Here goes:
I create to challenge. I create music to fill and displace the stale basement air. In my best moments, I dig to find the truth that eludes conventional and, in some cases, sane thought processes. I was raised to be a devil’s advocate, a trait that drives my creative impulses and takes both serious and playful forms.
Art should be improvised—a moment of self-documentation and unbridled truth. Whatever the medium, the art exists as much (or even more) in the creation as the finished product. And as a performance artist, I find the greatest reward in the constant search. I stay nomadic, finding a new path every time I walk towards at an instrument. Improvisation is an experiment of metaphysical scientists being carried out in filthy laboratories. The goal of these experiments is therapy, indicating that the performance or creation of an object provides relief and greater meaning for the creator; an external meditation, a fermenting howl. Only after the artist finds a greater satisfaction should the audience even be recognized.
Music remains my expression of choice, although I have heard the more polarizing words ‘sound’ and ‘noise’ used to describe my work. I do not always agree with, but fully understand, these epithets, as I strive to erase many of the assumed limitations and rules of music while I am playing an instrument. The presumed ‘correct’ way to treat a guitar, proper technique on piano, and commonalities of Western music—they all choke the purity of raw creativity.
Instruments are only imperfect interfaces that musicians use to communicate their idealistic visions of sound. As the tool is inherently imperfect, everything I hear will always come up short. Knowing this, I search for new ways to fail, hopefully corrupting sound into something completely detached from my preconceptions.
So, thats something. I took out two paragraphs of that because I don't completely agree with them, so, excuse the choppiness. But concrete influences...I guess there's this paragraph, which I changed in the final version.
I would love to claim these ideas as my own, but it must be obvious that these ideas come from a very recognizable selection of artists that came before me. My curiosity about the realm of chance was undoubtedly inspired by 20th-century visionary John Cage. He, more than any other artist, pushed to challenge the social assumptions of what ‘music’ is. I find the never-at-rest and aptly named band Sonic Youth and minimalist composer Steve Reich to be some of the most forward-thinking musical artists of our times. Not only do they create beautiful and fulfilling soundscapes, they do so by turning the meaning of limitation on its head. Outside of music, I have been a followed and believed in George Carlin since my teenage years. After my parents showed me Carlin on Campus, I have found courage to never take my consciousness for granted. Most of the musical product of punk usually disappoints me, but the immediacy and the energetic masochism of the creative process is a force I can connect with. But, more than all of these, I am driven by the search for one pure experience.
So yeah, I'm fueled by confusion and anger and restrictions and paradoxes and noise and societal rebellion and all that. It's all therapy, as I said in the writing. Basically, I begin to go crazy when I don't play music or use my creativity.
Here are some listening/viewing favorites
This first one is a clip of the first time I ever heard Sonic Youth, which became my favorite band almost instantly:
On Friday, I saw a show at the Empty Bottle, the artist was a guy who goes by his last name, Fennesz. He is an ambient/minimalist musician who uses technology as his slave. I've seen enough people with laptops on stage (zzzzzz...), clicking away and processing samples, but I've never seen anyone show a level of complete mastery like I saw Friday. It was a seamless 75-minute set that built slowly to an explosive climax--an extremely sexual performance. Twists and turns and beauty and passion and tension. And then, complete immersion. I'm having a really hard time choosing clips that do the sound quality justice, but here's one that seems passable:
This became pretty long anyways, but that's usually how I do things. GET USED TO IT
Agh. I think I just wet my panties about four times.
ReplyDeleteExcuse the lewdness. Actually, get used to it as well.
This is all so wonderfully well put, and I agree with you completely on your approach to the creation and outcome of creativity (and thus what some call "art"). The status quo of much theatre right now is a rehearsed product that is the axact same every night. That's also the magic of theatre - that we, as infalliable humans, can create the same work every time. And it is beautiful to witness those tiny little changes when seeing a production multiple times- that is when you know the actors are truly living in the moment. I know you would rather perform live, but unfortunately we do not have the ability to do that with this production. Besides, the actors need the structure of recorded music that they have rehearsed with again and again so that they can fully respond to what is happening on stage.
