Christmas Music That Doesn't Suck

A mix of traditional Christmas songs and John Zorn originals written specifically for this band: Marc Ribot on guitar, Jamie Saft on keyboards, Kenny Wollesen on vibes, chimes and glockenspiel, Trevor Dunn on bass, Cyro Baptista on percussion, and Joey Baron on the drums. Mike Patton does the vocals on the closing track. Required listening for this particular (and peculiar) day of the year.

Note to file: suggested alternative lyric to Winter Wonderland:

Every year when it's raining,

I find myself explaining

That the precipitate's

Not a matter of fate.

It's the carbon in the fucking atmosphere.

Joyeux Noël, y'all.   

David Byrne at the Fox Theater, Atlanta

 

Last night, for like the first time in forever, I went out to a show. A friend of mine won free tickets from Atlanta's NPR station to see David Byrne, and I was invited to tag along (she won four tickets). The seats were way up in the nosebleed section, and while there's no bad seats in the fabulous Fox Theater (the line of sight was perfect) and we weren't all the way dead last (there were still three rows behind us), we were in the uppermost balcony and Mr. Byrne looked like a little ant from up where we sat. The picture above is zoomed way in. 

I caught Byrne's previous American Utopia show a couple of times, and this show, Who Is the Sky?, was generally similar. The musicians were all mic'ed up so there were no amps or other equipment on the stage, instead of a drum kit he had four or five percussionists each with a snare, tom, of bass drum, and the whole show was carefully choreographed with the players all marching around, sometimes in obvious formation, sometimes, seemingly at random. And like the last show, he mixed new tunes from his latest album with a deep list of Talking Heads songs and selections from throughout Byrne's solo career.

What was new and different were the video images. The city setting above isn't a backdrop, at least in the traditional stagecraft sense. The band was surrounded by three enormous video screens and there was another screen beneath them, so at the flick of a button, the (off-stage) art director could create a cityscape, a deep forest, or a video-game setting, and it appeared that the band was not in front of the scenery but within that scenery.  During (Nothing But) Flowers, the band appeared to be performing among the aisles of a supermarket, but when Byrne sang, "This was a discount store, now, it's turned into a cornfield," the set instantly transformed into, you guessed it, a cornfield.

Cool.

Every song had its own custom video setting, from realistic scenery to stark monochromatic red or black-and-white. Instead of appearing under spotlights, selected performers played above a white circle of the floor that looked like the aura of a spotlight but without the performer's shadow. There was only  a shadow when the script called for one, as in when Byrne appeared to be casting a huge shadow of himself on the screen behind him as he went through his choreographed moves. But then, hilariously, the shadow suddenly "erred" and turned in a different direction as Byrne, reacted with alarm, and then scooted back into place.

This show is a continuation of Byrne's innovative ideas on how to present live music that started with his collaborative experiments with St. Vincent during the Love This Giant tour, continued into American Utopia, and now evolved into Who Is  the Sky? Byrne's new songs are serviceable for purposes of the show, but aren't really that interesting on their own (the Who Is the Sky? album is far too upbeat and cheerful for my dour tastes), but he can still hit the high notes on his old Talking Heads songs, which were clearly the audience's favorites. He even performed Psycho Killer, which I understand has been mothballed for at least two decades now.

If you want to see what cutting edge, 21st Century stage design if capable of, and you also happen to like vintage Talking Heads and David Byrne songs, you won't want to miss this show.

I'm really struggling with reasons to stay with Spotify. Yes, I've known for ages that they treat their artists poorly with low, unsustainable payouts but I was able to ignore that, or to rationalize it away. "Sure, that sucks and I wish it were different, but that's something for the artists and the platform to work out amongst themselves." Also, everyone else is getting all this content for next to nothing, why shouldn't I?

People have complained about how Spotify selects the artists it promotes in playlists, but I have never relied on Spotify playlists for new music recommendations. Okay, except maybe for the "Release Radar," which is but one of several sources I monitor for new releases. I've always created my own playlists and curate them to my own personal interests and satisfaction.   

But the more you learn, the worse it gets. Spotify apparently uses a pro-rate system to pay artists based on the "market share" of total streams rather than a fixed price per stream, leading to some very low payments for many artists. Worse, there are allegations that bots have been used to inflate the number of listens for popular artists, padding their payout while diluting the payments to others. 

Then there's the use of AI generated music in playlists to create product for which Spotify doesn't have to pay anyone, and some artists even claim that AI generated tracks have appeared on Spotify under their names, although they had nothing to do with creating the music and don't receive any money.     

