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

"encreaturing each newly multiplied member
and all as well,
irreducibly metabonded herenow,
repleting, for clarity's sake,
whatever has been
beclogging in metaform effusion without,
backcumulating in multiform deflection within,
whatever across a timescene tightwarped
the flickerthickening multiprescient urnow
of omniconjunction fast
forever attached
has been unspooling,
                 from a firstindexed moment,
                                                               to now"
-Benjamin Boretz "Language, as a Music"

Texts

Live Streaming

April 8, 2020

American Interwar Piano Music

Peter Nelson-King, piano

Leo Sowerby - "River Night" from Florida Suite (1930)
Alexander Lipsky - Four Sketches (1928)
Harold Brown - Little Prelude No. 1 (1935)
Elliott Carter - Pavane from Pocahontas (1936)
Lazare Saminsky - Three Shadows (1935)
Amy Beach - By the Still Waters (1924)
John Alden Carpenter - Diversions (1923)
William Bailey - Musing (1930)

Our local unearther of old treasures presented another fascinating glimpse at the strange and often lovely things that American Music has been. I was especially taken by the sophisticated keyboard writing of Amy Beach and John Alden Carpenter.

Recorded

April 4, 2020

Walk The Corn - Three Fingers - [from Three Songs]



succinct, bracingly so
The chord change pattern provides an ample expanse upon which to inscribe vocal precision.

Edge of Seventeen - Stevie Nicks [from Timespace: The Best of Stevie Nicks]

variations on the oo oo oo
(the lines as rhythms have angled jumpcut corners to them)
oo oo oo variations come back with "eyes on him"

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

stadium blues bluster
here's the part where you applaud us

Track 1 - Pouch [Live at the Funhouse, July 2011]

the vocal: a cross between a roar and a shout and a scream
the foil: for a beach buggy bounce instrumental

Que Linda Noche - Lunas [from Over Me]



take me I'm a door prize? out of your way? Posies-like power pop.

Airplane Blues - Allen Ginsberg [from Holy Soul, Jelly Roll]

circles around his old themes
just like the blues do
mostly

Tau garçó, la durundena - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

theatrical alternation of solos
is there documentation of the theatrical alternation of solos as a practice
or could we determine its origin in more recent times?

Gradus 202 (Rung 3) Live at the Chapel- Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 2011]

Rung Three begins with a long wait, and then, it seems, another, without pause.
While we wait the mind wanders.
[an interruption]
live theater! with stomping!
then a high A-nat
then a mid A-nat
so at last: two

compositional idea: play mostly the higher A-nat
occasionally dropping in the mid A-nat
ratio of higher/mid is, say, 50/1?
all pp to p
not long this 20 minute rung
we applaud

Willow I - Tyler Daniel Bean [from On Days Soon To Pass]



The instrumental is way up front.
They could re-do that I think.
It's a nice sound but it overwhelms the vocal for no apparent reason.

April 5, 2020
Leather and Lace - Stevie Nicks [from Timespace: The Best of Stevie Nicks]

The size of voice and the size of arrangement are well matched, and it is a pleasure. It must be tricky to accomplish this with such a big alto voice.

They! - U-Men

Screamin' J opening
rollicking good humor having a grand old good time
seriously not taking themselves
not so seriously
a bit like Young Fresh Fellows, but ruder, and (provisionally) smarter in an overtly smarter way

Roots - Wild Assumptions [from Roots/Run Like You]

long
short long
short long
quickly bounced
|2 1 2 1 2|2 1 2 1 2| etc.

Gradus 300 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 2016]

pale wash of signal dispersing sheer to the buoyant abyss

rung one
single pitch
must have been the new one
place protection here in order to continue safely on
up the pitch

rung two
two pitches at a Major 6th
G-nat to E-nat
the long silences serve to keep away that this-music-is-part-of-a-piece feeling
that is
that the moment we are in is locked in place

pitches assert their distinction from their function as interval node
I am what I am without comparison

Over Yonder Where Jesus Is - Leona Ruth [from Art of Field Recording Volume 1]

Earthly life as exile
solo mezzo voice
sung straight with tasteful ornamentation
gives tasteful a good name

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

wherein he tells a long story
get 'em on your side
build rapport
fathers songs and lovers
in time of war

tale told to a bar stool
in carefully constructed verse and chorus
uncertainty on the part of the speaker as to whether this wasn't his dream all along that they got or didn't
hope deflation

Love Song to Make Us Millions (side A) - Koko and the Sweetmeats [from Sacrifice]



In a large space
falls apart with impeccable elegance
into a new and slower tempo