That being said, I definitely want to do a lot of improvisation with you, the actors, and Sarah (the choreographer) in rehearsals.
Completely agree with that bullshit of the "correct" way to play any instrument. There is so much beauty in throwing technique out the window (unless we are talking about using your body as an instrument, in which case technique is often very important to keep the body from harm).
Searching to fail...love it.Going against preconceptions...love it.
I would love for you to make me a mix of some good songs from those artists you mentioned. As for George Carlin, my brother and I loved listening to him growing up. Hence my lack of a social filter.
Are you saying that "the immediacy and the energetic masochism of the creative process" of punk rock is a force that you would like to connect with? Or do not understand? My brother, a musician, is what I truly believe inhabits punk music. The energy he puts into his music is truly amazing.
Therapy. Yes!
Why did that video of Sonic Youth appeal to you so much, so instantaneously?
This Fennesz guy is wonderful! I definitely see the connection between his style and what you did for The Invention of Space. Are you interested in exploring more of that style for Dead City? I think the most important part of that influence is that his set "built slowly to an explosive climax--an extremely sexual performance [yes!]. Twists and turns and beauty and passion and tension [yes! yes! yes!]. And then, complete immersion [oh YEAH]."
Fabulous. I'd love to talk with you more one on one about all this, listen to some Patti Smith, etc.
Well, thank you. I'm flattered. Really I'm not usually comfortable when other people read anything I've written in the past, so to get such good feedback on such a personal writing is encouraging. Yes, I would love to improvise in rehearsals, even if I could only do it a couple times. I really loved when I 'rehearsed' with the Invention of Space cast and I just improvised for 45 minutes. That was one of the more enjoyable performances I've ever done. Probably the most.
ReplyDeleteAnd I understand I can't play live. Thankfully, I've got a number of very talented friends and access to all of Columbia's recording studios.
This is a mostly unrelated tidbit, but when I read that aloud to my reviewing the arts class, the first bit of feedback was: "I feel like you're being way too hard on yourself. Like you say you fail all the time, I think you should believe in yourself more." He didn't quite get it. Thankfully, you do.
The comment on punk rock was one of the main things I disassociate with 2 years later. In the past year I have really identified with punk-like music. Technically, its garage rock that I love, but no one cares about rhetorical shit. It feels like punk to me. Ty Segall, Turbo Fruits, Big Black, Shellac, Vivian Girls, No Age, Wavves, Times New Viking, Titus Andronicus, Kurt Vile, ETC. So scratch that statement.
But, when I wrote that, I saw punk as a simple music played by inferior musicians. But that's complete bullshit. Or maybe its true, but better musicians don't always make better music. Music is cultivated from a beating heart, which takes many, many forms. Just like the difference in our physical appearances, so should be the difference in our art.
Therapy. Yes. If it weren't for creative outlets, I would be in weekly therapy. Possibly locked up.
The Sonic Youth video......On the immediate level, I love guitars. Below that, I heard chord structures and timbres that gave all the players so many choices for every note, yet they were playing the perfect note every time they struck nickel. That was extremely impressive, and carries to every song of theirs. And I think on the deepest level, I saw a group of 50 year olds who stuck to the morals of their youth. And that still gives me a lot of hope, because I grew up around the Woodstock generation who turned 30 and became exactly what they hated. Age of Aquarius, my fucking ass. Everybody looks back upon that era as if it was this time of enlightenment and immaculate art and undying joy, but what they fail to realize is that those people in the crowd at Monterrey Pop are the CEOs who are paying themselves 4,000% what they pay their laborers and pressuring Congress to spend $200 billion on Lockheed Martin contracting other than $100 million into the public education system. So to see a group of people that are that age and see them rocking out to a song that is just as good as anything I hear by a 24-year old band is insanely inspiring.
I am interested in that style, always, but I am open to all direction for DC. Yeah, looking back on that, it was a not so subtle sexual analogy. Thanks for illuminating it tenfold.
Sure, a one on one would be good. I can be tough to understand, musically. I'll remember to bring music if you bring the ears, because I'll be ranting and enthusiastically talking about shit that you shouldn't even pretend to care about. And the figurative panties, my apologies.