Arguably I should have posted this earlier than I have, but someone may yet find this useful. It's a kind of survival guide to playing the piece, including various things I found that made life easier.
* Notation: If you're not much of a reader, that presents some difficulty, but it's not insurmountable. You're halfway there with your rhythm notation, so I have a suggestion for the pitch half of the equation.
As someone who's played guitar for many years, I tend to think of the guitar as being "in" E, since that's how the lowest and highest strings are usually tuned. As a tenor, though, my guitar was tuned to all B strings (octave unison), which I found to be disorienting during the 2004 sessions--I'd often have to double-check what fret I should be playing by looking at the fretboard, doing a quick recalculation in my head, and playing that note. The problem was, in certain sections there was no time for that, and looking away from the score led one to getting lost quickly.
So this time, I cheated my writing fret numbers for each note above or below the note head, depending on which set of strings the note is played on. (For the thinner strings/higher notes, write above the staff; for the thicker/lower, write below the staff.) To save time, i did this only for "new" notes--for the static sections requiring the same notes over and over, I didn't have to do that much writing. This was my sanity check, so I wouldn't have to keep translating from E to B, and I think it'll help you.
* Getting lost: This happens. Fortunately, if you're watching John conducting, he's doing the following:
1) keeping the beat with his left hand (as I recall). 1 is down, 2 is left, 3 is right--though I may have that reversed, and 4 is up. At the very least, you know where the 1 and the 4 are.
2) with his right hand, he's indicating which bar we're in during the current set of ten bars (this gets a bit tricky above five, but you can follow his system)
3) on any 9th bar, he holds his hands up to remind you that we're coming to a 10th bar
4) on many of these bar changes--5s, 9s, and 10s, he mouths the number of the new bar.
With all that going on, if you're not sure where you are, it's ok to stop playing for a bit, watch John, and look at your score. That way, you can see what's coming up, and get back into the piece at a predictable spot.
I also found that if I got lost, I could keep one eye on John and one on Reg, our section leader. In several sections, I knew what we were supposed to be doing in general, but not necessarily what we were doing right this moment, so keeping an eye on Reg was helpful--as Glenn's wife, she was obviously very involved in the preparation of the piece (according to Glenn, she did all or most of the copying), so I'd figured that she would know what to do. If you're not in Tenor 1, watching her does you no good, but watching your section leader can help. I was also lucky in that from my seat, when I watched John, I could see Reg quite clearly in my peripheral vision. Luck of the draw, but if you're in the front row, that's a benefit. (The problem with being in the front row is that the audience can see you looking at the other players.)
* Score management: Dealing with loose score pages is a nightmare. I was able to do this for the first version of the 13, but this version goes by way too fast for that. The first day was a real struggle, with all those loose sheets flying around. Some people came prepared, with their scores bound at Kinko's or somewhere, which made page turning easy. I ended up taping each movement together in a long sheet, and then folded each accordion-style. This worked fine, although I should have paginated differently--I forget how I was doing it, but my pagination had my page turns occurring one page before/after Reg's page turns, and that occasionally made me think I had lost my place when I hadn't. There's something reassuring about everyone turning pages at the same time.
Bring a pen or a pencil for in-the-moment notations or corrections. If they're still using Encore, they'll still be making corrections.
* Amp: Make sure you have a loud enough amp: 25 or 30 watt output at least, and two 10" or one 12" speaker, at least. A few people had little amps that had to be pushed into distortion in order to be heard, and they sounded awful. If you're using a tube amp and a guitar with older or weaker single-coil pickups, consider adding a preamp to your signal chain. In 2004, by the end, I was running my amp on 10. It didn't blow, happily, because takes were short then, but for a full performance, I'm sure the amp would have suffered. Knowing this, I brought a preamp this past time, and was able to keep my amp at 6 the whole time.
Other people's amps did blow fuses and tubes, so it's a good idea to have spares. I had a spare for each tube in my amp, though I would have been screwed if I'd have blown a fuse.
Guitar: Just make sure everything's stable. You don't want the output jack connections breaking in the middle of the show. Make sure that your double-strumming position is comfortable. If you find that you're continually cutting yourself or whacking your hand against something, the damage is going to accumulate during the rehearsals and performance. Some bridges are ideal for this kind of playing (like the wraparound LP Jr bridge on my old Kalamazoo), but some have a lot of exposed metal sticking up, which you'll have to watch out for, avoid, or put tape on or something.
How's your guitar's intonation? Does it play in tune all the way up the neck? If not, then I'd look into having it properly set up. One can do this oneself (I do). If you like the action of the guitar (proper string height, no buzzes, no dead spots) and the only problem is your intonation, you can adjust this at the bridge: see this link. If you have other issues, like action, neck bow, dead spots, etc., I'd take the guitar to a shop for a setup. The intonation would be different for the octave unison tuning, so you should mention the tuning to the shop. (If they're jerks and give you a hard time about the tuning, go elsewhere. They'd probably do a bad job anyway.)
Strings: I had good luck with GHS strings for these sessions. Very little breakage. Whatever strings you use, it helps to bring a bunch of them for your own use. The community string bag is a helpful fallback, but I found I broke those a lot more easily (Dean Markley). If you're breaking a lot of strings at the bridge or the nut, you might want to lightly take a slot file or nail file to the string slot there to even out burrs or other irregularities. There's a lot of back-and-forth motion for these strings over two/three days, which means the string rubbing over the same contact points again and again. If you're getting consistent breakage of one string in one place, a burr is most likely your problem. Also, when you're changing strings, it helps to draw back and forth through the nut groove with a pencil. That prevents string binding when you're tuning. Some people spend money on graphite nuts; you can get the same effect with a pencil.
I suggest having a complete fresh set to put on immediately after the last pre-show rehearsal. Go into the show with a fresh set of strings (even if there's life left in the ones you have on), and you probably won't break any during the show.
If you have a pocket electronic tuner, bring it. If not, someone around you will have one.
Picks: I used the Clayton .94 mm. Indestructible. As a comparison, I really ground down a conventional pick in the 2004 session: see this photo (Control unused pick on the left, with two post-Branca picks on the right. The middle one only lasted one six-minute take. The Clayton is at the far right--and it's the one I used consistently throughout the 2004 sessions.) Bring a lot of them.
Other necessities: Bring a couple power strips, and mark them as yours. I brought two, and immediately after plugging them in, everyone else around me plugged into them (happily, leaving me with the two slots I needed). I did get them back at the end, and I was glad I brought them. Bring a string winder and wire cutters for quick string changes. Bring an extra guitar cable or two. Any little screwdrivers or hex wrenches you usually use for adjustments to the guitar, bring 'em.
Gig bags are better than cases, unless your guitar is really fragile. I was able to fold my bag up under my chair, and thus had access to my spare strings and tools as I needed them, without having to go offstage for all that.
Food/comfort: If you're vegan, let the organization know before the first day--preferably as early as possible. I assume these days are being catered, or food's being brought somehow. The vegan food is always better than non-vegan, and so non-vegans seem to scarf up the vegan food before the vegans get to it, leaving the vegans with nothing. This was an issue in Montclair. But if you're vegan, get on the list so that they know how many meals to set aside.
I brought a stainless steel vacuum bottle for espresso--I'd buy a quadruple shot in the morning on the way in, put it in the bottle, and then have access to good coffee throughout the day. Good also if you're a tea drinker--it's good to leave a couple of bags of Throat Coat steeping for several hours if you're feeling a cold coming on. Keep a few of your preferred energy bar brand in your bag for that late-afternoon slump.
Conduct: In NJ, some people got a reputation for annoying others by noodling between takes ("Sunshine of Your Love," "Stairway to Heaven," etc....all of them *can* be played in Octave Unison, but should not be), or by not following John's instructions, notably on the very end of the piece, where we have to watch him for the signal to mute our strings on the last downbeat--no continued sustain or anything; we want a blast of absolute silence. During the last rehearsals on the second day, one guy consistently would not stop when John signalled us. Several times, over and over. "Oh, I guess I wasn't paying attention." Don't be that guy. Watch the conductor.
Practicing between rehearsals is fine, as long as you roll off all the volume on your guitar, or do what I did: since my guitar has two volume/tone controls (one pair for each pickup), I used the bridge pickup as my "live" channel on 10, and the neck pickup rolled off to 0 as my practice channel. At the end of a take, I'd flip the switch to the dead channel so that any practicing I did was acoustic. It's fine to practice sections of the score that are giving you trouble. I think that's generally appreciated, but noodling is not.
Oh, and do make an effort to follow the dynamic instructions. There's only p and f, but people really want to play this f all the way through. I think it'll be appreciated if you try to play p where marked.
Misc: Hearing protectors are essential, but you probably knew that.
As for knowing the parts, I would play through them as much as you can. If I had to suggest a private rehearsal regimen, I'd say try to play through one movement a night, which would give you two full playthroughs before the real rehearsals start. Do you have a metronome? It'd help. I'd try your first rehearsals at a slower tempo, and then start upping it. You won't feel very comfortable doing rehearsals on your own, but the time you spend now will pay off when you get to the group rehearsals and the show--things will begin to look familiar, and you'll encounter little oases where you know exactly what to do. Enjoy those sections, and don't worry about the ones that might give you trouble.
I did indeed have a good experience overall, though I did have a bit of a slump on the first day, so don't worry if you feel the same thing. (What am I doing here, this is too hard to play, I'm screwing up, etc.) If you do feel that way, definitely go back for the next day, and you'll likely feel a lot better by the end. It is an ultimately exhilarating experience, I think, and quite enriching.
Day 0
In 2004, I took part in composer Glenn Branca's recording sessions for his Symphony No. 13, Hallucination City, which requires 100 electric guitars. It was a volunteer gig, a fair amount of work, and quite a blast. I was curious as to why it wasn't coming out, and in mid-2005, Glenn emailed us to say that the 2004 sessions weren't usable, so we'd be going at the piece again in early 2006 at Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ.
I really like this piece, and was happy to see it through to its conclusion, so I set up a place to stay (with a friend and fellow player), and waited for the parts to come out, as Glenn was changing the structure of the piece.
A week or two ago, we started getting our parts--less lead time than the last one, and these parts were substantially different. It's more rhythmically complex, with new techniques (not double-strummed throughout, but with periods of individual downstrokes, or regular downstrokes), with shorter rhythmic notation (eighths, dotted eighths, and sixteenths, often tied across bar lines). It's really a different piece, and I regret to say that I prefer the earlier version for a few reasons: the earlier one was easier to play, had a much slower tempo, and was a great example of getting complex results from simple ingredients; there were some devices in the older one that I found to be very elegant, like a series of climbs up alternating wholetone scales, and a clustered call-and-response section. Perhaps this one will grow on me when I hear the recording (and hear the last movement), though.
I also was not been able to get enough rehearsal to feel really comfortable with my part--the greater complexity requires more time, and that's been difficult on the shorter lead time we've had. So I tried to mitigate that by retranscribing it into the notation program I usually use, so I can hear the piece (some of these sections are simple to play--they're just difficult to play at precisely the right time)...but that's a long process, too. So I'm showing up and doing my best.
I left late on the drive up (1:00, since I'd had to take care of a number of things, and at the last minute turned back to bring my power strips), and with a few stops arrived at Fred's place after 8. Very nice to be met at the destination--friendly folks, friendly dog (after my short probationary period), and some hang-out time before getting to sleep. Readers of my account of the Kaufman-Astoria sessions will note that this first night was much, much better than the last time.
Day 1
As concerned about my readiness as I was, I still didn't get any practice time in before we left. There were, of course, things to do--send business-related emails, pack the car with both guitars and amps (everything fit in the Mini just fine), etc. Great weather, though Fred pointed out the oddness of seeing young mosquitos in the condensation on the Mini's roof. In February, I remind you. It was about a half hour to Montclair, not bad at all. Directions were clear, as well--where to go, where to park, etc. On the way up to the garage, I saw composer Lloyd Mair, one of the bassists, walking with one of the tenors. Great to see him in the group for this one.
