"pianist... will move between four instruments as he performs his 48 Fugues for Frank..."
Hoodoo
December 31, 2009
http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/arts/time-for-an-exotic-bent/2009/12/30/1261982334248.html
Hobart's fledgling art party is back for a second helping, writes Andrew
Darby.
After the boats leave and the waterfront is cleared of yachties, the
Taste of Tasmania food stalls fold and the frenzy-on-the-grass Falls
Festival is a sweet memory, a new show slides on to the Hobart summer stage.
To the delight of by now cash-strapped locals, and to their bemusement,
it is largely free. MONA FOMA is to Hobart what The Adventures of
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was to Alice Springs. A very exotic bird.
[snip]
Ritchie explains that Cale's offerings embody this MONA FOMA: the
intersection between performance and visual art. So there will be
Grandmaster Flash, the first DJ to make turntables an instrument,
spinning away with his hip-hop in a wharf shed that will separately
screen the cinematic musical meanderings of Decoder Ring. Around the
docks at the University Art School a group called Pursuit will spend a
week with people who want to make their own bicycle-powered musical
instruments work in concert. And inside the sandstone dungeon of the
colonial Bond Store, the pianist Michael Kieran Harvey will move between
four instruments as he performs his 48 Fugues for Frank, a homage to the
life and work of Frank Zappa.
[snip]
--
"Think with your dipstick, Jimmy."
Look up the word 'dive' in the dictionary.
After the initial definitions regarding
aquatic and aeronautical topics, you'll
see a photo of this joint.
Hoodoo
Rosemary Sorensen
From: The Australian
January 01, 2010 12:00AM
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/pianist-michael-kieran-harvey-gives-hobart-a-taste-of-frank-zappa/story-e6frg8n6-1225815113757
THE conduct of a composer, how they lead their life, does not compromise
their music, Michael Kieran Harvey says. The pianist has played vast
amounts of Liszt (whose grand love affairs provide context for his
ecstatic compositions), and is a specialist in the music of Messiaen
(who, some critics claim, wrote some of his big works out of sexual
frustration).
What can trouble Harvey's appreciation, however, is when someone whose
thinking or actions he despises takes pleasure in a composer's work.
He's not thinking of Hitler's infamous and much debated love of Wagner's
music, but of Russian-American writer Ayn Rand's professed admiration
for Tchaikovsky.
"Music doesn't have boundaries," Harvey says, "it either works or it
doesn't. But while I can't comment on other people's lives (being in a
glasshouse myself), there is music I can't listen to or play because of
the associations. Tchaikovsky was Ayn Rand's favourite composer and
that's an association I can't get rid of enough to look at the music
dispassionately."
In the case of Frank Zappa, the misanthropic American experimental
rocker who died in 1993, Harvey happily dismisses the "reams of stuff
that don't work", and ignores the stagey attention-seeking porn-rock
that made Zappa's celebrity.
"You do have prejudices," he says. "As far as I'm concerned, there was
the misogynist aspect to Zappa, but equally he was a misanthrope, having
a go at anything he deemed pretentious, and that has clouded
appreciation of him."
For Harvey, Zappa's desire to challenge moralising power and
sanctimonious authority absolves him of blame. Besides, he says, Zappa
knew what all great artists know: that art "gives life its meaning, and
you can't ask for more than that, really".
Harvey has been paying homage to Zappa for most of his career, and he
adds another page to that chapter of his life story this month, when he
performs at the Museum of Old and New Art Festival of Music and Art in
Tasmania.
Teaming with artist, poet and fellow Zappa fanatic, Arjun von Caemmerer,
Harvey will perform 48 Fugues for Frank, a homage to Zappa he says could
be conceived as a "slap in the face" to the anti-romantic Zappa, but one
he believes will make a connection between Zappa's musical style and
that of the European tradition.
"The pieces," Harvey says, "are my personal ingestion of his styles.
They're very energetic and fun for me to play. Whether they are fun to
listen to, I suspect not, but Arjun likes them."
Von Caemmerer has created Lingua Franka, concrete poetry in homage to
Zappa. Musician Leigh Hobba (once a roadie with Zappa and the Mothers of
Invention) is working with four young artists, Michele Lee, Rob
O'Connor, Mat Ward and Aedan Howlett, to "reinterpret" the concrete
poems. The event will be a moveable feast, as the audience shifts
between the four floors of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery's Bond
Store, built in the 1820s by convicts, and now a slightly spooky
heritage building.
