I con­sid­er myself lucky to have been a child of the nineties. As you know from Port­landia’s trib­ute to the decade of slack, it was a time when “peo­ple were con­tent to be unam­bi­tious and sleep to 11 and just hang out with their friends.” Start a band, start a t‑shirt com­pa­ny, build a web­site, go to clown school, or don’t, what­ev­er, no pres­sure…. In con­trast to the hyper­com­pet­i­tive, social media-sat­u­rat­ed, pre­car­i­ous gig econ­o­my lives of har­ried, over­worked, under­paid mil­len­ni­als, we had it pret­ty easy. But we knew things were poised to explode. At the same time, it was a decade of cul­tur­al pas­sion for rev­o­lu­tion, peace, and justice—conscious hip hop, Riot Grrrl, Lilith Fair, and Rage Against the Machine, maybe the most rad­i­cal­ly uncom­pro­mis­ing band since Crass. The rap/rock/metal hybrid seam­less­ly blend­ed the rev­o­lu­tion­ary funk and polit­i­cal fury of Pub­lic Ene­my with the vir­tu­oso riffage of Eddie Van Halen.

I only wish that, like the guy in the video above, I could hear them again for the first time, blast­ing from the car stereo, blow­ing my mind every few sec­onds. How is it that this guy had nev­er heard Rage’s incred­i­ble self-titled debut? For one thing, I guess, he prob­a­bly hadn’t even been born when it came out in 1992.

For anoth­er, he’s a hip-hop head who didn’t lis­ten to rock and met­al until recent­ly, when, as his YouTube chan­nel doc­u­ments, he decid­ed to start sam­pling bands in his car and upload­ing his real-time reac­tions. How very 2018. He’s exposed him­self to some great stuff—Megadeth, Deftones, Iron Maid­en, Metal­li­ca, Motör­head. He’s sam­pled Audioslave, gui­tarist Tom Morello’s post-Rage super­group. And some oth­er bands I won’t com­ment on.

He also put togeth­er a mix­tape of met­al he thinks would cross over to his hip hop friends. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, many of the bands he rec­om­mends pull heav­i­ly from Rage Against the Machine, who them­selves pulled from the Beast­ie Boys, Anthrax, Sui­ci­dal Ten­den­cies, Faith No More.… Rage didn’t come from nowhere—we’d heard con­scious rap and met­al meet before, even just the pre­vi­ous year when Anthrax and Pub­lic Ene­my put out their ver­sion of “Bring the Noise.” The late eighties/early nineties pro­duced organ­ic rap/metal crossovers before the prob­lem­at­ic advent of “nu met­al.” But when YouTu­ber YouY­ouY­ou!!! hits pause at 3:38 and screams “WHAT IS THIS! WHAT IS THIS!” I relate. It was more or less my reac­tion when I first heard “Know Your Ene­my,” “Take the Pow­er Back,” and “Killing in the Name” blast from the tape deck. YouY­ouY­ou!!! takes rec­om­men­da­tions. I rec­om­mend he work his way through all of Rage’s cat­a­log.

via Twist­ed Sifter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear a 4 Hour Playlist of Great Protest Songs: Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, Bob Mar­ley, Pub­lic Ene­my, Bil­ly Bragg & More

What Makes This Song Great?: Pro­duc­er Rick Beato Breaks Down the Great­ness of Clas­sic Rock Songs in His New Video Series

A Mas­sive 800-Track Playlist of 90s Indie & Alter­na­tive Music, in Chrono­log­i­cal Order

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

As a long­time record col­lec­tor (first because it was before CDs were invent­ed) and a bud­ding audio­phile (because vinyl does sound bet­ter than dig­i­tal, have at me in the com­ments if you must), I appre­ci­ate a good sto­ry about the search for per­fect sound. But Takeo Mori­ta takes it to a new lev­el.

In the Wall Street Jour­nal sto­ry above, we learn that the 82-year-old has installed a 42-foot util­i­ty pole next to his house. Why? To get that clean elec­tric­i­ty to his sys­tem, not that shared, filthy elec­tric­i­ty from a com­mon-as-muck util­i­ty pole. Elec­tric­i­ty is like blood, he explains, and the clean­er the blood, the bet­ter for the sys­tem.

Now this reminds me, while we’re here, to tell you about a show I once saw on Japan­ese TV and which I one day hope to see on YouTube. A news show pro­filed Japan’s num­ber one Bob Dylan col­lec­tor, who had every vinyl release of the musi­cian, even to redun­dan­cy. At one point he pulled out an album still in its shrink wrap that was no dif­fer­ent from the one next to it. “This has a green stick­er on it,” he said, point­ing to the right hand cor­ner. “But that’s just a stick­er,” said the host. Blank stare. Pause. “But this has a green stick­er on it.”

