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norman



Last Updated: 7/8/2009

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Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 36
Sign: Scorpio

City: Ithaca
State: New York
Country: US
Signup Date: 6/9/2004

Blog Archive
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Tuesday, September 09, 2008 

Category: Religion and Philosophy
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
5:10 AM 
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Sunday, August 17, 2008 
performance/extended tracks/webzine article/podcast

There may be some out there who might like to hear some of my work that I can't post here because its too long or for some other technical reason. So I have decided to post all URLs/sites that I know of that feature my work.

This is a performance I did for Neighborhood Public Radio in 2004 in San Francisco @ Southern Exposure:

http://www.conceptualart.org/npr/sounds/Oct.8/18catchrelease.mp3

The complete version of Oceanic Memories which debuted at the first Bayennalle in Oakland 2005. William Bennett of Whitehouse turned a lot of people on to this last year (thanks William):

http://www.archive.org/details/normanwlongoceanicmemories_0

This is a piece for the webzine that Artists Television Access put out in 2005:

http://www.atasite.org/zine/issue4/long/

These tracks are from a compilation I'm putting together for CD release called THEMATICS. These were sounds recorded/composed/mixed/destroyed/processed in SF from 1999-2003:

http://www.archive.org/details/Lovetteelectro

This is a couple of podcasts I put together last year from field recordings I mixed and processed last year:

http://dubcology.podomatic.com/

DOOM/NOISE/DRONE:

http://www.archive.org/details/SeeUsInPain

Thanks for listening
10:57 AM 
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Tuesday, June 19, 2007 
JUNETEENTH SUGGESTED PLAYLIST:

Drexciya - The Quest
William Parker and the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra - Sun Rise in the Tone world
Sun Ra - Atlantis
John Coltrane - Interstellar Space
Archie Shepp - Blase
Curtis Mayfield - Curtis
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
Roy Davis Jr - Traxx from the Nile
Fela Kuti - No Agreement
The Eternals - Heavy International

please add to the list
6:42 AM 
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Tuesday, January 16, 2007 

Current mood:  contemplative
Category: Music

Today I got sad news from the most unlikely of web sites...Suicide Girls. The news was that Alice Coltrane past away today. They did a great job on her bio by the way. The first thing I put on today was her Universal Consciousness album before I even read the news. Back in the late 60s a group of musicians in Chicago decided to give jazz a new name: GREAT BLACK MUSIC because of the negative connotations associated with the word jazz. They were tired of using a label given to them by people who weren't making  the music they were creating at that time.  I think this GREAT BLACK MUSIC is fitting to the music of Alice Coltrane, for she has devoted herself to her own vision and I for one am grateful for her contribution. What they do gives me the courage to be creative. The benefits of this kind courage and dedication goes deeper than winning on American Idol,  or being the king or queen of your hometown scene.

5:04 AM 
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Thursday, December 28, 2006 

Current mood:  calm
Category: Music
Norman's Year's Best

Alva Noto - For

Carsten Nicolai holds the top spot yet again this year. This album is somewhat of a compilation of installations and commissions. But the main theme is that of the dedication. I think Nicolai's strength is his sensitivity towards his collaborators and subjects. I enjoyed how he captures the character of his subjects in his compositions with subtlety and simplicity. His dedications to Jeff Wall and the late Jhonn Balance are my favorite tracks.

Wolf Eyes and Anthony Braxton - Black Vomit

I was interviewed for a teaching job at SFAI for a sound class I was proposed, and I mentioned how my band director was a major influence on my career as an artist/composer and I was promptly laughed at and subsequently didn't get the job.

After listening to this album, i started to reflect on how few experimental black artists and composers there are. And I wonder how many make great music like this are laughed at and shamed for what they do?

Anthony Braxton is of course a major figure in contemporary jazz/improv/experimental music and is a huge inspiration for me as an artist of color from the South Side of Chicago. But I wonder if there is anyone of my generation willing to be as creative as he is or will even get the chance?
Not that I'm without hope, it is easier to get your work out there through the internet and serious art spaces and music venues.

Hopefully this album will inspire others to be fearless recover form their shame and make glorious NOISE!

Yo La tengo - i am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass

Yet another great album from Yo La Tengo! I think was the most listened to album on my list. Listening to this album is like hanging out with old friends. It was actually this album that revealed to me that I wasn't very hip or cool. And it felt good to be nerd with absolutely no street credibility what so ever.

Acid Mother's Temple and the Cosmic Inferno - Starless and Bible Black Sabbath

Ah yes, another album that will definitely NOT get me laid! But it sounds sooooooooo good! First song is a half hour plus long heavy as hell freak out and the second song is kinda like the debris of the first.

