cd, no label, recorded in seoul, released dec. 2007 Also upcoming: Toshimaru Nakamura / English (e.t.a. spring '08, erstwhile records) English (e.t.a. fall '08, title and label to be named later) And: I'm on tour in December--NYC, Philly, Princeton NJ
ENGLISH will be playing atErstquake 3 festival in NYC late Sept/early Oct 2006. That will be preceded by a short tour of the NE accompanying GOD (Bryan Eubanks / Leif Sundstrom).
Also, a forthcoming release on onomato (me/choi joonyong + bonnie jones/andy hayleck).
There will also be another English release for the tour.
posted by Brad Larcen 3/20/2006[edit]
22.11.05
So the information below is riven with inaccuracies, but the part about this weblog being more or less kaput remains more or less correct. Some errata:
1. I was on 2 rasbliutto discs this year: Jean-Paul Jenkins and Joseph Foster - Duos 2004 and Jean-Paul Jenkins, Joseph Foster, K.Scott Handley, Mark Kaylor - Trios 2004. The former is all acoustic, the latter is acoustic and electronic and has two trios, both of which include JP & me.
2. That tour sched is totally crazy all kinds of wrong. No Selah gig, the PDX shows info is off, gig at Phillip Greenlief's Improv Garage. Doesn't matter, long gone. Either way the tour ruled and Bonnie played out of her fucking head. She surprised and interested me with impressive consistency on tour.
Also, I played Otomo Yoshihide's Asian Music Meeting at Shinjuku Pit Inn in Tokyo in Sept. 3 days, 4 shows. Solo, some trios, and several sets with his super-expanded Otomo's New Jazz Orchestra. Also featured were the awesome Shinjuku Philharmonic Orchestra, an amateur add-on of 30-some odd otomo fans with instruments. I christened them, and I'm glad the name stuck. THey fully ruled all and killed ears dead. Dueling gesticulating conductionists didn't hurt either. Many props to Otomo who was an amazing and easy host who took unreasonably good care of us and repeatedly slayed with the slightest provocation. Awesome.
10/2 Sacramento CA 10th Annual NorCal Noisefest the SPACE sometime in the evening? with LOTS of noise bands yeah
10/4 Los Angeles CA Linespaceline @ SELAH gallery +++ with David Kendall and David Rothbaum
10/5 Los Angeles CA Il Corral 622 N. Heliotrope (off Melrose), Los Angeles http://www.halfnormal.com/ilcorral/ +++with In Gowan Ring, Anna Homler / Kalle Laar, Nick Castro, The Swinging Chandeliers (Sayo Mitsuishi and Joseph Hammer)
10/10 Los Altos Hills, CA KFJC 89.7 FM Radio Live performance 4-6 pm http://www.kfjc.org/
10/12 San Francisco, CA Hotel Utah +++ Tom Carter/Badgerlore plus TBA
10/13 Eugene, OR DIVA Gallery, 9:30 PM 110 W. Broadway,(541) 344-DIVA (3482) http://www.divanow.org/
10/14 Portland, OR TBA +++ with/against JP Jenkins (guitar? etc?) and Leif Sundstrom (turntable? percussion?)
10/15 Portland, OR TLC NE 23rd and Sumner on the SE Corner
10/16 Portland, OR Performance Works Northwest 2:00 PM 4625 SE 67th Ave +++ with Linda Austin and Kathleen Keogh (dance) http://www.performanceworksnw.org/
10/17 Olympia, WA YES YES Collective +++ with Le Ton Mite and Foque Mopus (teen dreamboat supergroup)
10/18 Seattle, WA Gallery 1412 1412 18th ave +++ with Gust Burns (tapes) and Kathleen Keough (tapes,voice, harmonica) http://www.gallery1412.org/
10/20 Oakland, CA 21 Grand 416 25th St. +++ with shudder (Phillip Greenlief - sax, Kyle Brukmann - oboe, Lance Grabmiller - laptop) http://www.21grand.org/
We will have a new 5" cdr and a double 3" on copula, as well as 2 chapbooks of remixed poetry. I will also have a trio cdr of hong chulki, choi joonyong, me on b&n, and a duo disc (me/jp jenkins) and trios disc (me/jp/k. scott handley/mark kaylor) from rasbliutto. We will be buying a lot of gas, so buy our crap. It will be cheap.
posted by Brad Larcen 6/24/2005[edit]
8.2.05
Though this web log is more or less kaput, (not the least because I've sorta quit the internet, but also because too many people I know were reading it), I may still swoop in with useless announcements.