That’s the spir­it, I thought.

Also: Nev­er catch that spir­it, I thought.

This arti­cle at residentadvisor.net explores the world of Tokyo’s audio­phile under­ground, which is both a log­i­cal out­come for those into hear­ing the best music sys­tems and some­thing quin­tes­sen­tial­ly Japan­ese. I can’t imag­ine an audio­phile bar open­ing up in the States any­time soon. But the lis­ten­ing venue has a long his­to­ry in Japan:

It can be traced back to the rise of jazz kissa (jazz cafés) and meikyoku kissa (clas­si­cal music cafés) in the years fol­low­ing World War II, a time when import­ed records were pro­hib­i­tive­ly expen­sive. This meant that, for many peo­ple, the kissat­en were the only places to hear good music from abroad. The focus at these cafés was on deep, con­cen­trat­ed lis­ten­ing.

As the arti­cle men­tions, there are as many mini clubs in Tokyo as there are gen­res, from clas­si­cal to drone/glitch. And it comes down to the idea, start­ed by Amer­i­can soci­ol­o­gist Ray Old­en­burg, of “The Third Place,” the place that is nei­ther home, nor work:

As civ­i­liza­tion has advanced, going to work and back home has become our rou­tine as humans,” Ari­izu­mi says. “The third place is not quite home, and it’s not work, but a com­mu­ni­ty where every­one can be wel­comed and relax, with a nice atmos­phere. I heard about the term ‘third place’ for the first time just when we opened Bridge, and I remem­ber think­ing, ‘This is exact­ly what I want to cre­ate.’ That’s what I want to do, cre­ate a third space. Peo­ple can come here and talk about their jobs or their love life, or they can come here and dance. It’s a place between work and home. Peo­ple need that.

Ques­tion is, dear read­er: do you have a third space?

Relat­ed con­tent:

How Steely Dan Wrote “Dea­con Blues,” the Song Audio­philes Use to Test High-End Stere­os

How Good Are Your Head­phones? This 150-Song Playlist, Fea­tur­ing Steely Dan, Pink Floyd & More, Will Test Them Out
The Dis­tor­tion of Sound: A Short Film on How We’ve Cre­at­ed “a McDonald’s Gen­er­a­tion of Music Con­sumers”

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

Here’s James Hill’s recipe for play­ing Jimi Hen­drix’s 1968 clas­sic, “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” on the uke. Yes, the uke:

1 Mya-Moe bari­tone ukulele (Low G — G — B — E)
1 gui­tar amp (Fend­er Blues Junior or equiv­a­lent)
1 bass amp (15 inch)
1 line split­ter (Radi­al ABY box)
1 Dia­mond J‑Drive ped­al (made in Hal­i­fax, NS!)
4 bust­ed strings
2 bro­ken fin­ger­nails
Sea­son to taste and serve hot!

Enjoy…

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book and BlueSky.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain Per­forms Stun­ning Cov­ers of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it,” Talk­ing Heads’ “Psy­cho Killer” & More

George Har­ri­son Explains Why Every­one Should Play the Ukulele

Jake Shimabukuro plays “Bohemi­an Rhap­sody” on the Uke

Ukulele Orches­tra Per­forms Ennio Morricone’s Icon­ic West­ern Theme Song, “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” And It’s Pret­ty Bril­liant.

In 2011, a Stradi­var­ius vio­lin in pris­tine con­di­tion sold for $15.9 mil­lion. And then, in 2014, anoth­er Strad went up for auc­tion with a min­i­mum bid of $45 mil­lion. That auc­tion failed, but it under­scored a trend: The price and pres­tige of Stradi­var­ius vio­lins keep climb­ing, dri­ven by the insa­tiable demand of investors and pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians.

But is a Stradi­var­ius real­ly worth that large sum of mon­ey? As this primer from Vox sug­gests, it depends who you ask. In a high­ly-pub­li­cized blind test, pro­fes­sion­al vio­lin­ists could­n’t tell the dif­fer­ence between mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar Strads and more mod­est­ly-priced mod­ern vio­lins. On the oth­er hand, some elite vio­lin­ists swear by the Stradi­var­ius, claim­ing that the sub­tle supe­ri­or­i­ty of the instru­ment only becomes appar­ent over time, when it’s played over years, not days or months.

