Report to Hair Shoulders

As we approach the end of the fourth quarter of FY2011, we thought it might be best to relucidate some of the recent staff accomplishments accomplished by our staff. This report is in no way meant to replace or circumvene upon the official annual report, which indeed is unlikely to be written.

After the rousting success of our first volume of fictional stories (as opposed to the journalistic works staff have long produced which might also be seen as fictive) (that being Little Apples: A Story Cycle, of course) (the referrant there being not the journalistic but the priorily mentioned fictional works), we were pleased to see not one but three more fictional writings appear during the fourth quarter, with a fourth completed by our Czech office and submitted to a journal of some repute, details of which will follow if and as they develop. A new, experimental eBook is also expected to occur in the first quarter of the coming year.

The works made public during the current quarter were “Vampyre Storie,” “Six Hundred Words” and “Amore.” “Vampyre Storie” was written for a Halloween radio broadcast the name of which is “The Thunk Tank” on partner media outlet WFMU radio and was subsequently published on our inhouse weblog Spearmint Music. A different tact was taken with “Six Hundred Words,” (the work of our Finland branch) which was distributed as an eBook even though it is quite short by means of our longtime working partnership with the publishing house Lulu for the mere price of $1.25. Staff was able to meanwhile procure facilities for the making freely available of “Amore” through the woodshed worksite Red Lemonade.

While all of these outreach efforts were considered a success, administrators are considering withdrawing at least some of the projects from public presumption with the new year to make room for future works or perhaps one of those wicker beds with a fitted cushion for a mama cat and all of her adorable newborn kittens.

The issue of off duty staff using staff bathrooms has been raised several times, however we have been unable to work out a resolution which meets with the approval of all concerned parties. The issue of staff having parties in the staff bathrooms is also still under deliberation.

In less optimismal news, we have been discouraged to see a downturn in music journalism, which we chalk down to the fact that no one likes music anymore. A midyear effort to launch a blog covering music coverage was quickly stalled, but plans are underway to relaunch this enterprise with the coming year.

The target for performing music live in performance was reached in 2011 and no more need be said on that count.

We’ve also been heightened by the launching of a new newsstand of sorts the goal of which being to turn barter items procured by publishing outlets into materials with which rent might be paid. While it is currently only a list of available items posted on the SM, Inc., blog, there are no plans to elaborate it into more of a “presence.”

We would also like to take this moment to give momentary thanks where surely hourly thanks are due to the many patrons and onlookers who have had kind words to say about our words during the 2011 year. We have every expectation of writing more words with the coming 2012.

Closet Cleaning Sale

I'm trying to empty some bins of stuff I've worked on. I have less than 10 copies of most of these things. Priced to move, baby! Postage not included. Message me (kcgottschalk @ gmail or any other means you have of hollering at me) with your desires and to be sure I still have what you want. Free gift with every order.

READING

White Fungus #12: 156 page journal from Taiwan (printed in English) with my profile of David First. Also includes interviews with Carolee Schneemann and Pauline Oliveros, comics, art and a CD with tracks by If Bwana, David Watson & Sean Meehan and Our Love Will Destroy the World. $9

Signal to Noise #62: 82-page magazine with my cover story on the ICP Orchestra, also pieces on Liturgy, Time-Lag, Andrew Ford, Erdem Halvacioglu and Nick Hennies. $4

Little Apples: A Story Cycle (Spearmint Lit) by Kurt Gottschalk: 17 short stories which might also be a novel, also includes original artwork by Gill Arno, Ben Owen, MP Landis, Cooper-Moore, Peter Evans, Steve Dalachinsky, Yuko Otomo and others. 180-page paperback, $12.

LISTENING

Haunted House: Blue Ghost Blues (Northern Spy) Man, this kills! New album by the great quartet of Loren Connors, Andrew Burnes, Suzanne Langille and Neel Murgai. Thunderous avant blues. I produced and wrote liner notes. Sealed CD, $10

The Spanish Donkey: XYX (Northern Spy) Blasting session by Joe Morris, Mike Pride and Jamie Saft. I wrote the liners. Sealed CD, $10

VA: Clandestine Cassette #2 (Northern Spy) Compilation I produced of tape-manipulation artists. Exclusive tracks by Aki Onda, Nonhorse, Bonnie Jones and Jason Lescalleet. Cover design by MP Landis. Cassette, $5

Yuganaut: Sharks (Engine) Inventive out jazz by Stephen Rush, Tom Abbs and Geoff Mann. I wrote liner notes. Sealed CD, $8

VA: Dictaphonia #2 (HalTapes) 24-track compilation of pieces recorded on mini-cassette, includes my piece “Difficult Fortnight” performed on alto saxophone and radio. Mini-cassette, $5

VA: Dictaphonia #7 (HalTapes) 13-track compilation of mini-cassette works, includes my “Magnibanjoscope” recorded with dictaphone placed inside a banjo, plus a found recording by Stephanie Stone on piano and voice. Mini-cassette, $5.

Kurt Gottschalk: 24b Abstract blues recorded at home, solo electric guitar. CDR $5

Kurt Gottschalk: Bluefly Variations Abstract blues recorded on a riverbank in Vermont, solo acoustic guitar. CDR $5

Otomo was on my show!

Otomo Yoshihide played live on Miniature Minotaurs on WFMU on Nov. 18, followed by an interview with him, Christian Marclay and myself. Watch the performance below or listen to the whole show here.

Otomo Yoshihide On WFMU! from WFMU on Vimeo.

Thanks to Yvonne Szymczak for videoing, and to the Japan Society for helping to coordinate.

