High Bias #3

NAME: Andrea Centazzo

HOME: Long Beach California since 1991. Before Bologna Italy

BIO: Composer, percussionist and multimedia artist. Not dead yet.

WEBSITE: www.andreacentazzo.com, www.myspace.com/andreacentazzo 


Do you read reviews of your work?

Sometimes

Do you reread them? rarely Save them? sometime Quote them?

Excerpt on some presentation and emails

Have reviews ever had an effect upon the way you approach your work? For better or worse?

NO

Are there writers you hope will (or won't) write about your work?

NO

Have you ever written to a reviewer or publication in response to a negative review of your work?

Yes but not for musical reason but politic: a Hollywood journalist was delirious about Tina Modotti, subject of my first opera.

A positive one?

No

Are there reviewers who you consider to be your friends?  

I have some journalist friends.

Do they write about your work?

Very little.

How does that make you feel?

Great

Have you ever been told by a writer that they feel too close to you personally to write about your work?

NO

Have you ever felt that a writer was trying to get something out of you, or get back at you, or had some other ulterior motive in what they wrote about you? Please explain.

Many times being also the producer of my music (www,ictusrecords.com ) I've been approached from writers just trying to expand their CD collection with the pretense to review the CD's. Especially new kids on the block... Since I've been always broke and I couldn't give CD's away, I had less impact on the music scene than musicians recording for record companies. That could explain why in the last 30 years I did the same number of concerts that my colleagues does in 6 months.


Have you ever published anything you wrote about someone else's music?

When I was 22 (from 22 to 26) I made my living being the music critic of my hometown news paper

Do you continue to write about music?

I wrote 6 musicology books holding a PhD in Musicology (specialized in musical paleography) and countless articles for many magazines and newspapers. But never about living musicians but about music. I love dead musicians... and not jazz.

Do you think there was a time in the past when music journalism was better or worse than it is now? Why or why not?

Since Homerus (not Simpson -the real one -the Greek) more or less it has been always the same with few exception: Bernard Shaw, Marcel Proust, Friedrich Nietzsche, Wolfang Goethe and some other guy with wig.... 

Anything you'd like to add?  

I hope that my friend Barak can get that darn health new plan since I cannot afford a health insurance

Anything you want to ask me?

Why after 35 years playing with all the best and producing 160 recording with no negative reviews (most of the time from good to rave ones) I'm getting no exposure at all? Should I dress like Elvis or Michael??? It seems that my Italian Armani style doesn't fit the expectation of the journalists... or perhaps its' because I have yellow teeth, considered a crime in the contemporary society? Or should I just suddenly die trying heroically to rescue Liz Taylor dog? Any suggestion to one of the aging fathers of the improvised music and percussion new technique?

X-24B

Class: Manned. Type: Spaceplane. Destination: Suborbital. Nation: USA. Manufacturer: Martin.

The X-24B was used by the US Air Force to explore the supersonic and subsonic handling characteristics of the FDL-7 and FDL-8 hypersonic configurations which promised to double the hypersonic L/D ratio of the original X-24A. It was air dropped from the NB-52 carrier aircraft and reached Mach 1.76 and 22,400 m altitude during its test program. By the time the test series had started the USAF had been forced to accept the NASA space shuttle for its future manned space ambitions and had dropped plans for a Titan-launched manned spaceplane.

The configuration was also applicable to air-breathing hypersonic aircraft. NASA and USAF proposed an X-24C, which would have been two new-build vehicles. These would have the XLR-99 engine from the X-15 and take the configuration out to Mach 8 and conducted scramjet tests in 200 flights. This follow-on project was cancelled for lack of funds (or replaced by a black project with Lockheed).

(Thanks to Dave Madden for the link.)

If Otomo's a Non-Guitarist, Then Sign Me Up!

Dave Madden wrote what was for me a nicely thought-provoking review of my little CD for The Squid's Ear.