Analysis Paralysis - Three Fingers [from Go Deep]



nice rhythm section!
excellent balance
clean trucks
but fussily just so

Conversation Pit (Austin Texas) - Benjamin Boretz, Janet Farr [from Inter/Play]

came out west
cote cooing
slumber hoots
tender hoots

behind all that is an omnipresent roar of what?
signal hypersensitive as to the mechanism that excites it
makes a noise, a roar, a whisper
electronically stable like dust were ye made

the effect of the recording mechanism
is present to the face of how this sounds
as though it were a movie on the outside of a building

Berberienne
coaxed out becomes quite a thing
furniture is moving across the floor
the space between is being cleared
that long song ends thwunk on the tonic
Re
Do

Tura lura lura, lo gau canta - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

like those movies
establish local color
everybody doing some renaissance era craft
playing a part
goes way modern

10xxoxxoxxox - Paul Rubinstein [from Solo Trios]



kalimba and reboxed bowed 'ud
kalimba is less a thumb piano
than it is
a metal tongued cavern

Thunder Punch Elephant Kick - Ancient Warlocks [from Ancient Warlocks 2]



I will now hit you with tribal power infusion ceremony
power up

April 6, 2020
Stop Draggin' My Heart Around - Stevie Nicks [from Timespace: The Best of Stevie Nicks]

the show is the show and on it goes
everyone loves the theater
latch on as needed

We're the Center for Disease Control Boys - C.D.C. Boys [a Rescued Record]

Honestly, this came up for listening all on its own.

every night we sit around and make this kind of noise

while Karen sews masks

April 7, 2020
Gradus 203 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 2011]

A-nats 1 3 5 6 & 8 then 1 3 5 7 & 8
the composing or analyzing ear can focus on the specious facts of notes and sequence
indexed by incipit and pitch
OR
on the lingering mix of decays
OR
both

for example
one could focus on what each new impact does to the ongoing decay mix
and at what point it simply becomes a part of that mix
or adds into it
keeps it afloat

listen to the figure from all sides til it is heard right
then move to another part to listen at
a pitch becomes a location outside of sequence space

Here We Are - Robber's Roost [from Cuatro]



I could listen to that guitar playing
for a good long while
awesome

Do The Meditation Rock - Allen Ginsberg with Steven Taylor [from Holy Soul, Jelly Roll]

I fought the Dharma and the Dharma won
for the crowds

Reading: Luke II 3-8 - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

Mary and Joseph and the babb'

Quarter Chicken Dark - Goat Rodeo [from The Goat Rodeo Sessions]

points at
the demotic
to what end?

to pull fans in : subterfuge
to relax : a lark
to get down : to slum
: or pretend

hard to escape its need to showcase chops

April 9, 2020
Gradus 301 - Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 2016]

As I listen a new guest is here
an old stuffed bear
looking out the window
hoping passing kids will get a kick out of it

Early on and for many years Gradus was the piece wherein Neal played nothing but A naturals. The pitch class palette is larger now. Is it difficult to hear as the same project? No. Why not? The ear matters more. The rungs involve and engage an approach, an activity. The ear is an unwritten score.

white collar intervals like anybody else's

OR

do intervals even exist on this planet?
because clearly, these ain't them

In Session at the Tintinabulary and Outposts

April 6, 2020
Bannedecameron 200406 Maple Leaf - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer (calling in)




br 04-06-20_covid-19_2 - Steve Kennedy

STE-018 200406 - Aaron Keyt

Karen and I set up in the studio so that Neal could call in and join us from afar. Steve sent about 4 minutes of precious signal. Aaron played along with a recording of what Karen Me and Neal had recorded, and recorded that.

Postscripts

coach-windows the bulky passenger the

bank always with him being that k. was

mercy and him off to besides k. had

a small road in the nether regions
an edge more or less complicated
by the motions of the whole distance between

Playlist

Preface

"BB: I don't think the connection with improvisation is just illusion. Sometimes composing means getting yourself into the situation where you can improvise just the right thing, whether it is with a drum or a pencil"

From a conversation between Benjamin Boretz and David Lidov, imagined by David Lidov 

- reprinted in the liner notes of Open Space CD 40

Texts

Recorded

January 18, 2020
HM - Tyrannosaurus Grace [from E.P. 1]



long explanation over
tight licks

underline one word 5 times (write it down now, class)
hang a whole clause up there in five underlines (yes it will be on the quiz)

