An Announcement about Reposts

I know it's been a long while between new posts. Unfortunately, this post won't have anything new available as DrEyescope and I are very busy with our careers and various projects nowadays. I do not know when there will be anything new here. This post is about addressing reposts.

I just found out that ADrive is planning to discontinue its services for free accounts on November 16. (I also found out it was announced in September, but I haven't checked my email in a while.) That means that ADrive will be deleting all free accounts and all the files that are in those free accounts. It happens that I am one of those folks with a free account. I put in a lot of time over the past year or two reuploading a lot of files to ADrive so that they will stay up for a long time. All of those files will be gone on November 16 because ADrive wants to charge people for the privilege of using its services. It's a profit-making business foremost so I understand that's the way it has to be. However, it would have been great if it could grandfather the free accounts by letting them stay while not accepting any more free users since free users helped it by trying it and perhaps also helped to persuade more people to use it. I do not wish to sign up for a premium account with them therefore I will be finished with ADrive on November 16 as far as I am concerned.

If you have not yet gotten any or some older files, now is the time to grab everything you want while you can. Due to lack of time, I have not been able to keep up with what file-sharing services/cloud services/filehosters are out there. Just about all of the familiar names from the first generation in that industry (e.g. Rapidshare, Zshare, Badongo, etc.) are gone. The only ones I can name off the top of my head right now are Mega and Zippyshare. Anyone is welcome to offer suggestions of what to use.

I do not know what I will do or use after Nov. 16. It's likely there will be a lot of dead links here. I hardly have time nowadays to tend to this blog much less do a bunch of reups. As I already said, get them while you still can.

Dec. 9, 2015 UPDATE: The ADrive links are still active for the moment. Apparently, ADrive pushed back the date. I just found out that it said it will permanently delete all free accounts on January 1, 2016. If you still haven't got what you want, you still have some time left.

More Updates Including a New Twitter Account

Hello to all. I recently finished reuploading several posts. They're listed on the "Updates" page.

I am considering no longer using the "Updates" page instead posting updates on a new Twitter account I created for the blog. It may be a better way to keep up with updates rather than remembering to check the "Updates" page. It may also be a little more efficient for me and DrEyescope as we don't have to reupload from several to many posts at one time. It's been difficult finding time to reupload much less post nowadays. Just one could be reuploaded and an update will appear in a short amount of time.

The "Updates" page will probably be changed to an open forum for requests and general comments.

About the Twitter account: Tweets will mostly be updates of old and new posts along with maybe links to some stuff we think is interesting. We'll see how it goes. I realize it has been a few years since I last posted any new tweets in my personal Twitter account, but I thought I would give it another try.

Some More Updates for Old Posts

I hope everyone is enjoying the Ratchet Orchestra, Marshall Allen and Danny Ray Thompson concert. I would like to thank DrEyescope for sharing it here. It's one of those concerts that I wish I could have been there in person.

I reuploaded a lot of the old posts, this time focusing on the avant-garde/modern classical and electro-acoustic records. I still have some more to reupload. Hopefully, I can get them up very soon. If you missed them the first time, now is another chance to grab them. They're all listed on the Updates page.

UPDATE (Aug. 4, 2014): I reuploaded some more posts and there's more on the way.

UPDATE (Aug. 17, 2014): More posts have been reuploaded. Also, sad to say, the links to the Ratchet Orchestra concert had to be taken down.

UPDATE (Aug. 25, 2014): DrEyescope reupped a few of his posts recently. They're all listed on the Updates page.

UPDATE (Sept. 2, 2014): I fulfilled a few requests and added reuploads of some other posts that have been neglected for too long.

Repost News

I re-upped a lot of stuff recently including most of the requests. They're all listed on the "Updates about Old Posts" page. I'll take care of the remaining requests soon. Also, new posts are forthcoming.

