Keith Rowe

[Brian Olewnick]

Hope to see you there, Steve!

[mshiflet]

48 hours until the backroads journey to oberlin begins...

[jon abbey]

nice, please give us a full report! and say hi if you get a chance...

[anasara]

it would be great to see rowe in a venue like the fairchild chapel - hopefully those who are able to attend will post their reflections. it will be interesting to hear people's opinions on ben hall's performance as well.

i'm looking forward to the nyc shows!

[Robert G]

it will be interesting to hear people's opinions on ben hall's performance as well.

Ben Hall was mesmerizing with his tympani, snare and bowls. It was fantastic to hear him use the bowls as the live room quality of Fairchild accentuated the ringing of them (not to mention, the way he'd move them in the air while they were ringing, really awesome almost-Doppler like effect!). I think my favorite part was the tubes though. He had these long (two to three feet) open-ended plastic tubes that he'd drag along the lip of the tympani. Sound would travel up and out of the tube in addition to the vibration of the tympani. I could feel the pew I was sitting in shake.

Rowe was also entrancing with his methodology. He explained before playing that he was going to first start with page 72 of Cardew's Treatise and then take off from there. The fans, the juxtaposition of the radios... Incredible to watch the master at work. He was very open and friendly after the show, more than willing to talk about Treatise and the nature of his own music. He and I talked about how even score-based music (such as Bach and Beethoven) is rooted in improvisation, that even during a recital, the score could just be used as a base to start the piece with and then you can go "into your own world." We both had a chuckle when I explained to him the irony of how the college in my suburb, Baldwin-Wallace College, has a conservatory that focuses on Bach and yet improvising is never part of the concert experience there, and that I even had arguments with friends from there about videos I've shared on Youtube of improvising musicians (of the likes of Rowe and C. Spencer Yeh). I kinda forget the details of what he and I talked about next, but I said something along the lines of how his concert allowed me to look through a window of more possibilities to consider with what I do, as I shook his hand. He then wished me the best of luck.

If I could complain about anything, it had to do with the fact that Rowe had a sole amplifier and that it wasn't turned up very loud. A decent number of people, somewhere between six and ten, got up and walked out during Rowe's performance, and others showed up late. Given the nature of the venue, you can hear pretty much everything, especially the doors opening and closing. These sounds masked the details of Rowe's playing and well, was a tad annoying overall.

Not related to the show: I decided to go to the show with a friend of mine who has gone to Fairchild in the past to see Evan Parker. He's an older man in his 60s and typically a good companion of sorts. However, I've never gone with him to a concert. I think, safe to say, that I won't tell him about the next one I'm going to. My friend was one of the people who got up during Rowe's performance. He then came back into the chapel and tried to rush me while I was waiting to talk to Rowe. Last but not least, once I was back in the car with him, he complained about how Rowe was "purely masturbatory" and that he had to leave, in addition to "having a nice nap" while waiting for the concert to be over with. He then made me listen to Frank Zappa all the way back to our suburb. Oh the irony.

[mshiflet]

Sorry for delay in following up sooner. I've had a pretty hectic weekend. Here are a few photos for now, words to come.

[carlos]

those are some stunning photos- very nice

[Jesse]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/non-event/ ... 622614244/

[leroysghost]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/non-event/ ... 622614244/

no shots of slinkies! shame.

[mshiflet]

Now that I've put the weekend behind me, I can finally steal a few minutes from my employer to gather thoughts about Friday's performance. Hopefully memory is still fully in tact.

Robert summarized Ben Hall's set pretty well, so I will only add that it was an exceptional compliment to Keith's performance. The other noteworthy thing before I get into the performance was that it was one of the largest crowd I've seen at an EAI-type event, on par with - if not bigger than - the ErstQuake shows I saw in NYC. So I think that while there were a few distractions with people coming & going, proportionately the crowd was really amazing. (As I was in the first row, I was probably less susceptible to the interference than others, though one member of a certain laptop duo kept coughing like a total jackass...and I may have caused a few annoyances myself with the LED lights on my camera, though I tried had to keep them to a minimum.)

So Rowe's performance... It was everything I expected and more. He had to overcome the blandness of NE Ohio radio early on, as he tuned in baseball game after baseball game though the first 20 minutes or so, but the guitar and electronics were masterful during this section - which included the Treatise page - and never let the stream of play-by-play become too overwhelming. If anything, we felt embarrassed for our airwaves for providing such bland source material. Once he moved beyond the sporting events and found some musical radio, things got very interesting with a lot of gated and panning guitar (there were definitely two amps) before moving into a segment that de-emphasized the guitar and had a lot of nice contact mic work. The radio then tuned in two segments which were absolutely perfect, talk radio going off about corporate citizenship and a call-in relationship show with a woman seeking help for mentally and verbally abusing her boyfriend. They were complimented very well, and the set ended on a really high note after about 48 minutes, though I thought the corporate citizen rant - maybe five minutes or so earlier - would have made for a really spectacular endpoint.

We hung around for a while, hoping to chat with Mr. Rowe, but the crowd around him never seemed to dwindle, so we eventually took off, as we still had a two-hour drive home to complete the night. It was great to see folks from all over Ohio out to represent, especially guys from Cincinnati who made a four-hour trek and drove back the same night.