Kurt Gottschalk 
24b  
(Batterrie) 

In a dedication to Derek Bailey, Squid's Ear contributor Kurt Gottschalk wrote "...music in the 20th Century was the breaking down of the idea of musicianship; expressiveness surpassed finesse as the reason for playing an instrument." On 24b, he puts his hands to guitar - and feet to pedals - to offer an exciting example of this ideal.

For nearly an hour (split into two programs), Gottschalk patiently works through the fringes and cracks of his instrument's potential, oscillating between delicacy and strength while leading the listener down a through-composed / improvised wormhole. The introductory light scrapes and plucks of "Bluely" come out dry but, after a short pause, their delay yields various flavors of distorted reverberation, pre-amp dominance, just-until-the-point-of-pain saturation and microtonal inflections. Eventually moving into a violent, flanging, punctuated display, Gottschalk tangentially shifts by stripping away all effects in favor of tinkling non-fret board methods (i.e. behind the nut), liquid echoes, sloppy "Eastern" scales, rattling objects on strings and healthy servings of silence; from here he toys with twanging intervals and distressed sawing before submerging into a multi-octave wall of sludgy Metal postures and tape-mangling feedback.

Certainly, you've heard all these descriptions in reviews of other non-guitarist's musics (i.e. Otomo Yoshihide), but Gottschalk puts his stamp on the genre in a variety of ways, one such being his ability to create the impression of an ever-augmenting - then diminishing, then augmenting from another perspective - ensemble. In conjunction, the stereo field plays a vital role in the success of this music. He carefully nudges the shadows (panned left) of his performances (panned right), distancing their relationship, stretching and merging the seams into a cerebrally separate, eye-twitching (in a good way) experience, like a mirror whose image often magically frees itself from its host; at a glance, the reckless, grungy "Wide Eyes / White Eggs (for Georges Bataille)" is a mono endeavor, however a few moments of concentration and movement around your listening plot reveal underlying strata of stark, non-affected twitches and psychoacoustic eccentricities. In other words, Gottschalk capably animates his instrument and recordings with slight of hand to a point where you lose track of internal semantics, what is manipulating what - the chicken and the egg, so to speak.

Temporarily putting aside his role in the Country and Blues (a loose version of it, anyway) outfit Ecstasy Mule and other tenuous groups, Gottschalk's solo warts-and-all physical and mental explorations of "learning, unlearning, then learning again" make for an arresting abstract smear.

- Dave Madden 2009-09-23

The 1959 Kay archtop guitar in the foreground of the pic above is the one I made the record on. In case you wanted to know.

High Bias #2

NAME: Philip Gayle

Home: NYC

BIO: guitarist who improvises

WEBSITE: http://www.myspace.com/philipgaylemusic


Do you read reviews of your work?

Yes.

Do you reread them? Save them? Quote them?

I never quote them, unless in conversation and it was something funny, clever, memorable, whether negative or positive. I never reread them. I save all of them.

Have reviews ever had an effect upon the way you approach your work? For better or worse? How?

No.

Are there writers you hope will (or won't) write about your work?

Not really, just want the writer to be someone who writes about this kind of music, as opposed to someone who never does, regardless if the review is negative or positive.

Have you ever written to a reviewer or publication in response to a negative review of your work? a positive one?

No, but if the reviewer admits to not having any understanding or liking of this kind of music, then it doesn't make sense for that person to be assigned to review it.

Are there reviewers who you consider to be your friends? Do they write about your work? How does that make you feel?

I know a couple of reviewers, but don't know any others personally. Flattered i guess.

Have you ever been told by a writer that they feel too close to you personally to write about your work? What was your reaction?

Not really,  but i would understand. Certainly there could be a conflict of interest. I believe it is best not to have a friendship PRIOR to being reviewed, but one reviewer has since become somewhat of a friend. We ended up interviewing each other, and it went on for 4 hours.

Have you ever felt that a writer was trying to get something out of you, or get back at you, or had some other ulterior motive in what they wrote about you? Please explain.