FYI

FYI-in case you were wondering:
I know I haven't posted much lately-(an understatement if ever I heard one!), and it seems like all of my Rapidshare links of the past two years are now dead.
I'll post this (above) on a site which has proven relatively trustworthy so far (though not without its own inevitable drawbacks) but I'm not sure if they will be more or less dependable in the future...
That said, I plan to begin posting again with a little more frequency, but I also wonder how many of you may want re-uploads of past posts instead.Not many requests have come in, (and I haven't even filled any of those yet).
With the wretched state of the filehosting sites and the depressing uncertainty I feel toward them as a result, I wonder whether it's worth trusting any of them enough to make the effort.

Nonetheless, above is a post which I hope you will enjoy, whoever and wherever you are, and I hope you continue to have a Happy Holiday.

Best wishes from myself AND on behalf of our indefatigable host,
grey calx.

The Runaround

Some of you may have experienced frustrating restrictions on the flow of the Rapidshare files:"File owners' public traffic exhausted" is how they put it.
Those new restrictions allow for only 1Gb outgoing traffic per day.
And recently RS limited the capacity of free accounts to 5Gb.

THE GOOD NEWS:
For the next month, until April 24, there are NO restrictions on Rapidshare traffic.
You are encouraged to grab whatever intrigues you during this open period..
It (RS availability) will return to "normal" after April 24,

Thanks to all the visitors who left comments of support and suggestions to a recent post regarding the current difficult times.

We appreciate it.

Yet Another Message

This is yet another one of those "I haven't posted in a while" type of posts. Given what's been happening lately including blogs disappearing or quitting, I wonder if people no longer visit music blogs frequently. I have been noticing that in some other areas of the blogosphere, bloggers are posting sporadically and visitors hardly come to the blogs. It seems a lot of the people have migrated over to Twitter and Facebook. I have been considering reviving my Twitter account and possibly start posting shares over there. I still have a Facebook account, but I am using it less often. I don't feel it's safe for me to post there considering Facebook's stance on not valuing privacy. I also don't really like it much. I don't think I've ever felt more uncomfortable on the Internet when I was using Facebook.

Now to the main point of this post. A lot of my links have been dying lately. One of the main culprits is Mediafire. It's been using a bot to find and block access to what has been programmed in its system as copyrighted material that is available on iTunes and/or Amazon. Often, the bot does a poor job. It has blocked access to a lot of my files because it has mistaken the tracks posted for some different artists' tracks that seem to have similar names. I know that Mediafire is using the bot because of panic caused by what happened to Megaupload and threats from the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America). I won't be using it anymore. I'll always remember that it was once a great site to store files from the late 2000s to 2012.
Anyway I have read the numerous re-up requests in my past posts. I am having trouble finding time to do re-ups, but I am still trying to meet requests. Finding reliable file hosters is becoming more difficult. It may be a long while before I can have at least most of them back up. Patience is a virtue.
I did re-up several electronic music albums a few days ago. Check the "Updates" page.
I'll try to keep on putting more back up. They'll be in small batches. Keep checking the "Updates" page.

It's After the End of the World,Don't You Know That Yet?

Well.
Of course we're all still here.
Even this blog is still here, and that's saying a mouthful these days.

I'd just like to say Happy Holidays to you who visit here occasionally or often- I'm sure some of you have noticed the slowing-down of the postings here.
The current state of the sphere we call blog is not good.
Perhaps the new year holds promise of better things to come.
Let's hope so.

On behalf of myself and grey calx-
Best Wishes to our members and visitors for the New Year.

Peace and Good Will.

Message from the Management: Xmas/Holiday Not the End of the World After All edition

It looks like it's been a while since I last posted here.

* It was one year and five days ago that DrEyescope joined the Closet as a contributor marking his first anniversary here. I would like to thank DrEyescope for all of the great music that he has shared during his time here so far from Lukas Foss to Fat and for turning me on to some stuff that was once new to my ears. May this blog be blessed with his generosity for some time to come.
To be honest, DrEyescope is the main reason why this blog is still active. A little over a year ago, I had given some thought to shutting this blog down or at least no longer updating the blog. I believed that the time for this blog had come. At the time, I was still in school and held a full-time job where I attempted to start my career. There was very little free time to devote to the blog. Along came DrEyescope to give this place some new life and energy.

