We’ve seen Euro­peans cov­er famous rock and met­al bands in an Amer­i­can folk style—Finnish musi­cians play­ing AC/DC, Iron Maid­en, and Dio in Appalachi­an folk, to be exact. Now, pre­pare to hear famous rock and met­al bands in a dis­tinc­tive­ly Euro­pean folk style: Medieval Belaru­sian folk, played by the beau­ti­ful­ly named Stary Olsa. The band’s name derives from a stream in East Belarus—their cloth­ing, instru­men­ta­tion, and rhythms from an ear­ly Lithuan­ian state called the Grand Duchy—but the songs are all 20th cen­tu­ry radio fod­der. Above, see them do Deep Purple’s “Child in Time,” and below, they tack­le the Red Hot Chili Pep­pers’ “Cal­i­for­ni­ca­tion.”

Stary Olsa’s cov­er of Metallica’s “One” (fur­ther down), already an incred­i­bly dra­mat­ic song, works par­tic­u­lar­ly well in their syn­co­pat­ed Spar­tan style. The sounds and cos­tum­ing of the accom­plished Belaru­sian musi­cians will inevitably remind you—if you haven’t been under a rock in Belarus—of that Medieval-style fan­ta­sy show in which your favorite char­ac­ters meet hor­ri­bly vio­lent ends week after week.

When we look at the bloody his­to­ry of Medieval Europe, the grue­some­ness of Wes­t­eros can seem like only a slight exaggeration—dragons and ice zom­bies aside—of the so-called “dark ages.” These asso­ci­a­tions, and the solem­ni­ty of the song selec­tion and stark­ness of the voic­es and instru­ments, lend Stary Olsa’s per­for­mances a grav­i­tas that, frankly, ele­vates some of the mate­r­i­al far above its pop ori­gins (I’m look­ing at you, Red Hot Chili Pep­pers).

In order for such meld­ings of styles, peri­ods, and cul­tures to work, whether they be played for laughs or deeply seri­ous, the musi­cian­ship must be top notch. Such was the case with Finnish blue­grass met­al cov­er band Steve ‘N’ Seag­ulls, and such is cer­tain­ly the case with Stary Olsa, who have appeared on Belaru­sian TV (from which some of these videos come) and are cur­rent­ly find­ing a lev­el of pop­u­lar­i­ty out­side their native coun­try that few Belaru­sian bands have achieved. It’s unlike­ly we’ll see them soon on the rock fes­ti­val cir­cuit, but their sta­tus as an inter­net sen­sa­tion is all but guar­an­teed. Just below, see the band trans­late a med­ley of The Bea­t­les’ “Obla-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and “Yel­low Sub­ma­rine” into their musi­cal idiom, prov­ing that they don’t just do dark, haunt­ing, and mys­te­ri­ous; they’re also pos­i­tive­ly dance­able.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Finnish Musi­cians Play Blue­grass Ver­sions of AC/DC, Iron Maid­en & Ron­nie James Dio

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

Watch Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ Per­formed on a Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

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

It’s easy to write off the Grate­ful Dead—and I’ll admit I did for years—as aging “hip­pies stuck in the Sum­mer of Love,” as a recent Wired arti­cle puts it. But this rep­u­ta­tion belies a musi­cal depth due in part, as we point­ed out yes­ter­day, to the band’s lyri­cal sophis­ti­ca­tion. But it isn’t only their lyri­cism, or their self-sus­tain­ing sub­cul­ture, that has con­sis­tent­ly won them gen­er­a­tions of devot­ed fol­low­ers born long after Jer­ry Gar­cia and com­pa­ny got their start at Ken Kesey’s Acid Test par­ties. “Long before it became nec­es­sary (or cool) to do so,” writes Wired, “the band embraced a DIY ethos in every­thing from man­u­fac­tur­ing its own gear to pub­lish­ing its own music dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem. The Dead­’s obses­sion with tech­nol­o­gy was almost insep­a­ra­ble from the band’s psy­che­del­ic ambi­tion and artis­tic inde­pen­dence.”

