ErstQuake 3

jkudler · Post by **jkudler** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 9:00 pm

jon abbey wrote:
there's not going to be an erstquake in 2007, too much time and money, and too little interest from NYC venues, crowds (the attendance overall was OK, but at least half was from out of town), and media.

why not move it south of the border to cut down on overhead? philadelphia, "the sixth borough." then i could sleep in my own bed. or just sleep period.

-j.

Alastair · Post by **Alastair** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 11:35 am

Don't listen to them Jon, Vienna or bust!

I can pretty much guarantee three travellers from the auditionosphere, two of which wouldn't be able to do NYC. Five if you include partners.

jon abbey · Post by **jon abbey** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 11:40 am

yeah, it's not really up for discussion. the Vienna plan continues to evolve, more news as it becomes reality (or not).

jon abbey · Post by **jon abbey** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 11:43 am

I will do a festival pretty much anywhere that's 1) fully sponsored and 2) lets me largely or fully curate it (obviously within reason and specific budget constraints). barring that or me winning the lottery, I think Vienna might be the last one.

nice review by Mr. Pinnell of this year's fest, I didn't realize this was in the works:

http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magaz ... ext.html#1" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;

SOZ · Post by **SOZ** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 12:19 pm

Jon, I don't mean to pry, but I'm curious - when all is said and done, what is the cost of putting up something like ErstQuake or Amplify?

(feel free to ignore this if you don't want to discuss it)

jon abbey · Post by **jon abbey** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 12:28 pm

SOZ wrote:Jon, I don't mean to pry, but I'm curious - when all is said and done, what is the cost of putting up something like ErstQuake or Amplify?

(feel free to ignore this if you don't want to discuss it)

I mean, it depends, each one is different. the Tokyo and Berlin ones cost me a ton, the Berlin one especially (although the AMPLIFY box and the ErstLives helped make some back).

but as a general rule of thumb, a few thousand dollars would go a long way towards making another ErstQuake possible in the future, especially one a bit less ambitious than this year's was. in NYC, we have the advantage of not having to pay for almost any hotel rooms because musicians can mostly stay with other people, which is a huge help, obviously.

Post by **grisha** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 5:44 pm

great review, Richard. two small remarks, though. firstly, in the review of Marhaug/Dilloway your repeated references (though maybe not entirely serious) to genre's popularity could lead people to believe that Dilloway actually sells more records than Fennesz or Ambarchi, which is not entirely the case. secondly, you mention a remark someone made towards you, claiming that you're too old to enjoy noise music. from the way you put it, the reader might get an impression that it was a serious remark. however i am sure that it wasn't meant as such.

Richard Pinnell · Post by **Richard Pinnell** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 6:11 pm

grisha wrote:great review, Richard. two small remarks, though. firstly, in the review of Marhaug/Dilloway your repeated references (though maybe not entirely serious) to genre's popularity could lead people to believe that Dilloway actually sells more records than Fennesz or Ambarchi, which is not entirely the case.

OK, this was not my intention. I spoke about the genre in general beigng somewhat in-vogue at the moment rather than intending to single out any one musician.

grisha wrote:secondly, you mention a remark someone made towards you, claiming that you're too old to enjoy noise music. from the way you put it, the reader might get an impression that it was a serious remark. however i am sure that it wasn't meant as such.

heh.... The person that said that to me was deadly serious Grisha, but fear not, it wasn't you! I know you were only half serious

For what its worth, i tend to think its true all the same...

SOZ · Post by **SOZ** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 7:47 pm

Geez, how old are you, Richard?

Richard Pinnell · Post by **Richard Pinnell** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 7:49 pm

SOZ wrote:Geez, how old are you, Richard?

35 going on 70

Dohol · Post by **Dohol** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 7:56 pm

Pffftttt......

A mere youth.

maRi · Post by **maRi** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 12:28 am

"adding a playfulness to the set probably only noticed by half of the room."

why should you say that?

bryan · Post by **bryan** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 1:16 am

maRi wrote:"adding a playfulness to the set probably only noticed by half of the room."

why should you say that?

it's probably true.. I didn't notice it, for one.... because the way the audience was positioned around the performers - I ended up behind Malfatti and the PA, so I couldn't differentiate when he played a note or when Mattin played back a sample of him.

..and a nice writeup, Richard, which I actually agree with for the most part when it comes to my fav sets (Glissandinos, Maltin, BarJerhan) despite the (admitted) anti-Noiseitism

...because I thought Dillhaug was great..