* I am trying to find time to re-up a bunch of dead links. Sadly dead links are abundant here as of late. Hopefully, there will be some of those links active again sometime during the next few days. Keep watching the "Updates about Old Posts" page.

* I may have a new post (or two) sometime before Christmas. I hope everyone has recovered from the non-event of the end of the world.

Merry Holidays and/or Happy Christmas!

John Cage 100th Anniversary

At last, the big day has arrived!

There's more to come later today. Stay tuned.

A Few Links to Cage Material

 

One more day until the big day. 

Here are a few links to Cage material that I found on the nets during the past few years. I think these would be of interest.

My friend Caitlyn recently posted on her blog the 2 LP Sonatas & Interludes for Prepared Piano performed by Gerard Fremy. Fremy's playing of Sonatas & Interludes sounds to me the most percussive of all the "Sonatas & Interludes..." I've listened to so far.

She also posted the Time Records LP that has Cage's "Aria with Fontana Mix" featuring Cathy Berberian. You'll want these for sure.


During 2008, John Kannenberg released Audio Tour: The 4'33" Museum on the Stasisfield net label. The album is a free download. All of the tracks are "performances" of 4'33'' at various museums. It can be argued that he is not actually performing it properly as he is not "not playing" an instrument especially in front of a crowd. They are field recordings of the audio environment at those places and they are quite good. His angle is that he is realizing one of Cage's motivations of 4'33'' in the encouragement of active listening. If so, then I think the album is successful.


In early 2009, the Chapel Hill, North Carolina station WXYC broadcasted a show about Cage on a program called Feedback Farm. WXYC is run and broadcasted by students of the University of North Carolina. The program's hosts discuss Cage's life and concepts, attempt to put in practice some of Cage's ideas and perform a few of his pieces. Yes, it is available for download.


In 1942, Cage wrote and conducted music for Kenneth Patchen's radio play "The City Wears a Slouch Hat." The original entire 1942 broadcast was played on the Wavelength radio program. Wavelength is broadcast on London-based Resonance FM. "The City Wears a Slouch Hat" takes up the entire first half-hour of the episode. A recording of William Burroughs takes up the rest of the episode. Scroll down to find the episode titled "Radio Narratives".


NPR (National Public Radio) also did a Cage overview for the Cage centennial as a tribute on its Hearing Voices podcast. It features recordings of performances of Cage's music. I don't think it's as fun as the Feedback Farm show, but it's suitable for those who prefer a more professionally put-together show.


I plan to feast on some cake tomorrow for the big day. After I indulge myself on the delicious yet calorie-abundant food, I'm going to take a hard look at this site. In the later part of his life, Cage lived on a macrobiotic diet which was introduced to him by his friend Yoko Ono. Cage wrote an overview about the macrobiotic diet. He includes a few recipes and explanations of foods in the macrobiotic diet as well as tips on how to cook those foods.

Updates about Past Posts Featuring Cage

John Cage has been featured in several posts in this blog. The posts have been about recordings devoted only to Cage's compositions, compilations that include Cage or performers' recordings that include one or a few more works by Cage. Since we are focusing on Cage this week, we encourage you to explore these past posts if you have not already done so. Some of the past posts include:

John Cage - Cheap Imitation

John Cage - Empty Words Part IV

John Cage - Variations II/Eight Whiskus/Music for Two/Ryoanji

John Cage - Complete Piano Music Vol. 1: The Prepared Piano 1940-1952

John Cage - Litany for the Whale

Amadinda Percussion Group - Works by Varese, Chavez, Cage and Harrison
includes a few of Cage's pieces including "Amores", "Double Music" [collaboration with Lou Harrison] and an excellent performance of "4'33""

Stefan Hussong and Mike Svoboda - Anarchic Harmonies -- Frescobaldi Cage
some tracks are some of Cage's "Forty-Four Harmonies"

John Cage and Lejaren Hiller/Ben Johnston - split release
side one of the LP is Cage and Hiller's "HPSCHD"

various artists compilation - New Electronic Music from Leaders of the Avant Garde
side one of the LP is Cage's "Variations II" performed by David Tudor

The posts above have been re-upped recently.

