Sunday, June 20, 2010

HIO musings

1) we were total assholes to rockstar it and show up at 1919 an hour and a half late. al rios was cool, though, and even asked us back. bless him. that shit won't happen again.

2) clear spot was an edifying listen, but doggebi took the show. terry and i were talking about how luis longoria makes his tabletop guitar sound like anything but a guitar. (i'm a little more guitaristic, prolly because i love percussive sounds and pulse.) his brother spike the percussionist drums like a composer, in the manner of early tony williams or ronald shannon jackson. michelle yom uses her breath to achieve interesting percussion effects on her flute. almost enough to make me sorry i'm not going to make the houston/austin shows next month.

3) big marcus definitely gets "most valuable player" for showing up saturday night after being dogbit on the face and hand the night before. i've never known a classically trained muso who's so flexible in his approach and willing to try new things on the spur of the moment, even in the context of a public performance. kudos!

4) hickey is the heart of HIO. his solo work as joe and the sonic dirt from madagascar shows that he knows how to structure and arrange music, and he gets a great recorded sound as an engineer. his minimalist contributions to HIO elicit more audience comments than any other element of our performance. and he's one of the naturally funniest people i've ever known -- an immeasurable asset in this drinking club masquerading as a band.

5) terry horn has a work ethic like no creative person i've ever known (although completion is not his strong suit). he's inspired me to change the way i think about playing music in all contexts, not just HIO. i'm glad he got a gig teaching art at eastern hills high school next fall.

6) i refuse to investigate the history of improv beyond reading derek bailey's book (thanks, herb) because i'm uninterested in learning the syntax and conventions of the genre. what i strive for in HIO is to take what i know about music-making in a general way and apply it to the situation at hand, using whatever tools t. horn has provided for this purpose. i think this is in accord with his intent, as he's told me that he keeps building instruments in order to change the way HIO sounds. i think our process -- which basically consists of being comfortable interacting with each other socially, listening and responding to each other without ego onstage -- is sound. at least it pleases us.

ADDENDUM:

7) we're changing the title of our box set from a box of hentai to revisionist history. if you buy one, you'll get all of our recordings _that we like_ at the time t. horn puts it together.

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