The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco

This past August, I was fortunate enough to visit the new Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. I had really been looking forward to checking it out ever since the huge, black cube in Daniel Liebeskind's revamping of the Jessie St. Power Substation started to rear its head near SF's outpost of Japanese creampuff heaven: Beard Papa's. So naturally, before heading into the museum, I had to have one, and as though to commemorate the occasion, I tried their new cookie crunch one flavor. It has little crunchy bits on the puff pastry itself, which was quite the treat. Suitably sugared up, I was ready to go in.

The first thing that struck me, and one of the things that gets written about immediately (why should this account be any different?) is the architecture of the space. The building is a repurposed power substation, though it doesn't quite feel that way. It is light and airy, and uses its space effectively. The outside of the building, with the jutting Yud Gallery on the side and the Hebrew letter on top, is a bit more evocative than the inside, but it is an old power substation after all!

But aside from curiosity about the building itself (I happen to be a Liebeskind fan, and was disappointed when the freedom tower commission was revoked), I was drawn to visit the museum for the sound installation that was curated by John Zorn. Zorn curated the Yud Gallery (as he is want to do, at venues like the stone and once upon a time at the Knitting Factory before its inevitable fall from grace) by asking fellow musicians and performers to imagine some sort of sonic response to the Hebrew alphabet in general and the letter "Yud" specifically. It is a nice-sounding idea, and I mean this to suggest that many of these artists are adept at writing blurbs or descriptions that read impressively. This could be because of curatorial finesse. However, many of the works that I was able to listen to were, in fact, quite good, and others were less successful. Below is an account of the pieces in the installation and my thoughts on them. I didn't have the chance to hear them all, so I've made a note about those to that effect.

1) "For Lilith" - Z'ev
I did not get to hear this piece.

2) "Kof: I thought I closed the door" - Laurie Anderson
This piece was in the entry-way of the museum, and was "projected" using holosonic audio technology that allows only one listener to experience the piece while standing in a specific spot because the sound is projected there using ultrasound technology (read more about it here.http://www.holosonics.com/). While an interesting use of technology, the result was unfortunate because it was impossible to hear. This is possibly because of the narrow frequency response (only down to between 400-200 Hz). I assume that a possible intention could have been that the speaker / music was being experienced in a secretive manner or confidentially in the midst of a busy gallery, but it was impossible to tell. In all, it was possibly a decent idea and narrative, famous name, but hard to experience: who cares.

3) "Tzadik" - Marina Rosenfeld and Raz Mesinai
This piece was quite interesting. It featured a Female voice, singing (Rosenfeld), and found yet treated samples. A vocal melody was followed by synthesized and metallic (bells and heavy metals) sounds, percussion (cowbells) and drums. I found the use of delay and reverb to create an industrial aural landscape very provocative. At the same time, there was alternation between voice and synthesized sounds, sometimes creating a glitched form of singing. Very well done. A side note: at this point, while reading the list of composers / performers that Zorn had curated, my companion joked: "This is like a Tzadik version of the Bang on a Can Marathon". Not too far from the truth.

4) "50 Gates of Understanding" (Nun) - Erik Friedlander
In this work, Erik Friedlander composed 50 short pieces of 14 notes each. His work was then performed (and recorded) by Jennifer Choi, Sylvie Courvoisier, Trevor Dunn, Mike Sarin, and Erik Friedlander (see my friend's comment again in #3 above). Though not necessarily miniatures, this collection of pieces reminded me of a Webern-esque excercise in permutations. I did not stay for all of the 50 pieces, as it really is a concert piece, not an installation, and it didn't seem to me to use the space in a very interesting way.

5) "The Conversation Memory" (Chet, Samekh)- Lou Reed
I heard this piece (actually 2 short pieces) after "VAV" by Chris Brown, so it was the second one I encountered. "Grace" was the first of Reed's compositions. Basically, it was Lou Reed on solo guitar, but with filtering and phasing effects through which the sound had to travel. There was, of course, some use of feedback, and Reed seemed to favor a heavy midrange tone except for when not playing. During the pauses, line hiss was featured and got phased a bit. The piece was melancholy and recalled some kind of folk theme largely because of the use of guitar. The processing makes the sound get lost in the space of the gallery but also the sculpted audio space of the recording. It was very open and exploratory, reminding me of some of my favorite folk-experimentalists such as Thuja, Tim Hecker, and Scott Tuma. Indie-Rock expressionism at its best, but while recalling Jimi Hendrix somehow (maybe because of the harsh, resonant upper mid-range). Reed didn't shy away from neither melodic explorations nor expressive devices such as wah-wah pedal, heavy reverb and tonally centered blues/country feel. The second of his pieces, "Memory", introduced looped and altered note clusters that shimmered and were filtered to accentuate the harmonic series when the distortion was turned on. This piece was much less successful, unfortunately.

