Schrodinger's Cat

On the ‘gig' construct/phenomenon (a non-review)

What is it? Well it’s a ritual event / social congregation / entertainment / artistic presentation space and also a vehicle for ideology to come forth. This evening I was torn between going to see the Japanese band Limited Express (Has Gone?) at the Cross or taking part in Jeff Henderson’s ‘Not Quite Quiet Choir’ performances at Weltec in Petone and at Happy. The Japanese band’s name seems highly appropriate as I paid to get in and then missed them entirely. That’s the second time I’ve done that this year, I also forked out for Lynton Kwesi Johnston (sp?), which was a lot dearer, and turned up after he finished.

In this case though there was also politics involved. Elisa, my ex, was playing in one of the opening acts, an all-girl rock band called the Blow-Up Dolls. I shouldn’t comment on the name, except… y’know, just look at it. I had meant to go along and see the performance and give her some feedback, but what would be the point? The dynamic between us these days just feels like mutual disdain and the whole thing’s tiring and doesn’t seem worth bothering with any more. We’ll both go separate ways next year which will be a relief. Maybe in ten years we’ll spend a really good day together.

So I threw my lot in with the choir. There was a line in the JG Ballard novel Cocaine Nights that I read recently, about it being more important to be a third-rate painter than to see a Rembrandt exhibition. That’s kind of been my philosophy, tonight I got to have a practice at performing under a conductor, pretty much the kind of thing you could get in music school except I never went there. I almost signed up for the popular music course at Nelson Polytech one year, I had just about enough formal musicianship to qualify (with a bit of study I could have passed grade 3 theory - not now). But they were talking about how the one-year course let you record a single as your end-of-year project and the second-years got to do an album. I’d already done an album when I was 19, and was working on my second. Conceptually I thought I’d staked out a good patch of ground by doing the spoken word and free improv guitar alongside the songwriting, and using a lot of acoustic textures but with an edge of dissonance – in that sense I was ahead of the formally trained students. I valued and value originality over proficiency. Nelson Polytech seems to me to produce a lot of technically good music but it’s the rough edges and even the mistakes that I go for. In this case the choir was a bit of ensemble practice, which is useful experience for Ascension Band (gig on the 18th!!).

When you do a gig you’re arguing a position. When a band chooses to play within a genre, they’re aligning themselves with something. If it’s very polished sounding that makes a statement, likewise if they’re a punk band who ‘can’t play’. I’ve always had a particular refusal to play covers, defining my outline through negative space. The closest I’ve come was a Beatles anti-cover on The Marion Flow, the throwaway track which is totally stupid but which some people seem to like. Conceptually it’s all there in the words, you don’t actually need to hear my recording of the track which could just be annoying.

She doesn’t love you no no no (x3)
You think you’ve lost your love, well I saw her yesterday
You’re absolutely right, she told me what to say
She said fuck off, she’s not thinking of you
She doesn’t love you and she don’t care if you’re blue

She doesn’t love you no no no (x3)
She is well aware you’ve almost lost your mind
She’s sitting there laughing and you thought she was so kind
She doesn’t love you and she don’t care if you’re sad
She doesn’t love you and I know you're going mad

She doesn't love you no no no
She doesn't love you no no no
To fall in love like that you know you must be mad

Etc etc

I don’t have any particular relationship with the Beatles, some of their stuff’s good, some lame, some brilliant, but my life doesn’t revolve around them the way it does for a lot of rock fans. I wouldn’t even call myself much of a rock player or listener – my guitar playing’s about disruption and muscle spasms rather than power chords. Derek Bailey, Sonny Sharrock, Robert Quine and Marc Ribot are some obvious guitar heroes of mine (as opposed to Eddie van Halen or Andres Segovia, say). As far as rock guitar goes, Lou Reed on the Velvet Underground’s ‘I Heard Her Call My Name’ is a defining moment. If I had to pick a favourite rock band I’d probably go for The Fall, as they make me laugh* and I want to dance to them (though I haven’t seen them play live, which is where you really come to understand what an artist is on about – hopefully they’ll still be going by the time I get to Europe). I disagree with Stevie Starr, a fellow journalist/muso who also bombed out on shorthand, that music should set out to produce a specific emotional effect. To me the sound is what it is, and if that generates an emotion then great.

So pastiching the Beatles was easy since their song was just a cultural reference point to be parodied. Whereas with Bob Dylan, a cultural figure of approximately equal weight, I have a definite master-pupil relationship. He doesn’t go outside of song-form though**, so I do a lot of other stuff. I wouldn’t dream of trying to play any of his songs, but I do take on board a lot of his aesthetic. The guitars and harmonica, that voice...

Is this OK for a non-review of the gig tonight? Come to Photospace on the (16th? 17th? Tbc) and/or Newtown Hall on the 18th - it seems good to present the acoustic/electric sides of the coin back to back - to find out what I’m talking about.

http://fiffdimension.tripod.com

*’It’s not true unless it makes you laugh’ – pearl of wisdom from the Illuminatus trilogy (by Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson).

** On second thoughts, not true. He's written two books and made or been involved with several films.

Posted by fiffdimension at December 2, 2004 12:57 AM | TrackBack