Playlist

Preface

"A stimulus to creative activity you value for its specificity. The greater its specificity as a stimulus the more potent its capacity to engender and participate in an episode of creative activity associated with it."
- Benjamin Boretz "two notebook entries, 1981" from "Being About Music Textworks 1960-2003 J. K. Randall Benjamin Boretz Volume 2: 1978-2003"

Texts

Streamed

May 19, 2020
Spite House Presents: Heather B & Amelia C
Heather Bentley and Amelia Love Clearheart
(from Heather's Garden)

Karen and I were sitting at the kitchen table after dinner that evening when, having both signaled our interest in this event, our phones each lit up to announce its beginning about an hour before its official start time. It turned out to be the sound check. Now being connoisseurs of sound checks we each checked in separately. Our streams were offset by 2 or 3 seconds. It was lovely magic.

There were some balance issues during the event itself - which we listened to together on another device - but their obvious rapport shone so bright it hardly mattered. It is always a pleasure to hear them together.

Recorded

May 16, 2020
Spherics (underlying electronic track) - S. Eric Scribner [from The Storm Sound Cycle]

Music starts at the bottom and grinds at depth, not for our delectation. Signals strike the surfaces and reverberate through, to be passed along. We observe them, and in observing, transform.

Some sounds are events (not many)
some are indirect transitory vibration accumulations
moving through.

Downstream results of events as they propagate in the substrate:
a. we may suspect a mallet that strikes this gong
b. we may suspect a speaking voice

-spheres:
atmo-
bathy-
magneto-
bio-
audio-

imply a center and a limit, dividing space

May 17, 2020
Little Blue Boat - SeaStar [from Never Go Back]



available for any maritime use
onshore or off

14oxooxxoxoxxoo - Paul Rubenstein [from Solo Trios]



These sounds are acting out
wearing  costumes
pantomime

wires
as sounding objects
are quick responders
capable of negotiating intricate puzzles

the plucked kalimba bars
are stiffer
less nimble

Charlotte's Umbrella - Bicycle Face [from The Wonders of Female Strength]



A fun song with
umbrella ella ella ella
whack'em with it

as a genre, the solidarity history song is a bit like hymnody
but they point back at heroes
whereas hymns point back atcha

Less is Moi - Goat Rodeo [from The Goat Rodeo Sessions]

impeccable

perhaps that's my real problem with this, not that it's the stuffed shirt playing for the quasi-brow crowd
but that it's so much stuffier than high-brow can be
it is so classy,
takes such pains not to offend,
suitable for NPR use
we've been snookered

Rain - No Rey [from Contradictions]

how to begin?
start with strumming
that's a good trick

respect your sisters and don't kill your brothers
family advice

a multiple tempo song made of partial songs can be a narrative
(see Dichterliebe)

Under Evergreen - Shelby Earl [from Burn The Boats]



Wake up!
Emerge!
Out from!

(stray thought as I type: this could be about subterranean activity  associated with our hippie state college)

All At Once - Tyler Daniel Bean [from On Days Soon To Pass]



For all I know he's reading the back of a soup can to us. Off into the dreamy future of forever looking back, on and on.

Empty Space - Operation ID [from Legs]



An imperative?
Do it right now!

The crew is on it. All the equipment is heading in now. It is an intricate activity, emptying space. Where will we put all the stuff?

Outro - Lunas [from Over Me]



strummy dreamy streamy
stream strum stream strum
I smell the blood of a dreamyman

Longing to Belong - Eddie Vedder [from Ukulele Songs]

That line was well built. Melodic variation as a rhetorical underlining, emphasis.

Fucking Maggot - Three Fingers [from Go Deep]



Rock and roll (if that is what this is) (and if it isn't then what it is (that isn't rock and roll)) as a mode of social amplification.

Parallel in Name Only - Triptet [from Imaginary Perspective]



and in the eye of the beholder

←─────────→
             eye
←─────────→

space having been
emptied earlier
improvised theatricals

Trump's Snake Oil Medicine Show - Smokestack and the Foothill Fury



His backup singers and band are dynamite.

Just Leave Me There - Star Anna and The Laughing Dogs [from Alone In This Together]

its hard for the blues to fly
but it must try

Highland Mary - SeaStar [from Never Go Back]



Some people really get into ethnic heritage.
They form clubs and bands and all.

