Seth Gordon profile picture

Seth Gordon

The New Simplicity

About Me


Seth - your MY SPACE page is enough to make anyone puke. Maybe your obvious lack of talent or intelligence makes you cranky. Grow up.
- Kathryn Berry
sounds forgotten and found again. left out in the rain, in the sun, weathered with months and years. left on rooftops, left on on the beach, buried in the yard and found after a storm.
Instructions: place sound in a quiet place and unpack. Allow sound to roam free and explore the new space it is in. Explore with it. Allow your new sound to interact with other small sounds which may be in or around the room such as air conditioners, fighting neighbors, wind, creaky wood, silent stones...
New sounds must interact with other sounds in order to grow, but can be easily smothered by too many of them. At first, see to it your new sound only encounters one or two other sounds at a time. For example, a bird in a tree and your own breathing. Or sparse raindrops and distant traffic.
Suggested locations for your new sound:
a pond in the woods.

an empty room with a flourescent light.
a stretch of highway in New Hampshire at 3:00 in the morning.
a ladder up the side of a building that just stops, leading nowhere.
a hole in the pavement that makes you think of something you lost, but you can't quite remember what it was, it's been lost so long...
a cement block left in river shallows for eight or more years.
on a hill, feeling your body rebuild itself under summer heat, large industrial machines and insects buzzing in the distance.
The most valuable of all talents is never using two words when one will do.
- Thomas Jefferson
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
- Mark Twain
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
- Helen Keller
Do not speak unless you can improve the silence
- Proverbs
Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.
- Cicero
Silence is the mother of truth.
- Benjamin Disraeli
Silence, like a poultice, comes to heal the blows of sound.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
And now there is merely silence, silence, silence, saying all we did not know.
- William Rose Benet
It's good to shut up sometimes.
- Marcel Marceau

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 6/4/2005
Band Members: Seth Gordon
Influences: Alan Splet, John Fahey, One String Sam, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Gavin Bryars, Laurence Crane, John White, Cornelius Cardew, Christopher Hobbs, John Cage, Kaffe Matthews, Morton Feldman, Erik Satie, Osvald Golijov, Sofia Gubaidulina, Bernard Herrmann, Julius Hemphill, Hamiett Bluiett, Bernd Friedman / Burnt Friedman, Ennio Morricone, Giacinto Scelsi, Derek Bailey, David Slusser, The Red Clay Ramblers, David Shea, John Zorn, Justin Broadrick, Final, Lull, Null, Mick Harris, Iceburn, Hafler Trio, John Adams, Charles Mingus, Charlie Haden, Wycked Sceptre, Philip Glass, Fred Frith, Bruce Springsteen, The Beach Boys / Brian Wilson, Obscure late 60s / early 70s psychedelic bands, Neurosis / Tribes of Neurot, Godflesh, Ry Cooder, Slayer, Entombed, Ryoji Ikeda, (the original) Magnetar, the moon stealing project, Smedley Hoboken & Joe E. Crumb, The Inhibitors, Keiji Haino, Otomo Yoshihide, La Monte Young, Arvo Pärt, Samuel Barber, Sonic Youth, Steve Reich, Sam Shepard, Merzbow, David Lynch, Peter Greenaway, Wim Wenders, King Crimson, Brian Eno, Glenn Gould, Marc Ducret, Tim Berne, Paul Schütze, Peter Brötzmann
Sounds Like: Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, John Fahey, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Erik Satie, Bernard Herrmann, Bernd Friedman, Justin Broadrick, Final, Lull, Null, Mick Harris, Scorn, Hafler Trio, Fred Frith, Tribes of Neurot, Matmos, Ryoji Ikeda, Magnetar, Keiji Haino, Otomo Yoshihide, David Shea, Marc Ducret, Paul Schütze, Alan Splet
Type of Label: None

My Blog

NM-UH

In response to this interview with Matt Levine, owner of NYC's newest hotspot The Eldridge, Chef Suffolk of The Suffolk Kitchen, creator of the $12,000 Knish, was inspired to put his culinar...
Posted by Seth Gordon on Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:51:00 PST

Momofuku Ko

So, as some of my foodie friends that read Grub Street at nymag.com already know, I am in fact the infamous "Ko-Thario" they (here, here, and here) and the folks at Eater have ...
Posted by Seth Gordon on Tue, 27 May 2008 10:22:00 PST

Goth Days, Revisited

So this decade-plus old blast from the past showed up in the series of tubes recently...Truth be told, I'm kind of glad the sound quality is so horrible, otherwise you might hear just how awful I seem...
Posted by Seth Gordon on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:46:00 PST

something new for a change...

So I've finally gotten about to updating the pieces here, figure the same four have been up long enough that even I'm sick of hearing them when my page opens. I've left 7YG up for the time being as pe...
Posted by Seth Gordon on Fri, 20 Apr 2007 01:19:00 PST

random iPod business

So I never have much to say here, really. So here's the first ten tracks that come up on the ol' iPod shuffle: 1. Punky Brüster - Wallet Chain Weird. I only have one song by this group (actually a sp...
Posted by Seth Gordon on Thu, 08 Feb 2007 08:14:00 PST

First impressions of Phil Kline's John The Revelator

So I moseyed across the bridge to what is arguably my least favorite part of Manhattan, the Financial District, to check out the premiere of Phil Kline's John The Revelator - a Mass consisting of the ...
Posted by Seth Gordon on Sat, 11 Nov 2006 11:48:00 PST

Derek Bailey

Derek Bailey... what can you say? Derek Bailey passed away on Christmas. I just found out today. There's enough obituaries out there explaining who he was, what he did, what his music was like... what...
Posted by Seth Gordon on Wed, 28 Dec 2005 11:52:00 PST

Slow

For whatever reason lately I've been obsessed with slow things. Three hour art films where the narrative barely moves. Making soup stocks. Music which takes a ridiculously long time to devel...
Posted by Seth Gordon on Fri, 02 Dec 2005 11:39:00 PST

Orchestra Blues

Ah, the orchestra.More on the end times: I've taken a bit of a "who cares?" attitude to the whole "death of classical music" mishegas in the past, but that's not entirely honest. What's dying is, spec...
Posted by Seth Gordon on Wed, 30 Nov 2005 09:17:00 PST

The deal with Babbitt

I spend an inordinate amount of time and energy criticizing Milton Babbitt. I am going to attempt to explain why my ire is so directed at him and not at, say, Carter or Wuorinen or Xenakis - all of wh...
Posted by Seth Gordon on Wed, 02 Nov 2005 12:00:00 PST