Observations by Wayne Spencer
The AMPLIFY festival is an annual event organised by Erstwhile Records, a New Jersey based record company largely dedicated to electro-acoustic improvisation. AMPLIFY 2004: addition was the fourth festival in the series (the previous ones were held in New York, Tokyo, and then New York again), and, for the first time, proceedings were split between two cities: Cologne and Berlin, Germany. The Cologne half took place over 6-8 May 2004. Sadly, I could not attend this; instead, this review covers all of the main shows and most of the side shows (as they were referred to) in the Berlin wing of the festival.
The intended theme of the festival was expressed in its subtitle: “addition”. As Erstwhile owner Jon Abbey succinctly put it in an interview with Stylus last year, “it’s about quartets and the construction/deconstruction of them”. To this end, the Berlin wing of the festival presented three successive days constructed around quartets selected by Abbey and guitarist Keith Rowe. In addition to these, a series of supplementary side shows before and after and the main festival was arranged, mostly featuring duos chosen by Abbey. As might be expected from Erstwhile’s involvement, the music largely (but not exclusively) fell within the category of electro-acoustic improvisation. This category has yet to attain a consensual meaning but can perhaps be tentatively defined as wholly or partly improvised music that utilises electronic equipment – whether alone or in conjunction with non-electronic instruments – to produce amplified sounds and assemblages of sounds – whether laminal, pointillist or continuous – that are not in principle confined to the timbres, pitches, forms, and melodic and harmonic structures regarded as legitimate by western popular or art music or other a priori systems of musical thought. In his History of Electronic and Experimental Music, Thom Holmes traces improvised electronic music back to elements of the late 1950s live work of John Cage and David Tudor with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Gordon Mumma and Robert Ashley in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Rather more pertinent to contemporary electro-acoustic improvisation would seem to be the work of the improvising groups AMM and MEV from the mid-1960s onwards. However, it was only in the second half of the 1990s – with the coming together of (amongst other things) mounting dissatisfaction with existing models of acoustic improvisation, an interest in new approaches to timbre and other music elements foreshadowed by figures such as Helmut Lachenmann, the existing explorations of the aesthetics of equipment failure by figures from within and without the world of electronica such as Oval, Nicholas Collins, Ryoji Ikeda, Yasunao Tone and Pan Sonic, a growing interest in improvisation within electronica, and the availability of relatively cheap, easy-to-use electronic equipment – that pioneering figures such as AMM’s tabletop guitarist Keith Rowe began to attract more than a modicum of interest and study, and new local and global networks of electroacoustic improvisers began to coalesce. The musicians picked to appear at AMPLIFY 2004: addition mainly came from the ranks of the improvisers who have made their names in this new musical movement.
Monday 10 May 2004
The Berlin half of AMPLIFY 2004: addition began with a side show at the Club der Polnischen Versager, a club in the Mitte area of Berlin that was established in 2001 by a group recently described by Exberliner magazine as “a handful of arty Polish drop-outs” (hence the irony of the club’s name, which translates as "Club of Polish Losers") and now serves as an important venue for improvised musical concerts and many other kinds of cultural events. It is not a large venue, with the seating consisting of nothing more than a short flight of concrete steps (with a few scattered mats) and a small area of bare floor, and it was full to the brim on the night (about 30 or so people in all).
The opening music was by Annette Krebs (on tabletop guitar and radio) and Sachiko M (on mixing desk and amplified textures). The two performers had discussed their approaches before the set began, and perhaps as a result of this the ensuing improvisation took place on a shared musical terrain somewhere between their more typical individual styles. This was not the Sachiko M of extended, high-pitched and fairly invariant sine waves; instead, she produced quite active patterns of pulses, bleeps, long tones and reverberations from her electronics, as well as scratching and other sounds from amplified textures. For her part, Krebs’ playing was quieter and more spartan than is sometimes her wont and ranged across the sounds of compressed, bowed, plucked, struck (with cotton wool buds) and scraped (with wire wool) guitar strings, snatches of radio voices, and bursts of electronic noise. There was relatively little call-and-response interaction in the playing, yet the two contributions proved consistent with each other and mutually supporting, and this higher-order collective playing produced an interesting and beautifully textured sequence of quietly active passages of different densities alternating with fecund silences.
The second set, by Burkhard Beins and Keith Rowe, provided a singular and startling contrast to the first (Keith Rowe later told me there was deliberate intention to broaden the sonic terrain under exploration). With the room barely illuminated by a single red light, it began with the broadcast from Rowe’s radio of a live Canadian programme about current events in Iraq, evidently intended to serve as an irruption of wider socio-political realities into the performance place. Almost immediately the air was thick with dense swathes of radio chatter, harsh noises from Rowe’s tabletop array, and insistent, ritualistic playing on rubbed drums and bowed cymbals from Beins, creating an atmosphere that could certainly be taken as conveying something of the dark obscurantism and ugly violence of contemporary global conditions. At length, the inspissated gloom was overlain with a somewhat surprising new element: a clear and lengthy extract from a broadcast of Dusty Springfield’s "Son of a Preacher Man". For Rowe and his listeners, radio intrusions can serve a multiplicity of purposes (see Rowe’s article "Above and Beyond" in Volume 5 Number 2 of the London Musicians’ Collective’s magazine Resonance), but if nothing else this particular extract from the airwaves supplied a reminder of how ugly social circumstances lie half-concealed beneath the ubiquitous delusions of inane and narcotic popular music. In any event, the song was at length submerged beneath a series of crashing metallic sounds from Beins, and a later relay of Peter Sarstedt’s "Where Do You Go To My Lovely" was permitted to bubble to the surface only briefly. Towards the end of the set, the density of the duo’s soundscape grew thinner, yet it remained a fierce, intense performance and was warmly received by the audience of its conclusion.
The final set of the evening was by Toshimaru Nakamura (on no-input mixing board) and Andrea Neumann (on inside-piano and mixing board). The duo began with a blanket of harsh and quite loud sounds, but soon moved into quieter territory. Unfortunately, at this point Neumann encountered technical problems, requiring her to enter into a doubtless unwelcome and distracting exchange of signals with the operators of the PA system. Once the problem was resolved, she shifted nicely between the components of her equipment, plucking or rubbing strings or generating crackles and other electronic sounds (including what sounded like a music box), generally in short bursts of activity. What Nakamura was contributing to proceedings was not always entirely clear; however, he seemed neither to underpin nor interact with Neumann, and their respective playing stayed largely separate throughout. Viewed as a collaboration, the set did not strike me as a successful one.
Thursday 13 May 2004
The second of the sideshows took place at Ausland, a formerly squatted club located in the basement of a residential block in Prenzlauer Berg. Abbey estimated the audience as being around 70 or so, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was as high as 100; it was certainly crowded.
The evening began with Annette Krebs and Keith Rowe, both on tabletop guitar and radio. By means of close listening and adroit collective interplay, the musicians created an underlying ground of eddying drones and pulses dexterously crosscut, augmented, attenuated, silenced and warped by an array of short and extended sounds from variously manipulated strings, radios and electronics that exemplified how free improvisation using the most abstract materials can produce an assemblage and dialogue – a spontaneously evolving journey through an almost palpable field of possibility – riveting to observe.
Next on stage were Burkhard Beins and Andrea Neumann (whose Lidingö was released on Erstwhile in 2002). Their at times quite delicate improvisation was tactile and episodic, using a fairly narrow range of sounds (especially bowed drums and cymbals from Beins and plucked, scraped and mechanically oscillated strings, and bursts of electronic noise, from Neumann) in a sequence of pointillist exchanges and more extended interactions separated by silences. The playing was alert and responsive throughout and it was a pleasure to follow.
Günter Müller (electronics) and Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing desk) closed the session with a low-key and undemonstrative set of electronic pulses slowly shifting in frequency, volume, timbre and metre. The music was never very enterprising, but as the piece continued it became increasingly confined within a straightforward, regular rhythm that made it ever harder to distinguish it from the established banalities of mainstream electronica.
Friday 14 May 2004
Proceedings now shifted to the main festival at Backfabrik, a large complex that once served as an East German baking factory and is now a centre for the supposedly creative economic activities that some see as increasingly the motor of capitalist economic development in the post-industrial west. As Myron Levine explained in a recent paper in the Journal of Urban Affairs:
“On Prenzlauer Berg’s southern edge, just minutes from Alexanderplatz, the night life of Mitte, and Kollwitzplatz’s cafés (Töns, 2001), the developers of BACKFABRIK.de converted a massive factory-bakery collective into a striking complex containing 24,000 square meters of office lofts designed to attract smaller, innovative firms in the media, advertising, computer, and telecommunications industries (‘‘Die BACKFABRIK.de,’’ 2002). Designed by the internationally renowned architect Marc Kocher, a former partner of the late Aldo Rossi, the project offers an Italian-style central piazza, bistro, restaurant, courtyard obelisk, gallery and exhibition space, and even a rooftop fluorescent light sculpture. Bundestag President Wolfgang Thierse laid a tile to mark the commencement of construction and returned to illuminate the light sculpture at the project’s 2002 opening, signifying the importance of the project to the government’s efforts to have Berlin become a high-tech, corporate service center in the New Europe."The festival occupied a single very large and high-ceilinged room within the complex with adjacent bar.
It had originally been planned that the main festival would open with performances by AMM and Toshimaru Nakamura as a quartet and then a sequence of short duos featuring the members of AMM paired with Japanese musicians. However, quite late in the day AMM’s pianist John Tilbury that decided his existing boycott of American cultural life obliged him to withdraw from the festival, thereby terminating any possible involvement by AMM as a group. Under the revised schedule drawn up in the wake of Tilbury’s withdrawal, the whole of the four-hour session was given over to the quartet of Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura, Keith Rowe and Otomo Yoshihide that was initially programmed to close it. Abbey estimates that approximately 70 paying customers ventured out for this challenging prospect. Most stayed until the end, sitting on the seats arranged around the group, lying on the floor, or occasionally walking around the room in order to revive the limbs or gain new points of vantage.
The set began with a silence into which music from another part of the complex percolated. Soon, however, the quartet emerged from its repose to develop the sound that would fill the next three hours and 55 minutes. Summarising a performance of this length in a few words requires egregious simplification and excision; nonetheless, I think it is not too inaccurate to suggest that a defining characteristic of the music that unfolded over the course of an evening that started in weak sunshine and ended in a deep gloom illuminated by just three lights and the table-top lamps in front of each performer was the strong sense of a field uniting the individual players into a collective presence, a common musical space bound together not just by devices such as the shimmering ground provided by Sachiko M and Nakamura alone or with other members of the group, but also by the evident locus of attention and expectation uniting the quartet and the ways in which new strands of sound were woven together with existing contributions so as to emphasise the emergent shared fabric as well as the novel components. At the heart of the group’s matrix was the shifting ground arising at any given time from some combination of sine waves, mixing-board pulsations, buzzes, the sound of a fan playing on guitar strings, or other extended, drone-like components. Introduced into this space was a diversity of elements, ranging from the sounds of distressed wire and metal to electronic white noise or gentle clicks and crackles, with events initially fading in and out of the background swells in relatively brief episodes. Over time, the density of the music increased, as Yoshihide and Rowe began to engage in a more active and sustained dialogue on electric guitar/turntables and tabletop guitar respectively, utilizing a multiplicity of small sounds and more occasional violent interjections. This in turn was succeeded by a pronounced emphasis of the horizontal, consisting first of dense, massive drones flecked by high-pitched waves and later by quieter drones accompanied by intermittent percussive touches. The session concluded with a long period of shimmering reverberations and sine waves commingled with streaks of white noise, crackles and restrained percussion that was superficially subdued yet strongly present in the midnight air. It was a powerful conclusion to a superb collaborative performance.