Not only has the Dead fos­tered what is sure­ly the most wide­spread boot­leg indus­try in exis­tence, but they also “pio­neered rock con­cert broad­casts,” start­ing with a Carousel Ball­room show in 1968. Thanks to the spread of the Grate­ful Dead gospel through chan­nels both offi­cial and unof­fi­cial, we have access to qual­i­ty record­ings of Jer­ry Gar­ci­a’s last show with the Grate­ful Dead twen­ty years ago, and to their last shows as a band, played just this past week in a two-city, 50th anniver­sary “Fare Thee Well” series of con­certs in San­ta Clara and at Chicago’s Sol­dier Field. The final shows are now large­ly avail­able online thanks to the efforts of an enter­pris­ing “taper,” as the dili­gent ama­teur record­ing engi­neers who cap­ture each Dead show are called.

At the top, hear “The Gold­en Road (To Unlim­it­ed Devotion)”—the first song on the band’s 1967 debut album—taped at the July 4th farewell gig. (Head over to NYC­ta­per’s site to hear/download the com­plete show.) And above, hear “Pas­sen­ger” from the pre­vi­ous night. (Get the com­plete 7/3/2015 show here). The final July 5th show is sure to come online soon. Or you can find the shows on Archive.org here:

July 3

July 4

July 5

Opin­ions on these final gigs have var­ied wide­ly, but no mat­ter how uneven some of the per­for­mances, as always—scattered amidst the ram­shackle jams—the Dead con­jure trance states of inter­lock­ing rhythms and har­monies that make all the lis­ten­ing worth­while. We may nev­er get the chance to see them sprawl out live on stage again, but thanks to the stal­wart taper com­mu­ni­ty, near­ly every moment of the Dead­’s 50 year career in rock and roll—from the con­fus­ing­ly nood­ly to the tru­ly sublime—has been pre­served for the ages. Thou­sands of con­certs can be found at The Inter­net Archive, one of the best sanc­tioned Grate­ful Dead boot­leg archives on the web. Don’t miss it.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every Grate­ful Dead Song Anno­tat­ed in Hyper­text: Web Project Reveals the Deep Lit­er­ary Foun­da­tions of the Dead’s Lyrics      

The Grate­ful Dead’s “Rip­ple” Played by Musi­cians Around the World

10,173 Free Grate­ful Dead Con­cert Record­ings in the Inter­net Archive

The Grate­ful Dead’s “Ulti­mate Boot­leg” Now Online & Added to the Library of Con­gress’ Nation­al Record­ing Reg­istry

The Acid Test Reels: Ken Kesey & The Grate­ful Dead’s Sound­track for the 1960s Famous LSD Par­ties

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

In 1939, Igor Stravin­sky emi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States, first arriv­ing in New York City, before set­tling in Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he deliv­ered the Charles Eliot Nor­ton lec­tures at Har­vard dur­ing the 1939–40 aca­d­e­m­ic year. While liv­ing in Boston, the com­pos­er con­duct­ed the Boston Sym­pho­ny and, on one famous occa­sion, he decid­ed to con­duct his own arrange­ment of the “The Star-Span­gled Ban­ner,” which he made out a “desire to do my bit in these griev­ous times toward fos­ter­ing and pre­serv­ing the spir­it of patri­o­tism in this coun­try.” The date was Jan­u­ary, 1944. And he was, of course, refer­ring to Amer­i­ca’s role in World War II.

As you might expect, Stravin­sky’s ver­sion on “The Star-Span­gled Ban­ner” was­n’t entire­ly con­ven­tion­al, see­ing that it added a dom­i­nant sev­enth chord to the arrange­ment. And the Boston police, not exact­ly an orga­ni­za­tion with avant-garde sen­si­bil­i­ties, issued Stravin­sky a warn­ing, claim­ing there was a law against tam­per­ing with the nation­al anthem. (They were mis­read­ing the statute.) Grudg­ing­ly, Stravin­sky pulled it from the bill.

You can hear Stravin­sky’s “Star-Span­gled Ban­ner” above, appar­ent­ly per­formed by the Lon­don Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra, and con­duct­ed by Michael Tilson Thomas. The Youtube video fea­tures an apoc­ryphal mugshot of Stravin­sky. Despite the mythol­o­gy cre­at­ed around this event, Stravin­sky was nev­er arrest­ed.

