Cube Blog

This comes via Chiz, a very accurate description of the performances by someone named Gavin on the Jandek email list:

[Jandek] Bristol gig report
Gavin gavin at ********.co.uk
Thu May 18 10:15:56 PDT 2006

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The two sets were with a trio of Chris Corsano (as announced), playing a nice shiny Pearl kit (rather than his usual ‘total Frankenstein model’), and Mick Flower (instead of Matt Heyner), playing a black Telecaster in the first set, and then his Japanese banjo for the second; both sets were about 70 minutes each, and consisted of long songs, the opener of the first set being almost 20 minutes, and most averaging 15 minutes minimum. The overall tone of the first set was pretty brutal, and ‘typical’ inasmuch as there was a similarity with the sound of ‘Glasgow Sunday’ and ‘Newcastle Sunday’, but Chris Corsano’s playing felt different to Alex Neilson’s on these occasions…having seen Chris playing solo and in various combinations prior to this, and being partly familiar with some aspects of his playing, this was a surprise inasmuch as his responses to the guitar were similar to the drumming on the mid-period records: heavy pulsing and pounding rhythms that followed the rhythms of the guitar (Corsano/Flower duo performances I’ve seen have a ‘pulse’ that they both seem to lock into at certain points, but this was different again).

The Corwood Representative played in his usual style of stabbing, heavily strummed guitar work, whilst Mick added a more droning guitar style – seemed like his open tuning included some strings tuned to the same note, and others a fifth above, creating a ‘chorus’-like effect of dissonance. His playing allowed notes to ring out more, at some points using a slide, and providing a contrast to the other guitar. At times it seemed to almost provide a droning ‘pedal note’ which underlayed the pieces, something which Flower uses reguarly in the Corsano/Flower duo with the Japanese banjo (thanks to Danny Saul for the above observations).

The second set seemed to have a different ‘character’ to the first, but it was only different by degrees, although Mick Flower’s Japanese banjo (either bowed, or strummed and plucked) did add something to the sound that I’ve not heard in any of the recent live performances or recordings, especially in combination with Chris’ bowing of parts of his kit – and where the first set started full-on, the second began in a much more subdued way, and I could have listened to that combination of scratching and scraping and muttering for a very long time indeed…

The venue was perfect, being a 110-seat cinema, and a surprisingly loud PA (I’d imagined it to sound less overwhelmingly oppressive than it did – felt like my teeth were vibrating through the first song, and I had a killing headache after the first set – but I was front row, pretty much in front of the left side speakers), and the place seemed pretty full, at least for the first set; some people seemed to leave about half way through the second, and one wag in the audience complained that it was ‘too loud’, and that it was hurting his ears when there was a lull prompted by a fire alarm bell – The Corwood Representative (there needs to be an easier way of saying this…as far as I’m concerned Jandek is the collective onstage rather than any individual) seemed amused at this point, whether prompted by the audience comment or by the interjection of the alarm.

Observations: the way the lyrics were selected (from the usual ringbound book on a music stand) seemed haphazard, with a lot of flicking back and forth, and then a kind of nodding of confirmation to himself before turning towards Chris and cranking out the opening chord; the first song’s lyrics were a variation on the ATP opener, only this time it was ‘You’re only 22…’ rather than ‘I’; one song’s only lyrics were ‘Wrap it up/Give me your presents’ (or something like that – didn’t make notes unfortunately), echoing the ‘On The Way’ song title; when the musicians came on, the black hat was put on once onstage (the same thing happened at Gateshead), as if the wearing of the hat was part of the ritual and the ‘persona’; and, as per usual, there was no acknowledgement or eye contact with the audience, although Chris grinned at the obvious audience appreciation; both sets were recorded and filmed, and a person sat next to the cameraman at the end of the second set clapped and clapped and whooped, and I couldn’t decide whether this was drunken enthusiasm or the ‘rabble-rousing’described at the end of the Austin gig…it seemed a bit disingenuous (and quite obviously didn’t prompt an encore).

I was that cameraman, and too was confused by the possibly disingenuous enthusiasm from the man beside me, but given his other reactions through the shows I think he was genuinely (over) enthusiastic.

The person who complained about the sound levels was projections volunteer Tom Taylor – he explained after he is very careful with his hearing, having suffered some hearing damage before, and certain higher frequencies at a loud volume are incredibly painful for him. After leaving he actually listened to, and enjoyed, the set from outside – though others did leave presumably because they couldn’t take the performance at all.

