In Memory of LeRoi Moore - Benefit CONCERT TO END AMERICAN APARTHEID - CAROLINE KENNEDY/AOL/DMB Give to NYC Children

"I can't believe that we would lie in graves dreaming of things that might have been" - David J. Matthews. 'Lie In Our Graves'

Caroline Kennedy and AOL benefit for NYC: GREY STREET, Dave Matthews Band, Live in Central Park, September 2002, mean-emotion=natural, average standard tempo/meanspeed=104.1

In September 2002, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and the Dave Matthews Band coordinated efforts to bring about: a benefit concert by the band, all revenue going to New York City public schools.

An outstanding effort all around: If any institution deserves all the extra help, especially one that reflects the improving urban race relations, it is the inner-city public school. Remember To Sir With Love and Blackboard Jungle? Well, here in good old New York City the Spence or Regis School have a set of standards, and so do anonymous public schools all over the "five boroughs" of New York City: Staten Island, Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan. I call it—Unintentionally--the last form of American apartheid. The radical difference in the cost and quality of the schools as viewed black and white. Quite simply, though everyone is just too darned polite to say it, “white” people largely “send” their children to private, expensive schools in New York City, while the poor and most immigrants are treated to a different education experience entirely. This concert helped close that gap, and all were commended at the time, and deservedly so.



Dave Matthews is South African and emigrated here [in his late teens]. The Dave Matthews Band is bizarre to me: the band is 3/5 “black”--Carter Beauford, drums, Boyd Tinsley, woodwinds and reed instruments of all types, LeRoi Moore, electric violin, 2/5 “white”-Dave Matthews, vocals and guitar and Stefan Lessard, bass guitars of all kinds—yet the audience looks, well, like a football stadium, IE, where are the black fans? Whatever—as a country we get better at empathy and tolerance all the time. Race relations in the 27 years I have lived in New York City are excellent to the point of being surreal—especially compared to the Crack Epidemic days of the 1980s, where brutal racial crimes were a daily event. No more, and everyone is happy about that. The taboo question: what effect did September 11, 2001 have on race relations in New York City? In my opinion, just surviving became such a priority that people simply lost energy for racial bias and stereotypes in many situations which may have been heated if same situation occurred in 1987.

Grey Street is a song that the band plays that really doesn’t “mean” anything—it is based on a four-chord vamp in B minor—and the whole song is the “groove.” Tomorrow we will look at this in the studio. And maybe the best pop/rock rhythm section of all time.

And I did not forget the Springsteen test. That will be completed tomorrow—it was just that after 35 listening in 2 days the lines “rise up! Rise up!” began to sound like that commercial for the underarm antiperspirant called Sure; hence, I thought a break from the song was in order, lest I think of Bruce an armpit sundry product spokesperson.

All the speed graphs above are based one the same numerical measurements. Which is to say: for the new products coming to our new "shop": with the upcoming set of Meanspeed Shot Glasses™, Meanspeed Ashtrays, and of course, Meanspeed Playing Cards and cigar cutting devices. Corkscrews also, as our site seems to be attracting this type. Cool. The graphs can be made to look any way you like--any color scheme, any layout is reasonable to us.

The MeanFrequencies™ of Grey Street, live from Central Park, September 2002, from the DVD are:
average standard/mean speed=104.1 beats per minute.
mean-emotion=natural.
beat frequency/mean-beat=1.735 beats per second.
average beat/mean space=576 milliseconds per beat.
mean slow phase=1.735 cycles per second.
mean-pitch=444.160 Hertz, 17 cents above G#4/Ab4=415.305 Hertz, 83 cents below A4=440.000 Hertz.



Ian Andrew Schneider
Meanspeed Music Company
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
August 20, 2008