More Than One Way to Bang That Can

Spent a few hours listening to the performances at the BANG ON A CAN Marathon 2009 with a friend of mine who has little patience for la sonorité artistique. She described much of what she heard as "beehive music." I had to laugh. She wasn't wrong.

(One composer, Jeppe Just Christensen, played two pairs of amplified coffee grinders. Watch the video.)

Even so, The Smith Quartet seduced me with "White Man Sleeps," by Kevin Volans:

Also, Bill Frisell eventually got to me with his laid-back"Solo":

Repetition breeds familiarity. Maybe familiarity breeds the opposite of contempt ... narcosis? Anyway, it was Phil Kline's "John the Revelator" -- performed by the vocal ensemble Lionheart and the string quartet ETHEL -- that turned out to be what I liked best, even though I'm no fan of churchy music. (Sorry, no video.)

Incidental intelligence: During the performance of Gavin Bryars' "The Sinking of the Titanic," also played by the Smith Quartet, news came that the Titanic's last survivor had just died. I presume the music had nothing to do with it.

Postscript: "Look at these photos," a friend writes, "and think of a bunch of dipshits making music with coffee grinders or Volan's arty little piece appropriating South African tunes to make another of the limp-spined Left's innocuous, feel-good, PC statements (and written about 30 years ago which makes its status as new music rather questionable). Beehive music is a good term for Bang on a Can. It's a collective of yuppie drones and worker bees legitimizing blinkered Honkiness with cute Kultur."

Comments

[infidelapostate]

There are many alternative venues for the BoaC marathon like Symphony Space on the Upper West Side, BAM, or even Miller Theater at Columbia. BoaC might have to slightly alter their format or finances to accommodate these venues, but it would not be a significant problem. They do not have to use the World Financial Center. It is not that BoaC has not been helplessly driven from venue to venue over the years. From the outset, they have consciously catered to the corporate world -- and far more than most other new music organizations,. This ethos has strongly affected their aesthetic and social philosophies. The Reagan era, with its suppression of dissent and strongly commoditized culture, is coming to an end. Downtown Lite has seen its day. A fresh wind is rising.

[boombox]

Could you possibly cite an example of this fresh wind?

[infidelapostate]

Briefly, three examples:
1. The collapse of neo-liberalism and its belief that the marketplace should be the ultimate arbiter of all human endeavor.
2. The election of an African-American president that over time will strengthen new forms of social consciousness that will affect the arts. This new social consciousness will run counter to the aesthetic of narcosis the Downtown has developed over the last 30 years.
3. The increase in funding of the NEA by 50 million which help move America toward the same sort of comprehensive public funding of the arts that ALL other major countries already have. This will weaken the isolated and unrealistic American notion that modern classical should somehow be positioned in the marketplace (which is also part of the Banger ethos.) The music industry will try to stop these developments, but I think the tide is turning against them.

Of course, the changes won’t be very large. Wasn’t it Cage who said that Republicans and Democrats are two branches of the Business Party? American plutocracy will remain intact, but even small changes are better than nothing.

It would be fun to discuss how developments like these and many others might shape the arts world to create a fresh wind, but it is pointless when the intention of the dialog partner is specious, sarcastic condescension. It is exactly this arrogant insularity that has ossified the Downtown scene. Perhaps someone else would like to talk to you.

[boombox]

The founders of Bang on a Can have always been shrewd at finding their way as arts presenters within the capitalist system. Not an easy thing to do when your product is not strictly mainstream. Over the years they've been driven from venue to venue, but they've never been shy about their desire to expand and succeed. 12 years ago the Marathon was at Lincoln Center, which last I looked was indeed a temple of commerce with major corporate sponsors. Tickets then were 20-30 bucks apiece. That they've managed to get the Winter Garden, which seats thousands, made available for a free 12 hour new music concert, and then actually fill the joint...now that would seem a good thing, wouldn't it?

