Different experiences

After playing the Physical Changes set for so long on my own, and even getting used to hearing the addition of Jim Schoenecker and David Bailey in a live setting, I was not at all prepared for what I heard last Saturday at the Hideout in Chicago.  Joined by Fred Lonberg-Holm and Dan Burke, we tried out the loudest part for the sound check.  It was devastating.  I couldn’t hear the cue tape for my changes, and besides, I wondered if any audience would be able to endure such bombast for the entire set.  It was really overwhelming.

When it came time to play the set, we eased more naturally into the progressions and changes of the piece, which allowed a few things to happen.  I heard things I hadn’t heard before, in obvious ways, but then, as the piece grew, and I had to visually look at the tape progression to guess at change times, a new experience happened.  The piece had changed from this metallic/frequency based piece (from the ring of cymbals and rhythm of drums) to a very charged electric piece, with strange, barely discernable electronic glitches, swooshes, strange melodies, and screaming undefinable tones.  It was, to say the least, surreal.  I found a comfort zone, and realizing the drums were far from the focus of the piece, began to vary the degree of things being struck, which created this sort of sub-texture that bubbled beneath the surface of the chaos, rising and falling, moving the piece in a linear crawl toward some undetermined (and potentially, it seemed, never) ending.  The piece had changed yet again.  Thanks to Dan and Fred and their incredible listening and playing for making this possible.

This experience was a great warm-up to what’s sure to happen again in NYC and Cincinnati.