May 19, 2020
You're A Cop - Full Toilet [from Full Toilet 7"]

clever verse and pitch-perfect sound design
the poetics are narrowly satirical
the musical portion supports that
but isn't itself satirical

Grown-Ups Are H8ers - Bicycle Face [from The Wonders of Female Strength]



by babysitters for their charges
to make common cause

Unbalanced Suns - Courtney Marie Andrews [from No One's Slate Is Clean]

I remember the first time I heard a guitarist's fingers shifting along the neck in recorded music. It was probably some Simon & Garfunkle song or other. As a classical musician in training, this came as something of a mind bend. It still is, after a fashion. It makes the player's body audible in a way that singing, oddly enough, doesn't, except when breathing is audible. It underlines both that music is a bodily activity, and that more than music, as classically understood, results from it.

Sunday Song - No Rey [from Contradictions]

Pick strum sound doesn't have the same effect. Rather, it comes across like a harpsichord's un-pitched twang or a piano's felt-hammer thump. It brings the instrument forward, not the body of the performer.

There is some nice duet singing here. At the end the board operator gets hold of it for an inverted fade-out: repeat the last line past what balance would require then increase the gain on what is left over.

Mackey Creek - Whitney Ballen [from White Feathers, White Linens]



The particulars of the story behind this don't matter, but the precision with which she spools it out does.

Snooze - Three Fingers [from Go Deep]



When you need me
I won't be awake
a rejoinder, kiss-off type

May 21, 2020
Postprandial Depression - Yuni in Taxco [from Sanpaku]


A half-second of great sound before recorded amplification smudges it out. If it doesn't have my trademark sound then no-one will know it's me.

Arrow - SeaStar [from Never Go Back]



A two-chord* song
until the chorus
of which the first chord has two pitches sung as extremities of an interval
and how those two pitches hang with the other chords and changes

*the one chord and all the others. Ken Benshoof once opined, in a composition lesson long ago, apropos of Rameau-type harmony thinking, that there were only three chords: Tonic, Dominant, and Everything Else. After some thought he added, "well, maybe also Subdominant is its own place."

The Wasteland - Curtains For You [from After Nights Without Sleep]



A journey in each verse
as is each day
the song Paul McCartney was aiming at but kept missing

Pants! The Mini Musical - Bicycle Face [from The Wonders of Female Strength]



We saw Bicycle Face do this show live, with props and costumes, at the Highway 99 Blues Club, back in 2015.

This version has
corsets! sound effects!
otherwise unaccompanied
fabulous kerfufflousness
with the Feminist sermon, of course
quite enjoyable

Track 7 - High Class Wreckage [Live at the Funhouse, July 2011]

fill in the blank spot with feedback
rough hewn

The vocal got lost in this one.

I Still Miss Someone - No Rey [from Contradictions]

genres within genres venning promiscuously with promiscuously venning genres
(nice snare drum sound!)

Track 7 - Pouch [Live at the Funhouse, July 2011]

yes he's shoutscreamroaring
but with focused rhythmic intent
loud as they are these songs are tiny

2X4 - Three Fingers [from Go Deep]



sexual persona parading
smartly satirical

Save Me - White Orange [from White Orange]




such a gentle opening
then the same notes powered up
but losing nothing of the atmospheric stasis
still mood

the underlying clarity of the composition remains

back to a gentler sound with only an echo of the roar

The Spook - The Deadrones




playing the John Lennon Trick
you can this and that but you're blank inside
keep it vague for maximum imputation of meaning-riddled-ness

In Session at the Tintinabulary and Outposts

May 17, 2020
05 17 20 Covid Toothbrush BR - Steve Kennedy

Steve brushed thoroughly
almost 30 minutes

May 18, 2020
Bannedecameron 200518 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Keith Eisenbrey · Bannedecameron 200518

Karen and I played electric guitars
Neal dialed in from the Lake City outpost
and played an electric guitar

STE-024 200518 - Aaron Keyt

From Toad Hall, Aaron
phasing along to Steve's thorough brushing

Postscripts

possible passive when such without any

active work of its own but likewise for

the night is which may enter of all kinds

no view now

elf ore

the rose's thorn is the cowl of the receder

Playlist

Preface

"And so let us now, with the aid of such wisdom as we may command, return forthwith to the place of our adventure, not dallying overlong in speculative digression lest, in musing the while upon the perils of unscientifically grounded conjecture, we unduly exaggerate the risk that happenings of some considerable moment may pass unobserved before our preoccupied sense."
- Benjamin Boretz "Language, as a Music"

Texts

Recorded

April 11, 2020
War - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

lesson and carol
cover of course

As a song it suffers from an irrecoverable opening whammy, much as does Also sprach Zarathustra.

Who Cares About You - Full Toilet [from Full Toilet 7"]

a great trip actually
It has that opening whammy thing down and then stops.

