S/D Laurie Anderson

Still haven’t got through landfall as it’s so ducking long

Poem up there by Lou Reed was in the NYT on 10/9/01 - https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/11/magazine/songs-for-the-city-laurie-sadly-listening.html

Any SF residents get to see the Lou Reed drones concert in Nov? A recording has just surfaced, 4 hours!

i saw laurie anderson last night for the first time! i hope to see her again soon. she played quite a bit of stuff from what i assume was her latest album (and first Grammy winner) Landfall. i have to assume because i sto;; haven't heard Landfall, but i know it's a chamber orchestra based album (which won her a first grammy, too), the artwork projected behind resembles the cover of Landfall, and she played as a duo with a cellist. the show alternated between these beautifully performed duets (his cello and her electric violin) and her more familiar synth and vocoder songs, spoken-word pieces, stories and jokes. at the beginning she played a story by her recently deceased chicago wordsmith friend ken nordine over the speakers, before asking everyone to honor yoko ono's 82nd birthday by screaming as loudly as possible for 10 seconds (my throat still hurts).

i was amazed at how adeptly she created a dreamlike web of circling repetition throughout the evening. alternating pieces with the string duets helped, but there were also funnies stories about writing to jack kennedy as a child for advice about how to run for student council, to be referenced much later in the show with references to "jack" and promising to people whatever it is they want. i would recognize certain snippets of songs, but they seemed to be reappropriated and mixed together with other songs. sometimes dreams themselves were referenced - And ah, these days. Oh, these days / What are days for? / To wake us up, to put between the endless nights - or a warning to never tell anyone about your dreams, because they make you sound insane because they never make any sense. it's hard to explain, but it was mesmerizing.

at the end she talked a bit about lou reed and performed some tai chi.

about an hour after her show i was walking around the museum, checking out some "soundscapes" (actually just pairs of speakers) and ran across her doing an encore performance in the spot where the stars of the lid soundscape was supposed to be:

https://i.imgur.com/6iQyVZa.jpg

sorry for typos. tl;dr she really is a treasure, we're lucky we still have her. everyone should go see her if you haven't already

that sounds amazing! every time I've seen her perform over the years it's been magical.

I just recently became aware of the 1960s Smithsonian Folkways recording of Marian Seldes reading Gertrude Stein, and immediately thought: Woah, Laurie Anderson must have listened to a lot of this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RpnLjR45ZM#t=3m57s

thanks for sharing that, I've had this post bookmarked for a week and I finally put that on and got a lot of writing done, zoomed by in the zone. otm about the influence

at the beginning of the movie
they know they have to find each other--
but they ride off
in opposite directions!

Two pro-shot shows, both released because of the quarantine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VohblFNYnjE

Laurie Anderson "All the Things I Lost in the Flood" (Town Hall NYC 2/15/18)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbuinUOV9Cc

2020 Vanguard Gala Honoring Laurie Anderson (Joe's Pub Live! 2/3/20)

-Lafcadio Cass
-Ryuichi Sakamoto
-Starr Busby with Stuart Bogie, Alex Koi & Colin Stetson - “From the Air”
-Carl Hancock Rux - “The Puppet Motel”
-Shara Nova with Stuart Bogie & Colin Stetson - “Beautiful Red Dress”
-Theo Bleckmann - “Falling”
-Alex Koi - “Gravity’s Angel”
-Theo Bleckmann & Helga Davis - “Walking and Falling”
-Colin Stetson & DM Stith - “Fear of the Unknown and the Blazing Sun”
-Nona Hendryx with Kiki Hawkins, Asa Lovechild & Alex Sopp - “This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)”
-Christina Courtin - “Flow”
-Meg Harper directed by Derrick Belcham (film) with My Brightest Diamond “The Beginning of Memory”
-Joan as Police Woman - “Blue Lagoon”
-Morley Shanti Kamen - “Only An Expert”
-Justin Hicks - “Nothing Left but Their Names”
-mmeadows (Kristin Slipp & Cole Kamen-Green) - “Walk the Dog”
-Meshell Ndegeocello - “O Superman”
-Theo Bleckmann & Nona Hendryx - “In Our Sleep”

Great, thanks, Hideous! This isn't great, but told my blog and that year's UpRoxx ballot more about Landfall, an underappreciated album, it seems:
On Landfall, Anderson's violin and keyboard loops and grooves guide Kronos through vast flooded condo corridors, occasionally checking the stars (yep, still awesome-sounding) that she never got around to naming, in that slowed-goofy-male voice, once more or less purely satirical, that now seems more personal-global, or at least more lived-in, than ever.

joan wasser's version of "blue lagoon" is beautiful. not really breaking new ground but just amazing.

