Boring Like A Drill.

First, I want to thank whoever it was who once perfectly described laptop performers as having the stage presence of “bored men checking their email”. This is one of the more important reasons why I have avoided giving live performances with computers – up until now.

Of course, experimental musicians mostly being awkward, poorly-socialised geek boys, your typical undergorund new music gig wasn’t much livelier before computers became affordable, but at least the equipment available at the time enforced a certain minimum of onstage activity.

The role and aesthetics of the theatrical* element of new music performance don’t get discussed much. I was on a panel talk with several other musicians a few years ago, which drifted onto this topic and stayed there for the rest of the session. Nothing much was agreed, except that there are no real models to work off, and everyone has to pretty much work out their own methods for themselves. And, more importantly, that VJs are a blight upon the earth.

What was most interesting to learn was that so many musicians, even though you wouldn’t think it to watch them, are conscious of the visual aspect of their gigs. They may also, however, be at a loss as to what they can do to help it.

Is there a way to be theatrically engaging while using a laptop? I don’t necessarily mean dramatic gestures or histrionics, I’m talking about the performer affirming a physical presence in relation to the audience. This weekend I’m going to make my first attempt at a live, public performance on laptop. Without using any additional equipment, I’m working with a simple interface designed to focus both mine and the audience’s attention away from the screen, onto what performance gestures I might make.

My gestures emphasise how little movement or exertion is needed to play on a computer. My role in the piece is cast more as a listener than as a performer, so my interface setup needs only very small, infrequent actions (any more spoils the music), and has been intentionally saddled with a very slow response time, so that any action I take has to be very deliberate and carefully considered. If I have to sit still for half an hour, I want to imbue that stillness with concentration, not passivity.

* Theatre, not drama.

If you’ll excuse the tautology, I’m a narcissistic blogger; so you know the real reason I’m linking to Sophie Cunningham’s article in The Age about the motivations and dissuasions of blog writing is because I’m quoted in it, regardless of the fact that it is a rare example of a Serious Publication putting out a thoughtful piece about blogs.

I don’t share some writers’ concerns about “giving away” words on the internet, when they sell them for a living. While this is a concern, I am moved by author Jonathan Lethem’s argument in Harper’s recently that “in the essential commerce of art a gift is carried by the work from the artist to his audience. If I am right to say that where there is no gift there is no art, then it may be possible to destroy a work of art by converting it into a pure commodity.” Not all blogs are art, but the act of sharing ideas and conversation is most certainly a gift.

The article includes plenty of links to other quality blogs, to help keep up the online community’s rep for incestuous logrolling (which of course professional journalists would never do). Most importantly, I get to say “dick around” in a broadsheet.

Incidentally, I do have conscientously-formed reasons for maintaining this site, but I don’t need to tell you how to read.

(A live performance of String Quartet No.2 (Yada Yada Yada) coming up at Le Placard in Paris this weekend. Streaming audio of the whole event at Radio WNE, it seems.)

In a discussion of his theory of radical amateurism, the composer Warren Burt describes his practice of studied incompetence as part of “the tradition of taking objects from the past and putting them through the distorting lens of our technique and producing new objects”. I’ve previously touched on the subject of how technology can be used as an extension of – or a poor substitute for – an idea, so it’s interesting to see Burt quote his sometime collaborator Ron Nagorcka: “the very essence of electronic media is distortion.” I would go further and argue that all creativity is in fact a distortion of a pre-existing model, whether intentional or not. There are small, obvious examples of such distortion through raw incompetence (the sea-coast in Shakespeare’s Bohemia) and a knowing, studied incompetence (the sword held aloft by Kafka’s Statue of Liberty), as there are artworks whose large-scale form is patterned upon those of previous works (your Shakespeare or Austen updated as a high-school comedy, for instance).

Rather than try to be original, I have worked for some time with the idea that each of my works should be consciously modelled on another composer’s works or techniques, and so instead of attempting an original work that unwittingly imitates an older one, I might create an imitative work which, in its divergences from the model, allows some genuine originality to emerge.

