Blog : Brisbane In The Grips Of Meatwave (& Will The Real Mother Of All Minimalists Please Stand Up)

Brisbane in the grips of Meatwave (& will the real mother of all minimalists please stand up)

This coming weekend, (april 21-23rd) that lovable larrikin of noise terror, Ross Manning ( http://www.halftheory.com/meatwave/ ) will be back in Brisbane briefly, to hand out free thick ears to all and sundry, in a couple of different formats.  Firstly, Friday 21st sees the opening of "Golf Fruits" at the White House.  An exhibition of kinetic/ sound sculptures which "defy theories of functionality, safety and cohesion" and "create a cacophony of absurdity, texture and frightening wonderment" according to the White House website.  If you prefer to go to art galleries, rather than art openings, get along to the white house on saturday or sunday to see these works in action.  Fuller info: http://www.halftheory.com/index.php?go=calendar&id=79
Then on Saturday night (22nd), see 4 layers of 9 bring the righteous party action to the Alliance hotel, in Spring Hill alongside Hrvatski (from usa, released records on record lables, etc) Anal Cookie, Potato Master, Lader, Suckaphish P. Jones etc etc. gig starts at 9pm, and costs $10. More details on the gig here: http://www.halftheory.com/index.php?go=calendar&id=78 or get some more info about some of your local artists, courtesy of news limited's myspace here: http://www.myspace.com/ipheda here: http://www.myspace.com/analcookie or here: http://www.myspace.com/sucka_phish
This is only one of three (count 'em!!) shows Hrvatski will be playing in Brisbane this saturday evening.  he'll also be performing two sets at the Puls8 festival (terrible, terrible, terrible name!!!!) (all the shows below at the Powerhouse) celebrating the music of alleged "father of minimalism" Terry Riley; a freebie for Fabrique (under his real name, Keith Fullerton Whitman), on the Turbine platform with inchtime at 10pm, as well as making an appearence in a 'collaborations concert' with Terry Riley, Topology, Sarah Hopkins & Lawrence English.  That one's at the powerhouse theatre, and it cost $34, as does the Terry Riley solo piano concert.  In my own well informed and not particularly humble opinion, it's about 35 years too late, or maybe more, to be getting excited about an opportunity to be seeing Terry Riley in action.  The festival is far from a washout, however, as the freest and cheapest stuff in it is well worth a look.  Firstly, there will be a film program curated by Otherfilm, featuring films with soundtracks by Terry Riley.  Filmakers whos work will be shown include masters of the mid 1960's American avant-garde James Whitney and Bruce Connor (Rooftop terrace, sun 23rd 3pm, $10/7 more details: http://www.halftheory.com/index.php?go=calendar&id=80 ).  Then 6pm Saturday,  there will be a free performance of Riley's classic "in C".  This is the piece that Riley's reputation really rests on, and while it's not his strongest work, it is still a gem.  It's been played by groups as diverse as Acid Mother's Temple & the Shanghai Film Orchestra, and really shouldn't be missed.  Possibly a little more special, or at least rare, is the free performance of "Olsen III" on Sunday, 23rd at 5pm ( if you turn up an hour or so earlier, you'll be able to see Clocked Out Duo perform also).  This work was released as part of the utterly essential Organ of Corti Terry Riley archival (re)issues a few years back, and is one of the very, very, very few pieces of music based almost totally around a text that actually works.  If you can still get your hands on them, "Music For The Gift" (including Riley's early tapeworks) and "Poppy Nogood" in this Organ of Corti series are utterly recommended to those who think of themselves as, or aspire to be, complete and well rounded human beings.  1st stop to try and get them is probably here: http://www.synrecords.com/ .
OK!!! for those of you who've made it through all my bullshit, here's some free stuff, and some fun things to look at!
Starting with Terry Riley.  If you've never heard a fart from the guy, you can hear some reasonably sizeable pieces courtesy of ubuweb: listen to him talk bullshit with Robert Ashley here: http://ubu.wfmu.org/sound/aether/Music-Aether_06-01_Riley.mp3 or listen to him playing his compositions Shri Camel & Morning Corona here: http://ubu.wfmu.org/sound/aether/Music-Aether_06_02_Riley.mp3 these two files come courtesy of Ubuweb, and are part of the series "Music with Routes in the Aether" which was made for American TV in the mid 1970' by Robert Ashley, and features music and the talking of bullshit about same by several of the most vital american composers of the period, including Robert Ashley himself, Phillip Glass, and Pauline Oliveros.  Check it all out here: http://www.ubu.com/sound/aether.html I recommend in particular the David Behrman piece, which will blow the loads of fans of the early Microstoria records, and the Robert Ashly piece, which is listed as "Time Withdrawn" but is in fact "Automatic Writing" - sad news for those of us who were hoping to hear some Robert Ashley we didn't know, the best news those of you who don't know "Automatic Writing" are going to hear for quite some time.  Terry Riley isn't the only person to have been accused of fathering minimalism.  Steve Reich and Phillip Glass have both also been named as the gentleman in question, but, according the my recently acquired Moondog cd "The Viking Of 6th Avenue", they both lay the blame at the feat of 1950's New York street musician & composer, Moondog, whose music you can hear, (courtesy of basic hip digital oddio) in an unfortunately low bitrate here: http://www.basichip.com/tony_schwartz/ts040.mp3 & here http://www.basichip.com/tony_schwartz/ts041.mp3 Moondog disavows all knowledge of this, saying, in turn, that his music is largely derivative of native American music.  Its hard to tell if this: http://archive.wfmu.org:5555/archive/BL/BL_Black_Lodge_Singers_-_Flintstones.mp3 is evidence for or against Moondog's claims (Courtesy of WFMU).  Of course, if the MOTHER of minimalism were maybe to speak up, all this "who's ya daddy" nonsense would more or less go away.  Hear what the most likely claimant to the title of "mother of all minimalists" has to say for herself here: http://www.archive.org/download/OliverosSOM/OliverosSOMR1_64kb.mp3 ; http://www.archive.org/download/OliverosSOM/OliverosSOMR2_64kb.mp3 (Pauline Oliveros speaking with about her music with Charles Amirkhanian, from the Other MInds collection at archive.org)
To tangentalise just a little further, those recordings of Moondog were made on the streets of New York by Tony Schwartz, who is referred to as a founding father of both the phonography and mail art movements, due to his recordings of New York's street musicians, and also just the city itself, as well as the LP's he compiled from tapes he traded with folks all around the world.  If anyone can help me out with copies of Tony Schwartz albums, especially a full copy of this one: http://www.basichip.com/tony_schwartz/ts002.htm i'd really appreciate it.  More info on Tony Schwartz here: http://www.basichip.com/tony_schwartz/
In Hrvatski/ Keith Fullerton Whitman news, Keith has been expanding his creative horizons to include the realm of stop motion animation.  you can see some of his works in progress here: http://www.keithfullertonwhitman.com/projects/stopmotionfilms.html in not entirely Hrvatski- unrelated news, sometime collaborator of KFW, and his partner in crime on the recent ablum "Yearlong", Greg Davis has been posting recordings of his live shows to the live music archive @ archive.org including this one, recorded at everybody's favourite record shop, Synaesthesia: http://www.archive.org/download/gtd2004-10-12.sbd.flac16/gtd2004-10-12t01_vbr.mp3
and who the fuck is inchtime????: http://www.inchtime.com/

Added by jpeatt on 17 April 2006