INTERVENTION!

[faster]

Heh, pretty funny story.

Reminds me of a story about the great K. Scott Handley before he left Portland for who knows where.

A little improv gig, some band from SF. Quiet, decorous performance / quiet, respectful audience. Scott, though, doesn't like what he hears.

He stands up and proceeds to loudly boo, right in the middle of the set. Totally louder than the music. "This is bullshit! BOOO!" &c.

The next winter I was touring with Bryan & JP (& Leif, Janice, Kathleen I think?) and we played a show in Oakland with a kind of big group of shuffly bay area improv psych people. Turns out some of them were in the band Scott heckled--one of the dudes told me they probably deserved it haha.

The world isn't always such a bad place after all.

[Dan Warburton]

what 'hit' me is during such focus performance, how can something like this happen? my guess is there must something wrong with the guy

Yes, most people who turn out to concerts of music like this need their head examining.

and what should the performer do?

Depends on the performer. Radu once stopped a gig and asked the offending sniggerers to leave. I suppose it would depend on the kind of heckling. If someone's pelting the stage with beer bottles and gobbing on you it might not be the most appropriate moment to discuss La Société du Spectacle. What would YOU do, Lee? I imagine I'd either stop and wait for the rumpus to die down, or pack up quietly and head to the bar. I also like Frank Zappa's line: "Fuck you, fuck you very much!"

[bedouin]

saw Zorn in 88 (or maybe 89) in Birmingham (UK) playing naked city. it was advertised as a jazz show. within a few minutes Zorn realized the agitation in the audience as most people had turned up to listen to jazz like barney kessel or something along those lines. he stopped and said. folks thanks for coming but the rest of the show will be like this so if you need to go better do so now. the band waited while the hall emptied. then frisell (and the rest) delivered the most stunning mix of shot in the dark + hawaii 5-0 + sicilian clan ever. that was some awesome gig.

[Dan Warburton]

I saw Naked City three times, and he was often heckled, and gave back as good at he got. Yep, Zorn handled the crowd well. And the music was absolutely stunning. Good call.

[J.F.]

Reminds me of a story about the great K. Scott Handley before he left Portland for who knows where.

A little improv gig, some band from SF. Quiet, decorous performance / quiet, respectful audience. Scott, though, doesn't like what he hears.

He stands up and proceeds to loudly boo, right in the middle of the set. Totally louder than the music. "This is bullshit! BOOO!" &c.

The next winter I was touring with Bryan & JP (& Leif, Janice, Kathleen I think?) and we played a show in Oakland with a kind of big group of shuffly bay area improv psych people. Turns out some of them were in the band Scott heckled--one of the dudes told me they probably deserved it haha.

The world isn't always such a bad place after all.

This reminds me of... when still going to music-college, I had a gig in a students' bar, playing jazz standards, and doing it really boring.
Now at the bar, there was one guy who made quite a lot of noise, and me thinking "oh, that's like on Ayler's 1962-recordings" (whistling along, loud talking etc). I wasn't happy with our music, but sitting on stage there of course I was pissed about the noisy guy nevertheless.
A while later I saw that guy again at a free jazz-concert I really loved, I believe that certain Charles Gayle trio (so it must have been 93/94). With the whole audience being assimilated by the music, and thereby me being d'accord with that guy about how nice the Gayle-music was, I eventually secretly solidarised with him, thinking our little boring jazz trio really deserved his reaction of dislike in that students' bar. I even thought about telling him that (I never felt really home in those standard playing jazz bands).

[gohleekwang]

i have this question for a long time: When people(s) are interrupting the on going performance, should the performer(s) stop there and then start again later, during a improvisation set?

the improvisation music taking the energy from the audience, space etc... once there is something bad happened, it will change the direction of the music too. but even if the performer(s) stop and then start again, it will be different.

Amplifier 2004 Berlin, the duo of Toshi & Gunter Muller, they have some tech problem on the starting point,so they stop, and when they want start again, Gunter asked Toshi:"The same thing?", and Toshi replied:"I don't know." (...and they played the best set of the evening, and one of the best set on the festival...)