Pledge Allegiance - Robber's Roost [from Live in Minneapolis]



political?
add to the right left margin lists of Boretz's I/O

Winners - Manfriday [a Rescued Record]

manufactured live feel
hey kids
do it yourself
without leaving the house

sampled sound feel
no reason for instrumental intervals
if none are strutting
hey kids
insert your righteous strut solo here

push button for cheering multitude sound sample

When the Darkness Comes Out at Night - Whitney Ballen [from White Feathers/White Linen]



a sweet song sung with joy
playful
down with how unimportant it is to be taking it seriously

a strenuous joy

April 12, 2020
Banned Rehearsal 921 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 2016]



the need:
a place to stand
: could be a score
: could be a habit
: could be a rut or a phone booth or a wood box
: could be a vehicle
: could be a room or the past or our conjointed experience together

? how comfortable do we need to be with our bona fides ?
? our imprimatur ?
? does our place to stand allow adequate liberty to each others' places to stand ?
? does our place to stand disappear in the experience of the moment, become transparent to it ?
? are we now the center of attention ?

The house of Atreus has fallen in the dust. Pastichery has a similar problem.

a magnum mysterium - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

see?

if you don't mess with it so much it's lovely!

Monkey on a Chain - Courtney Marie Andrews [from No One's Slate Is Clean]

big arrangement of small sounds made bigger in perspective
big voice saying things to you holds its own
plenty big

I'm Set Free - Brian Eno [from The Ship]

slow moving rise of pitch level into choral harmony
like any another choir anthem might do has done

You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon [from The Essential Paul Simon]

staccato talk-o
urban tales
told quick

Desert Bloom  (underlying electronic track) - Steve Scribner

a chorale underneath the yet dark sky
commendable intonation doing
no fade out on that
no sir just cut it off
yes

lovely understated it-ness

April 14, 2020
Gradus 302 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 2016]

we listen for paths to follow and then we have followed
calls into question the tense of listening
a fluid multi-morphing attitude to the sense of experience of what might as well be called now
bending sequential experience to follow the path we have formed to be on

[aside: music is often composed so that sequence matters to its image of comprehensibility. It can't be mixed or shuffled in our experiencing of it and still be recognizably it.]

this
shit
isn't

radical content determinacy writ so large as to be ungraspable as experience

Darlington County - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

or Klickitat County
as Karen sings it

the better life elsewhere
the myths of worker migrant america
the allure of the south

whips his big man out
sax, right

Dust and Dirt - Smokestack and the Foothill Fury [from America's Freedom Death March]



a report from the grit road
DIY blues hillbilly perfection
last red cent shiny dime
and time in time

Ocean Ambience Rocky Coastline (Volume 3) - Pete Comley

a list of sounds
arcanely catalogued and sequenced
for real

a drawer of specimens
of such beetle-like things
alike and not the same
a memento of eternity
that will persist beyond and without regard for our time of woe
and even these not eternal
all of it that we can be conscious of is limited to that of which our consciousness is capable
no more

April 15, 2020
Singet und klinget, ihr Kindelein - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

instrumental parts and vocal parts of essentially identical, interchangeable, double-able

does it mean that they were intended to be infinitely arrangeable,
or that these were the sorts of lines composers knew how to work with and were acceptable in polite paying company
and that they intended these pieces for the particular forces available to the instant occasion for which it was written
nor to be ever after considered

I Will - High Class Wreckage [from High Class Wreckage]



your evil ways
yeah I like 'em

the increments are extraordinarily narrow
but carefully prepared to inhabit the package they are packed in
with only just the bare necessity of protrusion

Banned Rehearsal 922 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 2016]



"Bickleton Burger" for Aaron's birthday
shades of Aaronsbundler wheezing on the pump organ
trigger alert: metal on metal squeaking

out loud
reading from a score
of any kind
is
to some extent
a cop-out
a dis-engagement
a breach of social contract

or

success at engagement involves disappearance as a clearly independent activity agent
one's part comes apart
joins collectivity

the undigested past
disgorged
use fresh water

April 16, 2020
You Make My Tremolo - Sun Sect [a Rescued Record]

The band plays in another room, early DIY? Demo-ish frog croak
record me! I wanna be a paperback writer
bluesy bland guitar hook

What Love Will Provide - Yuni [formerly in Taxco?] [from Sanpaku]



late surf pop in a big can

Austin - SeaStar [from Never Go Back]



the power of a melody sung alone
still does it for me
all one ever really needs

Working On The Highway - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

all he really needed here
was a set of spoons

Smoke Goes Clearing - Shelby Earl [from Burn The Boats]



teaching one's self's mirror's you

who comfort
him or her

me you I

Gradus 303 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 2016]

rung one:
the nearly replete
rung two:
the replete
{of the collection so far}

this is not counting in the sequential manner, i.e.

