Sound of the City's search for the quintessential New York City musician enters Round Two this week, with battles in the Round of 32 daily. Keep up with all the action here.

During the first sound of SOTC' March Madness, Sonic Youth drowned Arthur Russell in feedback, and The Fugs were no match for Philip Glass' hypnotic repetitions. But now the two downtown experimental music legends will battle each other to see who's really the Don of Dissonance.

Steve Pyke

I spent a year working for the NPR StoryCorps project, and a question I saw people ask each other a lot at the end of interviews, which I found so fascinating to hear people from different walks of life, was just asking the person: what do you think love is? And I'd love to hear if you had thoughts on that.

Well that's a very interesting idea. That's a very interesting question.

We have very different dimensions of it, but I don't want to throw the question entirely back at you.

The Park Avenue Armory on Friday night.

The Poet Speaks: Patti Smith, Philip Glass, Lenny Kaye, Jesse Smith, and the poetry of Allen Ginsberg
Park Avenue Armory
Friday, February 24

Better than: Every Occupy Wall Street musical act.

The Park Avenue Armory is one of the grandest, most amazing performance spaces in New York City, but Friday's performance began simply and intimately. Philip Glass and Patti Smith, two icons of a certain age, walked out onstage with their arms around each others' shoulders, like two old friends. The carpets in front of the stage, where people in the cheapest (and best) seats in the house, worked at recreating the environment, as Glass described to us, of his loft decades ago. Though a recreating, the effect worked.

What did not work—in fact, what would be an unfortunate undercurrent through out the festival—was the sound system. No one could hear poor Smith as she started to address the audience, who seemed surprisingly nervous to begin with and who looked downright spooked as people shouted, "Louder! Louder!! LOUDER!!!" at her.

Today we dial back to longtime Voice music writer Tom Johnson. In our interview with Glass, he credited Johnson (who is also a composer) with being the only music writer covering the scene downtown when he was getting started, as "The New York Times, for example—they had a rule that they didn't review any art events below 14th Street... Believe it or not, that was a policy of the paper!" Glass has even reportedly told others that he believes Johnson coined the term "minimalism."

Before we head off to the Park Avenue Armory to see Philip Glass perform his epic, mammoth five-hour long "Music in 12 Parts" tomorrow night, we thought we'd take a look at Johnson's review of the same piece exactly four decades ago.

"Make a note!" Glass in an old, rare endorsement for...Cutty Sark?

In this segment of our interview, we discuss the intersection of economics, art and music. As we noted in our cover story, Glass started his recording company with a $1,000 loan from the Hebrew Loan Society. The landscape for such sources of capital has changed drastically since Glass first arrived in the city, and the reality of digital downloads (something Glass has largely accepted) has dried up many sources of revenue.

So how else is the artist to get paid for their work—especially in New York City? Glass says this if his music is used commercially:

Philip Glass and Friends Tibet House U.S. Benefit w/Laurie Anderson, Tim Fain, Das Racist, Antony, Lou Reed, Stephin Merritt, and Rahzel
Carnegie Hall
Monday, February 13

Better than: Seeing how most ethnic Tibetans live.

Last night's all-star benefit at Carnegie Hall began with a performance by eight unnamed monks from the Drepung Monestary, who entered the hall in silence. The saffron-robed throat singers (each of whom wore a striking orange headpiece reminiscent of a Roman centurion's) took the stage like religious royalty being received by devoted followers. They used microphones that were hardly necessary; their throaty chants sounded like (and carried as strongly as) didgeridoos throughout the hall. It was a pretty surprising and impressive thing to look around the dress circle in Carnegie Hall and see dozens of people with their eyes closed and their hands folded in silent prayer.

Still from Koyaanisqatsi

Earlier this week, we published our interview with Koyaanisqatsi director Godfrey Reggio, who dragged Glass kicking and screaming into film scoring. Today, we're publishing Glass's side of the story of their initial meeting, along with his thoughts on working with Errol Morris, Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Woody Allen, Robert Wilson, Allen Ginsburg, Kronos Quartet, and Lucinda Childs. We also asked Glass about the claim that he writes music so that his friends can chill together, and find out why he appreciates when working relationships aren't "just one-night stands."

Every day this month, in conjunction with our Feb. 1 cover story "Philip Glass, An East Village Voice," Sound of the City will post excepts of interviews with Glass and his collaborators, as well as reviews of several concerts celebrating his 75th birthday.

Today we're publishing the portion of our interview with Glass where we talk about black music, African American history, and how he views his music interacting with both.

Today we are publishing the first of several interviews with Godfrey Reggio, the director of Koyaanisqatsi (the entire film is embedded above, courtesy of Hulu) and its sequels Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi. Reggio "bothered the hell out of" Glass to drag him, kicking and screaming, into scoring his first film in the late 1970s (though Glass had previously composed music for a couple of TV projects like Sesame Street). Thirty-five years later, the two are still collaborating together, now on their fourth film the holy see, which is in post-production.

In this installment, we talk to Reggio about how he initially chose Glass as his composer, and how his team started making a film without dialogue, spoken narration, or a traditional screenplay.