6) "Tell me that before" (Zayin) - David Greenberger
This piece came directly after #3 above, and it was a shock. Immediately following the lush, electronic world of Tzadik, "Tell me that before" began. First of all, the "structure" that makes up this piece is weak. Zayin is the 7th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, so Greenberger decided to make each section have a 7 beat groove and melody, all of which are based on F# (the 7th scale degree). There are 14 vignettes (7x2), to top it off. Come on. All of that could have been fine, except that the music, which "reflects on how memories feel" was aweful. Each one was similar in format, though instrumentation was different. The ones I heard (before fleeing) were spoken stories backed by piano, accordion, marimba, and vibraphone, none of which sounded like midi instruments, though they were purportedly real. I decided to take a break and check out the other parts of the gallery.

7) "VAV" - Chris Brown
This piece is performed by members of The HUB: John Bischoff, Chris Brown, Tim Perkins, Mark Trayle, Phil Stove, Scot Gresham-Lancaster. Kind of a super group of sorts. It consists of synthesized sounds that are "played" by people via computer or other triggering device. Some sounds are sustained and others are percussive instances. It sounded to me like a lot of the sounds were either done by FM or Additive synthesis, to give an idea of the kinds of richer noise (fm) and blips (additive things) that happened. I was unsure of how the piece used the space, or if it was supposed to. The speakers were, unfortunately, situated above the listener basically in the center of the room, so if there was supposed to be a spatial aspect of the music (like pinpointing a performer to a speaker), that didn't happen. To me, the piece initially reminded me of a place that I visited early on in my Bay Area stint called Audium, where the "composer" of the space used all matter of speakers to create different timbres. Actually, "VAV" is nothing like Audium in concept or execution, but the sonic world is so similar as to remind me of it and other west coast knob-twirling explorations (think Stockhausen filtered through Buchla leading you to Alphaville). It is academic while at the same time rather visceral. One could follow the "form" and the sounds were engaging, though it remained a "cold", isolated music. I really enjoyed the textural, tonal, and noise "themes", and other newer synthesis techniques (wave-table?), even though I thought there could be more depth. I was a little bit dismayed when the piece ended on a single tone, though. Kind of a traditional and rather linear ending to a piece that seemed anything but. If nothing else, this piece opened up a few questions to me about the nature of music in a gallery setting rather than sound installation pieces. It also made me decide to buy a CD of Chris Brown's music at Amoeba the next day for further listening. I got this CD, but haven't checked it out yet.

8) "Heavenshow" (Hei)- Jewlia Eisenberg
I did not have a chance to hear this piece.

In all, the Yud gallery was an enjoyable experience, though I began to wonder about the idea of installation in general. I have more questions about the experience than answers: How is one supposed to experience this exhibit? All too often, the pieces were just that, pieces, not installations. So the act of "controlling" one's listening environment (which is how I am accustomed to experiencing an installation) didn't really occur. How was this gallery different from a normal electronic music concert? Is the Yud Gallery an appropriate venue for sound? Are museums appropriate venues for movies? While I enjoyed listening to the pieces in the Gallery, I feel as though my expectation of it being an installation wasn't met. Then again, maybe I wouldn't have sat still any other time to listen to those works. I just hope they weren't supposed to be heard straight from start to finish.

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Also on exhibit was a show that dealt with the idea of "Genesis" in artwork. The above play by play has taken longer than I wanted to, so I am going to make some brief comments about some of the works that I found most interesting. The exhibit as a whole was fantastic, however.

-Anne Hamilton's "Corpus Video": She loops the video text, 'in the beginning'. Hard to explain why, but this was a very effective, if compact piece.

-Alan Berliner - "Playing God": This was a wonderful interactive piece that had randomly generated words from the first couple of lines in genesis flashing on a number of screens (between 5 and 7, I am forgetting now). The viewer hits a button similar to those found on slot machines and the words stop, either creating a sentence at random. A number of words set off video clips highlighting meaning in some fashion. It becomes a game of sorts and is very well done.