0 - 0
1 - 1
10 - 2
11 - 3
100 - 4
101 - 5
110 - 6
111 - 7
1000 - 8
1001 - 9
1010 - 10
1100 - 12
1011 - 11
1101 - 13
1110 - 14
1111 - 15

it is out of order as counting
and will continue to scatter as time goes on
that is, taken as an expression of quantity in base 2
increment becomes confused or refracted
and that refraction is a figure
writ upon time

any segment of a rung might express a number in base 2
and any number can be placed in a hypothetical time point
so that composition can be time travel

{{having grown old with tape bleed it is easy for me to hear a PPP pitch instance followed by a the same pitch played F as just that: tape bleed
though here, that's just how he plunked it}}

and partitions of rungs played together
(think Babbitt's arrays)
are different quantities or quantity numbers nobbing hob together in a counterpoint of time travelings
extending beyond the universe

like tapes played together
as tape bleed made big

Bransle de poictou - La bona novella - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

The Renaissancy in all its jingle bell hoary glory
so quaint

--- Warning - Operation ID [from Legs]



a ringtone to riff under
push it around if you can
holds together under pressure
not immovable
but moves as a thing

Go Fast - Crystal Beth and the Boom Boom Band [from Yugen 3]



create a rhythmic environment
like a room to be in
of one's own
as it were

decorative impulse
in a non bull-shit way
throw some posters on the wall
what you might want to see
to reflect memory and aspiration and attitude

Postscripts

(-)ture he has labored at this and to be

complete monicker means a year at harvard

without music the only reward he

hung there from another mind

dyes dray violet

blows on the bass drum

Playlist

Live

February 28, 2020
Seattle Composers' Salon
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Jeremiah Lawson
Mariza Costa-Cabral
Keith Eisenbrey
Sheila Bristow
Doug Palmer

Jeremiah Lawson - Sonata in D minor
Mariza Costa-Cabral - Piano Pieces (selections)
Keith Eisenbrey - Anybody's Fingerbook (selections)
Sheila Bristow - Piano Pieces (selections)
Doug Palmer - 3 songs from an opera (Farewell My Lovely) - Barbara Hume, voice; David Paul Mesler, piano

It was a distinct pleasure to be the substitute host for this event. I didn't want to be distracted from my Tom Baker impersonation duties by taking notes, but (my own entry possibly excepted) the presentations were all distinctly engaging, the Q&A was lively and supportive, and we all left smiling. I look forward to hearing more from everybody.

Recorded

February 22, 2020
Rusalka op. 114 Act I (selection) - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

Oh silver moon

Every few moments I got a whiff of one of his near contemporaries. Franck! Wagner! Mussorgsky! Puccini! Verdi! This little aria gets through a bunch of stuff.

Bumper in the Hail - Courtney Marie Andrews [from No One's Slate is Clean]



affect calibration
(Dvořák was doing the same thing)
often effectively
though the power immersion wash at the end may be a bit much

Corollaries (Down's Down) 160924 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey

so that each note fades to nothing
how low will it go (just that low) (that time)
the notes allow super-ample time to get to thinking so that each note appears !!bang!! mid thought
like a rock through a window
wait for it
the fact that it has a beginning and an ending may not be a proper part of its itness

(Trio) Sonata in G minor, K 88 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder, Rémy Baudet & Frank Wakelkamp

dynamics
discretely, politely, stable
so as not to disturb

each movement a step more ritmato and varied

Sleeping Angel (from "Fast Times") - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

center stage spotlight glory
spinny stars

Badlands - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

inhabits the persona of his song's fictive voice
you could, almost, believe it is him saying it
a bit of a method over-actor
break the furniture

Japanese Lanterns - Whiting Tennis [from Three Leaf Clover]



effective use of found or pre-recorded sounds, structurally psychedelic

Chaotic Heart - Your Mother Should Know [live at SkyChurch November 2011]

I recorded this from an elevated booth/cage in the back of the venue.

The drums sound great!
a call to arms
a come on in

The Little Western - SeaStar [from Never Go Back]



co-memory
commemoration
heroic journey
and its heroic heroes

February 23, 2020
(Trio) Sonata in D minor, K. 89 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder, Rémy Baudet & Frank Wakelkamp

muscular 3rd movement
for the enjoyment of the participants

Machine - Black Flag [from The First Four Years]

same remit as Throbbing Gristle
but without the synths

Maniac Rockers From Hell - Sun Sect [a Rescued Record]

(in their dreams)
or so they say

The Noon Witch - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

baseline balance with high alarm to hinge into other dramas, other scenes.
spends a lot of time transitioning and hearkening back or forth
happy to get outdoors

uh oh
(spooky woods)

Song From the Voices on Earth (underlying electronic track) - Steve Scribner

layers of doings filtered by precipitation through a dense gaseous shadow
outlived cellular husks easing through the seafloor
and beyond
whistling into the dark void

Corollaries (Up's Down) 160924 - Keith Eisenbrey

so that each note fades to nothing

That this would be a shorter piece if the damper pedal wasn't pressed the whole time is certain. So: instrument and tempo correlate (a corollary with correlations). tee hee.