Was there a benefit to playing for four hours? Of course, there were inevitably a few longueurs (as there are in many shorter performances), but these were insignificant when placed against the scope the extended duration gave the quartet to develop a rich group sound and explore a broad range of interactive musical textures and combinations. More important still, perhaps, the time allowed the quartet to establish itself as more than a transient element in the soundscape. Sometimes it was merely a delimited frame within a wider soundworld manifest through the sounds of passing trams and other extraneous elements; for longer periods, though, it served as the totality of the sonic environment within which audience and musicians subsisted, allowing one’s habitual acoustic expectations to be powerfully displaced by a new, extemporised logic and set of relationships to be explored. In short, one important thing the availability of four hours permitted the group to do was to go further than is usually the case in re-educating the senses.
Saturday 15 May 2004
The second day of the main festival in Backfabrik was better attended than the first and was curated by Jon Abbey alone. About 110 (his figure) attended. The first to play were Beins, Nakamura, Neumann and Rowe. Keith Rowe later said that he conceived of the group’s performance to be akin to a fairly short overture or introduction to the music to follow. He also pointed out a fact that I suspect eluded almost all of the audience, namely that he (and perhaps others in the group) had used a blank sheet of paper as a mock score, in commemoration of an occasional practice of Beethoven’s. In the event, the group’s playing was spacious and labile, an interplay of generally restrained sounds and gestures that was short but rich. It seemed to whet many people’s appetite for more.
The first group to be given opportunity to take advantage of the opening quartet’s setting of the scene was that consisting of dieb13 (turntable and electronics), Axel Dörner (trumpet and electronics), Billy Roisz (visual projections) and Burkhard Stangl (guitar). There was a degree of interaction between Dörner’s grainy exhalations, dieb13’s churning sounds and Stangl’s quite conventional guitar figures, but the improvisations succumbed to rather stereotyped patterns and lacked both subtlety and an integrated group sound. Roisz’s backdrops of lines, moving circles and other patterns and geometrical figures worked best for me during the more agitated and homogenous passages of playing, but in general I found it difficult to concentrate on both the audio and the visual dimensions of the group. As the effective intensification of Beins and Rowe’s performance by the conjunction of ambient darkness and a single red light showed, there is scope for synergy between constructed visual effects and improvised music, and Roisz’s exploration of these possibilities is surely to be applauded; however, I would suggest that little progress has yet been made in discovering visual elements that can effectively be integrated with music that demands close listening.
Next on stage was saxophonist John Butcher, playing the first solo set of the festival. He started on tenor with a piece constructed from a powerful and disciplined series of twisting microtonal lines, an intervening section of circular breathing, and a concluding shift to sharp tones with abrupt attacks. It was a riveting and virtuoso performance, although perhaps closer to the aesthetic of 1970s free improvisation than many in the festival. His second piece used amplified feedback from an unblown saxophone and percussive use of the instrument’s keys. In comparison with Graham Halliwell, another saxophonist who has explored amplified feedback, Butcher exercises rather less control over the feedback process; at the same time, he also seems deliberately to aim for ruder effects, and on this occasion succeeded in producing an interesting extension of his instrument’s usual range. For his third piece, he turned to the soprano, beginning with an extended section of circular breathing. For me, this invited comparison with Evan Parker, which is perhaps unfortunate as Butcher’s playing lacked the depth and multiplicity of sound that Parker now achieves (notably on Lines Burnt in Light), resembling instead Parker’s earlier Six of One. The set ended with a long, high and microtonal passage that was quite hard on the ears but intriguing to follow. The thunderous applause and marked enthusiasm that ensued left no doubt as to the audience’s sentiments about the set.
Butcher returned to the stage for a quartet with the Austrian group Radian, who started with a relatively quiet and exploratory period but soon coagulated into a crude and often repetitive amalgam of drums, electronics and electric bass, to which the saxophonist could add little of interest. If this set was intended to illuminate the construction of a quartet, it seemed mainly to suggest that the ad hoc addition of an additional figure to a trio given to replicating hermetic compositions produces few benefits. Butcher then left the stage and Radian continued with a loud set of regressive and highly formulaic compositions featuring a propulsive march of simple and repetitive rock rhythms on drums and bass and routine electronic washes. Jon Abbey defended Radian’s inclusion in the festival on two grounds. The first was that the group’s compositions “remove everything extraneous”. This proposition, which would seem equally to justify the inclusions in AMPLIFY of both the White Stripes and practitioners of the most mind-numbingly one-dimensional techno music, would seem to be unconvincing. The second reason given was that he personally likes the group. As sole financer and co-organiser of the festival, no doubt Abbey is in a position to indulge his own tastes, but an appeal to the privileges of proprietorship does not answer the suspicion that Radian’s set was incongruous in a festival otherwise dedicated to electro-acoustic improvisation and consumed time that could have been better utilized by the many musicians not in the festival who are less beholden to the anachronistic conventions of a bankrupt popular musical form.
Sunday 16 May 2004
The final day of the festival was curated by Keith Rowe and attracted, on Jon Abbey’s estimate, around 130 people. It was also perhaps the only day of the festival that touched on the original theme of “quartets and the construction/deconstruction of them” in more than a perfunctory fashion, featuring a series of four solo performances, followed by a quartet performance by all four. Judging by my conversations with Rowe, however, if there was a theme of the day, it had more to do with ideas of extending the guitar, with each of the musicians being selected […] as leading exemplars of extended guitar (or in the case of Nakamura, quasi-guitar) techniques.
The first solo spot was occupied by Oren Ambarchi, who played a modest set featuring a short guitar phrase twisted and augmented over time, with the help of delays and samples of his own playing. It had no great aspirations in relation to rhythm, harmony, timbre or any other musical variable, but proved charming and interesting.
Next was Toshimaru Nakamura, playing not, as one might have expected, the guitar on which he recently recorded Side Guitar (Improvised Music from Japan) but a no-input mixing board, with which he mixed layers of extended tones of various frequencies and grain, white noise, rustles, pulses, crackles and beeps into an amalgam that continually mutated through subtle changes and more abrupt transitions. It was often very effective, although he was inclined to abandon suppleness of metre and tempo for long periods in favour of inflexible rhythmic regularity.
The third set was by Rowe. Its beginning was sufficiently unostentatious that it escaped the notice of some audience members, but Rowe quickly secured their attention. The first half of the set was dedicated to the construction of an ensemble of superimposed layers of diverse pulses, reverberations, radio noises, and more intermittent flashes of sound, the characteristics of which changed constantly as existing layers were varied or removed and new ones added. In the second half the improvisation became less dense, as the wide resources of Rowe’s tabletop array were deployed in a somewhat more successive fashion, before decaying away to an obscure ending that became evident only when he switched off his table lamp. It was a superb demonstration of how far Keith Rowe has taken the guitar from its traditional sounds and styles, and how the expanded sonic terrains thereby opened out can be harnessed to create compelling musical creation and experience.
The final solo excursion was provided by Christian Fennesz. He proceeded to batter the audience with unsubtle juxtapositions of uninteresting and loud electronic pulses, tones, washes and percussive sounds, supplemented for a short period by some recognisable and dull guitar chords. After the performance, several members of the audience I spoke to said that they had nearly been driven out of the performance room by his tiresome assault on their hearing. It seemed a crude and pointless exercise.
The solo performances having concluded, Ambarchi, Fennesz, Nakamura and Rowe gathered to play as a quartet, apparently under the collective name The Four Gentlemen of the Guitar. Powerful pulses and drones tended to predominate, and for long stretches the collective sound became an amorphous electronic fog. This was a pity, for when a more pellucid texture was allowed to emerge, opportunities arose for active and close listening, and there were periods of interesting improvised interaction and collaboration to hear. The performance seemed to be brought to a premature end when a quiet passage prompted the eruption of applause. In any event, an improvisation I thought was decidedly mixed in quality was enthusiastically received by the audience.
The day had certainly demonstrated how the traditional guitar had been extended, even if it did not always show those extensions being used to good effect. As for the construction of quartets, it perhaps more than anything else drew attention to the fact that the behaviour of musical groups cannot necessarily be predicted from the behaviour of their constituent members as musical individuals. Social life is not just individual life acted out in company.
Monday 17 May 2004
With the main festival over, the side shows resumed. The first gig took place at the Galerie Neurotitan, a gallery with adjacent book, comic and CD shop located at the end of a decayed alleyway in the fashionable Hackesche Market area and has been holding non-mainstream exhibitions since 1996. The performance was part of an event relating to the Charhizma label’s recent release Platte, a handsome and painstakingly-produced collection consisting of a vinyl album of turntablism from various artists and a collection of 10 silk-screened mock LP records designed by separate artists, all housed in an elaborately illustrated box. One room of the gallery was dedicated to an exhibition of the illustrated LPs spinning on separate decks, plus art by each of the artists concerned. An adjacent room was the location of a performance by dieb13 and Otomo Yoshihide, both on turntables and electronics. An adjacent room was the location of a performance by dieb13 and Otomo Yoshihide, both on electronics and turntables. What transpired was exhilarating: a very physical, yet often spacious and delicate, interaction in which a musical intercourse of mangled sounds was improvised from uncertain procedures and recalcitrant materials at times only tenuously under control. The proceedings projected a strong sense of exploration - of tentative trial-and-error and the pursuit of sounds appropriate in the context - as well as of disrespect for traditional equipment and techniques of music (including the dismal clichés of hip-hop turntablism. In contemporary social and musical conditions, such a demonstration of how arbitrary boundaries and conventions may be destroyed and horizons fruitfully broadened, all in the course of dialogue, was surely welcome. It was certainly very heartily received by the audience.
Proceedings now moved a 100 yards or so to KuLe, a club squatted by theatre students in 1990, renovated during the 1990s, and now home to artistic ventures including Labor Sonor, a regular series of improvised and experimental music performances and one of the cornerstones of the radical Berlin scene (see Charhizma's Labor CD). It is another quite small venue, and the room was jammed tight with around 40-50 bodies. The first duo featured Kai Fagaschinski (clarinet) and Burkhard Stangl (guitars). It was a relief after the more intrusive of the sessions in the main festival to be obliged once again to listen with care to something that did not ostentatiously force itself upon you. The music began close to the ground explored by Fagaschinski with Michael Renkel on their CD Rebecca (also on Charhizma), with Fagaschinski playing sustained microtonal tendrils and grainy passages of modulated breath, and Stangl introducing scattered acoustic guitar chords. However, over the course of several short pieces, as Stangl added electronics and an electric guitar held vertically or laid horizontally on a table, the playing moved further afield. These were uncluttered, delicate and obliquely poetic improvisations, marked throughout by a careful and haunting interlacing of wavering clarinet tones, hisses, exhalations and watery percolations from Fagaschinski, and a range of physical and electronics bowings, percussive taps, plucked notes, chords, and intermittent explosions from Stangl. There were even two brief snatches of tonal melodies from Fagaschinski, like half-forgotten and wistful memories from simpler times.
