Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2016 May 28

= May 28 =

Andrew Lang
In Watchmen, during an interview, Ozymandias says that "I like eletronic music. That’s a very superhero-ey thing to like, I suppose, isn’t it? I like avant-garde music in general. Cage, Stockhausen, Penderecki, Andrew Lang, Pierre Henry. Terry Riley is very good. Oh, and I’ve heard some interesting new music from Jamaica… a sort of hybrid between electronic music and reggae". So, my question is who is this Andrew Lang? 2A02:582:C62:9B00:7C00:3F32:4202:855E (talk) 19:54, 28 May 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.48.25 (talk)
 * This is one of his tracks, and this is his Facebook page. A quick search doesn't immediately find anything that will get him through WP:MUSIC, I'm afraid. Tevildo (talk) 21:55, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * are we sure it's this fellow? I suppose that Alan Moore would have chosen someone more famous. We might be missing something like an injoke. 2A02:582:C62:9B00:A544:AA99:7654:F004 (talk) 08:53, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It's quite possible, but I can't find any other musicians of that name. Andrew Lang (of the fairy books) didn't write music, neither did anyone else listed at Andrew Lang (disambiguation).  There's Andrew Lane (record producer), but his work (unlike Andrew Lang from Canada) isn't in the same genre as Stockhausen and Riley.  David Lang (composer) is a possibility; his work is closer in style to the other composers on the list, so he might be the best candidate if we assume the text has a mistake. Tevildo (talk) 09:28, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I think we can safely rule out the Canadian Andrew Lang. His biography at last.fm (which, granted, is just user-submitted) claims that his first release was in 2013, 4 years after the movie came out.  That also lines up with his Facebook page - its first-ever posting was in April 2013, saying "Tomahawk EP comes out tomorrow, figured I should probably start one of these pages :p."  His Youtube channel was also started at the end of March 2013.  It's possible that he was active with an incredibly low profile for 4 years prior to that (and really it would have to be more like 25 years prior to that since the movie was set in the 1980s, and pictures of him on Facebook make him look much too young for that).  But I think it's safe to say it was either a mistake or a subtle nod to the movie's slightly different timeline/reality. -Elmer Clark (talk) 02:53, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, I was just assuming this quote was from the movie - if it originates in the comic book (written in 1986-87), then we can certainly rule out the Canadian. -Elmer Clark (talk) 02:56, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

J S Bach
Further to the question above about the most prolific composer, I recall years ago hearing a story on BBC Radio 4 which I can't now pin down. The gist of it was that a music professor was walking in the grounds of a German university when he saw a piece of paper on the ground. Picking it up, he realised that it was a previously unknown J S Bach music manuscript. After finding several more, he followed a trail of them which led to the college boiler room. There he found the janitor using them to light the boiler, who said that he had been given them to throw away after an attic had been cleared out and had already burned several boxes of them. Is this a true story? Can anybody shed any light on this please? Alansplodge (talk) 22:35, 28 May 2016 (UTC)


 * As that would have been a big news story, and thus easily found, it appears to be untrue. Also, why would there have been a convenient trail of papers? Clarityfiend (talk) 09:49, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the idea was that the janitor was carrying an open box of papers, some of which flew out. As neither you nor I could find any mention of it, I'll put it down as fiction. Pity, it was a good story. Alansplodge (talk) 15:09, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
 * A Bach manuscript was found in a shoebox in 2005, but it wasn't at risk of being deliberately burnt. Tevildo (talk) 16:50, 29 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Here's a vaguely similar story about C.S. Lewis's papers (that preface is by Walter Hooper—note that the article says that some people don't trust him). -- BenRG (talk) 03:45, 30 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Google Books isn't showing me a preview for that, but it looks intriguing. I think the story that I heard was set many decades in the past - not many institutions have boilers that need to be kindled with paper these days. Alansplodge (talk) 20:12, 30 May 2016 (UTC)