30 Second Spots - In America Everyone Is A Great Artist

You will make more sense of this post if you first refer back to In Which David Listens to Two Radio Stations Alternately. Pay special attention to the comment by Alex Shapiro.

Oh heck, here's what she wrote (in purple):

The demise of L.A.'s commercial classical radio station has presented a new and thrilling opportunity for your radio game:
Schoenberg/Willie Nelson mash-ups.
Or, Bartok/LeAnn Rimes.
Maybe, Brahms/Charlie Pride....?
I think it's time to open your ears to a NEW kind of stereo effect...

By now Alex should know better than to offer any opportunity (no matter how slight) to serve as my muse. Apparently she didn't learn her lesson from her previous tangle with Mixed Meters. Check out and listen to this post entitled The On and Off Topic Blues for Alex in which you can hear the music I created to avoid attending a composers' forum.

By the way, Alex seems to have disappeared from the paradise known as Malibu. Rumor has it she's been banished to a gulag on a remote island in the far northwest of the country because of her moderate behavior. I trust there is an abundance of classical radio and contemporary performance there. Maybe she'll get time off for good behavior. Her blog is about music derived from seaweed. Check it out.


In America Everyone Is A Great Artist is a combination of two types of music I don’t like – 12-tone Music and Country Music. It combines the classically country themes of faithless lovers, big honkin' eighteen wheelers, serialism and the quest for tenure into an annoyingly saccharine comment on every American baby-boomer's birthright: our entitlement to creatively express our identical sheltered experiences repetitively in the hopes of expanding our 15 minutes of fame into a vast fortune.

In America I can take two kinds of music I don’t like and combine them into one piece you don’t like. Is this a great country, or what?

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In America Everyone Is A Great Artist is one minute and 33 seconds long. It is copyright (c) 2007 by David Ocker.

P.S. I'm trying this new little embedded mp3 player from the website MOG where I have established yet another David Ocker blog. I just can't resist when they're free. I hope both my readers will leave a comment on how well this works. Please? Purty Please?

P.P.S. The picture of the Maverick cigarette box has two tenuous musical relevances. One is MTT's excellent American Maverick radio series. The other is a country band called The Mavericks, with whose music Leslie lovingly tormented me in the early years of our marriage.

P.P.P.S. My radio station game survives between KUSC (the classical classical station) and KJAZZ (the classical jazz station). The results aren't great as often as they were between two classical classical stations, but it sure beats listening to KKGO (the country classical station).

P.P.P.P.S. If you hate my recurrent bit about "both my readers", please leave the third comment to this post.

Great Country or What Tags: Classical Radio. . . Country Radio. . . KKGO. . . KUSC. . . KJZZ. . . Alex Shapiro. . . American Mavericks. . . The Mavericks. . . Maverick cigarettes. . . American quality. . . Meet Your Muse. . . 30 Second Spots. . . David Ocker

Two Marks of Good Music Criticism

I have two confessions. One -- I used to play the bass clarinet. Two -- I occasionally ego surf (er, I search the web for my own name.)

My mind was completely blown last year when I surfed upon this July 2006 article by music critic Mark Saleski, someone I had never heard of. Obviously Mark is a very good critic. He opens his review of an album by bass clarinetist Bennie Maupin (another person with whom I'm not familiar) talking about me. There are several positive paragraphs reminiscing about an otherwise completely forgotten solo bass clarinet composition of mine. He lamented misplacing his recording of it. Saleski writes:

"My cassette recording of that performance has a lot of miles on it—the bass clarinet (so full of character!) being put through those winding passages was something that just made my ears light up."

This particular piece (I'll tell you the title in a minute) was written for a recital I gave in 1985 at New Music America. It may be hard to believe now, but for more than a decade mostly in the 80s there was a major festival of composers and performers of contemporary music, established and wannabes alike. It was held in a different US city every year. It was actually a big deal.

In 1985 NMA happened in Los Angeles, actively supported by the city's Cultural Affairs Department. LA had had a vast international arts festival the year before, in the shadow of the Olympic Games, and festivals became all the vogue for a while.