The following set by Tim Barnes (percussion) and Mark Wastell (electronics, amplified textures and metallic percussion) was equally refreshing in its subtlety and variety. For anyone familiar with his sometimes quite ‘reduced’ work, Wastell was surprisingly active, shifting quickly and adeptly between hisses, crackles, rumbles, oscillations, pure tones and other sounds from his electronics, as well as amplified textures and the ringing clarity of his various metallic percussion instruments. Barnes concentrated on a narrower range of sonic materials, often relying solely on gnarled woody cracks on a drum - yet he too also turned to rubbed and scraped cymbals, grainy bowings, vocal exhalations and what seemed to be bells during the course of the improvisation. The resulting interaction between the two was a subtle one, embracing both direct trading of gestures and less obvious congruencies of sound, and bringing together space, silence, shifting textures and intriguing timbres in ways that facilitated and rewarded the listener’s focussed engagement.
The final session of the day was by Martin Tétreault and Xavier Charles (both on electronics) who explored a dense soundscape of churning electronics and physically oscillated objects. The performance had some points in common with that of the Four Gentleman of the Guitar, only with a more intimate sound and clearer structure. Unfortunately, it also proved relatively unvariegated, and long before it concluded its initial impact had been diluted by a propensity to repetition.
The music continued over the next few days, but sadly I had to return home at this point. What I saw of the festival was well organised and surrounded by a good social atmosphere. The side shows were perhaps more successful than the main events overall, but the standard of the music was generally high, with some collaborations being as fine as one could reasonably hope for. Clearly, Jon Abbey deserves our gratitude for the enormous amounts of his personal time and money he sank into the festival - and so too do his various collaborators in Berlin and elsewhere for their hard work. And yet, I have my reservations. Coinciding with the first main event was a very enticing performance in the Wedding area of town by another electro-acoustic quartet (Boris Baltschun, Serge Baghdassarians, Boris Hauf and Michael Renkel). This was a reminder of the many excellent musicians and groups left out of AMPLIFY 2004: addition, and more especially of the relatively limited number of Berlin-based players who had been included. In conversation, Abbey made the entirely reasonable point that a festival can only accommodate a fairly small number of musicians, and hence someone will always have to be left out. He explained that the festival was built around Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura, Keith Rowe and Otomo Yoshihide, the four musicians he regards as consistently excellent and the best in the field. He added that although there were many good musicians in Berlin, he had, in his view, included all the important and distinguished local players in the festival. This judgement about Berlin musicians might perhaps be coloured by Abbey’s apparently limited sympathy for the distinctive aesthetics of electro-acoustic improvisation from the city (very little of which has been released on Erstwhile). More importantly, however, it would seem that Abbey takes the view that it is possible and desirable to conduct individual-level appraisals of musicians, and to order the results into a fine-grained and stable hierarchy that contains at its top a handful of exemplary, superlative and ultimately privileged figures. This is not entirely different from the star system that mainstream cultural industries operate, under which individuals are invested with a mythical aura and strong media identity that serves to create both an infatuated consumption amongst the public and an enduring brand name that reduces the considerable risk and uncertainty otherwise surrounding production of cultural commodities. I doubt Abbey has entirely the same motives, yet his delimitation of a tiny class of purportedly pre-eminent improvisers (isolated from the collective contexts in which they often appear) seems to turn on a fetishist and implausible amplification of the work of the individuals concerned, and to be conducive to a reverential and passive relationship between audiences and his quasi-aristocratic elite. On what rational grounds, for example, can Keith Rowe’s work be taken as such that he merits no less than nine appearances over the course of the two legs of the festival, while many other interesting and exciting players are not given even one? It must also be wondered what effects such attempts to identify and differentially benefit small elites have on the tightly-knit and mutually supportive networks of musicians that subsist in places like Berlin, as existing working relationships are ignored and musicians who work together and support each other as equals are assigned on no very obvious or justified grounds to different categories of merit. Even where there is not such a strong sense of musical collectivism, Erstwhile’s hierarchical stratifications would seem destructive of any notion of collective free improvisation as a socially critical enterprise that exemplifies or prefigures more egalitarian social relations, especially in ensembles that include both elite and less favoured musicians. It equally threatens to create even greater economic disparities than exist already: a glance at the world of film or popular music reveals all too clearly how star systems concentrate opportunities and rewards in the hands of those assigned star status. In general, neither the creation of a star system nor a strongly individualistic and instrumental approach that often aims at unique combinations of atomised individuals in recordings or performances marketed as world exclusives (another aspect of Erstwhile’s operations) may be best calculated to serve the long-term interests of the music. This is not to say that Erstwhile's approach may not from time to time produce hothouse flowers of a certain beauty: it is the potential effects of such an approach on local and global ecosystems of electro-acoustic improvisation that are cause, I would suggest, for concern.
~ Wayne Spencer
Posted by joe on June 12, 2004 4:14 PMah, here we go again. here's a piece which Dan Warburton wouldn't run in Paris Transatlantic, but which the nice men at Bagatellen seem to have no issues with. at least on this site I can answer publicly.
first of all, Wayne Spencer and I don't like each other. speaking only for myself, he rubbed me wrong from the first second I met him, I think he's an incredibly self-centered ass who doesn't even come close to understand this world as well as he thinks he does. I begged him beforehand to talk to me as much as possible, but on the few occasions that he deigned to, he was looking down his nose at me the whole time with his smug smile, barely paying attention to what I was saying (obviously, from his mis"quotes" attributed to me).
specifics:
1) I tried to include an additional night of shows of all Berlin musicians who hadn't been included in the main festival, but Kai Fagaschinski, who coordinated setting up all of the outside shows, insisted that it was too many nights of shows. I tried to argue, because I wanted to see them, if nothing else. this is relevant info that I think Wayne knew, and if he didn't, I would have told him if he had only asked.
2) this is an international showcase, not a Berlin festival, it just happened to take place in Berlin (and Cologne) this year. I also wanted to include a lot of Vienna musicians, as I will probably not get back to either of those places to do another festival. as it was, I included 31 musicians from 10 countries over the 10 nights in the 2 cities. hardly exclusive.
3) "He added that although there were many good musicians in Berlin, he had, in his view, included all the important and distinguished local players in the festival.
no way I said this, it's fairly close to libel. I'm not happy that Al/Joe/whoever's in charge at Bagatellen these days let this go. it should be removed from the article, since Wayne is above using tape recorders.
4) "This judgement about Berlin musicians might perhaps be coloured by Abbey's apparently limited sympathy for the distinctive aesthetics of electro-acoustic improvisation from the city (very little of which has been released on Erstwhile)."
of course, I did start one duo of Berlin-based musicians a couple of years ago, Andrea Neumann/Burkhard Beins, who had never played together as a duo before, and who gave one of the best performances of the fest. this was their first show in the couple of years since the record, hopefully it will lead to more. by this logic, since Wayne hasn't released any CDs by Berlin musicians, I suppose he has even more "limited sympathy" for them.
I got a lot of nice feedback from Berlin people, some of whom were a bit dubious before the festival, but lots of nice things at the end and afterwards. here's one quote from Marcus Liebig/Absinth, who I just met for the first time there:
"I would like to point out that I really appreciated, I enjoyed, I loved the music you combined on the amplify festival. I am glad somebody does that job, since it is strictly necessary. thanks for that!"
5) "On what rational grounds, for example, can Keith Rowe's work be taken as such that he merits no less than nine appearances over the course of the two legs of the festival, while many other interesting and exciting players are not given even one?"
um, well, it was his festival and he co-curated it with me? he's been around for 40 years and has never curated a festival before? plus, he and Otomo were consistently amazing through the whole two weeks. sometimes there are reasons for "hierarchies".
6) as for the hierarchical stuff, I'd like to see Mr. Spencer point out a eai label that covers more geographic territory than I try to. not to mention, I'm the main (only) US distributor for most of the other labels/musicians in the field and set up shows for tons of musicians when they come to NYC, whether or not they're on Erstwhile. in fact, of the four musicians involved in the Hauf/Baltschun/Baghdassarians/Renkel, I've set up shows for three of them in NYC, in the case of Boris and Serge, without ever having met them or seen them play.
that's a start, probably more later.
Posted by: jon abbey at June 12, 2004 7:01 PMalso, the way Mr. Spencer is incapable of accepting any sort of rhythmic element, no matter how subtle, is pretty hilarious. thankfully, I have very good recordings of everything, so for instance, I can let people hear for themselves at some point whether Toshi and Gunter's duo set actually:
"became increasingly confined within a straightforward, regular rhythm that made it ever harder to distinguish it from the established banalities of mainstream electronica."
those of you who have heard Tint likely already have an answer to this. so funny.
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 12, 2004 7:14 PMreferring to the third night of main shows in Berlin:
"perhaps the only day of the festival that touched on the original theme of “quartets and the construction/deconstruction of them” in more than a perfunctory fashion"
let's see, there were six nights in the main festival, three in Cologne (which with a series of rotating duos perfectly fit this theme), and three in Berlin. the schedule for the first night in Berlin was, as Mr. Spencer is aware, unfortunately altered due to forces out of my control, and thus fit the original concept less than before, although adding Keith to the trio that just recorded/released Good Morning Good Night seems perfectly fitting with the theme to me.
the second day's program consisted of three sets:,
Rowe/Nakamura/Beins/Neumann, a quartet consisting of musicians who between them have released four superb duo CDs, Rowe/Nakamura, Rowe/Beins, Nakamura/Neumann, Neumann/Beins.
Stangl/Dieb13/Billy Roisz/Axel Dorner, a quartet consisting of an existing trio (the first three, the "eh" trio), and adding in one of the strongest voices in free improv. the additional twist is that Billy deals with visuals in this project, she doesn't add any musical content, so yet another twist on forming a quartet.
Radian/John Butcher. ignoring opinions about the success of this for a moment, it's pretty difficult to argue that it doesn't fit the "addition" theme. even for audience members who compared Radian to 23 Skidoo afterwards (yes, that was Mr. Spencer).
so again, Mr. Spencer jumps to mistaken conclusions because of a lack of information, information I repeatedly begged him to inquire to me or Keith about. it is funny that the only example of "addition" he thinks is legit is 1+1+1+1=4. sorry for making the others too complicated for you. :)
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 12, 2004 7:45 PMJon, I can understand your ire here, but I'm wondering, would you have objected so vociferously to this review if it had concluded before the final paragraph (or perhaps after the third sentence of that graph)? It seems like it's mostly the final political discussion, which is, at least to my way of thinking, almost entirely extra-musical, that's most bothersome. I mean, he found some stuff too rhythmically regular for his taste--you say it isn't. In a comment to you, he likened some group to 23-skidoo that you apparently think is quite dissimilar. Etc. Even if sins, these sorts of things seem pretty venial to me. So my sense is it's the other stuff.
But as I don't agree with Wayne's general political slant as expressed in the last graph, I *THINK* (maybe I'm wrong though) that I'd be more amused than angry with his criticisms of my operations, if I were the Erst owner. And since most of the strictly aesthetic comments were largely favorable....
Again, of course, it's easy to say this stuff from my vantage. And perhaps you're more in tune with his politics than I am. I do get the sense, though, that your personal animus toward the writer may be taking over a bit here.
Posted by: walto at June 12, 2004 8:33 PMMan, I felt like I was channeling Tom Storer for a minute there...
;>}
Posted by: walto at June 12, 2004 8:34 PMyes, I don't like Wayne, I said that right up front. I think he's appointed himself as the conscience of improvised music, and frankly improvised music doesn't need him in that role. aspects of his review of the Freedom of the City festival for Paris Transatlantic also pissed me off, and I hate that festival.