We parked, schlepped the gear down to the stage, and found our places. Oddly, there didn't seem to be room for me, although it was just that my seat was going to be at the front, and on the edge of Tenor 2. All right, no problem. I was still in Reg's section, and would be sitting next to Marlowe Stern, a guitarist from the NY area. Ben Miller was back in Tenor 1, as well, and it was good to see him. I'm glad I remembered the power strips, because the nearest power breakout was over by Ben. I set myself up with some power, and a few minutes looked back to see the strips almost filled. Wow. I looked around and saw a few other familiar faces: Wharton Tiers, Joe Fogarazzo, and some other people whose names I didn't know.
Giving in to my feeling of unpreparedness, I practiced various sections, and got rather more uncomfortable, shuffling score sheets around, trying to count, etc. Unlike the last time, instead of having Glenn do the conducting, John Myers would be our conductor. For me this was fine, as he was very helpful last time, though I wondered what the audience might think. Would they expect to see Glenn conducting, and be disappointed? Ultimately John went around to everyone and asked for us to play a note, turn up, turn down, etc. I ended up diming the amp, which didn't seem good, going through three days of playing, and I was sure I'd be asked to turn up eventually, so I'd need to find a good time to put in the pre.
After a while, we were ready for a run-through, and I learned how clueless I was. The fingering was easy, but the timing was hard for me on the more syncopated parts (dotted eighths and sixteenths, ties across the bar, etc.). Once I got on the train, so to speak, I was ok on the dotted quarters, but once it got to the dotted eighths, I had about a 50% chance of hitting the note at the right time. Disheartening. Other parts of the movement weren't much better for me, and I found myself looking at Reg's hands quite frequently for cues. After this, I brought in the EH preamp, thanks to the power cord swapping help from my neighbor behind me in Tenor 2. With the preamp, I was able to bring down my master level considerably, and I ended up with better tone, too. Bonus.
We broke for lunch in the green room at the back of stage left, where I learned that in New Jersey, cheese is a vegetable. I chatted with Fred and Lloyd, among some others, meeting a few people, including photographer/musician Jodi as well as Matt from Bellini, who were playing Travis Beans. Once again, lots of good gear in the house--another Tenor 1 was playing a gorgeous black Hagstrom, and the gentleman on my right was playing an aluminum-neck Kramer. We decided that if he noted my attention drifting, he'd give me a whack with the Kramer's tuning fork head.
On the next run-through, Glenn determined that the front row was too loud, so we'd lay our amps on their backs. The result of this is that I can hear myself really well. It also means that my fellow players can hear me screw up quite clearly, which is potentially humiliating. But we moved on, rehearsing the first and second movements, while I learned just how far out of trim I was. One problem was that I didn't have a good page turning system. I had just loose sheets, and was taking advantage of the wide music stand to go three across to reduce page turns, but that introduced two problems: what to do with each page as it was discarded, and (if I didn't take care of that right away) remembering to do so. On at least one occasion, I started playing page 5 instead of page 8 because I'd forgotten to move the middle page. Clearly, I'd have to work something out. My first inclination was to have everything taped together accordion style, though I noticed Marlowe, my neighbor to the left, running into trouble with the whole long string of the score just flopping off the side of the stand. Something to think about.
Soon enough, we reached the dinner break. I'd initially thought we'd just stick to the green room for dinner, but instead the college set up a buffet in a private dining hall a short walk away. What little I've seen of the college is quite pleasant, and they have one heck of a view of the city from that 7th-floor dining hall. I sat with Lloyd, Joe (turns out he's doing quite a lot of live sound, engineering, and playing in bands; the dude's hard core), and some other folks. I talked some, though I tried to keep some head space for marking up my score with (I hoped) helpful notes indicating repetitions of larger patterns in the piece. These ultimately weren't helpful at all, and I should have spent time marking beats and fret reminders, since it's always a struggle not to think in terms of E, which I usually do.
So back down to the stage, where I now saw that to capture the Tenor 1 section, our engineer Liz had suspended a mic pretty much right above me. While I have complete faith in her engineering, I did wonder if it was a good idea to put the mic over the guy who sucks. We worked on the second and third movements, for which I was still rather lost. For the second movement, my problem was that the tempo is much faster, and that I'd not spent enough time with it. It's another wholetone climbing section, so the concept is clear, but there are a few brief backtracking sections, as well as alternations between double-strumming, single hits, and tremolo strumming--basically all our different techniques, as well as variations within each climb. I found it easy to get lost, as has been happening with these.
The third movement was also difficult, once again for knowing when to come in. It's a cluster section, so hitting the exact pitch isn't critical, but hitting it at the right time is critical--lots of rests between short blasts--and I didn't often do that in this run-through. At this point, I wasn't feeling too great about this piece, largely due to my poor performance. Still, a cursory glance at the fourth movement showed something fun, especially at the end, with an instruction to "detune" and another just saying "random." By this point, I realized that I was keeping my eyes open for long periods of time, and they were getting quite red, so I'd have to pick up some drops.
We broke up for the evening, and while Fred and I left our amps, we took our guitars and scores (and I also took the EH pre). We did stop to pick up the eye drops, so I'd have some relief. Back at his place, I checked email while he did family things; then we got a late bite to eat, and talked for a while. It also happened to be a significant birthday for me, so I called home and touched base with friends. Happily, there wasn't any big deal made about it, though it did feel odd to have a day of such sub-par performance mark the occasion.
Day 2: Dessert of Vengeance
I'd wanted to practice in the morning, but didn't get much time before having to head over, due to the twin necessities of marking up the score, and taping my score sheets together (which I did, though I didn't get to mark up the score all the way). We're falling into a routine--stop for espresso, put it in the vacuum bottle, go down to Montclair, get settled, do some practice. Same deal today, though there were changes. For one, my neighbor on the right got some new company in the person of a young man with an Eastwood copy of a Guyatone. (He said that with some setup tweaking, it was a really good guitar.) For another, I was staring to gain competence with this piece of music. I wasn't able to count the dotted eighth sections, but I was getting better at feeling them, and thus play them correctly.
And because I was now more comfortable with the piece (probably everyone else was, too), my performances are stronger. And now that we were playing it better, I liked it more. Run-throughs of the first three movements were more solid, and I was feeling that locking with everyone else. Still, there were mistakes--my concentrating too hard on one aspect of the score (say, a switch from the usual chords to full bars) and blowing another (wrong note).
In the break room, cheese was once again a vegetable. New signs were up--apparently the vegan selections looked much better than the non-, since they were all gone. Sadly, they were gone before the vegans could have any, so there were signs cautioning people to stay away from those selections if they weren't official vegans. I hung out with Ben during lunch, and he pointed out that the March rhythms were at times five over four, which he was counting, and he gave me some tips to that effect.
Afternoon practice was stronger, particularly the rhythms in March (the first movement) now. I'm not counting them as such, but I'm feeling them better, and I can get back on the train when I fall off. As a group, one of our problems has been managing the dynamics. While the previous version was something of a monolith, this one is more like ocean waves, with some parts swelling up and cresting over others, then receding and revealing them. There are only two dynamic levels here (p and f), but even that can be hard to manage for a large group of guitarists. And no, the old joke doesn't apply here. ("How do you get a guitar player to turn down? Put music in front of him.") So we needed to work on getting quiet for the quiet parts.
For one of these practices, John worked with us in sections--apparently Tenor 1 is the rhythm section for March, and we could hear our parts better in isolation. At either this point or close to it, Glenn decided that us 1s should play our non-double-strummed notes as f throughout this section, so they could be heard. Afterwards, while the Tenor 2s and Alto 2s were practicing, I went wandering around, and was stunned at how great even just a few players sounded from up in the balcony. If I were seeing this as an audience member, I'd want to be up there, and I hoped there was a stereo pair up there somewhere to record it. (Turns out not, but there is a pair above the conductor.)
At dinner I sat with with Fred, Lloyd, Joe, and other folks. Much of our conversation dealt with modern composers we'd been listening to, favorite Branca pieces, analyses of this piece. We'd have to be somewhat obsessed with this stuff to do this as volunteers, many of us coming in from way out of town (and some from the West Coast, even). Many different perspectives on this stuff. Lloyd is a fan of Branca's third, though of course Lloyd's own work sounds nothing like it. (One of Lloyd's pieces is just incredible--a Spanish church organ section with field recordings. Really gorgeous stuff.)
Back on stage, we did more rehearsals, working on the dynamics more, and finally getting into the last movement, which did in fact involve detuning on a long double-strummed open chord (hard to keep this as p; we keep wanting to open up), followed by several specific rhythmic patterns, and finally random playing--play anywhere on the neck, or not at all (though "No 'Louie Louie'," as Glenn and John pointed out). It sounds quite...well, it's hard to say what it sounds like. I can hear myself, and hear everyone else, though all that microtonal blending sounds like white noise, but also not. And I quite clearly sense that I'm missing a lot of it with hearing protection in, but if I took the plugs out, I'd miss a lot of it due to eardrum rattling. (Glenn says, "I've done this before, and it always sounds the same." He also mentioned that it was "great" and that he'd thought of working on a full-length piece of the detuned stuff, which could be interesting, if he did it. Or it would have to be interesting, in that it would be easy to do it badly, and making it a good, rigorous piece would require a smart structure.) So with all this microtonal stuff blasting for fifteen seconds, we watch John, and on his signal, we mute the strings instead of letting the piece ring out. Unfortunately, someone keeps not muting his strings, though. Several times. I'm really wondering what's up with that--if it's more "band-practice" mind, or something else. We never did get it right before it was time to end for the evening.
Once again, we had a late night of conversation, though this time I had a lot more energy, pumped up from the feeling of getting more competent with this piece.
Next, day 3: performance
After last night's late conversation, I was up early, again. I checked mail, ate breakfast, and did a bit of marking up of the the score, though I'd thought I'd take some time to update my notes, and possibly even post some of this. (No dice.) Fred had errands, so he left early on his own, and the rest of the family had Saturday commitments, apart from Fred's eldest, with whom I ended up talking film for a while--he has quite an advanced engagement in cinema, and it was interesting to hear his take on various films, many of them outside the usual teenage scope. So I didn't get around to doing any blog posting, but no matter.
I got ready and headed into town for the usual coffee. I'd also wanted to stock up on some provisions for the session and the trip back, so thanks to Fred's wife, I had directions to Trader Joe's, where they had some natural energy bars to keep me going. Meanwhile, I called Steve and Ami back home to touch base, though there wasn't enough time or cell phone battery life to do a full update other than tell them how positive I was feeling about this piece now.
My directions to the GSP were good, and I headed in the right direction, but I turned off one exit too soon and called Fred, who reassured me that I could get there anyway via this route. A few 180s later, yeah, I came out somewhere that looked familiar. In fact, I pulled into the garage right behind Fred, so we had coordinated timing again. I'd been concerned about being late, but the 1:00 start time actually was lunch, so I wasn't keeping anyone waiting.
Cheese was still a vegetable, but that was ok. I did finally see some vegan lunches, and man, they did look good, which explains why they were pilfered on the other days. Turns out, vegans had given up on being fed, and just preemptively made their own arrangements. I did chat a bit with one of the Tenor 5s from last time (sadly, his name escapes me; nice guy, recently moved to New Mexico), speculating about the reasons the last sessions never came out. I had to leave the conversation, though, as I had to get back to rehearsing--I'd wanted to concentrate on the third and fourth movement, but also refresh on the second if I could.
I kept marking up my scores, realizing now that my plan of early yesterday (count the number of bars in each new playing pattern) was largely unhelpful. More useful was to write fret reminders, so I wouldn't get confused with the B root of the strings, also to write rhythmic notations (too late for that, really; it'd been better if I'd have done it earlier), and just plain play through the piece. Since my pattern-counting notations often conflicted with the fret reminders, I ended up doing a lot of scratching out. I wasn't being too quick on the uptake here, though I did get a chance to play at least some of these sections.
John came out to have us rehearse the last movement and its end a bit more, as well as when/how to stand at the end, when presumably we'd be basking in the audience's applause. I notched my strap up a bit more, all the way to the top, in fact, silly though it might look--the goal here was to avoid banging the guitar into the music stand, and also to keep it high enough to make the double-strumming easier.
Rehearsals of the end seemed to go a bit smoother this time, and then it was back into rehearsing parts of the other movements. At this point, my memory becomes rather fuzzy (we're a week out from the experience as I write this), but there were several breaks as people swapped out blown amps, or amp fuses. There was an additional delay in dealing with one of the tenors behind me, whose tiny amp went into overdrive pretty quickly, and in fact was just plain distorting. Nice amp, but the distortion stood out to me against the loud, clean background of the rest of the ensemble. John felt it was extra texture, though, and wasn't too worried about it, and in any case there was little that could be done if that was the player's only amp.
