mmm011 Sunday, May 20, 2012
11th music meeting (May 20th, 2012)
Attendees:
tENT
Matt
Frank
Ben
Rob
Darian
Anthony
*********************************************************************************
Introductory note: Frank told me that in recent minutes I left out something he talked about, SO, DISCLAIMER:
Since I've got a zillion things going on in my life that require an insane amt of work, I want these Sunday meetings to be casual & fun & NOT TOO MUCH WORK FOR ME - I keep minutes, b/c, heck, I'm obsessive that one shd lead one's life as if it's IMPORTANT.
On the other hand, I'd be delighted if other people wd take on minutes keeping & typing them up etc so that I can relax a bit more. SO, I was delighted that Darian took notes & recorded the meeting & I was hoping to incorporate his notes w/ mine but I haven't gotten them from him yet so I'm just sending out mine for the moment.
FURTHER DISCLAIMER:
These minutes ARE NOT PERFECT but they're better than NO minutes, eh?!
*********************************************************************************
Matt arrives - talks about his possible dissertation on semiotics (& Cage?)
Matt talks about David Lynch's recent album - wch he says some people call "industrial pop"
Frank arrives
Ben arrives - talking about Victor Grauer & semiotics
Rob arrives
talk segues into Grauer as an ethnomusicologist & into the philosophical questions of zeitgeist & influence
discussion of electronica - the annoyingness of it as a term but how there's still good work done under its rubric anyway
tENT talks about Broadway musicals & about lyricist Yip Harburg, who wrote the lyrics to the extremely popular song "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", being blacklisted in Hollywood b/c of 'communist sympathies'
Ben tells us that Jerry Fielding (aka Joshua Ferman (sp?)) was a Pittsburgher who was also blacklisted but then went on to work w/ Sam Peckinpah (also blacklisted) on movies such as "The Wild Bunch"
tENT talks about the 1951 Broadway musical "Flahooley" b/c Yip Harburg wrote the lyrics for it as a parody of HUAC (House Unamerican Activities Committee) & Mc Carthyism - also b/c the great singer Yma Sumac sang in it
Darian arrives
tENT shows the 1st :30 or so of his new feature movie "Robopaths" b/c it has an excerpt from the Yip Harburg song "You too can be a puppet" from "Flahooley"
Anthony arrives
Amy peeps her head in for a cameo appearance
Rob plays Ray Barretto who was a big star in NYC in the early '70s
Rob loves the way Barretto does a big lead-in to the drum solos wch are then pretty run-of-the-mill
Darian talks about Dave Chappelle sketch on tv show
tENT asks who Dave Chappelle is much to Darian's astonishment
tENT explains that he doesn't watch tv (he stopped in 1969) & doesn't know pop culture
tENT is informed that Chappelle is a black comedian who was making big bucks but dropped out b/c he cdn't tell if white people were laughing at him or w/ him (+ other reasons)
Rob plays his new studio version of his "(Theme for) Jeff Bernardini" (a coworker of his at the hospital) wch he'd previously regaled us w/ in piano & vocals form at a previous mm
In keeping w/ the proposed theme of amazing vocalists, Ben plays Diamanda Galas' truly incredible 2nd track from "The Litanies of Satan" CD (OMIGOD!ISSHEAMAZINGORWHAT?!?!)
Ben talks about Galas playing piano w/ Ornette Coleman & Bobby Bradford (a trumpeter)
talking about Xenakis
Frank asks if we think that Xenakis' music is as influenced by wartime experiences as some people say it is
Ben talking about Xenakis Xenakis being the 1st guest speaker in 1981 when he was a student at CMU & about Xenakis playing a recording of his "Metastaseis" at a painfully loud volume (much louder than the score calls for) Ben recalls that listening to "Metastaseis" made him feel like he was listening to attacking planes & bombings (or some such) - thusly partially answering Frank's question
tENT says that for him the stochastics are more important
Frank talks about people dealing w/ pain by analyzing it (or something like that)
tENT brings out the FULL SCORE for "Metastaseis" from his music library & proceeds to pat himself on the back for doing so
Ben talks about how the conductor provides a single measure-beginning count for the polyrhythmic sections & about how the musicians then have to do their own internal count for their particular measure meter
We take a break, at Amy's suggestion, to attempt to watch the solar eclipse from tENT's backyard
Rob very generously invites us all to the BBQ at his house Saturday, May 26, 1PM on..