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 12, 2004 8:40 PMand, yes, obviously many of my issues stem from the last paragraph, in which Spencer questions many fundamental things about the way I run Erstwhile, mixing fairly equal portions of fact and fiction in a colorful swirl to suit his own purposes. I question how much Spencer actually knows about Erstwhile, for instance he completely ignores any concept of cross-pollinization between different cities' eai scenes, much of which has occurred because of myself. he talks about the effect that my way of working has on "the tightly-knit and mutually supportive network" in a city like Berlin, as if one week-long festival has some sort of deleterious effect when there have been at least three other festivals along similar lines in Berlin since the start of 2004, all from different curatorial perspectives.
I was nervous about the reaction of the Berlin community beforehand, I know a lot of those musicians, and for reasons I've already stated above, I wasn't able to invite as many to participate as I would have liked. I tried to talk to as many people as I could beforehand, during, and after, and there were definitely some who questioned the whole concept beforehand, and even during. but on the last night at Ausland, after the program had finished, so many different people came up to me, some who were directly involved, others who only attended, and said so many nice things about what a great event it was. one person deeply involved in the city's scene and who was close enough to everything going on to know all the details of everything we went through to make this festival happen (I'm leaving them anonymous) told me "the world needs more heroes like you", one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me. this is much more important to me than anything Mr. Spencer writes or thinks, and the only reason I'm spending so much time answering him publicly is because I don't think his misperceptions should be allowed to stand as truth when they're quite obviously not.
I plan on pointing a lot of people to this discussion, musicians and listeners both, who were at the festival, and I hope many of them chime in with their own opinions, whether or not they agree with me.
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 12, 2004 9:29 PMdear bagatellen editors,
would anybody care to translate?
"a consensual meaning"?
"a priori systems"?
"deliberate intention"?
"dark obscurantism and ugly violence"?
"(Nakamura) seemed neither to underpin nor interact with Neumann, and their respective playing stayed largely separate throughout. Viewed as a collaboration, the set did not strike me as a successful one."?
"the anachronistic conventions of a bankrupt popular musical form."?
jon replied exactly as i thought he would with a laugh when i read some measured criticism. no one gets more internet indignant. come on man your freaking out your gonna blow a blood vessel.
Posted by: mrmena at June 13, 2004 1:00 AMactually, my blood vessels are all in good shape, thanks for your concern.
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 13, 2004 7:37 AMA quote from Prince Rogers Nelson: seems especially pithy here:
“I just can’t believe all the things people say -- controversy
Am I black or white? am I straight or gay? -- controversy
Do I believe in god? do I believe in me? -- controversy
Controversy controversy
I can’t understand human curiosity -- controversy
Was it good for you? was I what you wanted me to be? -- controversy
Do you get high? does your daddy cry? -- controversy
Controversy controversy…”
But seriously, I can understand Jon’s rankled feathers too. I’ve only had time to skim Mr. Spencer’s piece so far, but his biases are fairly obvious (though not nearly as damning as those in Adam Hill’s OFN op/ed). I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure the discerning reader, especially one familiar with the scene, can take what’s written with the requisite grain (or one lb sack) of salt. Mostly, I’m glad Bags can serve as a forum for BOTH sides of the ‘debate.’
Re: “Dear Bagatellen editors”- Chris, I’m not sure we have such an animal in the zoo at this point in time. A call for clarification of the pull-quotes you mention would be much better addressed to Mr. Spencer personally. But assuming your question isn’t rhetorical, I’ll take a stab at a few (realizing fully that I‘m probably typing out of my ass):
“a consensual meaning”- shared/agreed upon understanding between participants.
“a priori systems”- structures existing independent/outside of group/individual experience.
“deliberate intention”- seems a bit redundant, but maybe an explicitly choice-driven objective?
“(Nakamura) seemed neither...”- a bit long-winded, but basically these guys each did their own thing for much of their shared set.
i didn't make it to the festival, so i can't comment on the review part included (though if the fennesz solo performance was so disimilar to the excellent show in NYC, i wouldn't mind hearing more about it from someone who didn't hate it and/or fennesz)
but ye gods that last paragraph or so is inappropriate. paraphrasing a personal conversation as grounds for an extended personal attack? why on earth?
i actually liked most of the actual review content there, too. awful.
m
Posted by: mark at June 13, 2004 10:40 AMI am grateful to Jon Abbey for his criticism of my review. I should like to offer a few observations in reply.
1. Jon has made a number of remarks of a personal nature about me. These are not relevant to the cogency or otherwise of what I wrote. I shall, therefore, pass over them in silence.
2. Jon says that I am “above using tape recorders”. As I was not conducting an interview requiring extensive transcriptions and it had not occurred to me that I should approach Jon as if he was some sort of potentially duplicitous quarry, I did not consider a recording device was necessary on this particular occasion.
3. Jon laments that I did not spend more time talking to him. During the festival, it was clear that Jon was very busy both with organisation matters and the many new and old acquaintances wishing to engage him in conversation. In this context, I felt it would be impolite and self-important to seek to occupy a great deal of his time, and I acted accordingly. I also supplemented my discussions with him with several with his co-curator, Keith Rowe.
4. Jon denies having said anything to me to the effect that “although there were many good musicians in Berlin, he had, in his view, included all the important and distinguished local players in the festival”. It remains my recollection that he did make such statements, and the notes I took of our conversations shortly after they occurred record him as doing likewise. The comments I attributed to him took place during a discussion concerning the gig by Boris Hauf et al that coincided with the opening night of the main festival and was then rumoured (not entirely accurately, it transpires) to be a deliberate protest against the festival. Jon may wish to consider whether in this context he may have said more than he now recollects or considers appropriate. For myself, it did not seem that it was just annoyance speaking, and so I took him at face value.
5. If Jon’s views on this point differ from those I remember him expressing, it is surprising and a pity that he chose to offer two or more of the small number of available sets to certain Berlin musicians (Burkhard Beins, Annette Krebs, Andrea Neumann) in preference to allowing any of equally interesting and proficient players from the city who were left out of the festival an opportunity to play even once.
6. Jon refers to the fact that he sought to arrange an additional evening of ‘side-shows’ for Berlin musicians but was advised against doing so by Kai Fagaschinski. I was aware of this, but I was not a party to the conversations between Jon and Kai and I did not have Kai’s permission to allude to his private correspondence in print. For these reasons, although I took the proposed extra evening of three duos into consideration, I omitted any overt reference to it in the review. Jon’s failure to secure an additional night does not seem to explain the limited representation of Berlin musicians in the days that were ultimately available.
7. Jon stresses that Amplify is an international showcase. I recognise that and have made no suggestion that it should have been solely dedicated to Berlin (or Cologne) musicians.
8. In response to my observation that Jon appears to have limited sympathy for the distinctive aesthetics of Berlin improvisation, Jon points out that he “did start one duo of Berlin-based musicians a couple of years ago, Andrea Neumann/Burkhard Beins”. Nonetheless, a comparison of the music and approach of Phosphor or many other Berlin ensembles with the music available on Erstwhile suggests to me that Jon’s preferences generally lie elsewhere. The fact that Jon has chosen to “start” and record one duo (plus various groups featuring Axel Dörner) from the many actual or potential collaborations that could be derived from one of the most important centres of the music seems consistent with his sympathies being “limited”.
9. Jon states that he has received favourable comments from Berliners. I should make it clear that I do not pretend to speak on behalf of anyone in Berlin.
10. In explanation of why Keith Rowe was given nine opportunities to play over the course of the festival, while others were given none, Jon says, “it was his festival and he co-curated it with me? he's been around for 40 years and has never curated a festival before? plus, he and Otomo were consistently amazing through the whole two weeks. sometimes there are reasons for ‘hierarchies’”. I have been to a number of festivals in which curators who were musicians did not play to anything like the same extent that Keith did; so the mere fact of curatorship seems to have little explanatory value. It also does not obviously follow from Keith’s seniority that he is reasonably entitled to such a large proportion of appearances. It would be helpful if Jon enlarged on his thinking on this point. I take Jon’s comments about Keith and Otomo as confirmation of my suggestion that Jon considers that there is a hierarchy of improvisers surmounted by a small number of musicians whose work, uniquely, is persistently “amazing”, to borrow Jon’s phrase.
11. Jon points to Erstwhile’s geographical reach and its work as a distributor, as well as to the assistance he has provided to musicians seeking to play in New York. The fact that Erstwhile chooses its preferred artists from around the globe does not seem inconsistent with what I have said about hierarchies. I am not suggesting the label has a local bias. I have also not suggested that Jon completely ignores musicians who do not for him fall into the first rank: merely that (amongst other things) notions of stable, fine-grained, situationally-independent hierarchies of ability tend to be accompanied by differential benefits for those put at the top of the tree.
12. Jon refers to my criticisms of fixed, accented recurrence in improvised music. It is true that I prefer improvisations not to limit the possibilities of rhythmical variation by adopting unvarying patterns derived from musical tradition. I try to make the bases of my judgements clear. I expect readers who do not share my presuppositions and preferences to discount my comments accordingly. I have no doubt that they do just that. As Derek cogently puts it: “I’m pretty sure the discerning reader, especially one familiar with the scene, can take what’s written with the requisite grain (or one lb sack) of salt”.
13. Jon criticizes my suggestion that the only day of the festival that touched on the original theme of “quartets and the construction/deconstruction of them” in more than a perfunctory fashion by referring to various ways in which the second day’s set involved the creation of duos out of previous units. In each case, the intended comparison was one between a live performance of the new quartet on the one hand and the previous recorded work by one or more of its components on the other. I am aware of the CD releases Jon refers to (indeed, I own the large majority of them), but stacking these recordings and a live performance together in memory seems to add little to an understanding of the construction of quartets. Had the festival itself illustrated the different dynamics and aesthetics of the duos and the merged quartet, I think this would have been more informative to the audience on the night. The treatment of the theme in practice seemed perfunctory.
14. Jon says that I ignore “any concept of cross-pollinization between different cities' eai scenes, much of which has occurred because of myself”. I am certainly aware that residents of different cities and musical scenes engage in fertile collaborations with each other, and that they have done so for some time. One needs only to glance at the past and present concert schedules in locations such as Berlin, London, Vienna, Tokyo, etc – or at recordings such as Polwechsel 2 (recorded in 1998 with John Butcher); Durrant, Lehn and Malfatti’s ‘Beinhaltung’ (recorded 1996-7); and the various Meeting at Off Site compilations (recorded from 2000 onwards) – to see this process at work. I was not aware that Jon regarded himself as instrumental in “much” of it.
15. Jon says, “he talks about the effect that my way of working has on ‘the tightly-knit and mutually supportive network’ in a city like Berlin, as if one week-long festival has some sort of deleterious effect when there have been at least three other festivals along similar lines in Berlin since the start of 2004, all from different curatorial perspectives”. I was referring to the possible effects of “attempts to identify and differentially benefit small elites”. Did the other festivals operate on that basis? To take one example, the Uchiage festival included a much wider range of musicians than Amplify did; for whatever reason, therefore, it presumably did not have such a narrow selection policy.
16. Jon recounts how he was touched by being told “the world needs more heroes like you”. In relation to hierarchy, the point of difference between Jon and I can perhaps be reduced to that of whether or not we consider that the (musical) hero is a credible and desirable social role at the start of the twenty-first century.
wait. Kai Fagaschinski's personal comments are off-limits, but jon's aren't? um. hatchet.
m
Posted by: mark at June 13, 2004 11:06 AM"To take one example, the Uchiage festival included a much wider range of musicians than Amplify did; for whatever reason, therefore, it presumably did not have such a narrow selection policy."
incorrect, the Berlin half of Uchiage included only musicians living in Tokyo and Berlin, roughly the same number of musicians as were included in AMPLIFY. as Wayne still doesn't seem to understand, the Uchiage festival was essentially an excuse to get together and party after the shows, hence the title of the festival. the actual music was largely a way to get funding for this.
another reason for what Wayne believes to be the low number of Berlin musicians involved in AMPLIFY was simply because of the close proximity of the Uchiage festival, which had just happened a couple of months previously, and Keith and I felt there was no reason to overlap even more than we already were. there were six musicians from Berlin involved over the seven nights in Berlin (Dorner, Neumann, Beins, Krebs, Fagaschinski, Kurzmann), more than from any other city except maybe Vienna. again, I wanted to do another night involving an additional five or six Berlin musicians, but was told that was overkill, as mentioned above. if the Hauf et. al. show was so "enticing", why didn't you simply attend that?