Around this time, the paths in and out of the theater were locked down, or at least changed somewhat, as Glenn expressed some consternation that he wouldn't be able to go right out of his dressing room and onto the stage, as he'd done throughout the sessions so far. Instead, he'd have to wind around backstage a bit, apparently, for reasons that weren't made clear by the staff.
After these interruptions, John asked us to play through the piece, front to back, as a dress rehearsal for the performance. With no audience to distract us, and having played through the sections as many times as we did, the energy seemed really good. I was better focused than I'd been other times during the week, and everyone seemed similarly on top of their parts. Things felt really good here, and the piece seemed glorious in this realization--indeed, waves of other sections cresting over ours, the syncopation of the 1s holding a rhythmic tension, the fast climbs of the second movment, the resonating dissonances of the third, the chaos and blast of silence at the end of the fourth. And finally, after all this time, I was hearing the re-emergence of different themes throughout the piece. This piece is really quite something.
After the full rehearsal, there was a break while photographer Paula Court took some promo pictures (posing him against the little distorting amp!), and some other players held up their guitars behind him. While this went on, I decided I'd restring entirely, to minimize the chance of breakage during the show. Once I'd done this and tuned up again, I heard Paula asking for a third guitar, so I figured I might as well step in and get the Kalamazoo into some shots. While it seemed pretty clear that she was just focused on Glenn (these were his promo shots, after all), there were a bunch of other photographers getting these shots as well. It was weirdly like being at a press conference or something. In a lot of them, I'm looking down at Glenn--not my best angle, but I didn't want to whack him in the head or anything, especially with the notably heavy Kalamazoo. Turns out, a lot of these non-official shots are pretty good, and the ones taken by my fellow Tenor 1 Marlowe Stern are very good. Check out the photo section.
After the photo op, Paula showed us the shots she'd been getting, and she mentioned that she'd tried to get at least one of each player, but that she'd not gotten around to a few of us, me included. So as a quid pro quo for my holding the prop, she took a number of shots of me, which should be pretty good. (And she did the same for the other propmeisters.) Later I learned just how many portraits of influential musicians she's taken over the years--interesting company to be in.
Yesterday, someone had asked about a dress code for the show, and John said he'd been told "no bad shoes, and not too much makeup." We weren't sure what constituted "bad" in this case (clown shoes? pointy elf shoes?), but I did think that I'd want to change out of the older sweater I'd been wearing that day, so I put on the perhaps inevitable black turtleneck, which would have the advantage of not being distractingly garish.
At dinner we walked in the light but cold rain to the dining hall, presented with more purely veggie options, and a vegan spin on an eggplant and pasta dish. Not bad at all. I sat again with Fred and some other tenors, and conversation tended toward cultural things outside the ensembler--the Southwest, Burning Man--though we soon came back to people's plans for the March show in LA. (West Coasters will make it, probably; many of the rest of us are uncertain.) Fred and I briefly got a chance to talk to Glenn for a moment to talk about how much we liked playing the piece, though he was carrying his plate and looking for a place to sit, so we didn't want to detain him.
Back at the theater, I was surprised to see a lot of people milling about in the lobby. I shouldn't have been--I'd been told that we sold out the space--but it still surprised me. I couldn't go in via the usual stage door (there was that backstage traffic pattern issue again), but wound around a bit and came out at a door in the back of stage right that I'd never noticed before. We'd been asked to leave all our coats, cases, and bags off stage left, but I was hesitant, having the laptop in there. It was also a good idea to have extra strings nearby, which meant that I should have my winder and pliers with me, so I figured I'd just fold up the gig bag and put it in front of my messenger bag, and slip the coat in there somewhere. It all fit fine under the chair anyway.
I tuned up again to counteract new string slippage (which made me happy I'd changed them before dinner), and did some more last-minute practicing on the quiet channel. It was hard not to feel jittery, though, so I took some photos, noted that my neighbor in Tenor 2 had some water, so I briefly went to get my own, and then settled back into more practicing. I scanned the audience from time to time for familiar faces, and did spot Fred's wife and son, but no other familiar people.
Finally the house lights went down and John came out to general applause. He cued us for silence, and after what seemed like a long count, got us started. The first movement seemed oddly slow to me here, and I found myself getting lost more than the last run-through. At this point I was familiar enough to follow the score, but in concentrating on matching the slower tempo and not getting rhythmically lost, I found that a couple times I had missed a chord change and was--yikes--playing the wrong chord. On one of these occasions, I'd been struck by how beautiful this particular section of the first movement was, with the interaction between Tenors 1 and 2, both harmonically and rhythmically. Then I noticed that I was on the wrong note, and not expressing the tritone this movment's concerned with. Great. It was covered by other Tenor 1s, of course, but I was a real outlier there for a while. Overall, though, the first movement's really striking, with those cresting and breaking waves of sound from the basses, baritones, and higher-numbered sections. The beginning and ending of the movement were very pleasing as well, with the rumble starting from the basses at the back, and then the sound gradually receding back to them at the end. It was also, apparently, quite loud out there in the audience, as I noticed two women in the front row who were holding their ears from the first few notes (I'd heard that the college was supplying hearing protection, but that must have been a rumor and not real information), and they were gone after the movement was over. "Sonic terror in music hall" all over again. Everyone else applauded, though.
The second movement was something we'd nailed well in rehearsal, though somehow this time I found myself off the train rather quickly. Since it's mostly wholetone climbs, it's easy to get back on, but it's not always certain which climb one's in, so I kept looking from the score to John and Reg, trying to verify that I was on the right climb, but at 144, this movement is passing by rather quickly, and I did miss a page turn or two (and caught myself fairly quickly...but then the climb was largely the same in shape each time, so the damage was minimal). Very frantic, and I found myself feeling a bit sweaty under the stage lights. Again, applause (for the music).
The third movement, all clusters, was even faster at 152, with a lot more rhythmic interaction. For us it was a lot of rests, starting playing at various offsets from the bar line, and only briefly. Sometimes we were double-strumming, but mostly doing measured, steady tremolo for these brief notes. The result, especially on the low strings, was a stunning wobbling gong sound, really incredibly powerful. I wonder now if there was a matching set of notes going on with the baritones and a few other sections, because this astonishing sound would just emerge from our picking. Our notation instructed us to clip notes rather than letting them sustain, but from the sound of things, I don't think many people were remembering that instruction. Still, I'm inclined to say that I prefer how it ended up. While I often found myself lost in this section, I was mainly only 10% lost, and it seemed fairly easy to get back on, and play at the right time, though I did find it difficult to stay on top of the climbs at the end of the movement. Still, as it was all clusters, it'd be hard to pick out my inappropriate notes here or there. And we ended on a fermata, which allowed everyone a chance to get caught up. People were applauding consistently at the ends of these movements, which was encouraging.
The fourth movement was again our reward for making it through the difficulties of the rest of the piece, and at this point I don't remember much about playing the first couple parts of it. The first part's a satisfying set of drones (in which we have to be careful to start p), and the second part's another set of complex climbs. I do remember powering into the satisfying third part of the movement, which is another set of the sonar pings before another set of tricky climbs...and then the detuned section. I think everyone was so relieved to get to this section that we really powered into it, and John had to hold us at the fermata to bring us back down to p. Looking over the score now, I don't see where it goes to forte after that (a double-time section anyway), but go to forte we sure did, powering into the rhythmic sections and the last sonar pings before the total chaos of the random section. Happily, we clipped it fairly clean at the end, though there was a slight buzz from somewhere back in the tenors. And again, applause--a standing ovation, actually.
John invited us to stand, shook Reg's hand, and we waited for Glenn to come out. And waited. And waited. Did we do that badly, or what? Wharton started hitting the bass drum, and a few guitar players (myself included) started rhythmically whacking on our now out-of-tune guitars, and this little jam itself was quite nice--kind of like "Structure" from The Ascension. Eventually Glenn did appear, took a bow, and walked back off. Those of us in the ensemble saw plenty of Glenn during this whole process (even if we didn't all interact with him much; hey, he was busy and so were we), but I wondered how the audience felt about the brief glimpse. The event was about the music and not the composer's appearance, but I was still curious what the audience made of that.
The audience filed out, and the rest of us had to break our things down quickly so the crew could strike the stage. I quickly unplugged various amps so I could get my power strips back, and got things packed up a bit more slowly than I would have liked. Supposedly there was a lockup room for guitars, though I wasn't sure where it was (green room? elsewhere?) and didn't want to risk losing my guitar behind a locked door somewhere. I consolidated bags and coat down so that I could just have the laptop on me, and trusted that with all this security and crew around, nothing would happen to the guitar or amp at stage left. Other people were doing the same, though still others were loading out to their cars. (I was reluctant to leave gear visible in the car if I was going to be hanging out at the reception for a while.)
Having figured all that out, I joined the rest of the ensemble in the lobby, where I got a chance to meet Lloyd's wife and chat with them for a few minutes before circulating. It seemed that the reception was already out of red wine and much of the food, so I made do with white (red later appeared, though, so I got a chance to have some, and it wasn't bad). Marlowe introduced me to some friends who'd attended (nice folks), and I touched base with Fred and family. (His son's reaction: "It was different." I suspect he didn't have the background context to know what to make of it.) Since audients weren't really likely to pick me out as someone to talk to ("Hey, isn't that the guy who fucked up in the first movement?"), I sought out other ensemble members to greet. Ellen Watkins and I talked briefly about the piece, and her perspective was interesting, having toured the 6 and been with the ensemble since. Some of the points she made are sending me back to the 8 and 10, of which I've generally only liked the second movement of the 10, but I'm willing to give the other movements a fresh listen, as it's been a while. (For me, the second movement of the 10 is a stunner, and one of my favorite pieces, but the other selections on that disc are a bit too, well, Wagnerian for me.)
Some other players discussed the possibility of leveraging this event into sexual capital, but I think they may have been a bit overly optimistic about the social cachet of being in the ensemble. Not an issue for me, having a family to go home to, but I found it charming to observe others' pursuits.
I did chat briefly with some other regulars, Reg, Libby, Wharton, and I listened in on Glenn's conversation with John, jumping in to greet at what seemed like a reasonable moment. Much to my surprise, it seems the earlier version of this piece isn't dead after all, and may yet re-emerge one of these days. "The way to do it," Glenn said, "is to do both on the same night." Now that would be a commitment. Still, given the chance to play that earlier version again, I'd probably go for it.
Eventually the crowd thinned, and I chatted with a few folks on the way out to the garage. All the rain left the air rather picturesquely foggy, and the trip back to Fred's place was an appropriate ramping down after the peak of the performance. Fred and I debriefed a bit more in another late night conversation before turning in. Unfortunately, a late-night phone call signalled a not-unexpected family emergency, and my sympathies are with my hosts.
The next morning, I got some breakfast, hung out, entertained the kids a bit before getting on the road in the early afternoon. Trip companions this time were Boards of Canada, the Tod Dockstadter/David Lee Myers collaborations (very nice!), and GBV. By the time night fell over the Pennsylvania turnpike, the snow was heavy, and I ran out of wiper fluid by Somerset. Stopping here reminded me to turn on the radio to catch parts of the Superbowl, and by halftime I was home to Patricia and the Boy, getting a bit of dinner and catching the last half of the game, once again (slightly oddly) back in the civilian world.
Announcement
First we had the BIG show. Then we had the BIGGER show. Now there's the EVEN BIGGER Show! How big is this show?
* Unfinished Symphonies rocking the joint with his witty, urbane musical musings on the not-so-cheap plastic organ
* The belly dancers of Wicked Temple, accompanied by the atmospheric tribal ambient music of electronic guitarist/ukulele player Maurice Rickard and electro-flautist Steve Sciulli
* As far as we know, the world's ONLY Knonono No. 1 cover band, Konono No. 2! If you dug K#1 at the Warhol, get ready for Pittsburgh's own fun-loving music luminaries to take a whack at duplicating K#1's extremely catchy, distorted groove. On board are Mr. & Mr$ Funky, Tommy Amoeba, members of Amoeba Knievel, the Stem Cell Liberation Front, and the Hope Harveys! How can you lose? Well, by not going to this show, that's how.