[infidelapostate]

In the process they help legitimize aspects of corporate Manhattan that would be better strongly criticized. We need more artists who would not allow their work to be appropriated in this way. And even more, critical work that the World Financial Center would not even want around. (As an example, one might think back to Diego Rivera and the destruction of one of his murals at the Roosevelt Center.) The Bangers are not naïve; they know what’s going on. There are many views of artistic integrity and social responsibility, but BoaC defines an extreme.

[boombox]

They don't legitimize anything. They're trying to thrive and prosper in the city they live in. I believe their first festival was in an abandoned gas station on Avenue B. And who is appropriating whom here? I think they're taking advantage of a real estate situation.
What's strange here is your constant insinuation that the festival is somehow in league with...well, what? You don't really say. The International Financial Cabal? The War Machine? Sounds like a lot of warmed over 60s dormitory radical talk. Smash the State, man!

[JanH]

One thing I failed to mention but should have, because it is a weird contraction: The Bang on a Can Marathon 2009 was held at a glitzy, glassed-in, marble monument to corporate Manhattan, the World Financial Center Winter Garden. (The Wall Street Journal, for instance, had its newsroom at the World Financial Center for years until Rupert Murdoch bought the paper and moved it to midtown.) With its indoor palm trees and ornate marble interior, the WFC Winter Garden could double as a Southern California shopping mall. Indeed, the Winter Garden "hall" is surrounded by shops designed to delight a shopaholic tourist. (Have a look at the main hall: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Winter_Garden.JPG ) Locating the Marathon there seems to me a contradiction of Bang on a Can's claim to fame. Proof, if you like, that mainstream "brand" has triumphed over "avant-garde" edge.

[JanH]

hmmm... that should be "weird contradiction" ... also Paste the URL for the Winter Garden photo in your browser to see it, i don't think it works from the comment box:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Winter_Garden.JPG

[infidelapostate]

I wonder if this URL will work:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Financial_Center

Note the list of tenants. So many strange bed partners do indeed seem to say something.

[JanH]

Dear Rob Deemer -- You're right when you say my friend's comments could apply to any number of other "artistic endeavors." But you're wrong when you draw the conclusion that he's saying, "people are dying, ergo ... no art." What he's saying is, "People are dying, so let’s have meaningful art." -- JanH

PS -- To linernotesdanny: Winner takes nothing.

[boombox]

Which is still a lame and loaded comment. You can't prove a direct correlation between society's ills and what artists will or should do. Comedy works pretty well in bad times, as tragedy does in good ones. And what, pray tell, is art supposed to "mean" anyway?

[infidelapostate]

What should the music mean? Politically, for BoaC, absolutely nothing. They evolved during the Reagan Era. One of the hallmarks of their work, with rare exception, has been its spectacular obedience.

[linernotesdanny]

Deemer wins.

[Rob Deemer]

First off, kudos to you for bringing a friend to such a festival - more folks should do so. However, I can't tell whether or not you brought her to introduce her to music she hadn't heard before or to give you an excuse to unload some snark.

I'm gonna have to lean towards the latter, since I understand that your blog purports you to bringing some 'tude to arts and culture and since you seemed too happy to cherry-pick the one truly avant-garde performance in the festival...I'll admit, a solo performance on tuned coffee grinders isn't my cup 'o tea either, but I wouldn't bring it up first as representing the entire series. Todd Reynolds, Signal, Victoire, Wu Man and the Bang on the Can All Stars...and you point to the guy experimenting with kitchen appliances.

I'm not sure what puzzles me more - the fact that your friend was surprised at what she heard considering the copious YouTube examples of the various acts on the BoaC website, the fact that your other friend can't see how their rant couldn't be about any number of other musical, theatrical, literary, filmic or artistic endeavors (people are dying, ergo there should be no art), or that HuffPo can't find anyone else to act as a music critic. That one such as yourself has access to such a mechanism in which to discuss our own quickly disappearing culture might suggest a little less 'tude and a little more clue.