Playlist

Preface

"While parallels between THESIS and ARGUMENT abound, distinctions between language and music are conspicuously revealed. With and in music, 'meaning' lodges elsewhere and differently than in language; in music, what joins and follows next is what there is, is how music 'becomes'; if grammar or reference or syntactic structure-like back&fore&middle-ground concerns of 'meaning' crop up as I hear a music, at best they are sui generically pertinent to the particular work; music is always now and here; attachings and reference emanate from within, thens attach to and make nows, but if and as I struggle to speak of them I'm transliterating; music doesn't need what language depends on; 'meaning' and reference within do not need to give rise to reference without in order for music to be. Music as music, as recreation of experience, is totally liberated and wild and free."
- Elaine R. Barkin "reexperiencing Language ,as a Music revisited"  Open Space Magazine issue 19/20 fall 2015/spring 2016

Texts

Recorded

April 13, 2019
Narrow - Mecca Normal [from Kill Rock Stars]

oh all
that is strong

oh each
that is specific

oh so
much that is irrepeatable

a pirate legend of the mean teen seas

song doesn't get much better
than this

the Earth is Calling Our Name - Dean Evenson [from Native Healing]

it stays put
saturated smoothed lacquered

Liebeslied (Amended) - Keith Eisenbrey [recorded at the Tintinabulary, June 15, 2010]


patiently edging out into exposure
the small timing flaws just prove it's handmade
the Chickering's palette/timbre allows the emergence of lines to be clear inside the chords
I doubt I'll ever play this better or more patiently

Ik Junoon Paint It Red - Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara [from Bollygood Volume 1]

swing with an accent
hunky hunky chunky chunky

April 14, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 912 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [June 2016]

The 32nd Bannediversary on the porch
wash your eyelids
crows squabbling and sniping on the left
scrape and poke like archaeologists

traffic events: locatable gusts of wind
a band plays in the distance

We play a benefit for the bugs and critters gathered under the maple tree beside our porch

Sonata in D minor K. 1 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

sequences extend just a bit longer into iterationality here and delighted

I'm Only Sleeping (rehearsal) - The Beatles [from Anthology Volume 2]

mostly vibraphone and some drums
rather attractive

Go Tell It On The Mountain - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, director

fun arrangement how it starts by building the bed of the harmony of the tune we know

the artifactual bass boom almost makes it sound like they have a tuba back there

You - The Who [from Face Dances]

femme fatale too late
the ultradiscrete tracks work pretty well here
to hear what the players are playing

The Gift of Love - London Symphony Orchestra [from Listen to the Joy]

Pops as in The Pops
concert series for arrangers to showcase to and of publishers
taking care of business

Reaper Song - Witchy Poo [from Kill Rock Stars]

artsy
but entertaining standing laughing

Track 4 - Seattle Chamber Music Festival [from a private tape, July 2001]

could be Weill I would believe it
for a while but moves into another more magical garden
(((never trust, quite
a magical garden)
tells a story
(does not narrate a story, tells it)
happy endings)
full of feeling)

Summer Days - Bob Dylan [Key Arena, Seattle, October 2006]

Unsure of the title, not being a Dylanologist
rockabilly - the South's equivalent of Surf of the West

The Sow Took The Measles B - Train Case [Karen Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer]

pretty tight ensemble for a multi-tracked recording
(it's that blood harmony bone rhythm)

The Motherfucking Bus Part I - Chaotic Noise Marching Corps [from Zero to Lizard Man]


a sound cue
or an audio-graph as one might take a snap shot of a moment

In Session at the Tintinabulary

April 15, 2019
Gradus 346 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

highest B-nat
highest B-nat and highest C-sharp
pianissimo and on down the hammer sound
predominates over the string sound
especially when the rest of the harp is damped

April 18, 2019
Yellow Line (3 takes) - Your Mother Should Know
Candy (3 takes) - Your Mother Should Know
Don't Know How to Start Over - St. Rage
Summer Girl (2 takes) - St. Rage
Regular (2 takes) - Your Mother Should Know

In about an hour and a half, including set-up: eleven takes for two bands, six tracks each, two PZMs taped to the wall, one decoupled stereo condenser mic down near the drums, one wide diaphragm con-mic for Neal [Kosály-Meyer] to sing at, one headset con-mic for Karen [Eisenbrey] to do same. It's a good thing both bands are the same two people. I'll be working at finding the treasures of these over the next few weeks.