When is it? Thursday, January 26 at 9PM. Where? Brillobox, 4104 Penn Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15224 (right near Penn and Main in Bloomfield/Lawrenceville). Map. How much? $5. And it's 21+. See you there!
Report
Glorious. We had a buzz, we had an audience, and the vibe was right. Even the road-rage-addled cab driver doing 50 in a 25 zone couldn't spoil it. (The one unfortunate part of the evening.) Load in was a bit arduous, because I was carrying the keyboard and the new drum, a gift from a friend, so I did it in two trips, with help from one of our K#2 players.
Rob had said he thought we'd be in the house by 9 for a last rehearsal, with show time to start at 10, which seemed a bit late of a start, but he had called it exactly right. We had a few friends witnessing this, along with one actual audience member, and for a while I thought it was going to stay that way for the show, but no--after our rehearsal, people started pouring in. The rehearsal had some good portents, as well--Ami from Life In Balance was dancing to our rehearsal, so it seemed we were in fact hitting our groove. After this, Steve Sciulli and I did our brief soundcheck (brought a preamp for him, both of us through my PowerBook), and we were ready to go.
My conversations with people before the show kept being interrupted as even more people I knew showed up--the dancers, my friend Constance, other people we knew--and even more importantly, did not know. The buzz Rob got going in the City Paper was going to help us a lot here. The place ended up with a lot of people, in fact.
Rob's Unfinished Symphonies set was first, which he did in the personage as Bill Clinton. His ideal pop sense was fully on display, to the obvious pleasure of the crowd. I felt a bit guilty for continuing conversations, though.
Due to the late start, Rob wanted a quick changeover and a short set, so we figured on doing a half hour. Steve and I were ready to go, so we gave the dancers the heads-up and began. As of this writing, I've yet to listen back to the performance, but my overall perception at the time was that a) I was glad Steve was there to contribute on flute, as he was supplying some really strong melodic lines and textures that the piece needed, and b) I myself was rather rusty in using my system, not always coming up with compelling ideas, and sadly missing opportunities to loop Steve's lines at the best times, or to process things in interesting ways. But then I'm often unsatisfied with how I'm playing. I was at least careful not to break the rhythmic flow for the dancers, so that was a positive thing. The dancers, of course, did a great job, or so it seemed to me, when I could see them to the left or right of the K#2 music stand blocking my view of the floor.
At the end, we got a lot of applause--or, perhaps, the dancers did, and we just basked in it. Still, it was neat. (If weird for me at the time--I seemed to want to keep making acknowledgements and announcements, rather than wait the appropriate interval for the applause to run its course.)
A bit of a break, some congratulations from friends, and soon we were back on as K#2. When hitting the drum (double-headed Indian drum), I'm always a bit worried about hurting my hands, because I don't know what I'm doing. I figured out some methods that weren't hitting the edge full-force, but which still allowed the head to ring, so that helped.
In addition to the drumming, I'd also be adding psychedelic keyboards from time to time. Many of the K#1 songs are in the same key, so what I'd do is turn the PowerBook's volume down, hit a few distorted metallic keyboard notes into the dub delay on infinite, and let the ostinoto go, turning up whenever there seemed to be a hole. On a couple of the tunes, I took a full-out solo. Nice. At one point, Mr$ Funky addressed the dancers, asking if they'd consider just following her around and dancing as part of her life--another ringing endorsement. So we had a good groove, a good vibe, plenty of applause, and money from the door. I even dropped three CDRs. Quite a good evening.
Announcement
I and the belly dancers of Wicked Temple will be taking our act up to Pittsburgh's North Hills, at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the North Hills' Arts in the Autumn festival. While the festival goes for three days, we're playing on Saturday the 12th, from 3-4 PM (the festival runs from 10am to 10pm on Saturday, so definitely come to spend some time. )
I'll be playing atmospheric tribal ambient music on electric guitar and electric ukulele through the PowerBook, and I'll also have CDs ffor sale. The dancers of Baya will do co-ordinated dancing as a group, as well as individual solos. Expect mesmerising dance, trance-inducing music, and an open, contemplative mood. See you there!
2359 West Ingomar Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15237, (412) 366-0244. Saturday November 12, 3-4 PM. Map
Report
Well. There are gigs, and then there are gigs that remind you of why you're doing gigs in the first place. This one was quite glorious, with the most attentive, receptive, welcoming, just all-around pleasant audience I've had in a long time.
It was a bit of a busy morning (and hey, quite a musically busy week), dropping off Patricia and the boy so they could attend a family party later in the day, and I got some work in, as well as putting in a string order at the Acoustic Music Works (I'm almost out of D'Addarios) before hightailing it up 279. Google Maps, oddly, suggested a really circuitous route, and the church's own directions were much clearer, so I went with those. After a lot of "Is this it? Did I miss it?" moments, I got there just fine, and started loading in. Nice building, lots of friendly people asking questions about what I was going to do. On my way back out to the car for the second load, the dancers called, looking for directions. In a sign of how the day was going to go, one helpful member of the church community stepped up, got on the cell, and guided them in, no problem.
I brought in the rest of the stuff, and loaded into their meeting room, which is a large octagonal room with a lot of light, and very good sound. I didn't have direct boxes to plug into their PA, but I'd known this in advance (good communication), so I'd brought the Pignose amps as a fallback, which would work pretty well at the lower volume we'd have here. I set up, answered a few more questions, and by the time we had all three dancers, everything was ready. The room had an encouraging number of audients.
We were given a brief introduction, and then Amy and I explained what we were going to be doing (in her case, mixing the dance styles; in my case, why uke--it's an instrument originally from Portugal, and stringed instruments near the Mediterranean have a Middle Eastern heritage). And we were off! As with the RCT solo show, I started with the kind of thing I'd been doing, and gradually introduced more "modern" electronic beats, got minimal, remixed my stuff on the fly. Shortly after we started, there was an influx of more people. I'm not surprised to see people leaving during a set (I've played some really inappropriate venues), but seeing people flood in was nice. I know the dancers are the main draw, but I wasn't chasing anyone out.
A few technical problems cropped up--I had a bad ground going to one Pignose at one point, but reached over and corrected it, and the Pignoses crapped out a bit on some low bass notes, but overall this was good. I was able to watch and play to the dancers, I could hear myself, and people were into it. I was a bit concerned about being too samey, but the remix section varied things enough.
Amy had mentioned that they'd wanted not to have to dance the whole time, so we came up with the idea that they could go out into the audience at the end and encourage them to dance, and it worked really well. One could feel the point of attention in the room broaden, and people did get up to dance. Rather than end it here, they did a few more solos, and I slowly faded my loop. We were done, and it was overall pretty good. Not only that, but we made some decent donations (split among all of us) and I dropped six CDs. They asked if we'd like to come back next year, and of course I'd be glad to do it. A really good experience, all the way around.
Rather than go straight home, I had a party to get to, so I continued North, hopped on the Turnpike, and headed East, watching the light fade and enjoying the glow of a very good (and early!) gig.
A friend asked me to do this back in the spring, and what with everything going on in my life, I wasn't terribly productive on it. Part of the problem was picking a track (I find the Van Dyke Parks production on her first record--first couple of records?--to be impenetrable, so there's not much of a way into those songs for me), although once I recalled "You R Loved," I knew I wanted to do it. It's simple enough, so it was mine to screw up.
I worked out the chord progression pretty quickly, but the question then is one of interpretation. Just me playing the tune in the same arrangement doesn't add anything to the cultural marketplace. OK, different playing style and a much lower vocal, but that alone wouldn't make such a version worth listening to. So, what to do? This question lingered nearby for months.
Gradually I started thinking of doing a Silkworm-influenced version, in part because I love that band, and in part out of thinking about the tragic death of Michael Dahlquist. This wasn't an appropriate tribute to that great man, however, especially as I tracked the guitars to a boom-chick MIDI drum track. It was clearly not going to work.
Well, what about a uke version? Or alternating uke and guitar? Maybe...not. Those didn't work much, either. Finally I started thinking I'd slow it down and do a Bedhead-influenced approach, with three guitar tracks playing minimally, then getting denser on the second chorus. I did a few takes of these, and they kind of worked in a loose way.
Some weeks later, I figured I'd track the vocal, and picked an evening when I'd be alone in the apartment, to avoid losing a take to unplanned sounds. This was, alas, a hot evening in August, and the windows were open, so I wouldn't be able to sing it at full power. I'd have to keep things quiet, which led me to thinking that the piece should be even slower. I did a number of vocal takes, trying to get a handle on this, hit some licorice root tea (great for sore or fatigued throats, which is a real problem for me, as my voice has decent tone, but very little durability), and kept at it. My biggest problem was on the high notes, which I'd ordinarily hit by taking the volume up, but with the windows open, I wasn't about to do that, so I kept to a lower range. I also thought to pull out the old Astatic crystal mic, which I used on several additional vocal takes on another track. It seemed kind of cool to do these alternate takes without listening to the regular tracks, to avoid tight unison. Finally, the Astatic shorted out, and that was the evening. I still have to solder it.
I did a mix of this session which the tribute organizer liked, but I just wasn't happy with the vocal and decided to retrack. More time went by with other things, and listening to this again, I realized that the problem wasn't the vocal, but the guitars, which were too dense. I went back and redid them around the vocal, and ended up with three takes that weren't bad, and often complemented each other, but which also sometimes clashed. Rather than retake, I just punched out the problematic notes, and suddenly I had more space. When all three guitars hit at the same time, there's a nice piano-like tonality. I went back through the vocal takes, and among the later takes were indeed better vocals.
Some nights later, I looked harder at the MIDI drum track, and added some changes to it as the song went on, so that it was a bit less mechanical and more like an actual drummer getting bored playing the same thing, and adding little touches here and there. Still, something was missing, so I dropped in a Hammond-like drone behind everything, and I had something...almost. One guitar note really bugged me--it was either sharp or flat, and it was important, so I couldn't just notch it out. I split that note out and raised and lowered the pitch, trying to find the problem, finally deciding it was six cents flat. Then several mixes, trying to balance everything right, and we were done. Next day, off in the mail, and the organizer (and her cats) liked it. (Strange, because I usually scare cats.)
A few days later, I listened to the original and realized that I'd dropped a third iteration of the bridge and chorus, but oh well--my version was already plenty long from being so slow. So I really was done, and you can hear it here.
A few days before this, a friend emailed to point out that there was a little contest going on over at Thrilljockey. While I've been intensely busy, it made sense to throw something together, so rather late the night before the due date, I pulled a bunch of the Thrilljockey stuff in the collection (Tortoise, Brokeback, and Tom Verlaine's Warm and Cool, which has been reissued on this fine label. I grabbed a few loops I liked (notably the drum beat from "Seneca" on Tortoise's Standards, some classic TV moments from "Saucer Crash" and "Sor Juanna," and some other nice stuff), dropped them into Ableton Live and an hour or two later, had something worth checking out.
Then I went back and read the rules again--they didn't want .mp3s necessarily, but were mainly looking for lists of pieces to play simultaneously (or instructions as to who to offset them). OK, so I overachieved. I wrote out a recipe, more or less:
I included a link to the mp3. After a week or so, I saw that someone from Thrilljockey had checked it out, and the next day I learned I'd gotten one of the second place slots. (I got the OOIOO canvas 12" record tote bag, and they threw in a "from the desk of Helen Bach" notepad.) More notably, they linked to the .mp3, so it's cool for me to link to it here.
Seneca from Tortoise - Standards
Saucer Crash from Tom Verlaine - Warm and Cool
Glass Museum from Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Lives of the Rhythm Experts from Brokeback - Morse Code in the Modern Age
Flat Handed and on the Wing from Brokeback - Morse Code in the Modern Age
Dear Grandma and Grandpa from Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die
Sor Juanna from Tom Verlaine - Warm and Cool
The drum beat a minute into "Seneca" goes with the organ drone of "Lives of the Rhythm Experts," embellished by bits of "Saucer Crash" and snippets of "Glass Museum." Bring "Sor Juanna" in at 20 seconds, and scroll around through the solo of "Saucer Crash." Then layer the drones of "Lives of the Rhythm Experts" and "Dear Grandma and Grandpa." End everything but "Dear Grandma and Grandpa," and layer over it the end of "Flat Handed and on the Wing."
