UrbanDictionary defines God’s Basement as the hottest underground rave venue in Philadelphia. Twice a month, in the basement of Bible Way Church, in crime-torn West Philly, there is a massive all-ages underground techno party, which has attracted a loyal following over the last ten years. People come from NY, NJ, DE, MD, and DC to hear diverse sometimes-international DJs spin in the two rooms of God’s Basement from 10 until morning. What’s more, the party organizers regularly organize food and toy drives for the community as well partner with Walk For Life. In a world that’s gradually commercializing everything, the legendary clubs (Twilo, Space) giving way to international chains (Pacha, Avalon) just as the hip music spots of yester-century have been replaced by well Starbucks, and in a sparsely populated part of a city with about a murder a day, you’d think they would let some people dancing in a church basement slide…

Well, NBC10 recently published their undercover investigation report on God’s Basement, blowing the lid of what used to be a pretty decently kept secret, and thus threatening one of the tristate’s last renegade venues. Armed with hidden cameras, NBC’s Lu Ann Cahn (and her flying monkey) infiltrated the underground party and captured footage of young people dancing, smoking pot, and drinking alcohol, and sucking lollipops (always a sign of ecstasy use and liking candy). Her story paints a lurid picture, labeling it an ‘underage rave party’ held ‘inside the school’, which has mothers outraged, though in fact the school rents the basement from the church, just like God’s Basement. You may remember Lu Ann for her 2005 Emmy for “Dirty Little Secret,” which revealed elected borough leaders (gasp!) drinking in the ‘dry’ town of Colwyn, PA, making this just another step in a long crusade against drink and merriment everywhere. The investigation was sparked by an anonymous mother’s concern over her daughter’s ecstasy use, but the story lists no other initial causes for concern.

Persecution is nothing new to ravers though, and in the catacombic setting of God’s Basement it vaguely echoes the rituals of the early Christians. Back then, before Medieval feudalism brought worship to its knees, seeking forgiveness for the dirty little secret, people used to pray standing up with hands outstretched upwards, singing and dancing for joy. Couple that with the fact that sacramental wine back then would have been much stronger fortified, and you have a pretty good party, provided the Romans don’t crash, they do, run. God’s Basement has developed a sympathetic relationship with the church, getting everyone to pitch-in to support the community in exchange for the privilege of throwing epic parties twice a month. After years of growing separation between church and state, schools in the northeast are no longer influenced by organized religions (no creationism, no prayer), but in this case you have the school seeking to affect the church and how it conducts its business. The divide should hold both ways. The next party is scheduled for tomorrow night, wonder what will happen.

‘God’s Basement’ rave takes over church hall, school cafeteriea, NBC10.com

An experimental art installation, the Bacterial Orchestra is a musical organism composed of several audio ‘cells’, which listen to their environment by microphones and play back sounds they pick up in sync via speakers. The individual cells ‘die’ if there us too much or too little imput and each has their own ‘DNA’ that determines how it will react to stimuli. The result is a living musical composition that changes in harmony with its environment. A noise heard by a single cell can grow, as it infects other cells during playback. The Bacterial Orchestra premiered at the New Media Meeting in Norrkoping, Iceland, (December 1, 2006), in an underground corridor, where the reverberationg naked stone walls provided excellent acoustics, while the water dripping on the concrete floor, a constant, base rhythm. As the whole point of the orchestra is its interactive nature, there are no mp3s on their website, and as of now there are no performances scheduled. Support bacteria, it’s the only culture some people have.

Bacterial Orchestra

A new study shows that musical training in children improves memory, as students studying music under the Suzuki method over the course of a year scored better on a memory test correlated with general intelligence skills like literacy, math, verbal memory, IQ and visiospatial processing. According to the author of the study, Dr Laurel Trainor, Profesor of Psychology and Director of the McMaster (great name!) Institute for Music and the Mind at McMaster University: "The finding of very rapid maturation of the N250m component to violin sounds in children taking music lessons fits with their large improvement on the memory test. It suggests that musical training is having an effect on how the brain gets wired for general cognitive functioning related to memory and attention."

First evidence that musical training affects brain development in young children, ScienceDaily.com

Adrian North, University of Leicester, UK, conducted a market research experiment in which he played traditional French accordion and traditional German brass music for costumers and analyzed the sales of wine from the experimental shelves containing French and German wine. On French music days, 77% of the wine sold was French, German days, 73% German. Only 1/44 costumers immediately stated that the music was the reason they chose the wine they did, while the others, when asked if the music effected their choice, 86% said ‘no’. So, eventhough there is a definite influence here, most people are unaware of it.

Music, wine and will, MindHacks.com

Today is German composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 250th birthday. Probably the most famous classical composer, Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, into a musical family. A child prodigy, he played all around Europe and even jammed with J. C. Bach (one of J. S. Bach’s sons) in London. Later, he became close friends with composer Joseph Haydn, they even joined the same Catholic Masonic lodge. The opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflote) is filled with Freemason and Enlightenment symbolism. For a while there was a belief that listening to Mozart made you smarter, the so-called Mozart effect. However, as other composer-effects were reported, it turned out that lively classical music in a major key speeds up the heart bringing more blood to the brain, making listeners more awake and better at test-taking. Mozart’s extensive body of work was cataloged by Ludwig von Kochel in 1862, the Kochel number is usually used to refer to Mozart’s pieces instead of the usual Opus-number.

A curious group study led by William Thompson examined the link between musical training and the ability to percieve emotions in others. They recorded a person saying ordinary sentences like "the chairs are made of wood" with different emotions: happy, sad, angry, fearful. Then, by calculating the average pitch of each syllable, the recordings were transformed into musical sequences. What they were using was speech prosody, the musical aspects of speech such as pitch, pace, vocal stress, and duration of pauses. The processed clips were played for two groups - one of adults with no musical training, the other with 8-13 years of music lessons - who were asked to judge whether the corresponding sequence was angry, sad, happy, or fearful. In every case, the trained group came out on top, especially in detecting sadness.

So, it seems that an understanding of musical harmony can lead to insight into social harmony. But then that idea is nothing new. Music training has been emphasized by many, including the Ancient Greek philosopher/mystic Protagoras, Chinese sage Confucius, and Friedrich Nietzsche who said that "without music life would be a mistake".

Thompson, W.F., Schellenberg, E.G., & Husain, G. (2004). Decoding speech prosody: Do music lessons help? Emotion, 4(1), 46-64.

Music training helps people understand emotions in speech, CognitiveDaily.com