Portrait of the artist as a young techno fodder provider

Based on a tune from an older era ("Building a Fire," something I originally wrote for my early 90s band, the Evelyn Situation), this remix was recently forwarded to me by Ms. Knapp, who is a friend of the DJ in question. Though still only a draft, I hope you will be as impressed as I am at the metamorphosis, from this (the Evelyn version of the tune) to this:

Make and Destroy (Remix of "Building a Fire" by The Evelyn Situation) [draft] by Wonder Nexus

Again, I wrote the song in another (simpler, more maudlin) era. If you don't believe me, here's the lyric:

We went away for a weekend together
High in the mountains and high in the heather
I brought my anger and you brought your fear
We boarded the bus that took us out of here
We stayed awake all night gathering fuel
For building a fire for lovers and fools
We lay it all down in a clearing that dawn
And slept as it dried out all day in the hot sun
Setting the wood took three or four hours
But slowly and carefully we built a tower
We worked much harder than we'd ever known
And when we were done I could swear it looked like home
Then we stood there watching as we burned away
This beautiful thing we had labored to make
I shut my eyes and I thought of our joy:
It's something we make and it's something we destroy
It's something we make and it's something we destroy

What still gets me about this one: the notion of working hard to build something, only to tear it down (or calmly watch its demise) later. At the time, I was writing about a relationship (some of them do indeed work out that way) -- but as it turned out, the song was also about the Evelyn Situation itself (it wasn't long after this was recorded that the band broke up). With a little interpretive liberty, there are other applications too (via):

During the 1930s and 1940s, Hovhaness famously destroyed many of his early works. He later claimed that he had burned at least 1000 different pieces, a process that took at least two weeks; elsewhere he claimed that he had destroyed approximately 500 works, up to 1000 pages in total. In an interview with Richard Howard, he stated that the decision was based primarily on Roger Sessions' criticism of his works of that period, and that he wished to have a new start in his composing.

There is an impulse in art to invest in projects with an eye toward keeping them going forever. I understand that, of course, and there is something to be said, when it comes to bands in particular, for the longevity of a specific configuration of people, or the persistent pursuit of a specific aesthetic goal. I take a special pride in the fact that the IJG has been making music for ten years so far; each additional year I count as a gift.

On the flip side, it's also nice to know when to let something go, or when to allow it to self-destruct in order to work on something new. Otherwise you end up, maybe, with something like this.

[Photo credit: a portrait of the Evelyn Situation by Tom Crofton]

Welcome to my world

The blog-tastic team at Brilliant Corners (if I actually had the time to read blogs these days, this one would be a regular stop for me) recently published a nice rumination on the subject of humor and schtick in jazz. Kudos to you, Steve Provizer, for using that evil word! (The evil word is "schtick," not "jazz.")

The subject is Mostly Other People Do the Killing:

In the video, deadpan all the while, [drummer] Shea sticks an odd-shaped piece of paper on his nose and proceeds to straddle the drums, hump them, bump them, milk them, tangle with them, move them, disassemble them, pratfall over them and use them as a staging area for a finger puppet show. At one point, it looks like Laurel and Hardy moving a piano, but with the bass drum standing in for Ollie. The audience seems too intimidated by the 'seriousness' of the context to respond as I did-laugh out loud. It's just not done. Mr. Wooster.

After all this, Shea moves the band into a fiery "Night In Tunisia." His is a gutsy, funny and focused performance. I know, performance art, yadda-yadda, but this is essentially shtick and a little shtick never hurt anyone.

This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, not only because I posted something about it at the very outset of my own damned blog, and not only because it's a critical aspect of my own aesthetic, but also because the IJG has gotten into trouble -- right here in River City! -- at the hands of this very same phenomenon. Damn you, schtick!

But this is an old story by now and there's no point in going into it any further.

Incidentally, I once wrote something about MOPDTK here.

[Photo credit: crazytales562]

No accounting for taste

The Germans are the only people who currently make use of the word "aesthetic" in order to signify what others call the critique of taste. This usage originated in the abortive attempt made by [Alexander] Baumgarten, that admirable analytic thinker, to bring the critical treatment of the beautiful under rational principles, and so to raise its rules to the rank of a science. But such endeavors are fruitless. The said rules or criteria are, as regards their chief sources, merely empirical, and consequently can never serve as determinate a priori laws by which our judgment of taste must be directed.

-- Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

I would like to pair the above quote with the following observation (they may or may not be related): the thing that irritates me most about professional critics is that they are often very good at explaining what there is to like or dislike about a given piece, and often not very good at considering why they like or dislike the thing they have categorized as likable or not likable.

What these folks do, essentially, is provide lists of descriptive qualities. Very rarely do they follow through and turn the critical lens back upon themselves, like so: Okay, this album has these characteristics. Why do I care about these characteristics? Or not?

As I say, I find this irritating. But perhaps I've got a bad reflexivity habit.

[photo credit: ibm4381]

In defense of that effeminate Asian bass dude

I don't want to turn this blog into an explication of "things I've seen on Facebook," but like that damned drummer video, this movie of a transvestite bassist is something that a number of my Facebook friends have seen fit to post recently.

Why now? Beats me. The thing has been out there for a while. I guess sometimes viral video goes in fits and starts.

Anyway. The responsive commentary generally adheres to the expected script. (You know the one: "My eyes! They burn!" and "I'll never be able to unsee that!" and on and on, blah blah blah.)

I'm not even sure whether this video qualifies as "safe for work" or not. Guess that shows how far out of the loop I am.

Anyway, I get it. You're grossed out. (And perhaps a little homophobic too?)

But what about the music? Many years ago I attended a film scoring seminar in which one of the other attendees (I forget who) described how he had been challenged by a teacher to compose while other music was playing in the background. It was an exercise, not a recommended technique, but the point was clear: musicians need to have a high degree of concentration.

And yet, even among some of the best musicians on the planet (as I can say without a doubt some of my Facebook friends are), it is hard to get away from the steamroller of visuality. Sometimes it seems that the image crushes everything, even for people whose auditory senses are pretty freakin' fine-tuned.

Maybe I'm an idealist, but, all things being equal, I'd assume that committed musicians could completely tune out visuality when the moment called for it. If we're interested in the music, great: let's talk about the music. And if the music's no good, well, then, fine: move on.

Music as a process, gradual or otherwise

In 1968 Reich spelled out his new aesthetic in a terse essay titled "Music as a Gradual Process." "I am interested in perceptible processes," he wrote. "I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music."

