Announcement
It's fall, and the urge to get something going has prompted me to glom onto a show coming up at Boogaloo in Brooklyn NY on Sunday, October 19. I'm playing the opening night of Burg(h), a month-long show of Pittsburgh visual artists.

As ever, I'll be performing a set of guitar processed through the laptop (using Peter Nyboer's Girl, a looping pedal, and a submixer for multiple feedback loops), resulting in sounds ranging from ambient drones to dystopian sample noise, and possibly even some beats for the hip kids. My slot's probably any 45 minute period within the range of 9:00 to 11:00, which at it's worst theoretically isn't too late for people who have to work Monday morning. Come up and say hi, buy some merch, or just stand there with your arms folded and nod slowly and knowingly.

Boogaloo can be found in Willamsburg--the current epicenter of the hipoisie. Bring your too-tight high school athletic T-shirts, emo glasses, John Deere caps, and guzzle some Pabst...or don't, and stare coldly at those who do. See you there.

Sunday, October 19, 8PM to 4AM (my set's probably somewhere between 9:00 and 11:00 range...maybe on the early side? I dunno; I was told 10, but so were other people. It's your typical indie rock chaos.) 21+ (I think), no cover.

Many thanks to Jack Robinson for setting this one up.

Boogaloo, 168 Marcy Ave. between S. 5th and Broadway, South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. (718) 599-8900. J-M-Z train to Marcy, or L train to Lorimer. Map here.

Report: Sunday
Wow. Sometimes strange, sometimes not entirely optimal, but ultimately very, very good.

We got a late start (11:00), having a number of things to deal with before we left, including a "spindle failure" error of my PowerBook's Superdrive while attempting to burn a few more CDRs for the car. Yikes! At least I'd burnt all the merch the night before. Anyway, we got on the road, made our calls, and jammed to NYC.

I was a bit tired and in need of good coffee, and to my eternal regret believed the PA Turnpike signs that advertised the presence of *bucks at the Midway Service Plaza. (Not that I'm all that enamored of *bucks--mainly because their coffee's got a lump of Plutonium or something in the bottom that keeps it unreasonably hot for like 50 years after being served, but on the Turnpike and in other middle-of-nowhere places, it's certainly a reasonable minimum coffee standard.) So I believed the sign, but it turns out that there's no *bucks there. The best I could do was Cinnabon, which serves cappuccino from one of those automatic cappuccino machines--no actual human barista input. What they served me (for $3.00, I'll add) wasn't coffee. From the first sip, I could tell that. What was it--leper jizz? Burnt dirt? No idea. So I threw it out, and we continued to the Sideling Hill Service Plaza, which actually did have a *bucks. So I was good to go.

I ended up doing the whole drive, which wasn't unreasonable. Our only snarl was in advance of the Holland Tunnel, where like eight lanes go down to two. That process took us about an extra half hour or 45 minutes, during which we fielded a few more phone calls. Getting out of the tunnel, I made the mistake of turning right instead of left, and sent us downtown. After some Kentucky windage, I navigated us back up toward Houston, made the block, and decided to park in a quasi-legal spot for the moment. I checked in while Patricia hung with the car; I came back and gave her the room key while she ran up and changed. I figured no one would be terribly upset if I changed my shirt in the car; no one seemed to notice. Patricia came back quickly, and our next goal was to put the car in a garage for the duration of our trip. I'd scoped out a very affordable garage nearby on Elizabeth Street, but a) the hotel desk clerk had said that parking was "actually on Mulberry," and b) the street sign at Elizabeth and E. Houston was out, so I failed to turn up that particular street and ended up with the garage on Mulberry. OK, so we were running late, and it was a garage. We went with it.