-Ben Rubin - "God's Breath Hovering Over the Waters (His Master's Voice)"; This piece left one of the greatest impressions on me from the exhibit. It was a model of the echo HORN antenna that was used by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson to collect cosmic sounds of the big bang in the 1950's. Instead of collecting sounds, this model transmitted an interview about the project as well as a recording of that very sound. The very act of hearing the big bang is revelatory, but to do so through the filter of the first device that "heard" these sounds was fantastic. Rubin was smart to include a picture of the RCA victor nipper dog logo, drawing attention to the dual function of the horn.

-Trenton Doyle Hancock - "In the beginning there was the end, in the end there was the beginning": This was a really fun piece that was a collection of other works, including: "Flower Bed II", "Wow, that means in the beginning there was the end", "Come with me", "Sibling Rivalry, "The end of Almacroyn", and "mound #1 and his daddy". They all dealt with a creation myth that Hancock created that deals simultaneously with monkeys, evil vegans, and mounds of various sorts. Wild, vividly made, and quite fun.

Also on view: A. Rodin's "Hand of God", Marc Chagall's "Creation of Man", Matthew Ritchie's "Day One".

This museum is a wonderful addition to San Francisco's array of cultural institutions, and left me looking forward to the next exhibitions.
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Side note #2: Earlier in the day, I went to blue bottle cafe. I have to say that for nearly $20 for a pot of coffee (to be shared by two people), I was less than impressed. Sure, its about as perfect a cup of coffee as you can ever hope to get (very tasty), but was it worth the line? Maybe once. But I won't be going again! People in the Bay Area seem to love lining up for food be it bread, pizza at the cheese board, coffee, fried chicken sandwiches (bake sale betty). Whatever. They need more restaurants or something. Here's a picture of the siphon pot of coffee.

On Booing at Concerts

[I'm WAY behind on writing about some musical experiences from this past summer. So for the next couple of days, I'll try to quickly (I hope) give some general impressions.]

From July 4th until the 20th, I attended the 44th International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany. In my next blog post, I will be giving a more in-depth summary of my impressions of the festival, and some of the more interesting things that I heard when there. For now, I just want to broach the subject of booing.

About midway through the festival, I experienced a new phenomenon for me: booing and jeering after a performance. I should mention that there are anywhere from one to three two-hour concerts of new music per day, and it can be trying at times. Actually, it became a habit of mine to nod off at least once per concert; I am far from being alone in this regard. That aside, I had never been to concerts where people voiced their opinions so vocally. I am much more familiar with a scenario where I will, after a performance, shuffle off with a few friends who might have gone to the concert with me and fill the remainder of an evening grumbling, analyzing, and critiquing over a number of beers. Often, when hearing music by younger, "up and coming" composers (and older, established ones too), the uproar tends towards statements like: "why did someone write that", "somebody stop them!", or "who are they studying with". But these are private conversations. We seem to be worried about hurting people's feelings or putting our own reputations in jeopardy and are content to keep our thoughts to ourselves.

Not at Darmstadt! When a composer has shoddy ideas, they are booed! When the instrumental writing lacks interest, it is booed! When there's no reason for the piece to have been written, it is booed! In short, when a piece is terrible or even just harmless drivel, BOOOOO! I need to mention that the performers were NEVER (at least when I was there) booed. We trusted they were doing their best (which, at Darmstadt can mean performing after a paltry one or two rehearsals in a couple days after seeing a piece for the first time). It is the composers who were taken to task after their pieces. Not only that, but the booing started when they appeared on stage to thank the performers and so were faced with the very real possibility of seeing their boo-ers in the flesh. I was told that at the 2006 festival, wadded up programs were tossed onstage as well. That may be a little bit too much.