The technique of conscious copying of a work seems much rarer in music composition than in the visual arts. This may be because the limited range of compositional methods available in traditional western music has forced a self-conscious emphasis on the need for the unique, for subjective individuality. I can immediately pick from the top of my head more than one artist who works by creatively copying the work of other artists (Sherrie Levine and Imants Tillers, there’s two) or by copying their own work (Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, there’s another two), but I don’t know any composers who work in these ways. Why have so many ideas about art over the past century bypassed music completely? I can hear the ghost of Morton Feldman muttering, “Is music an artform at all? Or is it just a type of showbiz?”

Although String Quartet No.2 (Canon in Beta) was consciously written as an imitation of Phill Niblock‘s music – based on a description of his music without having heard it – its compositional concerns are completely different. A score for a Niblock composition, Five More String Quartets for example, carefully specifies exact frequencies to be played by the instruments, to produce definite harmonic results. My piece is not designed in this way, or with these specific musical intentions: it is composed purely to adhere as closely as possible to an incomplete understanding of Niblock’s techniques, without regard for harmonic complexity (or lack of it). It exists to be a cheap imitation, reminiscent of something else yet unmistakably itself.

I’ve had my arm twisted into doing my first public gig in over two years, at the Placard Festival in Paris. So far, I have only a hazy idea of what the festival is about: apparently it involves people sitting round a room listening to headphones or something. I can do that.

Anyway, it runs non-stop for 72 hours starting from Friday 27 July. I’m in the coveted Sunday 2.30 pm slot. There’s probably some streaming of the gigs over the web, but I need someone to explain it to me before I post about it here.

The piece I’m most likely going to play is an extended, live-performance version of String Quartet No.2 (Canon in Beta): this version will be closer to the earlier incarnations of the piece mentioned in the blog post, than the version available for download. In the next day or two I’ll post some more about what’s really going on in this music.

I’ve just played this for the first time in years and it’s not as worthless as I remember it. Superfluous, yes, but music needs superfluousness. Maybe I’m just homesick.

Pierre Boulez: Répons, Dialogue de l’Ombre Double (Ensemble InterContemporain, Pierre Boulez, Alain Damiens)

Musical institutions are like the military, inasmuch as their use of technology is obsolete by the time it is implemented. Imagine trying to get excited about Herbie Hancock using synths if he released Rockit in 1998, and you pretty much have a shorthand experience of listening to Répons’ interactive electronics. At least its gaucherie makes Boulez seem almost charmingly human for once.

There’s a coupon attached to the cover you could send off for a free CD containing a special headphone mix of the same disc. Any of those left?

(More from the pile)

I found a digitised copy of that old cassette recording of the plank guitar I previously mentioned. The cassette Disposable Guitar Play Once Throw Away was made in a limited edition of half a dozen or so, as part of a fund-raising group exhibition for a small art space in Melbourne, back in 1999. Each copy was made on a very cheap cassette, with a unique handmade letraset cover (at the time I had a theory that, as it faded into obsolescence, the cassette would replace vinyl as the romanticised fetish medium of choice).

Each side was 30 minutes long. An improvisation on the plank guitar filled up the A side, recorded directly onto cassette through a pair of cheap plastic microphones awkwardly placed on the floor (one mike lead was very short) of a living room in a terrace house in Carlton. The two excerpts given below beautifully capture the sonic limitations of both the recording means and the battery-powered 0.2 watt speaker built into the hollowed-out end of the plank.

I couldn’t find any photos of the guitar, so instead I’ve put up part of a flyer for an in-store gig which featured the guitar, shortly before this recording was made. The B side of the cassette was another half-hour improvisation, but on a different instrument: this was a guitar performance that didn’t use a guitar at all.

Of Sound Mind has been making musical instruments: customising toy music boxes, jacking old ferrite bars from radios, and building “self-prepared” electric guitars from a plank of wood. There are audio samples of each instrument.

Why should a guitar be anything but a couple of pickups and some resonating metal, if it is to be used in this form of abstract improvisation? These questions began to form in my mind a “guitar” whose only purpose was to suspend metal “string objects” and amplify them.

Combined, the plank guitar and ferrite bar reminded me of an instrument I played many years ago. The sculptor Andrew Gangoiti also built electric guitars. Once, as an exercise in speed and simplicity, he made a four-string guitar from a plank, no real way of tuning the strings, pickups made from some found magnets wound with however much copper wire he had lying around, connected to a 0.5 watt speaker built into the hollowed-out end of the plank, powered by a 9 volt battery. The moment you turned it on it started to feed back. Pressing your finger against the circuit board for the speaker would short out connections and alter the pitch and tone of the feedback. It was impossible. It was magnificent.