"One needs only to glance at the past and present concert schedules in locations such as Berlin, London, Vienna, Tokyo, etc – or at recordings such as Polwechsel 2 (recorded in 1998 with John Butcher); Durrant, Lehn and Malfatti’s ‘Beinhaltung’ (recorded 1996-7); and the various Meeting at Off Site compilations (recorded from 2000 onwards) – to see this process at work. I was not aware that Jon regarded himself as instrumental in “much” of it."
yes, obviously there was some of this happening before I began Erstwhile, and plenty more would have happened if Erstwhile had never existed, I didn't mean to imply anything else.
on the other hand, long-standing and crucial combinations like Stangl/Kurzmann, Rowe/Nakamura, Lehn/Schmickler, and Otomo/Voice Crack may never have happened if I hadn't asked them to do projects for me, just to mention some of the ones that have had more prolific life spans. Taku Sugimoto wasn't aware of Radu Malfatti's work before I gave him a copy of dach, and I can't imagine two more simpatico improvisers. Marcus Schmickler and Thomas Lehn played in Japan for the first time ever at the AMPLIFY 2002 festival. Otomo and Christian Fennesz played together for the first time ever in Cologne.
sometimes these lead to long-term, inspired collaborations, other times they lead to nothing. but if you're genuinely concerned about the long-term health of the music, I think that cross-pollenization is crucial, because some of these relationships will develop into vital ones which will help to keep the music fresh. if you're going to talk about potential negatives, even in the most general sense, it's only fair to also mention positives created by the same approach. if you believe that the negatives outweigh the positive, that's certainly your right, although I really doubt you'll find many close observers of this music to agree with you on that.
it's also a mistake to confuse Erstwhile as a label with the way that AMPLIFY 2004 was curated. we curated around the idea of quartets because that's what Keith wanted. it wasn't a label showcase by any means, which is one reason I think the conclusion of this piece is unfair. judge the festival in and of itself, and if you don't think some of the sets worked, that's fine, but it hardly reveals anything about the actual label.
in fact, I'd really like to hear some specifics regarding that last paragraph, rather than just high-and-mighty generalities about "potential effects". I'd like to hear about labels and festivals that Mr. Spencer feels have been more consistently effective in presenting superb music in this field, while simultaneously better preserving his beloved egalitarianism. a direct comparison of the pros and cons of the Uchiage festival to the portion of AMPLIFY he saw would also be welcome, at least then there would be some specifics I could address.
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 13, 2004 12:27 PMas I said above, I forwarded this to a whole slew of musicians who were present, ones who played and ones who just attended, and asked them to comment publicly on Mr. Spencer's "observations". I doubt most of them will, but here's one of the first private comments, from someone who managed to sum up his reaction very succinctly:
"what a wanker."
now that's reductionism! :)
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 13, 2004 12:30 PMInteresting review, Wayne. I don't have a problem with the general sense of Wayne's conclusion, but I think his reservations are misdirected. As best as I can tell, Jon runs his festival much as he runs his label--according to his taste and his view of aesthetic quality. while I think, in general terms, it would be a shame if some of the "noname" EAI players are continually overlooked for recordings and performances, it's a mistake to think that any single label with limited resources and with a particular aesthetic focus, should have the task of leveling the playing field. That's way too much to ask. Yes, the Erstwhile label does revolve around certain players primarily with other constellations on the periphery. if one feels that certain artists are consistently better than others, well that's certainly a hierarchy, but we make these same hierarchies every time we go to our CD changer, whether we pay attention to it or not. We invest in certain music and in others we don't invest. We make choices. We limit alternatives. Ultimately, its Jon Abbey's money, his time, his energy, his will. where he wants to put that is his business, and I don't think its really up for debate. I wouldn't want people to be telling me where to invest my time, money, and energy either, especially if I'm putting out a pretty damn big investment.
Jon, I'm sure it's especially annoying, after having read a review such as this and realizing how much work, effort, and risk you put into this venture. You skirt with the possibility of folding up your tent by throwing your resources into such an event and all it takes is one person, one thirty minute paragraph to undermine well over a year of preparation and hard work. That's also part of your risk and part of what it means to become as high profile as Erstwhile has become. Opinions are basically worthless things. They come at very little cost--nothing really compared to the work that goes into giving them an object for forming an opinion. don't take it so seriously. Look at how many words Wayne Spencer wasted on your festival. you don't waste copious words on things you don't admire, no matter how much such words may be seen to betray that admiration. That's basic dialectics. No one can poop on your parade no matter how much they try. :-)
Posted by: Bill Ashline at June 13, 2004 12:30 PMI should like to think about Jon's latest thoughful remarks a little before replying. More tomorrow. In the meantime, I should like to respond to Mark's observation, "Kai Fagaschinski's personal comments are off-limits, but jon's aren't". As Jon as indicated, he invited me to talk to him during the course of the festival, precisely in order to obtain material to inform the review. He disagrees with the accuracy of some of my recollections and interpretations, but I do not think that either of us (then or now) regarded our conversations as private.
Posted by: Wayne Spencer at June 13, 2004 12:33 PMok, i guess i expect referenced discussions to be a lot more formal than what you've presented here, but whatever works.
also, kind of addressing a different point - don't you think the audiences of berlin would disappointed to have an international festival of improvised music that was dominated by the local scene? sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
i mean, they should support those musicians outside of the context of festivals, shouldn't they? don't they?
m
Posted by: mark at June 13, 2004 1:15 PM"I'm sure it's especially annoying, after having read a review such as this and realizing how much work, effort, and risk you put into this venture. You skirt with the possibility of folding up your tent by throwing your resources into such an event and all it takes is one person, one thirty minute paragraph to undermine well over a year of preparation and hard work. That's also part of your risk and part of what it means to become as high profile as Erstwhile has become."
"I'm sure it's especially annoying, after having read a review such as this and realizing how much work, effort, and risk you put into this venture. You skirt with the possibility of folding up your tent by throwing your resources into such an event and all it takes is one person, one thirty minute paragraph to undermine well over a year of preparation and hard work. That's also part of your risk and part of what it means to become as high profile as Erstwhile has become."
Bingo and double bingo! Absolutely right, Bill. Maybe inconsistent with Wayne's (and PW's) political slant, but so much the worse for them! Very well said. I'm happy to think that Jon will keep his eye on the prize & continue to create as much excellence as he can with what resources he's got by his own lights. All the rest is, in my view, predominantly peripheral bullshit.
Posted by: walto at June 13, 2004 2:11 PMassuming this "isn’t rhetorical, I’ll take a stab" (derek):
"As best as I can tell, sony run their festivals much as they run their label--according to their tastes and their view of aesthetic quality. while I think, in general terms, it would be a shame if some of the "noname" musical players are continually overlooked for recordings and performances, it's a mistake to think that any single label with (ultimately) limited resources and with a particular aesthetic focus, should have the task of leveling the playing field. That's way too much to ask. Yes, the sony label does revolve around certain players primarily with other constellations on the periphery. if one feels that certain artists are consistently better than others, well that's certainly a hierarchy, but we make these same hierarchies every time we go to our CD changer, whether we pay attention to it or not. We invest in certain music and in others we don't invest. We make choices. We limit alternatives. Ultimately, its sony's share holders' money, sony's time, their energy, their will. where they want to put that is their BUSINESS, and I don't think its really up for debate. I wouldn't want people to be telling me where to invest my time, money, and energy either, especially if I'm putting out a pretty damn big investment."
after spencer's pleonasms bill's bingo?
"Opinions are basically WORTHless things. They come at very little COST--nothing really compared to the work that goes into giving them an object for forming an opinion."
do you think this is fair to Jon Abbey?
Posted by: chris flemmer at June 13, 2004 4:13 PMWell, presumably the difference between Sony and Erstwhile is that Erstwhile selects its artists according the the taste of the owner, while Sony primarily selects its artists according to the likelihood in generating capital. I would have thought you might have picked Blue Note or something more comparable. I don't see the comparison with Sony.
I don't get your last point. Sorry.
Posted by: Bill Ashline at June 13, 2004 5:48 PM"Bingo and double bingo! Absolutely right, Bill. Maybe inconsistent with Wayne's (and PW's) political slant, but so much the worse for them! Very well said. I'm happy to think that Jon will keep his eye on the prize & continue to create as much excellence as he can with what resources he's got by his own lights. All the rest is, in my view, predominantly peripheral bullshit."
I think there are far more interesting political questions to ask about this music, Walt, than where a small label tries to put its resources. I mean we're talking about the sales of a few hundred CDs per release. The kind of political question Wayne is posing here doesn't strike me as particularly compelling here. It should be directed at bigger targets, not a guy who drops his own cash and is willing to go broke to put on a festival. It's pretty asinine to accuse someone like that of not having his political house in order.
Posted by: Bill Ashline at June 13, 2004 6:01 PM"Yes, the Erstwhile label does revolve around certain players primarily with other constellations on the periphery. if one feels that certain artists are consistently better than others, well that's certainly a hierarchy, but we make these same hierarchies every time we go to our CD changer, whether we pay attention to it or not. We invest in certain music and in others we don't invest. We make choices. We limit alternatives. Ultimately, its Jon Abbey's money, his time, his energy, his will. where he wants to put that is his business, and I don't think its really up for debate. I wouldn't want people to be telling me where to invest my time, money, and energy either, especially if I'm putting out a pretty damn big investment."
That was supposed to be the second of Bill's double bingos I quoted above. I didn't mean to post the same graph twice. (Was kind of a nice effect, though.)
Regarding the SONY analog, one could make distinctions (as Bill has), but I think I'd just bite the bullet. They get to do what they want, too. If it sucks, it sucks.
Well, it's nice to see y'all are having such a beanfeast with this one. Sorry I can't join in right now, because as anyone who's tried to access the Paris Transatlantic site in the past 24 hours in search of Wayne's FOTC and Uchiage! reviews will tell you, we've gone offline (server changeover, technical headaches). Hope to be back up by tomorrow (Tuesday). Meanwhile, where are the musicians? You can bet your sweet ass that half of the world's free improvising population (well, that might be an exaggeration but fuckit) is busily logging to this one, but I can't see anyone prepared to stick their head above the parapet. It would be nice to hear from some Berliners (Erstwhile or non-Erstwhile artists). As it stands right now it's just the usual Bagatellen suspects. First time I've seen a Prince song on an eai thread though.. more later.
Posted by: dan warburton at June 13, 2004 9:46 PMHey : one musician on board!
not from Berlin but Paris,
not from Erstwhile but from ARR cdr label.
