Sur La Mesa
| Glass Houses | Viddles | Netflix |
|---|---|---|
Playing with churchbus in Rirkrit Tiravanija’s rehearsal space in the middle of the MCA's Sympathy for the Devil Exhibit was a pretty good way to spend a wintry Saturday afternoon. | Eating Northern Beijing potstickers and "Texas" brisket with a Berliner while serenaded by Chicago's ubiquitous singing cowboy was a pretty good way to spend Saturday evening. | Battling costiveness and avoiding the second act of a brutal movie was not how I wanted to spend Sunday. |
Some aspects of playing music in a glass box in the middle of a museum are to be expected. Some are not. Some should have been. | Some aspects of Northern Beijing potstickers are to be expected if one is already aware that this is food. Some are not. Some are delicious. | Some aspects of any Bertolucci movie are bound to make one uncomfortable. Some are not. Some should have been. |
I should have expected that eventually and rather quickly churchbus enclosed would smell like old gym. Some of this joyful stink will make it to the Winter Podcast. | I have to confess to the old Meateaters' Club that the adjective Texas is neither mine nor Honky Tonk BBQ's (fortunately they know that their brisket does not deserve the T brand, unfortunately we all know why). The tag is from a clueless Reporter. HT's pecan pie is tops though. | If you had asked me if watching young Robert de Niro and Gerard Depardieu get jerked off by an epileptic would make me uncomfortable I would have told you that it might. Now I would tell you that it was nothing compared to watching what a young Donald Sutherland can do with a cat. |
10 Comments:
You can't play (or was it practice? )inside a glass house inside the MCA in chicago and only say that some of it was as one would expect and some of it was not. and that it smelled like a gym locker. come on. this is probably one of hte coolest things i've heard about all year, and i have a participant here who is supposed to be letting me know about some cool stuff, and that's all you'll say? I can't even begin to think what i would expect from playing in a glass house in a museum.
I'd like to know the whole story behind this, how did it come about? does people practicing in glass boxes in museum happen often in chicago? where there other bands that got to use the space? how were the acoustics? from looking at he picture i wonder did you use the organ? the leslie cabinet? any amps or was it all direct? no drummer? no live sound? whats the people with the headphones are they listening direclty inside the glass, or listening to the board? was there any live internet feed of the event? any video? I know you are busy getting ready for the upcoming child and all, but i'd like to hear this story at some point, you can skip over the food, the movie and the pretty colors if you like...
Carlos, the torch bearer, one who is loved - you are one who knows it takes a little extra suckling to get to the whole milk.
Por Debajo de La Mesa
The Gear: The rehearsal space is fully equipped - or at least participants are encouraged to use only what is supplied. Included are:
- two cheap Fender guitars (one cheaper than the other as we found). a Telecaster and a Stratocaster.
- A cheap bass (pretty sure it was also a Fender)
- An Electronic Drum Set
- Some pedals (an overdrive and ???). I should have paid more attention because my dry sound sucked.
- Three Microphones
- A mixing console
- An effects processor
- A dual tape deck (participants bring a tape for themselves and the other is recorded for playback whenever the space is not occupied and eventually is archived for the artist, Rirkrit Tiravanija
- Headphones interlinked with the Headphones available to museum patrons
The Sound: This was a cerebral affair, no feeling in the gut on Al's down beat or Snake's bass romps. In the room itself you could hear museum din, trumpet, vocals, the pluck of amp-less electric guitars and the slap of tone-less drum pads. Just outside the rehearsal space, sans headphones, one could hear the slightly muffled sounds from within. Donning headphones, inside and out, gave the console mix: the drums had a big room reverb, the tele had some overdrive, the trumpet had a nice 'verb too.
The affect: I don't know how I ended up with the Strat but it sucked; couldn't keep tune and the high E string kept slipping off the fret board. Playing direct with a cheap strat, no fx and no amp is a plucky flat difficult thing which eventually led to string breaking which led to detuning fun. After the string break, Erin gave me his guitar which I much preferred. He was then free to belt out the tunes and to be the official footman, a necessary role which means he kept his foot planted against the "kick drum" pedal which otherwise floated away from Al.
Being on Display: A bit like monkey in the zoo - band in its native habitat, except a glass building in the middle of a museum, amp-less, beer-less, is far from churchbus' native habitat. So it was more like being art on display. We ran through our songs which also isn't like a churchbus rehearsal. We generally work on new stuff which in retrospect I wish we had done. We did, however, experiment quite a bit. Actually, for the past month we haven't had regular rehearsals - this wasn't our first exterior rehearsal in the past few weeks. This band is in chrysalis.
The artist asks that this not be a performance. That this be a rehearsal. We tried to not be affected by the onlookers and I think most of the time we were zoned into the band. Although: Just as Erin was about to sing the line "momma was a dancehall girl and whore" from his song Delta Queen, he noticed two kids (roughly six years old) put on headphones, instead he repeated the previous line "momma did the best she could." (This song will be on the Winter Podcast. Somewhere in this song too is where I gave up trying to ride the strato-walrus and made it ride me). At another point Al saw Snake's little girl and he called out to her "come over here, let's sing a song about Jesus." This was cruel because he knows full well that she has rejected songs about Jesus for songs about snowman cookies.
The Recording: More of the museum din is picked up than I expected. For a band recording in a small glass room the sound isn't bad - considering everything is pretty much running direct that is not too surprising. The slap of the drum pads does come through the vocal mikes though. It's fun to have a recording of this, especiall Al behind the ridiculous electronic drums which I think he loved playing. He's a trooper and he likes new things.
To answer some of your other questions: No this doesn't happen all the time in Chicago, although it's happening pretty regularly right now. Tiravanija's piece is part of an exhibition that will be over soon. I wrote a little about the exhibition a few weeks ago. The rehearsal space was on display once before in Chicago in 1997 so it happened then too. No video or internet release. It wasn't difficult to participate. Like many things in life, you just had to ask.
Love you.
p.s. Tricia took the photo - if you click on it you can download a bad ass version but be warned it is a 3 meg file.
Excellent, thank you. i bet the trumpet sounded cool inside the museum. Too bad about having to play direct, but it still sounds like a great experience. I've always loved museum acoustics, very church-like.
Thanks for the prodding for more details, other snake friend. The description is sublime compared to the list. But lists do have their purpose, so my wife has taught me.
The museum performance looks awfully cool, despite the way it probably smelled.
awesome is all I can muster as a comment.
More pictures please? Video?
Or at least the audio mix from the cassette deck. This is a mandatory addition to NapCast # whatever it is.
This would be a cool thing for the CAM. So if any Stoners out there have Art connections, get to it.
that is so fine.
y'all look like the largest funky ipod ever.
um, i like the chart organization of the weekend as a post. and the colors. cool.
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