HOLY SWEAR-WORD! Thurston Moore improv show was HOLY SWEAR WORD good!

[Rabrrrrrr]

GOOD GOD it was good!

Sorry to everyone who couldn't come, and double sorry for those who could have, but chose not to.

One of the best evenings of music I've experienced in a long time. I haven't had so many tears of direct connection to the Divine since I heard Dennis Russel Davies conduct the brooklyn Philharmonic in the most brilliant peformance of Mahler's No. 2 I've ever heard, back in '98.

The theme of the concert, sponsored by my seminary, was improvisation, so all music was improvised. And believe me, IT WAS.

First on the show was a jazz group called "Test" - drummer, bassist, and two guys who played a wide variety of horns, saxes, clarinets, flutes, and piano, and also whateevr percussion stuff they happened across (the gong they found in the chapel, plus moraccas, tambourines, etc.). They played one piece for about 70 minutes, and it was BLOODY phenomenal!

Then up was Thurston Moore, on guitar, and another guitarist, a drummer, and a woman on cello. they played for about 30 minutes, one piece, mostly a constant wall of noise.

neither band bothered with boring stuff like melodies, tonality, or harmony; pretty much they never bothered doing boring stuff like playing in the same rhythm, meter, or beats/minute (in those few instances when they actually succumbed to playing at a consistent beat pace). Mostly, they freely played over and within and around each other - always playing off each other, always following or leading each other, but still very much their own thing.

Thurston spent about 5 minutes one time standing directly in front of his amplifier speaker, some of that with the guitar face actually pressed up against it, and achieved a most beautiful wall of feedback. He also played his guitar sometimes with a metal file, sometimes bounced it off the floor or the speakers, sometimes placed the nuts on the amplifier, holding the opposite end, so he could push in the middle in get a gorgeous tone bending (all while everything turned up maximum, including distortion, of course). the other guitarist did a most amazing, and almost melodic, feedback solo at the end of the piece that went on for perhaps 2-3 minutes. he also set his guitar down on the floor and was throwoing pieces of metal into the strings, as well as a piece of airline carry-on luggage. The dummer was nuts, and the cellist, sadly, even though she was highly amplified, just couldn't compete with the wall of sound of the guitars, and her sound was lost much of time.

It's almost an hour since it ended, and I am still in "Holy Shit!" mode about this concert.

And a good audience - the place was pretty well packed, so I'd guess maybe 200 people. HA HA! That's right! It was full, and I was still only 15 feet from the band, and after the show, I just walked up and talked to them - both bands. Incredible. Seemed to be mostly younger people, allsort of "sonic youth grunge style", so I imagine the majority oft he crowd was there just for Thurston, but they ate up the free jazz totally, too. A wonderful audience. A few older people, not many, and I noticed almost all of them leave a few minutes into Thurston's Infinite Wall Of Feedback And Noise - all except my 60+ year old catholic nun professor. She enjoyed it!

Just. Totally. Incredible.

I am on such a high from the experience. And I never heard Sonic Youth, or Thurston before.

Just. Totally. Incredible.

[Whitacre D_WI]

1. Do you mean Thurston Moore?

Or perhaps Thurgood Marshall (though I can't imagine he'd put on too good a show these days)?

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Whoops!

Thanks!

typo.

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. A couple DUers expressed interest in this - did you make it?