orchestra.Andreas Meichsner for The New York TimesNazarii Stets, a bass player.Andreas Meichsner for The New York TimesSolidarity is still visible, but it is also beginning to splinter. Many Germans, struggling with inflation, fuel bills and the country’s economic stagnation, are questioning the price of support. The far-right Alternative for Germany party, which has been sympathetic to Putin, has surged in the polls. And classical music stages, where Russia was long a moneymaking destination, have also wavered. As the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra rehearsed last week, Netrebko was set to start rehearsals for a revival of Verdi’s “Macbeth” at the State Opera in September. (The company’s leader, Matthias Schulz, told Berlin public radio this year that Netrebko had spoken out, in his opinion, as far as she was able.)Thursday’s concert, then, was both a celebration of Ukraine’s independence and Germany’s solidarity, and part of an effort to preserve those two things. After speeches from the dignitaries, the orchestra launched into energetic, insistent Verdi, followed by a searing account of the Stankovych concerto. That piece ends with a sustained, harmonious major third in the strings, which clashes with the solo violin’s plucked minor third. The dissonance holds, softly, then fades out.The orchestra’s concert on Thursday was met with standing ovations.Andreas Meichsner for The New York Times More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      A Strokes Tribute Band Is Part of a Fresh Wave of Latino Fandom

      by

      The members of the Strokes tribute band Juicebox, like the crowds they draw, are predominantly Latino.On a Friday night, at the center of the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet, a large stage at this open-air California market stood in front of an expanse of picnic tables and food vendors.The swap meet, at the border of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, usually hosts tribute bands that pay homage to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame-enshrined acts like Metallica or Mexican American icons like Jenni Rivera. But that evening in March, Juicebox, Southern California’s leading Strokes tribute band, had gathered an enthusiastic, multigenerational audience ready to celebrate the group that has come to symbolize stylish downtown New York City rock in the early 2000s. There were leather jackets everywhere.Deep into the show, when the group played “50/50,” a forgotten track from the Strokes’ 2013 full-length “Comedown Machine,” a mosh pit started, earning the crowd a warning from the venue. As Juicebox left the stage after performing 47 singles, album cuts and B-sides over three sets, chants began, calling out for one more: “¡Otra! ¡Otra! ¡Otra!”The members of Juicebox, like the crowds they draw, are predominantly Latino, though the band’s founder and drummer, Jason Wise, is a 38-year-old self-described “Jewish dude” from Queens. He moved to Los Angeles in 2010 and fell in with a group of mostly Latino musicians he met through Craigslist who loved early 2000s rock bands as much as he did. Six years ago, Wise started Juicebox, which now features the lead vocalist Edgar Rene Espino, the guitarists George Campos and Renzon Sanchez and the bassist Tony Perez (who recently took over for John Leal). It usually plays twice a month, booking gigs across Southern California.Wise discovered the Strokes when he was in his midteens and they’ve been his favorite band ever since. “They are a big part of who I am as an individual and to be able to be part of spreading the fandom and the love of the Strokes to other people is something that I’m not tired of doing,” he said. “If I wasn’t in this band, I would go to these shows.”Juicebox, from left: George Campos, John Leal, Edgar Rene Espino, Jason Wise and Renzon Sanchez. Wise started the band six years ago.Saul Barrerala for The New York TimesThe Strokes themselves remain a major act in Latin America, which has a long tradition of supporting rock music. When the band performs “Reptilia” for festival crowds, it’s greeted with stadium-size fútbol chants.It’s not surprising that a place like Los Angeles County — where 49.1 percent of respondents (or more than 4.9 million people) in the 2021 census identified as Hispanic/Latino — is home to a large number of Latino Strokes fans.But Jeanette Diaz, a journalist and publicist from Los Angeles, believes that the pull of the Strokes is especially strong among the first-generation American children of immigrants, who can have complicated feelings about their identities and which culture they belong to. The band “could just do what they wanted to do and it was accepted, and a lot of people try to find that,” Diaz said. “It’s this idea of fitting in on your own terms, which a lot of Latin kids craved, maybe subconsciously.”Some members of Juicebox say they feel a