That's Amore

A story I wrote for the holiday season, in which Dean Martin figures prominently, is up at Red Lemonade.

To celebrate the occasion, here's a downloadable gift for all my friends. I found the white label promo record pictured above in the basement of my building. It seems to be the audio from the first episode of Judy Garland's short lived TV show, although I'm not sure why they would have pressed a vinyl disc of it. In any event, you can get your very own mp3 of it right here.

And here's a little more Dino cheer, a TV ad embedded below, or go this way for a song.



Thanks to Kristen Persinos and Mary Wing for reading early versions of the story and Yvonne Szymczak for taking a picture of my record.

Week of Wonders: Prelude

Kurt and His Week of Wonders
(with an unwitting soundtrack by Harris Eisenstadt)


Prelude

I spent the first week of September between Ostrava, the Czech Republic, New York City, then Guelph, Ontario. I carried with me a record by Harris Eisenstadt called “September Trio” with Ellery Eskelin and Angelica Sanchez (released by Clean Feed October 25). The track titles spell out the first week of the month (“September 1” through “September 7”) so it seemed natural to listen to one track a day as I kept my travel diary, beginning on the 1st, which was the 8th day of the Ostrava Days festival. The only edits from what was written out in longhand in the little notebook I bought in Chinatown were made for clarity. My personal context (mood, surroundings, geography) was allowed to influence me as much as it wanted to.

I was in the Czech Republic to cover the Ostrava Days festival for New Music Box. The review can be read here. My review of the Guelph Jazz Festival appeared in the New York City Jazz Record, a PDF of which can be downloaded here.

It was a week that caused me to question my own preferences. Is it improvised music I gravitate toward (a delineation which brings up innumerable questions)? Or is it small group music? Perhaps, but not only that. I found myself surprised, maybe even embarrassed, by the simplicity of discovering that it's contemporary music, current, modern, post-modern, music of the now that attracts me. There's a sense in which freely improvised music is as now as it gets. But perhaps Morton Feldman's music was so infused with the now that it resonates even today, even … now. Or perhaps, as Keith Rowe suggested to me in an interview I did for the NYC Jazz Record shortly before leaving town, “If you pick up a composition by Shostakovich written in 1950 or 1960 and open the pages in 2011, it's alive at that moment. The past is continually changing before us.” But then a composition by the composer Lucie Vítková, heavy with rock drumming and techno-sounding clarinet, seemed a rather dated piece of pastiche. And yet I enjoyed it quite a bit. Was it of the now, or yesteryear? Could it be that Feldman – who would be 86 if he were alive today – is more of the now than the 26-year-old Vítková? Does that even mean anything?

Traveling from a classical festival in Europe to a jazz festival in North America gave me a lot to think about – things I'm still trying to resolve.

Week of Wonders: September 1

September 1, mid-afternoon

This afternoon I ate shmaky. The server – a friendly woman who smiles a surprising amount for an employee in a Czech restaurant – told me, in halting English punctuated by giggles that she didn't know what it was either but assured me it didn't have meat in it. “Number three is always vegetarian,” she said. Shmaky, as it turned out, was a pasta dish, a sort of mushroom stroganoff.

I've been in Ostrava a week – my first time in Eastern Europe but within the familiar festival bubble: Lost on the one hand but on the other with people around who are ready to make things easier for me. Hosts.

Suddenly I'm hearing Big Star's “The Ballad of El Goodo.” Probably inappropriate for a festival of contemporary classical music, even if the song is only playing in my head.

I took the train to the old section of town called “Přívoz” this afternoon. After a bit of walking around I stopped in a café for an espresso. A well-mustachioed man inside may have yelled “al fresco” at me, or perhaps it was something in Czech, but in any event I took a seat in the small garden where another man scowled at me while a third slept. After five minutes under his blurry gaze (and with no waiter emerging) I left and found another café more willing to serve me and after a bit of charades – not two espressos, one double, please – I sat down to take on my afternoon assignment.

An opening soulful wail from Eskelin is followed by a repeating, somber phrase from Sanchez. Eisenstadt sets a couple beats of the bass drum and he and Sanchez fall behind Eskelin. In short order, though, he drops out and I'm reminded on the one hand of Marilyn Crispell and on the other of all the wonderful duets Irene Schweizer has done with drummers. All female pianists. Interesting – unless it isn't. Upon Eskelin's return they find a more equal footing.

It's 2:45 pm in Ostrava, which means its 8:45 am in NYC, but this sounds more like 2:45 am. Where is it 2:45 am right now? And why doesn't Eisenstadt provide times of day for the pieces. This should be done more often. Didn't Blue Note only record people after 2 am in the early days? I know they're pros – next week at Guelph I'll be attending 10:30 am shows, for the love of Pete. Ah. Six minutes in and they've surprisingly picked up the pace, if only momentarily, and then a return to the repeating piano figure. It's quite beautiful, and there's something appealing about a piano trio without a bass. Less push from the back. And then it's over.

Week of Wonders: September 2

September 2, mid-afternoon

Classical festivals are different from jazz festivals. [A symbol here indicates something was to be inserted, perhaps some bit of text scrawled on a napkin and soon lost.]

Sometimes I'm relieved to hear a record that is so plainly jazz, plain good jazz. I mean, there are plenty out there, but to find one that has a purity to it, that's not trying to be jazz plus anything or to question or undermine (jazz minus something?). Jazz that's inventive but easy. The second track begins with a melody line, nice and easy, it's slowly dismantled into component parts, but not in a way that is jarring. Wow, and Eisenstadt's brush work here is beautiful. It's a ballad. I think yesterday's was as well. It's also brief – just five minutes. Nice.