I bought my brother the dvd We Jam Econo as present; the story of the American punk-band The Minutemen – d. boon, mike watt & george hurley – plus three complete live sets: http://www.theminutemen.com/. I just came back from his house where we watched 2 of the live sets – I admit I already watched the documentary yesterday (and afterwards ran off to an Oorbeek-rehearsal – where the idea was to spend time with F.). Well, what shall I say… It’s fucking awesome? It is. And I get into such a good mood from watching & listening to the Minutemen.

Discussing it with my brother – how we both like this band, and why. I know them through him. He says he doesn’t really remember how he got into it then, around 1985, 1986 – how friends of his who were into punk and the Dead Kennedy’s didn’t ‘get’ the Minutemen. That he probably would not have liked it himself had he not gotten into listening to jazz (Coltrane, Ayler, Cecil Taylor) through me.

The Minutemen are ‘real’ punk – in the sense that punk is about doing it yourself, making your own thing, creating something which is real and you, not copying anything – so also not copying other punk bands. Discovering. And not wanting to be like somebody else. And it always sounds that such is the way the music of the Minutemen was made: this is us and we play bass, drums and guitar – and each of us plays in their own style and it magically comes together. This is how you play together.

& I love their songs – they are so bare-bones and ‘simple’. You hear what the building blocks are and how they click. It is simple, but well, complex in the interlocking and succession of simple elements – mike watt’s baselines, geoff hurley’s crazy drumming (not at all how a punk drummer ‘should’ drum), boon’s piercing & funky guitarbits.

& it is such a joy to see them perform live on a dvd & see d. boon jumping on stage. (Needless to say, I have never seen them live – yes, later on I say mike watt a few times with george hurley and I guess Eliott Sharpe, and also with dos – but never the Minutemen).

In the States the Minutemen seem to be sort of legendary by now, it seems. I have the feeling they’re not so big in Europe. Allright even 2 other Oorbeek-members knew the Minutemen (Maarten because he knows them all, Serge because of the Raymond Pettibon-connection), but generally you see people staring at you with a face like “who’re you talking about? – the Minutemen?”

mike watt btw is here: http://www.hootpage.com/.

Tetuzi Akiyama — my favorite guitar player of the moment — is playing with Jozef van Wissem at DNK/OT301 on monday. I’ve known this since months. I even scheduled my agenda around it, so I’d be able to go. And now I can’t….

Btw: yesterday an awesome concert of Olaf Rupp, playing solo acoustic (classical) guitar at the DNK series (OT301, see http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com/?dept=AGENDA&article=8): playing very precisely with all the ‘noises’ that playing a nylonstring guitar involves (nails on strings, ‘bijgeluiden’ et cetera), almost as if overlaying different types of sound in a way that can be compared to what goes on in electronic / laptop music… Also Gjerstad & Olsen played, but Rupp, well ‘blew my mind’…

Now listening to the works of post-minimalist composer Julius Eastman (1940 – 1990) – or well, to those works that have been tracked down. Eastman was evicted from his house in the 1980s, all his stuff, including his scores thrown out too. Eastman went on to live in Tompkins Square Park, until his death. The story is incredible: http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=4411, the music is like a slap in the face. I generally dislike minimalist music, but Eastman makes a maximum impact. Can anybody explain why we’re bothered with Philip Glass and John ‘Other’ Adams-operas when there was somebody like Eastman? (Yeah, difficult person, et cetera…. but the music!)

(Btw: there are two contemporary composers by the name of John Adams; the ‘famous’ one and then John Luther Adams — most known for the fact that he lives in northern Alaska. According to Samuel Vriezen John Luther Adams writes by far the more interesting music — hence he calls the famous John Adams, John ‘Other’ Adams.)

Went to the Concertgebouw on saturday afternoon to hear the new composition … ci tace of the Dutch composer Eric Verbugt. I hadn’t been to the Concertgebouw since ages, I actually said to F. — who joined me — that it was probably 20 years ago since I’d been there, which is I think exaggerated, but still. I’m used to go to all kind of small places to hear new music — and now a full Concertgebouw. Quite a difference. Also for my ears: used to listen to electro-acoustic music in small places (no not loud), my own band in a rehearsal space (often too loud), or to mp3s coming from bad headphones or tiny computerloudspeakers, I now heard the music acoustic, from a distance, but with lots more coloring.

