Wednesday, October 25, 2006

More Mali, that's my motto!

I suppose I need to do more than listen to NPR and post links to music I like, but I can't pass sharing this one. Salif Keita is certainly not a young Malian rocker, but the interview is insightful. I love hearing musicians talk about what their music means to them, particularly as it relates to change in them and their society. I saw him in London last winter and it was a fantastic show. First numbers were acoustic, lulling you into thinking he was old. But he was bouncing around the stage like a 10-year-old (with 50 people from the audience) by the time it was over. It wasn't a good show to be trapped in the balcony.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Not art!

I went to go see the five-story slide last weekend. Clearly I was a moron for going on Sunday afternoon as I had to stand in line for 1.5 hours for the small slide. There were more kids in the Tate Modern than I had ever seen before, but there should been a mandatory trip through one of the galleries before they could go down the slide. Yeah, that’s a good idea! Force them to see art before play on the slides!

Friday's NPR piece, while trying to be objective, shows that nobody sees the artist value except the woman who is promoting it, thus validating my initial concern that it is just a playground in an art museum. Looks cool and will increase sales in the cafes and shops, but it didn't do as much for me as those white boxes by Rachel Whiteread. Now that was art.

Save yourself waiting in line and just checkout NPR's videos going down each slide. How did they sneak that camera in? Clearly a violation of Tate rules, those cheeky NPR bastards.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Song of the Day (a few days ago)

Nuru Kane was a great find a few months ago when Songlines magazine put one of his tracks on their monthly CD. NPR highlighted him as the song of the day last week, so you can get a sample. Also on my space.