When he first became aware of other Zappaphiles in Hobart -- through
Ward's guerilla-art stickers of Zappa's distinctive moustachioed face
that appeared on walls around Hobart -- Harvey says he was reassured:
"There's intelligent life in Hobart."
Originally asked by festival curator Brian Ritchie to play a program of
French piano music, Harvey put forward instead this collaboration with
other Zappaphiles. He was confident he would find a sympathetic ear in
Ritchie, a former member of the Violent Femmes who has played alongside
drummers who played in Zappa's band.
Harvey has lived in Hobart since 2003, partly because of the milder
climate, although he is still on staff at the Australian National
Academy of Music in Melbourne. That institution hit the funding-cut wall
in 2009, and was almost declared surplus to Australian music training
requirements, before a last-minute reprieve from the federal government.
Harvey declares himself fatalistic about ANAM's future. Its
almost-demise tells us much about "art and how it's valued in this
particular culture", he says, unable to keep the angry cynicism out of
his voice when he adds, "if it's not necessary according to the bulk of
Australians, then it doesn't deserve to stick around, I guess".
He firmly believes, however, that "elitism in art is the sign of a
civilised society".
Harvey has told the story many times about how he accidentally won the
world's richest piano competition in 1993. He had entered, he says, only
because he wanted an excuse to go to California, where Zappa lived, to
ask for the rights to perform one of Zappa's piano works.
Teaching at the Victorian College of the Arts, he had tried to put on a
concert there, because Zappa's music, "bridging the gaps between
notation and improvisation", was perfect for students, he says.
But Zappa's lawyers got wind of the impending concert and delivered him
a stern letter warning against breaching copyright.
Harvey understood why the rights to Zappa's music were so closely
guarded, but he was keen to both clear the slightly bad air the VCA
contretemps had left behind, and to get, for himself, the right to play
and pay homage to Zappa's music.
Zappa died on the day Harvey, then 32, triumphed in the Ivo Pogorelich
International Solo Piano Competition (playing Carl Vine's Piano Sonata),
and the pianist never met him, but somehow he has never quite shaken the
connection. He admits he "sort of lost interest" after he did succeed in
recording that piano piece (on a 2001 album called Storm Sight,
alongside works by Carl Vine, Peter Macek and Tim Dargaville), thinking
the homage was done and dusted. But when von Caemmerer turned up on his
doorstep, saying he had never heard a better rendition of Ruth Is
Sleeping, Harvey's Zappa bug stirred again.
"Music was the most important thing to Zappa," Harvey says, "but he was
also a lone voice up against most of the establishment in America,
during the 1980s in particular.
"The ability of people to have the courage of their convictions, not to
accept majority censorship, is very important to me.
"I see him as this modern-day character pushing moral and artistic
boundaries, and when you do that, you're always going to get flack. He's
like the Marquis de Sade, who in despite of and because of the
incredible censorship against him, people still read, because there's
this great intellect behind the work."
Michael Kieran Harvey's 48 Fugues for Frank, with concrete poetry by
Arjun von Caemmerer, is performed free at the Bond Store, Tasmanian
Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, January 13-17. To register for tickets,
go to www.mofo.net.au.
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Perth Now,
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Charles Ulrich
wrote:
> Originally asked by festival curator Brian Ritchie to play a program of
> French piano music, Harvey put forward instead this collaboration with
> other Zappaphiles. He was confident he would find a sympathetic ear in
> Ritchie, a former member of the Violent Femmes who has played alongside
> drummers who played in Zappa's band.
Which ones, you ask?
From <http://www.idiotbastard.com/News/PressRelease1.htm>:
> MOFO curator Brian Ritchie (who once played in a band with original Mothers
> of Invention members Jimmy Carl Black and Don Preston) approached Michael to
> perform works of a prominent French composer.
Back to Hoodoo's post:
> Michael Kieran Harvey's 48 Fugues for Frank, with concrete poetry by
> Arjun von Caemmerer, is performed free at the Bond Store, Tasmanian
> Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, January 13-17. To register for tickets,
> go to www.mofo.net.au.
