Monday, March 9, 2015

121. House show } Holy Komodo.


Cryptic invitation:

mauwf
bring furniture
& paper to
allagash trail
03.07.15 9pm

An empty house at the end of icy Allagash Trail Road. Split-level, big windows covered with invisible paper, teal wall-to-wall carpet, teal carpeted steps and upstairs hall. Band names on the wall. Bathroom. A soft couch. We waited for the Holy Komodo while we discussed age. A woman asked if I knew Tom Leotard. Possibly she thought I might be Tom Leotard or, as likely, she wanted to sell me some Tom Leotard.    

Downstairs for the Holy Komodo. We stood against the wall to watch. “How do you make a cult following?” My companion asked; the cult followed. My companion asks—she’s interested in how people make an idea actual in the world and subsequently cause the world to take notice. Bare cement walls, stamped by plywood forms. White wiring wrapped around the support beams. Bright, single-cell organisms projected on a sheet behind the band. Nina on keys, sang, dark hair flash and keyboards.

Flock of Seagulls hairdo camera-phone filmed the band, the audience, and us interlopers. A woman with her boyfriend behind her grinned. A crowd-surfer barely cleared the ceiling beams. “If you must mosh,” Nina said, “do it away from the equipment we’ve spent all our money on.” She was obeyed. My companion noted Flock of Seagulls hairdo; “If I had hair like that, I’d—” the rest of her comment lost, but something like, “—voodoo fan.”

From where I stood, Joel, the drummer, was the most visible member of the band. Pink and salmon, all joy—before the show he’d told an anecdote, said, of his brother—“he’s a lot skinnier than I am”—a claim hard to believe. Komodo’s recorded output in no way prepared me for the vigor of his drum work (in retrospect, hinted maybe by “Make Time”). He sat and he stood.

My thoughts were not especially interesting. Teenagers in the midst of an experience that—if remembered—will become a shorthand for who they think they are. People who go to house shows. Who shout: I was in that place. Pressed by the reptile nation, we braced ourselves against the wall.

An angry woman clutched a glass pitcher of ice water to her chest. My companion asked, “What do you think she’s on?” The angry woman shouted, in response to someone else’s interest, “You’re not my friend!” The pitcher sweated. The angry woman sat hard in a wooden rocking chair. Maybe she ate some bad Tom Leotard.


[ Photo of Holy Komodo at Space Afrika house show courtesy Sierra Clark. ]

Friday, March 6, 2015

120. Notes made while } Philip Glass & Tim Fain played.

“Mad Rush” (Glass says, from 1979). Sweet is thot / just the / piano” \\ a near stop + / the small / keys retake / the piece // [gold curtains, purple shirt, vest, pleated brown slacks] \\ left hand / crosses / the right / for a / lower / note [E. leans against me] \\ gold + green + brown / …keep [the work] warm / + kind… \\ write in your own line. / …the place the performer goes to / [E. wants to ask questions “when does the next song begin?”] / partita, 2 movements, for a chaconne \\ …holds the violin with his chin / + plays after \\ a breath / in the midst / emerges / familiar / Glass / built into the old form \\ we want high + low together / always

\\ [Fain] jumps / onto the notes, / feet planted but / heels up. / …scrape / drag \\ written for him + / …sounds / like him / “Metamorphosis” (Glass says, I like to play the even \\ ones in reverse order [4 then 2] ) / a little / showy \\ fast / went up / as I don’t / recall / embrace / heat. \\ not uncomfortable / but too / warm // in places, the keyboard / is re- / found \\ Music from The Screens (Glass says, from 1991), “French” (heard, “Friends”), “The Orchard,” & “The French Lieutenant Dreams” (heard, “…Lieutenant’s Dreams”) // the European piece / Kora \\ they tune up / my eldest melts

\\ feature / texture / on wave / [we] land // hollow sound [in] strings \\ hold hands / to bow // Hydrogen Jukebox (1990) \\ (Glass says, “the first time [Ginsberg’s performance] was perfect… / used [recording of Ginsberg reading “Wichita Vortex Sutra”] in the tour… \\ after he died / I didn’t / play it / for a long time // too painful / I didn’t want to hear it \\ one day I put it… / the only good thing / about this now / is a I know / how it goes”) \\ a hymn / (Glass says, “I’m an old man… \\ vortex is like / an energy system / sutra is / a prayer.”)

\\ ecstatic / lang. \\ who touches the breath / + says / om / stop for tea + gas [Ginsberg?] \\ “Evening Song” partita \\ a green / partita // played alone, / the violin at / times / becomes / more / isolated \\ smaller, maybe [my eldest / is on fire] / long / whisper \\ (2010) // (Glass says, “Actually / Tim plays his part / + the other part” \\ “Pendulum (for Violin & Piano)” \\ [goth] anniversary concert // tunes— / holds a note \\ [E.’s leg itches] / encircle particle open \\ Glass sits on the bench + listens. // “Closing” (1982), from Glassworks \\ tangled / keys / in closing.