This philosophy differs starkly from the thinking inherent in Boulez's total serialism and Cage's I Ching pieces, where process works behind the scenes, like a spy network employing front organizations. Reich's music transpires in the open air, every move audible to the naked ear. Recognizable in it are multiple traces of the creator's world: modal jazz, psychedelic trance, the lyrical rage of African-American protest, the sexy bounce of rock 'n roll. But there's no pretense of authenticity, no longing for the "real." Instead, sounds from a variety of sources are mediated by the composer's personal voice.

The above is from Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise, which I am finally getting around to finishing. (If you're familiar with it, you may understand my reading strategy, which has been to savor the text over an extended period, rather than wolfing it down in a weekend or two.)

The quote got me thinking. Much of the material I write for the IJG is designed to be transparent, too. I hadn't thought of that in terms of audible processes, per se -- for me it's more about constructing things in such a way that the listener is thinking about the mechanisms that propel the music, and there's no sleight of hand. It's a bit different from, and even antithetical to, the idea of washing over your listener with a "narrative," or a seamless flow of polished and refined sound, in which the things that are going on under the hood are somehow less compelling than the ride you are taking. I've spoken of it before in terms of using art not merely to tell stories, but to tell how books are made.

Not sure if that is a comprehensible distinction at this level of abstraction, but that is basically how I think about it.

In any case, the really interesting question for me is whether this quality is, in part, dependent upon familiarity. Now that Reich's music is so much a part of the "art music" landscape, I wonder if anyone actually does still hear it in terms of "perceptible processes"? Does broad familiarity undercut the power of a completely open compositional strategy, to the point where however much the composer is trying to lay bare, all we hear is the surface sound?

[Photo credit: Al Pavangkanan]

What it's like

Tonight my good friend Jeff redirected me toward the the wonder that is Amanda Palmer's blog. Specifically:

so anyway, to summarize….the tour was hard. but fucking wonderful.

so many people took care of us, shared their homes and beds, cooked for us, loved us. i slept in so many different bedrooms and beds and lost track of where i was half the time.

[...]

business-wise….we were (or i was) really cavalier about how we booked this tour, i gotta say.

i expected everyone would make the jump from the dresden dolls to amanda palmer to evelyn evelyn and that selling tickets wouldn’t be too difficult.

i was wrong. the general touring climate blows…it’s BAD out there, ticket prices are getting slashed and a lot of artists are playing to half-empty rooms due to the economy and the overgutted market since EVERY band and their moms are hitting the road to make up for the shortfall in record sales. and the weirdness of the show billing dented us…the shows were about half sold-out, which was actually pretty respectable…but it did teach me a damn fine lesson in marketing. we billed the show wrong; it should have been billed as an amanda palmer & jason webley extravaganza, with the twins as a support act, not the other way around. those who knew about the twins would have gotten what they expected, those only familiar with me & jason would have been strangely surprised by our weirdo stunts.

by the end of the tour, i was constantly kicking myself.

Which just about sums it up, as far as I'm concerned.

One corollary to the fact that digital technology has made a career in music more accessible than ever, which in turn seems to be dovetailing with a pretty wretched economic period: many who seem to be "making it," on the surface anyway, are actually struggling like mad. Much more than you might expect. There is often a lot of spin to obscure this perception (because who wants to be seen to be struggling?), but in all honesty the situation is pretty damned scary.

[Photo credit: Amanda M Hatfield]

A bomb made of cute

Apologies to those of you with a low tolerance for treacle, but I'm posting these as an addendum to this.

The new critter's name is Claudette (c/o my wife, who got the name from George of the Jungle). Get it?

Why no blues wars?

I recently came across an interesting Jim Fusilli piece on the state of 21st century blues, and specifically on the dearth of new blues styles. A sample:

In early May, I traveled to Memphis to attend the Blues Foundation's 31st annual two-day gala, which included its Hall of Fame induction ceremony and awards banquet. Buddy Guy received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Pinetop Perkins, now 96 years old, turned up, as did 80-year-old Bobby "Blue" Bland and 78-year-old Hubert Sumlin. I heard folk blues, country blues, jump blues, Chicago blues, Delta blues, Texas blues, fast blues, slow blues, good blues and bad blues. What I didn't hear was new blues, and I flew back home no less relieved of my own blues over the genre's troubling future.

Today's blues music isn't only steeped in the past; it's anchored to it. During the performances before and during the banquet, I could trace to almost every song, instrumental solo or vocal style I heard its originator or its most celebrated proponent—and I'm far from an expert on the history of the blues. These tales of heartache, oppression and fleeting joy sounded all too familar.

According to Jay Sieleman, the Blues Foundation's executive director, most blues fans aren't looking for something new. "We all don't want the blues to be the same ol', same ol'," he said, "but it'd better be close."

[...]

In 2004, Skip McDonald, who works under the name Little Axe, released "Champagne and Grits," which mixed traditional blues with spoken word, drum loops, Indian percussion and a dab of reggae. It was the kind of album that could bring young listeners to the blues: Give it to a Citizen Cope or a Massive Attack fan and they'd feel at home. It wasn't well received by the blues community.

"I upset a lot of people," Mr. McDonald told me. "People are so traditional in their approach. It was a hybrid amalgamation, but the blues was my first stop."

The blues establishment seems to have little interest in reaching out to other musical communities. No rock, hip-hop or jazz artists with a musical debt to the blues were part of the activities in Memphis. Perhaps in turn, blues musicians aren't invited to participate in most major rock festivals: There were no traditional blues artists at this year's Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, nor will there be any at the Glastonbury Festival in Britain later this month. At this weekend's Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., only Trombone Shorty and Big Sam's Funky Nation, both from New Orleans, and the string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, adhere to blues traditions.

Sound familiar? It probably does if you're a jazz fan, as we in the so-called "jazz community" seem to have this same debate every few months (here's the latest outburst). Some folks argue that the music should stay close to its "roots." Some argue that it should embrace newness of various sorts. Heated debate ensues. We call it the "jazz wars."

Jazz did not introduce this sort of internecine aesthetic conflict. Often couched in terms of the frustratingly arbitrary notion of "authenticity," similar debates have been flirted with by proponents of most genres. But jazz critics, fans, and musicians have raised such debates to the level of an art form (not to mention a brilliant form of marketing). And therein lies the reason for this post.

