As we prepare for the summer tour we ponder: whatever happened to space in recorded music? Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Lounge Music. Esquivel.

Roger CortonFirst date is coming up fast. How’s the practice going?

JCHPretty great. Haven’t broken one nail yet.

RCI’ll alert the media. You’re always talking about those little practical details. But is there anything more exciting we can tell fans about the shows?

JCHSorry, but that’s what I focus on. A broken nail isn’t just a comic punch line. It can ruin a show. Out of control nose hair is pretty bad too. But as far as ‘excitement’? Stereo. I’m gonna try to make everything wider than a mile.

RCYou’re covering Breakfast At Tiffany’s?

JCHI wish I was covering Audrey Hepburn right now. And the song is Moon River.

RCIsn’t she dead?

JCHYeah, but even when she was like seventy I woulda given some minor body part (one of the many that […]

A different way of valuing music. The broccoli gap between the physical and the plastic arts.

JCHSo some guy just paid $175 Million for a painting. Think of that.

Roger CortonAnd why does that bug you so much?

JCHThat’s not even the thing that bugs me. The guy plans to lend the thing to a museum so they can put it on display.

RCAgain, why does that bug you?

JCHIt’s about value. $175 million for a painting… or rather just to say ‘that’s my painting’. It doesn’t do anything. It’s all about ownership.

RCLast try, why does that bug you?

JCHIt makes me think about just how devalued music is and why that is.

RCTangible assets?

JCHExactly. The idiot…

RCThe rich idiot.

JCH…the rich idiot gets to say ‘I own this’. I think it’s nothing more complex than that. A painting is a physical object. But music? An art based on time […]

Can music be brutal anymore? Do we think differently in other languages? Jonathan Franzen. Beethoven wants to punish you, just like Larks Tongues In Aspic

Valentines Day, but we’re talking about a lot of death instead. Phil Levine, David Carr. Richard Schurr. We pay tribute to a great teacher. Why music teachers matter. What makes a great teacher.

Roger CortonHappy Valentine’s Day

JCHIt doesn’t feel particularly Valentine-y today. In fact it’s been kind of weird this week. It’s been the week where a lot of vaguely related people passed away.

RCVaguely related?

JCHYeah you know that six degrees of separation thing? Well this is like a bunch of people at the fifth degree. For example, Richard Schurr, you know the NPR radio “Says You”. I was in the band a couple of times. He died. And so did Gerry Ríann.

RCWho?

JCHHe was one of the last great Se´n Nós singers (ed. note: Se´n Nós is traditional solo singing in the Irish. Many of the songs go back hundreds of years. The term literally means ‘old song’.) Gerry was like the Ralph […]