Richard Pinnell · Post by **Richard Pinnell** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 4:12 am

maRi wrote:"adding a playfulness to the set probably only noticed by half of the room."

why should you say that?

Simple observation really. Talking with people straight after the set I'd say more than half of the people I spoke to didn't realise at that point the origin of Mattin's sounds.

At the risk of sending this thread off into a long Cage discussion (please don't let that happen!) one of the things that grabbed me about this set was how it extended the idea that there is no such thing as silence a little further. So not only did you have an appreciative audience trying their hardest to be quiet (and obviously failing) but then they had their best efforts amplified and played back to them just to rub it in!

I have no idea if this kind of thought had any baring on the making of the music, but its one of the ways it got me thinking.

Richard Pinnell · Post by **Richard Pinnell** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 4:23 am

SeventhHarmonic wrote:despite the (admitted) anti-Noiseitism

I'm sure you don't mean it that way, but that comment could suggest I have some kind of anti-noise agenda, which is just not true.

Volume is not a problem to me and I have no problem with noise music as such, I just have a problem with uninteresting noise music.
I think many woud probably agree that the loudest music at EQ could well have been the second half of the Niblock/Lescalleet set, which I enjoyed, although I would accept that this may have been despite the volume levels rather than because of them.

I have also been enjoying a handful of recent discs by Daniel Menche lately, and would welcome further suggestions (by IM?) of noisier stuff that occupies a similar area.

SeventhHarmonic wrote:...because I thought Dillhaug was great..

OK, well without being antagonistic (I genuinely am not) what is it you enjoyed about that set? Since it happened several people whose opinion I have a lot of respect for including yourself have said they enjoyed it, but I haven't been able to get anyone to tell me what they enjoyed. help me out?

bryan · Post by **bryan** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 10:26 am

Richard Pinnell wrote:
SeventhHarmonic wrote:despite the (admitted) anti-Noiseitism
I'm sure you don't mean it that way, but that comment could suggest I have some kind of anti-noise agenda, which is just not true.

I should've added the:

.. I'll edit it in..

Richard Pinnell wrote:
SeventhHarmonic wrote:...because I thought Dillhaug was great..
OK, well without being antagonistic (I genuinely am not) what is it you enjoyed about that set?

The intro was genuinely creepy and built up steam towards the (expected) wall o' sound.. so there was nothing structurally interesting about it, but I enjoyed it alot- it packed a visceral punch and was able to sustain tension. Maybe some of the tension is simply "how long can they keep this up?".. but it's more to it than just that, otherwise I would've liked other sets much more than I did.

Simply, for the Dilloway/Marhaug set, they brought the sound to a level/intensity/mass that I like and kept it there. So it's pretty dependent on whether you like the crappy/awesome sound that they got... and if you did.. then it's like listening to Niblock recordings loud: you know it's not going anywhere and just enjoy being permeated with layers of sonic detail.

mshiflet · Post by **mshiflet** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 10:28 am

i respect your opinion richard, i just think you're too quick to throw words like 'featureless' and 'unintersting' around while simultaneously admiting a lack of reference points. if people who are better informed of the genre as a whole and whose opinions you also respect, say "that was a damn fine noise performance," don't you think that is something to consider?

in a perfect world "because" or "despite" volume really wouldn't even come into play, merely the performance.

as for the dilloway/marhaug set, i was very into the looping intro you mentioned. i had a very 'oriented,' classic sound to it and felt as if it could fit naturally on something like the "Revue OU" boxset. and then they just took off from there, channelling that very rooted sound into something completely their own. It clearly didn't take long for them to reach their high point after that, but once there i felt they maintained the energy and played off each other exceptionally well. The things I liked it about it were the same things I liked about, say Meehan/Sachiko M: the pacing, the tone, the energy, the collaborative nature. sure there is volume to consider, but so much else.

in the end, i don't think the set in question was perfect by any means - it really lost me for about five minutes about 2/3 through when marhaug started using the cracklebox - but i thought outside of that segment, it stood up really well in regards to the aspects mentioned above.

Richard Pinnell · Post by **Richard Pinnell** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 3:56 pm

shiflet wrote:i respect your opinion richard, i just think you're too quick to throw words like 'featureless' and 'unintersting' around while simultaneously admiting a lack of reference points. if people who are better informed of the genre as a whole and whose opinions you also respect, say "that was a damn fine noise performance," don't you think that is something to consider?