My NMA recital was one of four held at the Arnold Schoenberg Institute (then located at USC in a building I think is designed to look like a piano). The other three new musicians were David Burge, piano, Bert Turetzky, bass, and William Winant, percussion.


Recorded excerpts from these concerts (and other NMA LA events) were made available to a national public radio network. I seem to remember that the number of stations which actually broadcast these programs was firmly in the single digits. But obviously Mark Saleski listened to one of them. More than 20 years later his comments mark the first time I was aware of anyone who had actually listened.

If you do a web search for "New Music America" you'll find that it lives on mostly as entries in the biographies of countless composers and performers - myself included. I found only this one small Wikipedia entry describing the whole endeavor.

Anyway, after reading Mark Saleski's review, I resolved to provide him with a replacement recording. And also, naturally, to blog about the whole thing for my two regular readers. I've uploaded three audio excerpts from that recital, all are of me playing bass clarinet.


The piece Mark Saleski wrote about is titled "The Allegro Fourth Movement from the Symphony Number 3 in F Opus 90 by Johannes Brahms by David Ocker." (yes, I put my own name right at the end of the title.) Fully describing the history and the process and the point of the piece would triple the length of this post - so I'll just say that I made a lead sheet of a Brahms symphonic movement and then changed the notes so I could claim it as my own.

click here to hear The Allegro Fourth Movement from the Symphony Number 3 in F Opus 90 by Johannes Brahms by David Ocker

Copyright (c) (p) 1985 and 2007 by David Ocker - 8 minutes 51 seconds

I opened the recital with a solo improvisation. Although I often improvised in public back then (as part of a trio with Vinny Golia and Anne La Berge) it was rare for me to improvise alone. This piece, my only named, marginally repeatable improv, is entitled "At Sixes and Sevens". The title refers to a rhythmic element that's difficult to hear. Mostly it was an opportunity to show off some of the strange bass clarinet noises I could make.

click here to hear At Sixes and Sevens

Copyright (c) (p) 1985 and 2007 by David Ocker - 4 minutes 22 seconds

I played an encore which was Non-new and Non-American: my arrangement for solo bass clarinet of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. Surreal, huh? I suppose I imagined back then that I could do just about anything on the bass clarinet. Even imitate a celesta.

click here to hear Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, arranged and performed by David Ocker, bass clarinet

Copyright (c) (p) 1985 and 2007 by David Ocker - 2 minutes 26 seconds


This Sugar Plum Fairy picture came from here. The two shots of me with my bass clarinet are from the 80s, taken by John Livzey in Frank Zappa's UMRK studio. If you look at my beard carefully you can see my very first gray hairs. I've always particularly liked the picture with the clarinet pushing my nose out of joint.

I'm including the full program, the blurb text (also in the picture) and Mark Swed's complete LA Herald Examiner review. In a prior review Mark Swed had referred to me as a "super-clarinetist" and I, of course, used that term in my promotional materials as often as I could. Obviously Mark is a very good music critic. In this particular review he tries to define more precisely exactly what he meant by "super-clarinetist."



In 1985 Mark Swed and I didn't yet know that we were distant cousins by marriage. And I most certainly did not know that in 1992 I would marry Leslie Harris, Mark Swed's first cousin once removed. It's entirely possible that I'm related to Mark Saleski somehow as well. I just don't know quite how yet.

THE PROMOTIONAL BLURB

In Recital:
DAVID OCKER

Benny Goodman Never Sounded Like This! The composer/clarinetist performs music by Dolphy, Jarvinen, Martino, Ocker, Smith, Steinmetz, and Tenney.

"Super clarinetist" - Mark Swed, L.A. Herald Examiner

Sponsored by the ICA.

Arnold Schoenberg Institute, USC Campus Tickets: $5 advance, $7 after 10/15 and at the door ($4 students with ID, seniors and ICA members). For tickets after 10/15 call (213) 741-7111.