I have the same feeling as Dan, sometimes wondering why they arent any/many musicians really up for discussing here or elsewhere i'd sayeven. From my experience, i actually find it hard to discuss with improvisers about improvising and what is going on in the improvisation world. I sometimes talked to musicians, telling them I am bored with certain area of this or that, that i am questionning why, and what could be done to bring fresh input. i feel the answer is always rather like 'i dont think there is any problem'.
it seems to me that everyone is really on their guard, trying to protect or preserve what they have. it seems maybe they dont want to take risks to not burn themselves or their carreer. its a supposition. also i understand this, but i have a feeling we're all more on less on the same boat, and i believed art is not like sport, not a competition. there isnt any official world ranking for improvisers. so therefore it see it more as research of something and therefore i think artists should be together bothered with thinking about their art. no! is that stupid! its like a bit politically correct!
if we are really talking about art here, and hierarchy tops, then people like Dali or Picasso had really big mouth i feel. and also even if at times they all hated/critisized each other i presume, with Matisse also, all this people give me the feeling (when you read books about their lives) that they were all really first concerned about thinking about it.
sorry its a bit complicated to explain in english what i feel.
euh, anyway this is all probably inherent to improvisation, that you cant talk about something you are suppose to improvise. for me the problem at the moment in the improv field is that everyone should start to compose a bit, to change their mind, to see what they have to 'express', how its in relation with the 'normal world', to think about forms, etc... even just as a hobby, not for release even. maybe they actually do so!!! i would like to know.
i am 28, 10 years of music behind. quiclky, 5 years of rock bands, lots of recordings done ect... and then i discovered improv and left a bit the compositionnal side of music and after 3 full years i just realised how necessary it is FOR ME to still compose.
maybe i am a bit of topic here, but i am always trying to get down to the original reason i am here in bagatellen or elsewhere. the discussion that was going on before in this thread somehow doesnt interest me. i can just leave of course you can tell me.
have a nice day!
good morning/good nite.
I and I alone made the decision to run this piece. And I honestly do not feel that any explanations are in order to our readers at this time, other than to repeat some words about the necessity of allowing for dissent and opposing points-of-view that, ultimately, will no doubt fail to satisfy those parties who feel they have been injured by the publication of this review.
That said, Jon raises a most serious issue when he claims that Mr. Spencer's work contains a "libel[ous]" statement or statements. It is not a claim that I -- or anyone else -- can dismiss.
I'm afraid I will have to return to the matter, but I have every intention of doing so.
Posted by: Joe Milazzo at June 14, 2004 5:57 AMLester Bangs must be looking down from a jar of cough syrup on high and laughing his rocks off..
Posted by: dan warburton at June 14, 2004 6:58 AMBangs actually spends most of his "observing and mocking the state of music criticism" time surfing the always-entertaining I Love Music boards. typical thread from this weekend:
"The Most "Advanced" Musician is..."
first post:
"Lou Reed, according to Chuck Klosterman, in an article from the newest issue of Esquire.
"Advancement" is described as a "cultural condition in which an advanced individual -- a true genius" -- creates a piece of art that 99 percent of the population perceives to be bad. However, this is not because the work itself is flawed; this is because most consumers are not advanced."
Lou Reed's song "The Original Wrapper," where he raps about Louis Farrakhan, AIDS and waffles, is his single most advanced moment, according to Klosterman.
Also advanced: David Byrne's cover of Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)"; and the Bowie-Jagger duet on "Dancing in the Streets."
Dylan only "flirts" with advancement, although his appearance in a Victoria's Secret commercial may be his most advanced moment ever.
Discuss. "
http://ilx.wh3rd.net/newanswers.php?board=2
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 14, 2004 8:02 AMThis stuff *IS* quite entertaining and *FULL* of drama.
Who sed Spencer is a Wanker, aebly?
Posted by: uli at June 14, 2004 8:13 AMTo continue where I left off:
1) I would hope our readers understand that publication of a piece does not equal endorsement of the point-of-view or points-of-view expressed in said piece. In an editorial capacity, I cannot place myself in the position of vetting the intellectual content of a given writer's work. I can only assure myself that the writer's claims adhere to certain professional standards. Are his or her arguments sound (i.e., supported elsewhere in the text)? Is his or her opining clearly distinguishable from his or her reporting? Does the piece achieve sufficiently balanced? In my estimation, Wayne Spencer's piece met basic criteria in these regards, hence its publication at Bagatellen.
2) I take Jon Abbey's mention of libel very seriously for a number of reasons. First, I know from other communications from and public statements by him that Jon knows his journalistic integrity. He has experience in the field of journalism. Secondly, journalistic integrity and accountability are extremely important to me. Depending upon how polemical -- or non-polemical -- you find Mr. Spencer's review to be, you may scoff at this statement. Third, libel carries a very specific legal meaning, precisely, the dissemination of outright falsities that malign, defame and / or otherwise damage an individual's reputation. For the layman, the presence of malicious intent in such cases may be crucial, but for parties who enter a legal dispute on the matter, such intent need not be established. Finally, Bagatellen's own reputation is at stake when such an allegation is made public.
I am not here to defend actions. I am here to tell you more about how this piece came to appear at Bagatellen. Wayne Spencer contacted me and explained that his review had been written for PARIS TRANSATLANTIC. Mr. Spencer did not indicate that PT had commissioned the piece, or whether he simply had intended it for that publication, and I did inquire further into on the subject. Mr. Spencer then indicated that the review as completed exceeded the original word / space allotment granted him by PT, that he was unwilling to make cuts to the piece, and, finally, offered the piece to Bagatellen as is, with the proviso that no further changes be made to the text.
I reviewed the piece. I then had a personal struggle with the issue of the extent to which I needed to fact-check the piece. Why? Well, there are by my count two (2) direct quotes present in an entire piece of over 5,000 words. One quote verifiable as it was drawn from the STYLUS MAGAZINE interview cited in Mr. Spencer's second paragraph. The other quote relates to the group Radian in paragraph 18 ("remove everything extraneous"). I failed to verify this. I also failed to read the comment with which Jon takes, as I understand it, the most issue – "He added that although there were many good musicians in Berlin, he had, in his view, included all the important and distinguished local players in the festival." (paragraph 30) -- as literally as I should. I read added as "indicated", thus allowing for more free play in interpretation than perhaps I should.
Ultimately, I decided I had three very good reasons not to pursue fact-checking as assiduously as I initially thought I might. First, to me, it was clear that Mr. Spencer's piece was a review, an expression of personal opinion, factually grounded, to be sure, but a piece not intended to read as fact pure and simple. Two, being knowledgeable of Mr. Spencer's work, I was sufficiently assured by the quality of said work that there was little to no probability that the piece contained any complete fabrications, misattributions, etc. The fact that Mr. Spencer was very clear in the piece itself about the limits of his reportage (that he was "covering" Berlin only, for example) only reinforced my feeling that the piece had been assembled in a professional manner. Finally, I knew the piece had been accorded a "second opinion" (actually, a first) by the PARIS TRANSATLANTIC staff. In communications with them, I did verify that the piece was not deemed usable for the reason Mr. Spencer had given me, and not because the review contained anything they considered objectionable.
In retrospect, did I do less than I could have in an editorial capacity? I feel that I did take the path of least resistance, and that was a mistake. Mea culpa.
3) Finally, am I so supercilious and / or so far removed from reality as not to have been aware that this piece would, in all likelihood, foment a certain amount of controversy? Nope, sorry. I may not be that savvy, but I do know "dissent and opposing points-of-view" when I see them. And I value those things; it is the one personal stake I will allow myself here, and largely because I believe this site was founded, in part, on the principle of allowing writers to self-publish works for which they have no other veue.
But also rest assured that I did not allow the piece's, shall we say potential, to influence my decision to publish it one way or another. Bagatellen does not exist to vandalize aesthetics, destroy works of art, or even take food out of hard-working musicians' mouths. The idea that one review or one reviewer -- or even one festival curator -- could accomplish any of these things strikes me as somewhat absurd.
Not to say that anyone is actually standing behind such a contention, however...
I may not actually contribute much original content here, but my understanding was that there isn't an editorship to Bagatellen, contributors take responsibility for their own work within unstated but understood parameters, all of this in the knowledge that none of it would work unless Al and Moné ran it. FWIW my London Headphone Festival rant, which was unresearched, probably unfair, and got quite a nice response from the organisers considering how nasty it was, went through absolutely no editorial process. And it turns out I won't even be here to attend the event I slammed.
Yes, it would be good if some more musicians (especially those directly involved) would contribute. There's no registration for this site, by I know from mine that there are several prominent and relatively unknown musicians registered who probably never even look at the forum (or at least don't comment), I'm sure the same occurs here.
As to the review, I own several of Jon's releases, and have had varied degrees of correspondence (face to face and e-mail) with both him and Wayne Spencer, I haven't however been to Berlin and was unable to attend the festival (had planned to go up until six weeks ago when I got hit with an unexpected council tax bill).
I think it's a fair point to state that Jon has no obligation to release any music whatsoever nor to organise any festivals, I also think that the fact that so many gigs are based on uncritical reciprocity between musicians ("he organised something for me, so I'd better organise one for him"), regardless of whether there's any mutual admiration in terms of musicianship or even personality, is likely much more damaging to the musical and social health of the various improvised music scenes than people who decide their programming based entirely on aesthetics, whether I agree with their aesthetics or not.
Since I understand a portion of the funding for the festival was German (ready for correction on this), it could be argued that German musicians should be well represented on the programme. However I'd wager that some or all of the basis on which that funding was obtained was on the presentation of international musicians at the festival, not on the inclusion of Germans.
It's entirely possible to disagree with Jon's aesthetics or his choices for festival bookings, without from that positing "the potential effects of such an approach on local and global ecosystems of electro-acoustic improvisation". Jon's own comments regarding "cross-pollenization" and "long term health" also point towards the idea that a label like Erstwhile is selectively breeding (interactions between) electro-acoustic improvisers. Wayne thinks the effects of this might be detrimental, reducing bio-diversity by introducing dominant species into otherwise fecund areas, Jon thinks its one of few remaining options for evolutionary development.
Both viewpoints seem to stem from a supposition (Wayne's more than Jon's) that Erstwhile exerts some kind of power over the international improvising community. This position, and it's not one that is exclusive to this discussion (I've heard statements such as "no one should have that much power" regarding Jon from at least one (drunk and nameless) musician), ignores the fact that it's much easier for me to ignore the entire output of Jon's label and every musician on it than it is for me to avoid hearing "I can't get you out of my head" by Kylie Minogue at least once a month despite taking reasonable means to avoid it (not going into supermarkets, shopping centres, major clothing retail outlets, crap bars or listening to any radio station except for Radio 4 and occasionally Resonance unless I absolutely have to are amongst those measures). The power of Kylie's record label (incidentally EMI, not Sony) to impose a minimum of a few seconds of "I can't get you out of my head", despite active attempts on my part to avoid similar encounters, is very different from a label which I can safely ignore by not buying any CDs or attending any associated concerts (what percentage of the improvised, or even electro-acoustically improvised CD market does Jon actually control, certainly not one sixth).
I similarly find the comments regarding the supposed "power" of Wayne's article to "undermine well over a year of preparation and hard work." equally exaggerated. That presupposes that Bagatellen has some massive influence on a horde of uncritical readers who take every contributor's word as law. Clearly they don't. Jon may be personally miffed by the public and negative comments of someone he "doesn't like", but the relative health of the festival and the label are if anything strengthened by a frank discussion of the issues surrounding it.
If anything, this discussion (which for example I forwarded to a friend of mine who'd already read it independently), will generate much more attention, and likely positive attention towards Erstwhile than an unthinking, uncritical, interchangeable, lightly positive review, as can be seen in so many publications whether it's about live music or CDs.