Upcoming music:
JP Jenkins / Joe Foster duo (rasbliutto), with one track featuring K. Scott Handley. reocorded at JP's in October.
English - 500 kilos de problemas (antilife) - duos with Bonnie Jones, both of us playing open delay pedals. (recorded late 2004 ath the hagwon in seoul)
Hong Chulki / Joe Foster / Choi Joonyong (balloon & needle) - trio with the astronoise boys, should be done any day now. recorded in early-mid 2004 in seoul.
Foster Jenkins Eubanks Trio (Ferret Javelina Ewe Trio?) - (rasbliutto) recorded around the same time as the other rasbliutto above, but with different results.
Dan Brown and Dan Reynolds - Dan=Dan (rasbliutto) the third, and probably final, installment of our work with the heroes Brown/Reynolds. Comes with a handmade hardcover book including writings and other utterances from the composers (music interpreted by me & Bryan Eubanks. Two discs: one recorded in Seoul Feb. 2004, one live in California Oct. 2004)
None of these will be very available, but some might appear at Erstwhile Distro or Jyrk Distro, and they'll all be in editions of 100 or less, which certainly should be enough.
The tourl in october was a blur (23 shows in 29 days!), and I'll mention some of the great people we met and/or played with: Bob Marsh, Leticia Castaneda, Mitchell Brown, Serge Baghdassarians, Boris Baltschun, David Kendall, Marlene & Bob, and I was especially happy to have lots of playing with Leif Sundstrom, who's doing great stuff with a record player. Peevish also had a show, guerilla-style, in a sports bar, instigated by Ezra, which featured a guest appearance by bar-patron "Yella," on vocals and exhortations. One of the most satisfying shows I've ever experienced.
_
Last week I played with Otomo Yoshihide, Axel Dorner, and Taku Unami (and all the usual Seoul players). They were great and it was especially great to hear Axel, about whom I'd heard so much. None of it was exaggerated, I'm pleased to report.
I may get to Tokyo and/or other Japanese places in June. Or somewhere else?
An Austin TX zine, by Josh Ronson, called Monk Mink Pink Punk, has been around for 10ish years. The new issue is online only, and features several fine Gyorgy Ligeti interviews. Two of them are published for the first time in English. I did not know that the original names of Amando and Amanda (in Le Grand Macabre) were Spermando and Clitoria, but I'm glad I found out.
I get to teach Kafka this summer!
In international news, I received two boxes of cds from rasbliutto and urantia, and some stuff from jyrk. The Bird cassette is jaw-droppingly beautiful, the GOD cdr is a pleasant surprise, and the Super Unity 5-cdr box set is a woozy diversion with phenomenal packaging. The Don->Dan disc I'm up and down on, same goes for the Hundred Flowers Ensemble and the Joe Foster/John Krausbauer, but I'm happy to hear/see the Heart/Po$ter after lo these many. I almost had to pay huge import tax because Eubanks got silly on the valuation, but my coworker fluently talked them out of it and into settling for 50,000 won (about 42 buck$).
On the European front, I have some tomas korber discs to listen to - brackwater, mistakes, and twisted concubine.
And Pat Martinez won't not
posted by Brad Larcen 5/28/2004[edit]
16.5.04
Operation_Nukorea. Young Hae Chang's grueling masterpiece. Not to be missed. Speakers on.
Bill Ashline will play great music in a DJ set tomorrow night (tuesdy may 18th) at Yonsei.
