Adventures in Industrial LandAs some may know, my car has been dead since at least October - burned up the tranny. My brother said it was "toasted;" I suggested "broasted," like the chicken. A couple of months ago I rented a U-Haul truck and hauled the old beast all the way down to Cincinnati so brother Eric could ressurect it, which, miraculously, he did. A lot of effort for a 1991 beater. Time came, however, when E's wife called to say "David, come on and get this thing out of our garage." And indeed, I need it desperately - some of you may know how hard it is to do all of your laundry and grocery shopping on foot, though I did have some help with that - kind friends who were willing to run errands with me that I couldn't do on the bus, etc. Now that Al is back with us, I also need a means to get her back and forth to the doctor.
So Friday I took off work and rode the Greyhound down from Ann Arbor to Cincinnati. Its a trip that takes 7 hours and a bus change, and as you can drive it in five, that can be a boring inconvenience, and particularly uncomfortable under certain circumstances. There was a bus behind us going the same route that broke down, so everyone on that bus wound up on ours - folks were riding three to a seat, and they are set up for two. I was glad to get off, and we were 20 minutes late getting into Cincinnati.
I got the car back at the bus station; Eric drove it down. Through the previous week, my friend IovAE had asked if I was going down, why don't I play the International Noise festival at the Southgate House that weekend. This is a very interesting concept - the show originates in Miami, but the response is so strong that it winds up in an impractical program - organizer Rat Bastard told me they had 107 acts last year, and that yet more simply weren't able to make the trip to Miami - indeed, even if invited, neither could I. But since I was going to be down anyway, I decided I would get together a solo set, which worked out to just three songs - there was a 15 minute limit. I wrote a new one called "MRI," revived "AT&T" from 1989 and also adapted "Hangar" from the Haruko Project, something I did at Kaldi's in February, but this one was a slightly different version. All of the setting up of this work was done between 5 and 7am of the morning I left.
IoVAE lives at the top of a steep hill on the West side of Cincinnati, and right now there's a lot of construction going on around there - the perfect course to put the old groaner through its paces. And I discovered it was still having some trouble, so when I got to IoVAE's I called E and he agreed to look at the car in the morning. IoVAE had to go to work - he works overnight - and he left me with a big box of horror movie DVDs that had some great stuff on it. But IoVAE's place is very quiet, and since Al's been back the TV is constantly going at home. We didn't even have TV when she was gone - I decided I didn't want to pay ComCast's over-inflated prices for the service. So instead I just decided to read a book. It was a nice time just to get away from that racket that the TV engenders, as much as I like some TV shows - a constant diet of it is not for me.
The next day I drove up north of town and E. made some adjustments that made the car run just fine. I then went to visit my mother and stepdad in Mason, and headed back down to IoVAE's. I discovered I needed to find a tin bucket or something to realize MRI, and went to Michael's craft store and found a tin tree planter that worked very nicely for that purpose. We got down to the Southgate at 7 and started loading in.
The Southgate House just changed management at the booking end. Chris Schaedler, who has handled booking at the Southgate for years - and is a captial fellow to boot - has left and passed on the booking to others, who have already made some changes to the policy. IoVAE was afraid this might be the last time he might play the Southgate - Noise is not exactly the most popular genre in music, and some folks cop an attitude about its value as entertainment and relevance. I would say that there is a level of experience in Noise that you can't get in other musics, and just because something is difficult to understand doesn't mean it should be excluded from the musical diet, if you are looking to extend your venue to a variety of acts - which the Southgate has done since 1987. Hopefully they will keep to that policy.
The show opened with Ohr Strechlein - IoVAE and Nebulagirl - and it was the most focused and extraordinary set I think I've ever seen them play. It had a nice natural arc to it, and Nebulagirl was in rare form - singing through some toy into what looked like the handset from a police radio, and her girlish voice was all fragmented and scattered throughout the electronic texture - really remarkable. Then came the debut of Abercrombie Sex Trio, IoVAE and two women, who one was singing weird songs and playing the ukelele and the other playing an ad hoc drum kit, part of which was a plastic man's body form that looked like some kind of lightweight mannequin, It was very Dada, and I loved it.
Then I played, and it went really well - the audience was very encouraging and also quite patient for the rather repetitive and unvaried MRI. I felt that I could've benefitted with a little more practice on AT&T - didn't really get into my groove on that one, and the mix on the backing track tended to get swallowed in the monitors - my fault, not the soundman's. Hangar went well, but at the end I had a big wet "hanger" creeping out of my nose; I wanted to acknowledge the kind and warm applause of the audience, but I did not to embarass myself through greeting them with a ball of snot running down my face. Next time I'll bring a box of Kleenex up to the stand.
Among other acts that played were Spencer Yeh, who played an awesome duo set with a drummer that was very intituive, fast, and had killer chops. Shaun Norton was doing sound - he's a pro and an old friend - at one point the drummer accidentally knocked his overhead mike over, and that coincidentally took out the mike on Spencer's amp. Shaun crept up on the stage, and quietly reset both mikes just in time to cover an expecially soft section that would have been inaudible without the PA. Good work, man.
Also Tim Schwallie played a lovely, poetic piece for saxophone and two mics that built up a thrilling harmonic chorus that had a bluesy, funereal feel - he was the only musician that I heard that really did something conspicuous with noise and microtones. As much as I was enjoying myself, after Tim played I had to leave, as I had a five hour drive ahead of me.
Apart from the trucks. I was practically the only driver on the road going up 75 at that hour through Ohio, and that was a problem. The cops were focused on every move I made, and I was stopped when I got off to get gas in Sidney by an especially nice cop who told me I seemed to not have control of my car. Well, I haven't driven in six or seven months, and it was raining. The cop asked me if I'd had anything to drink, and luckily I hadn't - I only ordered bottled water at the Southgate, and folks, I always tipped the girl a little something, even though it was just water. I explained that I was merely tired, and he warned me to pull over if I needed to, as "it's not worth getting into an accident." The radio didn't work, and the batteries in my boombox were too weak to play a CD. Since I was on the Greyhound I had an idea for a composition called "Homage d'hommages" - for vibes, piano, bass and drums; a sort of quodlibet of bits of Gavin Bryars, Bill Evans, Zappa, the MJQ and George Shearing - and to stay alert I sang the various parts of it out loud behind the wheel. Now when I write it out I will know exactly how it goes.
Back home at about 6am, I was too tired to sing in church this morning - I feel bad about that but I just couldn't do it. The TV, of course, is again a constant presence, and Al has developed a taste for "Rock of Love II," a thoroughly useless, brain destroying show; basically a loser and his harem of skank. Industrial Noise culture is definitely better - more honest and far less inclined to such garish hedonism. Rock is truly dead, I think.