Six organs of admittance - the sun awakens

I saw him open for Ghost and White Magic at the Independent in SF in 2004 and was very impressed. I also enjoyed how his Fahey style folkiness annoyed the transplanted Brooklynites in the crowd.

I am hearing a lot of Batoh influenced stuff on this album but Ben is still giving it his own style.


Jay Dee/J-Dilla - Donuts

I was re-introduced to Jay Dee over the past few months by this amazing producer who said J-Dilla was one of the biggest influences on him. Jay Dee did produce one of my favorite albums Labcabincalifornia and for that I should have got more stuff from him, Slum Village and Common and all that before he past. I enjoyed the production. It was a nice re-introduction.

The Domestic Front - Constrictor

Awesome. I thought TK Bailey's process of making the familiar strange, taking the everyday and sampling it. What he sampled and made compositions of was his asthma attacks. I believe from the onset to the subsiding of it.

Ricardo Villalobos - salvador
Lady Sovereign - vertically challenged

These were enjoyable tracks that I loved spinning at the bar I go to.

matmos - the rose has teeth in the mouth of the beast
subtle - for hero for fool

I'm glad i bounced on the Bay but listening to these two albums make me kinda miss the Yay Area. Subtle was a band I new about but never listened to until recently. I knew Dax, who worked at my favorite record store Amoeba was paralyzed last year. But he's still an active member of the band and they produced the song of the Year "Middle Class Stomp". To me listening to them reminds me of all the positive things the Bay Area has to offer in music.

Matmos on the SF side of the bay hold another special place in my heart. MC Schmidt was one of the few people at SFAI who actually helped me with my projects and was actually nice to me. While the other 98% of the faculty and staff resented my presence it was nice to get the a little kindness and help.

Now that I got all the mushy stuff cleared up. This is the second album on my list that are dedications. While Alva Noto worked with restraint and subtlety Matmos takes a more humorous and blatant turn while still being reflective and intelligent. I think the concept here is much stronger than Alva Noto's "For" because I think these pieces reflect who Martin and Drew are and what influenced them and inspired them. So I feel this is may be the most intimate album on this list even with the goofy sampling and all which makes the album so enjoyable.


old stuff
Curtis Mayfield - Curtis
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
Fela Kuti - No Agreement
Shudder to Think - Ten Spot/Funeral at the Movies
company flow - funcrusher plus
Grupo Folklorico Y Experimental Nuevayorquino - Concepts in Unity

Random_
The New Hyde Park Art Center
Chicago Center for Green Technology
ithaca-toronto 10/13/2006: being stuck in traffic outside of Buffalo for 12 hours with the coolest people I know.
Massive Change, Bruce Mau- MCA Chicago
2:43 AM 
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Thursday, December 15, 2005 

Category: Music

Well, 2005 was a tumultuous year for me. First half in California I was all but told I was worthless so I left and wound up in an Ivy League College working on a masters in Landscape Architecture. So it is fitting that we start off my year'a best with a former Landscape Architecture student. Carsten Nicolai's (as alva noto) second duo project with Ryuichi Sakamoto.

alva noto ryuichi sakamoto "insen" - sparse and gorgeous.

Boredoms "Seadrum/House of Sun"- spacey and ecstatic

Loren Chasse "The Air in the Sand"- what?! I actually have to listen to enjoy this? amazing!

Dalek "Abscence" -Noise and Black Political Thought? Big Up for the Black music that don't make no money!

DangerDoom "The Mouse and the Mask"- MF Doom, Danger Mouse and Adult Swim...What!

Drone/shift @ 21Grand, Oakland, Amazing show, thank you Matt for letting me play with some of the finest electronic/improvisors on the planet!

The Electric Rovestra doing John Coltrane's Ascension at The Palace of Fine ARts, SF - Yes, it was as good as it looks on paper! 

Mike Ladd, "Negrophilia(the album)" - He and Dave Chappelle give a sense of complexity, hilarity and tragedy to the discourse on culture and race than any of my peers who are visual artists of color. WE ALL can learn from them. Ok, maybe the curators wouldn't know what to do with us, but fuck'em! 

LCD Soundsystem - i didn't want to like this album, but I did

M.I.A. "Arular" - Cute girls give me hugs when I play her!

John Raskin's(of Rova Sax quartet) improv orchestra @ 21Grand, Oakland - fantastic

Thuja "pinecone temples"-eased my transition from Oakland to Ithaca.

Boards of Canada "The campfire headphase"-layered and gorgeous sounds.

Konono No1 "Congotronics"- electric African rythms. All around, a great year for Black Music that don't make no money!!!

