concert review: Garden of Memory
Jun. 22nd, 2007 08:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacWandering around an enormous labyrinthine crypt listening to three dozen different avant-garde musicians or groups playing in tiny chapels and even smaller niche-like spaces seems less violently defamiliarizing the second year that you do it, but I still had a good time. I saw two people I knew; should have been more.
I heard a lot of quiet foghorn-like music this year. (Ingram Marshall wasn't playing, but a CD of his was for sale.) I heard the quiet but piercingly dissonant Cornelius Cardew Choir. I heard Sarah Cahill be populistly ruminative at the piano. I heard Henry Kaiser noodle with infinite slowness on his guitar. I heard a group called the Crank Ensemble, who slowly turn cranks on what look like avant-garde birdcages, while sounds like broken gears stealthily emerge. I heard a harp being played with a bow. I heard a guy who bills himself as a virtuoso whistler - he was imitating birdsong when I wandered by. I heard a group which was either a lousy high-school band or a parody of a lousy high-school band; I didn't stay long enough to try to figure out which.
I heard the William Winant Percussion Ensemble, which was my best new listen of the concert. They played a slowly mounting giant crescendo on four marching-band drums. They played a piece in which two people whacking the upturned bottoms of tin cans with sticks tried to drown out a recording of a really dull performance of Beethoven's Fifth. (Beethoven got the last word.)
But every hour on the hour, I hustled back to the Middle Chapel for another set by my favorite performer from last year, the "avant cabaret" singer-songwriter Amy X Neuburg (or Amy X Looper, as one person sitting next to me misheard her name). Unfortunately she's lost her favorite toothbrush, the one with which she sets a rhythmic loop going on her own teeth in "Every Little Stain", and the replacement doesn't have the same zippy sound, and she had continual problems as the electronic looping equipment kept frazzing out or coming mysteriously unplugged. Finally she concluded her last set with a performance of "Life Stepped In", a surreal telephone conversation with herself, with no technical glitches, and retired to a standing ovation.
I heard a lot of quiet foghorn-like music this year. (Ingram Marshall wasn't playing, but a CD of his was for sale.) I heard the quiet but piercingly dissonant Cornelius Cardew Choir. I heard Sarah Cahill be populistly ruminative at the piano. I heard Henry Kaiser noodle with infinite slowness on his guitar. I heard a group called the Crank Ensemble, who slowly turn cranks on what look like avant-garde birdcages, while sounds like broken gears stealthily emerge. I heard a harp being played with a bow. I heard a guy who bills himself as a virtuoso whistler - he was imitating birdsong when I wandered by. I heard a group which was either a lousy high-school band or a parody of a lousy high-school band; I didn't stay long enough to try to figure out which.
I heard the William Winant Percussion Ensemble, which was my best new listen of the concert. They played a slowly mounting giant crescendo on four marching-band drums. They played a piece in which two people whacking the upturned bottoms of tin cans with sticks tried to drown out a recording of a really dull performance of Beethoven's Fifth. (Beethoven got the last word.)
But every hour on the hour, I hustled back to the Middle Chapel for another set by my favorite performer from last year, the "avant cabaret" singer-songwriter Amy X Neuburg (or Amy X Looper, as one person sitting next to me misheard her name). Unfortunately she's lost her favorite toothbrush, the one with which she sets a rhythmic loop going on her own teeth in "Every Little Stain", and the replacement doesn't have the same zippy sound, and she had continual problems as the electronic looping equipment kept frazzing out or coming mysteriously unplugged. Finally she concluded her last set with a performance of "Life Stepped In", a surreal telephone conversation with herself, with no technical glitches, and retired to a standing ovation.
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 04:41 pm (UTC)I heard that twice, and think there was more to it than you intimate. I was told later that it was composed by John Cage in he '40's.
Neuburg was every bit as good and interesting as you'd said. She's certainly had an effect on my answering machine message.
There was a group that played woks (or that's what they looked like). I still haven't figured out who they were, since the space was small and heaving. But I can find the spot again (Les Blank is interred there) and then I might be able to figure it out.
I spent too much time being awed by the building. It really is labyrinthian. I'd never been there, although it's only about a mile from home, and it's open for visitors every day. It does look like a good place just to hang out, and I'll return.
I actually ran into a number of people I know, aside from you; several from my days at KPFA (including a couple of the performers), and a couple of my neighbors. But it was in my neighborhood.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-23 04:53 pm (UTC)I thought it might be Cage when it got to the point where the guy turning the Beethoven recording on and off began tuning in radio stations (or a pre-recorded simulation thereof). Very Cagean.