We weren't sure, but I'd thought there was a possibility of a few people from the Television list and the MINI messageboard showing up at a 'net friend's restaurant in the East Village, Old Devil Moon. I had a bit of Black Halo (that peculiar aura that prevents one from getting a cab), and we walked up as far as Sixth or Seventh Street before we finally got one, and gratefully put down our burdens (all my gear and merch) for the ride over to the restaurant on 12th. Dennis was there, and was the perfect host for the perfect dinner. Old Devil Moon does this New York spin on Southern/Cajun/Soul Food cuisine, with plenty of vegetarian options. The decor is welcoming and entertainingly funky, and the food is flat-out amazing. I had the jerk tofu, while Patricia had the tofu BBQ ribs...and we were knocked out. The entrees were delicious. My side of sweet potatoes was equally tasty, and Patricia's side of mac'n'cheese reached a kind of comfort food apotheosis. It was extremely affordable, exquisitely tasty, served in ample portions...I can't think of a single thing not to like about it. Just go. Drop everything you're doing, and go.

Soon it was time to leave to get to the club, so we reluctantly took our leave and cabbed it over to Brooklyn. (Our driver was a fascinating Hatian drummer; it'd be interesting to hear him sometime, but it's unlikely that we'd have that chance.) The club, Boogaloo, was a few doors up Marcy from the intersection of Marcy and Broadway, so we didn't have to schlep stuff very far. It's in the basement of a brownstone, and is quite the nice space. There's still some finishing work to do, but it's definitely a hip little club. I set my stuff down, and we picked a spot on one of the couches to wait for the people we'd invited. We got into a conversation with an ex-Pittsburgher who was now living in Hoboken, and then connected with our longtime 'net friend Philip Obbard, whom we'd last seen in Chicago for the Television show there. Turns out, he has a familial 'burgh connection, too, so maybe we'll run into him on the home turf sometime.

I wasn't able to talk for very long, though, as my set time was fast approaching. It turned out that my contact from the MINI board was already in the house, but I hadn't got around to him at that point. I'd only figured it out when I overheard him asking the DJ when I'd be going on; happily it worked out that by the time the DJ finished up and I set up, he and his posse would be able to go out and get a bite to eat first.

Set up was a bit of a problem, however--the full PA wasn't set up, so I'd go through the DJ's PA. That was fine, but there weren't very many horizontal surfaces on which to put my stuff. Ultimately, one of the bartenders dug up the covers for the turntables, and I was able to rest the PowerBook on that. And, somewhat late, off I went. There were quite a lot of people in the bar, although many of them were talking rather than listening. Since I was right there at the DJ board, I had a choice of how loud I could make myself--I could turn way up over the conversations and possibly send people outside, or I could, in the spirit of Erik Satie, "mingle with the sound of knives and forks at dinner." I opted to blend in, and occasionally crest over the conversational level to let people know I was there.

It was a bit difficult to hear myself as well as I'd usually like to, but having made my decision, I stuck with it. Since I didn't want to take chances with the timing, I avoided guitar percussion, although I added the use of a mic that was picking up the conversation in the room, and brought that into the piece in several places as well. As it got closer to 10:30, I could see the New Alcindors setting up, so I brought things to a close. Philip had come up to take a look at what I was doing, so I gave a little demo as part of the piece. At the time, I didn't think the improv had much of a shape overall, but listening back to it, it really does have some moments. I chatted with Philip and my MINI messageboard contact, as well as a few other Pittsburghers who were in the show, and I managed to sell a number of discs to people, too. Ironic that one comes all this way to network with other 'burghers, though.

The New Alcindors started up, significantly louder than I was, but they had much more of a groove thing going on, so the audience was receptive. Conversation became difficult, however, and most of our guests left. The set was quite good, though--the last time I'd seen them, they were a trio, and the addition of Jennifer (ex-Ladybug Transistor) on keyboards really helps fill out the sound.

Next up was Phat Mandee, who turned in a set that was impressively torchy, moving, and silly (particularly the 'burgh accent fugue), along with some excellent moments with Tommy Amoeba (multiple layered jumpsuits, and the interjection of "I got cat class and I got cat style" into "16 Tons"). Well done!

We hung out a bit longer talking to the DJ--another Pittsburgher, and Jack asked me if I'd do another set. At this point it was midnight, I was packed up, and I had an appointment early the next morning, so I had to decline. Apparently two of the scheduled acts hadn't shown (Jwan, it seems, couldn't get a ride, and Barrett Black, for unknown reasons, failed to appear).