Info call: (213) 743-5362

THE PROGRAM

David Ocker At Sixes and Sevens solo bass clarinet   [listen]

Arthur Jarvinen Carbon solo bass clarinet  [listen]

Donald Martino B,a,b,b,it,t clarinet with extensions  [listen]

James Tenney Monody solo clarinet

William O. Smith Variants solo clarinet

Eric Dolphy, transcribed Ocker God Bless the Child solo bass clarinet [listen]

John Steinmetz DATACOMP Atari 800 computer and bass clarinet

David Ocker The Allegro Fourth Movement from Symphony Number 3 in F opus 90 by Johannes Brahms by David Ocker solo bass clarinet  [listen]

Pyotr Illich Tchaikovsky arr. Ocker Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies solo bass clarinet  [listen]

Sheet music to Carbon and Allegro Fourth Movement etc etc can no longer be purchased from Leisure Planet music.

THE REVIEW

Los Angeles Herald Examiner Saturday November 9, 1985

New Music America

by Mark Swed
Herald music critic

David Ocker's solo clarinet recital at the Schoenberg Institute at USC on Wednesday afternoon represented the finest aspects of the Los Angeles new-music spirit. Ocker is an original, both as clarinetist and composer. I've called him a superclarinetist before -- not because he is the top virtuoso in the business, but for his inspired way of transcending limitations.

Technically, Ocker is good enough: he can finger and tongue his way through difficult, abtuse music. Better yet, he is musical. He made Donald Martino's too rationally disjointed "B,a,b,b,it,t" sound like music; and he did the same with Arthur Jarvinen's irrationally disjointed "Carbon." But that isn't what makes Ocker special.

Ocker, as both a performer and composer, brings to music the kind of personal quality that most professional musicians have had trained out of them. Ocker introduced each work, mostly by telling what it meant to him, and did so with dry humor and without the slightest pretense. He is ever-so-slightly awkward on stage, in his playing and composing, but he turns that awkwardness into something playful and curiously touching

All of this was found in Ocker's own version, for solo clarinet, of the Finale to Brahms' Third Symphony, where he follows Brahms' form and rhythms, but to his own melodies. Ocker said the work was meant to show the epiphany he felt upon first hearing it. It conveys the feeling of singing along with a record, loudly and exuberantly, just for oneself. It turns the art of transcription into modern performance art in an entirely new way that dramatically and spiritually confronts the notion of performing in public.

Ocker is also a funny, self effacing performer, and another highlight of his program was a hilarious spoof on modern music done up as a computer game by John Steinmetz.

Solo Clarinet Recital Tags: David Ocker. . . clarinet. . . bass+clarinet. . . solo recital. . . music critics. . . Mark Saleski. . . Mark Swed. . . New Music America. . . Los Angeles

In Which David Listens to Two Radio Stations Alternately

(This is Mixed Meters' 250th post. But who's counting?)

Sunday is the last day I could play a game I've invented to amuse myself while driving around Los Angeles. The RIAA LATTCRS Game. That stands for Riding In An Auto Listening Alternately To Two Classical Radio Stations Game.


The object of the game is to switch randomly between the two Los Angeles Classical FM stations to create a new piece of music out of whatever is currently being broadcast. For you non Angelenos the two stations are KUSC (which they call Kay You Ess See) and KMZT (which they call Kay Mozart but which I still call KFAC the old commercial classical station.)

The game annoys Leslie. In fact she often complains about a lot of the music I listen to (i.e. my non-game listening). But sometimes the music she plays drives me up a wall too. For example, when she put on a Willie Nelson album I made her take it off after 15 minutes. Another time I'll tell you the story of The Mavericks. Although I like lots of different kinds of musics, country is not one of them.


As in any game this one takes a certain knack. I try to find the right rhythm of button poking based on the tempos and harmonic rhythms of the two pieces. And radio tuner lag must be taken into consideration. Since our car radios are now digitally tuned there is an extra lag time when switching. Analog radios were better.

Mostly the game output is not too interesting. Occasionally something really cool results from the switching back and forth, something much more engaging to me than the classic warhorses by themselves.

Quite often two stations broadcast music which blends copaesthetically. It could be in the same or a related key, or for similar instruments and or just in a similar musical style. Once I even caught them both playing the same piece at the same time although offset by about 10 minutes (was it a Beethoven piano concerto?)