We fail to see the solar eclipse
Darian notices that I have a Pam Grier movie
general discussion about Pam Grier & writer/producer George Pelecanos who wrote "King Sucker Man" & who wrote for & produced "The Wire" tv show
Darian plays techn9ne's "Stamina" from "Anghelic" CD
People discuss whether they think the beats or the voice came 1st
Darian plays Bjork's "Where is the line?" (2004)
Darian talks about Techn9ne & Bjork mixing concepts & emotions
Bjork's piece uses all singers
tENT mentions Miles Davis' "Tribute to Jack Johnson"
Anthony talks about technical proficiency as not necessary
general discussion of technical proficiency in relation to the successful realization of emotionally impacting concepts
Ben plays This Heat's 1st record ('76-'78) - 2 trained musicians (drums & guitar) & one guy playing tape loops & such-like - this latter being the "wild card" as Anthony puts it
Rob looks at tENT's Frank Zappa songbook
tENT does the LP giveaway:
Rob takes "Eva Nordwall performing Contemporary Scandinavian Music for the Harpsichord" LP
Frank takes the "New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta performing George Rochberg's "Concerto for Oboe & Orchestra" & Jacob Druckman's "Prism"" LP
Anthony talks about Factrix
tENT talks about Frank Zappa's notion of the "Volcano Solo" where the player goes up the range of the instrument faster & faster
tENT tries to play Casey Droege's "Tracks of my Tears" LP 1st track but it skips too much - the record uses leftover vinyl for that multi-colored effect
Ben, coincidentally, brought a religious record also pressed in leftover vinyl
Matt takes Meredith Monk's "Turtle Dreams"
Ben picks "Black Composer Series: Olly Wilson's "Akwan", Thomas Anderson, Jr's "Squares", Talib Hakim's "Visions Of Ishwara""
Ben shows Roland Kirk record "Rip, Rig, & Panic" (the eponymous band took there name from this) - Jaki Byard: piano, Elvin Jones: drums, Richard Davis: bass - fantastic packaging, fantastic playing - on the Limelight label, no less - a label famous for musique concrete releases
Anthony plays Zs - very tight double trio from DC (somewhat reminiscent of Ben's old band Watershed 5tet) - clear vinyl 10" - 2000s
Anthony plays Moss Icon - late '90s, early 00s - a song called: "I'm back - sleeping or fucking or something"
tENT plays Michael von Biel's 2nd string quartet (1968) as the scratchiest string quartet he knows of
Frank plays Michael Brozen's "In Memoriam" from a CRI record
Frank plays T. J. Anderson's "Chamber Symphony" from from the same CRI record
Ben talks about Morton Feldman's "The Viola in my Life" & about how Karen Philips (the viola player whose performance of the piece is on a CRI record that I have) was THE violist in Feldman's life - hence the title
tENT plays Hans Werner Henze's "An Essay on Pigs" b/c the vocalist performing it, Roy Hart, claims to've developed a vocal technique that allows him to sing 8 OCTAVES - Henze had to develop a special notation for him
talking about graphic notation & composer Earle Brown
Ben talks about going to Cage Rockville concert in 1989 that tENT was at & they both talk about what an incredible event it was
tENT pulls out Cage & Hiller's Nonesuch label recording of "HPSCHD" & shows the individualized computer print-out score for playing the record & tells the story about how when he followed the score he blew out his speakers
Rob leaves
tENT shows Jethro Tull's "Stand Up" pop-up LP wch leads to discussion of Ian Anderson's circular breathing flute playing
Frank initiates a debate about whether Cage actually used chance methods &, more specifically, criticizes him for his claiming that the I Ching enabled him to do this
Someone mentions that the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble commissioned Cage's "Music for Six"
heated discussion re rejecting ambiguity
Matt leaves
Darian plays some of Prince's soundtrack for "Purple Rain" but tENT doesn't succeed in finding the desired selection
Ben talks about how Prince made many music videos 'on a whim' (sortof) that were shelved rather than released
Anthony talking about David Cunningham
We eventually play Prince's "Take me with U"
Ben plays Scelsi's 5th string quartet as another example of a scratchy string quartet
Darian plays his "WERALLGONNATURNINTODRYCELLS" (sp?) that he'd done (as Liquid Bonez) late the nite before w/ Grezy Duzit He played track 13 b/c we requested his "most challenging track"
Ben, Anthony, & Darian leave
tENT & Frank hang out & talk a little longer
*********************************************************************************
There're still records left over for giving away:
The Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa performing multiple works by Charles Tomlinson Griffes
[for those of you who don't know Griffes' work, he was an early 20th century gay composer who primarily wrote piano music - on the gossipy side: he was lovers w/ a cop & some of his music makes gay cruising references]
Richard Strauss's "Elektra"
Spirit's "Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus"
[I listened to this as a teenager & discarded it pretty quickly as too simple - these days I'm reappreciating it - one song has synthesizer - it's borderline psychedelic]
to the mm index
forward to mm 12
backward to mm 10
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)