Zornfest @ Knitting Factory 9/10/93
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Originally posted to rec.music.bluenote, 11 Sep 1993 02:39:10 -0400.
Caught the second set of Locus Solus at the Knitting Factory.
The first half of the set was Zorn (duck calls, mouthpieces, and alto sax),
Wayne Horvitz (two Yamaha DX7s), and Ikue Mori (drum machines). Both
Horvitz and Mori had some foot pedals too. This was quite good, although
fairly "inaccessible" one could say... Locus Solus is a lot like the other
game pieces but it seems much simpler. There were a few basic signals that
were used, such as pointing to the head, pointing to the nose, a chopping
motion with the hand, a flat horizontal hand gesture, a sort of one finger
"come here" motion, holding up the index finger. Those were the ones I
noticed (mostly they were done by Zorn). Like in the larger game pieces,
different groupings would be used. There were effective results. Say,
Mori and Horvitz would do some totally aggressive percussive texture, then
Zorn would come in and screech for a while, then the same texture would
come back. I think the execution of these sorts of things was much better
than in some of the game pieces I've seen performed. This band was simply
tighter, in other words. (I've always preferred smaller ensembles for
improvisation; I think it is simply very difficult for larger groups to
effectively communicate and all listen to everything -- of course Zorn's
pieces are designed exactly to deal with this situation...) Zorn mainly
used the duck calls and mouthpieces, but there were some nice mellow
moments as well. I quite enjoyed it. We all yelled and applauded
enthusiastically, and they came back for an encore, which Zorn said was
their first ever.
For the second half of the set, Zorn returned and was joined by Anton Fier
(drums) and Arto Lindsay (guitar and vocals). I saw this version of Locus
Solus earlier this year at the Knitting Factory's Benefit for Bosnia. They
were great then and this time was just as good if not better. They seemed
to be having a fun time playing as well. Arto started most of the tunes
with loud dissonant guitar "chords". There was one tune they did which
started with Arto doing really beautiful Spanish (or maybe Portugese?)
lyrics [sounded kinda like a Jobim tune or something...] and then,
naturally, all three came slamming in with heavy guitar, sax,
drums. Midway through their part of the set, Zorn was speaking Japanese to
someone outside the door on the side of the stage; naturally we were
speculating on who it could be, and since I thought I had glimpsed
Yamatsuka Eye yesterday, that was our guess. Arto was gesturing for
whoever it was to come out, which after a little while he did. We were
right! Eye sat in on a couple tunes. That was cool. The audience seemed
enthusiastic about it too. They were generally loud and agressive. Arto's
vocals were great as usual. The last tune they did was "Funky President"
(I think) and Zorn dedicated it to Bill Laswell.
Ciao,
-Ed
PS Just watched a great episode of Kojak ("The Corrupter").
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RIP Telly.
This document is maintained by edp@panix.com (Ed Price).
Last modified 18 March 1994.