The Roving Musicologist

Birthing Roma Stars (Pecs, Hungary)

    Someone told me to be in the parking lot of the big market and to look for a guy in shorts…you will go and see guys in caves, some gypsy guys, and here, take these contact mics with you.  Then a writer is there from Wire:  http://www.representativetrust.co.uk/archives/414

and this guy Balazs Pandi I know, who plays the drums:

http://fucktothemusic.blog.hu/

SO there we were, after a long drive, recording these Roma kids freaking out.  They turned the power on just so we could do this, and turned it off almost the minute that it was over, finally over, after a straight hour of noise.  Once I tried to go outside and the kids tried to get me to drive them around in the car.  I wasn’t going to drive that car; “fuck you” one of them said over and over.  He didn’t know what it meant.  When Balazs explained to him what it meant, he started saying it over and over again.  Those were his words, yes, no, fuck you.  He was the MC on the track.

Eye Myths

It was a going away party.

Eye Myths relocated to Portland from San Diego several years ago, and since then have become involved in various projects, including working with the Tenses and Eat Skull.  

They aren’t a band that plays very often, but when they do there seems to be a gulf of thought between what they sounded like before and where they are now.  This was the most lucid set to come my way yet, although as it’s from June they’ve probably left it a long way behind by now.

Hungry Hungry Hippos Amplified (Portland, Oregon)

Re-enacting the Tragedy of the Commons provides hours of entertainment.

Contact microphones attached to an aggressive behavior-inducing board game provides us with this sound.

Weyes Bluhd Part 2 (Baltimore and other places)

That’s how it goes.

This is a song from a set recorded in October 2009.  The other song can be found in an earlier post. 

This was the first song from the set, and it has a way of wrapping itself around you like a mist.  The mixture of tapes, live instruments, and singing in this song is done very well and shows some good instincts.

I’m not sure what exactly Weyes Bluhd is up to right now, but she seems to stay busy wherever she goes.

Fred Meyer (Portland, Oregon)

Although they lost the battle of the bands, Fred Meyer knows it’s more important to be good sports.

The sun was hot when I recorded this show at the pancake house in north Portland.  It seemed like things were going wrong.  At some point there was an apology from the performer.  I was having my own problems with recording…notice the conversation about dogshit halfway through.

But then when something is recorded it changes. This is the last song of a three song set.

A very rare photo of Lala, the other half of Fred Meyer.

Travel Post #10: Jackie Triste at Garazsfesztival (Dunaujvaros, Hungary)

Getting a good grip is essential for certain performers.

People like Jackie Triste.  While he is primarily a conceptual artist, he also makes music.  He doesn’t seem particularly concerned with booking shows or releasing material, but because people like what he does, he ends up doing both.

I met Jackie Triste to catch a ride with some other people out to Dunaujvaros for the festival.  We were waiting for someone in a band called Rovar17 and also an internet DJ.  There was a delay because someone had forgotten their keys across town.  Then there was another delay because of general incompetence.  Then they stopped answering our calls.

As the restaurant we were waiting in began to close, Jackie, whose actual name is Peter, began to make ultimatums.  He’d had enough of these hippies.

“Another ten minutes and if they’re not here I’m not going to play the show.”

Another ten minutes went by.  He asked if I was really interested in this thing.  I said, well yes…

“OK, another half an hour.”

Another span of time went by, with Peter saying he wasn’t going to play, walking back and forth in the street.  Finally, he turned back to me and said

“I should just give up music altogether.”

Jackie Triste Trudging Forward

Of course he didn’t that night, and when we arrived in Dunaujvaros we found the row of garages and the festival.  It was something paid for by the government to spread the arts outside of Budapest.  The noise garage was far at one end, barely even part of the festival.  Right across from it was the metal garage, and there was something of a sonic battle going on all night.

http://www.myspace.com/jackietriste

http://garazsfesztival.blogspot.com/

Grandfather Claws (Portland, Oregon)

This Band performs sitting on the ground without back support, hence stretching is necessary to maintain proper posture.