You see, I'm confused. Why does the notion of an all-out "blues war" lack the sort of staying-power that seems to drive the recurring "jazz war" meme? Why, for instance, did Fusilli's piece not prompt the firestorm of outrage that greeted a similar (now-infamous) piece by Terry Teachout last summer?

I'm tempted to say it has something to do with the blues' time-honored fatalism, the sense conveyed (by most exemplars of the genre) that nothing lasts forever, and that death is, in fact, an important part of life.

But that can't be the only reason.

[photo credit: kevindooley]

Confuse me

Thanks to the evil geniuses at TCM, I was introduced to an amazing little film this weekend:



I won't even go into it. Words are horribly inadequate.

Of course, that didn't deter me from doing a little online research, which led to an interesting write-up over at Cinema du Merde, which in turn had the collateral benefit of reminding me of why I pursue weird cinema (or, for that matter, weird music) in the first place. This reminder was, in fact, highlighted as a "manifesto":

It's less about whether the movie is good, and more about whether it's enjoyable to watch.

We will never let a movie's cheesiness interfere with our engagement with its ideas.

Both of which seem noble aspirations to me. I'm particularly interested in the distinction between the "good" and the "enjoyable"; the former presumably refers to received notions of artistic value (i.e., what I'm supposed to think is "good"), while the latter suggests something more personal (i.e., art I actually enjoy, regardless of social sanctions for or against).



And yet it's more than that, too. In a world that reveres artistic mastery and critical omniscience, it can sometimes be refreshing and pleasurable to be drawn into something for no good, rational, compelling reason you can discern. Which is kind of where the reviewer at CdM takes his writeup on Darktown Strutters:

There is only one word that can describe this film: INEXPLICABLE. This is just one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen, making me wonder who made it—and WHY—and who they thought they were making it for. This is a film that will make you say wtf? And then WTF?? And then W??? T??? F???

In this day and age, when most of us are a little careless with our "WTF?"s, it's nice to come across something that genuinely inspires that acronym. Because sometimes, being in a position where all you can do is genuinely wonder "what the fuck?" can be a healthy experience.

Why? Well, you'll never catch me promoting ignorance as a aesthetic framework, but by the same token, sometimes I think our mania for analyzing and understanding art can actually inhibit our experience of it. As Josh Sinton recently said of his Steve Lacy tribute band, Ideal Bread:

I’m playing these songs because I don’t understand the songs.

Honestly, who among us truly understands anything about the art we love?

Beginner's mind, baby.

Rock stars and athletes

Gazing at my twitter feed tonight, I quickly got the impression that there was some sort of important athletic event going on out in the world. I can't be sure, of course, as I've never been a big fan of organized (dare I say corporate?) sports, and I don't think I'd know a "Laker" from a "Celtic" if my life depended on it. (Yes, I know, this is a shortcoming of mine. Ironically, I remember falling in love with Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" because of the version that accompanied a Commodore 64 video game called "One on One," which featured rather stiff avatars of Dr. J and Larry Bird, and which my brother and I played ad nauseum when we were kids.)

Anyhow, in the spirit of the evening's frenzy (which, apparently, Los Angeles was the primary benefactor of), I thought I'd riff on this little blurb, which I came across on Andrew Sullivan's (increasingly valuable) blog:

Athletes are typically associated with hard work and achievement; sports competitions are typically institutional and often government-sponsored events; and athletic competition thrives on order and rules. They are the champions of the values of organized society, which makes them excellent role models. As such, society will expect them to be well-behaved. Musicians, or at least popular musicians, are the polar opposite: their success is associated with creativity and inspiration, their excellence springs from innovation and subversion.

But most importantly, one of the greatest things that pop and rock stars sell is an anti-social image of extravagant hedonism or rebellion (and frequently both). Part of being a fan is to indulge in these things that aren't generally acceptable in polite society. This double-standard is not a bug: it gets to the heart of what it means, in the popular imagination, to be a musician and to be an athlete.

Even as I resisted this writer's categories, I found myself wondering, while reading, where jazz might fall in this imaginary continuum. On the one hand, one could argue that jazz has always been concerned with "hard work and achievement" (most jazz musicians aspire toward total instrumental mastery), and even, in a sense, "order and rules" (consider the rigors of jazz theory, or the pedagogical importance placed on the music's history). Certainly nowadays, jazz musicians often aspire to be role models for society, whether "society" is constituted on the micro-level of other jazz musicians, or the macro-level of culture as a whole.

And yet, while for me the idea of true subversiveness in music is bunk, I'd be lying if I said that I was originally attracted to the prospect of music-making because I was interested in some Calvinist work-ethic ideal, or because I wanted to belong to a historical tradition that I admired from the outside. I wasn't, and I didn't. I wanted to play music, and, in particular, jazz music, because I wanted to explore an arena in which it was possible to do things that "aren't generally acceptable in polite society" (not the least of which was a kind of generalized passion).

I don't know if that makes me less "authentic" as a jazz composer, but I do know that the things I admired in the recordings of the jazz composers who influenced me most (Mingus, Ellington, Monk, et al) had a lot to do with my perception that they too were outsiders, that their lives were perfectly idiosyncratic, and that they resisted codification.

It's not so much that they were anti-social (though one might be able to make that argument re: Mingus) and it's not that hedonism was a value for its own sake, as sometimes seems to be the case in popular music. Rather, what was compelling on the deepest level was the way these folks seemed to embody the spirit of "doing your own thing," with no apparent preconceptions about what that meant.

Not to mention: their music often contained a little more than a soupçon of the mystical giant middle finger of resistance, aimed at a fucked-up world. And with the possible exception of someone like the immortal Muhammad Ali, I never got a whiff of anything that powerful from big-time sports.

[photo credit: basketball fans, shot by M31.]

The art of the fill

Speaking of drummers, the most recent Hamid Drake / Bindu album is truly fantastic, and highly-recommended.

I don't think I can improve upon this John Sharpe review -- summed up in the phrase "it's a joyous ride" -- but every time I go back to this recording (which is wonderfully played all around, and includes primo contributions from trombonist Jeff Albert) I find myself thinking about what drummers do, and more specifically about the art of the fill. Because while Sharpe is right when he says of Reggaeology that "[g]iven Drake's extensive reggae back story, it's no surprise that the riddims carry conviction" -- for me it's actually the small bursts of energy that Drake occasionally uses to supplement and adorn the groove that fascinate the most.

