Zzaj D.I.Y. Forum
This forum is for ANYthing & EVERYthing related to D.I.Y. & home-produced musics. We are looking FORWARD to your discussions!
So - if you're a poet... the questions (to you) are:
Which musicians have YOU collaborated with?
If not, WHY NOT?
Let's DISCUSS this one... the marraige of poetry & music can help to bring closure to some of the horrid things that are going on in our world today (methinks)! Zzaj
Hi. In expected Hart fashion, I'd like to turn the telescope around and talk about working with poets. I was closely aligned with the Spoken Word and Slam-Poetry scenes in Worcester, MA between 1992-1998 - even participated in some cool big-attendance gigs, reading things I'd written while in San Diego and Korea, with video-fractals playing on television screens behind me and tape-loops and feedback being woven in and out of my texts via volume pedals. However, these things were rare. Very frequently, I had the pleasure of improvising behind author/poet/indie-publisher Dave Nader in all sorts of live contexts. We did Clark University, benefits, bars, coffeehouses, churches, what have you. I usually played an old MIDI-guitar of mine, sometimes homemade instruments and percussion. Dave did dual-readings on the KUDZU track "The Garbage Man", which is a very heavy industrial true-story song they did talking about a whole family that lives in N. Conway, NH that's been involved in almost 50 years of incest, child-abuse, cocaine abuse, and home-porno. Intense and important to reveal slugs where they live. I wrote the words and contributed several guitar tracks, all of which were twisted into something utterly else that crawls under his recitations, which call-and-respond creepily in stereo.
Dave was also a member of the short-lived improvisational combo - HE TALKS TO GIRAFFES - and I have a great live recording of a non-stop 60minute show that cleanly moves through 9 distinct movements, two of which support readings by Dave - "Angels", one of his writings, and "Democracy" by Leonard Cohen. Also playing in that grouping were "Spankin" Ed Barnett: guitars or drums, Bob Jordan: whatever he decided to bring; me: MIDI guitar; Steve Blake: bass; Greg Sulivan: slide guitar or drums; and Paul Walker: sax. We also did live collaboration with multi-media artist J-Me Johnson's electronic-sculpture band INDUSTRIAL SONIC ECHO, as well as my trio RUNS WITH SCISSORS with Jonathan Thomas on pots and pans, and Barton Mallio on looped fretless bass.
Dave turned me on to Francis 'Woody' Woodbridge, a Worcester poet and legend who goes all the way back to the Y-Not Cafe and the deep and influential counter-culture that made Abby Hoffman, ORPHEUS, amongst others. Woody is my favorite poet, hands down, this year. I had the pleasure of producing almost 30 of his spoken readings, done in Toad Hall Studio (best DIY shack in MA!). Guitars, feedback, electronics, a bit of my UK friend - Ben Waters - playing slack-string guitar, real Gamelan recordings, real ambient tapes of extremely loose and drunken Korean parties I attended with SCADS of killer solo singing..all sorts of stuff.
Here's the URL to find more about the Woody CD, if anyone's interested: http://hartsongs.tripod.com/instrumentales_page7.htm
(it's about 1/2-way down, the title is "Gored").
Zzaj, you and I have done some exciting things involving your stream-o-subconsciousness rambling, and they truly throw paint all over any instrumental horizon we've ever concocted. I suggest a naked voice tape (did I miss you ever having already done this?) with no accompaniment. Why not?
Speaking of Bob Jordan, about 3 weeks back, I exhumed a chapbook of his (very E.E.Cummings/Wallace Stevens-y) poetry that was avalable in '97 in New England. I called him up and expressed that I'd enjoyed finding and re-reading the pieces and was interested in trying to do a project centering around readings of those texts. He was cool with that, and said that I (!) should try doing some of the readings. I figured, "Why not?", and did a take of every one of them, figuring this would give Bob more to discard/ choose from. On the tail end of that disc, I filled space with some 1987 solo guitar improvisations I'd never done anything with, and some 1985 harsh multitracked guitar stuff that has the uneasy honor of being amongst the things I sent Chris Cutler that scared him.
Viva le poetique!
hi,ev'rybody
hi, rotcod zzaj,
personally i don't think we're in a real chicken/egg situation here, as it is my firm belief that both evolved slowly together.
i'm not out to actually prove it, but i think that primeval poetry was "religious" incantations, so that the chicken/egg question is a "post-religious" feature, a "modern feature", which cross-over people like us are trying to bridge, when we perform alongside and together with musicians. i believe this question just wasn't on the agenda during the times of vedic incantations, psalms of david, ramayana etc. later came poetry in a form that was always printed. poetry slowly got "intellectualized". as i see it, it was one of the great achievements of "the beats" to bring the oral/aural dimension back into poetry, for which they (you) should given great thanks. for me personally it is of great value to discuss these matters, because nothing is better than reaching an artistic orgasm with other persons (musicians). as i'm also a songwriter it falls very natural for me to co-op with musicians.
poetic cheers and happy new year
ole lillelund
artillerivej 63/146
dk 2300 copenhagen
denmark
lillelund@hum.ku.dk
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Replying to:
Since I perform so much spoken word, I often ponder the age-old Chicken/Egg-type question regarding Poetry/Music.