No.

Have you ever published anything you wrote about someone else's music? How often? Do you continue to write about music?

I have just written liner notes before, never reviewed anything, and i don't believe i am qualified to do so, since i am just a sound maker. I probably couldn't tell you "what" it is that makes me like most of the music i do....i am not that articulate, and honestly couldn't make much sense about it. I wouldn't be able to tell you much about my own music as well.

Do you think there was a time in the past when music journalism was better or worse than it is now? Why or why not?

I suppose it is better now, because there is more information, more people exposed to music, more variety of music, hence more variety of opinions.

Anything you'd like to add?

Howdy!?!

Anything you want to ask me?

How Ya Dooowen?

Flipper Rules the Flippin' Flipperverse

I used to like Flipper. I mean, sure, how could you not? But, man, in the last year I've come to realize how flippin' ahead of their time they were. They were the kings of downtempo doom before there was such a thing and they didn't even know it and they probably don't know now neither. But they put out two new records this year that are pretty great (I like one better than the other). So anyway, I just made a new Flipperfriend and was sending him two Flippercovers, so I thought I might as ought put them here, too. Ecstasy Mule doing "Earthworm" and me with the Hoof'n'Mouth Sinfonia doing "Brainwash" at the 2008 WFMU marathon finale. Link's good for a week, yo.

Why I Like Lexie Mountain Better Than Facebook

I got on Facebook, grudgingly, or rather was put there, was corralled there, a couple months ago. I agreed to do it, really, to see what was the fuss.

I got on Facebook and I watched as text collected, piling up on my page, or wall, strewn about like paragraphs after a plane crash, sentences without legs, disembodied phrases, words I wasn't even sure I could identify.

I resisted. I tried to look away. But eventually, I gave in to the assault on the paragraph.

It shall be the hallmark of this yet young century that we shall no longer be forced to bear the burden of entire paragraphs in order to relate to one another, to impart emotion, to document the events of the day, to pass along the wisdom of generations past and to leave for our descendants a record of their past, of their foundation.

Once such lessons were only learned under the weight of voluminous sheafs of paper. The Bible? The Torah? The Lord of the Rings? Those books are huge! Even the Gettysburg Address took minutes and minutes and minutes to deliver. But modern technology allows us to pass along information without such fancy-pants accessories as vowels and punctuation. No longer must we carry our prose around in burlap bags. Why, words will fit inside a pill box so very tidily! As Grg Sntyn sd, those who dnt lrn hstry r doom 2 repeat.

I dunno. Really? I just like to write.

So anyway, the evercool Lexie Mountain is doing an interview project on her blog and asked me to participate. That's what prompted me to start the High Bias interviews, which I'll continue to post here at least through the end of the year. Lexie's'll be coming. She promised.

So, yes, blogs are better than effbooks and tweets. But I will say two things. I don't like how they go bottom-up chronology. And I don't like how if you save a draft, it uses that date as the publish date. I'm sure there's a way to fix that, but figuring out things that are virtual is kind of boring.

(Photo of me with the Lexie Mountain Boys on the back porch at WFMU, taken by Trent Wolbe when the Boys were on my show. Listen to it at here.)

High Bias #1

NAME: Killick

Home: Athens, Georgia

BIO: Killick loves sound in all its forms- silence, noise, organized, disorganized. He has immersed himself in all popular and unpopular musical styles equally, learning the “rules” of Western harmony, melody, and rhythm, which he now tends to ignore. Killick recontextualizes familiar vocabularies into something past classification, creating intense, playful, kinetic threads of sound. His latest recording, Exsanguinette, features sax legend Larry Ochs, trumpet firebrand Liz Allbee, and Brann Dailor, drummer of heavy metal band Mastodon. Killick is married to a morning person (awesome nonetheless), enjoys meditation, yoga, and not eating gluten.

WEBSITE: http://www.killick.me 

Do you read reviews of your work?