Now, I'm no drummer. (The best I can say is that for one summer in fifth grade, I almost became one. Okay, and I played drums on the first studio recording I ever made. Oh, alright: and I have a drum kit in my basement right now that I can't wait to rock out on.) And perhaps I spent too many of my formative years in the rock world, where some songs are actually defined (or even eclipsed) by their drum fills. Think Phil Collins's "In The Air Tonight," or Led Zeppelin's "D'Yer Mak'r," or dozens of others -- truthfully, some of these would be so-so recordings if we could somehow take away their signature moments of transitional percussive interplay.

But that doesn't make a good fill any less impressive. It's not like a drummer can play just anything (and have it sound good) at those pivotal sections of a given song. And if he or she plays the wrong thing, the music's forward motion can be greatly hampered, even destroyed. Plus, you have to be real selective: no one wants the composition to be saturated with end-of-the-bar noodling, lest things start to sound too busy and predictable.

So we're really talking about brief set of fleeting opportunities that must be recognized and responded to with authority and a sense of beauty. (How long is the average drum fill? A few seconds? How many distinctive fills can a five-minute tune handle? Four or five?)

Honestly, is that situation all that different from this one?

General Dodonna: Well, the Empire doesn't consider a small one-man fighter to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense. An analysis of the plans provided by Princess Leia has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station. But the approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station. Only a precise hit will set off a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes.

Wedge Antilles: That's impossible! Even for a computer.

Yes! And that's really the point here: on Reggaeology, Hamid Drake repeatedly does the impossible.

People want to be free

So, yeah, I guess I have now developed a full-blown infatuation with Italian cinema. It started (many years ago) with my love of Fellini; a love I was recently reminded of by the good folks at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The IJG will be playing the Hammer in August, and as part of an early PR push, the organizers there quoted a bit of Kyle O'Brien's 2008 review of the IJG album, LEEF:

"If ever there were a perfect band for a Fellini film, this is it."

I have no idea whether that is actually true, but I sure hope so. And in any case, it's very flattering.

Of course, not all Italian cinema is made of the same whimsical stuff as a "typical" Fellini film. Fellini himself came to prominence on the heels of what seems to me to be the very un-Fellini-esque genre of Neorealismo, which, generally, errs more on the "emo" side of things.

But even at its most melodramatic, Italian Neorealism is great stuff. And delving into it in more detail has given me some insight into the balancing act that I'm ultimately after with the IJG. To wit: maybe I am more interested than your typical 21st century "jazz composer" in the somewhat "un-jazzy" aesthetic strategies of comedy, satire, irony, burlesque, and even nihilism -- all of which, it might be argued, distance the audience from the art in question (something that has raised the hackles of more than a few of our critics). But these interests are not (and never have been) at the expense of more "serious," "involving" artistic concerns, like beauty, pathos, or empathy. Because to jettison those things would just be silly.

The key is to figure out how to make it all fit together, in one effortless, complex package.



In any case, last night's selection was the classic Rossellini film, Rome, Open City, the screenplay for which was partially written by Fellini. It's a story set during Nazi / Fascist control of Italy, and as you might expect, it is equal parts depressing, moving, and maddening.

I do recommend this film, though I'm not going to write about it at length here. I will, however, share one more thing before wrapping up this post. After discovering that one of my favorite scenes from the film was not to be found anywhere online, I offer the following transcription. It is a rather disturbing exchange between two Nazi officers, concerning the torture of an Italian prisoner. Considering the way it unfolds, I have to wonder if Fellini was the one who inserted it.

Hartmann: Strenuous evening?

Bergman: Not very. But interesting.

Hartmann: Really? How so?

Bergman: I have a fellow who must talk before morning, and an Italian priest who claims the fellow won't, because he's praying for him.

Hartmann: And if he doesn't talk?

Bergman: Ridiculous.

Hartmann: If he won't talk no matter what?

Bergman: That would mean an Italian is as good as a German. That there's no difference between the blood of a slave race and that of a master race. What would be the sense of our struggle?

Hartmann: Twenty-five years ago I led execution squads in France. I was a young officer then, and I too believed that we Germans were a master race. But the French patriots chose to die rather than talk. We Germans refuse to realize that people want to be free.

Bergman: Hartmann, you're drunk!

Hartmann: Yes, I am. I drink every night to forget. But instead I see more and more clearly. All we're really good at is killing, killing, killing! We've strewn all of Europe with corpses, and from their graves rises up an unquenchable hatred. Hatred... hatred everywhere! That hatred will devour us. There's no hope.

Bergman: Enough!

Hartmann: We'll all die without the slightest hope.

Bergman: I forbid you to continue!

Hartmann: Without hope.

Bergman: You hear me? You forget that you are a German officer!

"Hatred will devour us." There are days when I wonder if that is the essence of the human condition.

This drummer is at the right gig

This video has been all the rage with my Facebook friends lately. I must've seen it posted about ten times in the past week.

I get the popularity -- it's funny as shit -- but honestly I think the thing was incorrectly named.

Don't want to sound like a curmudgeon, cuz I truly am not interested in judging it from an aesthetic standpoint. But is this not the natural, logical outcome of a musical culture that overwhelmingly takes its cues from MySpace, American Idol, and Guitar Hero?

If you're in a band that unquestioningly thinks it needs headset mics, matching yellow jackets, and a gigantic American flag as a backdrop, then how could you possibly want any other drummer than this?

Let's not kid ourselves. Everything in this video is exactly as it should be. For better or worse.

Of course, maybe the whole thing is a satire. Sometimes it's hard to tell. I recently saw It Might Get Loud (featuring Jimmy Page, Jack White, and the Edge); this had its own problems with musical bombast (I found myself wondering: don't these guys ever take the masks off?), but there was a nice moment where the Edge, in discussing the over-the-top, self-indulgent nature of the 70s rock he grew up with, referred to the film Spinal Tap, which of course expertly lampoons that same era. His response to the classic mockumentary? "I didn't laugh, I wept. It was so close to the truth."

I wouldn't hold it against you if you had the same reaction to Rick K. and the Allnighters.



[photo credit: Newsbie Pix]

Greatness

I am not greedy;
I do not seek to possess
the major portion
of your days.

I am content if,
on those rare occasions
whose truth can be stated
only by poetry,
you will, perhaps,
recall an image --
even only the aura
of my films.

And what more
could I possibly ask
as an artist
than that your
most precious visions,
however rare,
assume, sometimes,
the forms of my images.

-- Maya Deren

I find it hard to believe that any artist would go through the exhausting process of creative work without at least some (however unacknowledged) desire for recognition.

