This is the second part of a list of art, music, and events that, in one way or another, were sources of inspiration for me in ‘06. Part one of the list is here.
“Object Lessons” (Gigantic Art Space, NYC)
I posted about this previously, but this show downtown at GAS made a big impression on me. The art definitely cool, especially Sean’s cabinet and the eggs, but most of all it was inspiring to see some friends who make weird electronic things for a living, mostly. The resulting discussions kicked me into a little obsessive whirlwind of visual and hardware projects, some unfinished / in hibernation, some having actually been shown to other humans.
Aloha, “Some Echoes” LP (amazon, myspace)
Another labor of love from friends of mine, this record took a long time to sink into my head. It’s complicated and gorgeous, highly detailed, and wonderfully psyched-out in places. The craftsmanship shines through in every single aspect of this recording: the musicianship, the lyrics, the engineering, the production, and everything ineffable and inbetween. Once it got to me, it really got me in a way that Aloha’s previous records haven’t: a cohesive whole, a unity, a sequence that works from start to finish. To my ear, it sounds like they’re well on their way to finishing the transition that started on “Here Comes Everyone,” but where it’s leading I can’t guess yet. I really want to know.
Errol Morris, “Gates of Heaven”
This is a strange and wonderful documentary about pet cemeteries, the first from the famous documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. (Read Roger Ebert’s review.) The film is shot in hyper-bright color under the nearly blinding northern California sunshine; I remember it as all blue skies and green grass and yellow sun, like a Kodachrome print from the early seventies you’d find in a family album. Morris spends some time meandering through the origins of various pet cemeteries near Los Altos, CA (coincidentally, about five miles from where I now live - what does it mean?) and finally settling on one very interesting family in Napa, proprietors of the Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park. The film isn’t narrated, and the tone is very hard to pin down: cruel or sympathetic? Artful or accidental? It’s ambiguous and excellent filmmaking and you should see it to decide for yourself. Interesting side note: this is the film that Werner Herzog bet Morris he’d never finish, thus resulting in Herzog eating his shoe before the film’s opening.
Charles Curtis, performance of Terry Jennings’ “Piece for Cello and Saxophone” (Tonic, NYC)
Terry Jennings was an acolyte of minimalist high priest La Monte Young. Terry died young, in 1981, and his works are rarely performed and are mostly unknown. They were certainly unknown to me when Jim and I headed down to Tonic to see the cellist Charles Curtis perform this piece that was only 70 minutes long, but which felt like 3 hours. The instrumentation (”cello, sine waves and cello drones”) created an endless, glacially shifting landscape that seemed to hypnotize the audience as it slowly modulated through a very minimal set of chord progressions. It certainly hypnotized me. Curtis’ stamina was unreal; he literally never stopped playing throughout the entire performance. When he finished, he kind of slumped over his cello and there were several beats of silence while the audience seemed to recover from their trance, and he was treated to a thunderous, long ovation. This was one of the most beautiful musical performances I’ve ever seen, and while I’ve been unable to obtain any of Terry Jennings’ work (I’d kill for a recording of Curtis’ performance that night) I spiraled down into a long La Monte Young fixation that took me to the remarkable depths of his “Well Tuned Piano”, an even more epic work for intriguingly-tuned solo piano - well worth the five-hour listen if you can get your hands on it (got $750.00?)
Well, there goes an interesting year. I’ve been lucky to be exposed to all this great culture. I hope 2007 can come through for me too!