From eluna@coil.com Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 08:06:17 -0400 (EDT) From: eluna To: mwraves , pitt/cleveland raves Subject: ele_ment 5: boron - self-review it's a little out-of date for me to be posting this since the event was last friday, but i wanted to say a few things and post something more substantive because i havent had much time to contribute lately... i'd also like to say some things about the ele_ment series as it now stands, one year after it began. boron was, in some ways, a failure. only about 60 people actually showed up despite a decent amount of promotion, etc. i'm not upset about it, really, because that's what i needed to cover my budget, and as always i do these ele_ment events mostly for myself and a small group of appreciators, but it made me really ask myself some hard questions. people really just want a party, dont they? if i'm going to continue to do events that are an attempt to challenge what YOU might consider a "rave" or "event" to be, then i guess i'll have to compromise if i want a substantial number of people to actually show up. in a way, i dont really expect people to drive hours to get to columbus by 9 or 10 pm just to see some local acts play live for 3 hours, so i'm not condemning anyone who may have seen the flyer at IO3 or wherever, and didnt come (so don't take any of this personally). but what i'm asking is, what do i have to do to get people involved and interested (without wasting too much energy)? i've tried throwing after-parties for these events, to draw more people, and as a complement to the usually-serious mood of the concerts, but they've sort of backfired because so many people dont show up till like 1 am, after the performances are over, so they miss the whole point! but on the other hand, i'm not willing to move the concerts any later. i want to keep these events in the early-evening, because i want a wider variety of people to come. i want the ex-ravers, beatniks, cyberpunks, computer-geeks, artists, etc...the whole spectrum of techno-appreciators or anyone who wants to try something new. i'm afraid the rave scene has lost it in this department...we really arent reaching anyone except young people (some of whom are here for the right reasons, but many of whom are just here for a quick dose of rebellion/ drugs/fun before they move on or drop out). what about all those people who like techno, buy it, or are open to it, but _don't_ go to raves (for whatever reasons)? those are the people _i_ want in my scene, i dont know about the rest of you. i want people to be at an event because they like the music or because they want to experience something NEW. when's the last time YOU went to a party and felt your own ideas about what a "rave" could be were challenged in real ways? probably never, i'd bet. or rarely, at best (if so, i'd love to hear it). unfortunately, we're all wanting what's familiar to us (myself included) and branching out is a risky thing. but honestly this aint too big a leap, in my eyes! these events connect us with deeper currents and older art forms more directly, like happenings, classical performances (in the old sense of the term), and ceremonial gatherings of every description. they're not so different from a rave, except the fact that people tend not to dance (not that they can't, they just seem not to). they're a place where people can interact, and hear music or encounter environments created especially for that event, by a special group of people who want to do this for almost nothing (me, the performers, speaker- and equipment- donators, anyone who helps). yet this seems to be a challenge to many "ravers" out there who, as a supposedly "free-thinking" and "open-minded" pseudo-community, ought to know better. these are sad facts, and ultimately i agree that the only way to get the message across--to open people's minds--is to do it by stealth, by dressing up something new in the guise of something familiar. if i really wanted to succeed i'd get woody mcbride or someone of equal stature involved in an event. but chances are, people like him can't (or won't) come down to earth for something like this, and while that may be fair in some respects, i just can't afford to do something even this weird and lose that kind of money on it. it's got to start from below. besides, i'd rather have it home-based, as there are plenty of worthy musicians right here in my own town. columbus, of all places, has a wonderfully rich pool of musicians and artists, some of whom have been doing electronic music for years and years. i want to give new people a chance to be heard, but i also want to bring the old-schoolers back into the fray; to give them an excuse to work on new material, to encourage them and to help them realize that their music can be part of this phenomenon...which is tied closely with raves and all that, but is somehow deeper. so what are these ele_ment events? well, even if you've read this far, it's possible that you have no idea. so i'll explain it clearly: they aren't really raves, they're concerts...but not like rock concerts, they're a bit deeper than that. they're concerts for electronic music (mostly techno) and environments, presented by artists who really care about their work and spent a lot of time getting material together. the most expensive one was only $2 to get in. OPTIONAL. even so, these events