Well, it was certainly worth the price, since it turned out to be probably the longest programme of the year, almost 4 hours of music. 2 pieces for choir by Ligeti, Kindertotenlieder by Mahler, then 3/4 hours of Eric’s piece, followed by a new composition by Klaas de Vries and, to finish off, a bit of Stravinsky. The reviews today all touched upon the enormous lenght of this matinee. All works with an important role for text.

This was the programme: http://www.concertgebouw.nl/cgb/live/ConcertInfo.jsp?concert_id=13423.

I realized again why I much rather go to hear music performed live than buy a cd (euh, I mean download mp3s at Rapidshare): it is so great to hear how music is always ‘in the making’, that you can hear the process, the creation, the moulding of the clay, the material. even when it’s already composed — you hear that the composing was a ‘doing’.

Even when I would not have known Eric Verbugt personally, still his piece — for orchestra (of to be more precise 2 large ensembles), voice, oboe and choir — would’ve been my favorite. His way of writing totally comes from the classic tradition — a tradition of pushing the boundaries — it is a progression of that tradition (say, from Mahler via Ligeti and Nono to Lachenmann — well, here my knowledge is not thorough enough), with the result that, to my ears, it sounds as ‘beauty’ as beauty should be, in music, however ‘harsh’ it my sound sometimes. The writing for the ensembles is maybe stronger than the solo-pieces — though the oboe-solo, totally written-out, is very very virtuoso, with glissandi, multiphonics etc. It is virtuoso in a way one normally only gets to hear in free improv or free jazz (and that even made me think of how afro-american composers who came out of free jazz wrote for large orchestra).

To my 20th & 21st ears Mahler sounded, well, very nice, but a bit bland in comparision. (I know, that’s unfair to Mahler). The Ligeti pieces were breathtaking — but that was no surprise. Strawinsky was a first timer for me, believe it or not, I’d never heard any of his 12-tone pieces. The new composition by Klaas de Vries was nice but sounded a bit outdated due to the fairly simple, or even primitive use of tape. Would’ve been so much better if he’d processed the sound of the choir as well…

Btw, how I met Eric Verbugt is a nice story. Years ago he was googling his favorite writers — Joyce, Finnegans Wake, Arno Schmidt, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow; and every time my homepage was amongst the results. So he sent me an e-mail….

Eric Verbugt: http://www.ericverbugt.nl/.

Monday at DNK, Amsterdam: No-Input-Night, with a.o. Lucio Capece — Toshimaru (Toshio) Nakamura: http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com/.

Yours truly still has to come up with a bit of publicity text … Though I like the mention that the no-input mixer is such a hip instrument that it doesn’t have a page on wikipedia.

Listening now to a duo of Capece and Yannis Kyriakides; free download here:
http://www.audiotong.net/audio/releases/tng3005-en.html
http://www.audiotong.net/audio/releases/tng1010-en.html.

Before getting to work (it’ll be mainly translating for the Stedelijk, the next few days) I click through a few music blogs and find this clip of Keiji Haino & Machizo Machida:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrPFO6uvDA

More good stuff of Kaoru Abe, the legendary Japanese freejazz saxophonist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6gyIHldJyg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqvwBos9HQk

Do I have any readers in the United States? Anyway, if you’re living on the east coast this month is your chance to hear the music of the various groups of the N Collective http://n-collective.com/, like SKIF++, MoHa, Office-R(6), etc. About the most interesting sounds & compositional & improvisation concepts in contemporary music (well, I think). Very warmly recommended.