A good friend of mine, who I regularly point towards discussions here and elsewhere, regularly complains to me that there's barely any critical discussion of musicians or any other issues regarding this music, and that it's generally personal banter and favorites lists (no it's not Uli, and it's not Pedantic Wretch, although I haven't asked him personally, so maybe that's unconfirmed). It's refreshing to see some of this discussion taking place here, and at JC (and fledglingly at londonimprov regarding fotc), and I'd very much like to see these issues discussed by a wider pool of contributors.
Posted by: Nat at June 14, 2004 11:36 AMfor the record:
"Since I understand a portion of the funding for the festival was German (ready for correction on this), it could be argued that German musicians should be well represented on the programme. However I'd wager that some or all of the basis on which that funding was obtained was on the presentation of international musicians at the festival, not on the inclusion of Germans."
there was no funding support for the Berlin half of the festival, there would have been if I were German or more of the musicians included had been German.
there was quite a bit of support for the Cologne half of the festival (it was presented as a festival within the Musik Triennale, the city of Cologne's every-three-year festival, which is mostly classical-based, including the Arditti, Ensemble Modern, etc. this year), although again if I had been German (or had been presenting classical music), the sum provided would have been considerably more.
Nat--but you don't really exist in the same professional space as Kylie Minogue, whereas as a free-improvising musician you're in much closer promixity to Erstwhile/Amplify's sphere of activity, & whether or not you purchase the discs its activities certainly affect the improvising community in which you work.
Can't be bothered to pick through the original text in detail as it's stupefyingly long & in general just stupefying. I've tried several times to read it without skimming, & simply can't. But I think my favourite sentence has got to be this one:
It had no great aspirations in relation to rhythm, harmony, timbre or any other musical variable, but proved charming and interesting.
Perhaps the most revealing sentence in the whole document? -- Funniest typo has got to be the unintended biblical allusion: "Job Abbey".
Posted by: nate dorward at June 14, 2004 12:35 PM"Perhaps the most revealing sentence in the whole document? -- Funniest typo has got to be the unintended biblical allusion: 'Job Abbey'."
Thanks for pointing this out. A correction has been made in paragraph 18.
Posted by: Joe Milazzo at June 14, 2004 12:43 PMand here's another FOR THE RECORD, this one's for all of the musicians who are reading this who were involved in the Uchiage festival and are now forwarding notes amongst themselves and to me:
I wasn't at the festival. any impressions I have are from talking to people about the ideas behind the curation beforehand, and talking to people about how it went afterwards. my reference above was simply to the fact that Wayne, in his review of the Berlin half of the festival, neglected at all to mention the meaning of the title ("after-concert party" in Japanese). as I wasn't there, I can't comment on the actual musical content contained within, and apologize for anyone I offended with my earlier remark.
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 14, 2004 12:46 PMas long as you're fixing mistakes, it's Radian, not "the Radian", in that same sentence.
in addition, not that Radian needs specific reasons to be included in a festival along these lines, one of the main ones was that they were a part of the Mottomo Otomo festival in Wels in 1999, which I've repeatedly stated publicly was a precursor to the AMPLIFY series, a festival where I met Rowe, Muller, Otomo, Voice Crack and many others for the first time, and both my and Yoshiyuki Suzuki's first European festivals as listeners. I didn't think to tell Wayne this at the time, but would have if I'd been requeried later.
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 14, 2004 12:52 PMSome additional comments and replies from me:
1. In the wake of Joe’s account of his handling of my review, perhaps I should repeat that, to the best of my recollection, my summary of Jon’s comments to me is an accurate one. Jon’s denials are happily on record. Readers can make their own minds up.
2. Bill said, “one feels that certain artists are consistently better than others, well that's certainly a hierarchy, but we make these same hierarchies every time we go to our CD changer, whether we pay attention to it or not”. Remember that I actually referred to the proposition that “it is possible and desirable to conduct individual-level appraisals of musicians, and to order the results into a fine-grained and stable hierarchy that contains at its top a handful of exemplary, superlative and ultimately privileged figures”. In my experience, people interested in EAI tend to regard recordings as rather variable in quality, and that this holds for the work of individual musicians. I encounter very little inclination outside of journalism to posit either a narrow pantheon of recording superstars whose work is consistently better than everyone else’s or even a canon of ‘classic’ works. One of my concerns is that elements of Erstwhile’s philosophy and practice may encourage the reverence and fetishism promoted in relation to the supposedly great in the worlds of classical music, popular music and jazz. Of course, it’s not just Erstwhile. Nonetheless, to give an example, in the last seven months or so I have been to three festivals constructed (at least in part) around Otomo Yoshihide: the LMC festival in London, the Frakture festival in Liverpool, and Amplify. Is that healthy - is it really justifiable – or is there a dubious category of EAI superstar beginning to emerge?
3. Bill also said, “Ultimately, its Jon Abbey's money, his time, his energy, his will. where he wants to put that is his business, and I don't think its really up for debate”. Needless to say, Jon can do as he wishes with his resources; but I think the rest of us are entitled to consider and comment on whether his public activities (even if they are a pursuit of his own tastes) have public consequences.
4. I agree with Bill, though, that Sony is a more deserving target of criticism than Erstwhile. To a degree, many of my more critical comments on Amplify lament the encroachment of elements (and they are only elements) of the aesthetics and philosophy that govern Sony into EAI. Isn’t is worth doing that too?
5. Turning to Jon’s more recent arguments, he observed that it was incorrect to say that the Uchiage festival did not have as narrow a selection policy for performers as Amplify because “the Berlin half of Uchiage included only musicians living in Tokyo and Berlin, roughly the same number of musicians as were included in AMPLIFY”. I have been unclear here. I was questioning Jon’s suggestion that there have been “three other festivals along similar lines in Berlin since the start of 2004” and hence it was wrong to think of Amplify as having any kind of unique effect on the community of Berlin musicians. When I said “narrow” selection policy I was not referring to absolute numbers or geographical spread, but to a tendency to seek to sift the group of co-operating working musicians in Berlin into the great and the not-so-great. There was little evidence of this Uchiage. Perhaps that was simply because they had much less stringent time constraints. Nonetheless, there was a difference that meant that, in this particular respect, Uchaige was not festival “along similar lines”.
6. Jon adds that “the Uchiage festival was essentially an excuse to get together and party after the shows, hence the title of the festival. the actual music was largely a way to get funding for this”. I think the charitable reading of this is that Jon is playfully teasing the people associated with Uchiage. It wasn’t something mentioned to the large audience who paid to get in.
7. Jon states that “another reason for what Wayne believes to be the low number of Berlin musicians involved in AMPLIFY was simply because of the close proximity of the Uchiage festival…”. I remain surprised that if, as you now say, you did not believe that you had included all of the Berlin musicians who are important and distinguished, you nonetheless chose to give two or three sets to four Berlin musicians (Dorner, Neumann, Beins and Krebs) who had in fact appeared in Uchiage.
8. Jon asks “if the Hauf et. al. show was so "enticing", why didn't you simply attend that?”. Firstly, because I had promised to write a review of the festival and it would have been somewhat negligent to miss one third of the main festival in favour of an outside event. I was also interested to see what the quartet would do with this unusual span of time and how the experience would compare with a recent performance of Morton Feldman’s ‘For Phillip Guston’ I had attended. Did you not find anything about the Hauf et al performance enticing, Jon?
9. I agree with Jon that well-judged ‘cross-pollenization’ of EAI scenes is one factor likely to promote the long-term health of the music. Jon mentions several collaborations he considers may not have come together without his assistance. It is difficult to know whether or not some of these collaborations would have happened anyway (e.g. Lehn and Schmickler are from the same city and were already collaborating together intermittently within MIMEO, and Stangl and Kurzmann were old friends who had also started working together, in their case by way of a 1999 Polwechsel performance: see Erstwhile’s online CD notes). No doubt Jon could provide more information on his role as producer, but even if we not quibble about the credit due to Jon, there are two other points to consider, I think. The first is that the existence of long-term relationships such as Jon mentions is fundamentally dependent on the existence of labels, venues and festivals that do not share Erstwhile’s preference for novel combinations. To the extent that this preference is taken up by others, the opportunities for working relationships that mature and depend with time diminish. The second point I have mentioned before, namely that a large majority of the international contact that goes on around the globe takes place outside of the auspices of Amplify or Erstwhile and without the assistance of Jon. Let us give Jon the credit he deserves, of course. But I think we should remember that musicians themselves and other promoters are responsible for most of the many opportunities for creative international collaborations. And that is where my answer to Jon’s request for details of “labels and festivals that Mr. Spencer feels have been more consistently effective in presenting superb music in this field, while simultaneously better preserving his beloved egalitarianism” lies. I’m not sure that specialised festivals are really the places to look. A certain proportion of the opportunities for collaboration come in general festivals of improvised music that are willing to include some EAI, and the odd more specialised event; but I rather think it is in the many small clubs and music series run by musicians themselves or enthusiasts (i.e. KuLe, Raumschiff Zitrone and Ausland in Berlin and their many equivalents around the world) - as well as in the behind-the-scenes communications between musicians - that the lifeblood of international cross-fertilization is quietly to be found. For every flagship one-off production that Erstwhile promotes, there must be many more small and large gigs not connected to the label. As for other labels, many of those that have put out interesting eai have a wider remit than Erstwhile (e.g. For 4 Ears, Grob, Potlatch and others) or are very small (e.g Confront, w.m. o/r), but together they surely contribute very heavily to EAI in general and international collaboration in particular. Please consult your own tottering piles of CDs!
Posted by: Wayne Spencer at June 14, 2004 1:12 PMNate,
That's a good point, although I'd still argue that the six (five?) most powerful labels in music in general have a much greater impact than the six most powerful (more difficult to quantify, replace most powerful with most popular, most prolific, most well funded, most reviewed, biggest selling) labels in free improv on my own personal circumstances as a musician and on the economic conditions within which improvising musicians operate generally, or at least in London.
As a free-improvising musician, I overall lose money by engaging in performing, and I'm not likely likely to be earning even a small percentage of my annual income from it in the near future, or recordings for that matter, let alone make a living. My income for the past year _has_ been from music, but from a combination of special needs one-one and classroom support, saxophone teaching, and admin, in the music department of a state comprehensive, previously it was from various temp jobs in psychiatric hospitals.
Jon's label therefore has very little potential for impact upon the financial implications of whatever performance opportunities are available to me. Were I to play have played at Amplify this year, then suddenly been booked for fifteen gigs in London based on my elevation into the stratosphere of the international hierarchy of improvisers, I might earn £200 from the gigs I got in London, maybe £300, from well over forty hours of real work, not to mention the non-performing time necessary to secure those gigs, even if offered unsolicited. The expenses I'd incur for doing those gigs (assuming expenses includes beer) would more than wipe out the income. Any income directly gained from employment by Erswhile would be at the most once per year, and therefore not make much impact.
That Jon doesn't book me for festivals makes little difference to me, there are plenty of festivals which aren't booking me at the moment, and even more festivals which I'm not asking to. Jon's not alone in his ability not to book people for gigs. We've said no to dozens of people asking for gigs at ongaku (run on a negative budget), who probably muttered stuff along the lines of us not giving playing opportunities to them, or only booking our mates or visiting big names or whatever. In that case, it's very much our own money that pays for (or at a minimum, backs) those gigs, and they take a significant amount of time to organise, any suggestion that we're negatively impacting the opportunities of other musicians by not booking them for gigs would be laughable. The only playing opportunities we negatively impact are our own, by spending too much time organising the gigs and not enough playing. That we only promote ongaku 3-4 times a year means this isn't really an issue, but it would be if we were to take all of the spam, or even all of the very polite, reasonable requests and turn them into concerts.
