Friday, October 11, 2013

THE MUSIC TAPES’ TRAVELING IMAGINARY IN REAL LIFE

The Traveling Imaginary came to New York City for a few nights in September and for a few hours the third story of a chapel became a gateway to another world. A place somewhere in the imagination of Julian Koster and The Music Tapes crew, outside of space and reality, where time stood still. A carnival full of games and cookies and music and recordings and fantastical characters and magic tricks and stories and dreams.

Since its beginnings, the band has consistently re-imagined the concert experience, and whatever form they take, they are definitely not to be missed. And, the performances are usually free of cost. For several years they’ve been doing caroling tours at Christmas time after being invited to people’s homes for a holiday gathering. They also did a tour performing their unreleased album that was a children’s story and symphony in five movements called, “2^nd Imaginary Symphony for Cloudmaking.”

Wanderlust: The Vision Quest:: A Traveling Mix

Published on thebomberjacket.com

When traveling alone, all the songs that you can fit in your pocket or in your car can become the best friend you could have. Sometimes the right songs can help block out the world and lull you to sleep on an uncomfortable bench during an airport layover. The right playlist can keep you awake and get you through the next 20 miles behind the wheel. The right melodies and lyrics can can give you something to focus on instead of the atrocious odor coming from the person next to you on the bus who clearly hasn’t showered once in his or her entire life.

I’ve lived in Spain for two years now, in both the “la españa de verdad” (the “real” small town Spain of Albacete) and in a metropolitan cultural center (Barcelona). This June, I’ll be filling a backpack with as much underwear as I can and backpacking from Budapest, Hungary to Berlin, Germany. Music has been my constant companion on my trips across Europe and I’ve had my share of trips but this will be my longest by far. For me, traveling seems to ring truest in the form of a folk song. Not a regurgitated ’60s culture anthem, but more of the idea or concept of a folk song.

Mango Nebula 2010 :: According to Last.fm

In searching for other ways to arbitrarily quantify music, I started thinking about all the different subjective influences on "lists" and that it might be a good idea to isolate each one and note the qualifier. So, here is my list of albums from 2010 that I listened to the most, according to last.fm (which is irrefutable).