But on Monday, KMZT will stop broadcasting classical music on FM and start broadcasting country music. Leslie will be happy, but I will not. This is economics at work, since we in the classical music audience just aren't young enough any more to merit the big buck advertising budgets. Country music has had no FM radio here for a long time, and that demographic is more desirable, ad revenue will clearly be greater for a country station.

For me personally this switch means the end of my radio game. I've found that it doesn't work well with vocal music and besides not much else on the radio is interesting. KMZT will continue as an AM station which we can't get in Pasadena. And even if it did that would mean 2 buttons to switch from one station to another.



The subject of listening to two radio stations at once has come up in these other fine Mixed Meters moments: In which David Plugs a Song About Hearing 2 Radio Stations at Once and In which David reveals what he listens to while listening to NPR

Some of these pictures came from here and here and here.



2 Station Tags: KMZT. . . KUSC. . . . KKGO . . . .Classical Music. . . coutnry Music. . . Los Angeles. . . FM radio

In which Pop Music Sucks

Pop music all sounds like crap to me. But when I learned that AOL Radio has a station with the 111 worst songs ever, I couldn't resist.
Surprisingly AOL Radio is a nifty service. It's free, runs a tolerable number of commercials, demands very low bandwidth and the sound quality is reasonable. There are a lot of channels, mostly crap, each purified according to musical genetics. My current favorite is Acoustic Blues. I'd also recommend Bollywood.
Go to http://music.aol.com/ click on "AOL RADIO" in the link bar at the top or bottom. Then click on "Launch AOL Radio with XM" from the pull down. A player window will open and click on "Launch AOL Radio" again. "111 Worst Songs" is in the Pop category. Duh!
111 Worst Songs is in "countdown format" I'll just tell you - the worst song ever (according to AOL Radio - and they're really only dealing with a couple decades) is Who Let the Dogs Out. Want to know what the other 110 are? I'll never tell. I've never heard most of them. They all sound like crap to me.

Not interested in pop songs? Here's a video of a cockroach controlling a robot that I found via the WFMU blog. Other robot videos are at the bottom of this post.



Interested in pop songs, sorta? Here are some other "fascinating" Mixed Meters posts dealing vaguely with the subject of popular music, sorta.
Leon Redbone versus Tico Tico
Pandora Radio, Musical Genomes & J.S.Bach


Music Reviews

In which David Doesn't Like Poetry

I've never liked reading poetry - although I've occasionally enjoyed poets reading out loud as long as they were upbeat and funny.

On NPR's Saturday Morning Edition I heard the host, Scott Simon, interview a poet named Edward Hirsch. (Click here and you can hear it too.)

Together they read a poem by someone named William Matthews. I guess it's called "the four subjects of poetry" Here it is:

"1. I went out into the woods today, and it made me feel, you know, sort of religious.

2. We're not getting any younger.

3. It sure is cold and lonely (a) without you, honey, or (b) with you, honey.

4. Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of happiness, and vice versa, and in any case the coin is too soon spent, and on what we know not what."

And I thought - "Yes, that was perfectly expressed. It explains exactly why I don't like poetry."

For no apparent reason I've illustrated the poem with photos from our December 2004 trip to Mexico.

Video?
Relevant: A poet named Mike uses a mike in performance.
On a different note: Fifties Fashion Hats
or top ten foods not to eat in your car (food fight like)

In which Pandora has no Bachs

Pandora is a website that creates online radio stations according to your input. You suggest an artist or a song and starting from there Pandora's software picks a continuous stream of similar music. It decides what is "similar" by referring to data from the Music Genome Project

While I'm naturally suspicious of any effort to co-opt scientific buzzwords as artistic buzzwords, the MGP is a considerable undertaking. Apparently a panel of experts (possibly Wagnerian genomes or unemployed music school graduates) have been listening to a huge number of pieces and rating them for many different musical qualities. For example two pieces that both have "electronica roots, tonal harmonies, melodic part writing, a simple high-hat part, a slow moving bass line and trippy soundscapes" would be assumed to fit together well. (You must suspend your disbelief on that one, I think.)