closeness with the Strokes that comes partly from representation. (The drummer Fabrizio Moretti was born in Brazil, and the guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.’s mother is from Argentina.) “I see pictures of Fab and I’m like, I play soccer with that guy, he looks like someone I know,” said Sanchez, the Juicebox guitarist whose own background is half Lebanese and half El Salvadoran. “And a guy like Albert, who has big curly hair, that’s my brother. I can see myself in the Strokes.”Fans at a Juicebox show in late May.Saul Barrerala for The New York TimesThe most obvious antecedent to this fandom is the one for the Smiths, the maudlin but melodious Manchester band that broke up in 1987 but continues to enjoy a passionate following among Mexican Americans today. This relationship has been covered in articles, documentaries and books for over 20 years, and it too has inspired tribute bands, including the long-running Sweet & Tender Hooligans, fronted by Jose Maldonado, who is often called “the Mexican Morrissey.”José G. Anguiano, an associate professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, said he has seen similar phenomena in the region’s goth, metal and rockabilly worlds. “As people have moved away or they’ve aged out of certain subcultures or music scenes, it does seem like in Los Angeles, Latinos have moved in to take the reins,” he said. “What’s really cool is they’re taking the reins, not just in terms of being fans, but also fronting these tribute bands and producing their own music. They’re fully participating in every sense in these subcultures.”In 2022, the rising El Monte, Calif., band the Red Pears covered the Strokes’ “Automatic Stop” for Unquiet Live’s YouTube channel. In the video, their guitarist and vocalist, Henry Vargas, introduced the song as being by “Los Estrokes.” The Red Pears never thought it was strange that they knew so many Latino people who were into the Strokes because they all came to the group through Latino friends. But it was each band member’s individual love of the Strokes that helped bring them together and shape their sound.“In our city there was a lot of punk, ska and metal bands,” Vargas said in an interview. “We were the only ones that were branching out, trying out different stuff.”Before joining Juicebox in 2022, Espino, the band’s lead singer, was in a different Strokes tribute band for six years, but he’s never seen the real deal play live. He said he’s always been a bigger fan of the Arctic Monkeys, whose frontman, Alex Turner, famously started an album with the lyrics, “I just wanted to be one of the Strokes.”“I’m living his life right now,” Espino quipped.Sanchez, 26, is the Juicebox member most interested in re-creation. In a skinny tie or a polo shirt, he plays a white Fender Stratocaster at nearly chest-level, just like Hammond Jr. His mind was blown open by the Strokes when he was 14, after two brothers he used to be in a band with introduced him to the song “The Modern Age.”But an even younger cohort has recently embraced the Strokes through the Rick Rubin-produced album “The New Abnormal,” from 2020, which spawned a TikTok hit in “The Adults Are Talking.”“I didn’t know how they’re doing it, where they sound like they’re not trying, but they’re really trying,” Miguel Ponce, a D.J. and promoter, said of the Strokes.Saul Barrerala for The New York TimesOn a Friday night in late May, a crowd packed Knucklehead, a dive-y bar on an unglamorous block in Hollywood. Juicebox was on the bill alongside an Arctic Monkeys tribute band called Polar Primates for Room on Fire, a club night dedicated to early 2000s indie and alternative music. The Strokes’ time playing tiny New York City venues like the Mercury Lounge looms large in their history, but in reality, it lasted for barely a blip. Juicebox shows like this one let fans who were born too late or on the opposite coast reimagine themselves in that moment.During a phone interview a few days earlier, Room on Fire’s D.J. and promoter, Miguel Ponce, 29, explained that he learned about the Strokes from a friend on his high school baseball team, but it took a little time before he truly got it. “I heard the song ‘Ize of the World’ and I don’t know what it was, but all of a sudden it hit like a spark, dude,” he said. “I didn’t know how they’re doing it, where they sound like they’re not trying, but they’re really trying.”Ponce started Room on Fire in March 2022, but the early installments didn’t draw much of a crowd. After he had Juicebox play for the first time this past January, the party began to take off. “I started seeing the true potential of what I can do,” he said.Before the pandemic, Ponce used to book shows with local acts in Downtown Los Angeles. He already knew how much of an influence the Strokes had. “Most of the indie bands, they would dress like Julian Casablancas,” he said. “There’s no shame in that.” More