Don't call it a lust for fame, necessarily (though for some of us, that's clearly what it is). Let's say instead that it's a rational hunger for some sort of external proof that the whole thing (i.e., making art) isn't just an elaborate onanistic exercise, and that we're not just screaming pointlessly into the void.

And yet, there is a way to have that hunger for connection, while still maintaining a sense of perspective; a sense, in other words, of how rare it is, on the strength of the art alone, to truly reach another human being.

Which is why I love the above Deren quote (ganked from the beginning of her film Meshes of the Afternoon). I especially like the the fact that it includes the words "perhaps" and "sometimes."

My gloss: every connection, no matter how fleeting or rare, validates the entire enterprise.

[photo credit: Daquella manera]

By chance and trembling

One must try to come up with new, unrecognizable techniques that won't resemble any previous ones, so as to avoid silly ridicule. One should build one's own world that would allow no comparisons and for which there would be no previous measures of judgment, which must be new, like the technique. No one must realize that the author is worthless, that he's an abnormal, inferior type that, like a worm, writhes and slithers to keep alive. No one must ever catch him being naive. Everything must appear perfect, based on rules that are unknown, and therefore, not judgeable. Like a crazy man, yes, like a crazy man. Glass on glass, because I'm unable to correct anything, and no one must realize this. A brush stroke on one pane corrects without spoiling the one painted before on another glass pane. But nobody must realize it is the expedience of an incapable, of an impotent. Not at all. It must seem like a firm decision, resolute, high, and almost domineering! No one must know that a stroke comes out well by chance, by chance and trembling. That as soon as a brush stroke comes out well, as if by miracle, it must be protected right away, and sheltered as in a shrine. But no one must notice that the artist is a poor, trembling idiot, a half-ass who lives by chance and risk, dishonored like a child, and has reduced his life to the silly melancholy of one who lives degraded by the impression of something lost forever.

So says Pietro during a crisis-induced painting spree in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema.

Art is always a bit of a put-on, isn't it?

This is one of the things that always fascinated me about bootleg recordings: they offer a peek behind the curtain, and (often) a glimpse of a seemingly mighty creator as a "poor, trembling idiot."

Of course, one of the attractions of jazz (as far as I'm concerned) is that it manages, usually through improvisation, to integrate this behind-the-scenes roughness, this humble uncertainty about where a given piece is really going, into an overall artistic gesture that is actually more powerful as a result.

Or, as David St. Hubbins puts it:

The fact is that jazz is mistakes. You're playing a song, but you're playing it wrong. [...] Which is not to say we do not improvise. He'll take off, he will improvise like crazy, but it's all intentional. Jazz is an accident.

[photo credit: kwanz]

Portrait of the artist as a young singer-songwriter

(L-R: Jill Knapp, Darren O'Neill, Joe Bergamini (standing), Andrew Durkin (seated))

One of the funny things about having spent 30 manic years writing music (out of the 40 or so years I've been on this planet so far) is that I sometimes forget about songs I've written -- even when, at the time of their conception, I thought those same songs were pretty hot shit.

This song ("Spain") is, in retrospect, definitely not hot shit, but, hey -- it ain't bad either. In any case, I had completely forgotten about it. It's another thing revived by the aforementioned Mr. Darren O'Neill, who is proving (via Facebook) to be a key resource of obscure early Durkinalia. (The master tape of this recording was in the possession of Joe Bergamini, who played drums on the tune. Darren tracked the recording down and cleaned it up for this "release.")

Spain by uglyrug

What can I say about this song? Again, it was written during a pretty dark period for me -- roughly one year after "Just To See Your Face" (so sometime in 1989, when I was 20), and shortly after I had dropped out of Carnegie Mellon and Berklee College of Music. (I was a double dropout! Alas -- for a while there, I just couldn't find a school that worked for me.)

I had picked up a few classes at a local community college, and suddenly I was taking the "quest for knowledge" seriously. Mostly because of a beloved uncle's untimely death, which made me realize how short life really is (if you will forgive the cliche).

Anyway. This song had its origins in a geography course, which was attended by a beautiful raven-haired girl, who, for reasons I never understood, always wore tinted glasses. I never did work up the confidence to develop a friendship with her, but that didn't stop me from taking the artistic liberty of weaving a psychological portrait around that one (probably inconsequential) detail. I was convinced that she had to be hiding something, or hiding from something. Of course, I was actually the one who was doing the hiding -- there were many aspects of myself that I had yet to embrace. But I was content to project all of this psychic drama onto her for the time being.

Here's the lyric:

Spain
Why don't you say what you want to say?
Why must you hide from the truth every day?
Do you believe you've got nothing to gain?
Is that your game, Spain?

Spain
What must I do to relieve the pain
I can't believe that you're running away
You never were scared of what people would say
Don't be scared now, Spain

Oh I don't believe
That you could sit so idly by
While all your dreams would fly
Fly away

Spain
Here is the life you've been looking for
Don't tell me you don't have the guts anymore
You won't take the chance cuz you have to be sure
But you never will be pure

Spain
There's always tomorrow, another day
Sleep on your problems, they might go away
And if they don't, well, there's always a way
To fight back the pain, Spain

Oh I don't believe
That you could sit so idly by
While all your dreams would fly
Fly away

In retrospect, it's pretty hilarious to me that this song was conceived of in a geography class, and is named after a country (a connection I never made until now). Of course, the official reason for the title is that the girl in question had a Mediterranean look. On another level, the title may have come from a dipthong-tastic association with Billy Joel's "James" (which probably provided something of a thematic influence as well).

That's right, I went through a Billy Joel period (I have already written about this a bit) -- apologies if this song is too precious as a result. It is, in fact, far less precious than most of my other material from the same period, and, like "Just To See Your Face," is one of the few early tunes of mine that I'd be comfortable sharing in a more "official" context. It's a decent song, goddammit, and I think it holds up, despite its bombast.

If nothing else, consider this: it's not often that you get a fusion of a classical Spanish guitar and rock drums. Credit where it's due: Darren arranged and performed the guitar part, and composed the prelude. Personally, I think the song is much stronger as a result of these contributions.

In addition to Darren on guitars, and Joe on drums, I played synth bass (hardly audible in this mix), Jill Knapp handled lead vocals, and Angela Acosta sang backup.