In retrospect, the second quote from "Saucer Crash" toward the end was a mistake, but overall it hangs together rather well, and I really like the ending combination of the Brokeback and Tortoise drones. Thanks to Thrilljockey for digging it, too. And, hey, free tote bag.
Announcement
Any Jandek fans near Pittsburgh are encouraged to start polishing up one to three songs for the third annual Open Mic Jandek Cover Night. Anyone can show up and play, but you have to cover a Jandek tune. Let's face it--there's enough in the oeuvre that you can surely cover something.
When: Jandek Day (Saturday, 11/5/05), 8PM-whenever (we'll likely be over by 10:30, so you can still get to Ubu at the Regent)
Where: Kiva Han coffee house, at Forbes and Craig (by the Carnegie Museum), Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
Who: mainly you, I hope, though I'll be doing some covers myself.
How much: Free, but buy something to show your support for this fine independent business.
There'll be a small PA (two small amps, but it's all we need), and I'll have microphones and a place to plug in an instrument. The space is way too small to accommodate a full band, so solo acts are best, though in a pinch we can handle a duo. I'll record the whole evening, and later we can get you CDs. I'll also have a Web browser open to Seth Tisue's fine Jandek site's lyrics page, so you don't have to worry about memorizing. So come on by and do a tune or two in tribute to Houston's International Man of Mystery.
Kiva Han, Forbes Avenue & Craig Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. 8PM. All ages, FREE. Anyone can come and perform, but you have to cover a Jandek tune. Map here: Map
Report
Well this was quite the glorious evening--"another victory," as Mr. Funky likes to say. The evening didn't start so well, though, with my having to circle around quite a few times before finding a parking space. Apparently there was some big to-do in Oakland, but I was oblivious to it. The thought did cross my mind, though, that Jandek Night might be overrun with people who expected Jandek to be there, and who would be bitterly disappointed and angry that I hadn't arranged it. Luckily, the most likely scenario was the right one, and we were largely ignored.
After I actually parked and got into Kiva Han, I saw that Unfinished Symphonies was in the house (at least his keyboard was), so that was a good sign. As for others, no one yet, and it was about 10 minutes to show time. Still, that was ok, as I hadn't set anything up yet. I was carrying a somewhat heavier rig than usual, with both the now-resurrected EHX pre and the backup DMP3 for vocals, two mics, small mic stand, and Line6 DL4 in addition to the usual. And that extra Pignose amp as the other half of the PA. Quite a load.
I set up the pseudo-PA and the other gear while we waited for audience and other performers, and people did indeed filter in--J-night regular Justin, Bob from the Gothees, one young gentleman with whom I've been working on some drone/doom metal, and a student from Carlow and a friend of hers. While she didn't know anything about Jandek's work, she's in an experimental/electronic music class, and attended this event as research for a paper. It seems that this was on the list of approved events compiled by the professor, which surprised me. It was almost like a mark of legitimacy for this humble guerilla event. (It'd be interesting to read the resulting paper. Or maybe it would be full of brutal truths.)
I was hoping that J-night regular John Eastridge would appear, but it was not to be. On the other hand, we did get Weird Paul and My Boyfriend the Pilot, who had promised to perform something. We'd have at least three mini-sets, possibly four, so off we went.
Rob started his set with a Jandekian keyboard version of the Beatles "Birthday"--with slow drum machine rhumba, on the assumption that J-Day was Jandek's birthday. (I've heard from some people that it's October 26 or 27, but seriously, it might as well be J-Day for all we know.) Very nice. He followed this up with a straight, upbeat pop version (with a bit of a Burt Bacharach twist) of "No Slow Ones" (Telegraph Melts), and he finished with a solid bluesy B3 version of the new Khartoum's "New Dimension." His vocal delivery on this was just perfect (including the audible smile on "I'm the vulnerable kind"), and the keyboard was glorious. Seriously, listening back to these versions, particularly the last one, Rob's genius just leaps out of the speakers. Very well done. Keep an eye out for any Unfinished Symphonies gigs, and maybe he'll slip one of these Janky tunes into the set if you ask nicely.
Paul and Min were up next, and needed a bit of a tech hookup--they wanted to use an additional backing track on Min's PowerBook, but I didn't have any additional 1/8" stereo to 1/4" cables. No problem--I could transfer it to mine and drop it into Live through a computer-to-computer 802.11b network...right? Oddly, I couldn't set it up to use hers as the host, but I could set up mine as the host and transfer that way. It may have killed the momentum a bit, but then that's the nature of J-night--if anyone can come and play, then I just have to deal with the resultant curveballs. It was well worth it, though, as they did a hilariously theatrical "Painted My Teeth." Paul hammered on an appropriately tuned $8 electric (powerful pickups--I had to bypass the preamp), which had a paper plate attached to the headstock, to which was affixed a photo of the young Jandek from Follow Your Footsteps, while Min held a La Joconde/Medusa painting in front of her face. Paul delivered his lines with a beautifully unhinged enthusiasm, and they dropped in some beautiful ad-libs ("Charles Schulz painted his teeth!" "What the fuck? You stupid dumbass!"), all to a powernoise-processed loop of Jandek and John on drums. At the appropriate moment, Paul pulled out a marker and, yes, painted the teeth of the Jandek photo. Nice.
We talked Min into doing a solo piece, but since she had the backing track in Garage Band, we just mic'd her PowerBook, which had to be kept low or else it was feedback city. Still, even against these obstacles, she turned in a fine, stirring pop/disco/symphonic hair metal version of "Wild Strawberries" (Six and Six).
I did my set on uke this year again, starting with "Janitor's Dead" (very similar to "Niagara Blues"), and again used the Line6 to hold down the rhythm playing while I soloed. I bungled some things, like closing the loop a fraction of a beat too soon, and having a bit of a hesitating vocal delivery. Fairly early in, my hands were pretty sweaty, which undermined my sense of oneness with the music a bit. The solo wasn't bad, though, and I definitely got applause playing part of the solo with my teeth and again when I got up and held the uke up to the Pignose speaker for feedback. After this point, my vocal was stronger, too, so perhaps I just needed more rehearsal or something. Afterwards, Rob observed that he was afraid I was going to smash the uke, what with the Hendrixian teeth-playing and feedback. I had, however, two more songs to do, so that wouldn't have been too cool; also I don't believe in smashing instruments. Or, rather, I believe the practice exists, but I don't agree with it. I'm fairly sentimental about my instruments, actually.
Next up I did "Open E," which was similar to last year's "Carnival Queen," but my voice was in better shape this year, and my uke playing on this, while simple and minimal, was effectively wandering, alienated and "other"--not quite Byron Coley's famous "notes get picked like scabs," but it worked. It's a good song.
"Only Lover" is a favorite for me, but I think I didn't do it justice this year. I'd sped it up a bit too much, and my vocal isn't quite hallucinatory enough, plus there are a lot of wrong notes in the end section. Oops. Still, I had some moments--the sostenuto on the "so" of the "cantaloupes" line, and a few other places when I slowed time a bit. Overall, though, too perky, or competent, and not enough invested in the fever dream of the lyrics.
And we were done by 9:30 or so--another sucessful gig. Quite the victory, in fact. Glorious, even.
I played some actual Jandek for the room while I packed up the gear. It turned out that most of us were heading to the Regent for the live Pere Ubu film soundtrack, though I dropped the gear at home first before going over there with Rob. That was a good performance, too, although I don't know if it hit the peaks of Jandek night. One thing's for sure--if someone had dropped a bomb on the Regent, Pittsburgh's cutting-edge cultural live would have been wiped out...though as Rob observed, Pittsburgh wouldn't have noticed.
Announcement
The weather's getting colder, nights are getting longer, and we're all wondering just where the hell summer went. What to do about this? Well it's a Thursday evening, so let's belly dance, just like we used to at the Blue Light District events. This time we'll be in Oakland at the Forbes and Craig Kiva Han (so you can warm yourself up with coffee, tea, chai, vegetarian entrees, all kinds of things), and we'll be inside (so no cold bellies).
To make this clear, I myself won't be dancing--the dancers of Baya will be doing that. I'll be playing electric guitar and ukulele through the PowerBook, as well as triggering ancient and modern percussion patterns, remixing my performance on the fly (just like the recent WRCT live show), and flogging my latest CD. And Baya will be doing a special Hallowe'en dance they've worked up (for which I did a remix--good thing I'm sending this so I know to bring the remix), so you don't want to miss this.
Forbes Avenue and Craig Street, Pittsburgh (Oakland--right near the Carnegie). 7PM. FREE, though we'll be passing the hat, or veil or something. All ages. Directions here: Map.
Report
A good evening, actually, but at the time it was a struggle. The night before, I worked on expanding the rhythm tracks I was using, particularly in the remix section, and developed a fairly high level of complexity at times. I did something similar before my solo WRCT performance, which had gone well, so I thought I'd try it here, too.
I gave Mr. Funky a ride down to the venue, and we struggled with parking. What's with Craig Street? It didn't used to be this bad. So we were running a bit late, but setup would be quick--instead of futzing with the Kiva Han PA, I'd be going right into the two little battery-powered Pignoses, so that was convenient, although I'd have to worry about exceeding their bass frequency.
Once I got into the performance room, I did have to ask a couple at one table if they'd mind moving. When I mentioned belly dancers, they resolved to stay, which was nice. I set things up and tuned, which went smoothly. Now all we needed was the dancers, who did arrive one by one, and in fact we'd have a new dancer as well. Excellent! We also were joined by Ryan in the audience, and it was nice of him to drop by, especially as I couldn't make it to the show he'd done with a new band a few nights before.
We made our entrance together, and I noted that there was now a hipster woman sitting right up front, not facing the performance space. I figured she'd either move back or we'd chase her out; we'd find out soon enough. I tweaked the volume, which people said was ok, and off we went. This set was unusual compared to the Blue Light District sets, as I actually could see what the dancers were doing. On the street, they had to be to either side of me, and it was often difficult to watch what I was doing and to follow them too.
I set up some loops and textures, and observed some walkouts, including the hipster. Either the volume was too high, she didn't like the music, or she just wasn't in the mood for belly dance. Most others stayed, though, even though some of the sections got a bit too loud in my estimation, and I should have notched down the PowerBook volume a touch, or the Pignose volume. (I did pull down the volume in Live whenever it seemed high to me, but it would have been better to get it right from the beginning.)
Some sections seemed to work reasonably well, others not--notably some attempted key shifts in a bass line that just didn't work with anything else going on, some loops that I think I'd left on a bit too long. My transition to the remix section wasn't particularly smooth, either--I was hitting one or another control in Live, and it just wasn't responding. Instead, the audio froze mid-bar, and when Live recovered, parsed it all as a stop command. We got applause. Nice, but oops. Rather than have to start over in a new setup, though, I advanced to the end of this arrangement and started the remix section, clumsily. Also, some of the nifty pitch shifting sections ended up waaaaaay too loud here, so I had to crank back on them in a way I didn't have to at RCT, for some reason. Some of the new rhythms were too bassy for the amps to handle, so they farted out at times, and the new rhythm arrangements got to seem too dense to me. Overall, I was concerned that the thing didn't hold together, and was mere noodling.
There were moments of playing that I liked, though, and both Mr. Funky and Ryan seemed to be getting into it. We didn't lose any other people, also, so that helped the vibe. We got to about 40 minutes and stopped--that's long for a dancer's set, but a bit short of what would be a full set for me. One of the dancers couldn't make it, so we couldn't encore with the Hallowe'en dance, but even so, things were good. We hung out, got some coffee and desserts, and all chatted for a while. Some of our audients were with the new dancer (mother and sister), and they bought one of my CDs, which was nice. (I'd been very slow on the person-to-person sales of late.)
A bit after eight it was time to move on, so Mr. Funky and I checked out the new and promising bar in the old Penn Cafe space--now called Brillobox. Perhaps late this year or early next will see a show there. And perhaps with dancers, as well.
Announcement
Now expanded to a quartet, the SCLF rides again! We've added Steves Sciulli and Pellegrino (on flute, lap steel guitar, electronics, accordion, melodica, and overtone singing, respectively) to the core group of Ryan Sigesmund (drums, percussion, keyboard) and myself (guitar, untuned guitar, ukulele, electronics). We'll be doing the live WRCT show on Thursday October 20, 9-10PM EDT (GMT-4).