Banned Rehearsal 917 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [August 2018]



language artifact:
a. (psycho-acoustic) our ears are tuned to it as it tunes to our ears
b. (psycho-linguistic) as text, it references a meaning outside of its sound, it comments upon a world it creates by reference
c. (hard-wired) it becomes discrete in a way that music sound doesn't directly
d. (indirectly) we hear tune A as the music carrier of a text B that creates a world C by reference
e. (continued) we create memory D as the conjointure of tune A as carrier of text B as creator of a world C by [as it creates by] reference
f. (continued) we hear tune A without Text B and recall memory D as the conjointure of tune A with text B which memory includes text B and thus the world C created therein by reference
g. (_____) text reference is a hard-wired psychofact

music artifact:
a. music sound's hard-wired psychofact is a binding of sound and instrument (sounds are sounds of something)
b. sound is a meaning of an object
c. an instrument refers to its sounds - a text refers to its world

instruments mean sounds
texts mean worlds

instrument is text
text is instrument

Sonata in B-flat, K. 70 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

so: keyboard object means this music into the world
keyboard: the autocrat's dream controller

The more-full-than-the-articulative-fabric-texture sound of a final cadence says: this is a marker, a punctuation. Measure from here.

Music for String Trio Mvt. 1 - Milton Babbitt [from Erik Carlson's Slowly Expanding Milton Babbitt Album]

What fun!!

Going Down The Road Feeling Bad - Jake Staggers [from Art of Field Recording, Volume 1]

a real whopper
banjo blues
vocal in the high sings

Hungry Heart - Bruce Springsteen [from Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Live 1975-85]

in full frontal Sister Amy mode
call response preacher man

Grandfather's Breath - Robert Tree Cody / Will Clipman [from Heart of the Wind]

What are we hearing in music we surmise to be westernized, to have been westernized? What is that quality or complex of qualities which, upon infliction, has westernized it thereby?

**

voice raised in song
a raised voice
a raised voice singing
(raised voice singing)
voice raised to singing
voice raised up into singing

24 Preludes - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey

Preludes to me: to keep them narrowly tonal, in keys, with clear voice leading and cadences and everything, was a discipline within which I can sing. I really like these, not a note out of place.

A key can be a hint of something warily watched.

detailed tales

polytonality at its best: in which it can also be in several keys, but often only in one, but
in which that key or several is clearly constructed by means of several completely distinct establishings.

Archibald Street - Tyler Daniel Bean [from On Days Soon To Pass]



the highway is a guitar string
strum it lengthwise with steel
harmony singing, real singing!

January 19, 2020
Sonata in G Major, K. 71 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

mode change in the middle of a four-fold cadence phrase

that is,
while in the process of stabilization
the ground shifts

Shout, Lulu - Jake Staggers [from Art of Field Recording, Volume 1]

case study in rock solid non-metronomic tempo

Banned Telepath 8 San Diego - Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [December 1986]

bell like a door bell
squeak like a door hinge

happy holly wood
new year's moments

broadcast sound
that phenomenally dull preacher guy droning on and on

old holly wood
Jacques Cousteau

the dishes being done
neal dus dijeridu while dishes done

neal does not do dishes
duzzee

no he does not
he dus he dijeridus

now do you
do you now
you now do
now you do
you do now
do now you

an outside source
takes up residence out of time

the bibleolator of bibleolatry:
"there is no record any where in the bible that Satan can raise the dead"

bell . . . bell

As the prerecorded drone chant fades out will the denizens put on something else or will this ball bounce and hand clap clicking sticks be it?

the mallets are out on an explore

explore bell
implore bell
implurabell

Piano Trio in E minor "Dumky" (selection) - Antonín Leopold Dvořák [from Naxos The Very Best of Dvorak]

very churchy
this movement is an entire service of worship
or an operatic act that starts with a church service and ends thus
covers of a book back and front

Run Like You - Wild Assumptions [from Run Like You / Roots]

quite a nicely subtle agogic accent there
just enough air between the times
reminded me of how St. Rage might sound

Corollaries - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey

from my performance at Seattle Composers' Salon in September of 2016

the old version before I rethought how the wraparound should work
a list of notes hiding a list of intervals

lovely extraneous noise in the mix there

back of my mind here: Dan Sedia's 1982 bike lock poem

January 21, 2020
Sonata in C Major, K. 72 - Domenico Scarlatti - Pieter-Jan Belder

Triads are made of scale degrees, which, as they repeat within figurations, blossom the meter buds.

gods - J. K. Randall, Wally Shoup [from Inter/Play - April 1981]

out of doors
whistling in the wind
endeavoring to connect
not to monument
trudging in vegetation
ground cover
nothing that happens here
is projected to please
any outside being
or even
hardly
to reach any

through it all the cyclic motor of what I presume to be a cassette tape machine mechanism
a constant noise background
a ground upon which it is difficult
to inscribe a sound

January 23, 2020
A Matter of Trust - Billy Joel [from The Essential Billy Joel]

message front "I understand" empathy token
icky at the core
sincerity on parade
dough rake

{blogger's note: this came up for listening in error (mine), since I had already blogged it back in April of 2017, at which time I wrote the following):

BJ has great control, just no range, or sense of timing. Even the count-off is performed, tamed.