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, BlueSky or Mastodon.

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 Night When Char­lie Park­er Played for Igor Stravin­sky (1951)

Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Visu­al­ized in a Com­put­er Ani­ma­tion for Its 100th Anniver­sary

Watch 82-Year-Old Igor Stravin­sky Con­duct The Fire­bird, the Bal­let Mas­ter­piece That First Made Him Famous (1965)

Hear 46 Ver­sions of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in 3 Min­utes: A Clas­sic Mashup

With her but­toned-up style, work with the UN, and name like a plucky char­ac­ter in a cer­tain Eng­lish wiz­ard series, Delia Der­byshire may not seem a like­ly pio­neer of exper­i­men­tal elec­tron­ic music. But her work in the six­ties and sev­en­ties indeed made her a fore­run­ner of so much con­tem­po­rary elec­tron­ic music that most every cur­rent leg­end in the business—from Aphex Twin and the Chem­i­cal Broth­ers to Paul Hart­noll of Orbital, who calls her work “quite amaz­ing” and “time­less”—cred­its her in some way or anoth­er. If you’ve nev­er heard of Der­byshire, you can learn about her life and work in the 2010 BBC Radio 4 doc­u­men­tary above, “Sculp­tress of Sound.”

As we recent­ly not­ed in an ear­li­er post, Der­byshire occu­pies a promi­nent place in the his­to­ry of women in the field. She has also worked with every­one from Doc­tor Who com­pos­er Ron Grain­er (who took sole cred­it for their work togeth­er) to Paul McCart­ney. Well almost. McCartney—a huge fan of Der­byshire’s work with the BBC’s Radio­phon­ic Workshop—considered col­lab­o­rat­ing with her on an ear­ly ver­sion of “Yes­ter­day,” then went with strings instead. But her near hit with the Bea­t­les showed just how far she had come since join­ing the BBC as a trainee stu­dio man­ag­er in 1960. The pre­vi­ous year, Dec­ca records reject­ed her appli­ca­tion, telling her point blank that they did not hire women for stu­dio work.

For con­trac­tu­al rea­sons, Der­byshire made many of her radio com­po­si­tions under pseu­do­nyms, and she may have been frus­trat­ed by her near-obscu­ri­ty. She did with­draw from music in the mid-sev­en­ties, not to reap­pear until a few years before her death in 2001. But per­haps her depar­ture had noth­ing to do with lack of fame. Der­byshire had the high­est of tech­ni­cal stan­dards and a math­e­mat­i­cal approach to mak­ing music. Once com­mer­cial syn­the­siz­ers became avail­able, she felt that mak­ing elec­tron­ic music had become too easy and her enthu­si­asm waned. The new music bored her, and instead of try­ing to hold on to her rel­e­vance, she made a grace­ful exit.

It’s only in recent years that Der­byshire has become rec­og­nized for the pio­neer she was. See her above pro­filed in a 2009 short doc­u­men­tary, “The Delian Mode,” by Kara Blake. Fea­tured are Der­byshire’s inno­v­a­tive tech­niques with manip­u­lat­ed tape machines and found sounds for her TV and film scores and her orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions under her own name and with influ­en­tial ear­ly elec­tro-pop band White Noise. The Guardian called Der­byshire’s way of mak­ing music “an ana­lyt­i­cal approach to synthesiz[ing] com­plex sounds from elec­tron­ic sources.” Her degree in math­e­mat­ics informed her way of work­ing, as did her con­cep­tion of her­self not pri­mar­i­ly as a com­pos­er, but also as a sci­en­tist. “I sup­pose in a way,” she said of her painstak­ing­ly-cre­at­ed scores, “I was exper­i­ment­ing in psy­cho-acoustics.” Many of her exper­i­ments sound as fresh today as they did at the time, ready to inspire sev­er­al more gen­er­a­tions of com­posers and musi­cians.

You can dip into an archive of Der­byshire’s music over at UBU.com.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Sev­en Hours of Women Mak­ing Elec­tron­ic Music (1938- 2014)

Meet the Dr. Who Com­pos­er Who Almost Turned The Bea­t­les’ “Yes­ter­day” Into Ear­ly Elec­tron­i­ca

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