You can rate each piece the program selects for you in two ways "like it" or "not". If you like it, those particular strands of musical DNA will be given greater preference; if you don't like it the piece disappears from that station for good. Give thumbs down on the same artist or band twice and they disappear forever. It becomes a dead end in intelligently designed musical evolution.

My first attempts at using Pandora struck squarely on its fundamental exceptions - neither world nor classical music is included.

The first thing I typed in was "Karnak" (see my post about Karnak here). Pandora never heard of Karnak. Never having heard of Karnak, I suppose, is better than what happened on Last.fm - a site with another music-suggestion scheme. Last.fm couldn't differentiate between the Brazilian Karnak and an Italian death-metal band called Karnak. (Their album is called Melodies of Sperm Composed.) That was the last time I tried last.fm.

Then I gave Pandora the word "Bach" The only thing it could find was some very non-baroque music called "B.A.C.H." by Dierdre - two songs later I was listening to Bjork.

I typed in "John Cage" and the first song was by Esquivel, the master of 50's Space Age Bachelor Pad Music. That is a combination that merits further research.

I was more successful with "Big Bad Voodoo Daddy" - and with a few thumbs up and down I had a steady stream of classic swing.

Even more successful were the seed words "Frank Zappa". After I explained that I did NOT want to listen to Peter Frampton, Chicago or the Grateful Dead, Pandora started giving me tracks by bands I'd never heard of and many of those were very interesting. Based only on single tracks I actually purchased three albums. My reaction to those groups, More Dogs, Combustible Edison and the Lonesome Organist, will have to wait for a future posting.

I made successful stations starting with the Gotan Project (electronica meets tango, highly recommended) and Henry Flynt (imagine a country fiddler playing Violin Phase). If you go to Pandora you can click on "share", type in my email address (docker1 at ix dot netcom dot com) and actually access my stations. It'll be much more fun for you, however, to start your own.

Music Reviews

In which David Tunes In Around the Globe

Here are two very different Internet Radio stations I've rediscovered lately - and neither has commercials or announcers.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Bollywood movie music. Best for people who don't mind mixing pop styles with Indian rhythms. Good thing I can't understand the words. Bollywood Music Radio

Radio Darvish plays traditional Persian Music. Geographically I guess that's not so far from India - a few time zones. Musically this is quite a distance.


While we're on the subject of Persian music, might I suggest The Hidden Sacred, an album by the group Dark Wing (which includes my friend, percussionist and composer David Johnson). Hearing this album performed live was a highpoint of my Christmas-season music. David's site is here, Lian Records sells them.


Music Reviews

In which David enjoys vintage absurd humor

Consider Man On The Street interviews.

Often used as filler in TV news. Fake ones are staples of misleading commercials. (My favorite line "They're giving it away free? It must be good.")

But how about interviewing unsuspecting people and presenting them with absurd situations? If you think that might be funny you should know about Coyle and Sharpe.

That would be James P. Coyle (in front) and Mal Sharpe (the other one). They were radio comedians in San Francisco during the sixties (not evil assistants to President Nixon as the picture might suggest).

Click here for The Official Coyle & Sharpe Webpage - you'll find audio and video. It's more amusing and droll than this blog.

Media

In which David is driven to the Rite of Spring by Ravel's Bolero

A few days ago Leslie and I were driving home. The radio came on to the opening flute solo of Ravel's Bolero. I intoned (in my best WFMT-style-stuffy-classical-music-announcer voice) "And now our daily performance of Ravel's Bolero."

Turns out that Bolero improved my experience of driving down California Blvd. in Pasadena, very pleasant. At the end the announcer said (in her best perky-I-used-to-work-on-a-Classic-Rock-station voice) "We get a lot of calls for that."

This reminded me of two times in my distant past when Stravinsky's Rite of Spring became the Perfect Driving Music.

I was on California Highway 1 in Big Sur, the twisty-as-a-television-commercial-for-an-expensive-car highway squeezed between the sea and mountains. As I drove and listened, a storm rolled in. The waves and clouds and wind and music combined perfectly.