Grandfather Claws is a band, two men and two women, that I happened to catch shortly before I left Oregon.  I found them in the few recordings that I took with me when I left the country and they seem to be an appropriate thing to post after Michael Hurley, as they both represent, for me, a sort of rambling approach to folk music.  What people call noise music, while it is approached from many angles, is at its core more folk than anything else.  While it is influenced by esoteric ideas from all over the spectrum of music (well, hopefully), when you go to a noise show you are seeing these ideas being refracted in a way that will almost necessarily reflect a homespun approach.

http://www.myspace.com/grandfatherclaws

What I have posted here is only about a quarter of the show; to post more I would have had to reduce the quality to the point that many of the quieter tones would have been lost.

Radio Eris (Philadelphia)

This Gorilla/Earth Juxtaposition courtesy of Radio Eris Myspace (Link at Bottom)

Residing in the Eris Temple Artspace, Radio Eris provides a space for musicians to fill with sound as well as a solid band to anchor the shows.

The tastefully done basement.

The artspace is a three or four floor house in Philadelphia.  Coming in off of the street, which has all the charm of the cheaper parts of town, you find yourself in a strange music haven.  There were instruments of various kinds known and not, records, weird books, everything you come to expect from a good house venue, but done on a scale that is rarely found.  The Eris Temple has created a place that reflects the approach of Radio Eris to music and the possibilities for how it can be shared.  They even offered every band that played a copy of their show on CD-R, right on the spot.

Please dress appropriately and exercise erudition when visiting the temple.

Link to Eris Temple Artspace:

http://www.myspace.com/eristemple

Link to Radio Eris:

http://www.myspace.com/radio5eris

Maths Balance Volumes of Mankato and Toledo

MBV is constant change.  Any attempt to classify them will be out of date by the time you hear them again.  They have never been too crazy about traditional song structure, and in time they moved past jamming, past performance, past reckoning with anyone but themselves.  It’s not that they don’t want you to listen to them; they just want to be sure about what they are saying, even if it stamps out any idea of what others think music should be.

Music can be fun, although at times a standoff may develop.

Maths Balance Volumes began as a music collective but the prime movers have always been Jameson Sweiger and Clayton Kohlbinger.  After releasing the album “Lower Forms” featuring vocals by Alena, they went on a tour of the Midwest and Northeast with Weyes Bluhd.  Their only instruments at this time were vocals, tapedecks and a reel-to-reel, run through various effects.

Wood becomes a table for instruments in the hands of these intrepid performers.

This recording is from Charlottesville, Virginia, from a show they crashed when the show they were supposed to play fell through.  By fell through, I mean the venue was locked and darkened, the owner didn’t answer his phone, and the late October cold kept getting colder.  Fortunately, some kids at an art gallery were nice enough to let them play, although they didn’t fit with the mellow form of folk-rock that preceded them.  In order to set the mood for yourself, imagine a crappy James Taylor wanna-be coming on before these guys, and I think you will understand why they were almost literally swept out the door.  I was right there…they opened the door and swept a cloud of crap right in our faces.
The last I heard, these guys had moved on to Toledo, Ohio in search of a bit larger town.  Their releases are available on the Chocolate Monk label.

The Maths Balance Volumes web page:

mathsbalancevolumes.tripod.com/

Smegma of Portland, Oregon (Part 1)

There are very few people who have been continuously active in experimental music for as long as Smegma.  They have been making music, in various combinations, since they formed in Pasadena in the early 70’s.

This recording is a collaboration with Nour Mobarak and Parker Lemus.  It was performed as a live soundtrack for a movie Nour had previously made.

The next part of this series will feature an interview by Smegma where they talk about their beginnings, what it was like playing shows during the early punk years, and the recent interest in their music by younger fans.

http://www.myspace.com/smegmatheoriginal

Weyes Bluhd of Bucks County

In this song, taped noises that sound like lost artifacts are balanced against the slow river of a girl’s voice.  Weyes Bluhd continues the singer/songwriter tradition with an awareness of its past and possibilities.

Weyes Bluhd performing in Baltimore, in a room darkened at her request.

Weyes Bluhd’s page:

http://www.myspace.com/nataliewiseblood

Sejayno of Baltimore

Sejayno channels cultures of the future through cross-tuning and meditative chant, among other things.  Listen to the monologue in the audio for an example of where I want the roving musicologist to go.

Peter Blasser, member of Sejayno and Builder of instruments, relaxing in his home:

The instruments used in the recording.  The venue was the Theosophical Society of Baltimore:

Sejayno’s page:

http://www.ciat-lonbarde.net/