Polyphony is a compression algorithm
Melody determines duration shapes
Immediate repetition (at the zero interval) startles and sticks out as does no other interval as it comes about: a unique noticing in this context :due to: the interval as such is underlined. Sameness shouts.

inquiry
enquiry
anquiry
onquiry
unquiry

we take it apart
we smash its atoms
we are those who stare at beans

(Trio) Sonata in D minor, K. 90 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder, Rémy Baudet & Frank Wakelkamp

evoking a much larger ensemble than just these three by judicious use of articulation and counterpoint
(back to compression algorithms)

Gold Dust Woman - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

dance and song
how to be seen :: own it
high fantasy (dragons, witches, etc.)

Esprits divin - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

certainly attractive enough

One True Love - Whiting Tennis [from Three Leaf Clover]




bitter edge recrimination song

Ask Your Question - Your Mother Should Know [live at SkyChurch November 2011]

Neal's deVille (the guitar amp, courtesy of High Class Wreckage, see below)
comfort sound transitional object

Flesh - Crystal Beth & The Boom Boom Band [from Yugen 3]




heterophony reed to strum
took a long wild run at that loop
witchprog

February 25, 2020
(Trio) Sonata in G Major, K. 91 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder, Rémy Baudet & Frank Wakelkamp

decorum maintained
at all times

at least in this room

when we get outside we can let loose into outdoors decorum
{interesting use of empty beats there Domenico!}
back indoors again
on the way home among familiars

Six Pack - Black Flag [from The First Four Years]

establish a rhythm then goose it
mirror of their song "TV Party"
but smaller

Because The Night - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Live 1975-1985]

verses thrown away for a hook heavy chorus
modulation won't help
nor will an unearned noodly nowhere instrumental thingy
this just sounds tired

Slavonic Dances op. 46 (selection) - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

music you can do for yourself for sale here
no time to finesse nothin'!

Over - High Class Wreckage [from High Class Wreckage]

rhythm differentials
are a crucial braille
within the energy beam

February 27, 2020
Corollaries (Up's Down) 161008 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey

assembled
hairpin envelopes
an illusion of distance and speed
in a doppler-bereft universe

image: arriving then leaving
not staying

and,
unlike
unmessed-with
piano notes:
no clear beginning
or time point
as such
at all

at least in the sense that
we ontologize the note as happening

→→→→→→here←←←←←←

then going away

it is always itself throughout
across expanse
a spatial now

Sonata in D minor, K. 92 - Pieter-Jan Belder

a nod to France as nods to France were done back then.

The strong rhythmic profile allows the substance of the structure to play surreptitiously, hid. Led blindfolded.

Gold and Braid (Live 1982) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

rides the band surfer-like

pop music in general often has a difficult time with the ends of things
fades and raves and other cop outs

Nothing In Common - Thompson Twins [a Rescued Record]

Stingy Julian Lennon vibe
empty professionalismus
can't fade out quite quickly enough

In Session at the Tintinabulary

February 24, 2020
Banned Rehearsal 1002 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Postscripts

here is polenka tell in french well brought-up

punch yes sing you keep standing get money

that will be much for that's quite a lullaby

** ** **

the snow had disappeared

but the weight of it had not

lighted windows

Playlist

Preface

"Snowflakes, maple leaves, spots on leopards, stripes on zebras, palm fronds, banana skins, identical twins, lizard's tails, men's eyes, women's toes, Joans and Johns differ, each unto themselves. For physical survival, I need to be able to distinguish each lizard and each mushroom. For psychic survival, I desperately want to be able to distinguish each eye and each leaf and each E-flat. How not always to think in terms of terms and kinds and types is hard work; the eschewal of broad generalizations and categories, cases and classes takes time. But there's always an unexpected payoff when I try.

Virginia Woolf said simply 'Think of things in themselves.'"

Elaine Barkin "Rules of One's Own" from "e : an anthology"

Texts

Recorded

September 7, 2019
Sonata in D minor, K. 41 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

a mock fugue
a probable canon

like JSB, the contrapuntal conceits are just the ground, the bramble through which what it actually is
wanders

Messiah Part 1 - George Frideric Handel - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chamber Chorus, Robert Shaw, Kaaren Erickson, Sylvia McNair, Alfreda Hodgson, Jon Humphrey, Richard Stilwell, Layton James

An historical thought:
in our culture composition is considered to be an intellectual activity, the province of experts, geniuses, immortals. but listening is for anybody. Why is that? Ben Boretz says "Listening is primal composition."