Afropunk World Wide!

 

2:37 AM 
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Saturday, August 13, 2005 
Well, from reports and rumors I've read it seems that David Chappelle's sketch comedy show is no more. its a shame but he left on top. He also proved to be one of the best black media artist's of this generation. His humor, insight and intelligence should be as important for artists who use culture as their instruments,  canveses, inspirations and muse for his show as Ernie Kovacs innovative tv show of the late 50's early 60's was to video artists. His comedy went well beyond accepted tastes and theories about race. Issues about Race and culture are complex, he knew it and made fun of it. he didn't write anything that was condescending or prententious. through his comedy, I believe artists who work with multiculturalism will find a new way to engage the audience. The world needs creative people who are not afraid to be themselves. Fuck the markets! Fuck authenticity! Our lives are worth more than money and white supremacist views of racial purity!  
4:48 AM 
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Friday, August 12, 2005 

Current mood:  pleased

I had the pleasure of going to Millenium Park to see Rob Mazurek's Project and Commisioned Composition for The Chicago Park's Commision tonight. Of all of the Chicago Underground's and Tortoise permutations this was his most dynamic, thanks to the diversity of the line up! If you thought that the tortoise/chgo underground crowd fell off, think again! they got hold of Ken Vandermark, David Boykin and the super hot Nicole Mitchell amongst other improvisers tonight and gave us a hell of a FREE show!!!

This was his most dynamic offering I've heard from him. It came as a relief but not a shock in light of his and Jeff Parker's disappointing recordings of late. I think we all knew they could do better and they proved it tonight! hell, that's why I went all the way downtown tonight from the Southeast side (basically 10min from Indiana)! And they didn't disappoint. I was glad i finally saw Nicole Mitchell and David Boykin play. I heard so many good things about them and I see Nicole Mitchell's name on the lists of almost every Canadian/New York/European jazz festival this year. So that was an extra treat! She's worth the hype! I hope there'll be a recording of this show available! Any way great show! 

5:38 AM 
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Saturday, August 06, 2005 

I'm writing because I promised my buddy Ben some news. It has been a while since I blogged.

   This spring, I got an acceptance letter from Cornell University to study Landscape Architecture. The letter came a day after my boss told me I didn't deserve a raise after three years of hard work, low pay  and overtime which caused me to be hospitalized. So, I decided to enroll. Which means, taking out more loans. But one of my goals may be achieved in going back to school and that is never being under-employed again! I know, never say never, plus I haven't got all my loan money yet! 

I quit my job in July and moved in with my Mom until I go New York. It was a tough move. Mostly because of leaving the few supporters and friends that I have. Some of it has to do with the amount of stuff I had to get rid of and leaving an area I was familiar with for six years. Yet by just getting accepted by an institution like Cornell has been vindicating. I don't normally seek external validation, but it feels good to have successfully applied to a great school when the majority of people in the Bay Area cussed me out, broke my (he)art, questioned my character and my abilities. I proved them wrong.

8:04 AM 
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Friday, December 10, 2004 

Current mood:  cranky
yo! I didn't buy a lot of new releases this year but, here are the six in no particular order. Fennesz-Venice Fennesz's indy rock record. Reminds me of listening to 'HKP 'BMX 'XRT when I was about 16, all those "new" sounds...... Ghost-Hypnotic Underworld WOW! Live @ the Independent 10/2/2004 WOW! De La Soul - Grind Date Provided much needed inspiration Tetuzi Akiyama/Martin Ng - oimacta its got this taj mahal travelers kind of thing goin' on. Vast Aire - Look Mom...No Hands STOLEN!!!! By a girl who's addicted to violence, pain and scat!!! FUCK YOU!!!! Caetano Veloso - A Foreign Sound Someone gave this to me as a gag. This is a fucking great album. Now don't YOU look stupid....TAC. Bjork - Medulla Wasn't her best but beats almost everybody elses' efforts this year. I have been buying a lot of Pschedelic and experimental music from Japan for the last two years here are some cool things like that I picked up and some other stuff.... Taj Mahal Travelers "August 1974" Sarah Peebles - 108-Walking Through Tokyo at the Turn of the Century Fushitsusha - PSF 15/16 CMAU - CMAU Chery E. Leonard - Firn Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO - Troubadours From Another Heavenly World Cosmos - Tears Aki Onda - Bon Voyage Various - Improvised Music From Japan EXTRA 2003 Rotary Connection - Hey Love DVD " A Story of Floating Weeds/Foating Weeds" , Yasujiro Ozu Books "Introduction to Zen Buddhism" by DT Suzuki "Haunted Weather" by David Toop
8:58 AM 
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