Sounds interesting, but I don't think I'll be able to make it.
--Charles
Hoodoo
(Central Standard Time), spoke thusly:
>> Brian Ritchie,...
>> a former member of the Violent Femmes who has played alongside
>> drummers who played in Zappa's band.
>
> Which ones, you ask?
>
> From <http://www.idiotbastard.com/News/PressRelease1.htm>:
>
>> MOFO curator Brian Ritchie (who once played in a band with original Mothers
>> of Invention members Jimmy Carl Black and Don Preston) approached Michael to
>> perform works of a prominent French composer.
As stated at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Femmes>, "The Violent
Femmes were an American alternative rock band, formed in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, in 1980."
Also on that webpage is the mention that, "They were discovered by James
Honeyman-Scott (of The Pretenders) on August 23, 1981, when the band was
busking on a street corner in front of the Oriental Theatre, the
Milwaukee venue that The Pretenders would be playing later that night."
What brings back memories to me is that, on the webpage at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Theatre_%28Milwaukee%29>, is the
following bit of information: "The theater is the world record holder
for continual showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It has played
as a Saturday midnight movie since January 1978."
Due to the Oriental having presented Rocky Horror continuously for so
many years, I have attended showings of the cult film at that venue
perhaps 10 or more times.
"Let's do the time warp again."
>> Michael Kieran Harvey's 48 Fugues for Frank, with concrete poetry by
>> Arjun von Caemmerer, is performed free at the Bond Store, Tasmanian
>> Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, January 13-17. To register for tickets,
>> go to www.mofo.net.au.
> Sounds interesting, but I don't think I'll be able to make it.
Hobart, Indiana would be doable for me, but, Hobart in Tasmania is a tad
further away from my residence.
Charles Ulrich
wrote:
> Also on that webpage is the mention that, "They were discovered by James
> Honeyman-Scott (of The Pretenders) on August 23, 1981, when the band was
> busking on a street corner in front of the Oriental Theatre, the
> Milwaukee venue that The Pretenders would be playing later that night."
I used to live a couple of blocks from there. I narrowly escaped being
hooked on Oriental Drugs.
--Charles
Hoodoo
> In article <4B3D6BC9...@spamcop.net>, Hoodoo <hoo...@spamcop.net>
I don't know if you're kidding or not. Because, the Oriental Pharmacy
was a popular business establishment right next door.
"Death of a Corner Drugstore" tells a bigger story
http://www.onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/brooke.html
More about the theater, from
http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/Milwaukee/OrientalTheatre.htm
�One of the 10 Best Movie Theatres in America� (2009) - Moving Pictures
Magazine
�One of the 10 Best Movie Theatres in America� (2005) - Entertainment Weekly
One of Travelocity's 2005 "Local Secrets, Big Finds" in Wisconsin -
Travelocity
Best Make-Out Spot (2004) - OnMilwaukee.com
Best Movie Theatre (2003) - Shepherd Express Metro
Best Movie Theatre (2001-1993 Reader's Choice) - Shepherd Express Metro
Favorite Milwaukee Area Movie Theatre (2001 Web Browser Poll) -
OnMilwaukee.com
computeruser
news:4B3DBA78...@spamcop.net...
> Charles Ulrich <ulr...@sfu.ca>, on Fri Jan 01 2010 00:34:17 GMT-0600
> (Central Standard Time), spoke thusly:
>
>> In article <4B3D6BC9...@spamcop.net>, Hoodoo <hoo...@spamcop.net>
>> wrote:
>>> Also on that webpage is the mention that, "They were discovered by James
>>> Honeyman-Scott (of The Pretenders) on August 23, 1981, when the band was
>>> busking on a street corner in front of the Oriental Theatre, the
>>> Milwaukee venue that The Pretenders would be playing later that night."
>
>> I used to live a couple of blocks from there. I narrowly escaped being
>> hooked on Oriental Drugs.
Anyone here own any Oriental Rugs?
> I don't know if you're kidding or not. Because, the Oriental Pharmacy was
> a popular business establishment right next door.