Why aren't there more poets collaborating with musicians? As some of you may know, I've collaborated with a LOT of poets... Joan Payne Kincaid, Belinda Subraman, Carol Frith, John M. Bennett & many others...
So - if you're a poet... the questions (to you) are:
Which musicians have YOU collaborated with?
If not, WHY NOT?
Let's DISCUSS this one... the marraige of poetry & music can help to bring closure to some of the horrid things that are going on in our world today (methinks)!
Zzaj
hello poets & musicians:
I ain't no prolified in any of the cathegories, but as an arranger and producer I've put together some poetry/ Improv performances. Unfortunatelly, there's not any recorded. The most important thing I did it for was because they're friends of mine, & are good musicians. They are underrated within local music context (although they outsold the first edition of their CD, and are making a new one, TBA), so I decided to make em a concert/gig.
The first performance was for a friend of mine, Bojan Repinc, poet from Banja Luka (city northern from Sarajevo), whose expressing language is Croatian, but with Serbian pronunciation and accent. I realized I had to find an original speaker who could understand the importance of pauses and articulation. My choice turned out to be Bela Marias (of Hungarian group Tudosok) who performed from KSET in Zagreb to Knitting Factory in New York. I accompanied him with two incredible free jazz sax players from Zagreb: Luka Pershich and Jerko Valdevit. It turned out to be a great success between two regular concerts happening one after another. It lasted for fifteen minutes and Bela liked it.
The next concert had me on speaker, and combo which consisted of pitchshifting sampler maniac, guitar/ electronics player and percussionist. It was fantastic, I liked my guts explodng thru the performance.
thanx for sharing the forum:
VID JERAJ
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Replying to:
Since I perform so much spoken word, I often ponder the age-old Chicken/Egg-type question regarding Poetry/Music.
Why aren't there more poets collaborating with musicians? As some of you may know, I've collaborated with a LOT of poets... Joan Payne Kincaid, Belinda Subraman, Carol Frith, John M. Bennett & many others...
So - if you're a poet... the questions (to you) are:
Which musicians have YOU collaborated with?
If not, WHY NOT?
Let's DISCUSS this one... the marraige of poetry & music can help to bring closure to some of the horrid things that are going on in our world today (methinks)!
Zzaj
Hmmm... WELL, if you FIND any of that stuff that DID get recorded, better make SURE it gets on CD. I have (nearly) all of my spoken-word performance stuff on disc now!
If you DO locate any recorded stuff from those sets, I'd be interested in hearing it!
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
hello poets & musicians:
I ain't no prolified in any of the cathegories, but as an arranger and producer I've put together some poetry/ Improv performances. Unfortunatelly, there's not any recorded. The most important thing I did it for was because they're friends of mine, & are good musicians. They are underrated within local music context (although they outsold the first edition of their CD, and are making a new one, TBA), so I decided to make em a concert/gig.
The first performance was for a friend of mine, Bojan Repinc, poet from Banja Luka (city northern from Sarajevo), whose expressing language is Croatian, but with Serbian pronunciation and accent. I realized I had to find an original speaker who could understand the importance of pauses and articulation. My choice turned out to be Bela Marias (of Hungarian group Tudosok) who performed from KSET in Zagreb to Knitting Factory in New York. I accompanied him with two incredible free jazz sax players from Zagreb: Luka Pershich and Jerko Valdevit. It turned out to be a great success between two regular concerts happening one after another. It lasted for fifteen minutes and Bela liked it.
The next concert had me on speaker, and combo which consisted of pitchshifting sampler maniac, guitar/ electronics player and percussionist. It was fantastic, I liked my guts explodng thru the performance.
thanx for sharing the forum:
VID JERAJ
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Replying to:
Since I perform so much spoken word, I often ponder the age-old Chicken/Egg-type question regarding Poetry/Music.
Why aren't there more poets collaborating with musicians? As some of you may know, I've collaborated with a LOT of poets... Joan Payne Kincaid, Belinda Subraman, Carol Frith, John M. Bennett & many others...
So - if you're a poet... the questions (to you) are:
Which musicians have YOU collaborated with?
If not, WHY NOT?
Let's DISCUSS this one... the marraige of poetry & music can help to bring closure to some of the horrid things that are going on in our world today (methinks)!
Zzaj