A note from your ever so humble recording clerk: The titles of the YMSK songs are my placeholder titles, not the official song names.

Postscripts

and naked ran out hair screaming might suck

breasts dry with want o mother husbands give

us the heart give us body and soul speak

an embodiment of the absence of itself
an image of duration bereft
or innocent or prior to any notion of pulse

Playlist

Recorded

July 1, 2018

Cavatina "Ecco, ridento in ciedo" - Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Will Humburg, Roberto Servile, Sonia Ganassi, Ramon Vargas, Angelo Romero, Franco de Grandis, Hungarian Radio Chorus [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

a distance traveled before we get off the ride

Rainy Night - Duke Ellington [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

say a thing (twice) (or two things) then comment or overturn
the back ends of the melodies invite consideration

The Goodnight Waltz - The Voices of Walter Schumann [Rescued Record]

The Age of Sentimentality's Last Gasp

Walk, Little Julie - Chester Hanchell [from Anthology of American Folk Music Vol. 1]

jaw harp in the raw

Requiem Canticles - Stravinsky - London Sinfonietta, Oliver Knussen

pitch plates microadjust their relative altitude
planar placards plastered on the pitch plate walls
icons

Track 6 - Tillicum Junior High School Orchestra [from my mom's tape of a concert give March 3, 1971]

with vibraphone solo

Subhuman - Throbbing Gristle [from Throbbing Gristle's Greatest Hits]

inverted accentuation becomes name classification

July 4, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 77 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]

vacuum cleaner vacuuming floor clacking sticks and ocarina or flute
we have a hum on the tape from something
it wanders

Neal & Anna's Outpost on Brooklyn Ave, as they were packing it up

typing tap tap tap tap ding! szzzhook!

persistent lack of focus, phoning it in, not present
weary and wearying the hum does not help
this tape has ennui
impervious time

Don't Mix The Colors - Courtney Love [from Kill Rock Stars]

words on a good enough rhythm track
half a song or less

Gradus 99 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 2006]

single tones allowed to linger
turn their predilections for proliferation inward upon themselves
become sets of parts independently spinning
fulfilling the compositional imperatives
which notes to play
is so simple to accomplish that the notion of necessity in the short term
or of form at all as a specious trajectory
is left far below

Front Door - Shaprece [from Scatterbrain EP]

circling insistence (a worry stone)

Banned Telepath 47 Somerville - Aaron Keyt [April 2016]

the new note nears quickly
improvisation composing itself as a composition composing improvisationality

July 5, 2018
Cavatina "Largo al factotum della città" - Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Will Humburg, Roberto Servile, Sonia Ganassi, Ramon Vargas, Angelo Romero, Franco de Grandis, Hungarian Radio Chorus [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

intricate prestissimo blah blah blah
tour de articulation

Irish Black Bottom - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

wide open window to another celebration
when it is over
feels empty

Tweedledy Dee - Elvis Presley [from First Live Recordings]

clearly worked over before release
with vinyl surface noise just as clearly audible
no-one was, apparently, thinking history and collecting quality data

(He's) The Great Imposter - The Fleetwoods [from The Very Best of the Fleetwoods - Come Softly To Me]

Requiem Cantlicles - Stravinsky - Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Stravinsky

categorically disparate rhythms
though coordinate
choral sound disblending as instruments perfectly
ceremony
voices instruments solos chorus - all treated emphatically impersonally
each is there to function just so
not anybody's show really
as though these were sound samples pulled from hammer space

July 10, 2018

Jascha Horenstein reminisces with Alan Blyth

". . . nineteen tzwolve . . . Webern and Berg were the ushers who controlled the membership cards . . . enowmously tense and inhibited . . . Vienna is the only place in the world . . . a closed shop . . . icy cold every inch the emperor of music . . . "