Yes.

Do you reread them?

Sometimes, especially if I'm rushing through the first time.

Save them?

I used to save tearsheets (remember those?) and then with the rise of the internet printed many of the articles/review. These days I tend to post them on my blog and they'll be lost to the ether if/when I switch from Tumblr. Quote them? I used to quote them in my bio, but don't any longer.

Have reviews ever had an effect upon the way you approach your work?

Not really, although a few nasty or mean-spirited comments in some early reviews made me question why I offer the music up for criticism.

For better or worse?

The process of reconciling the public aspect of my work with the private aspect was ultimately very helpful.

How?

I realized I take a work to a point where it sprouts wings, and it flies (or not) whether or not anybody likes the shape of the wings.

Are there writers you hope will (or won't) write about your work?

There was one really negative review in 2001 that made me at the time wish the writer would hear subsequent work and be smitten...this no longer is a concern of mine.

Have you ever written to a reviewer or publication in response to a negative review of your work?

Yes, just to thank them for reviewing the work.  

A positive one?

Yes, for the same reason.

Are there reviewers who you consider to be your friends?

Yes.

Do they write about your work?

Yes.

How does that make you feel?

I'm fine with it...I don't worry whether they like a particular work or not. It doesn't affect our friendship.

Have you ever been told by a writer that they feel too close to you personally to write about your work?

Sometimes it's too much of an insider job for writing to take place at a specific time or in a specific publication.

What was your reaction?

It's fine by me.

Have you ever felt that a writer was trying to get something out of you, or get back at you, or had some other ulterior motive in what they wrote about you? Please explain.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't about me, but a writer in a positive review of one of my albums threw in some anti-gay language which I found inappropriate and offensive, not to mention completely off-topic. And that really negative review I mentioned earlier went out of its way to be personally unkind to some of the other musicians on the recording, with no reason I could see to do so. Looking back, it was a strange position for the writer to take.

Have you ever published anything you wrote about someone else's music?

I used to write reviews and articles/interviews for the Flagpole magazine in Athens.

How often?

It was casual, but very steady for a few years.

Do you continue to write about music?

I mostly just write about my own music these days, and not too often. Plus the occasional writing about something that I'm promoting, and in this case it's music I feel strongly about.

Do you think there was a time in the past when music journalism was better or worse than it is now? Why or why not?

The Glory Days of Music Journalism? I don't know about that; there's always been attentive writing and sloppier writing. The challenge for a reviewer these days is keeping up with the crush of all the recorded sounds out there, and how to contextualize any of it.

Anything you'd like to add?

I appreciate when a reviewer has obviously given a recording a fair shake- a thorough listening, whether he or she liked it or not.

Anything you want to ask me?

Enough about me; what do you think of me? :-)

High Bias

It's hard, it's almost impossible, to write about a relatively small (if global) arts scene and not come to be friendly with some of the artists. It's something that, at times, worries me. But this isn't about me.

I've asked a bunch of musicians to respond to a set of questions about their relationships with "critics" (I despise that word, but this isn't about me). I am posting their replies unedited (except for obvious typos or maybe helping a little where English isn't a native tongue). I'm not tabulating responses: this isn't a survey but a variety of opinions, and saying "60% said this" isn't the point. Everyone was given the same set of questions, although some may not answer all of them. They'll be posted in the order received.

I'm really just doing this for myself, in order to learn, but thought the process might be of interest to others too. I suppose there is probably a bit of vanity in this as well, or at least I feel confident enough in my craft to open the question. I told interviewees they weren't expected to (but also could) say anything specifically about myself or any other writers. Any comments about me will be left in. Should it come up, I'll remove the names from any negative comments about other writers, but leave the content of the remark. Where I am asked a question (or otherwise feel the desire to make a comment) I will hide my remarks, appropriately, in the "comments" section.


(Sony High Bias UCX 90 image lifted from the Bored and Beautiful blog)