Wayne,
" in the last seven months or so I have been to three festivals constructed (at least in part) around Otomo Yoshihide: the LMC festival in London, the Frakture festival in Liverpool, and Amplify."
you saw two shows involving Otomo in the six nights you were there, and one of those wasn't even really part of the festival.
"I was also interested to see what the quartet would do with this unusual span of time and how the experience would compare with a recent performance of Morton Feldman’s ‘For Phillip Guston’ I had attended. "
it would have been nice if you could have shared some of these comparisons with us, instead of regaling us all with your dubious conclusions.
"Did you not find anything about the Hauf et al performance enticing, Jon?"
yes, as I said, I tried to organize a night involving most of those musicians (and had I know Boris was living in Berlin, not Vienna, I would have tried to involve him also). but in big cities like Berlin, NYC, London, we often have to make choices between different options, that's just the way that it is.
Really great post, Nat.
FWIW, when I came up with the following condition:
"Either at least $50 bucks, at least 50 people, or a decent enough keyboard on site so I don't have to schlep anything--any one of the three will do."
...that was the basically the end of my public activity as an improvising musician.
The occasional luxury gig I happened to land didn't change my life much, and, as you've well said, an annual criteria-meeting exception probably wouldn't have either.
Posted by: walto at June 14, 2004 1:52 PMOne thing we can all agree is that Erstwhile and the Amplify Festivals always makes us react. Obviously there is something in there that creates some excitement, positive or negative. And for this its fine i think. Well it seems that no other label creates such effect, For4ears, Grob, Abruitsecret, Potlatch... I wonder where does this come from? I wonder somehow why, as someone said, in quite little amount of time (3 4 years), people talk about Erstwhile so much... and somehow to my ears it is rather more about some kind of 'faintness' it actually creates with time. Then why does it creates this 'faintness'? I dont know if it is some kinda jealousy from people in the field of EAI, I dont know if somehow there is a desire to create this 'faintness' as some kind of provocation from Jon Abbey, I dont know if it is because the music is very good and makes people 'funny' about it! I dont konw if it because sometime too much of the same good thing is eventually really too much and kinda 'annulate' itself. Like the football team of Real Madrid...
I mean now its like everytime there is something a bit big around Erstwhile we are going for this very long talk. i know i even i kinda started the second one about the Amplify Box.
By the way, I'll be curious to read reviews about the lastet releases such as 'good morning good nite' and 'a view from the window'...
Posted by: Alexandre at June 14, 2004 2:41 PMNat--I wasn't really talking about the pay--i.e. I think of serious free improvisors as "professional" musicians even though most are clearly not going to earn more than pocket change from free improv gigs in pubs &c. I'm talking about so to speak the social & mental space in which one creates music. & that's a space that can be affected substantially if key players & organizers & record labels fall in place at the right time (as we've seen).
Posted by: nate dorward at June 14, 2004 3:01 PMIt's curious to me that Mr. Spencer thinks Erstwhile is "conduct[ing] individual-level appraisals of musicians, and to order the results into a fine-grained and stable hierarchy that contains at its top a handful of exemplary, superlative and ultimately privileged figures." In statements like these, it seems like Mr. Spencer is suggesting a model of culture where artists are not judged or evaluated based on their past work, but rather that all musicians are to be considered equally capable and equally worthy of attention. A noble idea, and one that's at least nominally in line with EAI's "community" politics, but I don't think it's a very tenable argument. Of course each individual music listener is always going to have personal hierarchies - musicians who have consistently impressed us with their work and where we have at least a reasonable expectation that they may do good work again in the future. Just looking at the music he's released, my "hierarchies" don't always align with Jon Abbey's, nor do they always align w/ Gunter Muller of For4Ears, or whoever picks the records put out by any number of other EAI labels.
Mr. Spencer also makes reference to elements of commercialism creeping into EAI. As others have pointed out, given the amount of money involved here, it's a spectacularly facile point. For any EAI "superstar" like Otomo Yoshihide or Keith Rowe, I imagine the benefits are not so much more than enough money to scrape by provided that they stay very active with touring, making music, & whatever extra activities they can get. On the other end of the spectrum, you have Kevin Drumm, who's every bit as well-documented as those two (and arguably even more "popular"), though by all accounts he's continually quitting music altogether for lack of money. Mr. Spencer's continued insistence to the contrary, I can't see anything wrong with label owners pursuing those musicians that they think are worthwhile. And in Erstwhile's case, at least, Jon's net seems to be sufficiently broad that he's got a pretty wide variety of musicians, despite the continuing recurrence of a few favorites.
And Alexandre, my review of Good Morning Good Night is up on Stylus now.
in terms of pure economics, there was an interesting article on the JVC Jazz festival last week in the NY Times. musicians like Joao Gilberto and Ornette Coleman command fees of $60,000-$80,000 to show up, one of those fees would have safely covered the entire budgets of all four AMPLIFY festivals to date.
even within a free improv context, most European festivals pay decidedly higher performance fees than I did at AMPLIFY 2004. musicians certainly didn't participate for the money, for instance, Mark Wastell and Tim Barnes both travelled to Germany for a single concert, expecting to lose money in the process, simply because they wanted to be part of it. in fact, as long as we're discussing "star systems" and "economic disparities", it may interest Wayne to know that, in accordance with our prior arrangement, Rowe and Nakamura didn't receive any money for their participation in any of the outside shows in Berlin, not that it's really any of his business.
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 14, 2004 5:57 PMProbably should just avoid this, but there is a point not raised that I think is worth considering. I was happy to see an extensive review of (half) of the recent Amplify festival and treated this like I do all reviews: as opinion. The author is not me and won't necessarily like what I will. Impressions and experiences are great to hear -- helps fill in a picture that those of us who did not attend will never fully understand. However the last paragraph was in my mind a great disservice to the reader. It takes the stance that we are unable to form conclusions based on what has been presented and the information that we already have. Music writers really have no more special insight than serious music fans, and this sort of lecture smacks of this kind of elitism. To speak of one issue and only for myself, I had noted the nationality of all members present and found them a good and representative mix of the scene. If an Amplify fest was held in Seattle (please do :) I would be fairly disappointed if it was dominated by Seattle musicians. Furthermore I find events organized by other people, especially with a deliberate theme very interesting and would try to inform my experience with that information.
Finally I found the comments from Joe pretty telling. If I had been given any article to put on my site with the stipulation that I can't edit it, a polite rejection would be the answer. The above article w/o the concluding editorializing (and perhaps those misquotes) is a perfectly acceptable opinion piece. Had cutting that been a requirement for publication, I doubt there would be this brouhaha. Oh, and seeking controversy merely for the sake of controversy is juvenile.
BTW I love that you take comments, often those become far more interesting than the subject. One reason why I prefer Bag over PT (though it's rejection of this article is a point in it's favor :)
Posted by: hatta at June 14, 2004 6:02 PMDear Hatta,
I don't think Bags & PT are in competition! Glad you enjoy both! Unfortunately right now (Tuesday 6.30am Paris time) the PT site is down & will be until we change servers. And, fun though it is (proof of that is I keep coming back), publisher Guy Livingston & I have no intention to open up PT as a thread site like Bags (there must be a technical term for that but you know what I mean). We do however have the Letters Page and I cross link articles & features to it.
As far as this particular thread goes, I think most of what needed to be said has been said (also on the What Is EAI?, Hill on EAI, Tonalamotl, Hug / LaPlante and Amplify threads) and everyone concerned has argued their corner quite effectively. Time to move on.
janet jackson, in a recent interview I happened to come across, complained about the u.s. being a "backward" place, possibly referring-even though that wasn't stated expressis verbis-to an instance of exposure that purportedly sent our holy nation suckling and into post partum. but then: "If it sucks, it sucks." (walto)
If wider exposure of "local and global ecosystems"
is Wayne Spencer's concern, a record company head might not be a cd shopper's first port of call. he might rather (have to) take a trip to a "social & mental space" (nate dorward) like WIRE, PARIS TRANSATLANTIC or gabatellen.
anybody home here? any editor?
"I’m not sure we have such an animal in the zoo at this point in time." (derek) there's an opening of gates here: something "asinine" (Bill Ashline) might have slipped in under cover of "dark obscurantism" (Spencer).
there is someone in charge though who'll take the stab , rhetorically, of course. thanks for the bananas, Derek, haven't we all suckled our collegiate websters, Donald Davidson's Inquiries into Truth and Understanding, Derrida's Politics of Friendship, and Deleuze's Kafka (on apes) with a modicum of “deliberate intention”- ("seems a bit redundant, but maybe an explicitly choice-driven objective")?
then out of nowhere a sachiko m-like earful of sine/sign wavery:
"In an editorial capacity, I cannot place myself in the position of vetting the intellectual content of a given writer's work. I can only assure myself that the writer's claims adhere to certain professional standards." (Joe Milazzo)
will the real bagALtellen's star please stand up? Is the bag "decaying away" (Spencer) into eai's (not emi's, that's blue note for you, Bill)
version of tv's favorite "what not to wear"?
"One reason why I prefer Bag over PT (though it's rejection of this article is a point in it's favor)" (hatta)
one reason I prefer PT is that Dan's damn good (when he's not chumming with Lester.)
I have the sneaking suspicion that the reason Dan Warburton enjoys Mr. Spencer's services is the same that Mr. Milazzo played editor to Wayne for a day, that is to share some syrup with get-off-of-my-cloud-Bangs "looking down ... and laughing his rocks off.." (dan warburton).
another suspicion: I read a different subtext in(to) Mr. Spencer's piece. He starts off with a mention of
a New Jersey based record company, later set against a citing of "New Europe" and a mention of AMM’s pianist John Tilbury who "decided his existing boycott of American cultural life obliged him to withdraw from the festival." is Tilbury the only European eai musician who feels this way? if I remember correctly, Mr. Kurzmann's and Efzeg's wrapping themselves up in political slogans didn't sit too well with the punters at ihm or jc, Jon Abbey included. Given the present political climate,
reading about the plunging popularity of les chauses americaines in old and/or new europe (that's according to last week's economist), don't Jon Abbey's achievements seem to look even more impressive?
does the way Mr. Spencer takes issue with Jon Abbey's idea of ‘cross-pollenization’ not sound a bit like those european takes on u.s. sponsored globalization. excellent on this topic btw I find Jean-Luc Nancy's The Sense of the World, or, not just for the hardcore leftifts , Zizek's Welcome to the Desert of the Real. fairing better seem to be those swiss, german, and french labels.
"For every flagship one-off production that Erstwhile promotes, there must be many more small and large gigs not connected to the label. As for other labels, many of those that have put out interesting eai have a wider remit than Erstwhile (e.g. For 4 Ears, Grob, Potlatch and others) or are very small (e.g Confront, w.m. o/r), but together they surely contribute very heavily to EAI in general and international collaboration in particular. Please consult your own tottering piles of CDs!" (Wayne Spencer)
"if I remember correctly, Mr. Kurzmann's and Efzeg's wrapping themselves up in political slogans didn't sit too well with the punters at ihm or jc, Jon Abbey included. "
that's not true, I totally supported their anti-Haider stance, I thought his potential rise to power was very scary. I have plenty of issues with those guys, let's not add any that aren't actually true, please... :)
Posted by: Jon Abbey at June 14, 2004 10:45 PMsorry, Jon. my mistake.
Posted by: chris flemmer at June 15, 2004 2:28 AMhi
my english is coming to its limits i feel
i have to check so many words to understand the stuff which is going on. a