Monday, November 16, 2009

the good news, bad news show

argh... just seems to be one damn thing after another at the moment... as will be explained below. first, the good news, which came to me a few weeks ago now, via a mailshot from leo records: this tantalising new release, just in time for the festive season (i think i may be about to treat myself). as far as i know, these two master musicians have not been captured in duet before; indeed, off the top of my head i don't know of any braxton recordings featuring leandre other than the victoriaville 1988 septet performance. good news for sure!

the bad news... well... my computer has been struggling gamely along for a few months now despite obvious virus damage - until recently, when it pretty much packed up on me. that left us with nothing apart from my wife's shagged-out old laptop, which itself is more or less on its last legs and will only support a web browser so primitive that it won't let me use blogger at all. so, if you've been wondering why i went all silent again... that's why. hopefully the desktop will soon be fixed and i can get typing again. the desire is there. meanwhile, here i am in a public library just for a few mins, no time even to pass on my latest musings on the lewis book... not yet. (i can still check email, so feel free to leave comments!)

13 comments:

Rick Lopez said...

Get a Mac, then please do the 4tet section, because I need to read it. I have the Crispell Sessionography here ::: http://www.bb10k.com.
I'll beg later, right now I'm just softly whining.
Thanks for the blog.

Anonymous said...

bad news: nothing personal.

good news:

http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=344

ANTHONY BRAXTON
Diamond Curtain Wall Trio play Frankfurt
Live at 40th Deutsches Jazzfestival, hr-Sendesaal, Frankfurt, Germany, October 30, 2009

... ltd. time only! ;)

cheers, lucky!

centrifuge said...

hello guys :) - rick, i feel quite privileged that a respected sessionographer like you would leave a comment on my blog. you (and others like you) are such an invaluable asset to the creative music community! to have you softly whining over there, well, that's very flattering. by the 4tet section i take it you mean the rest of '76/phase three (or four i think i decided it was..!), rather than the '85 group which is a dot on a distant horizon at the moment... a very *busy* dot, by the looks of it ;-)

the computer "should" be working again soon... fwiw the aforementioned spousal laptop (which saw us round europe etc) is a mac, or rather an apple... yes, very nice in many ways but we certainly didn't find it free of problems or stress - ! (it's true that macs are rarely targeted by hackers and virus-geeks, on the other hand.)

*lucky* - thanks, you are the second one to point me in the direction of that, the same concert which pablo posted at folly.., i believe (though not the same recording) - i can't download it on this computer!! argffhfh. ok, i've been very patient but it is getting on my tits now, i really would like to listen to this...

Unknown said...

Hi Cent!

Only want to know how you are, you three, of course!
Hope everything is right. And hope that your computer begin to work soon.
Is possible to send mails to you? will you able to open them (with the annoying mac)?

Hey what do you have against mac? As owner from 1995 I can tell you… I actually hate the fucking apple, but you know… I can't live without "her"…

See you soon?

best for three!!

centrifuge said...

hey my man,

we are doing ok, thanks... well, the house has been filled with cold germs as is only to be expected (filthy weather, time of year, young child in the vicinity etc etc) - but we are hanging in there.

the pc is fixed!!! thank fuck... it had to be wiped and the OS reinstalled, but i haven't lost anything crucial (managed to back it up in time). hopefully i shall post tomorrow morning. so yes, you can mail me! ( and yes, we could use the mail on the laptop, though not much else.)

i don't have much against mac really... except for two things: first, they are very expensive and the company makes sure that you have to keep paying for stuff (peripherals, upgrades etc etc) if you want it to keep on working properly - i think that apple's ideal customer is someone who likes spending all his/her available income on computer accessories! it's not enough for them that you pay a lot of money to buy one of their machines in the first place, you have to be a "customer for life"...

... and the second is that they CLAIM to be almost infallible, but of course they are nothing of the sort! (there is no such thing as infallible electrical/electronic equipment... so many things can go wrong and they are so sensitive to so many environmental factors...) the last time i was in an apple shop, i saw some annoying promotional thing on the wall listing all the reasons why mac is better than pc... "they work straight out of the box" (rubbish - they still have to be set up, obviously); they fell short of claiming that macs never go wrong, but did say "they just work!" which is not necessarily true either... we have had plenty of pain-in-the-arse problems with that laptop over the years, and of course they can hang for ages, same as any other computer... the fact that they give you a pretty colour wheel to look at is no consolation when you are tearing your hair out over not being able to finish a simple task ;-)

well... bedtime for me... more computer time tomorrow, and hopefully some work on the blog, like i say (incidentally - i grabbed the DCW concert as soon as i was able to, but still haven't heard the mofo as our cd player is now pissing about - ! i think our daughter got her hands in there and screwed up the laser...)

hope you are all well!

c x

Unknown said...

Happy to see you are OK, well except for the annoying cold…
Great to know you are already (with cold) "online"!
I better send a mail…

See you!

centrifuge said...

i look forward to it... meanwhile, as you can see i didn't manage to post after all - still trying to catch up with re-installing applications, etc, on monday and since then i have had no time during the day, too tired and brain-fried at night. sigh... there is a solution to this inertia, i'm sure there is :-S

Unknown said...

Hi Cent…
… and Lucky!

Ja, ja, ja…
It's funny the artwork used on the DCWT is mine…
A bit sad someone in the middle has added that bold font on the cover, great failure, hey but I still has posted the "real one", ja, ja and is unltd, ja, ja, well till close the blog…

See you (if you don't hate me after the brick i sent to you)…

centrifuge said...

p, "if you don't hate me" - ?! surely you know me better than that ;-)

might take me a little while to reply to it, but it was appreciated..!

- and yes, i had noticed that someone along the line had pinched your artwork, i intended to ask you about that... did you in any way give your permission for that? or has someone simply stolen it and modified it with their own words etc? i didn't think that "abcdef" was you (this is how bigozine credit the "cover artist")

i really "ought" to post about that bloody recording but i STILL havne't listened to it - or anything else lately, my head is so full of other stuff... incidentally i think it will be a great loss if you DO delete the blog, though i can perfectly understand why you might wish to do so...

Nuage fiché qui rêve said...

Hi cent, hi gentlemen,
I don't have much to say, just hello ! It's always captivating to read the articles here, so I'm looking forward to future updates.
Take care Cent'

Fred

centrifuge said...

salut fred,

it's great to hear from you here... and makes me feel a bit guilty, because i have been keenly aware lately of how long it is since i wrote to you - ! i will try and do that within the next week... i really am not getting much "computer time" at the moment (and have been ill... again! people warned me about this aspect of having a small child in the house, but i didn't listen - though my immune system was tougher than that, but apparently not, or not any more...).

a +, c x

lee said...

Just checking in--end of year and all that. Cent-hope you're up and running again. I finally stumbled onto Lucky's site, and that's got me running in a few different directions, although it did give me an excuse to unload a bit of trivia about Mengelberg during dinner with my wife. As she says, there's no listening to music without a music lesson around our house. Hope y'all are doing well and going strong headed into the new year.

Lee

centrifuge said...

hi lee,

yes - up and running in that the computer is (sort of ) fixed... but as you can see, still not managed to find the time to post again yet. best festive wishes to you and yours anyway, and for the new year also!

(your wife will entertain talk of misha mengelberg at dinner? she even knows who he is?? wow, i can scarcely imagine that... john zorn was as far as my other half got, and even that seems like a distant memory now... oh well...)

cheers! c x