The end of long-winded musicology for a while. Why almost all long-form music stinks, but Tales From Topographic Oceans isn’t as bad as you think.

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 […]

More deep musicology. Beethoven loved his chicken, but hated the price. Brahms and his prostitutes. Tchaikovsky is fetching in ballet tights. Maybe next time, we’ll get to why any of this matters to prog-lovers everywhere.

Roger CortonSo in our last, fun filled episode we, well, you went on about all this musicological stuff. Which begs the question, why should we care about any of that?

JCHWell, you shouldn’t. It’s really up to me.

RC

JCHLook, everyone who talks about anything, has to have the arrogance that what they are speaking about is of interest to their audience. And I get sick of the false humility of saying otherwise. People are so concerned about coming across as pompous that they never say anything.

RCMy aren’t we defensive today.

JCHWell, what I do, a bit of musicology is probably in order. If I was doing punk, maybe not so much.

RCAlthough there is that great new book boys “Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, […]

In which we discuss why they don’t write ’em like Beethoven anymore. Including Dada, Beat poets, hip hop and William Burroughs. Next time, we’ll get to why it matters to prog-lovers everywhere.

Roger CortonSo your Seahawks did it again?

JCHThey ain’t my Seahawks. I can’t stand that neon green.

RCThen you must’ve been a lonely guy today.

JCHI heard Garrison say something funny… “For people who don’t like football, the Superbowl is like Christmas for Jews.” Which is true. Man, if you wanted to book a table at the most exclusive restaurant in town, today would be the day. You could probably drag race on I-5 and not get a ticket.

RCI thought you had sworn off radio for a while?

JCHMostly. One other thing I heard was a re-run BBC documentary on William Burroughs.

RCI didn’t know you were a Naked Lunch kind of guy?

JCHMost definitely not. But it’s a great […]