My intended playlist (and some notes) for my day as DJ, in the “HiFi Listening Room” at SFMOMA, August 2, 2024

Over the course of the day I had some (not enough) vinyl, but mostly I had CDs. Music I couldn’t fill with those media (or if a backup was required) I could stream, using a wireless interface provided (with some limitation).

I also made or had LP-sized cover art for each album, and I posted it for the audience to see while the albums played. Occasionally people would come over to me while a track was playing and look at the cover art and chat for moment or two, especially if the same music left a strong impression on them at some point.

BTW: Some of the streamable links in the playlists, below, weren’t used because I had some of the same music on CDs or vinyl.

Notes/statements for intro

I compose New Music, a term that’s totally lost its meaning today. But it goes by many other names, some you may have heard of or know:

  • Tape Music,
  • Musique Concrète,
  • Found Sound
  • Experimental,
  • Electroacoustic, Electronic  (but very different than “EDM”),
  • Acousmatic
  • Noise

just to scratch the genre/name surface that’s blossomed over the last 80 years.

Today is my musical calendar. I’ll more or less present music in the order in which it “came into my life” — when it took root in my budding/nascent “composer-mind”.

Throughout the 60s, starting around age 9 (1963), I lived on parallel tracks. One was classical music (played guitar specifically), the other was rock (played bass guitar)

I was first introduced to most of the music I’ll play between the ages of about 15 to 20.

(I’m thinking I”ll go through it in roughly the chronological order of the “meetings”.)

The late-1960s influences – my ages 13-18

You can hear tints and hints of “outside” and “straight-ahead” Jazz 

  • King Crimson 
  • Soft Machine
  • Frank Zappa

You can definitely hear concrete and tape music, electronic and acousmatic music

 and the bizarre oozing through for example the musics of

  • The Beatles – who were themselves tuned into the New Music
  • Jimi Hendrix
  • Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

My music – sprinkle some in, but the playlist is about those who’ve inspired me.

Maroc – 19:00

Combustible – 7:00

Flags, Riggings and Floors – 4:30

Here’s the playlist

Andrés Segovia

Bach Cello Suite No. 6 in D Maj (BMV 1012) – 4:00

Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G Maj (BMV 1007) – 2:20

Bach/Anonymous – Lute Suite in E Minor – 1:33

Jimi Hendrix – Psychedelic (definition of); power trio (def of) — VINYL

Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding, Mitch Mitchell

Electric Ladyland 1968

“1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) – 13:00

travel through psychedelia to acousmatic.

Cream – power trio (def of); Blues based; high-psychedlia — CD

Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baken

Wheels of Fire 1968

White Room – 5:00 (slower)

Politician – 4:10 (andante)

Those Were the Days – 3:00

Crossroads – 4:20King Crimson 

 VINYL

Robert Fripp, Gordon Haskell, Keith Tippet, Jon Anderson, Mel Collins

Lizard (1970 – sophomore in high school)

Cirkus – 6:30 (energetic)

Indoor Games – 5:40 

Happy Family – 4:20

Lady of the Dancing Water – 2:50 (slow ballad)

Mothers of Invention / Frank Zappa 

Absolutely Free – 1967—  VINYL

Plastic People – 3:40

The Duke of Prunes – 2:12

[[[ Amnesia Vivace – 1:00

The Duke Regains His Chops – 1:45

Call Any Vegetable – 2:20 ]]]

Uncle Meat – 1969 — CD

Uncle Meat: Main Title Theme – 2:00

The Voice of Cheese – 0:30

Nine Types of Industrial Pollution – 6:00

Zolar Czaki – 1:00

Dog Breath, In The Year Of The Plague 4:00

The Legend Of The Golden Arches – 3:30

Louie Louie – Live at the Royal Albert Hall – 2:20

The Dog Breath Variations – 2:00

Sleeping in a Jar – 1:00

Our Bizarre Relationship  – 1:00

The Uncle Meat Variations – 5:00

Electric Aunt Jemima – SKIP TRACK 12

Prelude to King Kong – SKIP TRACK 13

God Bless America – Live at Whiskey A Go Go – 1:15

A Pound For A Brown On The Bus – 1:30

Ian Underwood Whips It Out In Copenhagen – 5:00

Mr. Green Genes – 3:15

We Can Shoot You – 2:03

———— MAYBE STOP AFTER THAT ———

If We’d All Been Living in California – 1:15

The Air – 3:00

Project X – 5:00

Cruisin For Burgers – 2:20

Frank Zappa — VINYL

Hot Rats – 1969 – whole thing – 44:00

An ear-opening education (CalArts 1972-75) — ages 18-21

Edgar Varèse — CD

  • Ionisation – 6:15
  • Density 21.5 – 3:30
  • Intégrales – 10:30
  • Déserts – 25:30 [Completed the year I was born, 1954]
  • (others later if needed)