We called for the car service, and headed back to the hotel. Quite a long couple of days.

Monday
Up early, parched, and hungry, so we headed a few doors down to breakfast. Yonah Schimmel's next door didn't open until 10, sadly, so we went to a deli next to the also-closed Katz's, and hit the subway for the trip up to midtown, (the subway much cleaner than we'd expected) where I had an appointment to take a guitar lesson from Richard Lloyd. He's an amazing teacher, as it turns out. I'm the guitar equivalent of Kaspar Hauser in many ways, and he was able to focus right in on the weaknesses and inadequacies in how I use my left hand--and give me exercises to correct them. He also has some very perceptive points about theory I found very enlightening. Quite a lot of information in an hour and a half, and I was glad I'd gone back on caffeine for the session. If you're anywhere convenient to New York and want instruction from a true master, get in touch with him through his site. His exercises will be worth working on for years.

Afterwards, Patricia and I checked out the Garment District and Times Square, but decided that we'd best get lunch back downtown. As I'd had that CD burning issue before we left, I thought to stop in the Apple Store in SoHo to see if they could do a quick Superdrive swap while I waited. After a substantial wait to talk to one of the Geniuses and another wait while they determined whether or not they had the part and could replace it before Tuesday morning, it was decided that no, they couldn't. So we were free, and we wandered around SoHo a bit to connect with some lunch, which we did at an amazingly tasty little Italian place while we debriefed.

A bit more wandering and a break put us on the street with several free hours, so we headed around the corner from our hotel, and stopped by CBGB. They weren't open as such, but Hilly let us have a look around, as I'm sure he's done with countless other music tourists. As expected, the room holds a kind of resonance, but doesn't hold the resonance of the music we've come to know and love. We stopped next door at CB's 313 Gallery, where I talked to Micheline, the booking agent, and gave her a CDR from the tour. Patricia was impressed, but I just noted that I'd consulted my "what would Robert Press do?" wristband, and figured that he'd do that. Around the corner on Houston again, we noticed an amazing open-air shop of...stuff. Ornate windows, old pinball machines, audio gear...quite interesting.

We headed to Union Square, although given the line we were on, we had to walk several blocks East, and then down Broadway a bit to check out The Strand bookstore, indeed an amazing presence, and we scored some good books--a ballet book for Patricia, and for me a monograph of Gordon Matta-Clark, whose work really blew me away some years ago when I encountered it at a retrospective. At the time I didn't pick up the exhibition catalog, and have been kicking myself since. This isn't the catalog, but makes up for it by having a lot of photos--probably more than the catalog, and having nice features like a cut-out binding.

After a couple hours at the Strand, we continued uptown to Times Square north, the neighborhood of "Iridium", where we'd be realizing yet another lifetime goal of mine, seeing Les Paul perform. He's obviously hurting from the arthritis and slowed some by age, but this was a highly enjoyable show. He has a good band behind him, and even with the simple melody lines he's playing, his Tone is still there. A few tunes in the set exist to give the other guys a chance to cut loose, and there are some long breaks during which Les and the guys engage in entertaining banter. Overall, the feeling is one of hanging out with some people who are just having a good time--and what could possibly be wrong with that? (I did the obligatory fanboy thing of meeting him after the 10:00 show was over. Totally nice guy who doesn't have to sit there and meet the long line of people, but does anyway.)

Tuesday
We got up fairly early and headed down to Ground Zero to pay our respects, and walked the perimeter of the WTC site. It's impossible for me to conceive of the scale of what happened here, not having seen the buildings close up while they were standing. Now, of course, it's a construction site, surrounded by offices where many people still work. It's amazing that some buildings nearby sustained as little damage as they did, like St. Paul's Chapel.

