June 10, 1979: New Music New York - Day 3
Philip Glass & Leroy Jenkins (&Eno &Fripp &Rockwell &Casale) ● Charles Amirkhanian & Carol Law ● Connie Beckley ● Jon Deak ● Scott Johnson with Ned Sublette ● Jill Kroesen ● David Van Tieghem
June 10, 1979 New Music America - New Music New York - day 3
Panel: John Rockwell with Brian Eno, Jerry Casale, Robert Fripp, Philip Glass and Leroy Jenkins Commerciality, Mystique, Ego and Fame in New Music
Charles Amirkhanian and Carol Law Audience, The Type Without Time
Connie Beckley Tiptoe
Jon Deak A Flatlander in Colorado
Scott Johnson with Ned Sublette Involuntary Variations no. 2
Jill Kroesen - three songs
David Van Tieghem A Man and His Toys No. 11
Martin Kalve Indescribably Delicious Melodies
John Holland - new works
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Conference sessions:
Philip Glass and Leroy Jenkins [talk] “Commerciality, Mystique, Ego and Fame in New Music” at Collective for Living Cinema with Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Philip Glass and Jerry Casale as well.
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Since Eno fans filled the 52 White Street hall on Sunday, this reviewer was unable to attend the festivities, but rumor has it that: 1) Eno believes Shamanism to be the basis for fame. 2) Fripp hates cameras. 3) Fame has not affected Glass since it came so late. 4) Jenkins works and dislikes the media. 5) The Editor of October Magazine thought no one on the panel was speaking to the announced issues and that the whole trip was ridiculous. 6) Rockwell believes that the New York Times does not constitute mass media. 7) The audience didn’t believe Rockwell and, reportedly, booooed. From in-person interviews outside the hall, this reviewer discovered that Fripp has a reputation for telling people what he thinks and that old rock records that sell for $1 are worth it.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”, Guerrilla criticism of ‘New Music New York’ (26 pages), June 1979
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Charles Amirkhanian and Carol Law
Audience, The Type Without Time
Program profile:
From the album Five + Five Text Sound Pieces (1979)
https://www.discogs.com/release/7750824-Charles-Amirkhanian-Five-Five-Text-Sound-Pieces
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As the full moon rose over the Kitchen, Charles Amirkhanian’s Dutiful Ducks, beautiful dutiful ducks, danced textily over the sound system. The second piece, Audience with visuals by Carol Law, was more interesting visually than aurally.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
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Connie Beckley Tiptoe
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Connie Beckley’s Tiptoe consisted of the balancing of two speakers on their edges with wedges while the poor speakers were busy playing and singing 16-beat phrases of tonal matter. A woman moving large objects is a great image, but Ms. Beckley didn’t deliver.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
Just today, I found the track on something interestingly called the “Free Music Archives”, providing: “Excerpts from the Darmstadt Essential Repertoire festival, curated by Zach Layton and Nick Hallett, performed at ISSUE Project Room: Connie Beckley – “Sound Split” (1976), “Tiptoe” (1979), “Showdown” (1976); Performed by the composer. You have to sign up but they say I can repost if I show the permissions, so:
Sound Split (1976)byConnie Beckleyis licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
And then there’s this from 1990:
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Jon Deak A Flatlander in Colorado
Recent version by Cody Tacaks (own y2b account)
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On the other hand, much of the repertoire seemed clearly secular. These pieces are rooted in the here and now, and convey greater respect for human skills than for outside forces. A few examples might be Jon Deak’s one-man-band act, Jill Kroesen’s songs, David van Tieghem’s toy instruments, Larry Austin’s somewhat humorous lecture-as-song, Tony Conrad’s shaggy-dog piano piece which ends with the piano being played by a machine, and Jeffrey Lohn’s neoclassically structured work for a rock ensemble.
- Tom Johnson, Village Voice, July 2, 1979
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Jon Deak portrayed a one-person band out to entertain a friendly crowd in straw-hat-weather. With percussion on his feet, harmonica around his neck, keyboard on waist, and string bass everywhere else, he told the sentimental but energetic story of a flatlander’s desire to move to Colorado. Aside from the difficulties with the speaking and the tuning, he had a great time and we did too. If this is vaudeville, why do we have to go to the Kitchen to hear it?