Kyrie eleison - Boston Camerata [from A Renaissance Christmas]

{blogger's note: back to our regularly scheduled program}

scholars of style
:: one could imagine a performance practice in which an attempt is made to hear and perform exactly what a more modern arranger had in mind when they attempted to understand this music according to the lights they were given ::

all theory all the way down is performance and versa wise

Pitch Derived Rhythm - 6 Demonstrations - J. K. Randall - Open Space Chamber Players: Matt Ross, flute; Viktor Toth, clarinet; Lauren Peacock, cello; Alana Shannon, cello; Corey Chang, piano [from Open Space CD 40]



human

invited
to regroup

at will
or whim

generous
with paths

invites further
investigations

no end
in sight

An Encore - Milton Babbitt [from Erik Carlson's Slowly Expanding Milton Babbitt Album]

conversation for
a co-discovered realm

your blogger, composer of preludes

Preludes 17-20 - Keith Eisenbrey - Keith Eisenbrey

from my recital "Preludes in Seattle Part 5" of February 2018

deep in the flats: A-flat Major, F minor, E-flat major, C minor

when a pitch function is struck
within sequentiality
is not as crucial as where
within the greater conceptual space
it fits

The Far Side of the World - Dræmhouse [from Only Friends EP]

a constant and interjections
oddities
repetitions
an extensible world

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 20, 2020
Gradus 362 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

Is there (there is) a system to how he announces the notes 2B played

Each, every, a, or any performance of an indeterminate score is determinate in relation to what was indeterminate in the score's imputed intent.

to aim an exploration at the known it is useful
to aim at the unknown

(exp) lore at ion

At what point in this project will (would) it be more advantageous
to remember which notes are not being used,
or is the discipline to not cross that bridge?

the discretion of the rungs

soundbreak in time
costume change in body
ever more rarefied selections

Postscripts

woman forgot water god's flame in

which about saying that it enjoys

eternal life yet it does not work thus

the stone

would draw thunder

the lion in my wall

Playlist

Live

August 10, 2013
Brian Capozzoli

Swamp Meat
Tyler Daniel Bean

Red Ribbon
Victory Lounge, Seattle

Red Ribbon

Swamp Meat

The most important music is your own - the music you invent and the music you make. The next most important music is that of your local peer community - the music your friends and colleagues make in the place you are. Everything else - including those musics which have so permeated the larger culture as to be inescapable, including those musics which have so permeated you as to be inextricable from your ear, including especially those musics which have been granted pantheonic status by the larger culture so that all the musics we make and share are held to their eternal standard - all these musics are of a distantly secondary importance. I am interested, as I wander now in my mid-adulthood into the realms of the local rock and roll scene, my 'music-in-law' so to speak, that the denizens of this community seem to be, by and large, more comfortable with this fact than, say, the classical music community is, and even (though to a somewhat less egregious extent) than the new music community is. It is refreshing to find a music that isn't performing for an invisible posterity, that is playing for us, here, now.

Thanks guys!

Recorded

August 11, 2013
Banned Sectional 4 KEE AK - July 1985 - Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt

What music can allow itself to be when there is no audience beyond the participants. Militantly not public, but finely drawn with limited elements.

August 13, 2013
Banned Rehearsal 45 - July 1985 - Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer

Aaron's last session with us before heading off to Berkeley.

I Want (Everything You Want) - Keith Eisenbrey
Hey Hey Hey - Keith Eisenbrey
All These Days - Keith Eisenbrey
Don't Know - Keith Eisenbrey
I Drank - Keith Eisenbrey

August 14, 2013
Banned Rehearsal 46 - July 1985 - Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Meyer

The first Sudden Song session. We take turns inventing a song on the spot and we all accompany.

August 15, 2013
One Two Three - Keith Eisenbrey
Bug Guitar - Keith Eisenbrey
Amazing Grace - Keith Eisenbrey
Oh Lady - Keith Eisenbrey
Come On - Keith Eisenbrey

Continuing with my own summer of 1985 private song-writing workshop. At the time I was chafing with those traditional aspects of musical creativity that can, too often, get in the way of more robust invention. Among these are the hallmarks of professionalism: intonation, steady beat, a nice tone - all the things that must be done in order to make it clear that we know what we are doing. Gatekeeping chores. And so the songs I was making (and which you can listen to should you like) are not simply unprofessional, out-of-tune, and incompetent, but are, rather, anti-professional, anti-in-tune (I like 'liberated intonation'), and anti-competence. I have since deepened my stance on this, but these songs are an index point for me, and I still think they hold their own.

Several years later I used these tracks to learn how to work with a multi-track application. The results are the Winter Mix versions which I will also put on my soundcloud site.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

August 12, 2013
Gradus 231 - Neal Meyer