Hi Mike. Well yes of course this is something to consider. I did hint on this issue in my closing paragraph, just as I asked a few posts above if people could tell me what I seem to be missing. I have never claimed to be an expert on the current noise scene (though I'm possibly not as much a novice as people may expect, I have done a good degree of research to try and come to terms with the genre)

Clearly, you heard a lot more going on in there than I did. I am comfortable with my description of the music as featureless as a descriptive term of what I heard in the set from about the halfway point.
Its possible I guess your ears are more tuned to pick out detail at that kind of volume, though its not as if I have no experience of loud music. I imagine I have attended fifty or so concerts louder than anything at this Erstquake in my time, but not so recently, so maybe I failed to hear anything in there as my listening methods are in some way different. I am willing to bow to your better judgement on this one, though for the sake of my review I can only comment on what I personally heard, which I did, and I did make it clear in my closing words that others had very different opinions.

As for my comment that the set was uninteresting, well this is purely a personal comment that I feel fully qualified to make. The music in that set was uninteresting to me. This isn't the case for others obviously, but we all have an opinion and I was asked to write about mine. I am genuinely interested in other opinions though, which is why I asked above, and thanks for giving your thoughts.

shiflet wrote:in a perfect world "because" or "despite" volume really wouldn't even come into play, merely the performance.

Here I have to disagree. Volume is just as much a part of music as any other element, and people have preferences about how they prefer music. So if I prefer music that does not cause me to worry about damage to my hearing (this was the case during the Lescalleet set for many in the room I think, Niblock included!) then its natural for me to say I enjoyed the set despite the volume. This doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

mshiflet · Post by **mshiflet** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 9:03 pm

Richard Pinnell wrote:
shiflet wrote:in a perfect world "because" or "despite" volume really wouldn't even come into play, merely the performance.
Here I have to disagree. Volume is just as much a part of music as any other element, and people have preferences about how they prefer music. So if I prefer music that does not cause me to worry about damage to my hearing (this was the case during the Lescalleet set for many in the room I think, Niblock included!) then its natural for me to say I enjoyed the set despite the volume. This doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

sorry. i didn't mean wouldn't "even" come into play. chalk that up to late night typing. i meant that it hopefully wouldn't be the most defining characteristic. there are extreme examples of displays of volume on both end (and we witnessed pretty much the full range, no?) and i would just hope that the main impression a set left on people wouldn't be 'well, it was loud' or 'i don't get why it's so quiet'. that's all.

as for worries about hearing. it's only 40 minutes tops, but still i have to recommend quality earplugs. do you wear them? i think i remember seeing you with fingers in ears so i'm guessing not. maybe i'm wrong. but this could explain a little in that i found tonic really shrill during the portions of noise sets when i didn't have mine in - no surprise with the anti-acoustics of the room, not including jazkamer which was pretty shrill no matter what - and noticed a much wider range when i was using them.

Richard Pinnell · Post by **Richard Pinnell** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 4:53 am

shiflet wrote: sorry. i didn't mean wouldn't "even" come into play. chalk that up to late night typing. i meant that it hopefully wouldn't be the most defining characteristic. there are extreme examples of displays of volume on both end (and we witnessed pretty much the full range, no?) and i would just hope that the main impression a set left on people wouldn't be 'well, it was loud' or 'i don't get why it's so quiet'. that's all.

I agree with you completely there. Its possible parts of my review overplayed the volume, but I did try and listen hard and report on what I heard.

shiflet wrote:as for worries about hearing. it's only 40 minutes tops, but still i have to recommend quality earplugs. do you wear them? i think i remember seeing you with fingers in ears so i'm guessing not. maybe i'm wrong. but this could explain a little in that i found tonic really shrill during the portions of noise sets when i didn't have mine in - no surprise with the anti-acoustics of the room, not including jazkamer which was pretty shrill no matter what - and noticed a much wider range when i was using them.

Well, interestingly I have never worn plugs before Erstquake, but I tried them for the first time there after reading the tinnitus thread and generally trying to look after my body a bit better lately.
I have never really felt the need in the past, though extreme volumes do cause me to protect my ears with my fingers etc.
The thing is, not being used to plugs I spent a lot of time at the quake holding them in as they felt like they were about to fall out all the time. I only used them for three sets, but thats probably why I looked like I had fingers in my ears!
I am the kind of person that really needs to focus during live performance, and often shut my eyes etc to block out things distracting my listening, so having to keep worrying about the plugs distracts my enjoyment somewhat, so not sure if I will use them again.