If you’re unfamiliar with who John Peel was, here’s a good place to start. As a BBC DJ and journalist, he was a prolific supporter of new music in England when nobody else on the planet would touch it.

This documentary doesn’t dig too deep on things, but it’s a real pleasure to watch. His character and his genuine interest are readily apparent throughout, and there’s some really good music too…

Just a little Philip Glass to break up the silence here. I’m working on more content, including a good amount of original material.

I wrote a brief article about Harry Partch some time ago… This video from the Prelinger Archives at the Internet Archive is a newsreel clip from what I’m guessing is sometime in the 1950s, showing part of a performance of Mills College students playing Partch’s instruments.

It’s a short video and it’s really pretty fascinating…

This film is brilliant. It has a certain spirit to it, and it’s really inspiring to see it executed so well.

This timelapse is about a year in the making. I started sometime in June of 2010 and finished it on August 19, 2011. It wasn’t constant work of course, just working on it every now and then. I’d estimate I have invested anywhere between 250 and 300 hours on it. Most of this was time I spent walking, biking, or riding the bus to locations I was shooting. There are very few locations I used a car to get to. Total frame count is about 28,000 frames and 85 different shots. All the frames weren’t used in the final product as I edited down the clips. You will notice that some of the shots were shaky. San Francisco is a very windy city and even my heavy tripod couldn’t remain still. In hindsight I should have bought a different head. All photos were shot in JPEG and then some light editing in Lightroom. Compiled into .mov clips in Quicktime Pro and then all brought together in Final Cut Pro.

I started this project because there are so many people photographing the city that I wanted to capture it in a different way that most were not. Between the time I started and the time I finished, timelapses have become huge. It’s amazing to see what fellow artists can make with even the most basic equipment.

This is the link to the video on Vimeo, and you can watch it right here:

I’m working on some more content, but enjoy this Can video in the meantime!

My trip through BBC Radiophonic Workshop history turned up this documentary film, called “The Alchemists of Sound”. I’ll follow up on this post with more information and some reflections, but for now I’m excited to watch this film as I settle in on this peaceful Sunday evening and prepare for the week…. Enjoy.

(The show is split into six YouTube videos, posted here in the full article)

Delia Derbyshire, whose 25-plus years of work with the BBC has only recently gained recognition, was a pioneering composer, innovative engineer, and something of an enigma. Her life story is really kind of a snapshot of a number of converging changes in society: The empowered woman, actively engaged in several fields all dominated by men well before the popular women’s movements; the avant-garde composer who challenged traditional Western notions of music; fighting government control of culture, music, and media; and, the free-thinking intellectual movements of the cultural wave which came to shape Western culture in the post-War era. This combination of elements is really quite amazing and it’s hard to believe that one person could have done it all.

Delia Derbyshire was a very complex and intense personality, and this BBC radio piece about her, “Sculptress of Sound: The Lost Works of Delia Darbyshire” does an amazing job of collecting various opinions and criticism and historical perspectives on her work. There’s some really glowing praise of her, and even the people who found her too difficult to work with (her idiosyncrasies are also explained) have absolutely nothing but praise for her.

Plus, I like the bit on the program where the critic said about Delia, to paraphrase: “She didn’t like the synthesizer. She felt that all ‘electronic music’ ought to be handmade.” Makes me feel kinda good

MP3 of the radio program

I had the rare privilege of seeing Terry Riley at the Berkeley Art Museum last Friday. The BAM puts on some really great events and there’s another one coming up this Friday, the 16th, called “The Forbidden Zone”:

Celebrate the Create exhibition with films and video projections, a moderated discussion with the artists, a dance party DJ’d by some of the centers’ artists, and other special surprises. The night will include a screening of The Forbidden Zone, guest programmer Harrell Fletcher’s collaborative project with Chris Johanson, the late Creativity Explored artist David Jarvey, Elizabeth Meyer, and Alexis Van Hurkman that explores Jarvey’s interest in an early Star Trek episode.

L@TE is made possible in part by the continued support of the BAM/PFA Trustees.

Create is curated by BAM/PFA Director Lawrence Rinder, with Matthew Higgs, director of White Columns, New York and was made possible in part by Dr. James B. Pick and Dr. Rosalyn M. Laudati, the LEF Foundation, and the continued support of the BAM/PFA Trustees.

More information here.

Hey folks!

I think 15ips should be a seasonal blog. It seems like I go through two or three intensely creative periods each year and then lay fallow in between.

Just wanted to post something here to let the folks who subscribe to the feed know that there’s some more content on the way, so keep your eyes open

Hey folks, I put a few things on eBay this weekend:

Two brand new 2″ RMGI SM900 tapes
Two Ruby Tubes 12at7 Tubes
MXL 604 small diaphragm condenser microphone (pair)
Four dbx 150x noise reduction units
Hosa 1/4 to RCA snakes

Make me rich!!