[photo credit: Jeff Knapp]

All the music you will never listen to

"Narrative arts have been always limited by the capacities of the receiver (a human being) and of storage media. Throughout history, the first capacity has remained more or less the same: today the time we will devote to the reception of a single narrative may range from 15 seconds (a television commercial) to two hours (a feature film) to a number of short segments distributed over a large period of time (following a television series or reading a novel). However, the capacity of storage media recently changed dramatically. Instead of the ten minutes that can fit on a standard roll of film or the two hours that can fit on a digital video tape, a digital server can hold a practically unlimited amount of audiovisual recordings. The same applies for audio only, or for text."

Lev Manovich

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that the above-articulated idea is one of my regular themes. I often borrow Alvin Toffler's term for it ("overchoice"). It is, I think, a distinguishing feature of twenty-first century culture.

What it means for our relationship with art over the long-term is anyone's guess.

Does it mean the end of critical consensus? (How can you legitimately claim to be able to point to the best that has been thought or created if you are physically unable to consume a healthy sample of what's out there?)

Does it mean that we will soon lose the ability to experience art in depth, and with patience -- instead feeling compelled to experience a little bit of everything, simply because there is so much to be experienced?

Does it mean that commerce will finally be victorious in its quest to be the ultimate arbiter of taste and value, because the stuff that will "rise to the top" will in fact be the stuff that is most aggressively promoted, regardless of its actual quality? (How could anything rise to the top otherwise, given the number of things being produced?)

Beats me!

[photo credit: Andrew Choy]

Inverted man

Over this weekend, inspired by M.C. Escher (the artist, not the rapper), Thandie and I came up with a doodle that can be viewed two ways:





Top view: the cheesy sunglasses look.

Bottom view: the bald-Amish-dude-with-bad-teeth look.

Silly, I know.

Making fun

Frank Zappa once issued a CD called Does Humor Belong in Music?, and it's a question he was obsessed with throughout his life. And probably one of the records that's most interesting to consider in this light is Cruising with Ruben and the Jets, because it's regularly taken to be a parody of sweet rock and roll, or doo-wop, with the idea that if you do a parody of something, you hate what you're parodying, and you're only doing it to trash it. But you can listen to Ruben and the Jets in a completely different way. My friend Danny Huston told me that he had had a love affair that broke up, and he went home and played Ruben and the Jets, and wept all the way through, and took it completely literally.

That's Ben Watson, speaking in Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention: In the 1960s, about what Zappa called his "neo-classical" album, Ruben and the Jets.

Stumbled across this last night and thought it would make a nice addition to the Jarrett and Sardelli posts.

Is it possible to ridicule (or critique) something and to love it -- I mean really love it -- at the same time?

I think so. In fact, I would say that this is one of the more productive and useful dynamics in all of creativity -- it's one way of separating yourself from the things that have inspired you, so as to not merely reproduce what has gone before.

I would also suggest that the best human relationships are like this. No true love happens purely. Our honest disappointment in each other, our outsider's cold objectivity, makes our affection that much more meaningful.

[photo credit: gimpbully]

We need to be offended

(Look like anyone you know?)

I'm no expert on Baroque music. I certainly love it, and I actually play quite a bit of it in my role as the keyboardist for a local church. But I'm still a bit of an "outsider" when it comes to the finer points of the genre. So you may forgive me when I say that, until recently, I had never heard of Federico Maria Sardelli.

Yes, this is another discovery from my recent Italy fascination. (Which is a full-on syndrome for me at the moment. Honestly, how could I fail to love a country that produced something as magnificent as the Decameron?)

Anyway, for those of you, who, like me, didn't know from Sardelli, the always-helpful Wikipedia provides a pretty good introduction to the man:

Federico Maria Sardelli an Italian conductor, composer, musicologist and flautist. He is the founder of the baroque orchestra Modo Antiquo and has made more than forty recordings as soloist and conductor, some of them in co-production with the German broadcast company Westdeutscher Rundfunk. He has twice been nominated for the Grammy Awards. A notable protagonist in the Vivaldi renaissance, he has conducted the world premiere recordings and first modern performances of Arsilda, regina di Ponto, Orlando Furioso, Tito Manlio, Motezuma, and L'Atenaide. For his artistic merits, on 28th november 2009 the Government of Tuscany decorated Federico Maria Sardelli with the Gonfalone d'Argento, the highest medal of honour of the Regione Toscana.

All of which sounds pretty impressive, right?

Right! Personally, I discovered Sardelli through a gorgeous 2006 recording of Scarlatti compositions (with Elisabeth Scholl singing). I was duly impressed. To my ears, the dude has all the requisite characteristics to be a leading light in the oh-so-hoary-and-exclusive early music scene.

But if you read that Wikipedia article a little farther, you learn that there is another side to Sardelli, and that he is also

a longtime collaborator of the satirical magazine Il Vernacoliere and is valued because of his satire of Italian mainstream culture, religion and religious kitsch. His nonsensical style resembles that of Monty Python and Daniele Luttazzi, but he has a recognizable style of his own rooted in Tuscan popular humor.

Notable characters and strips by Sardelli include:

[...]

'Il Bibliotecario' ("The Librarian"): a peculiar comic strip made always of two-frames variations on the same theme: in the first the librarian greets an unnamed elderly woman with an (always slightly different) flowery and archaic sentence (e.g. "May I help thee, my Peripatetic Friend: if I can be a Spring of Fulfillment for thee, consider me unfailingly at Your Disposal"). The woman will ask for an (always different, and really existing) improbable ancient book, such as the "Gabinetto Armonico" of Filippo Bonanni. In the second frame the librarian will reply with a totally unconnected, often nonsensical and, more often than not, heavily offensive behaviour (for example by flashing his buttocks and asking her for advice on his new tattoo, or claiming he's the "King of Fried Food" and insulting her).

'Merda' ("Shit") : a mute strip where various characters are nonsensically obsessed by their relationship with excrement (being unable to flush it away, bringing it to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures to be used as a standard, or being able to flush it away only to cry at the loss).

'Circo' ("Circus"): about the adventures of a circus whose animals indulge in embarrassing activities like homosexual copulation just when the show is going on.

[...]

His Più Belle Cartoline Del Mondo ("Most Beautiful Postcards Of The World") are elaborate stories built around kitsch 60's and 70's postcards (often representing children or couples), written in an absurdly baroque and archaic style and lexicon, full of wonderful linguistic inventions [...] and with exhilarating plots rich in political uncorrectness and cynically unhappy ends; a recurring character in these stories is that of the fictional awful dwarf Gargilli Gargiulo.