Well I Just Might Do That - University of Washington Contemporary Group Improvisation Ensemble [July 1981]

barbasol theater
it's got lemon in it
an historic moment for proto Banned Rehearsal
in that we were beginning to spill out of academic oversight
into sessions which we then inflated into legend out of all proportion to the actual results
good thing most of the sound is lost
come inside you'll catch your
keith
mind your mother
clump clump clomp clomp
done

4th of July, Asbury Park - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen Live 1975-1985]

full blown legend domain see your life as mythic grandeur
your face here

July 11, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 267 - John E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt [September 1991]

in the past I have made errors in that regard
moan tube scolding big red bag of fun
soft skinned rattle of rattles
semi independent double reeds
finger independent righty lefty
breath dependent if each speaks or in turn
jalopy rattle get it firing tambourine
this sounds like Aaron's now defunct electric organ
rather than the funmaker
30 minutes in not a dud moment really
terrainish
concerns itself with another subject than the terrain we experience
much as geology arose from metallurgy and mining
Mr. Punch you are a bad bad man
diabolic plotting encrustations of narratives' remains
realms are missing
music is an abstraction of activity
informing our future selves of the past reporting back truly what we say
common pulse theory

DX7 - Brad Anderson [from Dark Energy - Interstellar Pianos]

probes in substance with danger traps beacons left behind
creatures that feed on geyser's edge in pitch darkness

July 12, 2018

Day Signals Sonic Nebula - S. Eric Scribner [from Stormsound Cycle, live at the Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, on May 21, 2011]

slow circle
drawn
dug
stethoscope to deeper tunnel
clanging cagebars
rain drops what zooms by cares not
performance as self preservation
face of impervious
the slowly drawn circle nears, lurking, respiring
a membrane within the sound
cessation without conclusion

July 17, 2018
Finnegans Wake Chapter 4 - Rio Matchett [from Waywords and Meansigns]

immediate: as though related over morning breakfast finger thump on table
scifi traffic medievaly chanting past on the interstar
repletely misoverheard
leaning close over the cafe table
not fussy about the jointures
color not corrected as gossip passed
then report per radio tv with background
journalismus

July 18, 2018
Duetto "All'idea di quel metallo"- Rossini - Failoni Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Will Humburg, Roberto Servile, Sonia Ganassi, Ramon Vargas, Angelo Romero, Franco de Grandis, Hungarian Radio Chorus [from The Barber of Seville (Highlights)]

light orchestral touch
the air they breathe

You Made Me Love You - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

not much space on these old tracks, timewise or dynamical
best to fill it completely

Tynan Tyme - Chet Baker, Art Pepper [from Playboys]

now we got us some elbow room

A Thing Of The Past - The Shirelles [from Shirelles Anthology]

such subtlety of vocal pressure
just exactly the right weight given to each part of each syllable

no slop

Secret Agent Man - Johnny Rivers [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

something in the sound is often repressed

July 19, 2018
Selections from Finian's Rainbow - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey, Joanne Deacon [from my mom's tape of a concert given May 4, 1971]

extended medley or truncated show
Irish as ethnic quaint (harmless) lesser European pastoral
LA < > NY
Hollywood < > Broadway
good enough modulations (not to write home about)

Universal Corner - X [from Wild Gift]

measures measuring measuring measures

In Session at the Tintinabulary

July 2, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 962 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer


July 16, 2018
Assembly Rechoired 57 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy

Playlist

Recorded

June 5, 2018
Psalm 23 (meditation, responses) (vocal take) - Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 1991]

I made this quasi-setting of the 23rd Psalm in 1991 for speaking voice and clavichord, intending the

Eastern Washington

finished product to be some sort of recorded rendition. When Neal read the Psalm for me that August I wasn't entirely certain how the text would fit in with the clavichord commentary. Eventually there were two finished versions, the first accomplished with analog dubbing, and the second, realized some years later, with digital. Listening to my verbal instructions to Neal I find that my concept of how texts ought to be set has not changed much over the decades. I want to hear the sound of the words going by so that they mean what they mean, with minimal dramatic characterization or word-painting, and always being cognizant of the poetic structure.