Over the years I've been checking out previously un-heard (to me) corners of her back catalogue, mistakenly thinking that I'm going to find some line that I will eventually refuse to cross, perhaps some horrible eighties production values or technologically-dated pretensions, but I haven't yet found one and it's nearly all fantastic.

she's doing a "sound meditation" on Sunday via Zoom: https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/course/a-solstice-eve-sound-meditation-with-laurie-anderson/

Here's what she played:

1. Max Richter, Dream 1 (before the wind blows it all away), Sleep
2. William Basinski, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Lamentations
3. The Mills Brothers, Ida Sweet as Apple Cide,The Decca Singles vol. 1: 1934-1937
4. Fritz Kreisler, Humoresque, Op. 101 No. 7
5. Laurie Anderson, Flow Homeland
6. Allen Ginsberg, Father Death Blues, The Last Word on First Blues
7. Christmas music, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2tx5NHDcHA, 8 hours of vintage department store Christmas music- customusic tapes
8. Negativland, We Can Really Feel Like We’re Here, The World Will Decide
9. Negativland, Why Are We Waiting, The World Will Decide
10. Laurie Anderson, Birds, Expo Japan 2005
11. Lou Reed, I’m Set Free, Brian Eno cover “Fickle Sun (III) I’m Set Free
12.Laurie Anderson, Dark Bells, Heart of a Dog
13. Philip Glass/Rumi, Don’t Go Back to Sleep, Monsters of Grace
14. Astor Piazzola, Tanguedia III, Tango: Zero Hour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zUEroBzyv8

only up until 5pm EST on March 4th

holy crap, only 6 hours left, but this is very, very good, and i'm looking forward to the rest of her lecture series. sometimes when she quotes someone, she puts an image of them and animates their mouths moving as they speak. for example, laurie/eno is currently talking to me about ambient music.

she may be my favorite artist, i guess

thank you for the link and head's up, f. hazel. watching that before i went to bed last night put me in a better place

also, check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTxqg8g_jXM

first of all, we should all be so lucky to be wheeled out on a platform by assistants. but then check out her human sampler performance and then utterly charming conversation/demo afterward.

This lecture was a treat, thanks.

One time I think Laurie Anderson came into a shop I was working in and I spoke to her briefly. I'm pretty sure.

did she ask what flower, expresses, days go by ... pulling you into the future ... and they just keep going by, endlessly, pulling ...

She said... do you stock... Apple... Macintosh? I said... no.

these are good videos thank you both

i still barely know anything about her. i've never seen a bad laurie anderson youtube video, actually. sometimes she's a video artist, sometimes spoken word (a term she apparently hates and in that lecture she requests that her audience come up with a "snappier" name for it), sometimes instrumental music, sometimes all of it at once. always conceptual, i guess. that's what ties them all together.

sorry - i got sidetracked. what i meant was - i just type in "laurie anderson" in youtube every few months and something astounding immediately comes up, and i see that there are dozens more just beneath that. she populated a sea of mesmerizing videos and music, we all owe her thousands of dollars

i see laurie anderson as among those whose very lives have become a piece of art, or performance. but where that can be so, SO, annoying and even alienating with so many other people who have tried to do it, with laurie anderson i come away more impressed every time. as she gets older, her words and messages are getting warmer and more...comforting...but also her sense of humor is somehow getting both sharper and more subtly deployed. with everything. in interviews, in lectures. i saw her speak and play and show and tell at the art institute of chicago a couple years ago. after her performance, she wandered down the hall with one of the other musicians and they played instrumental duets (she on viola) out in the middle of one of the big hallway exhibits of ancient sculpture, with a small amp. i sat behind her and got lots of good pics of their setup from her pov, but with a perfectly chiseled ancient ass as the frame.

lol, i suddenly realized i've told this whole story before. i'm going to grab the image from above but not read my telling of it back then, to see how warped my memories have become

https://i.imgur.com/6iQyVZa.jpg

hmm, i see see that now i think she "wandered" down the hall. i don't know. she probably did.

i loved one part in that first lecture above (which i think is still up til 5 pm EST today) where she talked about teaching ancient syrian and egyptian art history, and she couldn't remember so she just started making up things. and then later, got fired/quit. :D

It's probably not your fault but it took me a moment there to realise with some relief that you were talking about a statue's ass and not LA's ;-)

lol, hey she may be old but she is not ancient! either way, i'd say that we should put her on the $100 bill but it seems to disgusting to mix her up with the world of printed circulation. but she's a national treasure at any rate

