Category: Field Recordings of the Future

I think of our time, early twenty first century, as turbulent but pointing to a reflection of this turmoil in contemporary art or music is not so easy. The late sixties were very turbulent and the evidence is everywhere.

Alarm Will Sound, a new music group which started while the principals were students at the Eastman, returned last night to perform their newest work,”1969.” Three projection screens surrounded the 20 piece orchestra as they played arrangements of pieces originally performed by John and Yoko, Stockhausen, Luciano Berio and Leonard Bernstein, pieces that today clearly express those heady days. Images of Stavinsky, Father Berrigan, Hunter Thompson, Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights protesters, Kent State students and the soldiers in Vietnam cement the connection between the times and the art. I was thinking how Philip Guston’s art changed in that same period but that played no part in this program. These were our formative years so Peggi and I deserved the second row seats we took. Actually we arrived as the show was starting and someone was in our seats already so the ushers said we could sit anywhere we want.

I loved this presentation, short pieces of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass’, Lennon and Yoko’s “Unfinished Music”, the Beatles “Revolution Number 9” and Stockhausen’s “Set Sail for the Sun,” collaged together with dialog taken from the artist’s own words. The entire piece was centered around a connection that actually never took place, a meeting between Stockhausen and John Lennon. They did talk about it though.

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I loved dance music before the drum machine and still do.

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I took this video of Lakeshore Boulevard a few years ago with my old camera and finally got around to posting it. Christmas day was the perfect time time to stumble through iMovie. Peggi was driving and I stuck the camera out the window. We started at Durand Lake and immediately turned to drive west along Lake Ontario toward the Genesee River outlet. My mom used to take us swimming here when we were kids and it is still the place to be in hot weather.

Had we traveled east along the lake shore we would driven by the scene of Monday’s massacre. Joe Barrett and Jeff Munson have both emailed to ask if we went to school with the shooter. He’s our age but he wasn’t in the yearbook. Maybe he didn’t make it to senior year.

At my parents house on Christmas the conversation naturally turned to guns. One of my brothers led with “It’s not the guns” and my niece, who was always getting in trouble in high school, had many run-ins and then was mentored by the fireman/cop who was killed, agreed. My brother-in-law’s two eldest both had “Call of Duty” at the top of their Christmas/Hanukkah list and both were disappointed. It was a pretty well rounded discussion with most agreeing the gun lobby will say whatever it takes to sell more guns.

So, eight to ten inches tonight. Perfect weather for the Margaret Explosion. 7:30-9:30. Last Little Theater gig until March.

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This plywood nativity scene went up last week in front of the Church of the Transfiguration on Culver Road. I love that word, “Transfiguration.” The Transfiguration is an episode in the New Testament where Jesus is transfigured or metamorphosed. He becomes radiant and shines with bright rays of light. Moses and Elijah appear next to him and Jesus is called “Son” by a voice in the sky, assumed to be God the Father.

Last Wednesday, Jack Schaefer played guitar with Margaret Explosion and tried this holiday number (below). We might try it again tonight when Bob Martin returns on guitar and Pete LaBonne joins us on the grand piano.

Here’s Margaret Explosion’s version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

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Margaret Explosion plays once a week and in addition to the regulars there are always a few new faces at our Wednesday night gig. Just like with any band, people want to categorize the music and after the gig they’ll stop by to ask what kind of music it is that we play or they’ll want tell us who we remind them of. Pink Floyd, Sun Ra and Twin Peaks are most often cited. Last week Steve Greene sent us this note.

I think you might dig this vid. In fact I have often thought that M.E. were direct descendants of the Airplane. ( really ) Steve

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Rob Storms called earlier in the week to invite us to a performance by Todd East, a local pianist who he described as the best musician in Rochester. I wouldn’t even mention that Todd East is blind if it wasn’t for the fact that he sounded exactly like Stevie Wonder and the only song that he did that I recognized was Ray Charles’s “Georgia.”