>
> "Death of a Corner Drugstore" tells a bigger story
> http://www.onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/brooke.html
>
>
> More about the theater, from
> http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/Milwaukee/OrientalTheatre.htm
>
> �One of the 10 Best Movie Theatres in America� (2009) - Moving Pictures
> Magazine
> �One of the 10 Best Movie Theatres in America� (2005) - Entertainment
Charles Ulrich
wrote:
> Charles Ulrich <ulr...@sfu.ca>, on Fri Jan 01 2010 00:34:17 GMT-0600
> (Central Standard Time), spoke thusly:
>
> > In article <4B3D6BC9...@spamcop.net>, Hoodoo <hoo...@spamcop.net>
> > wrote:
> >> Also on that webpage is the mention that, "They were discovered by James
> >> Honeyman-Scott (of The Pretenders) on August 23, 1981, when the band was
> >> busking on a street corner in front of the Oriental Theatre, the
> >> Milwaukee venue that The Pretenders would be playing later that night."
>
> > I used to live a couple of blocks from there. I narrowly escaped being
> > hooked on Oriental Drugs.
>
> I don't know if you're kidding or not. Because, the Oriental Pharmacy
> was a popular business establishment right next door.
I taught at UWM in 1987/1988 and lived on N. Oakland Ave. near E. Thomas
Ave.
> "Death of a Corner Drugstore" tells a bigger story
> http://www.onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/brooke.html
But it doesn't mention the t-shirts
<http://www.onmilwaukee.com/market/articles/eastsidetshirts.html>.
--Charles
Martin Gregorie
> Anyone here own any Oriental Rugs?
>
You want any Kashmiris, Bob?
--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |
Dave Wilcher
>
> Anyone here own any Oriental Rugs?
I own a Sears' Oriental Rug!
dave
--
The only weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration ever found
were my bongs. - Tommy Chong
Strictly Commercial
> I used to live a couple of blocks from there. I narrowly escaped being
> hooked on Oriental Drugs.
And so you moved to Vancouver, where you'd get another chance.
Rollo
Hoodoo
(Central Standard Time), spoke thusly:
>>>> Also on that webpage is the mention that, "They were discovered
>>>> by James Honeyman-Scott (of The Pretenders) on August 23, 1981,
>>>> when the band was busking on a street corner in front of the
>>>> Oriental Theatre, the Milwaukee venue that The Pretenders would
>>>> be playing later that night."
>>> I used to live a couple of blocks from there. I narrowly escaped
>>> being hooked on Oriental Drugs.|
>> I don't know if you're kidding or not. Because, the Oriental
>> Pharmacy was a popular business establishment right next door.
> I taught at UWM in 1987/1988 and lived on N. Oakland Ave. near E.
> Thomas Ave.
I don't recall you ever mentioning that before. Cool.
I grew up near State Fair Park. During my late teens and early 20's,
friends and I would visit the East Side for various forms of
entertainment. From taking in movies at the Oriental or Downer theaters,
visiting various businesses on Brady Street and earning the right to
say, "I closed Wolski's." Around 15 years ago I obtained some medical
care at Columbia Hospital near UWM.
>> "Death of a Corner Drugstore" tells a bigger story
>> http://www.onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/brooke.html
>
> But it doesn't mention the t-shirts
> <http://www.onmilwaukee.com/market/articles/eastsidetshirts.html>.
I remember seeing them but I never obtained one.
I moved away from the Milwaukee metropolitan area about 15 years ago.
With today being New Year's Day, I recalled the Milwaukee Polar Bear
Club whose members jump into Lake Michigan every January 1st. 30 years
ago I worked with the president of the club who has held that position
for 55 years. I was surprised to learn today that a documentary film was
made about him several years ago.
Garth mentions in the film that he has great grip strength in his hands.
His is the strongest hand grip I ever encountered. Amazingly strong for
his diminutive size.
View the teaser video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddz5A1jeABE
April 27, 2007
This is a preview for a 16-minute documentary short about the life of
Garth Gaskey. Garth is the 77-year old president of the Milwaukee Polar
Bear Club who plans to make his 55th consecutive jump into the icy
waters of Lake Michigan this New Year's Day. We follow Garth for six
months, searching for the reasons behind the seemingly bizarre actions
of The Oldest Polar Bear.
View the full-length video at http://www.vimeo.com/5500288