<3

is the national debt long, or is it wide?

repeatedly mentions “just a lot of questions” in this. at least as central to her technique as aquatic disaster

she is a master of the arresting question

obviously there's the zen koan connection too, and she cites them so frequently. i've never really been able to find a way into zen koans (not that i've given it a serious level of effort, like the amount of effort that it takes to run a ilm poll. so maybe i should...run another ilm poll!). but i kind of see her questions as related to those, maybe as her own versions of those for the modern day, and it makes me appreciate both her and also kind of helps me think of how those koans might be useful for other people too

nothing to add here but this is making me all warm and fuzzy

she calls common sense “really just a long list of questions” on homeland

anyway thanks v much f hazel, woulda missed this.

same! did anyone catch when the next one is supposed to be? and there are 6 of them? 8? i may have dreamed about this last night

also i'm going to straight up lift a few of her video/presentation/visual aides from that, because goddamn

Yes. thanks---I wonder if the replay of the radio shows she mentions are going to be at 4:00am again---? Wouldn't be the same effect she describes if I set the alarm, grab a coffee--will just have to stay awake 'til they start.
Her acceptance speech for Lou at R&Roll Hall of Fame--balance to what she says about music in lecture and pretty fine anyway (comments about "Lulu" most of the balance. also now we go from Eno to re:Arethe etc)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VaeEmBPmGk

I think the next one is 3/24.

The next radio show!? What station? I'm guessing wfmu. Anyway, she's in good company amidst Steinski's Rough Mix: https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/56137

https://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/archives/party-in-the-bardo-conversations-with-laurie-anderson-archive.html

no, the next Norton lecture. which apparently has a conversation / Q&A portion after the lecture, so I signed up for the second one.

Bummed that, it appears, they aren't posting the rest of the conversations in this series.

The Mahindra Humanities Center is pleased to announce an upcoming broadcast of Laurie Anderson's second Norton Lecture, initially presented on March 24, 2021. The Forest will be available to watch online for a limited time. The recording will premiere at 5pm EDT on April 7, 2021 and will remain available for the next 24 hours, until 5pm EDT on April 8, 2021.

it'll be here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd68fLDyN_4

thanks, put it on my calendar!

Fantastic!

Laurie Anderson’s 1982 debut album, Big Science, will return to vinyl for the first time in thirty years with a new red vinyl edition due April 9 on Nonesuch Records. The vinyl includes the re-mastered original album first released on CD for the 25th anniversary of Big Science on Nonesuch in 2007.
...While working on her now-legendary seven-hour performance art/theater piece United States, Part I–IV, she cut the spare "O Superman (For Massenet)," an electronic-age update of 19th century French operatic composer Jules Massenet’s aria ‘O Souverain’, for the tiny New York City indie label 110 Records. In the UK, DJ John Peel picked up a copy of this very limited-edition 33⅓ RPM 7” and spun the eight-minute-plus track on BBC Radio 1. The exposure resulted in an unlikely #2 hit, lots of attention in the press, and a worldwide deal with Warner Bros. Records.

'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice.
And when justice is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi Mom!
..."In the ’70s I traveled a lot," Anderson recounts. "I worked on a tobacco farm in Kentucky, hitchhiked to the North Pole, lived in a yurt in Chiapas, and worked on a media commune. I had my own romantic vision of the road. My plan was to make a portrait of the country. Big Science, the first part of the puzzle, eventually became part two of United States I–IV (Transportation, Politics, Money, Love). My goal was to be not just the narrator but also the outsider, the stranger. Although I was fascinated by the United States, this portrait was also about how the country looked from a distance. I was performing a lot in Europe, where American culture was simultaneously booed and cheered. But the portrait was also a picture of a culture inventing a digital world and learning to live in it. Big Science was about technology, size, industrialization, shifting attitudes toward authority, and individuality. It was sometimes alarmist, picturing the country as a burning building, a plane crash. Alongside the techno was the apocalyptic. The absurd. The everyday. It was also a series of short stories about odd characters—hatcheck clerks and pilots, preachers, drifters and strangers. There was something about Massenet's aria ‘O Souverain’—which inspired ‘O Superman’—that almost stopped my heart. The pauses, the melody. 'O souverain, ô juge, ô père' (O Lord, o judge, o father). A prayer about empire, ambition, and loss."
https://www.nonesuch.com/albums/big-science-lp?eml=2021April2%2F5293848%2F6011771&etsubid=33248291
And here,, in conversation w Will Young on BBC2:https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tnsk?eml=2021April2/5293848/6011771&etsubid=33248291

The olde Official Video is in that Nonesuch link too.