That debate will con­tin­ue. And as it does, the Stradi­var­ius will only get older–and, yes, more fetishized as an his­tor­i­cal object that’s con­sid­ered price­less.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Makes the Stradi­var­ius Spe­cial? It Was Designed to Sound Like a Female Sopra­no Voice, With Notes Sound­ing Like Vow­els, Says Researcher

Why Vio­lins Have F‑Holes: The Sci­ence & His­to­ry of a Remark­able Renais­sance Design

Musi­cian Plays the Last Stradi­var­ius Gui­tar in the World, the “Sabionari” Made in 1679

Watch Price­less 17-Cen­tu­ry Stradi­var­ius and Amati Vio­lins Get Tak­en for a Test Dri­ve by Pro­fes­sion­al Vio­lin­ists

Glenn Bran­ca died on Mon­day at age 69. In trib­utes from august pub­li­ca­tions like The Guardian and The New York Times, the gui­tarist and composer’s name is men­tioned by and along­side min­i­mal­ist lumi­nar­ies like Steve Reich and John Cage. Bran­ca him­self cit­ed com­posers like Olivi­er Mes­si­aen and Györ­gy Ligeti as influ­ences. He belongs in the com­pa­ny of these avant-garde pio­neers, but many who might rec­og­nize their names may not have heard the name Glenn Bran­ca.

Bran­ca worked in a much more anar­chic milieu, name­ly the down­town New York noise rock scene that came to be called No Wave. “My real influ­ence was punk,” he told Pitch­fork in 2016. “I must have lis­tened to the first Pat­ti Smith album 300 times.” In turn, the com­pos­er influ­enced the next gen­er­a­tion of under­ground New York artists, nur­tur­ing the tal­ents of Son­ic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Lee Ranal­do, who honed their art-rock chops—the drone notes, odd tun­ings, etc.—in the ear­ly ‘80s while play­ing in one of Branca’s noto­ri­ous­ly noisy gui­tar ensem­bles.

Bran­ca released Son­ic Youth’s first two albums on his record label, tutored abra­sive noise pio­neers Swans’ gui­tarist Nor­man West­berg, and inspired essen­tial down­town fig­ures like Lounge Lizards’ John Lurie, who described see­ing the composer’s band The­o­ret­i­cal Girls in 1979 as a life-chang­ing event. Min­i­mal­ist post-rock mas­ter­minds like God­speed You! Black Emper­or owe much to Branca’s inno­va­tions. Giv­en that he occu­pied such a sem­i­nal place at such a key musi­cal moment, giv­ing birth to such sem­i­nal bands, why isn’t Branca’s work bet­ter known?

Per­haps this is because, while he drew from clas­si­cal avant-garde, jazz, and punk rock, he refused to set­tle com­fort­ably into any par­tic­u­lar camp or to clear­ly define the bound­aries of his work. Bran­ca cre­at­ed a tem­plate all his own. Reich described him as “an absolute orig­i­nal,” which made him a very inspi­ra­tional fig­ure, but a dif­fi­cult one to slot into a genre bin.

His treat­ment of rock instru­ments in orches­tral set­tings made for intense, and for some unlis­ten­able, music that thor­ough­ly defied the con­ven­tions of rock and orches­tral music, with ensem­bles of up to 100 elec­tric gui­tars play­ing at once. (John Cage object­ed to Bran­ca’s over­whelm­ing per­for­mances on “polit­i­cal” grounds, say­ing they “resem­bled fas­cism.”)

But while Branca’s music has nev­er had mass appeal, the few who love it, love it pas­sion­ate­ly. Of his clas­sic 1981 album The Ascen­sion (hear the title track at the top), Allmusic’s Bri­an Olewnick writes, “if one choos­es to cat­e­go­rize the music on this record­ing as ‘rock,’ this is sure­ly one of the great­est rock albums ever made.” One hears in The Ascen­sion and Branca’s work in gen­er­al the gen­e­sis of a mus­cu­lar, noisy, orches­tral post-rock sound now famil­iar in, say, the sound­track work of artists like Radiohead’s Jon­ny Green­wood.

Despite his con­tention, as he told the NYT, that “I don’t change,” his work has evolved over time, devel­op­ing new depths and com­plex­i­ty. In the Spo­ti­fy playlist fur­ther up, hear Branca’s devel­op­ment as a com­pos­er in 66 tracks (or 12 hours) of sym­phon­ic exper­i­men­tal noise rock, and in the inter­view just above with the Louisiana Chan­nel, see Bran­ca describe (and demon­strate) his unusu­al gui­tar tech­niques and his breadth of musi­cal influ­ences.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Steve Reich’s Min­i­mal­ist Com­po­si­tions in a 28-Hour Playlist: A Jour­ney Through His Influ­en­tial Record­ings

The Music of Avant-Garde Com­pos­er John Cage Now Avail­able in a Free Online Archive

Son­ic Youth Gui­tarist Thurston Moore Teach­es a Poet­ry Work­shop at Naropa Uni­ver­si­ty: See His Class Notes (2011)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness