music clip of the day

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Here—with a shout-out to my brother Don, with whom (at the age of 15) I saw the MC5  in Chicago’s Lincoln Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention (when nobody outside the Detroit/Ann Arbor area [including us] knew who they were)—is an awfully good cover, from what might seem an unlikely source, of one of their “greatest hits.”

Jeff Buckley, “Kick Out The Jams,” live, Chicago, 1995

And here, courtesy, apparently, of the Department of Defense, is (silent) footage of the scene in Lincoln Park on August 25, 1968—the day the MC5 (who appear here fleetingly) played.

(Originally posted 9/7/09.)

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lagniappe

on the road

Last night, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I’ve been since Sunday, I heard a concert, on the Harvard campus, of contemporary music featuring two different groups (Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble and Ensemble SurPlus) and works by six different composers, including Morton Feldman and John Luther Adams (who was present). Virtually every time I hear live music—last night was no exception—I leave thinking that I really need to do this more often. I love recordings, but live music breathes.

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Tonight, in Boston, I’ll be in the front row for this production of Merchant of Venice. Tomorrow I’m seeing a series of short works by Samuel Beckett, directed by the legendary Peter Brook. So that’s three straight days of live music. (What’s theater, after all, if not musical speech?)

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