Upcoming performances
April 26, 2009, 49 West, Annapolis, Maryland. 8 pm.
May 9, 2009, Reality -- St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland. 9pm.
May 10, 2009, the Hexagon, Baltimore, Maryland. 3 pm.
The Hexagon
1825 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
http://www.hexagonspace.com
April 15, 2009
I'll be playing with Liz Meredith and Susan Alcorn at the Hexagon in Baltimore next month. Liz is a violist/composer who uses electronics to create subtle sonic masterpieces in real time. Susan play pedal steel guitar – an instrument with firm and clear traditional American associations – but she plays this amazing instrument in a most experimental way. It’s gorgeous, strange, and wonderful. Both of these musicians are definitely worth checking out live. It should be a very cool show. Look to the right for details.
April 10, 2009
It is striking how different operational platforms transform work.
For several years I performed using an Electrix Repeater. This was the looping heart of my rig. It has four mono channels of audio, which can couple up in to two stereo loops. You can also resample and bounce at will, to give many possibilities. The device is cool and quirky, and does things no other device that I know of can do. It also seasons the audio with a rich set of unique sonic artifacts. It is also a straightforward approach to looping: You just hurl things in there and they spin. Synchronization with other devices is possible but not guaranteed. It’s possible to make a big mess real fast.
One of the virtues and hazards of loop-based performance is its raw, uncooked character. At its best, unconditioned and utterly true musical ideas hover in all their otherworldliness, temporarily visiting a particular group of people in a shabby room. The sound is alive and moving on its own, detached from the musician that let it into the human world. The effect can be sublime.
If one is sensitive and careful, these moments can build on one another; the hovering musical presence can be perceived to point the way toward a companion for itself. The Repeater was perfect for responding directly and immediately to this pointing. The character of the music that resulted from working with the Repeater is vivid to me, and for the most part I find that I simply cannot duplicate this character working as I now do in an Ableton Live environment. Live has its own virtues, and is far more powerful than the Repeater. In Live one is able to sculpt a more explicit musical narrative in real time. For me at least, it seems to nudge the player into a more conditioned, compositional mode. This doesn’t mean one has to give in to this nudging, but nevertheless, the game is different. I’m able to do things now that I wanted to do but couldn’t back then. Still, whenever I listen to recordings from the Repeater days, I realize something has been lost.
But this is life, is it not? A sequence of loss mitigated by new powers.
Here’s an example of a piece I used to perform with the Repeater.
beat on
Here’s the same piece from a recent live performance using Live. (The name has been changed to "beat one" to preserve the innocence of the original.)
beat one
All of the musical themes of the Repeater version are present in the Live version, but the character of the music is, in my opinion, radically different. What I am tempted to say as an observer is that the Repeater version offers a clearer window into the unconditioned, while the Live version is more “wrought.” While the Repeater version is perhaps more true, the Live version is probably a more interesting and exciting live performance. The Repeater version is more like a prayer, while the Live version is “cooler.” The Repeater version appeals to the soul; the Live version takes its bearings from the body.
What do you think?
March 9, 2009
How can one think clearly about all this technology?
Its existence seems to presuppose its goodness, its rightness, its purpose. It carries us along. There is no doubt that it is possible to render music more easily and more clearly than was possible in the past, even the recent past. The high-tech process has taken on a life of its own, propelled by its undeniable power and ubiquity.
It seems likely that one effect of this is the rise of mediocrity. Ordinary capacities can now pass themselves off as musical “gifts”. Should we disparage this? Is it somehow “unfair”? “unjust”? “dishonest”? I suppose my view is, “Yes.”
But, so what? Why would we expect this world to be fair, just, and honest? The real issue, the pressing question for the artist, should be, “Is my work true?” The support of powerful computer technology need not signify falsity, dishonesty, pretense. Quite the reverse, in fact. If the artist is actually using this technology, then s/he is working in a powerful new medium.