Thanks to a mutual friend, I had a loan of this guitar for several months and gave a few performances with it. There’s a cassette lying around somewhere of this guitar recorded on a cheap plastic mike. At the end of the tape you can hear the circuit board finally go on the fritz. Andrew took the guitar away for repair and I never saw it again.

Just to save you the effort, because I know you’ll want to try it for yourself, if you do search Google Images for Denise Drysdale with Safe Search off, you get about 500 links to Reasons You Will Hate Me, and this:

Now I know how the Fonz feels, because I got me a library card; specifically, a reader’s pass to the British Library. I wanted to find out more about John Cage and Ernő Goldfinger, but couldn’t find a copy of Nigel Warburton’s biography of Goldfinger anywhere else.

Warburton takes time to mention Cage’s brief association with the architect, but has nothing more to add than what Cage has already written about the experience, other than the intriguing detail that Goldfinger made his remark about the need for an architects to devote their lives solely to architecture while “preaching to some girlfriends”.

There’s nothing about why Cage’s former professor chose Goldfinger as the man to mentor Cage, but it can be inferred from the rest of the chapter. Goldfinger had quickly established a reputation as something of an enfant terrible since arriving in Paris, making a lot of noise and getting himself introduced to the best and brightest in town. Except for Picasso: Goldfinger refused to meet an artist he suspected would not treat him as an equal.

In fact, the younger Goldfinger could easily be a character out of a Wyndham Lewis novel, judging from Warburton’s book. As well as the harem kept in his offices, “Ernő’s wild spirits even resulted in a challenge to a duel. The source of the insult was his shimmying at a nightclub.” The duel (with sabres) was averted after both parties had their lawyers prepare and exchange “elaborate official apologies”. On another occasion he had “gone on the rampage after one Bal des Quat’z Arts, where there was open hostility between the ateliers, storming off into the night intent on beating up homosexuals.” Just as well Cage didn’t stay around for long.

I’m reluctant to discuss the work of people I know personally, but this is a point that goes back to my rant about electroacoustic music. In Bristol I saw a gig by Robin Fox and Anthony Pateras for the first time in over two years. Their standard performance setup is: Fox sits immobile behind his laptop while immediately to his left Pateras thrashes around with a small table full of crap. Regardless how I’m feeling, being at one of their gigs always makes me feel a lot better, but that’s not the point here. In the intervening time since I last saw them, Pateras has added his own laptop to the small table of crap. Their sound has not so much changed as expanded, the new computer acting as a box of hyper-crap. They are pursuing an idea, adding facilitating technology as needed.

Working solo, Fox has spent several years combining electronically generated images and music. At first he patched into his sound system a clapped-out old oscilliscope with a rotary display, showing the frequency of the waveform circling round a still, central point as its zero baseline. The visuals do not accompany the music, nor vice versa: the two are mutually dependent manifestations of the same signal. The image is generated by the sound’s waveform, which is in turn restricted to a range of sounds which produce visually interesting patterns.

These days Fox works with a laser projection system, a more purposefuly-designed piece of equipment operating on much the same principles. His shows with the laser are impressive, even spectacular – it’s not often you get to use that description for a one-man new music gig. However, Fox self-deprecatingly refers to his laser as a gimmick. When he talks about it more, it’s clear he regards it at best as a stopgap piece of technology in a transitional phase of his work. The range of sounds which produce interesting visual patterns is too small for him. He wants to be able to expand his musical vocabulary again, and not be dictated to by the limits of his available technology. The equipment will have to change into something not yet built, or be set aside.

A sunny afternoon and out they come. These two were snapped in the same fifty metre strip as this one and this one.

Cooky La Moo Enterprises (which includes this blog) is moving to a new server, so the site may be a bit flaky over the next couple of days. Please drop me a line if you notice anything unusual.

Normal service will resume shortly, with more room to offer new and exciting features (i.e. more unpopular music).

While travelling through Europe, ABC Classic FM presenter Julian Day (pictured left) stayed over at my place last week, during the London phase of his visit. I didn’t see him at all for the last three days he was sleeping on the sofa in the front room, and on Saturday morning he waited till I was in the loo before slinking out the front door without saying goodbye to catch his flight back to Australia. Was it something I said?