I.S.O. were in Seoul and were very very good. They played one show as a trio, a complete and utter triumph, and then mixed it with the locals one night, fun, and then a night of solos. I had a set with Sachiko M. and Ichiraku Yoshimitsu, and a set with Otomo Yoshihide and Hong Chul-ki, as well as a big eight-piece group. Hearing Otomo was very good for me; he has outrageous command of his table setup, and he listens and makes musical choices in very interesting ways. I can only say that he is a master musician. I was surprised to be so impressed since he plays so many types of music, something that I usually find to have a negative effect on one's free playing. There are pictures here.
Found out that collective jyrk, the label that put out the Portland Bike Ensemble's debut as well as the recent Bird magnum opus, is planning a 5-cd $uper Unity box. I don't know much more about that, though, but I expect the contents will be extremely varied, from a duo with chairs to a 13-piece big fuck, from an electro-acoustic trio live on the radio, to vocals and dancing in a parking lot. Jyrk, I think, is run by the D. Yellow Swans & E*Rock.
Going to New Zealand in early June. I'll play with Simon O'Rorke and others. Working on it.
Andrew Lafkas of Minneapolis is in Corea for a few more days. I guess I'll maybe meet up with him today, and try to play tomorrow with him somewhere. Might try to come up with a bass or cello for him to play, if not, he can play with my electronics. I'm listening to you have a great estate, general; we will soon divide it amongst us right now (Lafkas duos with Davu Seru). The last minute of track 5 is so a09djcml.s.s.dkuf.
Finished reading Don Quixote in a shit translation, but I really loved it.
Been listening to lots of Morton Feldman, some Keith Rowe-related stuff, and the city. Mostly the city, which seems to have turned the corner lately, and is producing some of the most beautiful music I've ever been fortunate enough to notice.
That there should be absolutely nothing at all is utterly impossible, the mind Can never Let it stretch its Conceptions ever so much bring itself to Conceive of a state of Perfect nothing, it puts the mind into mere Convulsion and Confusion to endeavor to think of such a state, and it Contradicts the very nature of the soul to think that it should be, and it is the Greatest Contradiction and the Aggregate of all Contradictions to say that there should nt be, tis true we Can't so Distinctly show the Contradiction by words because we Cannot talk about it without Speaking horrid Nonsense and Contradicting our selve at every word, and because nothing is that whereby we Distinctly show other particular Contradictions, but here we are Run up to Our first principle and have no other to explain the Nothingness or not being of nothing by, indeed we Can mean nothing else by nothing but a state of Absolute Contradiction, and if any man thinks he can think well enough how there should be nothing I'll Engage that what he means by nothing is as much something as any thing that Ever He thought of in his Life, and I believe that if he knew what nothing was it would be intuitively Evident to him that it Could not be. - Dan Reynolds
Just off a very frothy Bryan Eubanks visit. He enjoyed Seoul, and his insights did some timetravel to my brain and reminded me of the initial trip of being here and here not being "there." His visit brought some music, satisfying and otherwise, but the highlights must include a session at my place with joonyong and chul-ki, bulgasari, a (botched) recording session with kae sOo-jung, and a couple great gigs, one of which can be actually seen and heard here (Quicktime), courtesy of host/pianist Park Changsoo.
The good omens abounded during the visit: two small dogs fucking in the middle of an intersection. A pink blank cassette. A spinning pencil. Bryan also got to play with my construction-site partners with sexxxy results, and we had a sanctioned gig in the Sadang subway station wow with Sato Yukie.
We also did recordings for a third Don Brown and Dan Reynolds album. The one with the book. Yeah, a hard-bound book, a rasbliutto first.
Alfred has a new release, a double cd: nu:clear re:actor and ¿ì ¿ì (them's supposed to be Corean letters. Blogger probably can't display them). I am on both discs, but it's hard to tell! Other contributors of sound sources include Oliver Griem, Yi Soon-joo, Phil Minton, and the greatChoi Sun-bae. The two discs are very different from each other. It looks like Alfred has a new label, too: 0 Back CD (500cd).
Bill Ashline has a new weblog that seems to focus on political stuff, but if you go toward the bottom you'll find his published writings (on music).
