Abandoned
We will readily admit it is Neil doing Karaoke, to a bunch of songs Steve wrote in Jan 2009. Although it does sound like a couple of old men having a shouty good time.
#2
Is the work of a couple of weekends writing together, and believe it or not shows signs of development, the occasional slower song, with structure. More on this to follow.
Ambient #1
It was a cry for help (well content) from Amy at work.
"What level of pretentiousness ?" I asked.
"10" she replied.
"I'll do 11 no problem..."
See below.
An Appointment a quarter of an hour diversion.
A deconstruction of a song which will appear on our second release.
Shamelessly stealing the ideas of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno.
Additional vocals Debbie Neath.
How one gets to a piece of work is sometimes as fascinating as the piece of work it's self.
In the case of Ambient music how the work was arrived at will be more interesting than the work.
As I started to develop the piece I sort of lost the plot, at one stage I was contemplating, using two laptops, a couple of CD players, playing upwards of 16 loops of sound. Getting Neil to phone in his contribution, use four or five different speaker positions. It sounded OK, but pretty bland and boring. Me onstage hunched over a laptop is egotistical and safe.
So in one of those 4am rethinks.....What has fascinated me over the last 30 odd years of music making ? What are my/our strengths?
Well making noise for a start, combined with my collaborators we give good song. Lets use these.
And a Ray Lowery cartoon, and that Desperate Bicycles run off groove.
The backbone of my music ideas...
A Lowey cartoon in the NME in the late 70's it's text went...
”Nilism is not enough!! Anarchy and Art School is the last refuge of the criminally irresponsible!!“
”We’ve learned from the mistakes of the Punks and the Politicos!! We have to take control of the means of production and distribution!!..“
..so..er..Just as soon as we’ve made these guitars. We’ll play you some really neat toons!!“
The locked groove at the and of Smokescreen 7” by the DB's shouted “it was easy it was cheap go and do it”.
I've always been fascinated by how vague and disparate the interpretation of a “art work” can be.
What I think I am doing can mean something totally different to someone else. In fact I think an “art work” should mean something different to every participator. Some works are more vague than others. People will always try and fix a meaning. Even if one is not implied, one will be imposed.
Therefore once you throw a work to an audience it becomes theirs, and subject to their interpretation.
I have loved the idea of Ambient music, since I first bought Brian Eno's Discreet music in 1977.
And his “discovery” of the aforementioned one of the more “pseud's corner” moments in Rock and Roll. I tend to take his post hoc intellectualising of happy accidents with a pinch of salt. More accurately I'm a big user of “just do it justify it later”. I use Eno a lot to do this.
I think the schematic on the back of that Album is one of the classic images and ideas in the late part of the 20th Century. Granted it will have been stolen from some mid 60's cybernetics book but its potential has always fascinated me.
I love the idea of generative music music that writes itself, evolves via a set of rules.
As computers have got more powerful, and cheaper and software writes more innovative
one can replicate what Eno was doing at a fraction of the price, and, if you have ever tried to lift a Revox A77 tape recorder (let alone heard of one), a fraction of the weight.
Still Ambient music is by its nature boring and not very engaging.
How to get that random factor into the piece, and the audience involved ?
Possibly the central question to all art. How to get the Audience engaged and involved?
Get the audience to do it. Plead beg and if needs be bully them in to poking and proding things to make the work advance.True to generative form I can remove myself partially from the piece, set up the structure and then let it run. I have no idea what will happen. I can force it's generation,and hint at it's evolution,then lapse in to democracy (or beine dictatorship) as the piece develops.
So the piece has been designed around a piece of software called Audiomulch. The best thing to come out of Austrailia since The Saints and Kylie Minogue. I'll write another piece on the software and the rules I set down for the performance at later date. The video is there to act as a distraction and has no inherent meaning. Or non I will admit to this side of psycoanalysis. The interesting stuff will be going on at the rear of the room as I try and convince members of the audience to get involved.
Will it be as good as the theory, of course not.
But then that's the whole point.
May14th
Audience 2 Bollnas Wolverines 1
Well that wasn't what I expected. My supposedly non meaningful video, was loaded with meaning by most of the audience. Well when I did the final edit I ended up thinking this looks like a a rather disturbing dream of mine.
The audience were quite up for coming to the back of the room and making choices from the
laptop. Those who did then knew what was happening. Of the rest, some were in the dark about the whole process and others were aware something was going on, but not what. Just adding to the paranoia and dislocation in the room.
Totally the opposite of what I was expecting. I should know by know we do sinister and moody quite well, much better than we do cheery interaction. I will need to look into my dark soul for the answer for that little conundrum.
I suspect I was a little too coy on the information I gave the audience, to be enigmatic is one thing to be impenetrable is a different kettle of fish with a bicycle . Even though at the end of the video the words ambient and generative are mentioned, I think few in the audience realised if we started the piece again it would have sounded totally different. Is that relevant or important ?
At the end of the day you've had your 15 minutes.
On the whole a successful evening, it was suggested that next time I should let the whole audience know what was happening before hand, and she might just be right. And by the nature of the beast it will be abiffent piece.
See http://youtube.com/user/thebollnaswolverines
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