Some other additional past Cage posts include:

John Cage - Imaginary Landscapes

John Cage/Christian Wolff - split release
side A is Cage's "Cartridge Music" performed by Cage and David Tudor

John Cage - Variations IV

John Cage - Variations IV Volume II

Harry Partch and John Cage - Music of Harry Partch and John Cage

various artists compilation - Concert Percussion for Orchestra

There are also more posts featuring Cage's works. Not every post including his name as a label has been re-upped yet. We're trying to work on it.

What we have posted so far is only a very small portion of recordings featuring Cage's works. There are many more out there and we encourage to explore those too.

This Week of Cage (in Honor of the Cage Centennial)

This week sees the 100th anniversary of the birth of John Cage on the day of Wednesday, September 5, 2012.

John Cage is arguably the most influential musical thinker of the twentieth century.

A pioneer of musical methods which have been adopted by numerous composers who have come after him, Cage has followed many paths: chance, extended instrumental technique, found sound, silence and graphic scores, to name but a few.

Information about Cage is readily available to anyone who is interested, and Cage wrote a number of books which remain in print.

To celebrate this occasion, a number of new posts of Cage's music will appear this week, and new links will be posted for past Cage posts which have gone offline.

We hope you enjoy them.

A Closet Of Curiosities is Six Years Old!

Grey Calx asked me if I wanted to write a post commemorating the birthday of the blog he began six long years ago.

So here it is:

The first thing that comes to mind is that many of you who are reading this are more familiar with this place than I am. I've only been here six months...When I joined this place as a "Fan" there were already some 480 members of the Closet Of Curiosities Fan Club. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you; those who were here before me and those who have joined since- my fellow big-eared beans.Thanks especially to the members and visitors who have left comments. Your feedback is most welcome, and I try to keep up with you all. My apologies to any of you who I may have overlooked  unintentionally or whose requests may have gone unanswered.(For some technical reasons I may not receive notice of comments left on older posts and they may go unnoticed for a long time. I will try to fix this silly problem asap.)
Thank You.

The last few months in blogging have been so rocky and no doubt many of you have seen some of your favorite blogs perish in the wake of the troubles. I'd like to take a moment to remember and thank the ones we all hoped would be here now but who, for one reason or another, are no longer active in the blogworld. (Not to be maudlin,but) When you find a blog you can really dig in to, and visit regularly, and it disappears overnight, it can certainly be a shock, and some contributors and blogs are SO unique that they can not be replaced. So- Thank You for being irreplaceable. I hope you know who you are.

Thanks also to the ones who are still active, and who are listed in our sidebar (and who are kind enough to do the same). I enjoy visiting many of you on a regular basis, and hope to continue to do so.

Lastly (but certainly not leastly)- I want to thank Grey Calx for giving birth to this six year old monster, and for allowing me to babysit it. He may seem like an absent parent lately, but I assure you that he is lurking in the wings. (You can find his most recent activities over in the "Updates About Old Posts" tab at the top right of the home page.) I know he's happy for the Closet's  existence, and I hope he's proud of it, too.

Happy Birthday, A Closet Of Curiosities!

About the "Update about Old Posts" Page

There is a link to a new page on the sidebar above the list of posts (Blog Archive). I created this page to make a list of older posts that have been updated. They may have added information or have been modified in some way. The page is also intended to list posts with new links. I am not sure if anyone has noticed the new page which is why I decided to write this post. Usually, links to pages would be placed under the header on Blogger's blogs. Since it is not working properly, I had to create a link for the page in the sidebar. I placed it on top where it would be easy to spot. BTW, if you have any requests for material that have dead links, that page is a good place to let me know.