EAI music is very fragile, when the performance is on going, if there are any interruption, it will break the magic of it. to me, stop is not the best option, although i would said in Radu' case, he have a very clear picture with what he wanted to present to the audience, that's why he can remove the thing that he did not want to have in his picture. and also because of that he can "restart" the performance.

i remember there was a thread mention that Keith Rowe gave Toshi haircut because they cannot play 2 sets in an evening. what if, they got interrupted during their set, will they stop and play again, will they just stop and called it an end?

i never had experience with people interrupting my performance, the only time come close to it was a group of visual artist performing my simple composition exploring the small of 4 materials: glass, paper, metal & plastic. during the performance some audiences who came late and have not idea what is the aim of the composition, went interact with the performers with their car keys, zip on their jacket etc... i did not stop the performance because i know it is only 8mins piece, and we are actually perform the piece 3 times with 10mins break in between. and those audiences left before another set begin.

from time to time some dancers friends in the audiences will join me during the performance, since the early day i already told them they can do whatever they like, but not making any sound (the last time a dancer friend did it was during the Perlonex concert last sunday, i will check if somebody got the video clip).

i think i got my question must more clearer now: what is the best thing to do when there are 'audience participant' or interruption or try to have an intervention with the performance? especially during the eai concert.

[jon abbey]

Amplifier 2004 Berlin, the duo of Toshi & Gunter Muller, they have some tech problem on the starting point,so they stop, and when they want start again, Gunter asked Toshi:"The same thing?", and Toshi replied:"I don't know." (...and they played the best set of the evening, and one of the best set on the festival...)

heh, I thought it was the worst set of the night (the Neumann/Beins was awesome, I considered putting that one out on ErstLive, and the Rowe/Krebs was surprisingly strong), and one of the least memorable sets of the festival.

[gohleekwang]

Amplifier 2004 Berlin, the duo of Toshi & Gunter Muller, they have some tech problem on the starting point,so they stop, and when they want start again, Gunter asked Toshi:"The same thing?", and Toshi replied:"I don't know." (...and they played the best set of the evening, and one of the best set on the festival...)

heh, I thought it was the worst set of the night (the Neumann/Beins was awesome, I considered putting that one out on ErstLive, and the Rowe/Krebs was surprisingly strong), and one of the least memorable sets of the festival.

Mmmm, somebody will have to move this to Amplifier related topic.

i actually think the set was great. best of gunter muller i had seem (and Toshi always A+ when he play live). Eric Cordier who was also there share the same thought with me. Neumann/Beins is good but not far from their studio recording, so they are 'reasonable' good and i actually thought the Rowe/Krebs was one of the worst of the fest, Krebs just shadowing what Rowe is doing, which was very boring. i remember Yoko also share the same thought with me after the set finish.

edit: i m sorry i should use different word then just best / worst. i think the Rowe/Krebs set is less interesting then other many interesting sets during the fest.

[Joda]

i remember there was a thread mention that Keith Rowe gave Toshi haircut because they cannot play 2 sets in an evening. what if, they got interrupted during their set, will they stop and play again, will they just stop and called it an end?

Perhaps Jon or someone else can recall the event in more detail, but something like this happened when I saw them perform together at an Erstquake in New York. Their set was interrupted by a technical intervention. I think Keith's transformer or powerbar crapped out and he was no longer getting any output. They stopped playing until Keith fixed the problem (it was a very casual intermission) and then recommenced into what I would consider a fairly different direction than they had begun, which I found more interesting than where they had started from.

[mudd]

the post about the haircut is mine. it's here.

i don't think an interruption would be at all the same thing as two separate sets. not to mention the fact that this happened fairly early on in their work as a duo, they would probably be much more capable of recovering from a setback or even performing a second entire set today.

m

[lukaz]

rowe and nakamura finally came into the performance room about half
an hour late, and started things off with an apology. they weren't
prepared to play two sets, as was planned. they had expected an
opening act of some sort. so, instead, nakamura was going to cut
keith rowe's hair. then, they wrapped rowe up in a (hotel) sheet,
produced an electric clipper, and toshimaru nakamura did, in fact,
cut keith rowe's hair. the audience was somewhere between shocked
and amused, nakamura was having a blast, and rowe was very clearly
embarrassed

yeah that was Keith told me when he was in Shitenia but he didn't mentioned he was embarrassed, in fact it was preplanned. the feeling of Rowe's embarrassment probably came from what he told me that somewhere in between cutting Toshi said to Keith something like 'Oh no low battery'

[mudd]

yeah having gotten to know keith a lot better since i wrote that, i suspect his grin was natural and not embarrassed at all. that's the original response i wrote immediately after the show, 6 or so years back.

toshi's mention of the low battery was audible to the audience, i think there was a nervous laugh. the lowering of the tone of the clipper was also obvious.

m

[carlos]

a friend-of-a-friend who was there to see Rowe for the first time says to me about the haircut set: "what a way to show disrespect to your audience" - but he really enjoyed the more respectful non-haircut set- even talked to Rowe for a bit afterward, as many people seemed to.

but i didn't take the haircut thing as disrespectful at all- seemed pretty charming to me

was it really six years ago? yikes