Here’s the tour schedule:

The program:
* Oct 6-7 Sonic Circuits Festival, Washington DC
Groups: USA/USB, MoHa!, SKIF++, DB, Office-R(6), Pho, 5.1 surround compositions by Robert van Heumen & Jeff Carey
Website & schedule: http://www.dc-soniccircuits.org/index.html / http://www.n-event.net/
* Oct 7 Sonic Circuits Festival, Washington DC
lecture Robert van Heumen (STEIM/LiSa) – 3pm at the Warehouse Screening Room
* Oct 10, Flywheel, Easthampton MA
Groups: SKIF++, USA/USB, DB
Website & schedule: http://www.flywheelarts.org/
* Oct 12, The Tank, NYC – 10:00PM
Groups: SKIF++, DB, MoHa!
Website & schedule: http://www.thetanknyc.org/
* Oct 13, ITP / New York University (NYU), NYC
lecture Robert van Heumen (STEIM/LiSa) & Jeff Carey (Super Collider) from 12 – 1:15PM at ITP, 721 Broadway (at Waverly Place), 4th floor
* Oct 13, Diapason Gallery, NYC – 8:30PM
Groups: SKIF++, DB, USA/USB, 5.1 surround compositions by Robert van Heumen & Jeff Carey
Website & schedule: http://www.diapasongallery.org/
* Oct 14, Redroom, Baltimore – 8:30PM
Groups: SKIF++, MoHa!
Website & schedule: http://www.redroom.org/
* Oct 15, St. John’s Church, Baltimore – 8:00PM
Groups: SKIF++
Website & schedule: http://www.stjohnsbaltimore.org/CRP.htm
* Oct 16, University of Maryland (UMBC), Baltimore
lecture Robert van Heumen (STEIM/LiSa), Bas van Koolwijk (MAX/Msp/Jitter) & Jeff Carey (Super Collider) – time and place to be announced

I’m only now beginning to appreciate the music & musicianship of Anthony Braxton. I have listened to him in the past, I have seen him perform live a few times, but his music never “arrived”, so to say, in my heart nor head. Yes, I loved him on Dave Hollands Conference of the Birds, I have a record with Ray Anderson, John Lindbergh and Thurman Barker from I think 1979 or 1984, I pushed record on the taperecorder whenever some Braxton would come on the radio. But when I was frantically discovering all the jazz, going from Parker to Dolphy to Coltrane and Ornette, and then on to David Murray, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Henry Threadgill — I somehow skipped Braxton. I knew that he was considered a major voice and For Alto sort of a defining moment of seventies jazz/impro. I knew that I should try to get hold of his work with Barry Altschull. But his tone seemed so thin, he looked so rationally, unpassionately professorlike, that I never did.

But now look at his 1980 performance of Coltrane’s Impressions — at Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o0AYFRFX7g.

My discovery of Braxton is triggered partly by the discussion on 1970s jazz that travelled through various music-blogs last week — after Dave Douglas asked if someone could come up with a list of what is most worthwile from that era of jazz. See a.o. the wonderful http://destination-out.com/ & http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/2006/08/ethan_iversons_.html. A difficult era — if you ask me –. Jazz lost it’s place in the hierarchy of music to rock, and after freejazz there seemed to to be no way ‘onwards’. Looking back in retrospect at the legacy of seventies jazz — even if one leaves out the European free improv-scene and some spaced-out jazzrock — this seems unbelievable: so many great new sounds evolved. I tried to make my list: Henry Threadgill (hardly mentioned, strangely), Lawrence Butch Morris (his conductions are, well, awesome — they move me deeply), Anthony Braxton, David Murray, Richard Muhal Abrams, John Carter, Gerry Hemingway (also hardly ever mentioned — his early trio with Ray Anderson & Mark Helias is wonderful), Roscoe Mitchell, George Lewis… And that’s just a few of the persons who came up with new conceptions, mixtures and radical sounds. See, I don’t even mention New York downtown scene (some of the best Zorn-stuff is late seventies).

If you’re in Amsterdam today or tomorrow, go hear the N-Event at the Muziekgebouw: http://www.n-event.net/, friday, 22.30 & the opening-concert of DNK-Amsterdam, saturday 22.30, also at the Muziekgebouw.

It’s my favorite music…

http://www.muziekgebouw.nl/
http://www.n-collective.com/
http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com/
http://www.n-event.net/