One version of this new power is the advance toward the essence of the musical idea, unfettered by the conditioned mechanics of physical necessity. This is not to disparage the accomplishments of musicians who have labored to express deep musical ideas through physical means, but only to acknowledge the possibility that digital instrumentation and manipulation might be a bridge to a deep realm, inaccessible to other means. If this is right, then it is a beckoning field of exploration. The artist who has the capacity to enter this field carries the obligation of his calling. The calling of the artist, all artists, is from the realm of the unconditioned. Perhaps the electro-digital musician has a unique access to a region of special (not to say “privileged”) proximity to this realm. It’s not easy to say, and it would be foolish to insist that this is so. Still, the possibility remains, and this avenue should not be dismissed owing to its conventional and common abuse by (1) “producers with computers” who salvage shit because the source of the shit is sexy, fashionable, and telegenic and (2) clever hacks.
February 14, 2009
very cool event at the Raconteur last night. the venue is great and the owner Alex is intelligent and supportive of artists, two virtues i very much admire.
Borne opened up the evening with a lovely set of laptop grooves, and then later he served up a supercool vinyl set -- which acted as a "buffer" between me and RR. Risk Relay rocked the house with their own brand of advanced post-punk. many thanks to Alex (Raconteur) and Mark (Risk Relay).
i reconnected with folks i have met at previous NJ gigs, and i made some new acquaintances. it was good to feel the love. Greg B showed up, which was very good for me, because he always listens carefully. he gets it.
i was also amazed to see GC brother Jonathan Brainin appear out of thin air. he maintained the quarters, for which i was grateful. he also lugged a heavy piece of gear.
February 3, 2009
I will be performing a set of new material at the Racounteur, 431 Main St., Metuchen, New Jersey on Friday, February 13 at 8 pm. I would love to see you there.
January 11, 2009
Lounging and lunging in cold and murk and deep joy. A boy called Arlo vaunts and commands. Final touches on a new batch of songs, and planning for a future that rushes home.
Completed recording with Chester and his pedal steel contraption. Mighty fine work. “With You Mine” and “Superflux” are now out of the nest.
I’ll be working with an A&R company this year, which is not really my thing, but it seems worth a try. I do wish for these new songs to go as far and wide as they can.
Planning a few performances for the winter and spring, and, one hopes, a short tour for August.
December 12, 2008
November 19, 2008
The machines have been tamed, finally. Months were lost to senseless and necessary strife with unseen bugs and devils. New chips and new memory. New memories. New soft and hard. A guitar that should know better, but which now sings at its own pace, in its own lower sphere. And the digital permission, bane of the hacker, the gamer, and the artist alike: I jumped through the fiery hoops backwards and now have license.Every endeavor is thwarted in a thousand little ways, not to mention the several big ones. But we push and push, and things move.
Like I said, the machines have been tamed. They march once again, more or less as they should, slaves that they properly are. I stand, ready for action dimly glimpsed in the distance but firmly felt, artificial intellects poised alongside, waiting, dreaming.
Also: old children called for new attention, and I gave it to them. They are stronger now, and getting stronger still.
And: a new child struggles in the night and learns to trust.
October 12, 2008
I buckled down the harness of demons and the god, and would not allow the least lament to pry open the metal vessel of his painted will. Looking to a mall for absolution is a lesser crime than stopping up the blow-holes of passing whales and letting the baby-killers kill with righteous vengeance in the name of an equation between unknown quantities. What will you make of all this, you who have no past, no memories, nothing to fall back on? You who look out and see only murk with shifting silhouettes, gestures that jerk when the sharp sounds shoot through: what do you do?
After the destruction of a new revelation, a re-planting in new dirt, dirt that still clumps like clay, despite its richness. New growth replaces the new death of the fledgling, but still it tempts itself into overwrought display. Display of what? That which it pretends, but which fails, which falls, pressed down under its own gross weight. Is there song – can there be song – with less than ornament? Simple, bare, unadorned, without a single spice of gargoyle grin and grimace?
September 21, 2008
Have you ever listened to Mount Eerie? I suggest you do so.
I have suffered massive computer calamities this summer, and it’s almost pushed me to follow Phil Elverum into the woods of ultra lo-fi. What a fucking pain in the neck. But, instead of giving myself over entirely to acoustic music, I am keeping the metasonic approach alive, for now. Two new laptops now propel me forward, one PC, one Mac. I just think it’s important to take the guesswork out of these things.
