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Top 40 over 40.19: Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali Live in Concert
In this series of posts on musicians doing high quality work after 40, little has been said about their audience. Today’s post will start out with them first. Last October, I went to see the Pakistani group Rizwan-Muazzam perform at the Reynolds Industries theater at Duke University. I knew little about these performers from Pakistan, other…
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Top 40 over 40.18: Peter Hughes and Dipa Ma
I was once listening to an episode of Car Talk on NPR and heard a woman call in to Click and Clack with the following dilemma: she had a Honda that was running perfectly, and that had proven to be very reliable over the years. Nevertheless, she found the car boring. She found herself eyeing…
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The Core is Getting Soft.13: Trackball Runs Over Mouse
People who are interested in gear like to thing big. Big things, big bucks, big sounds, big….balls, implicitly. But sometimes it’s the little things that get used the most. While working towards completing my new record with producer Scott Solter, a frequent theme of our conversations has been poking fun at gear hounds who elevate…
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The Residents and the Arctic
I rarely hear an entire record played on the radio. A few months ago, I heard the album Eskimo by the Residents played on WXDU’s stellar Sunday afternoon show, Polyphonic Perversity. I soon purchased it and have really enjoyed hanging out with it since. I know very little about the Residents, so I won’t say…
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Top 40 over 40.17: A Different Kind of Swans Song
Most of the musicians I’ve written about in this series are ones that were important to me when I was younger because of work they did themselves when they were young. I’ve written about records they did after turning 40 that either came close to or equaled the quality I heard in their earlier recordings.…
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Coca-Cola loses one in India
One of the songs on my forthcoming record is called simply “Coca-Cola.” Mark Pendergrast’s book For God, For Country and For Coca-Cola reveals that this is the most widely recognized group of syllables on the planet, except for OK, which holds onto the top spot for now, but perhaps not for long. Back in 1971,…
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24 hours till Kickstarter ends…how long until everyone has health care in the US?
With less than 24 hours left, there’s only $135 to until my Kickstarter hits its goal! Please help out if you can, either by contributing or spreading the word. You might end up being the one who puts us over the top! It ends at 12:28 pm on Tuesday, September 2nd. One of the things…
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Algebra: The Root of All Evil?
As the deadline for my current Kickstarter campaign draws near, math is on my mind. We’ve got until noon on Tuesday to raise another $650. Math has also been on my mind as the school year has started up in my work as a teacher. Two weeks ago, I attended a workshop for teachers who…
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Radio Rescheduling: WXDU 8/24 7-8 pm
I’ll be doing an interview on WXDU, (88.7 fm in Durham, WXDU.org online,) from 7 to 8 pm on Sunday night August the 24th. This was supposed to take place on 8/17, but had to be rescheduled because the DJ was involved in an accident. I’ll be playing some rough mixes from the record I’m…