Would it be wrong (or surprising) for me to suggest that in the US, this sort of thing would be much more difficult for a "respectable" musician (whether of the classical or the jazz persuasion) to get away with?

And that we're much worse off for it?

The purity test

And then I would, like, maybe come out, and they couldn’t calm down, and somebody would say something. And I’d say, “What?” And I’d turn, sit facing the audience, I’d say, “Okay, let’s hear it. What are we all talking about?” So somebody had asked for something, and I said, “No, I can’t do that right now.” Somebody said, “Play something long.” And I started to play these concerti. Like the Grieg, “Dah, da da dah, da da dah,” and then said, “No, no, no, that’s too long.” So it was like almost a comedy routine that they created. And then someone asked for Rachmaninoff’s 2nd, and I said, “That’s a good idea, but I usually have to play the 1st first.” So it was like they lost their inhibitions, and I did too, and you can’t hear that on the tape. But that’s what I like audiences to do.

-- Keith Jarrett (from an interview with Ethan Iverson)

Just noticed that our infamous "Incident at Umbria" video, which is about two years old now, has passed the 12,000 view mark on YouTube. Not a lot compared to, say, the Jonas Brothers, but a respectable number for an independent, hopelessly idiosyncratic ensemble like mine. In any case, it is by far our most popular video overall, which is maybe a little frustrating, given that I have written plenty of other tunes, and many of them are, um, much better.

Some of the commentary is entertaining. Consider:

This is just not funny.

Jarrett may have his personal flaws but that is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT when you hear the music he makes. The makers of this vid just show they have missed the point and lack any understanding of the process of a true artist.

Perhaps the next thing this lot creates could be something to move the spirit rather than titilate the less worthy aspects of one's nature...

And then this one:

next time i witness vultures feeding on carrion i'll remember this...embarassment.

gulliver and kj have something in common: they've been attacked by very little people.

Which is all well and good.



Or maybe not. Honestly, I don't get how "Umbria" could be imagined by anybody as an "attack." I mean, I could've written a song called "Keith Jarrett Is a Fucking Asshole" if I wanted to attack the guy. (After all, I did write something sort of along those lines with our John McCain song.)

I don't think Jarrett is an asshole at all, and I certainly don't have anything negative to say about his music. In fact, I actually love a lot of it.

To take the words that Jarrett spoke, and to place them in a musical context -- maybe not the most amazing musical context in the world, but one that did take effort, and that has a certain merit (and that stands out from pretty much anything else you're likely to hear at a "jazz" concert) -- how exactly does it titillate "the less worthy aspects of one's nature"?

What if I was trying to savor the weirdness of that particular situation? Weirdness too makes for good art. Personally, I have no idea what demons compel KJ to act out in his patented way. But the dynamic is very interesting to me. If one is self-assured enough to be able to talk shit to a enormous live audience, and yet fragile enough to be creatively threatened by the petty (and indeed typical) distractions of live performance -- that's a fertile tension, is it not?

Well, I thought so, anyway.

Every once in a while, I'm reminded of the fact that the old jazz purism never really dies. Like anything else, it goes through a heyday, laying down a set of rules about what subjects are "safe" to write about, what chords are appropriate to play, and all the rest. It becomes institutionalized, and loses the ability to think reflexively about itself. But even when it (eventually) falls out of favor and becomes eclipsed by healthier approaches, it never really goes away. There will be no "final victory" over it. It will always be lurking in a corner somewhere, hardly able to contain its enthusiasm for the next big chance to put the brakes on cultural progress and fullness.

And that's kind of sad.

[photo credit: exquisitur]

Separated at birth? (3)

Today's mix

Because I thought you might be hankering for a list.

The Black Keys: "Til I Get My Way"
Cheap Trick: "Surrender"
Cream: "Blue Condition"
Cream: "We're Going Wrong"
The Dukes of Stratosphear: "Collideascope"
Fiona Apple: "Extraordinary Machine"
Frank Zappa: "Let Me Take You to the Beach"
The Fully Celebrated Orchestra: "Reptoid Alliance"
George Harrison: "All Things Must Pass"
Heartless Bastards: "My Maker"
The Hollies: "Pay You Back with Interest"
Jeff Simmons: "I'm in the Music Business"
The Kinks: "Do You Remember Walter"
Led Zeppelin: "Out on the Tiles"
The Persuasions: "You Are What You Is"
Petra Haden: "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand"
R.L. Burnside: "Stole My Check"
Raphael Saadiq: "100 Yard Dash"
Skip James: "I'm So Glad"
The Turtles: "You Showed Me"
Yes: "Going for the One"

I'm sure there's a connection between all of these tunes, but I'm not sure what it is in every case.

Separated at birth? (2)

Back to the dust

Today we had to put poor Sadie-cat down. (I ain't a-tryin' to bum you out, but writing is what I do, and it's how I cope. So I'm writing.)

Every other animal I have ever owned has just died in its own way -- I've never had to initiate the process as an act of mercy. But Sadie had grown so weak that she wasn't even able to leave the couch on her own. In fact, over the past few weeks she had become afflicted by symptoms of her underlying condition so wretched and humiliating that out of respect for her I refuse to describe them for you. The bottom line is that we knew the vet's recommendation (euthanasia) was the humane thing to do. Of course, you know the kicker: that knowledge didn't make the experience any easier.

We had originally been thinking that we'd get Sadie cremated, but when I arrived at the vet's office and the nurse asked me what sort of "after care" I wanted (interesting term, by the way: "after care"), I had sort of an epiphany. We left LA (four years ago) in part so we could afford to own a home and a yard. Homes and yards are meant to be lived in, and to bear the evidence of that living -- not just in the obvious, display-oriented ways (e.g., portraits hung on walls), but also in the sense of the residue of important moments becoming embedded in and absorbed by the space itself.

In short, I was overcome with the feeling that it was very important that Sadie be allowed to physically become a part of the environment she had brought such joy to. So I asked that they let us bury her at home.

And actually, it was Thandie who put this idea into my head. We had been very up front with her through every step of Sadie's demise, and I'm incredibly proud that my girl did not shy away from the evidence of death when it finally came. She wanted to see the hole, she wanted to see her dead cat, she wanted to help with the burial, and she wanted to decorate the grave with flowers and pine cones:







Those of you who live in Portland know that we've been experiencing a period of pretty intense weather, most of which has been expressed as precipitation of one sort or another. Today was no exception -- driving home from the vet, the rain was heavy and fierce. But when the moment came to finally lay our cat to rest, the rain stopped, and the sun came out.

