There’s also a lot to be said for putting two ‘alikes’ together; be it the same instrumentation, or people who share a name. Okay, AFAIK, tactically, as an improviser, that latter factor doesn’t make an iota of difference, but I can vouch for the former.

Murray Campbell and Marian (that’s Marian Murray) fit that bill, and, as the odd-one-out, I get to play lazy. (And as one of my teachers pointed out recently, improvisers are, to some extent, lazy; we’re often attracted to methods, strategies and practices that get immediate results.)

Here’s one thing that was premeditated on June 12th: the line-up. I figured that by doubling the fiddlers, that they’d be pushing each other to interesting places, or at least out of each other’s way. And all I’d have to do is ride the wave.

So let me talk you through the tactical hits-and-misses of two ditties from the POV of the odd-one-out. Open up the listen page, look-up the recordings entitled ‘nine fifty-nine is divisible by seven’ and ‘toilette bourgeoise’…

nine fifty-nine is divisible by seven

Here’s another premeditation (with the usual improviser’s caveat that given the right circumstances I might change my mind): I decided to walk off stage and let the fiddlers sort themselves out; find their own vibe. Once that vibe was established, I anticipated that it’d be a fairly straightforward task to re-enter the fray, with the added luxury of having plenty of time to think about my (re-)entrance.

Incidentally, Marian, Neil O’Loghlen and I tried something like this in the May Lab with, I think it’s fair to say, mixed results. I thought, however, we might be in a better position to pull it off this time.

I was pushing for an opening with some strong, broad gestures.

Aside: the opening guitar ‘licks’ were a followup to Tony O’Connor’s entrance earlier in the evening (listen to ‘ruined train of thought’). …and, in my case, it’s also a straight Frith rip-off if you’re wondering.

Of course (and I don’t really need to tell you this) it didn’t turn out as expected. The high-energy opening wasn’t, instead becoming a set of semi-autonomous statements.

And this is where things get interesting…

…and all the best laid plans…

As soon as I walk off stage, the vibe changes. Heads to some in-bred sibling of some radiation-poisoned cousin of some Second-Viennese-School-by-numbers. Odd (as in delicately odd), beautiful (beautifully tasteless) and, I think at the time, where the f*ck did this come from? If I was expecting Murray and Marian to push each other to interesting places, I certainly got that.

Secondary problem with this strategy: although “having plenty of time to think about my re-entrance” is indeed a luxury, like a lot of ‘prepared means’, they come with Improviser’s Hazard No. 697: exactly when would be a good time to act?

I’d anticipated that the aforementioned vibe that the fiddlers had setup would remain in place for my re-entrance, but, as it happened, Webern-for-Dummies™ instantaneously evaporated when I sat back in. (Berg-for-Dummies™ would later pop up during ‘what is the avant-garde? (discuss)’.)

Another aside: I thought that the physical orientation of the trio (left-to-right: violin, violin, guitar) would make it hard for me to pick out the individual fiddle players. Murray was playing right into my ear while I couldn’t even see Marian. Turned out, however, not to be a problem, although I found myself interacting with Murray and Marian very differently. All interactions between Murray and myself could be a little more elliptical—the relationship was implicit, almost taken for granted. With Marian, on the other hand, I found myself almost telegraphing a call-and-response; all the gestures were slightly broader, a little more explicit, delivered with almost no overlap. (But I wonder if the audience could catch any of that…)

toilette bourgeoise

You can almost hear the guitarist’s thought processes on this one. Goes something like this:

Given that it’s pointless to compete with violins on timbre, sustain, or (micro-)intervalic stakes, what’s the poor guitarist to do? Since there’s no way that the poor guitarist can keep up with a fiddle player who decides to go the extreme scratchy, droney, slidey route, the poor guitarist should stick with the percussive and the polyphonic.

So the guitar goes tappity – tap – tap – t’thump
and the fiddles go krrr’shhhhhhh – scrrrrreeeeechhhh – scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
(starts at around 0’20″).

Or guitar: t’tap – tap – p’pop – pop’p’p’p
and fiddles: weeeeeeeee – eeeeeeeeeeeeeee – eeeeeeeeeeeee
(at around 1’23″).

I tried for the Oxley-esque meters gear-shifts, but the body-mind-instrument complex was not cooperating (I think I had a better shot at this last month).

…or I may have consumed one drink too many (there’s a cautionary tale here somewhere).

Then the question: now what?

I tried a half-hearted juxtaposition of gesture-types, but that really didn’t go anywhere (interesting). Having said all that, listening to the recording right now, I don’t think that particular failure made any difference to the overall performance.

I think we owe the faux-bluegrass moments that starts and sputters across this ditty (beginning somewhere around the 4’20″ mark, and coming to the foreground at about 6’50″) largely to Eoin Callery’s and Barry Twomey’s playing / instrumentation earlier in the evening.

