the emeticmedic

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

A new academic year dawns and it's as good a time as any to return to blogging about the progress of my thesis work. It has been a busy summer, continuing to shoot material, as well as logging tape and planning for our tip to Puerto Rico in December. I am also working on getting a website online with more content, which should hopefully be forthcoming.

I just returned from Denver the week before last, covering the DNC for NY1. I'm finally getting back to normal, or at least trying to. Thought I might share a few pics from the trip.

You can view more at www.kodakgallery.com/mpmann_photos.

I spent the past weekend back home in Newark, NY where I grew up, helping my parents get some work done on their house, since they are soon looking to downsize. My oldest brother, John, was in town from Orlando to offer a hand as well. I took the opportunity to spend some time documenting the gathering, in order to contrast the confluence of my wife's family, which I have spent a good deal of time documenting over the last few months. I had the opportunity to discuss with my parents some of their knowledge of our family history, while thumbing through some old photos. My brother John, who spent fours years in the Marine Corps out of high school, spoke of his experience stationed in Scotland, researching that line of our family's ancestry. I have spent quite a bit of time considering how to include my own story into this project, which was the impetus for this project, though not the focus. It is my own line of inquiry that will drive the story, and I think that it is my lack of connection and knowledge about my family history that has driven me to want to understand how and why my wife's family has managed to keep their mixture of cultures so vital and integral to their own traditions.

As a side note, I found this link to offer a good explanation of Scottish clans and a listing of the different clan names, including Gunn of Kilernan, which is where my brother was able to trace our roots back to: www.motherbedford.com/scottishclans.htm.

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Music

Grizzly Bear- Veckatimest- This is one of those indie bands with an odd name that you might just overlook, but after downloading the popular single "Two Weeks" I was hooked. From the opening piano notes and the fantastic vocal harmonies, the sound is unique from the get-go. These days, it seems the sky is the limit with all kinds of digital tools at ones fingertips, but it still takes a certain talent and ingenuity to make an album stand out in the sea of music that we're inundated with. I loved that first taste so much, I had to have more, so I picked up the rest of the album and was not disappointed. There are a few tracks like "Southern Point" and "While You Wait for the Others" that immediately stand out, while the rest needs time for you to properly soak it up. It's definitely worth the time.
The Who-Who's Next- As part of this process of reclaiming the music of the past, I occasionally add something I once had on vinyl or cassette, or just remember listening to in the days before ipods, and capturing it digitally for the ease of listening. I recently added this classic album to the my iTunes playlist, and of course, there's not much more that you can say to describe it besides just calling it a classic. Unquestionably one of the best rock albums of all time, even nearly 4 decades later, it doesn't feel the least bit dated to me. The sounds from Pete Townsend's driving guitars, to Keith Moon's explosive percussion and Roger Daltrey's iconic lead vocals, not to mention the experimentation with synthesizers (in a good way), there is nothing else quite like this in the Who catalog, or in any other band's catalog before or since.
The Swell Season- Strict Joy- This just came out a couple months ago, and I caught the song "Feeling the Pull" on the All Songs Considered Podcast. It hooked me immediately and stayed in my head for a few days, so I checked out the rest of the album from Frames' founder Glen Hansard, who collaborated here with Once co-star Marketa Irglova. The rest of it is as strong as the song that hooked me, though understated in today's landscape of layered, electronic pastiche. There is a lot to sink your teeth into here, and with the saturation of music out there, that isn't always true.
Blakroc- I've been into the work that the Black Keys and Dan Auerbach have been putting out for a while, but this is an interesting new direction. Black Keys sound, with hip-hop artists like Q-Tip, Mos Def and Raekwon dropping rhymes over a bluesy mix, it has a very eclectic sound that is right up my alley. A lot of the rap music world turns me off lyrically, with the glorification of drugs, violence, misogyny and homophobia, but musically I'm very drawn to the sounds that are coming out the genre. It just so happens that it all comes together here, with some of the few hip hop artists whose work I really enjoy, collaborating in a really inventive way with some talented musicians from a totally different world.