We'll be doing a structured improvisation in which we play in all the different combinations of players--that's 15 different performing units, packed into one hour, the changes and station breaks being cued by a Javascript I've written. Don't like what you're hearing? Wait three and a half minutes, and it'll change. Like what you're hearing? It'll change anyway. Join us for this improv experiment.
WRCT, 88.3 FM Pittsburgh, or over the 'net at http://www.wrct.org/ 9-10PM EDT (GMT-4).
Report
An unlikely victory. The experience of playing this show was a bad one at the time for us--technical problems that distracted us and put us in generally bad moods, and we didn't lock the way we're capable of, but given our lack of rehearsal (complex lives) and the bad experiences, we actually rose to the challenge rather well, and we really came together in places.
Load-in was 7:30, and we all converged pretty much simultaneously. Steve Pellegrino said, "What kind of band is this? Everyone's on time!" Things were generally relaxed with a slight edge, which is usually the ideal state of mind for me to be in, pre-performance.
In setup, I got to the point of tuning the guitar, so I powered everything up and plugged in headphones, only to hear--wow--quite the ugly buzz from my gear. This had to be a bad cable, so I started unplugging audio cables to find the fault, when wham--I got quite a shock from the Electro-Harmonix LPB2ube preamp. Maybe I had a ground loop going somehow, but at this point all my powered gear is new, so everything's either wall warts, polarized plugs, or three-prongs. Was I plugged into a bad outlet? We tried another, and--I got shocked again. The chassis was live with current. One of the selling points of this box is that supposedly there's 300V of current on the heaters of the tubes, so (if the marketing verbiage is correct) this wasn't something to take lightly.
OK, it was 40 minutes to airtime, and I had to do something. What I did was call home and ask Patricia to grab the solid state M-Audio DMP3 preamp and its adaptor, and I'd be by in a few minutes. In ten, I was home, got the pre, and was back at the studio in another ten. Things wouldn't sound as good (on guitar, anyway--for mics, it's a darn nice little preamp), but at least I wouldn't die.
At this point we were close to airtime, but we didn't have much of a soundcheck, though, as the crew didn't finish mic'ing Ryan's drums until a bit after 9, so our monitoring was compromised, and we were plagued by feedback throughout. Since we started late, I kept our intro short, and decided to skip the mid-program station ids. After the intro, we all were off and rolling...somewhat more quietly than I'd expected, but then we had no soundcheck during which we'd get the throat clearing out of the way, and gain a sense of how to start.
The piece was conducted by a Javascript I'd written, which led us through all the different combinations of players, including solo sets, duos, and trios, with the beginning and end covered by the full band. The script was randomized, though, so the order would be different from one performance to the next. The script printed the current player's (or players') name(s) in large letters, with a smaller block listing what the next set of players would be, and another block showing available time left in the current section. For the record, the score this time was this:
1: Pellegrino, Rickard, Sciulli, Sigesmund
2: Pellegrino
3: Sciulli
4: Pellegrino, Rickard, Sciulli
5: Pellegrino, Sigesmund
6: Rickard, Sciulli
7: Sigesmund
8: Rickard
9: Sciulli, Sigesmund
10: Pellegrino, Rickard, Sigesmund
11: Pellegrino, Sciulli
12: Pellegrino, Sciulli, Sigesmund
13: Rickard, Sigesmund
14: Pellegrino, Rickard
15: Rickard, Sciulli, Sigesmund
16: Pellegrino, Rickard, Sciulli, Sigesmund
During that first section, we were fighting feedback, and during Steve Pellegrino's solo (what struck me as a kind of Mongolian funeral rite for his late father-in-law), the engineer came out to adjust mics. The theory was that the 421 on Steve Sciulli was the problem, so the engineer went to adjust it, and popped it out of the clip, from where it dove down onto Steve's PowerBook, scratching the screen and putting a dent in the case. Ouch. His solo set was up next, and he laid down some beautiful processed shakuhachi. (I didn't realize until later how bad the damage was.)
We moved on through the sections, with some moments being particularly rewarding: Steve Pellegrino's use of the Whammy pedal on accordion, at times sounding like a pedal steel; Steve Sciulli's lap steel and flute and sense of texture, Ryan's grooves (sadly his softer playing didn't really come through on the recording, and my moments on untuned guitar, using the uke as a mic to pick up Ryan during his solo for later looping, and the act of just having us all got through this thing. Some not-so-good things: my being out of tune (particularly on the uke) with Steve's lap steel, and the constant struggle against feedback, as well as an occasional sense that I was just dragging down the process. But we got through it.
Afterwards, Steve Pellegrino was upbeat, having turned in a really good performance, and being excited about the composition in general; the rest of us were not so enthusiastic about our own playing, and about the personal misfortunes that had befallen us. We loaded out, waited around for the CD copy of the show, and decided to head to Gooski's for a beer (though Steve Pellegrino had to get going). Out in the garage, the first evidence of disjuncture: Ami called Steve to say that she really enjoyed it. On the way to Gooski's, I listened to the CD, and...it wasn't as bad as I'd thought. A phone message from Mr. Funky was congratulatory. Hmm. How about that.
We'll do this one again, I'm sure, and tighten it up. Good result, not so good experience, but the next one should be better.
Announcement
The iTunes Store! WRCT 9/22!
I was going to delay these announcements until I got everything moved over to the new email list program, but since my solo appearance on WRCT is this week, it's best to get this out now.
The iTunes Store!
First up: My latest disc, Music for Dance, is now available for purchase on the iTunes Store! Just fire up iTunes (admit it--you were running it already) and download that sucker.
Considering that Apple's holding the line on low download prices (link), there's no reason not to buy! Download copies for everyone in the family. Plus if you're belly dancing, you'll get in better shape. How can you lose?
It's also available in shiny disc-shaped form from CDBaby and from Tower Records, believe it or not. Hey, it was news to me. As always, you can also download it from onezero music, where prices are so cheap, I'm almost paying you.
Live on the Radio!
So that's right--I'll be returning to WRCT: A Live Show, doing a half hour set of the atmospheric yet friendly belly dance music I've been doing of late on electronically processed guitar and ukulele. Can I make this work without dancers in the room? Maybe those of you out there in radioland can dance to it at home. That may be enough. There's only one way to find out, though.
The second part is looking like more abstract beat-oriented IDM. I'll also do a set of my no-input abstract soundscapes--that's right, the return of Death Pig! Very few people have actually seen a Death Pig set, and you won't this time, either...but you can hear it. You owe it to yourself.
This will be a live, in-the-studio performance over the radio (88.3 FM), which will also be streamed over the 'net at http://www.wrct.org/ in both .mp3 and .ogg formats. Even if you're in Pittsburgh, you might want to tune in over the 'net, though, as a transmitter failure on September 6 has signnificantly reduced their range. Thursday, September 22, from 9 to 10 PM EDT (GMT-4).
Report
Well this was a whole lot of fun. I scheduled the SCLF for a gig in October, and it also turned out that the Live Show crew really needed someone to take on the first show of the term, so I volunteered to do a solo set. As prep, I wanted to give myself some additional channels for noise, and add some new percussion lines. I wasn't too attracted to the idea of filling an hour with the kind of stuff I've already done, and I didn't want to get partway through the set only to find I was out of ideas. I'd always rather have too much material than too little, so I thought of this second section, in which I'd remix the first. I added some deep bass drum beats to one channel, and sparse percussion to another; it all seemed to work in rehearsal.
I'm glad I did one of these in-studios with the Funkies in January, as I realized I could load in from the loading dock--not so important with my usual light rig, but add all the Death Pig pedals in there and it gets too heavy to do in one trip or over long distances. My January experience also helped me find the station once I got inside (some people who work down there have no idea where it is). I loaded in, moved the car (free parking in the nearby garage after 5), and came back in to set up.
I'd brought the music stand for the PowerBook and the preamp, so that I could reserve their table for the DP effects, and that plan worked out as I'd hoped, although I had to be careful not to whack the guitar's head into the table. My own sound check went well, and then we learned that no sound was going to the console--turns out, someone had removed the batteries from the DIs. That fixed, we got levels and were ready to go 15 minutes before showtime. I chatted a bit with Jason (Underwater Culprit) and got focused, although I felt pretty focused already.
Showtime came, and I started with the usual belly dance rhythm and volume swells (well I am technically promoting a CD that people haven't heard yet). I kept my 20-minute time limit in mind, and quickly brought in uke, grabbed some loops, reversed them, advanced through the various traditional rhythms and variations. The reverse uke--and reverse-half-speed uke--worked quite well.
I'd thought that some Television-list people might be listening, so I felt a bit more comfortable playing melodic guitar lines, and got somewhat spirited at one point. Also helping was my inclusion of the pitch-shifting delay, set to two delayed octaves, which gave me a canonical bassline to play against. Quite exciting in the moment. The most "solo-y" solo I'd grabbed as a loop, and so was able to scrub over it immediately. One mistake here was that I'd ended on a series of one-per-bar low E hits, which worked well enough in context, but when I looped just that section, it quickly got out of sync and didn't sound so hot.
At 20 minutes in, I signalled a shift so that Jason could do a station ID, and I slowly introduced more noise without breaking the flow--buffer overrides, hard gates on the percussion, and introducing the newer bass-heavy patterns and sparse percussion patterns. I did play some guitar in this section, but generally it was obscured by the buffer override. I'm pretty happy with the result--it generally was a good twisting of the first section, more spacious, more abstract, the new percussion section is actually kind of atmospheric, and the new beats maintain the groove well while being distinct from the previous belly dance patterns. What didn't work here was that I occasionally leaned too heavily on the buffer override manipulation (scrolling between parameters; often I should have just left it in one place), and I should have had more variations on the groove of this section--as it is, it's kind of a steady-state thing. Overall, though, I'm excited about this direction for future shows.
After 20 minutes of that, I signalled another change, started taking out loops, and fired up the Death Pig rig, arming recording on a separate input channel in Live. As often happens with DP sets, I didn't have audio at first, and left one loop running to cover the silence. Of course, it wasn't a constant loop itself, so there were a few dead air gaps in there, but that's the nature of Death Pig. Overall a rather quiet set, but atmospheric and at times even harmonious. There's actually a lot of stuff in there to like, including an ominous bass ostinato. Some of this may see the light of day at some point.
A brief announcement from me and one from Jason, and we were done. While I packed up, we chatted and the staff prepared a CDR of the show, which was ready by the time I was back to cart out the second half of my gear. Quite a successful show, I thought, though I don't know how many people heard it--at least two for sure, so apply your standard listener multiplier. A good experience, and I'm looking forward to doing the October show with the SCLF, and possibly some other events here in the Winter term.
My latest disc, Music for Dance, is now available for purchase on the iTunes Store! Just fire up iTunes (admit it--you were running it already) and download that sucker.
Considering that Apple's holding the line on low download prices (link), there's no reason not to buy! Download copies for everyone in the family. Plus if you're belly dancing, you'll get in better shape. How can you lose?
It's also available in shiny disc-shaped form from CDBaby and from Tower Records, believe it or not. Hey, it was news to me. As always, you can also download it from onezero music, where prices are so cheap, I'm almost paying you.
Announcement
It's time for another belly dance gig on the street on East Carson, for the Blue Light District night. Once again we'll have excellent dancers working in traditional, tribal, and modern dance idioms, and I'll be playing variations on the percussion-heavy guitar/uke/PowerBook improvisations. I may even have found a way to reduce the distortion out of the little Pignose amp, but I'm of two minds about this--if I went cleaner, I might lose that nifty Konono No. 1 vibe. In any case, check it out.
Thursday, August 18, 7-8 PM. 1102 East Carson Street, South Side.
Report
This was another fun one--as with the Co-op show, we brought the baby along to show off, as this would be an outside show with my control over the PA.
As prep, I'd reconfigured the percussion tracks, adding some more "modern" patterns, and also spreading the patterns over three channels, so that I could play up to three simultaneously. The result is a constant rhythmic flow, without the jarring transitions that have been bothering me. I have to offset the sample quantization from one bar to a half bar, though, so that I can get more complex interaction between parts. Works nicely, although when I want to start my own recordings right on the bar line, I have to remember to change it back.