One problem with music such as this, in one's own tongue, is that the word painting sticks out.

It is orchestrated like a brick wall.

An amusing tidbit:
the use of wordpainting is often pointed to, not just to help neophytes into the listening, but also as the very fingerprint of genius itself. I aver that that is most certainly what it is not.

now become a cult classic
sing along
like Rocky Horror Picture Show

A Quick One, While He's Away - The Who [from A Quick One]

in the image of Bob
but the scenes change

how many songs is this song?
Story line: a really good stupid movie.

September 10, 2019

Year 1 - X [from Wild Gift]

In my confusion I had conflated X with Talking Heads. I got most of the way through without cognitive dissonance, trouble-less, before I clicked back. Many of my favorite Talking Heads songs are by X.

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear - London Symphony Orchestra [from Listen To The Joy]

but it was so polite you missed it.

Desert Angel - Stevie Nicks [from Timespace]

memoir song
desert storm I suppose
one of those designer label wars from the '90s.

Das Dörfchen - Franz Schubert [from Robert Shaw Master of the First Art]

piano may as well be
not there

Rain In The Dust - Robert Tree Cody, Will Clipman [from Heart of the Wind]

The reverb makes it difficult to hear what sounds the lips are making. Short.

September 12, 2019
Gradus 196 part 1 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [live at the Chapel Performance Space August 2011]

Chapel, at the
which has a low breathy tone about it just catching air as it does
one should not hear the entrance

one should be being social during the entrance
then, once social being is done
come in
entracted
entractomogrified

some organism is making a blowy noise on something

windy in the real world tonight
Donnerwort! for real in the world tonight!
September of storms

So why is it this luscious recorded ambiance should so luscious be, as compared to any, including this actual ambiance?
Because it is a layer upon experience : experience experiencing
FLASH!!!!

far far away rumble
somebody's rattling dishes
odd

bit closer that one

long long rumbly sky

each A a mark

strange
slow
slowly doing doings
are afoot

September 17, 2019
Hjarta og Eldur - SeaStar [from Never Go Back]

of heroic deeds and dire

Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 42 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

perfectly ordinary
were it not for that bit that hangs
askew
and quite tiny

Central Park In The Dark - Charles Ives - Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin

layers combine but never bend
forever incongruous accumulation to no end

Dry Bones - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey [April 1966]

no trombones in this one

Leather and Lace (remastered) - Stevie Nicks [from Bella Donna]

public analysis of self with other :: thin
not as affecting as would have been hoped
another half song
in all sorts of dimensions

September 19, 2019
Amazing Grace - Neal Kosály-Meyer [San Diego, October 1986]

and its pitch set as ordered and inflected
as I imagine it might be like, mutatis mutandis, to understand a raga from within its womb
gospel raga blues
composition in minute differentials

{NB: Neal sang the hymn unaccompanied in an empty church for 47 minutes}

On Excursion in Portland and Environs

September 13, 2019
4 33 Hawthorne Bridge Song - Keith Eisenbrey

No blog last week because we were in Portland so that Karen could help staff her publisher's booth at

the Rose City Comic Con. I took a walk around the Willamette River. Under Hawthorne Bridge I stopped and recorded cars on the bridge deck above me. All I had was my phone, so that is what I used.

Steel Bridge - Keith Eisenbrey



On the north end of my walk I recorded this train crossing Steel Bridge.

Robert Meyer Tour - Keith Eisenbrey



We were staying with relatives in Milwaukie (Karen's Dad's Brother and his Wife). Uncle Bob showed me, with demonstrations, his fine collection of brass instruments.

Gramophone Demonstration - Keith Eisenbrey


Then he demonstrated one of his gramophones. This was one where the stylus moves up and down and the diaphragm is horizontal to the record's surface - like as if a snake had swallowed a silver dollar - and the records themselves are nearly a 1/4 inch thick.

September 14, 2019
Propane Tank Bell - Keith Eisenbrey


The next morning I recorded the sound of the bell that hangs outside their front door, made from a propane tank.

