Here at Tiny Mix Tapes, we’re all about stressing how next-level our tastes are in such areas as music, film, visual art, Fabergé, maple syrup, and serial commas. But when it comes to books? Eh. Let’s just say reading isn’t exactly compatible with the office Wii. We read about as often as you don’t dress like an idiot… which is why this writer was surprised to learn (upon completion of his standard TMT brunch of Fabergé eggs covered in Grade A Vermont medium amber syrup) that his assignment for today was to cover the release of a new anthology published by The University of California Press this month. I was dubious at first, but then Squeo assured me that it was artsy, and I was all over it.
So, here we go. The anthology, entitled Source: Music of the Avant-Garde, 1966-1973, collects interviews, scores, essays, artwork, poetry, photos, and maple syrup fudge recipes that were originally printed in the avant-garde music journal Source. Printed semi-annually in relatively small runs of 2000 between 1966 and 1973, Source dished with some pretty heavy-hitting artists and musicians, including Morton “Subotnick” Feldman, Robert “Wilson” Ashley, John “Lennon” Cage, Pauline “McCartney” Oliveros, David “Fats” Tudor, Harry “Not Patch” Partch, Steve “Philip Glass” Reich, Anthony “Unbreak My Heart” Braxton, and many others with nicknames too ridiculous to recount here. And talk about your “right place, right time” luck: Source was there to document all the crazy changes in performance practice, live electronics, computer music, notation, installations, politics, technology, and social conceptions of art-music that we’re always trying to one-up one another in our purported “vast knowledge of” here in the TMT office. Score.
The anthology was edited by founder Larry Austin, along with Douglas Kahn, and includes almost 400 pages of content from all 11 issues of Source. And it even includes a handy-dandy index of every article that ever appeared in the thing. If you can stomach a little more reading for the day, head to the University of California Press site to read the introduction by Larry Austin and for ordering info.
• University of California Press: http://www.ucpress.edu
