The Government Center
Ian Nagoski is a music researcher and reissue record producer in Baltimore who specializes in early 20th century recordings in languages other than English. Over the past 15 years, he has produced compilations for Dust-to-Digital, Tompkins Square, the Database Recorded American Music, Mississippi Records, and his own Canary label.
Wednesday May 17th, he'll present an enthusiastic talk-and-listening session of immigrant performers from the 1910s-40s with ties to the Pittsburgh area.
"Nagoski is a Walter Benjamin visionary, using his collection of 78s to hallucinate a history that actually happened but which remains hidden beneath official dogma and nationalisms.” - Marcus Boon, the Wire
"Nagoski's approach is great, because he's got a DJ's ear, and he's got this historian's perspective. He's looking at these songs as somewhere between a poem and an autobiography." - Jace Clayton, DJ/rupture
"His work is so rare and important that it should almost be treated as a ritual object, a pathway to the past and a voice for ghosts of a forgotten part of American musical history." - Nate Wooley, SoundAmerican
"...as essential to an understanding of American music as anything else." - Amanda Petrusich, Pitchfork
https://canary-records.bandcamp.com/
8pm $- donation based