mmm009 Sunday, April 15, 2012
9th music meeting (April 15, 2012) minutes (mmm09):
Attendees:
tENT
Spat
Ben Opie
Frank
Concetta
Rob
Kenny
tENT, Spat, & Ben were rehearsing a Lullaby Whistling performance when Frank & Concetta arrived so they heard the end of "Hush, Little Baby"
Ben & Spat had been to a recent Matthew Shipp concert so they talked about that & Frank joined in
Rob arrived, he'd been at the Shipp concert too so he joined in
tENT explains the English term "Indie Rock" to Concetta & starts making fun of the "Violent Femmes" as an example
Ben does an even better job of imitating the whining vocalist
Spat talks about his group TBA's political take-off of the Violent Femmes song that Ben had just sung
Ben talks about a David S. Ware concert that Shipp played in
Spat plays a 45 by the Happy Whistler of "Moonglow" & the theme from "Picnic"
tENT plays Fred Lowery's "whistling for you" 10"
tENT asks everyone who they think of when they think of African music & the consensus was Fela - then tENT played a tape collage piece by South African composer Hans Roosenschoom
Rob plays Silver Apples' "Oscillations" & then attempts to play a piece by Skrillex that he thinks sounds similar but there was a problem w/ the CD-R so we didn't get to hear it
tENT tells story about how Silver Apples started their career w/ A&M
Ben plays Ornette Coleman's "Chappaqua Suite" wch had been composed for & rejected for the Conrad Rooks Chappaqua movie as too good or strong or whatever
Ben goes on to explain that Ravi Shankar was then hired to do the soundtrack & Philip Glass was hired to transcribe Shankar's music so that 'western' musicians cd play it. Ben explains that Glass' minimalism grew out of this.
tENT mentions that Glass lived in Pittsburgh & that he's heard a piece Glass composed from that era & that it was very straight classical
Ben mentions that the bassist who plays on the Coleman piece, David Izenson, was from Pittsburgh
Rob talks about the bk: "Love Goes to Buildings on Fire" about NYC music from 1973-1977
tENT paraphrases a quote he read by Coleman to the effect of: "I never fired anybody for musical reasons only for personal ones." & there's discussion about the implications of that.
Frank talks about hearing Coleman speak in Bologna
tENT ridicules a "Miles Davis in Paris" video he has
tENT talks about the problems he's been having w/ being rejected by some people at a new pirate radio stn in town & plays a little of his 1st program for it called "It's Always 6 O'Clock" wch has political classical music on it
Rob talks about the now defunct Duke's Bar & about how there was a pirate radio stn that you cd get there & for a radius of about 3 blocks
Ben talks about a pirate radio stn that was basically for the apartment bldg that it was in & how he'd listen to it on his car radio when he drove by there
Ben talks about WRCT & about how over 30 yrs ago black DJs were only on "Black Sundays" & about how that changed - partially b/c of the guy who does the "Saturday Morning Light Brigade" show there
Frank talks about the Wu Ming I edited "The Old New Thing" CDs that tENT had brought up at mm 08 & asked the rest of us whether we think that Wu Ming's take on the connection between black radicalism & free jazz is correct. The consensus seemed to be a slightly conditional 'yes'
Frank plays 3 pieces off a Max Brand disc:
an Excedrin commercial wch tENT, at least, found pretty funny considering that the electronic music Brand made for it is probably the kind of thing some people wd call headache-inducing
a 1960 piece called "Notturno Brasileiro-Jungle" wch tENT thought was sortof proto-industrial
"Walzer" - a very simple waltz consisting of basically just markers of 3/4 time
Frank explained that Brand was born in 1896 & that Moog built electronic equipment for him
tENT talks about Ripley's Believe It or Not! & Ben & Spat bring up that in the Jack Palance version of that show w/ Marie Osmond as cohost that Marie Osmond had performed Kurt Schwitters' "Ursonate" - wch had been brought up at a previous mm
tENT talked about how he'd proposed himself as a Ripley's exhibit in the 1970s & had even had some discussion w/ Ripley's personnel about this but it didn't come to anything for reasons he cdn't remember (- tENT reckons that was discussed the last time Ripley's was brought up but doesn't remember that either)
tENT screens parts of the 1st 2 original 1930 Vitaphone Ripley's Believe It or Not! films - focusing on the woman who speaks incredibly fast, on the imaginative ways that letters were addressed to Ripley (one's a rebus, one's just a picture of him), & an a cappella singing of the original drinking song the melody of wch was used for "The Star Spangled Banner"
Ben says that Ripley was the one whose pointing out that there wasn't, at the time, an official US National Anthem led to the SSB being made official
Ben tells about how Stravinsky was arrested for premiering an unofficial arrangement of the Star Spangled Banner
tENT plays a Mighty Mouse cartoon - mainly b/c of the way in wch jazz was presented as irresistibly seductive
tENT plays a Mutt'n'Jeff cartoon b/c they speak in sound effects that sound vaguely like rubbing sounds instead of in words
Frank & Concetta leave around here
tENT plays the last piece, "Gaub", of Jean Guérin's 1971 LP "Tacit" wch Brainpang had just sent him a tape of
tENT plays Liza Mezzacappa & Nightshade's cover of Frank Zappa's "Eric Dolphy Memorial BBQ" from their "Cosmic Rift" album that followed the Guérin piece on the tape that Brainpang made
tENT plays the original Mothers of Invention version of "Eric Dolphy Memorial BBQ" from their "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" LP & the similarities/differences between the 2 versions are discussed
Ben plays next piece on same LP called "Dwarf Nebula Processional March & Dwarf Nebula"
Ben plays Bob James Trio's "Explosions" w/ the Gordon Mumma & Robert Ashley electro-acoustic additions & it's discovered that the track length markings are all wrong - probably deliberately so?
Rob & tENT sing a little of Hoagey Carmichael's "Heart & Soul" song
Kenny plays a C Blues piece on the piano that he learned from an old trumpeter in New Orleans that had an alternation between a major 3rd & a 4th interval w/ an A tonic in the left hand & a quasi-blues progression mixed w/ an ascension thru the Circle of Fifths in the right hand
Rob & Spat leave around 10ish
Ben shows some fantastic Japanese 10" Gagaku records & plays cuts from 2 of them
tENT & Ben & Kenny try whistling "Hush, Little Baby" w/ Kenny & Ben doing the hard parts: the drone chord parts while tENT does the easy part: the melody
END
A good time was had by all
to the mm index
forward to mm 10
backward to mm 08
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE movie-making "Press: Criticism, Interviews, Reviews" home-page
to the "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - Sprocket Scientist" home-page
to the "FLICKER" home-page for the alternative cinematic experience
to find out more about why the S.P.C.S.M.E.F. (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sea Monkeys by Experimental Filmmakers) is so important
for info on tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's tape/CD publishing label: WIdémoUTH
to see an underdeveloped site re the N.A.A.M.C.P. (National Association for the Advancement of Multi-Colored Peoples)