Steel Bridge (Worthy) - Keith Eisenbrey

I had left Karen at Comic Con and walked to a spot on the esplanade near the Steel Bridge to record the sounds of traffic and Max trains crossing. It ended up being an excellent spot also for passing cyclists, scooterists, and pedestrians. I had been sitting there for about 30 minutes, reading a magazine, when a younger man - mid 40's perhaps, with an intense air, wound tight, asked if I was going to be there a while and would I watch his wallet and stuff. After some confusion on my part, having not been expecting to be addressed, I agreed. He told me his name, left his phone and jacket and perhaps a syringe. "Nitro"* he said, if you do drugs. I told him I didn't. Then I told him "Come back soon," which I had to repeat. He seemed focused elsewhere, pumped, psyched up.

He met a younger man with a skateboard a few dozen yards away and together they walked out onto the walkway under the bridge. My heart began to pound some. They got to a point just before the first support. He removed his shirt, looked over both sides of the walk. He hoisted himself, gracefully, onto the rail, then back to the walk. He replaced his shirt, climbed back to the rail and with a dramatic sweep of his arms leaped feet first into the Willamette.

He surfaced quickly and began to swim to shore. His companion came back near to where I was sitting and clambered athletically over the rail and, apparently, down the embankment. A few minutes later they both re-appeared over the rail, the leaper dripping wet, and recovered his belongings.

I had been considering what to say, finally settling on "That was an extreme baptism." He said "I like that." His companion said "That was awesome," and they walked on south along the esplanade. It's all on the recording, including the splash.

*listening back I realize that my memory had failed on this point, even though I wrote the story down just a few minutes after the fact. He actually said they were his nitroglycerin pills, concerned I suppose that I might think they were worth experimenting with.

Max Train Luna Milwaukie - Keith Eisenbrey

On the orange line back to Milwaukie the announcer kept saying "Linea de Milwaukie." (I hope I spelled that correctly. My Spanish is shamefully nonexistent.) I turned my recorder on too late to capture the line, but the moon was out, hence the Luna.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

September 9, 2019
Gradus 355 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

no end in mind?
the mind can't conceive of this end
to which there is no approach

September 12, 2019
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort (one way) - Keith Eisenbrey

The third chorale in my chorale project, being the twelfth part of Études d'exécution imminent.

September 16, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 989 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt

We are back indoors for the fall and winter and spring.

September 19, 2019
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort (other way) - Keith Eisenbrey

The fourth chorale of the above, being the same tune, but blandished an other way.

Postscripts

the and the the weather be very fine

usually congregate below a

clerk's improved is seat who could be wife on

twice
we turn a corner
in stop frame motion

Playlist

Preface

"It seems clear that music never asks us either to make or experience it: in fact, it is helpless (indeed nonexistent) without us. We make music, because we need yet other ways to talk (to manifest more than our mere existence, as Herbert Brün would have said) and to enhance our physical and mental environments. Anything from the idea of music as political tract or personal rant to that of music as architecture or ecosystem - (cathedral, sermon tantrum, wolf-pack or rainforest) - may serve to both initiate and elucidate its complexities. . . .but"
Robert Paredes "Might Never Have Been: To and For Benjamin Boretz" Open Space Magazine issue 19/20 fall 2015/spring 2016

Texts

Live

May 10, 2019

Three Fingers
Camarones Orquesta Guitarristica
Ramona
Dead Bars
at The Kraken, Seattle

This was so much fun!

Neal - Many thanks for the ride to and from!

COG is from Brazil - BRAZIL!!! - a guitar orchestra led by the electric bass and the bass player and her swinging hair
Karen thinks they may have heard The Ventures, or if they haven't they ought to

The others are local or started local back to visit to join the party to celebrate Dead Bars album release. They all put on a truly enjoyable party in the oven that is the Kraken on an unseasonably toasty May evening baking us in a multitude of carefully calibrated variations of the old Ramonesy we're a happy family punk beat.

which: is there to create a springboard floor upon which to pogo slam and slosh about in the moshing up front so then
Karen and I moved up to the front row (but at one end because we're not stupid about being old) for Dead Bars' set to let what freak flags we have fly and to enjoy being part of the mosh slosh. One might not think it from the outside, but everyone up there is looking out for everybody else, gently guarding the possibility of vulnerability.
physical but quite aware of contact's context

Recorded

May 4, 2019
Sonata in G minor, K. 4 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

local tonality clarified by its mode of suspension within the figuration patterns
and vice versa

All The Dearly Beloved Together Forever I Do! I Do! - Harvey Schmidt - Mary Martin, Robert Preston [from I Do! I Do!]

the passage of Virginia Woolf's Orlando wherein marriage is the mania that sweeps all things Victorian portends
a response to a cultural cataclysm

there will always be a reaction
given a cataclysm

from piano plunking to full tutti scoring Broadway glitz and glam

Trinkle, Tinkle (take 2) - Thelonious Monk [from The London Collection]

this time
every keystroke
tells

White Girl - X [from Wild Gift]

plot the ratio of female vocal
to male vocal
in terms of duration allowed

the social picture of who absconds with the story
like measuring screen time in frames
counting lines and words

