Shortwaves and Industry in Berkley, MI
Yesterday, Sunday the 27th I woke up feeling tired, achy and miserable. I had been invited to play a gig at some place "in the Detroit area" and was thinking of backing out. But I gathered enough steam to go do it - how often do I get out to play anyway? Besides, I'd never played anywhere near Detroit, yet I've lived here more than two years.
In the afternoon I made, in about 20 minutes, a short video clip to go along with "Canonica eroica". Shortly afterward I had an epiphany that the three electronic works I composed this year (Triumphal March of the Evil Empire/Claudia/Canonica Eroica) form a related cycle, which I decided to call "Sinfonia 2003". All have visual elements, which I hope to be able to cut into a single, 18 minute video shortly. More about that later. I did this with the hope of screening the clip at the gig, but had to can that idea when we discovered we didn't have the right equipment.
I followed the directions and discovered that the gig was in Berkley, a little island of upwardly-mobile real estate with knick knack shops, antique stores and rich in small town atmosphere surrounded by barren industrial sites and spawl, located to the north of Livonia. The spot was the Angel Moon Cafe, a tiny basement club beneath a new-agey hair salon, decorated in angels and clouds and still demonstrating a sprinkling of that Christmas cheer. This place was so small and obscure that I passed it three times before I found it.
I arrived at 6 and met Will Soderbergh, who had booked the night and was running the PA. I also met Judy, the owner of the cafe, who also worked the salon and lived in the same building. It was about as small a venue, and about as strange a setting, as I've ever played in. But I had been invited to play, so I made myself at home and got to know everyone, and they were all really nice folks.
First Will played, joined by a fellow from Kalamazoo, Richard Bowser, and a friend from Grand Rapids whose name escapes me. Bowser and friend played shortwaves and Will played guitar, sang and played some gear I couldn't see well. Sometimes it was industrial with a dance beat, sometimes with shreddy, punk style guitar and gothic, distorted vocals, and sometimes the radios took the lead. It started at about 8:10 and ran until about 8:45.
Some of it was really bone-crunchingly loud in that basement, and we just held our ears, which is what you should do rather than complain, though not everyone who is presented with the prospect of noise music as entertainment is hip to that. Our hostess didn't seem to mind, so I finally began to relax - I've been to dozens of gigs where I didn't even get to play because the proprietor hated the noise so much that we all got thrown out. But this wasn't one of those gigs. Eventually about 15 people drifted in or out, most of them musicians, but two nice kids who looked like they might have been a brother and sister also came into dig the noise. Overall it was a real good feeling there, a positive vibe for the musicians, surely.
After Will was finished, Steven Curtin came in and played a set with a bizarre stringed instrument (indentified as "an electric sarod" - formerly an electric sitar, but with all the extra frets and things removed) which was triggering an old-fashioned, home built synthsizer with no keyboard and a million patch cords. Curtin would play a little on the sarod, and the gear would pick up a few tones that he would begin to modify into patterns. This signal would build up into very appealing textures which would eventually degrade, and the process would begin again. Curtin's music was seldom very loud and often rather quiet - and his real instrument was neither sarod nor sytnh but the intense amount of concentration he devoted to what he was doing. I thought it an excellent set, and it began at 8:45 and wrapped at about 9:15.
We went up at about 9:20 and played till 9:40. It was Ron Orowitz, Keith Larsen and myself, collectively known as Aryan Krist, although most often Ron and Keith play without me. Nonetheless I was involved in the first 1991 recording session where this "band", as such, and the name, was born. Needless to say, nowadays we all have problems with the band's name and do not bill ourselves under the title, though some recordings have been circulated with that moniker.
So, if you were one of the 12 or so people that were there, you really saw the Aryan Krist rather than IOVAE - the secret's out.
I stated off alone, struggling with my keyboard through a half-good, half-crappy version of "Red Alert". Ron joined in with an oscillator as siren and took it from there on his robot-like collection of old oscillators while I dropped out for awhile, eventually joining back in just playing single notes and textures. Keith joined in the last third of the piece playing microphones and other stuff. It was pretty good - at least it felt so. The whole thing was videotaped, so hopefully we'll all have something to look forward to.
After a quick series of still photo ops with all the musicians and a round of goodbyes I grabbed my keyboard and hopped back on the freeway. It was an hour's drive home to Ypsi from Berkley - a fairly long book, but not too many of the gigs that I've played had me home before 11 pm!
The next day I learned that I had made a whopping $10 for playing. I was astounded -that's the first money I've made playing music in something like ten years! That paid me back for my gas, and left enough over to buy a new (used) lamp for my wife's nightstand, as the old one had crapped out for good that day.
However that next day (today), once again I woke up feeling tired, achy and miserable - and this time I elected to stay in bed.
Uncle Dave Lewis
uncledavelewis@hotmail.com