In an Oliver Stone movie, that would have seemed like heavy-handed symbolism. But in real life, it did my heart good.

Portrait of the artist as a young alt-rocker

Oh, my mis-spent youth.

I'm afraid it's time to inflict upon you (once again) some of the music I wrote when I was but a wee lad. (In this case, a wee lad of 19.)

Complaints regarding the following should be directed at one Mr. Darren O'Neill, an old friend and musical associate, who recently dug the below recording out of his own files (thus reminding me that this music even existed).

The year was 1988. I was living in Pittsburgh, attending Carnegie Mellon University for the first year of my undergraduate career. I would drop out by the summer, ending up at Berklee in the fall.

Ah, Carnegie Mellon. I initially made a brave attempt to "succeed at college" (whatever "succeeding at college" means). But halfway through that first year, haunted by a deep existential confusion over what I really wanted to do with my life (or, perhaps more accurately, how to do what I really wanted to do with my life), I succumbed to a vampire-like existence, sleeping all day and staying awake all night, and only making it to class, well, once in a while.

(And by the way, while I was at Carnegie Mellon, someone painted a crime-scene-esque body outline at the base of a five- or six-story stairwell in the computer science building. It was an image I could relate to.)

Alas, most of my CMU friends (we all lived in the same dorm, and collectively referred to ourselves as "Monkey Pus") went through the same transformation (from relatively innocent high schoolers to anti-social ne'er-do-wells). Like me, many of them would drop out of this esteemed institution by the end of the school year. At least one would go on to appear in a soap opera. Others were probably involved in the invention of the Internet.

But my closest friend was a fellow named Don Michaels, who (I seem to remember) was fond of saying that he had come to college for the express purpose of starting a band. Which of course seemed like a great idea to me, except that Don and I had very different musical tastes. He came from more of a "alternative rock" scene, and was a fan of bands like U2, REM, and the Cure, which I, coming from more of a classic rock / 80s metal vibe, didn't know much about at the time. (Keep in mind that this was before U2 and REM had achieved true "mega-star status" -- REM's Document was breaking just as I arrived at CMU.) Don was also completely untrained, musically. (So of course he became our singer.)

Still, I have never been one to scoff at an unusual creative opportunity when it presents itself. As we both grew more and more disaffected with the regimentation of higher education, Don and I started working on songs together, in what was probably one of the most directly collaborative experiences of my life.

I actually consider all of my music collaborative to some extent. That is: I know each piece I write is going to be transformed at least a little by the people who perform it. But the stuff Don and I wrote together at CMU was collaborative from the moment of its inception. As I recall, neither of us ever started writing outside of the context of that partnership. Everything would emerge during the songwriting session itself.

The very first song we wrote was a thing called "Just to See Your Face," and it is this song (unearthed by the intrepid Mr. O'Neill) that initiated the post you are now reading. Because even after all these years, I still kinda like it, despite its simple, innocuous catchiness.

As I recall, "Face" came about during an afternoon spent hanging out in the lounge of our dorm. I was fiddling with the guitar, and came up with the melody and, I think, a few of the words. (At least I'm pretty sure I came up with the opening salvo: "Give me sanctuary / I'm without a home"). Generally, when we wrote together, I got the idea of the song going, but Don finished it off, lyrically. He was superb at filling in the details and maintaining the concept of the thing. (Left to my own devices, I might've been inclined to corrupt it somehow.)

The very same evening (as I recall) we stayed up all night recording numerous versions of our first masterpiece onto cassette, with our friend Mark (the above-linked soap star) attempting to provide a bass line. At the time, it was a blast, though I don't know if the documentation still exists. Probably not. And probably for the best.

Fast forward to the summer, after I had, you know, dropped out (cue sinister music). Don (who lived in Rhode Island) came down to NJ for a visit, and we ended up making a "real" recording of "Just to See Your Face" (plus two of our other tunes) with the aforementioned Mr. O'Neill providing an impressive guitar orchestration, and another friend and local heavyweight, Mr. Joe Bergamini, playing drums with his usual flair.

It was, in retrospect, a pretty pivotal period of my life. Shortly before the demise of my first real relationship, shortly before the death of a very close and important family member, and long before I finally found my post-high-school footing, the moment was chock-full of significance for me. This song still reminds me of how it felt.

I can't guarantee that you'll like it too, but feel free to check it out. At the very least, it's a lot different than anything you've heard from the IJG:

Just to See Your Face by uglyrug

Anyway, thanks, Darren, for this stroll down memory lane.

Danger belongs in music

Yesterday I had my first experience with the cultural juggernaut that is Cirque du Soleil.

Daphne and Thandie were both born in May, and in a sense, this outing was an opportunity to celebrate both birthdays at once. It was something we could all enjoy together, at least theoretically. Of course, I'm not sure it was the sort of thing I would've sought out if left to my own devices. But if nothing else, I was extremely gratified (and moved) to see the look of wonder my kid had on her face for three straight hours.



I won't make any argument from the weirdness on display -- though once again I do see a mingling of the so-called "avant-garde" and the so-called "mainstream" in this production. Nor will I expound on the delight I experienced at the consistently bawdy undertone to the whole thing. Except to say "Bravo!" (After awhile I lost count of the fart jokes, and the sex jokes.)

But the show did get me thinking about the notion of "safety" in art.

As I watched two demon figures do their ridiculously insane routine on the gigantic rotating gerbil wheels, who knows how many feet up in the air, I thought: "There is absolutely no room for error here." Everything had to go exactly as planned, or someone would be killed -- and rather spectacularly, too.

Of course, that demand for precision, executed at a very high level, is where the tension -- and the pleasure -- comes in for the audience.

At the same time, very little about the production had the feel of improvisatory openness. Even the clown routines (in which physical safety was not an issue, per se) felt like they were highly scripted, so as to ensure accurate syncing with the sound design. At one point a member of the high wire troupe seemed to slip and nearly lose his footing -- a move that only made his second attempt at the same routine appear even more triumphant. Turned out this was planned too, because the exact same thing happens on the DVD.

All of which is well and good, and entirely appropriate for the sort of production that Cirque du Soleil is. My point is just this: the experience of art is enhanced by the threat of danger. For the musician, that danger may come in the form of a complex passage that must be executed just so, or a section that has been left open to interpretation, or improvisation.

For the circus performer, the danger is more literal, and more physical, but not more real.