As if all that weren't bad enough, Spotify's CEO has reportedly invested the company's profits in developing AI for military applications, so that the money getting diverted away from the musicians is being used to fund the global military complex. 

A lot of artists that I like but frankly don't listen to all that much have pulled their music off of Spotify, such as King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Sylvan Esso, Deerhoof, and Xiu Xiu.

I could live with that, but some of my absolute favorite artists have moved off the platform too, including The Necks, Thor Harris, Jim O'Rourke, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. And today I learned that John Zorn has removed the entire massive Tzadik catalogue, which he had only put up there just a few years ago (2022?). Notice that the "play" buttons don't work anymore on the post just below this one.  

Do I really want to subscribe to a platform that treats its talent like shit and uses its profits in ways I find morally abhorrent, but also that doesn't even have some of my absolute favorite artists anymore? 

When put like that, it sounds like an easy, slam-dunk decision, but there's still a lot of music on there that I do like, and it's one of the easiest and most reliable ways for checking out new recordings and new musicians I haven't yet heard. And at only around $10 per month, it's still a relative bargain. I've had my cursor hovering over the "End Subscription" button several times already, but every time I back away without cancelling.

For whatever it's worth, I also enjoy exploring and listening to new music on NTS radio, and I can always use YouTube and Bandcamp to check out new releases or access other streaming services. I have about 850 MBs of digital music stored on an external hard drive and have a literal closet full of more CDs than I could possibly listen to in a lifetime, including both store-bought discs I've been accumulating since 1990, as well as tracks I've burned from sources like Napster and UseNet which are even more ethically questionable than Spotify.

To help goad me into leaving, today I purchased the brilliant three-disc, three-hour-long new album, Disquiet, by the long-running Australian band, The Necks, through Bandcamp. It cost $20, cheaper than three separate CDs although still more than whatever micro-fraction of my monthly Spotify bill it would have been, but I have the added satisfaction of knowing that I'm financially supporting the artists. 

And not funding the AI war machine.

Nocturnes

In April 2019, bassist Trevor Dunn released the LP, Nocturnes, which included Six Nocturnes, which he described as "an early piece from 1989 for bass and string quartet, and a dynamic trio for piano, violin, and bass featuring the remarkable Carla Kihlstedt and Vicky Chow."

This month, John Zorn released his Nocturnes, eight compositions performed by Brian Marsella on piano, with bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Chas Smith. 

Two suites of piano nocturnes by two different but associated artists released on the same label.

Tim Berne

Here's a randomly selected video of a performance by Tim Berne because why not? FYI, that's Gregg Belisle-Chi on guitar, Ralph Alessi on trumpet, Trevor Dunn on bass, and Tim Angulo on the drums. 

New Music Friday

And here, if you wanted it or not, is my list of notable new music released last Friday, October 17:

Anna von Hausswolff - Struggle with the Beast (single, with Stardust, Facing Atlas, and The Whole Woman)  

John Zorn - Nocturnes (Brian Marsella, Jorge Roeder, and Ches Smith)

Animal Collective - FEELSLive 04/05 and Feels (20th Anniversary)

Evan Ziporyn & ContaQt - Art Decade 

sunn 0))) - Eternity's Pillars (single, with Raise the Chalice and Reverential) 

bar italia - Some Like It Hot  

Sam Wilkes - Public Records Performance 

Clarice Jensen - In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness 

Jakob Bro, Wadada Leo Smith & Marcus Gilmore - Murasaki 

If you've not heard of all these artists, I encourage you to check them out - I'm sure you'll find something you'll dislike. 

It took three weeks but it finally happened - I had my first Big Ears "oh my god, this musician is fantastic - where have they been all my life?" discovery moment of 2025. 

Lubomyr Melnyk is a Ukranian composer and pianist noted for his continuous-music piano technique featuring extremely rapid notes and complex note-series, usually with the sustain pedal held down to generate harmonic overtones and sympathetic resonances.  "This is a completely different piano universe from everything that has existed before," according to Melnyk.

He will be appearing at Big Ears 2026 and it was so easy to overlook his name in the lineup announcements. But when I finally got around to listening to him, omg, it really was a completely different piano universe from everything that had existed before. 

While he doesn't employ minimalism techniques in his compositions, his music will undoubtedly appeal to fans of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and most especially Terry Riley. His presence at Big Ears 2026 will fit right in with fellow 2026 performers Charlemagne Palestine and Hania Rani. 

I can't wait to see all of them at Big Ears next year.