Elsewhere…
Still from a Koratron television ad, 1960s
- Chris Sievey, the inventor of Frank Sidebottom and leader of The Freshies, died Monday of cancer. He was 54. Mark Radcliffe of BBC4: [Sievey was] one of the very few people I have ever met in my life who I would call a genius. He was so creative, so brimming full of ideas, and it wasn’t just his act, he lived his life as an elaborate extended act. It wasn’t just the gig that was always fun with Chris, it was the whole day. One time we were talking about travel games and he decided that a good idea would be travel snooker. The next gig we went to, which was in London, he’d brought one that he was developing with Velcro balls. We went from Timperley to London in a van with a snooker table in the middle of it, which meant there was barely any room to sit. [BBC]
- James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, interviewed by Joe Colly: So I just think it takes a couple decades to kind of clear your brain now. So it makes more sense to me that I could find my footing when I was 30 instead of when I was 19. It seems a little more clear. You know, novelists are older now. Things are happening later in people’s lives. They’re kind of living lives and then creating things about the lives they’ve lived. Rather than being an artiste at an early age and coming out with a ball of fire. That energy has been co-opted because you haven’t immunized yourself yet against media. It’s easier to get swept up things then take a couple of years to get over your, like, indie rock hangover. I’m scraping the fucking Quarterstick Records crust out of my eyes when I’m like, 27. You know, “Why am I playing in 5/7? How is that fun?” [Pitchfork]
- Trevor Cox on the instrument of choice at the 2010 World Cup: The vuvuzela is like a straightened trumpet and is played by blowing a raspberry into the mouthpiece. The player’s lips open and close about 235 times a second, sending puffs of air down the tube, which excite resonance of the air in the conical bore. A single vuvuzela played by a decent trumpeter is reminiscent of a hunting horn—but the sound is less pleasing when played by the average football fan, as the note is imperfect and fluctuates in frequency. It sounds more like an elephant trumpeting. This happens because the player does not keep the airflow and motion of the lips consistent. “But that din sounds nothing like a trumpet or an elephant.” When hundreds of the vuvuzelas are played together, you get the distinctive droning sound. People in the crowd are blowing the instrument at different times and with slightly varying frequencies. The sound waxes and wanes. The overall effect is rather like the sound of a swarm of insects. [New Scientist]
New York—June 2010