The second time I was driving on Chicago's freeway system for the first time, not knowing exactly where I was going. Rush hour. Cars were cutting and swerving, signs were whooshing past. Everything was grey and gloomy. The Rite blended in with the impervious metal and cement of Chicago just as well as it had with the imposing rocks and ocean in Big Sur.

Both trips included a bit of danger. Neither was an easy drive for me. But in spite of environmental differences, the music had a nearly identical effect.

Speaking of Ravel's Bolero - there was an article in the recent Wired magazine about a deaf man who can only hear because of a computerized implant in his brain. He desperately wants to listen to Bolero. The software isn't good at distinguishing pitch so he tries to upgrade the software in his head. I bet it makes you appreciate your own hearing.


Music Reviews
Stories

In which David Plugs a Song About Hearing 2 Radio Stations at Once

I've talked about how I listen to NPR (with a Tango radio playing simultaneously).

I heard a 2-minute novelty song on WFMU today which refers to listening to two radio stations simultaneously.

It's called Jazz versus Rock & Roll (yeah, that's the title) by Woody Byrd. I'm guessing it's a product of the 50's. It's on Jaro records.

The singer tells how he and his girlfriend disagree on music - he's all-jazz and she's all-rock. Little snippets in the music illustrate. Their conflict escalates until both are always blasting their own stations. You can hear this in the tune. (It's only slightly Cageian.)

As in any good song, the conflict is resolved at the end. I won't say how. My Grandmother would have approved.

Go to Todd-o-phonic Todd's archive page at WFMU , play the show from October 22, 2005. Jazz vs. Rock & Roll starts at 29 minutes and 35 seconds.

Music Reviews

In which David tests his liberalism in a trial by radio

A few months ago this billboard appeared in Pasadena. "I'm a Liberal," I thought, "Let's find out."

They were right. I didn't like it. But not because of what they said.

I agreed with about half of what I heard. Half the facts. Half the conclusions. Sometimes a true fact was even matched with a logical conclusion.

But two aspects made me hate this station. Just like other talk radio I've heard - including the left-wing Air America.

First - I hated the commercials. Radio commercials generally suck, but these fell off the scale. Many are personal endorsements. Buying new windows and gold coins is supposedly very important. Hucksterism destroys these guys credibility.

And there's a lot of commercial time. Waiting for the actual talk to resume was unbearable. (I can withstand television ads better because I like video effects and I enjoy parsing the sublimnal plotlines.)

Second - I hated the attitude. The hosts and guests and callers were always - always - angry and offended about something. Either these guys actually have a personality like that (probably bad for their life expectancy) or they put on the attitude intentionally to keep listeners from tuning out during the endless commercials (that would be very cynical).

So I'm back to listening to NPR. By comparison it's like a court of law.


Politics
Media

In which David plugs Ham Hocks and Cornbread

No, not food. Hamhocks and Cornbread is a set of 4 compact discs published by JSP Records with 118 R&B tracks from the late forties through the early fifties, about the time I was busy being born.

Think Honkers and Shouters. Saxophones and Boogie Beats. Up Tempo and High Energy. Seems to be one track per artist. Not many household names. Great Stuff. I'm hooked.

I bought mine at Overstock.com for about $20. My second 4-disc set from the period - I recommend the other one too - The Big Horn (The History of Honkin' & Screamin' Saxophone) on Proper Records. There are lots more sets like these that I have my eye on.

And if you need an intro to this style I suggest Fools Paradise on WFMU. (It's a radio show on Saturday afternoons, easy to hear on the net & it's archived - listen anytime.)


Music Reviews
Media

In which David reveals what he listens to while listening to NPR

Tango music. Yep, I listen to two audio tracks simultaneously. The emotional tango music makes a great background soundtrack for the "drama" of the news broadcast.

The tangos are mixed down in volume - just like a movie score.

I listen to local NPR broadcast mixed with a web broadcast from Radio Tango

Batanga Radio has another fine tango stream.


Media
Music Review
Stories
Tango