As with the last gig on the street, we had two dancers, and this time they added zils to the arrangement, which I quite liked--I like the sound of them, and they fit very well into the percussion arrangement. I played some things I liked, though perhaps the real advance on this one was the constancy provided by the offset rhythm patterns. I saw an old tourmate across the street, and felt oddly disoriented when it turned out not to be him. A few photos were taken of the dancers (and me with them; my appearance in them will be chalked up to new-parent tiredness). Our friend Mary Ellen dropped by, and we followed up the show with an early social night out with the boy.
Announcement
Given how well our set at the Food Co-Op street fair went, I'm once again joining Steve and Ami of Life In Balance for a set at the Ellsworth Music, Dance and Arts Showcase on Saturday, August 13, on Ellsworth Avenue in Shadyside. Steve and Ami are invigorated after their western tour, and playing at a whole new energy level. Their latest piece for dance is really quite stunning, and this one's not to be missed.
As ever, I'll be playing electronically processed guitar and ukulele. In keeping with recent shows, rehearsals, and mindsets, though, there will be a pronounced surf/western vibe to what I'm doing. ("What?" you may be asking, "How's the ukulele 'western'?" Consider the American West to be a kind of continental extremity, and then remember that Hawaii is even farther west than that. And while there's no surfing in Nevada, there's plenty of surfing in Hawaii, so it all fits.)
To complete the cultural cross-pollination, we're looking at bringing some of the dancers I've been working with as well. Come on down--it's free, all ages, and takes place at a reasonable hour (7-8 PM). And you can check out plenty of other performers and vendors of all types. How can you lose? Well by not dropping by. See you there.
Saturday, August 13, Ellsworth Avenue at College, Shadyside (in front of Eons). 7-8 PM.
Report
This was an aesthetic victory over bad circumstances. Things started reasonably well--I went down in the morning on bike to scope out the performance site, and was surprised at the size of the stage platform and the number of seats. This really was the main stage. I was also happy to learn that parking for performers would be both conveniently close and free, for reasons that were quite clear when I came back with the gear--lots of people around, and street parking largely full up.
I looked around for Steve and Ami, but couldn't find them, and went into the VIP tent to set up my gear as much as I could so that the move to the stage would be quick. While I did this, the dancers who were performing then (quite energetically) would run in, throw off their outfits, throw on the next outfit, and bolt out the door. I'm really not sure why people seem to think that "backstage" is a glamorous place to be--it's usually pretty utilitarian, and in this case about a million degrees due to the heat and the necessity of keeping the tent closed. Fortunately there was a large cooler full of bottled water, to which we helped ourselves.
I caught up with Steve and Ami, and once the dancers finished, we brought the gear up to the stage, being extra careful with the bowls. I set up to one side, we did the check (with some concern for uke and bowl mic feedback), and waited a bit for the time to start.
As the set began, things were going well--there were a few familiar faces in the crowd, and a general good vibe. We began with "United Dream States," on which I contributed a sort of baritone line on the E and A strings, but didn't want to overplay. I couldn't hear myself in the monitors as well as I'd ordinarily like, but I was able to deal with it. The next piece was more ambient, and I concentrated on volume swells, and then we went to pick up the energy. I started in on the belly dance stuff with Steve and Ami contributing, which seemed to go well, although as the looping went on, my lines were even lower in the monitor, and for playing uke I was relying on hearing what I was doing acoustically.
We'd assembled quite an audience by this point, and we moved into Steve's latest dance piece in three sections, at which point the deluge started--the rain just poured down, scattering our audience to whatever tents or overhangs they could find. Still, we kept going, even as the wind whipped rain around the stage. We played harder, and Steve ran around the stage with his wireless mic, asking people "Are you experienced? Are you experienced?" and it was awesome. It struck me that the appropriate response was to play uke with my teeth, so I did (which people commented on later). The guitar lines were less successful--I wasn't able to monitor the electric guitar acoustically, and I'd pretty much disappeared from the monitor. (Was this because of the deliberate uke feedback I had made a couple times? Still, it was in tune...) Had I been able to monitor the guitar, I would have realized (as I did later, listening to my own recording of my contributions) that the top two strings had gone out of tune in the moist air.
The rain slowed and we got some audience back, and we ended on something of a high. Lots of applause, and requests for encores (which, due to scheduling, we couldn't fulfill). So it seemed like quite a success overall, even with the rain. What we weren't prepared for, however, was the World's Dumbest Stage Hand, who immediately and without warning started poking the tarp over the stage with a long pole, dumping the water off it. OK, so he didn't want the stage supports to collapse, but he could have given people a heads-up before he dumped the water. He came very close to dumping it on everything of mine (he drenched the open flap of my gear bag, inches away from everything inside) and did the same to Steve. He wouldn't hear any complaints, though, as he barked at us and berated someone on the other end of his cell phone call. He also came close to drenching people walking alongside the stage, and on reflection I wonder if all this was just deliberate assholery. Certainly the mood was bad, as the two helpful stage hands (women) were also being insulted by the sound guy. Bad scene.
We got our equipment out of there without further incident, and I received some congratulations from friends (though--again--no sales). I did hang out with Steve and some other friends, checking out Lenora Nemetz's show tunes set, although eventually I had to get rolling for dinner and home. Ultimately a good night, even with TWDSH going around with his malicious pokes.
Announcement
Steve and Ami Sciulli of Life In Balance just returned from their Western tour, and they're doing an outside gig at the Co-op. They've also invited me to sit in, which I'll do even though I'm on for a gig tonight. 1PM at the East End Food Co-op on Meade near Braddock, behind the Factory shops at Forbes & Braddock.
Report
The first of two gigs in one day, and our son's first concert, since Steve would be in charge of the PA and I knew he wouldn't make it too loud. All the music gear and the baby gear fit in the Mini, and it wasn't a long drive anyway. A very hot, clear day, which was beautiful, and I didn't have to worry about the sun as they'd put up a tent over the stage. I set up and tuned (silently) right as Steve and Ami started their set, and stood off to the side while they played part of their regular set. Steve has also been working on more danceable pieces, one of which got a tryout this previous week at a festival, and which I was psyched to hear.
Our first piece together was more ambient, but I was looking forward to opening things up--and we did when Steve started the backing track for the new piece. It really is a hot track from the ground up, and engaged our attention in a really good way--Steve was full of energy, wandering around with his wireless headset, going up to people and playing flute right in their faces. Ami brought the drones up as she played the bowls with more intensity, and I let loose with some Western surf-like twangy TV guitar parts. Quite fun, though we did get asked to turn down a bit. We ended to quite a bit of applause, and one young man came up to me as I was breaking down my gear, saying that he'd heard we were good, but our being this good made quite an impression on him. Nice, although I can't take it personally--the reputation belongs to Steve and Ami, and while I did contribute the surf guitar, Steve's groove really pushed us to a new height today.
For some reason, I can't seem to move many of the Music For Dance discs yet, no matter how many people I engage in conversation. Other notable highlights: running into various friends, getting to show off the boy, sampling some of the interesting vegan and vegetarian selections at the Co-op, getting lunch, and picking up some groceries. Quite a pleasant afternoon, great peformance by Steve and Ami, and an overall good vibe, though we had to get rolling by 4 so I could prepare for the next gig of the day.
Announcement
This is a private gig--a bachelorette party for one of the members of the belly dance community. I like mentioning this to male musicians, though--their eyes get wide, and they offer their services as roadies. It's unlikely to get particularly wild while I'm there, as this is in a public restaurant, and the real festivities will probably take place afterwards, at which point I'll be home.
The plan is for me to play a short set of varying tempi, and then cede to another dancer's pre-recorded soundtrack. After that, looks like I'll be fed--the perfect evening for a musician.
Zenith Tea Room, 86 South 26th Street, South Side, Pittsburgh.
Report
The second of two gigs in one day. We'd done some rehearsal for this, since the dance was more choreographed than the way we often work, and there'd be a changeover at the end, so that two guest dancers could do their own choreography to a CD they'd brought.
It turned out that the performance was a surprise for the woman whose party this was, and it was neat to see her reaction. The other patrons seemed a little surprised themselves, and kept watching the dance while trying to look like they weren't. For the performance itself, I was actually prepared for a lot longer of a set than we ended up doing. I hit the usual landmarks, but made some changes in the guitar and uke sampling, grabbing shorter phrases more frequently, and having them overlap more. I didn't want to vary the tempo much, though, as I didn't want to throw anyone off. The dancers formed a semicircle, and individuals would step out for solos, and I expected that everyone would take one or two solos. I was gearing up for a next major variation when I saw the cue for me to end it, but no problem. So I shut off loops and the recording, and watched the two guest dancers do their planned set--quite elaborate, and fast. And the vegan dinner and conversation afterwards were also very good, and by 8 or so I was on my way home.
Announcement
It's time for another free, all-ages live belly dance gig for the Blue Light District. We start at 7, and go for a half hour or 45 minutes. Expect new beats, a different flow, as well as the atmospheric electric guitar and electric ukulele you're used to. Come by and say hello, or just bask in the electric uke vibes.
1102 East Carson Street, South Side. Map.
Report
Another pleasant evening doing the dance music--the weather coöperated, the dancers were enthusiastic (though regrettably one of them injured a toe on the concrete), and Jim Brenholts stopped by to check out the scene live.
I wanted to change some things up for this set of performances, so I thought I'd move through several different tempi--speed things up as they got more intense, slow them down to give the dancers a break. In practice, I adjusted the tempo too quickly, and it struck me as more than a bit jarring when I did this, rather than a smooth transition between sections. Still, particularly in the fast sections, things were different enough that I did some playing I rather liked, and perhaps some of it's releaseable. (I haven't yet gone back and listened to it, though.) The dancers liked the set, as did Jim, and we grabbed a coffee afterwards for debriefing. Still no sales resulting from this, but it certainly is an enjoyable evening out.
Announcement
This is the Really Big Show of the summer: performance artist/accordionist/drywall whisperer Stephen Pellegrino is putting on a massive live show around his piece "Calling Mr. Conrad" as part of the Pittsburgh Filmmakers' Media Tonic 2. Steve will be playing, of course, but there will be other acts as well, since the whole thing's going from 7 to 11:30. I'll be doing at least two sets (one guitar/uke-through-the-laptop, and possibly one all-feedback or all-drone set), if not three or four total, when you count collaborations. There will also be a number of non-'Nyayzar acts, too, elsewhere in the building. (Including, I've just learned, John Doe of X.)
As Mr. Conrad was the Pittsburgh-based developer of commercial radio, there is a radio theme going on--it's station NYZ, broadcasting from the alternate dimension of 'Nyazar. In fact, while the musicians and other performers are in one room, the performances will be broadcast via microradio to radios elsewhere in the building. Pretty slick, huh? But wait, there's more: we'll also be incorporating visual performers, including belly dancers, a radio-only mime, and other diversions.
So mark your calendar and start setting aside your spare change: for this evening of entertainment (including a whole range of non-'Nyayzar stuff going on elsewhere in the building), you'll be ponying up $15. If you only have to spend $15 at the Filmmakers this year, make sure it's this $15 at this event. We'll see you there...on the radio.
477 Melwood Ave, Pittsburgh, 15213 - (412) 681-5449. Map.
Report
This had the makings of a significant show, but a series of negative events tends to wear one down. For an evening show, load-in was oddly early--I met Steve down there at 10:30. I planned to bring my gear later, but for the morning I helped Steve set up the room--arrange tables/chairs, set up a background, test the transmitter, etc. Steve had asked which direction foot traffic would be coming from, so we arranged the performance side of the room to face the door, and allow people to come and go freely. We put down dropcloths as the background, and also mounted one as a backdrop--not bad looking.
I returned home, sat out the hot day, did work, and prepared for the show. For quite a while I've been threatening to do an Earth-inspired drone piece, and put the EH Big Muff Pi distortion in the bag. There were snags, though: ironing my shirt (dress code) made the place as hot as it could possibly be, and as I was heading out to the car, I noticed the shirt was stained. Great. I hadn't been able to make dinner, either, but at least there would be food at the venue for the performers, I'd been told.