[Moon]

He and I talked about how even score-based music (such as Bach and Beethoven) is rooted in improvisation, that even during a recital, the score could just be used as a base to start the piece with and then you can go "into your own world."

http://www.ubu.com/film/bailey.html
If you haven't seen it!
Part 1 about Robert Levin is exactly about that, you could show it to the teachers, could be a laugh.

[Robert G]

though one member of a certain laptop duo kept coughing like a total jackass...

I'm not hip enough to know who this was, but they were pretty annoying.

(there were definitely two amps)

I was six rows back and I saw only one diode on, and that was from the fender that was over stage left. I know there was another amp on stage from the dude who opened before Hall, but I'm pretty certain that wasn't on. I noticed later when I was waiting to talk to Rowe that he had three Boss pedals, one of them being a digital delay and the other being a loop. On the other hand, he did have two pick-ups on the lapstick. Weird.

before moving into a segment that de-emphasized the guitar and had a lot of nice contact mic work. The radio then tuned in two segments which were absolutely perfect, talk radio going off about corporate citizenship and a call-in relationship show with a woman seeking help for mentally and verbally abusing her boyfriend. They were complimented very well, and the set ended on a really high note after about 48 minutes, though I thought the corporate citizen rant - maybe five minutes or so earlier - would have made for a really spectacular endpoint.

That part was pretty awesome.

We hung around for a while, hoping to chat with Mr. Rowe, but the crowd around him never seemed to dwindle, so we eventually took off, as we still had a two-hour drive home to complete the night. It was great to see folks from all over Ohio out to represent, especially guys from Cincinnati who made a four-hour trek and drove back the same night.

Where did you come from? My friend and I came in from Berea, which is roughly 20 minutes down I-71 from Cleveland. Since we're already pretty close to 480 and the Cuyahoga/Lorain County line, it only takes 40 or so minutes to drive out there.

[anasara]

thanks for the summaries of the evening (as well as the photos). it sounds like it was an enjoyable experience overall, despite whatever distractions arose.

[jon abbey]

there were two amps, Robert, I asked Keith last night also (because he always uses two).

[Robert G]

there were two amps, Robert, I asked Keith last night also (because he always uses two).

I guess that means the other amp was on and I just never noticed, and I'm the guy with a degree in sound engineering. FAIL!

[undo]

I'm not hip enough to know who this was, but they were pretty annoying.

yeah, don't worry about not being hip enough - you're not really missing anything. that guy was a total dick. i bet he was way worse a few days ago, and i'm pretty sure he wasn't embarrassed at all that he forgot to bring an extra dose of cough medicine with him. should have sat outside, that's what i say!

[mudd]

get better soon, dude. you've already spoiled the show of the year, time to get healthy again.

m

[jkudler]

http://olewnick.blogspot.com/2010/03/fi ... -rowe.html

The first ever encounter between Keith Rowe and Jason Lescalleet occurred last night in Boston at the Mills Gallery (a Non-Event event). The second will happen this coming Sunday at diapason in Brooklyn.

It was rather rocky going, which was more or less to be expected. Offhand, the approaches of each don't seem overly complimentary though that very push and pull--Keith more considered, Jason more volatile (oversimplifications, both, but, you know) could serve to generate fine results. At several points during the set (about an hour?) this was indeed the case, though interlaced with what seemed to be more frequent searches for common ground. Rowe had a metal plate in front of his guitar-neck that he rubbed and scraped with various items; he later explained that it was the inverse of the guitar strings, similarly sized but with the open spaces between the strings replaced by solid mass. As is his habit, he probed in the spaces left by his partner, nudging here and there but seeming content to "fit in". Lescalleet had a couple of old tape players, a turntable and other electronica. His contributions, by there nature as tape loops, often had repetitive elements which lent a good ground for Rowe to scrabble atop and within. At one point, Jason generated a very tonal wash, a thick ambient drone which Keith went along with for a bit before attempting to dirty things. The volume level fluctuated, several times reducing to near silence, once violently interrupted by a burst triggered by Lescalleet that momentarily sounded like a speaker loudly shorting.

There were several points along the way, including a lovely multiple-popping, percolating one toward the end, that were fantastic, though the whole never quite achieved a unifying, driving power. But it will be interesting to see how they fare the second time around. Audio seepage from, I think, a bar next door, imparted an odd ending the set as a jazz-bluesy belter intruded through the walls....

Great to see everyone there, looking forward very much to this weekend.

[leroysghost]

Rowe/Lescalleet:

a dynamic and consistently enjoyable set, if not a totally satisfying one, considering the potential of those involved.
not mentioned above was a very nice bit towards the end where both parties were using slinky like objects: Keith's bedspring scraping sounds dying down to reveal the calm undulation of the slinkies Jason had hung between an amp and a speaker (sounding a little like a large metal fence in the wind).

the sound from the bar next door was actually very prominent for most of the set, with the frequent rhythmic vibrations in my feet creating a bizarre counterpoint to the proceedings (i wonder how aware of this Jason was, given that he performs without his shoes). ending on Al Green's Lets Stay Together (i think) was perfectly serendipitous (as was a number of Keith's radio snatches) and, looking ahead to the New York show, humorously apt.

[Cornelis]

Dear Keith,

Happy 70th birthday!!!!

wow...

riddleyiethad

Cor