have been pretty sparsely-attended, the biggest was helium last november because it was free and happened to feature todd sines in a starring role. that's our "big name," i guess...or maybe titonton? *sigh* no, i dont mean to sound reproachful, there has been real support for local artists, but please understand, this takes a lot of work, and i know that if people actually came they WOULD get it, they WOULD like it... maybe not quite how _i_ imagine it, but that's part of the point anyway... it's meant to be completed by the people who actually attend. in a larger sense, i see these events as works of art, completed by whoever shows up...so naturally i feel a sparsely-attended "work" is somewhat of an artistic failure. i don't mean to sound pretentious...these events aren't some grandiose "new thing," in fact they're quite an old idea (as i've already made clear). but on an even more basic level, these events are about interacting with music in whichever way you feel comfortable. what could be more simple than that? and even a "failure" like boron really wasn't, because those who did make it felt something special as the room was was filled with some of the best music and ideas i have ever encountered. a lot of people that were there appreciated what was happening around them. i saw people interacting with the music, and with each other, in new ways. that was the shit. but i only wish there had been more of them...there _should_ have been more of them. anyway, let me set the stage: early-evening. in a large, hot, carpeted, rectangular, communal living room, lined with sliding-glass doors (a room that would have served 30 years ago to debut new works by philip glass or whomever), four artists brought all of their gear to present their own ideas. the room was overflowing with cables, speakers, keyboards, and so on...an amazing takeover of a space. mike poe, known as MIDI SLUT, has been twiddling around in columbus with electronic music for quite a few years. he began the event with some beautifully-sweet ambience, a 30-minute composition in several parts, flowing into darker textures for a while, then into more melodic realms. very clean, almost clinically-precise, but very powerful and mind-expanding. each part of the 1st piece was interrupted by short breaks between the "movements," which consisted of spoken-word material from space records and other sources...voices that would fade in and out of comprehensibility. cool stuff. then a couple songs with beats followed...one that seemed to be purely composed on the 808, using extremely complex drum patterning, but whose final pulse was just simply in its driving beat. his last piece was the strongest, combining the ambient elements with beats, this time with a very slow, electro-type of beat. this combined with a perfectly beautiful and unobtrusive melody to create what can only be described as "sex music." :) mindblowing. tony ramos' visual performance came next, delayed slightly due to a missing film, but evenually things got going okay. for the first part, tony projected images of battlefield technology, armies, etc, from a green monochrome video projector, onto a king-sized sheet tacked to the opposing wall. on a table just below the sheet were two video monitors upon which tony could play things from another vcr or repeat what was on the main, green screen. i showed snippets of an abstract film i made a couple years ago, as well. karen kreutzfeld of gaga performed the incidental music, providing an extremely disturbing and harsh landscape of sounds that went perfectly with the images of war on the screen. sometimes things didnt work quite so well, tony's switches were all pretty much rigged on the spot, and the videos he had were all randonly selected from a public library, so the war scenes kept getting interrupted by these commentator people who looked way out-of-place...but enough of a feel still came through to make a real statement (to me at least). part one of tony's show ended with slow-motion film-footage of delapidated buildings in detroit (shot by tony himself). then came a more organic part of the performance featuring tapes of tony's own video-feedback from previous performances...amazing amazing amazing. tony has mastered feedback in all forms...rings, flashes, color, swirls, etc...it's got to be seen to be believed (who needs expensive computers?). along with the feedback tapes tony showed snippets of computer-animations such as impossibly-complex gears, and the simple vector-graphics games of vectrex (remember asteroids?). i should point out that throughout the entire show tony could move images from monitor to projector and vice-versa...making it really chaotic (in a good way) and difficult to figure out quite what you were looking at. meanwhile, karen's musical backdrop almost overwhelmed tony's visuals, with harsh drones from an old analog korg synthesizer, screetching away beautifully while she played other, softer sounds on a digital keyboard. part two ended in silence, and just as everyone thought it was over (including me), tony began typing something on the screen: a conversation between two disembodied people, asking each other if they are "here." tony ended it for real by creating a huge ;-) on the big screen, and that was it. i'm not sure if people got the technology/humanity theme (especially the end part which didnt work as good