Jandek on flickr (photos of recent shows)

coming soon

From www.vennfestival.com, filed under Venn Tings . . .

VENN: THE DOCUMENTARY
While the festival noise carries you through the streets of Stokes Croft, a team of explorers armed with cameras will be capturing Venn-ness as it happens – discovering, documenting and challenging the Venn overlap in all its glory.

Contribute:
With three full days of excitement we need all the eyes and ears we can find, getting the widest perspective on the festival playground as possible. We are inviting all Venn explorers to contribute to making the documentary the musical mission we want it to be.

We want your Venn experiences from the moment you wake and tune into Venn Radio to the music that kept you alive all night long, and all the bits in between.

To submit your films, still images and sounds to considered for the edit of Venn: The Documentary, please email:

documentary@vennfestival.com

From the volunteers’ email list, please help . . .

( incidentally, it is also one of the finest pieces of prose I have ever read )

Hello,

I recently lost a ring and am now screening all the
places I might have left it.

It is a big ring consisting of a silver ring on which
sits a big silver plate covered with lots of little
red glas pieces. The overall shape of the ring is a
big, slightly assymetric paralellipipede.

Due to its size it has a “Henry the Eighth”-character.

A beautiful item and a Greek gift from my mother,
hence:
FIND IT FIND IT!!

I am incapable of finding it so far.
Maybe I lost it at the Cube, taking it off to have
more
hand-freedom for setting up a band for example.

Have you seen it ?

If so, could you tell me where it is and also where
you are so I can kiss you on both cheeks.

Thank you,

bye,
Lea

P:S.
Phone ***************

( phone number supplied, email mr_hopkinson @ hotmail dot com, if you can help and I’ll pass it on )

You may have noticed some new posters here on the Cubelog – I sent out a call out on the volunteers email list recently, and I just hearing a Radio discussion about the original Amateur spirit has spurred me on to repost the call-out here in case anyone wants to join in who’s not on the email list . . .

hello you,

most of you will at some point have been asked by me if you are interested in contributing to The Cube’s blog, or ‘Cubelog’.

If I have managed to miss you somehow, you can now consider yourself hit . . .

If you don’t know, the Cubeblog is a place where volunteers can post up thoughts, images, reviews, adverts, stories, lies, just about anything that might be said to relate to The Cube, and it runs on a very easy to use open source interface initially installed by Tom Betts, with much help from Kate.

I’m writing to you about it because I am the Moderator, which mostly involves deleting spam and helping out with posters’ queries . . .

At the moment, I am also the most frequent poster.

While other people do contribute – notably Lady, Adam, Ben, Adrian and Richie – which is great but, I would like to encourage, or at least inform everyone that their input is welcome.

Me posting the most isn’t a problem, but . . . it is The Cube’s blog, not mine and I reckon it would be really great if even more people posted things on it . . . there is quite a loyal and varied readership, and while it’s never going to be objectively representative of The Cube, I think, the more perspectives there are the better in terms of approximating what you might call a ‘realistic’, or at least more balanced, representation of The Cube.

It’s also an opportunity to do something with an immediate, and not unresponsive, audience.

If you don’t or haven’t read it, what *I* tend to do is just document the events that I attend, reasonably objectively ( at least that’s my intention ), illustrated with the photos that I’m constantly taking.

Now then, as it happens, my posts have become increasingly elaborate ( and time consuming ), which makes me wonder if that’s maybe putting people off posting themselves to degree . . .

. . . basically, I would like to stress, If you are interested in posting, *my* way of doing it isn’t some sort of recommended model to base *your* own posts on, it’s just what makes sense for *me* . . .

. . . in fact the more varied the various potential approaches the better, I say . . . short, very short, long, illustrated, unillustrated, fact, fiction, hearsay, heresy, extremely short, wordless, poetic, mundane, outrageous, logistical, minute, overarching, sensical, or completely impenetrable, there’s no censorship or rules beyond basic netiquette of keeping any images to a sensible size and number ( for the reader’s convenience ) – and even that isn’t cast in stone if there’s a good reason . . .

And as moderator, I can help with stuff like optimising images or other technical issues.

If you’re now itching to rep your version of The Cube, ( or if something strikes you as blogworthy at any future point ) please email me back on this address* and I’ll set you up with a login and password for an identity, or identities, of your choice, plus a simple how-to guide for making your first post . . . which if it turns out to be your one and only post, or first of many is all fine . . .

Thank you for your time,

David x

* email : mr_hopkinson at hotmail dot com