The performance was in the original Sound Source location on Norris Drive over near Cobbs Hill. We sat by the infamous “Spider” Casorla from Roller Coster Fireworks who was originally in town for the Jewish holidays but has stuck around until his father is well enough to make the trip back to their fireworks outlet in Nevada. A woman sat down next to us and asked if I was a Dodd.

It had been a long time since someone had asked me that. Maybe it was my new brush cut, a hair style that all five boys sported in the days when when my father would have us take our shirts off and stand in a line to get buzzed. She said she went to Holy Trinity with me but was in my sister’s class. Rob was calling this place a hacker space but it’s now called the “Inventors Club”. Conjures up all sorts of possibilities.

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I love Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is.” If there is funeral service for me someday I hope someone will play it.

This graffiti in an artist’s installation at a museum in Sevilla, Spain caught my eye when we visited last year. The museum is in an old tile factory and the facility is as nice as the art. The graphics department at Earring Records used my photo for the cover of “Wall to Wall Carp,” one of the twelve songs on the new Margaret Explosion virtual, black vinyl, long playing release entitled “Untitled.” In keeping with the new economic band model the entire lp is available as a free download. Check it out.

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Tom Harrell was a highlight at both the 2006 and 2012 Rochester Jazz Fests. Beautiful melodies and fantastic players in his band each time. At Hochstein on Thursday night he played with a piano-less quartet, tenor sax with Tom’s trumpet along and Ugonna Okegwo on bass and Adam Cruzon drums. Peggi told me he may have been the best drummer she had ever heard but nobody can touch Ed Blackwell. This is a great venue for live jazz. The hall is relatively small and has a crisp, natural ambient sound. Really great players don’t overplay. They blow you away by coming up with the perfect parts and playing with the perfect touch and perfect feel. This was heavenly.

I took a movie of their last song and was going to throw it up on YouTube but it is out of focus. My camera (Nikon P7000) loses focus if I zoom while recording. I’m trying to learn not to do that. Damn thing sounds great though. Last time we were at Hochstein I took this movie of Kenny Garrett with my old camera, a Nikon 5100.

On Friday night we headed out to the Lovin’ Cup with our earplugs in my pocket. We walked in just as Rocket From The Tomb (early Pere Ubu) took the stage. This is a whole world away from jazz but it was a gas going back in time to somewhere between the late seventies and early eighties. I tried the movie thing again. Guitar player, Gary Siperko, is from Ithaca’s Mofos.

Saturday night was now. Somewhere between jazz and rock, Margaret Explosion played a benefit for our little buddy, Oscar, at RIT’s Lyndon Baines Johnson building. Go Oscar!

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The row of spinach that we planted a few weeks ago got swallowed up by the cilantro that went to seed a month ago and is now something like a ground cover so we put in two more rows of spinach. This will probably be our last batch for the season. Spinach is the one thing we can keep up with at the dinner table. I ate cilantro leaves while we planted the spinach. I don’t worry about a little grit in there after reading the article about the health advantage of exposure to local bacteria in a locavore diet. We have eggplant coming out our ears and more tomatoes that we can can. We had zucchini for dinner and picked more of that this evening. The whole trick is grabbing that stuff before it gets too big and seedy.

The huge leaves on our acorn squash are finally dying back enough so we can see the fruit and there is a lot of it. That usually keeps pretty well on top of our refrigerator until Christmas or so. Our neighbor gave us two parsley plants and they have been getting bigger and bigger all summer. I came back with a bunch of that. I picked a few more jalapeños. Can only handle so many of those in a day. I left the red peppers on the vine because we still have a bag from Wegmans. Maybe I’ll roast them tomorrow. There’s a roasted eggplant/red pepper/anchovy tapa in our Spanish cookbook. I might make that. Who needs the Public Market? Actually we plan to get over there tomorrow for the art fair.

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