I'm working on a May tour. Maybe New Zealand. or Maybe West Japan.
Lo these many months things have and have not happened. I may here freely complain to Heaven, and beg for that relief which I might ask in vain of false mankind: for it is vain, I find, to seek below either counsel, ease, or remedy.
To run mad on any just occasion, is neither strange nor meritorious; no, the rarity is to run mad without a cause, without the least constraint or necessity. Bury the very memory of this unhappy creature, who, more through ill fortune than ill intent, has given the idle world occasion to be too busy with his fame.
Recent happy collaborations with joonyong & chul-ki (a.k.a. Astronoise / Seoul Frequency Group), and some improving discourse with Sato Yukie.
From the much-maligned and greatly missed Toadex Hobogramathon, via geegaw, I bring you Fun With Words, which isn't as fun as one might hope, but which is chock full of marginalia and tidbit s . Like a word, strengths that has 8 consonants to buffer but one forlorn vowel. This is information not to live a life without.
From The Memory Hole (a very worthy destination, I might opine over short but beastly drinks), I present for your appraisal some secrecy news:
When Secretary of State Powell underwent surgery earlier this week, Deputy Secretary of State Armitage was able to exercise Departmental authority delegated to him on the Secretary's behalf. "He's allowed to act on any matters that are within the purview of the Secretary," a Department spokesman explained yesterday.
Forty-some years ago, there was a rather more extraordinary delegation of executive authority.
President Eisenhower, it seems, once sent "classified letters... to ten private citizens throughout the country giving them authority over various parts of the economy and total society in the event of the declaration of a national emergency."
, for example.
To further decorate the world, the duly esteemed Mr. Tom Djll has informed me of his trio with Matt Ingalls and Christopher Williams that is still looking for a publisher. I could not more sincerely urge the patrons of the world to bedeck this merry troupe with the flowers of their mammon.
Bryan Eubanks will be here in Seoul South Corea in a scant 11 days and I will play with him in public, private, and sundry less describable locales. Chief among them will be the home of Park Changsoo (with sOo-jung kAe and other leading figures of world creativeishnessishocity) and the aforementioned Bulgasari.
And, since I must now retire to my chambers for my daily constitutional (a quart jar of butter-flavored Crisco to moisten my lips, seven and a half Choco-pies, and a tall draught of Near Beer), I will leave you in the capable metaphorical hands of my most recent and maddening mentor, Dan Reynolds:
I had to decide whether or not I wanted an anaesthetic. I guess that the doctor had asked me, but I don't remember that anyone was there. Thinking, I asked how much the procedure was going to hurt me. The doctor replied, "Oh, there'll be pain..." in a voice that was trying to dismiss such pain. Since I know that that type of voice meant that there would be a lot of pain, I closed my eyes.
+
Music is a figure of love, incapable of stopping at a particular being, and rapidly passing from one to another. But the forgetting that determines it in this way is only a subterfuge of memory.
+
As soon as we put something into sounds, we devalue it in a real way...We delude ourselves that we have discovered a wonderful treasure trove, and when we return to the light of day we find that we have recovered only fool's gold, costume jewelry, and shards of glass; and yet the treasure goes on shimmering in the dark, unaltered.
+
I love you. Only you. I love thee.
Just back in Seoul on Halloween. 17 days in indolent Portland a rejurgenating ad;sicxixixixwe.ssssssssssssiue!! Did lots of playing, of course, of course. The horse.
The Portland Bicycle Ensemble has a recording in the works. It's a;d9ciciciw. I did a show with them, as the first "non-bicycle" member. They sound ridiculously good. Really.
Other highlights include hearing Bryan Eubanks' new soprano sound in person. Hot shitt, that. There was also a new peevish recording, in jubilant celebration of a Bananafish review in which she was called "gaytarded," and was described as sounding like a blowjob machine being operated by Jackie O. Motherfucker! I also learned that Jef Brown has quit said Motherfucker, which is natural since he was the only interesting musician in the band (so, duh, it was/is a boring band).