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
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Scott Johnson with Ned Sublette
Involuntary Variations No. 2
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Involuntary Variations #2 for electric guitars and pre-recorded male crying” was performed by the composer, Scott Johnson, and Ned Sublette. As in Ms. Kroesen’s work, there seemed to be a limited range, and the rhythm track came from the crying.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
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Q: What do you think of the music?
A: Tom Johnson’s ‘pokalockadukala’ piece sounds like the opening scene in The Music Man. Scott Johnson’s crying track was the most interesting part of his piece.
- From the same report by Beth Anderson”, Joseph D. McLellan interview (Washington Post)
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Jill Kroesen
Fay Shism Began in the Home,
Excuse Me, I Feel Like Multiplying,
The Original Lou and Walter Story
Many of Jill Kroesen’s works from this period have recently been reissued and commercially digitized here at bandcamp:
https://sundazed.com/kroesen-jill-i-really-want-to-bomb-you-1972-1984-orange-vinyl-lp.aspx
30th anniversary of LOLO performance:
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A reincarnation narrative made up of parts of various theatre pieces by Jill Kroesen came next. The arias used to illustrate this amazing routine included, Broken Wing, I Wanna Be Your Leader and I’m Just A Human Being. Ms. Kroesen sang with herself and her band on tape in a style so cool it might be called ‘lethargic rock’. There was also some ‘hypoglycemic hysteria’ concerning the need of a fascist for a human dog companion. The limited pitch range gave her work a quality of chant or text-sound, especially when combined with inconsistent diction. It represents the only truly experimental work included thus far in this festival.
- Beth Anderson, “Report from the Front”
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On the other hand, much of the repertoire seemed clearly secular. These pieces are rooted in the here and now, and convey greater respect for human skills than for outside forces. A few examples might be Jon Deak’s one-man-band act, Jill Kroesen’s songs, David van Tieghem’s toy instruments, Larry Austin’s somewhat humorous lecture-as-song, Tony Conrad’s shaggy-dog piano piece which ends with the piano being played by a machine, and Jeffrey Lohn’s neoclassically structured work for a rock ensemble.
- Tom Johnson, Village Voice July 2, 1979
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Some of the ideas that worked, for me, included … Jill Kroesen, of minimalist vocal technique, nonetheless swept away questions about proficiency as she sang live satiric songs like Fay Shism Began in the Home against a recording of herself with a backup band.
- Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle, July 24, 1979
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David Van Tieghem A Man and his Toys #11
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Some things were amusing or intriguing. David Van Tieghem entertained us with sounds created from his collection of toys and gadgets, jumping into absurdity when he played two vibrating dildos on a microphone stand.
- Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle
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On the other hand, much of the repertoire seemed clearly secular. These pieces are rooted in the here and now, and convey greater respect for human skills than for outside forces. A few examples might be Jon Deak’s one-man-band act, Jill Kroesen’s songs, David van Tieghem’s toy instruments, Larry Austin’s somewhat humorous lecture-as-song, Tony Conrad’s shaggy-dog piano piece which ends with the piano being played by a machine, and Jeffrey Lohn’s neoclassically structured work for a rock ensemble.
- Tom Johnson, Village Voice, July 2, 1979
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David van Tieghem played with his toys and shared his favorite sounds. At first it sounded like an old Cage or Harrison piece from the 1930’s and then it moved on to sound like Schneemann’s multiple music box piece. Since it continued to wander from plastic snake to beach ball to baby rattle to tube tapping to shamanistic light percussion to star wars toys to aural-sex-suggestive-vibrators to pink elephants that played phase music to nervous duck puppets to trembling plastic hands to plastic wrap with caps it was clear that it was not a deliberate ‘homage’ to anyone in particular. As Laurie Spiegel says, “Every generation must discover beauty for itself.” He went out with a gong.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
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Too many performances were flawed by self-conscious theatrical realizations of the work. For all its slick visual magic, David van Tieghem’s solo percussion piece sacrificed musical content and continuity. (David Moss would have been a better choice to represent the genre.)
- Keith Roether, Albuquerque Tribune, “Criticism is Wishful Narcissism”, June 20, 1979
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A few years later, Van Tiegham would wind up bringing some of his toys to the David Letterman Late Night show.
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Screen shots of the original New Music New York 1979 program were from a downloadable photocopied pdf available from the site of the late Michael Galbreth. Direct link to the downloadable program here:
https://www.michaelgalbreth.com/_files/ugd/b4072f_e5d11c9f076542479f8a38108565980a.pdf