Making a List, Checking it Twice
It’s the time of year again when everybody makes “best of” lists. So what’s yours? CDs? Concerts? Meals? Books?
The concert of the year for me, of course, was the Sequenza21 event which, I believe, exceeded everyone’s expectations in terms of attendance and quality of performances. I’ll be making my list of best CDs soon.
Who’s got something?
Discs that I bought this year (regardless as to its release date):
R. Murray Schaffer: String Quartets 1-7; String Quartet No.8 (Molinari Quartet)
John Cage: Eight, Two, One4 (Megadisc)
Steve Reich: Different Trains; Marc Mellits: String Quartet No.2 (Duke Quartet; Black Box)
Lou Harrison: Chamber and Gamelan Works (New World reissue of original CRI release)
Morton Feldman: Complete Works for Violin/Viola & Piano (Christine Fong & Paul Hersey; OgreOgress)
For Feldman (Feldman/Beardsley/Kotlowy/Toub/Porkchop; Ragzen Quartet; OgreOgress)
Jurg Frey: String Quartets 1&2 (Quatuor Bozzini)
Stuff I recorded off the radio:
Kevin Volans: String Quartet No.10; Piano Concerto (see below)
Brian Ferneyhough: String Quartet No.5
Live performances:
Morton Feldman: String Quartet No.2 (4/15/06, LA County Museum of Art, Flux Quartet)
Morton Feldman: King of Denmark/For Samuel Beckett (10/2/06, Mills College, Oakland)
Kevin Volans: Atlantic Crossing – Concerto for Piano & Orchestra (11/15/06, San Francisco Symphony)
Del Sol Quartet (sometime in May in San Francisco; played R. Murray Schaffer’s String Quartet No.3 and others)
Baseball games (my wife and I went to quite a few; these stuck out most):
June 17, 2006, Oakland Coliseum, A’s vs. LA Dodgers (17 innings, about as long as the Feldman SQ2; the A’s won 5-4 in the bottom of the 17th with a bases-loaded walk)
Sept. 24, 2006, AT&T Park (formerly SBC Park, formerly PacBell Park, formerly String-&-Dixie-Cup Park), San Francisco, Giants vs. Arizona Diamonbacks (Giants won 4-2 in the bottom of the ninth with a walkoff two-run homer by Moises Alou, last home win to cap a somewhat miserable season (and it just only might get worse for 2007 – they’ve signed Bonds for yet ANOTHER year)
ARGH! I tried to resist as long as I could… really, I did. But I’m male, and someone said “list” – and I couldn’t stop myself. So here goes.
Some of these didn’t actually came out in 2006, but these are the “best of the year” of what was new to my collection, at least.
Music:
David Shea – Una Nota Solo
Robbie Draco Rosa – Vagabundo (like Prince, Los Lobos, and QOTSA rolled into one. AND he’s the guy who wrote & produced “Livin’ La Vida Loca” – dude is gonna be a HUGE crossover star someday, if he wants to.)
Queens of the Stone Age – Lullabies to Paralyze
Jim Fox – Descansos, past (Cold Blue CD-single)
Alan Jackson – Like Red on a Rose (there’s some filler on there, but the great songs more than make up for the weak ones.)
Opeth – Ghost Reveries (yeah, it’s all proggy and whatnot, but it’s got that cool Greg Rollie style B3. I’ve never heard Death Metal groove this much.)
Neil Young – Live at the Fillmore East, 1970 (no explanation needed.)
Marilyn Crispell, Gary Peacock & Paul Motion – Nothing Ever Was, Anyway (1997) & Amaryllis (2001) (how I missed these two when they came out, I dunno)
Laurence Crane – Old Life was Rubbish (Not on CD, but streaming free at Ensemble KORE’s website)
John Fahey – Live at Berkeley 1996 (DVD)
Matmos – The Rose Has Teeth
Jerry Garcia absolutely ripping apart “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” on some unlabelled CD a friend left at my place. Sounds early, like ’68 or so. Jeez, all the baggage attached to the Dead sometimes you forget how tremendous they (well, Garcia at least) could be…
The collected works of Turbonegro, who I’d somehow never heard before.
Music (Live):
Fred Frith’s May & June sets at The Stone, especially Stone, Brick, Glass, Wood, Wire in June.
Two-Story Double-Wide at Hank’s Saloon
Darcy & The Secret Society (those who haven’t been yet, oughta)
Alan Jackson playing “Like Red On a Rose” on the Tonight Show (w/ Alison Krauss and Jerry Douglas) – how many country singers, in 2006, still understand the concept of “subtlety”? Heir to the throne of George Jones.
Bradley Kemps’s Air Around at the Capital M “World Premieres Extravaganza”
Best show I didn’t see ’cause I’m an idiot and was doing something else (which was probably watching wrestling, knowing me) that night:
Rhys Chatham at Issue Project.
As to other stuff..
Movies:
United 93, by a mile. But also…
Little Children
The Departed
Lassie, which I took a friend’s kid to see expecting to be bored silly – well surprise, surprise. Mainly on account of Peter Dinklage’s performance, which I’m sure will be overlooked come Oscar time.
…and I gotta say Casino Royale was pretty awesome. But I only saw it a couple days ago, so I dunno how it’ll age.
Books:
I’ll tell ya when I finish the new Pynchon.
Re-reading Huckleberry Finn for the 112th time.
Moment:
When they finally called Virginia for Jim Webb. I was running around singing “America, Fuck Yeah!” (from Team America: World Police) for hours. Sipping Lagavulin 16 at Gramercy Tavern that night, stuffed with grilled pork belly and foie gras, and all was right in the world.
Well, okay, the pig and the goose probably weren’t thrilled with the stuation.
I’ll spare y’all the rest of the lists… (“best wrestling matches”, “best Welcome Back Kotter rerun”, “best movies I can’t print the titles of in a family publication”,etc etc etc…)
Best of 2006:
John Adams: Dharma and Charles Ives Nonesuch
Evan Ziporyn : Frog’s Eye Canteloupe
Philip Glass :Symphony No.8 Orange Mountain Music
Margeret Brouwer :Auorolucent circles Naxos
Philp Glass:Concerto
Best o
Best of 2006
John Adams:Dharma and Charles Ives Nonesuch
Evan Ziporyn: Frog’s Eye Canteloupe
Phylip Glass: Symphony No.8 Orange Mountain Music
Philip Glass: Concerto Project Volume 2 Orange Mountain Music
Margeret Brouwer Aurolucent Circles Naxos
Jay Greenberg Symphony No,5 and Quintet Sony
I’ll probably get my list of best CDs together in a more formal way on my blog, but here’s a quick list off the top of my head:
* For Feldman (OgreOgress) (really an audio DVD, not a CD, but it’s really great!)
* new music studio/uj zenei studio
* women composers (Tomoko Mukaiyama, piano)
* Mikrokosmos (Jeno Jando, piano)
* Exercise (Christian Wolff)
Most of the stuff I got this year technically wasn’t new for 2006, unfortunately.