Janie Don't You Lose Heart - Bruce Springsteen [from 6 B-sides]

pop music as a service industry
providing comfort in convenient packages
strong unfussy songwriting though

one should studio fade a comfort song because that gives time for the comfort consumer to wish it would go on for ever

Sedimentary - AMM [from The Nameless Uncarved Block]

suspended but brought down through the echoed deep
a process of tiny things invisible adds up in the dimmest murk light
approaching the darkness of beneathness earth descends to carry earth upon its back
earth upon earth upon earth

heaven's burden is light

crabs on caffeine and all that pounds down upon us
and the relentless solar wind

Whispering Ancestors - Dean Evenson [from Native Healing]

ancestor worship
a projection of filiality into the void
they of the past in our future abode

culture question: Is there a general connection between this continent's indigenous culture's music and the function of healing, or is it a more narrowly held shamanist practice?

Liebeslied Amended - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey [recording of June 15, 2010]

From my very first sight read through of Ben's original piece I wanted it to lilt a little
why?
I suspect now that I was wrong
or: in which I demonstrate the sense in which I immediately and continuously heard this as a Tristan piece

this time the repeat is a simple surprise
and it is a luscious score for damper pedal enthusiasts

The Sow Took The Measles C Reverb - Train Case

Karen and Neal are sounding pretty good there

The Great Silkie - SeaStar [from Never Go Back]

sounds like the Velvet Underground doing Fairport Convention
Canals of Venice would dig this

May 5, 2019
Sonata in D minor, K. 5 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

so graceful in its pivots
liberated from obsessive
no fuss just do it
obligatory elaboration

Eyes Of My Beloved - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey [April 1966]

motet arrangement
for groups
because that's what folks did when they got together
so arrangers were required to produce entertaining activities such as the singing of motets

Pat A Pan - Lake Washington Singers, Betty Eisenbrey [December 1971]

with recorder! an instrument that my Mom was to have a long and happy relation with for decades after

Halloween - Dead Kennedys [from Plastic Surgery Disasters/In God We Trust]

straight line
then divergent
independent strands provide a place to dance
different bounce in the floor boards

The Kosály-Meyers 1 - Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [June 1986]

we begin the long era of separation as Neal and Anna are now in San Diego
Aaron was still in Berkeley
just Karen and I left here in Seattle
(good thing we got married or folks would have wondered)

tape epistles link the coast
one could hardly get further apart along it than S and SD
His didgerido does a buzz bee swarm effect as he circle breathes and moebially waves the du end within magnetic range of the channel poles
or indeed the recording device is doing it or this is just its failure

then the ritual I am where I am dance

Neal wanders restless the knock on soul's door

we are having an explore
it is one thing until it is another
a song by Neal
Can't Hear The Words

Shaker Suite - Canadian Brass [from Red, White & Brass]

a gift
to be

Track 6 - Seattle Chamber Music Festival [July 1991]

domestic scenes
the children used
to make up theaters

"...woe my road is spoken..." Keith Eisenbrey [midi draft 5.2 of July, 2006]

getting very close to the final version
definitely a Liebeslied influenced piece but through my chart a journey to where the blue milk's lullaby

number and pattern in action to freeze a span

Is It Serious? - Joel Gressel [from Milton Babbitt: A Composers' Memorial]

electronic
digital
more malleable
organ

glow-eyed aliens in clean room console arrays
goofing off

the simultaneous display of all the far distant instances of a communication seen from within their glowing eyes

May 7 and 9, 2019

Swarm + Stew - Neal Kosály-Meyer - Loren Kiyoshi Dempster, Ione, Neal Kosály-Meyer, Pauline Oliveros, Margaret Sunghe Paek, Greg Powers [recorded live at the Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, July 2016]

30 minutes before the show the sound check was insurrected by the performers
a plea for that silence which is the absence of inappropriateness
compositional prolongation of the decrescendo of hush that precedes the ceremony of musical expression
extended maximally

lonesome train country blues
in the back of what arises
a congregational breathing coalesces
or joins
bone to bone sinew at this sunset

a starter drug
a permittor

(language mistrusts music, fears it, co-opts attention)

dangerous dancers
Stu Dempster reunited with the infernal racket bulldozer, his old friend

In Session at the Tintinabulary

May 6, 2019
Banned Rehearsal 981 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer


we convened on the porch

Postscripts

according to harm tear in wants order

against these because others give it up

prayer works so that they abandon prayer

increment

through matrix

trace result