A Message from the Admin. [1/25/2012]

I'm sure you've all heard by now about the MU fallout. I thought that something like this would eventually happen. I'm surprised it took this long. I thought that MU or one of the other similar services would go down in 2008 or 2009. No, I never publicly posted those thoughts. It was something I thought to myself and mentioned during private conversations.

About half of our posts are no longer active because of the demise of MU and also because some of the other hosting or cloud services are closing up shop or disabling sharing in the wake of the MU takedown.

For my posts, they may go back up, but it will take some time. DrEyescope says he will re-up his stuff sometime soon. We may want to wait a while until things cool off.

For now, we plan to stick around and there will still be new posts. Some words of advice I would offer are to download as much as you can and what is still available. You just never know.

Good night or good day wherever you are.

HAPPY NEW EARS!

To All the members and visitors of/to A Closet Of Curiosities - I wish to extend you all fond wishes for a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.
I have been here only a very short time, but in that time I have been made to feel welcome and appreciated. I want to Thank all of you who have posted comments in response to my offerings; they are very much appreciated, and I enjoy reading every one. (I have to resist the temptation to clutter up the section with responses of my own...very difficult - I won't try TOO hard.)

Please Keep the comments coming!

Enjoy the last few hours of 2011; CHEERS!
(Oh! And don't forget to buckle up- we're in for a wild ride!)

Best Wishes- Dr Eyescope

Another Round of Updates

More links have been updated. There's some more upcoming, but there are things in real life that needs to be done. There should also be a new post or two next week.

Soloists of the Ensemble Nipponia - Japan: Traditional Vocal and Instrumental Music
various artists compilation - Concert Percussion for Orchestra
George Crumb - Makrokosmos Vol. 1 & 2
various artists compilation - Eastmontage
The Camarata Contemporary Chamber Orchestra - The Electronic Spirit of Erik Satie
Dr. Roger Payne - Deep Voices: The Second Whale Record
various artists compilation - Music for Clarinet and Tape

Update: This Blog is Not Dead After All

For those of you wondering if this thing is still on, yes it is. I took a hiatus much longer than I expected. I have been busy with work, school, and other real-life matters during these past several months since I last posted. So I offer my apologies for the lack of posts.

Hopefully, there should be some new material here soon. I cannot say exactly when that will be.

There will be a new contributor joining us soon here in the Closet. He has some goodies to offer. His name is Dr. Eyescope. You may have read his comments in some posts. He says he can start sometime in November.

It has been stuffy in here. The dust is accumulating. This place needs some fresh air. I am thinking about making a few minor design changes in this blog along with adding a few new features. I have been also thinking about giving this blog a new look. More on this soon.

Another thing I have considered is offering materials in FLAC format. Recently, I have been ripping my CD collection along with some CDs I borrowed in FLAC. I hope to work on ripping vinyl and tapes in FLAC sometime soon. Future posts may have FLAC files as well as some older posts. More on this soon.

I remember saying around a couple of years ago that I was going to replace old links especially the Sharebee links. I am behind on this project. It has been rather difficult to find time to replace old links plus requests for re-ups. But now I have new links for some posts:

Frank Perry - Zodiac
Morton Feldman - Untitled Composition for Cello and Piano
Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel - split release on Time [S8001]
Harry Partch - And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma
various artists compilation - Dance of the Hareem
John Melby/James Tenney - split release [CRI SD 258]
Donald Erb - Music for Instruments & Electronic Sounds
various artists compilation - Electronic Music/Musique Concrete

More links will be updated soon. That is all from me for now. Stay tuned and take care.

Merry Holidays!

I'm going to be visiting some people on Xmas day. I'll probably be back in a couple of days.

I would like to wish everyone out there best wishes for the holidays and seasons greetings.