David Byrne 'In The Future' live - 1988

In 1985, David Byrne composed an album called 'Music For The Knee Plays' for a seemingly outlandish opera called 'The Civil Wars' by Robert Wilson. He recorded it live for the BBC in 1988 with Les Miserables brass band and this is one song from it, 'In The Future'. I'm not sure what's going on but I highly approve:



You can watch the whole thing live in parts on youtube. It is pleasingly bizarre with gorgeous brass and odd spoken word throughout; start with part one here, if you fancy it.

The whole opera thing sounds amazingly mental; according to Wikipedia: "The Civil Wars was conceived as a single daylong piece of music theatre to accompany the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Six different composers from six different countries were to compose sections of Wilson's text inspired by the American Civil War. After initial premieres in their countries of origin, the six parts were to be fused in one epic performance in Los Angeles during the games, a parallel to the internationalist ideals of the Olympic movement. The premiere of the full work was cancelled when funding failed to materialize (despite the Olympic Committee's offer of matching funds) and deadlines were not met." For more, go to /wiki/The_Civil_Wars.

www.davidbyrne.com/

James Murphy's Boiler Room set

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Or you can watch it over at http://boilerroom.tv/james-murphy-50-min-mix/

Swoon. That is all.

Douglas Adams: a real hoopy frood

Douglas Adams  11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001

The following is one of Douglas Adams' final appearances talking about his adventures going to find the aye-aye, kakapo and various other ridiculous, endangered animals when he started his 'Last Chance To See' radio programmes. Funny, charismatic, fascinating. But enough about me. I'd highly recommend taking the time to watch it all. Happy 60th birthday Douglas!

State of this lad (aye-aye, cap'n) 

I'd also recommend listening to the original radio shows at www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/radio/

www.douglasadams.com/