as he'd hoped) but there was definitely enough there to allow for some interesting thoughts to come into your head. i think that was tony's point...i dont think he wanted the theme to be too obvious, i think he wanted people to put things together for themselves. finally, came rich ratvasky, who plays music as IHANNOA. his set was the shortest, but everyone wanted more from this techno GOD!!! haha...but seriously, rich has mastered some incredible way of organizing sounds that derives a lot from artists like orbital, yet somehow takes their ideas into new planes entirely. rich bulids up dense, intense layers and complex rhythms, and then creates a seamless mix whose final impression is not complex at all...just moving. even mike poe was bamboozled. tribal elements, smooth, silky chords, phat analog sounds, crisp percussion, touches of jungle syncopation (!)...great stuff. nobody danced, which was beyond my comprehension, but maybe that was ok. maybe no one knew quite how to dance, because his sounds were so unexpected... after this we had an unannounced party at the space, with titonton, powerhouse, jericho mark, and atman spinning. this was my sly way of getting people to go to the show first, by not saying anything about an afterparty. unfortunately that didnt work either because there were so few people there in the first place, that the party was mostly empty. OH WELL! but the highlight and main point of the evening was obviously the performances. i hope i've done them justice. so the questions remain: how do i keep doing these events? well, my feelings on the matter are immovable. i'm going to keep doing the ele_ment concerts till i drop, if i have to. i am extremely proud of the first 5 events. each has been held at a different place, spreading a positive energy wherever they have been held. each has been a powerful experience for me and for many of those who have attended. the music at each event has been phenomenal and every artist has devoted time, energy, effort, and love into their performances...lugging all their precious gear out into the elements (pun intended) to play for FREE. that's what these events are really all about. they're about seeing electronic musicians (and visual performers like tony) as artists, despite their lack of "superstar" posture or stage antics...despite the fact that no "real" instruments are involved and it requires no real "musical ability" (supposedly). it's all written by computers, isn't it? ;) from computers and keyboards to guitars, pianos, and violins, they're all just tools of some kind that mean nothing without a musical or artistic mind behind them. these events are trying to call attention to that process of organizing the almost limitless sounds available to electronic musicians (or visual artists, or whatever) into a very personal form which they share with us. i'd like to thank these performers, then, officially, since this is in effect the one year anniversary of these events, and i could not have done _anything_ without the music and environments they've provided, so i dedicate this post to them. for now, i'm not going to answer the real questions about how i can make these ele_ment event work "better," nor how i can reach more of you, or more of the "ravers," or more of whomEVER. if you read this far, i'm not worried about converting you.;) the hard part is to try to convince others that what is going on with these events is worth my effort...and worth noticing and/or supporting, even if from afar. it's these kinds of events (ele_ments or otherwise)--ones that challenge others to meet me halfway (or even 10% of the way!)--that give me my sense of purpose. i'll keep doing them as long as i can, i just need to feel that someone's listening. so now it's up to you to write me and say "phat, keep doing it," or maybe show up, propose something to expand the idea of a "rave" yourself (what a CONCEPT!), or whatever. that's why one of our special events earlier this summer was called ACTIVE NOT PASSIVE. time to act again... thanks for reading. ** the story so far: 17 aug 95 ele_ment 1: (H) hydrogen featured andrew tweed as PORCH rich ratvasky as IHANNOA todd sines and charles noel as A.MBIENCE R.ECOVERY S.YSTEM and was located at the wolfe parke shelterhouse 17 nov 95 ele_ment 2: (He) helium featured TITONTON DUVANTE charles noel as Cr02 todd sines as ENHANCED and was located at the goodale park shelterhouse 29 mar 96 ele_ment 3: (Li) lithium featured myungho choi as SPORE m. christopher jones as M/C/JONES jeff central as CENTRAL INHABITANTS and was located at cafe q 24 may 96 ele_ment 4: (Be) beryllium featured mark gunderson representing THE EVOLUTION CONTROL COMMITTEE D.A.C. CROWELL from illinois charles noel, myself, D.A.C., lance decker, and others as (23) and was located at ives hall, OSU campus 23 aug 96 ele_ment 5: (B) boron featured mike poe as MIDI SLUT visual performance by ARAMOS, assisted by me, with music by karen kreutzfeld rich ratvasky as IHANNOA and was located at a communal house near OSU campus thank you all...those who have helped, those who have come, those who have expressed an interest, and those who wish they had come. coming in mid-november: ele_ment 6: (C) carbon featuring live electronic performances by TITONTON DUVANTE <--**BIG NAME** charles noel as ?? <--**MEDIUM-SIZED NAME todd sines as ?? <--**BIG NAME** ++ e d ele-mental.coil.com/