Concert Reviews/Music

Actor Jeremy Jordan signs my daughter's program, as I stand crushed amongst hundreds of Newsies fans standing on tip toe begging for his attention (author's photograph.) Don't judge me, ok? My daughter and I shared Father's day this year taking in the buoyant raucous joy of Newsies on Broadway. Real men don't love Newsies, right? Broadway productions, to me, had brought to mind sanguine, syrupy sweet expressions of heart-felt stories spun with punctuations bursting in song and dance in a filigreed fairy land. Such performances are for the romantic, the Pollyanna, hearts all a flutter,…

"Air guitar" has taken on almost cult status in some circles. How about "couch guitar"? This video is a clever application of robots, engineering and music. From the University of Pennsylvania: Quadrotors designed and built at the University of Pennsylvania perform the James Bond Theme by playing various instruments including the keyboard, drums and maracas, a cymbal, and the debut of an adapted guitar built from a couch frame. The quadrotors play this "couch guitar" by flying over guitar strings stretched across a couch frame; plucking the strings with a stiff wire attached to the base of…

On a hot August Saturday afternoon, bright sun beating down on a crowd of over 20,000, my young daughter and I had our attention focused intensely on an enormous iron gate. It was supposed to open at 6 pm, and it was now 6:10 with no sign of movement. The crowd was there for one purpose - to see the teen pop star Selena Gomez, whose television persona as Alex on "Wizards of Waverly Place" had cast its image upon millions of living rooms of families with young children as their parents hurried about preparing dinner, paying bills, checking email, bathing babies. (A version of this article…

Fourteen year old internet sensation Rebecca Black just released a follow up video "My Moment" after her debut of "Friday" that went viral with more than 167 million views. Attention at this scale landed her a spot on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and a music video with Katy Perry, "Last Friday Night". Such opportunities for seemingly instant fame can affect these teens, and pre-teens, in a profound way: IRL (In Real Life)... Rebecca Black has had to endure the backlash of cyberbullying after her first video. And Black, 13, certainly never anticipated the social media uproar, mainstream…

Michael Bay's "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" is a visually ugly film with an incoherent plot, wooden characters and inane dialog. It provided me with one of the more unpleasant experiences I've had at the movies. Roger Ebert Having witnessed the destruction of the twin towers on 9/11 from across the Hudson river, it was years before I could look at an airplane taking off from Newark airport without evoking that nightmare. Watching Transformers: Dark of the Moon brought it back in a visceral way with scene after numbing scene of toppling skyscrapers destroyed by Decepticons. Yes, the…

Those late nights of coffee-induced creativity sessions. Whether they're a memory or a recurring event, how we share them has changed dramatically. In our 24 hour/seven days per week cycle of news media and activity in general, there is yet another mode of expression and sharing of what's going on this instant....Instagram. Peaks such as this used to be reserved for an inner circle of friends. Now fans {I am one of them} can take a gander, if they wish, into the creative process. I am lucky to have close friends who are composers, musicologists, and my mother was an artist. In this…

If it's too loud nearby a river in Paris, you can blame M. scholtzi singing a raucous love song, exclusively by males wooing females. From National Geographic Daily News: {Note: A loud rock concert is at about 115 decibels...} Engineers and evolutionary biologists in Scotland and France recorded the boatman--which is roughly the size of a grain of rice--"singing" in a tank. The aquatic insect's songs peaked at 105 decibels, roughly equivalent to the volume of a pounding jackhammer within arm's reach. The chirps are loud enough that humans can hear the sounds while standing at the edge of a…

Why do we itch? Is there a cure? Counterirritation is an effective treatment, used for decades, based a simple idea: Pain masks the itch For example, if you're suffering from poison ivy, taking a very hot shower can bring some relief, or ingesting something with capsaicin, the pain-inducing compound in hot peppers such as jalepenos, can be effective. Can the nerves that transmit sensations of pain and itch be separated or are they intrinsically intertwined? As shown in this "ball of nerves," separation of sensations is no easy task. Courtesy of Xinzhong Dong Ball Of Nerves Just before…

May 12 was a glorious day for our graduates, some 2,730 students celebrating the completion of their undergraduate education. Our Commencement Speaker John Legend, a Grammy Award Winner, shared an important message in both speech and in song: equal access to quality education is a right, not a privilege. Mr. Legend acknowledged the recent brouhaha highlighted on FOX news about rapper Common, with whom he has performed. Common was recently invited to the White House to participate in a Poetry Jam, generating push back due to offensive lyrics in some of his songs. For example: ...the New…

Disaster relief for Japan has taken on many forms, and I applaud artists when they use their talents and their broad outreach to help the victims and their families. The band Linkin Park has responded in their own way, using graphic design guided by their fans. This effort is part of the "Music for Relief" campaign. You can view the CNN broadcast here about their design. Linkin Park - Not Alone Lyrics I break down, fear is sinking in The cold comes, racing through my skin Searching for a way to get to you Through the storm you... Go, giving up your home Go, leaving all you've known You are…

Source. Anyone working to benefit human rights knows the challenge of public outreach and community engagement. I have been working with the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition for more than two years and we have made excellent progress in engaging scientists and scientific societies to learn how they can contribute their skills towards human rights with programs such as Scientists on Call. But the efforts of popular performers such as Linkin Park are truly extraordinary in the scope and breadth of their outreach. Today, February 22, Linkin Park is hosting a special chat on Facebook…

Source. Remember the "Goody-Gaga" effect per Prof. Boguski at Harvard? Well, here's an example of compelling art as a statement. What is art? What is the message? Maybe that's the point. Lady Gaga arrives at the Emmy Awards tonight in a giant egg, ready for "rebirth." A reference to "Born This Way"? A provocative way to garner attention? Is it necessary? These are all questions about how to define art, performance and how we define fame.

Source. Linkin Park's Chester Bennington / Photo by Ian Witlen. If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one... Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. Bhagavad Gita From the first moment of "Requiem" from A Thousand Suns, ripples of peripatetic paroxysms began to spread across the sold out Madison Square Garden arena the evening of February 4. Peripatetic, because the source of LP's music was dynamic, shifting from percussion to keyboards to the trading lead rapid-fire vocals of rapping Mike Shinoda to…

In one of my favorite letters of all time, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Maria Cosway about a debate between his head and his heart. If you are not familiar, I encourage you to read the letter written by one of the great masters of the power of the word. In the spirit of this debate, I would like to share with ScienceBlogs readers an account of a personal special event. Yes, ScienceBlogs is about the logic of our heads, but sometimes the heart has something to say. There is a connection with science: namely, the importance of acoustics in our lives. Music has touched each of us in various…

This Halloween, Lady Gaga costumes were all the rage, but one fan has taken devotion to a whole new level. This fan, who has attended some 28 Lady Gaga concerts worldwide (so far!) and created an "adoring fan" website, happens to teach sociology and has developed a new sociology course, "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame" at the University of South Carolina, as reported in The New York Times (Oct. 29). It is often said that the tenure system is founded in academic freedom, allowing instructors to teach subjects without constraint, hopefully with the students' best interests in mind.…