What Will You Do? is a Death Blues text and image piece that was created for a project by Kate Mytty which deals with the ‘finding of humanity.’

Click here to view Death Blues: What Will You Do?

My Grandpa passed away in the 1990s when I was in my 20s. Years before that, when I was very young, he gave some antique pocket watches to my Dad. Recently, my Dad called and said he’d like to give the watches to me. Of course, I was excited to receive such a sentimental gift that spanned so much time, having involved some key people in my life.

I went to his place and we sat and talked. A lot of time had passed from when he received them, and certainly before he had them. The watches dated from the 1800s, and we’re not exactly sure where or when my Grandpa actually got them.

I thought about this spanning of time as I held them, noticing slight characteristics of wear, yet being surprised by what amazing condition they were in for being so old. At a glance, they looked as if they could have been new.

My thoughts were broken by the phone ringing. My Dad answered it, and proceeded with a quick conversation where he spoke in answers only. “Yes, I did. Ok. That’s right. I will. Ok.” and then he hung up and sat down across from me. I turned my attention away from the watches and toward him.

“You know who that was?” he asked, and without waiting for an answer, continued, “Your Grandpa.”

The folks at Hometapes have released another of their holiday albums this year, which can be acquired either freely, or by making a donation to Heifer Project International, an Arkansas-based organization whose mission is to end poverty and help save the earth.

It’s called the never ending beginning. There’s a ton of music on it, featuring tracks from their existing roster, friends of the family, and myself. My track is an intro of sorts, both in the style of the song itself, as well as being a hint at the instrumentation used within my forthcoming Death Blues project. You could even say that it’s a never ending beginning itself.

“Hallelujah” was recorded live with no overdubs at The Ponderosa with an H4Zoom.

Here she is:

Check out the full comp and all the details here, and I hope your holidays are filled with amazing beginnings that never end.

NPR Music’s Lars Gotrich has published his 2011 Best of Outer Sound Albums, and I’m honored that he chose my Alphabet of Movements LP as number 19 on the list.

There are a ton of records out. A ton! And the fact that something I’ve done has received attention from a media source that surely has no shortage of material to pick from is pretty stunning.

Thank you, Lars, I’m so glad you liked it!

The full list along with streams of many of the chosen titles can be found here.

Lately I’ve been playing drums with Broomsticks. Not actual broomsticks, but manufactured sticks that resemble small bushels of old broom tines. The effect is like a very heavy brush. Anyway, the part you hold is very fat, much larger than a regular drum stick. It can take awhile to get comfortable with them, but once you do, they’re a lot of fun to play.

After playing them for awhile, I’ll switch back to standard sticks, and when I do, it’s like something magic happens. The stick feels incredibly thin, almost psychedelically thin, as if I were trying to play drums in a dream or something. The consequence is that it’s difficult, awkward, and not at all comfortable to play, like it usually is. For a moment, I wonder if I know how to play at all. It’s surreal.

This past week, I had that same experience with something else, but it wasn’t something I held in my hands, or having anything to do with drums. It was an idea. An idea that I’ve always understood as it was. Then suddenly, I tried a new idea, and it seemed really good, but then I thought that it might not be practical, might be too much work, and might be too difficult for others to understand, so I went back to the old idea, the one that always works and that everyone understands.

Now, that idea feels awkward, and I can’t help but think that for a moment I saw the truth of it, and that another possibility presented itself – a surreal, yet magical idea – that will be difficult to pull off, because no one really knows how to play that way.

It was an unlikely situation. In a room stood myself, my friend from out of town, and the wife of another friend of ours. We listened while she showed us a list of details written on a sheet of paper. The details were one to two line sentences of things that had occurred involving each of us in different ways, some connected and some not.

As she began reading this list from the bottom to the top, she began to pause at certain items, saying that this one would need to be erased, due to something happening higher up on the list, which made it irrelevant, or as if it didn’t need to be included among the things that are anymore. As she continued pausing and erasing, some seemingly important and personal experiences were being removed from the list, causing a strange feeling of loss, as if elements of our lives were being taken away.

At one point, my friend began to cry as more elements were being taken away. Items that were personally important in one way or another. By the time she got near the top of the page, more erasing was happening than not, due to the domino effect of the logical progression of, “if this, then that, and if not this, then not that” occurred. Soon, both my friend and I were sobbing, feeling a great sense of the world, and of life itself, changing or being pulled from us, being not at all what we thought it was, as action upon action negated out something we thought to be part of our existence.

My friend and I looked at each other and cried. But the woman stood staring at us without tears, and with the most utter look of seriousness, as if to stress as clearly as possible the reality of this new understanding.

I just returned from from the Viva! Art Action festival in Montreal where I was the only musical performer. This exclusivity made me think about what performance is, our expectations of it, and the scope of what is and what can be involved. I had some great conversations about this too, with Mathieu Beausejour, Manon Tourigny, Eric Mattson (who also brought me to Montreal as part of a DHC Art exhibition earlier this year), Jörn Burmester and Janine Eisenächer of Performer Stammtisch, as well as performance artist Nadège Grebmeier Forget, whose performance was projected on a large wall while she performed in a private room built within the same hall the audience viewed from.

Speaking of the hall, it was a disused public swimming pool, which provided not only an interesting space for everyone to work within, but for me, offered some extremely incredible acoustics. The picture above was taken during my soundcheck on the morning of the performance. During the performance, one solitary bright light was used from the floor directly behind me, to create a slowly moving shadow that increased over the course of the piece. Sonically, it was the broadest I’ve heard/experienced this piece yet. It will be difficult to top this one. Here is a photo taken by a representative from Viva:

I also gave a workshop on Listening and Creativity, with the help of a dear friend Natasha Pickowicz, who created four intricate and thoughtful morsels for the group to taste prior to my talk. This introduction got the audience thinking about how they interpreted things both known and unknown, and what struck them as important or relevant to themselves. More about the workshop here.

All in all, this was an incredible week for me, and I’m still sorting through everything I saw and did – the performances, the city, the food, the conversations, it was all a wonderful time, which would not have been possible without the help of Mathieu Beausejour, Clark, and Viva! My eternal thanks to you for making this experience possible for me.

What will you do?

My new project, Death Blues, is just beginning, and I’ve created a separate site which will contain info and updates about what happens with it. Head over there to learn more about it.

I’ll be posting thoughts and insights about the work involved here at Rhythmplex, but most of the details and updates about the project will live at the Death Blues site.

Much to come! Thanks for having a look.