I'm reading, courtesy of said Eubanks, My Education, William Burroughs' dream journal, and his last book. Here are some of the nuggets of wisdom from old wrong Bill:
The survivor doesn't want to be looked at. Doesn't want to be seen. By the time he is close enough to be seen, there won't be anybody to see him.
+
The whole concept of communication is antiquated.
+
Have I had breakfast?
+
What can I do in London? Visit some pop stars or what?
+
Most people are bewildered and much impressed. You are a rare exception.
+
It seems like a bad idea, fraught with disagreeable potentials.
+
Just exactly to what extent we are confined is difficult to say.
+
Honesty wrung out of him by pain, he cried out in a loud voice.
Well that was nice. Been a while, sure, but I just had a wowy week in Tokyo. Played 3 shows:
One, at Ogikuba Goodman (tiny) with Yagihashi Tsukasa, Sato Yukie, and Onoue [iforgot, but he's the creative force behind the ever-popular Kaoss Pad] which was rough going. Yagihashi played alto, Onoue played instruments of his own design, and Sato played electric guitar and toys, as usual.
Next was a show at the amazing and super-good-vibey Muryoku Muzennji, a small joint decorated with mucho Hello Kitty, but rather nasty like a Portland basement. Onoue was replaced by __________, an electric bassist (who made use of, among other things, the ubiquitous Kaoss Pad). First set trios: me, Yagihashi, bassist, then me, Sato, bassist. Second set quartet. Yagihashi was much more interesting at this show, and the music (well, large portions of it, at least) was successful to my ears.
Third and final show at Ekoda Buddy, a big fancy jazz club. First set duos: every possible combination of me, Alfred 23 Harth, Ami Yoshida, and Uchihashi Kazuhisa. Yoshida is ridiculous. She makes uncanny and teeth-gritting sounds solely by inhaling. Close-mic'd she's untouchable. My duo with her was short, not enough time to develop anything, but I think our "vocabularies" overlap as I'd expected. This I will do again. Second set was trio: me, A23H, Kazu, then the full quartet, which was by far the best section of the programme. Yoshida really thrilled me, at least. Kazu playes electric guitar and the indescribable daxophone.
Another highlight was seeing eShip Sum, the Harth disc, prominently displayed in the Shinjuku Tower Records, with a long handwritten (in Japanese, duh) recommendation (I think). I also chilled and had a few with the proprietor of Disk Union.
I spent the entire week enjoying the hospitality of old friend Daisuke Yamada and his wife, who I'd never met. I hadn't seen Dai, in fact, in over 8 years! Cool.
Day after tomorrow I'm going back to Portland for a few weeks so look out. Recordings will be made by the Hundred Flowers Ensemble, peevish, Don Brown & Dan Reynolds, and, hopefoolly, Tim Bradley (featuring Kelvin Pittman!). Also some shows at 411 with the trio, peevish, and the Don and Dan big (small) band, whatever the fuck that means.
Okay, so I recently read The Quiet American, by Graham Greene. Great. I also read The Sexual Life of Catherine M., not great, and endless stuff about politics. I'm way interested in politics these days, much to my chagrin and discomfort.
Uh, recent listening includes the outstanding Bryan Eubanks solo saxophone discs (the soprano disc is the goods. rilly.), the Tom DjllArtship 3", Iannis Xenakis' Persepolis.
Here's the not me:
Kenneth Rexroth's Guide to Camping:
The ideal camp is a miniature anarchist community, straight out of Kropotkin. Each goes about his appointed task quietly and efficiently, the functions of the group are shared with spontaneous equality, problems are settled by consultation rather than controversy, and whatever leadership exists is based solely on experience and ability. . . . Each group that hikes or rides along the trail by day contented and alert, and makes camp at night 'decently and in order' is a sort of test tube or kindergarten of the good life. So don't forget, when it's your turn to wash the dishes, the centuries are watching you.
In the city the geometrical lines of streets and buildings are only interrupted with the stale surprises of advertising posters, and the faces one encounters reveal biographies less eventful than most rocks. The mountain landscape is infinitely varied and constantly changing. Movement is free, easy, relaxed; the streams are full of fish, the trees are full of birds, flowers grow by the trail, deer jump from their coverts, even the air is intoxicating. It is the fact that we are on our way that is important, where we are going is a minor detail.
