Five nights
by Jessica Rylan
Five Nights with ChristopherChristopher and I both play noise with home-made equipment. I know more about electronics so usually I end up helping him troubleshoot when he builds something new. He has an endless source of energy and enthusiasm which is a good counter to my general pessimism. We decided to do a tour together. I really wanted to have matching speakers, so I found a second Traynor cabinet for Christopher to use. We brought two amps with us, a Peavey Series 260 and a Crown DC 300A. The Peavey is a piece of junk which somebody abandoned at a gallery I hang out at. The Crown was meant for the laboratory. My boss only let me borrow it because he knew I'd fix it if it blew up. We each brought some electronic circuits we'd built, and microphones. His band is called Kites, and my band is called Can't. We were playing together so it was Kites Can't. In the end we didn't really have a tour, but we played five nights in a row, and that was close enough.
Thursday May 1 afternoon, WMBR studio, Cambridge Mass
Ariel wanted us to play on his radio show (www.oscillatory.org/sqn), but we'd signed up to play at a bar. So he taped us playing in the afternoon. We were using the Peavey Series 260 stereo head. It did some nice intermodulation from time to time, but Christopher couldn't get loud enough for some reason. Afterwards Ariel made a tape where he interviewed us. He asked us a lot of questions about our equipment and our opinions about music. We answered everything in detail. After fifteen minutes, he held up two patch cables which he'd forgotten to plug in. "Uh, I don't think we got any of that." Then we did a second interview where Christopher and I told stories and dreams. At the end Ariel made an apology to his listeners that we hadn't talked about the music at all. "But that's all we talked about!" I said.
www.irfp.net/kitescant/playing.mp3
www.irfp.net/kitescant/still shy.mp3
www.irfp.net/kitescant/find it.mp3
Thursday May 1 night, Abbey Lounge, Sommerville Mass
The Young Sexy Assassins (www.misterrecords.com/ysa) were having a cd release show. Unfortunately there was a problem at the plant, and they didn't have the cd's. When Christopher and I started playing, everyone seemed like they were hiding far away. It made me feel very nervous. The sound man said he was putting microphones on our amps so he could put it through the p.a., but it seemed like the sound was disappearing right in front of the stage. So Christopher and I turned our amps around to face the back wall. "It's a private show, if you want to see it you have to come stand on the stage!" I said. Our friends came and stood around the Young Sexy Assassins' drums. It wasn't a lot of people but it was enough.
We were using the Peavey amp again. Once in a while a strange sound would come out of my speaker that I knew I wasn't making. That was nice, but Christopher still had a volume problem. We decided it was a good amp for a small show, but not enough for a really loud one.
www.irfp.net/kitescant/abbey.mp3
Friday May 2, The Schoolhouse, Hadley Mass
The kids who live at the Schoolhouse have a cd-r label called Breaking World Records (www.breakingworldrecords.com). Their kitchen sink is made out of a huge piece of slate. Christopher and I set up right next to the sink. When we started playing, Christopher just sat on the floor in front of his speaker. He wouldn't get up. "Get up off the floor, you gotta go get a job!" I said to him. "You can't just sit on the floor and play noise all day!" He didn't pay any attention. I pretended to be stressed out, but really I didn't care. When we stopped playing noise I felt really happy so I sang a bittersweet song about a boy who did me wrong.
We used the Peavey amp again. It worked out well, since we were playing in a kitchen. But after the show, Christopher said "We can keep using that amp, but it's just not loud enough. So if we keep using it, I have to put my head right in front of the speaker so it sounds loud to me."
Saturday May 3, Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson New York
We decided to use the Crown amp. When Christopher and I started playing I tried to get everyone to come in close, which sort of worked. Then I started dancing all crazy to get in the mood. Christopher closed his eyes half way and started pacing back and forth with the microphone in his mouth, pulling on his clothes, then sticking his head right in the speaker and screaming. "Stop it Stop it!" I kept saying. I felt like I was his mom and I was exasperated at his bad behavior but secretly thrilled at the same time. Finally I gave up and fell on the floor next to him. The sound was a lot louder than with the Peavey, but also cleaner. Christopher could get a lot louder, but I couldn't get the sound from my microphone to break up the way I really like. At the end of the set, I felt confused. Christopher walked around the speakers in a circle, and I followed him around. Then I went outside and tried to calm down.
Sunday May 4, Leed's Barn, Hopewell New York
I invited everyone to come close again, but then I started doing a slow spiral dance with one or the other leg awkwardly in the air, to keep everyone away. Pretty soon Christopher was lying on his back on the floor, singing slow sweeping pitches against his machine's constant drone. The pitches he was singing, the machine's tones, and the feedback through the amp were all intermodulating each other, producing all kinds of extra tones. I slowed down, playing in rhythm, but Christopher didn't get up. Finally I lay down on top of him. He was still singing his slow glissando. I was making short bursts with my microphone. He was holding my hand really tight. Then I started singing with him, harmonizing both with his notes, and with the difference tones. It was the closest we'd been together. Finally I told him I wanted to stop, and he got up and turned off the amp. We'd used the Crown again. After the show I could smell one of the ten inch speakers in his cabinet had been getting really hot. "From my experience of treating amps and speakers badly," Christopher said, "when you push them they'll smell like that, but they're not blown. Usually when they cool down it's back to normal. It just means the speaker's thinking about blowing."
www.irfp.net/kitescant/barn.mp3
Monday May 5, Hampshire College, Northampton Mass
Chris Corsano liked our music on Sunday night, but Paul Flaherty just liked me. He kept hugging me and telling me I was crazy. For one reason or another, they (http://www.yod.com/hatedmusic.html) invited us to come play with them the next night. It was back in Western Mass again, at Hampshire college. But because we were only added the day before, we had to open this time. It was hard opening, but probably not even as hard as just playing a show we didn't have any time to prepare for. Christopher kept a very persistent tone going for a very long time, until you could smell the speaker was from five feet away. I didn't know what to do, I felt like I could only continue to make a bad situation worse. I got in his face. "You're gonna burn it up! You're gonna blow it!" I was pointing at the top left speaker, it smelled so strong you could tell it was the one. Christopher got mad and shoved me away. Then I started falling on the floor on my knees, like I used to when I first started doing noise shows. We were using the Crown amplifier and it played really loud, for a really long time. It was too loud and too long for me. In the end I turned it off. Then I felt worried that I shouldn't have turned the amp off, I should have just told Christopher I wanted to quit and let him make the decision. After the show I kept trying to talk to him, because I wanted to process. He kept blowing me off. Finally he said "Give me my space!" with a half laugh. Then I knew that things would be ok in the end.
www.irfp.net — Jessica Rylan (Can't) home page
www.twingles.com/transmission — Hearts of Darknesses (awesome Bard noise band)
www.mindflayer.com — Mindflayer (three shows with these guys)
To contact Christopher Forgues send mail to:
Paper Rodeo, PO Box 913, Providence RI 02901