I have to say that this experience in general was a breath of fresh air, though. Why not voice one's opinion? Who says that just because a piece is new, and a "fresh" idea or genre mash-up is being attempted, it should be lauded just because? No. There has to be some sort of opinion in order for this music to matter more than the fact that it came from some wunderkind. I can't think of an emptier experience than walking out of a concert that has made me shrug my shoulders and say "hmmm" to myself. Enough of that. It has been a while since I remember reading any real critical discourse in new music. It could be that I am looking in the wrong places, but people seem content to write around the music (describing the surge in the "scene", or the genre-defying experiments of a new ensemble band regardless of if they result in something satisfying) than about the music. Yes, it may be that opinions are relative and critics might be more apt to describe an experience (concert) as an event and let others make up their own minds. Seems fine, and it surely isn't going to alienate anyone (thus gaining readership, and in a time where concert audience numbers need to be boosted, maybe this isn't a bad thing, actually), but I feel like dissenting opinion has its place in our concert-going lives. And it would actually, I believe, help a composer to know that there's some friction with an audience. Maybe certain passages or compositional approaches will be revised or honed further. We all can benefit in the end from healthy discussions.

In a time when there really isn't an avant-garde anymore (actually, I don't think it can even exist), and its tough enough to even go out there and be a musician, there is still a need for some sort of discussion and critique, while understanding the need to get people out and fill the seats. Whether or not this filters out poorer composers is a matter of time. Otherwise, those who shout the loudest will be the only ones who the public hears and who, ultimately, will represent our American musical landscape. This is unfortunate, because there are many voices out there. Sure its a loud city, but brute force can lead to other consequences.

Not that booing is any kind of real answer. It just points to a culture that is willing to think, question, and possibly dissent from what is being presented rather than one that is complacent, submissive, and accepts the inevitability of a product. I was taught to engage in this type of culture with regard to politics, books, and art. Why not in music, as well?

That said, I still haven't booed at a concert here at home!

Dither at Listen/Space

Friday night, I had the pleasure of seeing the relatively new (1 year old) guitar quartet, Dither, perform at Listen/Space in Brooklyn. It was both my first time at Listen/Space and my first time hearing Dither. The group, who's members are Taylor Levine, James Moore, Josh Lopes, and Simon Kafka, was inspired by Fred Frith's legendary quitar quartet, and regularly plays the compositions that were created for that group. Last night's set included 'A', 'F', 'G', and 'B' in that order (but not consecutively). The program also included pieces by Lainie Fefferman, David Lang, Arvo Pärt, Simon Kafka, and Nick Didkovsky (who was an original member of Frith's group). The program was a bit on the long side and actually could have warranted an intermission. But one possible benefit of presenting so many pieces back to back, is that you can start to get some sense of the nuance and limitations that this instrumentation provides.

Frith's pieces are clearly the mainstay of the group. He has an amazing ear for timbre and counterpoint, and these pieces were definitely the strongest parts of the program. I should have written this immediately after the concert (which I will attempt to do from now on), but I do remember certain pieces clearer than most. Frith's 'A' based itself off of a pulsating note coming from Levine's guitar. From there, the remaining guitarists entered in slow succession, each adding a note or two in a playfully polyrhythmic fashion. Never did any one pattern emerge like in the minimal music of Steve Reich, but a similar energy resulted. A nicely traipsing composite melody resulted over the ever-present rhythmic drone. At the exact point that I began to wonder how the piece would end, the players trailed off, and each picked up a tape recorder. This transition was unfortunately made very clumsily and any positive effect that could have resulted was lost. On each performer's tape player was a recording of his part. Obviously, this could provide an interesting "sonic memory" altered by the electronics in the pickups and tape machine, but it was handled more like an uncomfortable gimmick. What was an otherwise beautiful piece ended in disappointment.

The other pieces by Fred Frith handled timbres and rhythmic devices with equal authority. One other aspect (not present in 'A') that I have always enjoyed in Frith's music is his ease of incorporating different genres into the fabric of his music. In particular, he understands the language of guitar music, and specifically ELECTRIC guitar music and plays with all the various tropes and stereotypes therein. He knows how a certain type of distortion or delay coupled with the right melodic line can point to prog-rock, metal, or fusion jazz, while managing to subvert those very things. I feel like he's always treading water with kitsch, and often he drowns in it. But it is so upbeat and well written that I don't even care. I happily dive right in!

Nick Didkovsky's pieces were a welcome extension of "pedigree" for Dither, since Didkovsky was part of the Fred Frith quartet. His pieces, like Frith's, are wonderfully intricate and playful. He isn't afraid of either counterpoint between guitars of differing timbres(often creating....dare I say it?...klangfarben melodies!) or of genre play. Didkovsky has sort of a prog streak in him, too. Though they offered a fair amount of complexity, his pieces were downright heavy at times. Very fun.