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) – SPOTIFY

Quatre Études de rythme (Four Rhythm Studies) is a set of four piano compositions by Olivier Messiaen, written in 1949 and 1950.

Luciano Berio — VINYL

Sinfonia – (Side 2) — 15:00

PIerre Schaefer — CD (mine)

Cinq Etudes de Bruits (5 studies of noises) – first “published” Tape Music – 

HOME BURNED CD – 16:00

(Wikipedia)The five études were composed in 1948 and are the earliest pieces of musique concrète, a form of electroacoustic music first theorized by Schaeffer that utilizes recorded sounds as the primary compositional resource.

The five études were composed at the studio Schaeffer established at RTF (now ORTF), the Studio d’Essai in Paris. They are:[1]

  1. Étude aux chemins de fer – trains[2][3]
  2. Étude aux tourniquets – toy tops and percussion instruments[4]
  3. Étude violette – piano sounds recorded for Schaeffer by Pierre Boulez
  4. Étude noire – piano sounds recorded for Schaeffer by Boulez
  5. Étude pathétique – sauce pans, canal boats, singing, speech, harmonica, piano

The works were premiered via a broadcast on 5 October 1948, titled Concert de bruits.[5][6]

Iannis Xenakis — CDs

  • Syrmos – 11:45 — CD (commercial, track 5)
  • Concret PH – 3:00 — CD (commercial, Tracks 2 & 3)
  • Orient Occident – 11:30
  • Karlheinz Stockhausen — CD & SPOTIFY
  • Kontakte – 1958-60 – 35:00 — CD Track 3
  • Gesang der Jünglingen – 1955-56 – 13:14 — SPOTIFY

boy soprano (Josef Protschka) and tape

Kurzwellen (Shortwave) – 1968 – 50:00 — SPOTIFY

Aloys Kontarsky, piano; Alfred Alings and Rolf Gehlhaar, tamtam,

Johannes Fritsch, viola, Harald Bojé, electronium, K. Stockhausen, filters

and potentiometers

György Ligeti — SPOTIFY

Atmosphères – 1961 – 9:05 – Used in Kubricks’s 2001 A Space Odyssey 

Wiener Philharmonika (Claudio Abbado)

Volumina – 17:30 

Gerd Zacher

Luc Ferrari — CD (mine)

Far-West News – 1 HOUR

Steve Reich — SPOTIFY

Violin Phase (tape an violin) – 1967 – 15:20

Bernard Parmegiani — SPOTIFY

De Natura Sonorum – 1975

tape

Part 1 – 28:00

—> Part 2 – 25:00 <— do this one if you have to choose btw the two

Miles Davis — VINYL

Miles Davis, Bennie Maupin, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, Joe Zawinul, Dave Holland, Harvey Brooks, Chick Corea

Bitches Brew – 1970

Bitches Brew – 27:00Cecil Taylor Unit Structures – 1966 Enter, Evening -10:00 (off the Unit Structures album that was on Blue Note Records) https://open.spotify.com/track/1fhssVj5465AYKpfHy0A9P?si=3e1fcdbb35c94113

Weather Report — VINYL

Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Miroslav Vitous, Airto Moreira, Alphonse Mouzon

Weather Report – 1971 – 40:00

My continual inspirations — 1980s, 1990s and beyond

Curtis Roads — SPOTIFY

Point Line Cloud 2005 

link to whole album – pick some

  • Half Life – Pts 1 and 2 – 9:00
  • Sonal Atoms
  • Granules

Horacio Vaggione

24 Variations – 10:00 — SPOTIFY

From Fluides — CD (mine) 

  • Consort for Convolved Violins – 9:00
  • Préludes suspendus III – 7:00
May 2024 blog entry promoting my DJ day

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