In retrospect, the most interesting thing about these ditties was how easily / clumsily, fluidly / abruptly, imperceptibly / overtly the trio configures and re-configures itself. One moment it’s two fiddles + guitar, another it’s one solo fiddle supported by the guitar-violin duo. One moment the guitar-percussion it met by violin scratches and subtones; a single violin in scratch’n’subtone mode is met by guitar-percussion plus violin-percussion; or the guitar-percussion morphs into pseudo-country-finger-pickin’ which recontextualizes the scratches and subtones.

some random observations

Susan Geaney may have done some of her best (most interesting and oblique) playing at this Lab. Rumor has it that she was hung-over. Whatever the case, her usual reserve seems to have gone out the window. (Hope this state is achievable without constant recourse to alcohol.)

The potential volume discrepancy between Eoin’s and Tony’s instruments (unplugged dulcimer vs. amplified bass guitar) offers some challenges. As it happens, Tony spent the bulk of the evening at very low volume levels, and Eoin was whacking the dulcimer senseless, but given how sensitive a player Tony was being, I wonder if Eoin was ever tempted to play quieter?—bringing the whole ensemble down with him—or was Susan’s new-found boldness going to prevent that from happening?

Although it’s by no stretch of the imagination ‘good music’ (whatever that means), the quartet of Murray, Marian, Tony and Veronica Tadman (filed under ‘kentucky fried music’) may be my favorite for its shear technicolor, psychotic strangeness. No, Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Anyway, it began with several short burst to get things started, from the house band of the evening. This comprised Eoin Callery (mountain dulcimer), Susan Geaney (flute), Tony O’Connor (bass guitar) and Barry Twomey (guitar). A very well behaved bass player who could have crush the puny acoustic forces, swelled and tinkered over the guitar and dulcimer duel. There were funny capo positions creating slidable bridges, randomly inserted beer mats, all manner of slides, and more picking devices than you can pick a string with. At one point there may possibly have been a few chords, but it all just happened so fast; a mass of plucked strings creating an infectious groove infecting any possibility of an healthy infectious groove developing. In the meantime the flute just wouldn’t stop, which is a good thing—moving from key clicks to blown vowel sounds and the occasional jet whistle………… that folks, was what it was all about. Marian Murray (violin) and Kevin Terry (guitar) joined for a round, altering the timbre nicely, with some semi-suggested riffs from Kevin, and “101 things to do with a violin” from Marian.

After a short break for cigarettes and bar trips, the main performer of the evening took the floor. Murray Campbell (violin), was joined by Marian Murray (violin) and Han-earl Park (guitar); Murray proposing, “101 other things to be done with a violin”, in dialogue with Marian—the combination of the two violins was sometimes like a “Pinky and the Brain” string ensemble plot to take over the world—was assisted by some short contribution from Han, for two 10 minuet trios. The contrast in bowing still, and slightly detuned long sustained tones duets passages just captivated the listeners, before abruptly stopping allowing the listener to be mugged by the ensuing hectic and dense finger work of both players. This was Murray’s second appearance at Stet Lab, but in my opinion this new venue allowed many of the subtleties of his playing to be heard much more clearly. His movement from long-sustained tone, multiple examples of melodic phrasing, and rapid combinations of whistle-tones, harmonics, bow scrapings, plucking and rhythmic taps—especially during the second trio—left nobody in doubt of his abilities and obvious comfort in many violin/fiddle styles. For the rest of the evening—with Murray at the helm—the other musicians present took turns supporting him through this investigation and presentation of techniques for a further 30 minuets of surreal barn-dancing…………….. if only you could get this in Redz seven nights a week.

A special mention must be made of the vocal talents of two heavily intoxicated eastern european (they never quite managed to explain exactly where they were from!) who entered the fray at various points. People may say that you could never perform something like Zappa’s “Lumpy Gravy” live—well given the right balance of whatever they were on, they may decide to stage it yet….. if you don’t believe me (and that’s probably the best stance to take) listen—puny earthling—to the evidence……………………………………..

Stet Lab

featuring Murray Campbell
plus The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of…

Thursday, June 12th 2008

9:00pm

upstairs @ Sláinte [New venue!]
Market Lane (off Patrick Street)
Cork, Ireland

€10 (€5)

Cork’s monthly improvised music event—Stet Lab—begins their Summer 2008 season of on-stage mutations and hybrids on Thursday, 12th of June, upstairs at Sláinte. A unique opportunity to witness the interaction between novice and veteran, and local and visiting, improvising musicians, the June Stet Lab will feature California-based multi-instrumentalist Murray Campbell.

One of the most popular visiting artists of Stet Lab (he was guest artist in December 2007), Murray Campbell takes a short break from his duties with Vermillion Lies to return to Cork. As a fiddler (of Scottish, Balkan and Bluegrass idioms), and a violinist and double reed player in Classical, music theater and performance art settings, Campbell has recorded with musicians from California, Scotland, The Netherlands and elsewhere, and performed on four continents. In addition, Campbell was long time musical and technical director of Jan Langedijk’s theater company De Daders (Amsterdam), co-creator (with Alex Fiennes) of the octaphonic spatialization system for Dialogues (Edinburgh), and co-founder of the Church of Sonology.

Also performing at the event will be Stet Lab’s house band; a group of Cork-based improvisers appearing as The Real-Time Company (for the Ad-Hoc Association) of….