Included on the program were two pieces by younger composers, Lainie Fefferman and Simon Kafka, who is also one of Dither's guitarists. I don't remember too much about Kafka's piece except that it began with a texture-drone of open guitar string resonance that was produced by knocking or hitting the head, body, or neck of the guitar, after which some vaguely tonal melodies were played. All in all, I was a bit underwhelmed, but the piece fit into the general context of the program.

Lainie Fefferman's piece was in three parts. The first part began with a strummed drone (sensing a theme here?) over which other textures emerged and grew. After reaching a sort of "climax"(though its hard to call it that since it was more of a drone), the parts faded out. After an abrupt and slightly awkward pause, the second section began, in which Mr. Moore pounded on his guitar and created a bass drum-like timbre. Over this, the guitar writing was a crude (and unsuccessful) attempt at "rock". Pretty blasé, though there were some well thought out interlocking parts now and then. I'm forgetting the details of the final section of the piece, but I remember liking it the best, and in hindsight it bared resemblance to the first Frith piece in some regards. All in all, it wasn't a bad piece, and it was much better than others of hers that I've heard. However, it seemed less of a coherent whole and more like three separate ideas. I wish they had worked better together, and that each piece had actually gone somewhere. Form can be a tricky thing.

David Lang's piece (a guitar duo) was one of the best pieces of his that I have heard in a while. I attribute this, at least in part, to its brevity. Maybe only about 10 minutes long, it can be summed up in a single word: heterophony. The two electric guitars were played through similar, though distinct, distortion and their tones easily melted into one another. What Lang did is play with the idea of a subtly shifting unison line that the guitarists perform together. Sometimes, the line is offset by an eighth note, other times, a sixteenth, and sometimes a different note is thrown in here and there. Each phrase begins with a strong unision (making both players nod [read: headbang?] together). From that point, the line diverges in different, rhythmic ways. I was surprised by how engaging and interesting this piece turned out to be.

The show ended with a transcription of an organ piece by Arvo Pärt, the Estonian minimalist and neo-medievalist. This was a good, if long, reading of his piece, and Dither did a great job translating the various voices' roles. Melodic lines were plucked (softly with fingers) by the two outer players while the slower legato lines and harmonies were playce by the other two using volume pedal swells. Pärt's music was a wonderful way to end the concert; perhaps an electric reverie to the medieval lute music of the past (filtered through Pärt's version of that history???).

All in all, I enjoyed myself. The music was not "difficult" in the least to listen to, and I mean that in at least some sort of critical way. While there were elements that I could trace and find interest in, it isn't music that I would be able to gain much from multiple listens except for the Frith pieces and perhaps the Lang. Most of it suffered from a vapid language that hinges too much on the neo-tonal / modal worlds that seem to plague a lot of new music. However, both the Frith and Didkovsky pieces were a welcome change from the others. Theirs are vital pieces that come from from players who have been active in the avant-rock, jazz, pop, and improvisation worlds for a while. The members of Dither would do well to study not only their music and interests, but their approach to performance. While executed well for the most part, there lacked a certain spark that would liven up much of the music and lend certain parts (I'm thinking here of the second section of the Fefferman) more authenticity. It was as though Dither was afraid to leave the music behind and let the music breathe (or rock?) on its own. In a small, intimate concert space (hall), this is only amplified. They are electric guitars, for goodness sake! Visible counting of the beats (spoken, not grooved), playful acknowledgment of mistakes and shrugging when an amp gives off too much ground hum are distractions that take away from the immediacy that most of this music could have, and instead made me focus on how much it was like a formal concert. Surprisingly, the Lang was one of the few places where the performance shown through and benefited the piece, even though it wasn't a "perfect" one.

A word about Listen/Space- This is a very nice and intimate new venue on Skillman Ave off of the Graham L train. It is kind of like a mini-Stone in size (think 2/3 the size, without the piano, and the walls are white instead of black). But, it was a little bit too small for an electric guitar quartet, and they could stand to do something about the insane amount of reverb in the room. I'm not quite sure how anyone who wasn't wearing earplugs would be able to hear very much, actually. That said, I'm really glad that there's a venue like this popping up so far along the L train, or in New York City at all! We need more spaces like this that are dedicated to creative music, and I'll be sure to check out what they will be curating further.

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After I got home, I finally saw Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing". All I can say is that was one amazing movie. Wow. And then today was "a scorcher" as well....