In any case, he left in such a hurry that he left behind a bag containing personal items more or less essential for his morning ablutions. I thought of keeping them as a souvenir, but now I have decided to offer them up for auction to the highest bidder. No doubt there are many fans of New Music Up Late who will rush to own a little piece of the man himself.

To this end, I decided to set up an Ebay account, but after a few minutes of reading through their FAQs it all started to look a bit complicated and potentially costly, so if you want anything on display below just email me privately at boringlikeadrill at yahoo dot com dot au and name your price. Reserves are listed in Australian dollars for the target demographic: a handy currency converter can be found here.

Lot 1: A mostly-full jar of Schwazkopf Taft Full-On Extreme Hold Power Wax. Now you too can have the look of the coolest radio announcer on ABC Classic FM, or at least like the metrosexual Morrisseyalike pictured on the label. There’s probably about 70g of the stuff left. I have personally tested this product and can guarantee that it sticks to your hair for a period of time. Reserve: A$5.00.

Lot 2: A rather stiff Body Shop shaving brush and Gillette Excel Sensor disposable razor. Both appear to have been fairly well used, which is odd, because he was unshaven when turned up at my house and didn’t shave the whole time he was here, as far as I could tell; but then, what would I know, having not seen him for the last three days he was lurking around upstairs? Reserve: A$6.50.

Lot 3: A used Colgate Reach toothbrush. Depending on your point of view, this item is either the most or least prized of the entire auction. Doubtlessly teeming with ABC DNA, the thumbgrip on the handle stills clearly bears used toothpaste residue. No toothpaste is included with the sale, so he was either borrowing my toothpaste or “went native” while in England and didn’t brush at all. The angled head and compact bristles make cleaning the harder-to-reach parts of your mouth a breeze. Reserve: A$2.00.

Lot 4: A slightly-used tube of Nivea FRESH Fresh Scent Mild Care Deodorant FOR MEN. Funny, I’d always thought Nivea was a girl’s brand, but I must have been wrong. That, or they’ve expanded their range of fine toiletries lately. This experience has been educational as well as financially lucrative. I’m almost tempted to hold on to this item myself, as there’s a part of me that can’t stand going shopping for deodorants, even thought it has become a fairly crucial aspect to keeping a girlfriend for any substantial period of time. Hopefully, Julian has since bought a replacement so as not to offend too many fellow travellers by the time he reaches Kuala Lumpur International Airport. If you see him, it may be wise to keep your distance at first, just in case. Alcohol-free, so don’t buy this if you were planning on drinking it. Reserve: A$3.00.

Lot 5: A small mirror broken off a small hinged compact, with a suspicious tranlsucent white stain on the glass. Also thrown in, a nub of mystery soap in a torn paper sleeve, possibly used for shaving (see above). The mirror frame is unmarked black plastic, so I can’t say for certain whose or what kind of compact this got broken off of. There are several perfectly good mirrors in my house, so this tiny glass is no excuse for Julian not shaving while he stayed over. Pleaese note that when I call that green blob “shaving soap” I’m only guessing. Reserve: A$1.50.

Lot 6: A small bag of complementary accessories from Qantas, including sleep socks (slightly worn), sleeping mask, a branded strap for attaching god knows what to it, and what appears to be a small grey vibrator sealed in a cellophane package (tests pending). It could be a rather industrial-strength looking tampon applicator, but I doubt it. I’m not going to break the seal and find out. Everything is tastefully shaded battleship grey and marked with the Qantas logo. These exclusive products are usually only available to the lucky few who take intercontinental flights in economy class on Australia’s premier airline. Reserve: $5.00.

SPECIAL OFFER: Buy all six lots and receive this special presentation bag (left) in which all the above items were carefully hand-packed by Mr Day. This is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity, because I doubt I’ll have him crashing round my place again.

Older readers – you know, Gen X’ers and stuff – will remember experiencing their first David Bowie Moment, endlessly arguing over whether this is a misunderstood masterpiece or a lazy load of bollocks, when it’s really just Not Bad. Wait, I get it now! She’s channelling Patti Smith so it’s supposed to be cringingly bad, but we’re supposed to admire it because of that. Reckon in ten years’ time this will sound atrocious, and then gradually get better again?

* I hit ‘post’ before it was finished.