Where music can take you
March 31st, 2005 -- Posted in ?:] | 2 Comments »Sometimes I marvel at the power of music. It can take you to new places and people. And the great thing about music is that it’s all connected! One artist’s influence or collaboration takes you to another artist’s work which can be from a different time, place or genre.
One night, back in 2000, a couple friends and I were going out. I think it was me, a guy named Peter Chan (oddly), Amy and Becky. And I remember that as we were crossing the Bay Bridge I heard a very interesting song. I asked Peter what genre it was. “Jungle Jazz, I think.” he responded. When I asked him the artist he said he thought it was Amon Tobin.
I looked up all of Tobin’s works and downloaded many of them but I could not find the song I was looking for. I did find many interesting songs from Tobin, whose work primarily consists of “industrial” samples, jazz and off-rhythm beats. His work sounded similar so I often went back through Tobin’s work looking for this song.
What really sucked about this search for a song as that it appeared on a Volkswagen commercial! I tried to use that as an avenue of search but was unsuccessful. Curses to Volkswagen and how it teased me.
So, on and off, I’ve been looking for this song. Finally, I heard a snippet of this song on All Things Considered, an NPR show. It must’ve been fate.
I happen to be driving home from work and my CD player was giving me problems. I wasn’t sure if it was a badly burned CD or my player reaching old age. I must’ve fumbled with it for 20 mins when finally I gave up and switched to radio. And that’s when I heard the song! For 20 seconds I was enraptured as I heard the song used as a segue into the next part of the show. I listened carefully because this was not the exact same song. It sounded almost exactly the same except it must’ve been playing at 1/2 the speed of the version I know. But this was a clue! Furthermore, music played on any NPR/KQED show can be found online. Yes! I would finally find this song.
I checked the website but the song was not there. I looked twice. I looked three times. It was not there. Drats! I checked the website a couple days later to find that they had updated the information. And there it was: Moondog, with the London Symphonic, does Bird’s Lament. CD: Sax pax for a sax.
I’m still not sure I’ve found the song. The song itself is the song I’ve heard but the tempo is much slower. Perhaps it was a remix I’ve heard. Meanwhile, I’ve found Moondog, a famous streetperformer originally from the streets of New York City.