Various frustrations of the day had built, and on the trip down I realized what state of mind I had attained. In Zen practice, there's what's known as "beginner's mind." In my case, I had attained what I'll call "blow me mind," the state in which one's first reaction to any bad or even inconvenient news is simply "Blow me." At the Melwood Screening room, I had to park waaay back in the lot and schlep the gear all the way. On the way I ran into Mike Yaklich, who'd be drumming for us, and we commiserated. Turns out we were pretty much in the same frame of mind.
We got our performer badges, and arrived at the installation room to learn that we'd been told to set up...facing in the wrong direction. Most of the foot traffic would be at the entrance immediately behind us, and if people wanted to come in the audience-friendly door, they'd have to go down to the end of the main hallway, take a turn down toward the restrooms, tack back along a rear hallway, and somehow find us. There was no way we were going to have time to break everything down and move it, so we put a map on the door, and hoped that people felt like following it around to the back hallway.
At this point I could either snag some food and a drink, or be a professional and set up my gear, so I opted for professionalism to guarantee that I'd be set up by showtime. When I was done with my setup and went in search of the food tables, though, they were pretty much depleted. The staffers tried to be helpful, directing us to other tables, but those too were depleted. There was, apparently, plenty of beer and wine, but I didn't want to be impaired for our sets. In the end, I scrounged a few vegetables, a small amount of cheese, and a petit four in the hopes that this would be enough to get me through the evening. Indeed, others weren't so lucky.
We didn't start at doors-open time, there being so few people who made the trip around to the back hallway, and we started essentially an hour later, with a bit of an audience. We had yet another musician with us--a young man named Luke, who'd be on guitar. He happened to have his own EH Muff, and was apparently quite open to experimentation. There--that was one good omen. We did some old 'Nyayzar favorites, as well as a couple new pieces of Steve's and it went down well, although we had audience members drifting out moreso than in. Another good omen--the Funkies drifted in and checked out a chunk of the sets.
The plan was to play several sets through the evening in different combinations, so after the first piece I had a bit of a break, and wndered around, checking out the other installations. The food was not replenished anywhere, and there appeared to be no plan to restock.
Back down in the performance room, it was soon my set, so I busted out some of the belly dance stuff. I seem to have held people for a while, but most of them moved on--was this the fault of my playing, or was it just the smorgasboard nature of the event? Parts of what I did were pretty good, and Steve jumped in after a while, which was nice. The gradually dwindling audience irritated me, though, and I took out some cumulative frustration by ripping out some more direct, overdriven, less textural modal lines--probably the straightest I've ever played in public.
After some other combinations of players, Steve announced a break, but since I'd just returned from one, I volunteered to do the fuzz drone piece I'd wanted to do, and Luke was willing to join in. I announced notes to him (based on the cycle of fifths), we droned, I grabbed loops for additional texture, and we gradually chased everyone out of the room except for a couple stalwart listeners. It was nice, although unfortunately the recording I made of my signal chain doesn't include Luke's contributions. The next step is to work out more of a structure to this, and do it with the large group.
Things seemed to wind down during the next round of performances, though people were still walking around, and I quickly set up to do another belly dance piece, which was pretty much ignored--what draws them in on the street apparently does little for the Filmmakers audience. After a command performance for Steve's wife Mary, our hungry and grumpy crew broke the gear down and called it a night.
Announcement
The last few belly dance gigs have gone so well, I'm doing yet another, this one once again outside of Ethnic Artz, a fascinating store on East Carson Street. Things get started at 7PM. The event is free, the dancing excellent (ranging from traditional to tribal to modern), and the music richly textured percussion samples, live electric guitar, and haunting desert uke. I'm serious about the uke, too. You'll dig it. See you there.
1102 East Carson Street, South Side. Map.
Report
About a week before this show, I'd gotten an email from a gentleman who plays ukulele, and who'd be in town for the Senior Olympics (table tennis), and who wanted to meet up. I'd figured that he'd done a web search on Pittsburgh and ukulele in order to get my name, and we worked it out that one of his available times was during this show. So not only would I have a gig, but I'd have a chance to meet a more experienced uke player, and with any luck I'd pick up a few pointers or techniques. If I was really lucky, he'd dig the set.
I'd had a number of things going on this week, and there was a possibility that scheduling for the day would be difficult, but things worked out--I was significantly early for the show, got good parking, the weather was clear and warm, and I was in a good frame of mind, even without having done one of these shows in a few weeks.
Rather than rent another preamp, I thought I'd bring a long extension cord and siphon some power from Ethnic Artz, and that worked out, even though I was pretty much at the outer limit of the extension. Since I was so early, I did a leisurely setup inside the shop and chatted casually with the owner and a few customers, as well as a photographer who'd taken many of the shots displayed (and for sale) in the shop. He was a musician himself, a keyboardist, who apparently has quite the array of gear at home. In talking about what I was doing (guitar and ukulele for belly dance), he mentioned to someone that he thought it was a "stupid" idea (um, gee, thanks) until he heard it (oh, well, thanks). So I take that as a compliment, I guess.
Eventually a few dancers came by (as did the vegan baker--people, you have to check this out) and we started setting up. As I was running my gear outside, I noticed one older gentleman coming up on the scene and checking things out; my vibe was correct--this was ukulele player Dick Jeffers, in from Houston. I asked him to hang on to my little $27 Mahalo uke while I set up, and of course he was welcome to try it. I'd mentioned that it was quite a low-end piece of gear ("good" ukes start in the low hundreds), but he liked it--I knew it sounded good and played well in my limited uke experience; apparently it compares respectably even for people who are playing more painstakingly made instruments.
I did my soundchecking and tuning (headphones, as usual), and answered a few questions asked by some prospective audients, and soon it was time to get started. Off we went, and my end of the set wasn't bad, although I'm a bit bothered by the feeling that I'm just going over familiar ground here and not pushing things, as for me Music seems to appear most frequently when I'm on the edge of something new, not knowing what I'm doing. Maybe it's the heightened attention that I have to have in those cases, and, lazy being that I am, turn off when I don't absolutely need it. This kind of slacking is something I need to train myself out of. So it was a reasonable set, though there were more bad notes than usual, so it seemed (guess it's the feeling of pressure, playing for a real uke player). I was afraid I was boring people, but may not have been--for one thing, the dancers had said they'd be dancing for a half hour or 45 minutes tops, but we seemed ready to blow past that, and I brought things to a close at 10 to eight.
I packed up, loaded the car, and Dick Jeffers and I joined two of the audients for an excellent Thai dinner at Thai Me Up, several blocks up Carson, where discussion ranged across several topics, but concentrated on ukuleles and Dick's lifelong experience with the instrument. Afterwards, we did get a chance to play ukes back down at Ethnic Artz--more of a uke lesson, actually, as Dick ran through several of his arrangements of classic tunes ("Jeepers Creepers," "42nd Street," "Button Up Your Overcoat," and others). Quite an education for me, and it's obvious why he's in demand as a teacher and performer. Very good guy, too.
At 10 or so, the owner had to close up shop, so we said our goodbyes, and I was home shortly thereafter. One of those evenings that justifies why one does all this.
Announcement
Sunday's edition of the dance performance, at 26th and Smallman in the Strip District (Map). Dancing will be from 10-4, and I'll be playing from 1 to 2. Come on down and check it out.
Report
Day two of this street festival, and it went rather smoothly. Same spot, same set of people, but this time we set up in the opposite direction to get any foot traffic from Smallman Street, as there seemed to be fewer people in the middle of the blocked-off street.
My performance was about par, although I worked in a rather neat little key change at one point. Unlike yesterday, we took a few breaks rather than running straight through the hour. During the last set, we noticed a local news cameraman and reporter filming us; as would inevitably happen, I was playing a particularly uninteresting guitar part during this segment, and by the time I'd picked up the uke, the camera was off. Ah, well. Still, after the set, the reporter came by and got names for the segment, if it were to be used. She pointed out that she was an intern, and had no editorial pull, but any publicity is good. It doesn't count as publicity, though, if the segment isn't used. They weren't covering the street fair, but a robbery of the Spaghetti Warehouse, which was across the street from us.
After we broke things down, I picked up a tasty vegan dessert at the vegan baker's table, and agreed to meet up with the dancers at the South Side Beehive for debriefing. Before leaving, though, I had an interesting talk with someone who was helping out a painter with a nearby booth--he'd rather liked the set, and had notably wide-ranging musical tastes. Cool. I packed up the car, headed over to the South Side, and consumed yet more vegan desserts with the dancers before we were joined by--surprise!--the baker again. A neat group of people, and it'll be interesting to keep working with them. Should you come out to these shows, with any luck the baker will be there. Highly recommended.
Announcement
Considering how well last night's dance performance went (even with the rain!), we're doing two more this coming weekend, at 26th and Smallman in the Strip District (Map). For music, expect some IDM-ed up hand percussion samples, ambient guitar, and haunting, ancient ukulele. The dance will range from traditional to freeform, with anywhere between four and six dancers in full costume. Much like last night, there *will* be a tent, so weather won't be a factor, although it's supposed to be nice.
Dancing will go on from 9-5 on Saturday, and from 10-4 on Sunday. I'll be playing from 1 to 2 both days (about the battery duration I can be sure of across all the devices at this level of activity). I will have CDs for sale, including this recent music for dance. So come on down and check it out. Or make like a number of people last night and drive by, honk, hang out the window, and shout incomprehensibilities as your car speeds past. Either way, it's free. See you there.
26th and Smallman in the Strip District (Map). 1-2 PM, all ages, free.
Report
This show was one of those triumph-over-adversity shows. While loading the car, I dropped the uke--only a cosmetic scar, thankfully, but it definitely freaked me out for a minute. I'd realized right before leaving for the show that I'd probably not have a table for the PowerBook, but I could swing by a music store and pick up a heavy music stand that would work. (Steve from Life In Balance introduced me to this concept--thanks, Steve!) I had to stop by a store anyway to get a new strap button for the Kalamazoo, as I noticed last night that the one at the base of the guitar had cracked. I guess 38 years of setting the guitar down on its base was too much for the old plastic part. I hightailed it to Pianos 'n' 'at, which in fact did have both chrome strap buttons and heavy, foldable music stands. I bought the widest one they had, which did in fact turn out to be exactly the width of the PowerBook and the preamp--score!
I jammed back downtown to get to the venue, a corner in the Strip District, and made it about 10 minutes before showtime. We'd be under a tent offered by friends of the dancers, who were showing off some sculpture and fashion items, and who were extremely welcoming and friendly. (Thanks for letting me use your space!). This was good--I could keep the sun off the PowerBook screen; otherwise I'd have a difficult time seeing what I was doing. I set up in one corner of the tent, but then it was decided to move the stage to the other side so we'd get more foot traffic from the festival, and be seen by people who'd sat down at the food area. So I moved my stand, and the PowerBook almost took a dive off it, but I caught it in time. Close one.
We started playing, and it went pretty well. I'm still a bit dogged by the little Pignose speaker clipping on loud bass frequencies, but I can't complain--it's performing great for its small size. The set I played was roughly equivalent to the one I did this past Thursday--not bad, but not possessing the compelling center of the set from May 18. You really should check that out.
Why the internal disconnect? In live performance there are a lot of variables to have to consider, and there were a few extras for this outside show: for one, despite the bright sun when we started, there were a couple instances of actual rain during the set, and the dancers got soaked. I was under the tent this time, but it made things difficult for them and for my tent hosts, who lost a vase of flowers to the wind, and had to keep adjusting the tent's side panels. Another complicating factor was the band who were to perform after us. They set up and started jamming on half-assed classic rock covers while I was still playing. I guess their thought was something like "Duuuh, girls! Dancing! They'll dance to our stuff...because we, uh, rock." I persevered, though, and we finished the set. Talking to the dancers and the vendors later, I found that they too were quite irritated at the band, and said that what I was doing was much better, which was nice to hear.
I broke down the gear and loaded the car up, and we all dispersed--none of the dancers stuck around for the next band, who in fact probably did not get a chance to play in the heavy downpour and lightning storm which started a few minutes after we all left. I suspect that with their huge PA and plugged-in amps, they had to forfeit, as well as losing any audience they might have had. Bad day to be them.
On the way out, I listened to my pre-mix CD of the rehearsal from the 18th, and I'm really enthused about releasing this one.