Coffin and a Six Pack - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

vintage sounds
sample-ready

Thirty-Three Seconds - Storrs Barrett Booch-Williams [from Sonicabal 2001]

apparently a Cage tribute track

Shenandoah - Bruce Springsteen [from The Seeger Sessions]

Baker City, Oregon

Of all the various ilks of americana out there, I think I mistrust the overinflated rural-sentimental the most, as it winds so close to icky ante-bellum nostalgia.

Circle Song - Steve Scribner - Ivan Arteaga, Mike Sentkewitz (?) [from Storm Sound Cycle (live on May 21, 2011)]

against a backdrop
augmenting the distance to the lively made sounds
nocturnal
during
sleep

Good Friend - Ravenna Woods [from Alleyways and Animals]

careful and organized arrangement
buttjoints
greeting card sentiment

June 6, 2018
A Fancie - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

imitative
proto-fugal
any passing place can generate all things new
routes kept open
civilization seeps outward

Big Butter and Egg Man from the West - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five with May Alix [from Hot Fives and Sevens]

vocals occupy a lesser place within the song structure
it is a song, but the instrumentals are the show, the vocal bits are present only enough to register

Since I Met You Baby - Ivory Joe Hunter [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

another greeting card
an illustrated letter
it is what she wants to hear so it is what you tell her

River Line Blues - Shirley Griffith [from The Art of Field Recording vol. 1]

guitar and voice are one
pitch/meterpoint syncopation // guitarstringtimbre voice word confluence and retrofluence

For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her - Simon & Garfunkel [from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme]

I can't help but think Paul was as frustrated with Pop as with folk rock - but that the full on blues had been foreclosed by Mr. Dylan. He had to futz around for a bit before he really hit his song-writing stride.

Track 2 - Tillicum Junior High School Orchestra [from a private tape of concert given March 3, 1971]

bass booms out into a time warp
affects not just the EQ but also the rhythm sense, as in organ music

June 7, 2018
Terminal Preppie - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters]

feeds off some of the same misanthropic sophomoranticisms as Saint Zappa.

Readings of a Sonata - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 1986]

Neal and I dink around with another old score of mine, Sonata 1979
We trade-off readings to use up unused tape footage
We accomplish 3 full readings and the first part of a fourth

It's a graphic score so all the notes and rhythms are different, to varying degrees

sounds great, in that cruddy way we had, all the way

8-Ball Deluxe - 7 Year Bitch [from Kill Rock Stars]

Batman rhythm with a slippery bit
quantitive meter in action as rhythm

C'mon Jenny - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

what surf rock sounds like sitting in the rhythm section

Tokyo Fist - Alex Keller [from Sonicabal 2001]

radio signal morsey sound
(love it!)

Banned Rehearsal 702 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer [May 2006]

geography of inhabiting

how where and across what extent do the determinable agendi specify their place or their vectors or their circulations

never quite settling for a trio for long

though the constant xylophone (all hail!)

sound assembly takes time (give it)

and so delicate

because it isn't what it is without how it got to be

In Session at the Tintinabulary
June 5, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 960 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer

June 11, 2018
Yellowstone 180611 - Keith Eisenbrey

I skipped blogging last Saturday because Karen and I were on the road by mid-that-morning to make a week's long loop among the five northwestern states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, in order of our arrival in each. At the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone, on a windy day (hang on to your britches, dear, it's pretty gusty) I made this recording of our footfalls on one of the older boardwalks.

June 13, 2018
Phillipsburg 180613 - Keith Eisenbrey

10 years ago, during a similar road trip, we passed through the lovely little town of Phillipsburg, in

Montana. The memory stuck in my head all these years as "wouldn't it be nice to spend some time here?" So this time we did. After supper at Silver Mill Restaurant & Saloon (quite nice!) Karen and I opened the balcony windows of our room at The Kaiser House (the Mural Room) to take in the fresh air. I quickly grabbed my recording device to pull in the bird songs and the hominine shouts and the motor roars from the magic hour far from home.