One of the disasters associated with this computer trouble was the loss of a nearly complete recording of a new song. You just can’t imagine what this feels like until it happens to you. But we move forward, and try to turn it into an advantage. More work, post recording, can deepen a song, and so I am channeling that new understanding of the piece into the new recording of it.
I’ve also put a new version of Erinn William’s song “Soldiers” up on my myspace page. I like it.
July 6, 2008
Ongoing work with Flora Wolpert-Checknoff, completing our efforts from the spring. This is definitely a new direction for me, and I think we are both learning through the process. Guitars, saxophone, mellotron, sundry percussion, and Flora’s beautiful voice make for a very satisfying combo. Flora amazes me.
I’ve also completed work on another song with Erinn Williams. She provided subject matter that is somewhat outside of my natural tendencies, and it was difficult to find an approach that I felt did justice to her lyrics and her incredible vocals. After many experiments I think something was hit upon that really worked. The results were very surprising to me. I can think of no category for this music, but it is definitely powerful and a bit frightening.
In the next few weeks I will finally be working on the last of a batch of folk songs I’ve been hoping to finish for low these many years. Why does it take so long?
june 4, 2008
much of the work this spring has been focused on developing a new live presentation. as usual for me, this brings new material into being. in allowing a process to become what it is, i find the music showing itself of its own accord. one of my aspirations is to allow this to happen without interference from my personality and my "bright ideas."
one of the new pieces that has emerged from this recent work has been polished up and presented on the jonathan badger myspace page. it’s called “the life of the flesh,” and it represents a taste of the new process. it’s a live performance, which is increasingly my preferred way of recording and documenting whatever authentic musical efforts are possible for this person.
May 11, 2008
The work of the past few weeks has been focused on electronic guitar performance. The feeling I have right now is that this work has completed a cycle. The tangible product of this cycle is slight, but the capacity for responding to future possibilities is now much higher.
April 30, 2008
New shows:
May 2, 2008 7:30 pm
Hub City Junkyard Palace
331 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey
May 9 and 10, 2008
Goucher College
1021 Dulaney Valley Road, Baltimore, Maryland
March 23, 2008
Spent some time polishing songs that emerged from the High Horse laboratory last year, which seem to be making their way into a film by Jason Avalos. The songs are by Erinn Williams. The film is scheduled to be shown at Cannes this May.
I’m also busy integrating new gear and a new approach to performance. I’m now giving myself further over to a computer. The bad part is that I end up spending so much time programming the gadgets and getting things to work that I feel like I’m losing track of my proper work in life. The good news is that I think I’ve turned the corner.
Planning a summer tour with the boys from Sparta.
February 14, 2008
It’s cold.
The last few weeks I’ve been working on new material in an acoustic vein. There are a couple of new ideas that I’ve been sorting out with Chester Burke, a really cool pedal steel guitar player. Also in the works is a collaborative effort with singer/songwriter Flora Wolpert-Checknoff, formerly of the Metal Hearts. She’s playing guitar and alto sax and I’m pestering an electric guitar. She’s pretty amazing.
January 1, 2008
What is it that gives life its value? What makes it worth the trouble? What insight reveals that it is not a veil of tears; or rather, what enables us to look through the veil of tears without going blind?
My view on this is not that there is some good thing or set of good things which outweighs the bad things. Instead, I suppose I feel that the wonder of life, its beauty, its richness, its privilege – all of this – lies along its surface, or (as someone else has said) just beneath its surface. It is not some great work or some great party or some great honor that makes it valuable and rich. It is rather its very being. Being carries its own value.
The “value of life” lies in the wonder we naturally feel at the mysteriousness of nature and the way nature hides herself. We are conditioned to shut down wonder the instant we begin to feel it. This is one reason I think so many of us are so very miserable.
The “value of life” is not a value. It is impossible to communicate this. It is encountered through experience. It is experienced through a quality of being. Being means being present, and this means “sinking.” We go down, we sink, into the daimonic reality of what is there. It is through this daimonic reality that we become present.
If we allow ourselves to be present, allow ourselves to see (really see) the beings within which we are present – the beings that are present to us – then the questions of satisfaction, of expectation, of entitlement, of success, of distinction, of value or worth, even of joy and happiness – these questions disappear. We know something we did not know before. Joy and happiness have new meanings.