SmallFry, a Domenic Maltempi MP3 ("as recorded in my bathroom")
John Titor, from the future:
I watch every day what you are doing as a society. While you sit by and watch your Constitution being torn away from you, you willfully eat poisoned food, buy manufactured products no one needs and turn an uncaring eye away from millions of people suffering and dying all around you. Is this the "Universal Law" you subscribe to?
Perhaps I should let you all in on a little secret. No one likes you in the future.
Angle-Grinder Man. Forgot who sent this to me, but it's great. What a guy! Every city needs an Angle-Grinder Man:
This is the Web-Site of Angle-Grinder Man, the world’s first wheel-clamp and speed camera vigilante cum subversive superhero philanthropist entertainer type personage. A big welcome to all good, decent, law-unabiding citizens. Godspeed to you and your four-wheeled, petrol-driven chariots.
The purpose of my site is two-fold:
Firstly it serves to publicise and promote my free wheel-clamp removal service.
Secondly, it is intended as a forum to consolidate and galvanise public opinion and give voice to the frustrated and disenfranchised silent majority on the issues of wheel-clamping, congestion charging, speed cameras, etc.
I heard Harada Yoriyuki play some fiery energy piano at a house concert hosted by Park ChangSoo. He alternated between furious runs up and down the keboard, thunderous clusterbomb forearm chords, and cute little melodies in between. The acoustic space was pristine, which was the best part. The overall vibe at that place was pretty fancy-schmantzy...wine, decorum, &c.
On a more obviously important tip, I learned yesterday that 43% of U.S. foreign debt is controlled by China and Japan. That's pretty alarming, especially upon reading this interview with Bernard Lietaer, who "co-designed and implemented the convergence mechanism to the single European currency system (the Euro), and served as president of the Electronic Payment System in his native Belgium. He also co-founded one of the largest and most successful currency funds." In this interview, he is impressively candid, cogent, and, curiously, hopeful, particularly about "private monetary systems." There is a small system in place in Berkeley, for example.
Lietaer:
It's a chicken and egg story: unstable currency equals unstable government. There is practically no way today for a developing country to have a reasonable monetary policy within the current rules of the game. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in economics and formerly head economist at the World Bank, makes the same claims in his book Globalization and Its Discontents (Penguin, 2002). Whether you fix your currency to the dollar or let it float, you end up with an unmanageable monetary problem, like Brazil, Russia or Argentina have experienced. Eighty-seven countries have gone through a major currency crisis in the last 25 years. Their fiscal policies are imposed by an International Monetary Fund (IMF). I am afraid that if the United States had to live by the rules that are imposed on, say, Brazil, the United States of America would become a developing country in one generation. It's the system that is currently unstable, unfair and not working.
The majority of humanity has gone through a recent monetary crisis at least once already. We'e living here, in America, in an island of perceived stability. And even that is an illusion. We could have a run on the dollar under the current rules.
We are dealing with an unstable system, an ailing system. Back in 1975, I had come to the conclusion that there would be a systemic series of monetary crashes, starting with Latin America. And that's why I wrote my book on how the money system was not working and its impact on Latin American development, Europe, Latin America and the Multinationals (Praeger, 1979). I predicted that the first crash in Latin America would be in the early 1980s. It actually happened in 1981 in Mexico. Since then we have had more than 80 other countries undergoing similar monetary crises.
...
Now the point is: there are many new agreements being made within communities as to the kind of medium of exchange they are willing to accept. As I said, in Britain, you can use frequent flier miles as currency. It's not a universal currency, it's not legal tender, but you can go to the supermarket and buy stuff. And in the United States, it's just a question of time before privately issued currencies will be used to make purchases. Even Alan Greenspan, the governor of the Federal Reserve and the official guardian of the conventional money system, says, "we will see a return of private currencies in the 21st century."[bold mine. via robotwisdom]
None, If Any
Not much, but it's better than nothing -
these are legitimate concerns!