We jammed back up to the hotel to check out (a process during which I dropped a CDR with the desk clerk, who's in a post-rock band in the city), and then headed next door to Yonah Schimmel's for knishes. Yonah's happened to be listed in our guidebook, for very good reason--these were the Platonic Ideal of the knish. Truly amazing. The potato knish was significantly lighter than I'd imagine such a thing to be, and the apple and cheese knishes were very tasty as well. We consumed about half of our orders, and got the rest to go. We stopped by the garage to leave the knishes and all the gear in the car (by this time my back and knees were not happy lugging all this gear, and I regretted having chosen the garage that was two blocks farther on.

Still, we managed, and then had to get down to TriBeCa for my appointment at La Monte Young's Dream House. The Dream House isn't open on Tuesday, but I'd negotiated a private session there as a premium for my joining the MELA Foundation as a member. Unfortunately, we were running a bit late for the 11:00 appointment, and I had us get on the V train going the wrong way. I woke up to this fact before we left Manhattan, and we had to wait a bit for one going in the other direction, but we headed back uptown, and took the A train down to Canal St. Finally emerging from underground, we were able to call MELA and explain our lateness; it worked out ok because they had to take some additional time and fix one of the channels delivering the piece. So we cooled out for a bit at a restaurant a block or so away, and then came back up to the Dream House.

The current piece there is called "The Base 9:7:4 Symmetry in Prime Time When Centered above and below The Lowest Term Primes in The Range 288 to 224 with The Addition of 279 and 261 in Which The Half of The Symmetric Division Mapped above and Including 288 Consists of The Powers of 2 Multiplied by The Primes within The Ranges of 144 to 128, 72 to 64 and 36 to 32 Which Are Symmetrical to Those Primes in Lowest Terms in The Half of The Symmetric Division Mapped below and Including 224 within The Ranges 126 to 112, 63 to 56 and 31.5 to 28 with The Addition of 119." Sure, it's a mouthful, but it's also the entire score. That's a description of the frequency ratios of the drones that make up this piece, and there's a more useful description of the piece's structure here.

As we ascended the stairs to the second floor landing, we could begin to hear and feel the piece, mainly through the bass drones, throbbing like generators. Up at the third floor landing, one of the staff met us, asked us to remove our shoes, and gave us the literature packet. And then we were led in. The whole space seems to be painted and carpeted in white, but all of the lighting is in a particular shade of purple/magenta achieved by combining lights of different hues. In the back room is a sculpture of raised surfaces, which cleverly brings out these constituent tones.

Up above the hallway to the front is another sculpture, this one a neon version of Marian Zazeela's writing and saying (as I recall) "The Dream House." In the large front room are the large speaker enclosures in each corner, emitting the drones. Along one wall were the instruments set up for a rehearsal later that day, along the back wall a little memorial to Pandit Pran Nath, at the front, three windows overlooking Church Street (covered in magenta film), and hanging from the ceiling are two curved metal sculptures that slowly turn, revealing different shadows on the wall (cast by lights pointed at them from the center of the ceiling).

Being in this room is quite unlike any other experience, I think--the drones are quite loud, but didn't bother my ears, as there are only 32 (or more likely 35, according to Gann) frequencies in the piece. (Unlike, say, a cymbal crash, which is way more frequency-rich and potentially damaging.) As I walked around, the interference patterns of the piece changed, giving rise to changing tones where the reality was a static set of drones (revealed when one stops moving). As a result, I spent a lot of time turning my head and experimenting with it. At times, just shifting the angle of the information packet I was reading changed the sound, and at one point a yawn caused a major dropout of the higher frequencies. It's participatory in a way that possibly no other compositions are, and the participation takes place solely inside your head. That's not a metaphor for "psychological" or "imaginary"--your head really is the venue of the Dream House.

We spent about an hour inside, although admittedly the drones got to Patricia after a while. Leaving the space, I had a very weird feeling from my temporarily attenuated hearing at those frequencies, not at all like post-concert attenuation. It was like the negative ghosts of those tones were still with me, just as one's eyes were still compensating for the magenta. Quite striking, and worthwhile. (And for people coming on the usual Thursday to Saturday, only $4. How can you lose?)

We headed back up to our neighborhood, got our car from the garage (more expensive than the one I'd planned on), drove quite easily out of the city, and seven hours later, were home.