- But no one expects options to disappear completely.
Once it was the nameplate of envy.
It may be losing some of that shine:
The methodology of this study has changed over the years,
the problem is that they weren't very good at that.
It raises serious questions but the message is clear:
Savvy competition is raising the bar for everyone,
but from here on out, it will be a lot tougher to stay ahead
of the pack.
It is hard to tell where to begin,
the money has been used to start everything from
rabbit farms to grocery stores.
The monster that ate the music business,
a single-minded, ego-driven bunch for whom compromise doesn't come easily.
- But for everyone's convergence dreams to come true,
that must change.
That's critical, because absent that innovative spirit, things could get grim.
You need to do a number of things concurrently!
We take this very seriously!
These are criminals we're talking about!
Litigation should scare people.
That line got one of the biggest laughs of the night.
Choi Sun Bae, A23Harth, and I, tentatively entitled 3C3, will be making a special retarded appearance at the Seoul Fringe Festival on August 28, in the park across from Hongik University's front gate, from 7-10pm, along with other notable local improvisers. Also, plans are in the works for a SCUM in Seoul Festival in December at Ssamzie Space.
posted by Brad Larcen 8/15/2003[edit]
1.8.03
And I always thought Matthew Shipp played free music:
MS: I really don’t like talking that way because that’s our craft, improvising. We spend a lot of time really developing a capacity and methodology to do it. William and I have been playing together for 16 years. When you play that long with somebody, things take on a life of their own. It is same process whether you are doing it with a piano or not. You are still solving musical problems. Let’s just say that there is a guiding gestured idea behind everything whether it is written down or not.
VR: What kind of idea?
MS: Like a gesture. It is discussed. Like "this section is going to be this, this color, this rhythm, this type of focus and we want to go there. " That is known at the least.
You can read the rest of the interview here. The same site features an interview with Devo's Jerry Casale that is more interesting. He's a pretty together cat:
VR: Going back to your early days. You were present at the Kent State shootings in 1970. How did that day affect you?
JC: Whatever I would say, would probably not all touch upon the significance or gravity of the situation at this point of time? It may sound trite or glib. All I can tell you is that it completely and utterly changed my life. I was white hippie boy and than I saw exit wounds from M1 rifles out of the backs of two people I knew. Two of the four people who were killed, Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause, were my friends. We were all running our asses off from these motherf&*$#ers. It was total utter bullshit. Live ammunition and gasmasks – none of us knew, none of us could have imagined. They shot into a crowd that was running. I sopped being a hippie and I started to develop the idea of devolution. I got real, real pissed off.
Be warned, however, that the rest of the site isn't interesting.
Some stuff aboutpalindromes, which have continued to interest me: A Man, A Plan, A Canal: Eerie.
I played at SCUM in Seoul again last week in duo with Alfred 23 Harth. Also on the bill were Astronoise, who did a Steve Reich thing with cd players, and Yoshimitsu Ichiraku and Kawabata Makoto from ISO and Acid Mothers Temple, respectively. Ichiraku was outstanding, as was A23H (in rare form, in fact). Kawabata once said this:
Music, for me, is neither something that I create, nor a form of self-expression. All kinds of sounds exist everywhere around us, and my performances solely consist of picking up these sounds, like a radio tuner, and playing them so that people can hear them. However, maybe because my reception is somewhat off, I am unable to perfectly reproduce these sounds. That is why I spend my days rehearsing.
But, in point of fact, his playing is extremely expressive, even willful. Rockin', repetitive, mantric, trancelike sheets of distorted sound via violin bow, e. guitar, and delay pedals. I'm not sure I understand the relationship between the rhetoric and the execution. He is, however, quite good at what he does. A bit like a poor man's Bill Horist. It's just not my thing, I guess. Plus I left my napkins on another table so I had to make do with my fingers in my ears for protection from his rapacious frequencies. It's a small room...I can't help but feel that that sort of ruckus is unfriendly. Maybe I'm just being a baby?
posted by Brad Larcen 8/01/2003[edit]
