The Aleatory Cat

I've started writing micro-columns for localish magazine The Ocelot, in exchange for weeny favors.  I shall put them here, if I remember.  Which I probably won't.  here's the first one, anyway.

In December I saw Stornoway play a set of new material to a tiny crowd in a tent on the grounds of a mental health facility.  I even got a free hot dog.  Yes, I’m living the dream.  The intimate surroundings – not to mention the cascade of fresh, intricately beautiful pop - reminded me of the band’s early Oxford gigs.  Unfortunately, as I’m never one to let a pleasant memory go free without a chaperone of foaming, incandescent rage, it also reminded me of one of the most infuriating things about being involved with grass roots music.

If I tell someone I saw Stornoway, or some other popular act, in, say, the Port Mahon, the response is often, “Wow!  How did you manage that?”.  To which I naturally reply, “Well, there’s a special code that they put on the bottom of posters for gigs by bands that will eventually be famous.  It’s in infrared, so you can only see it if you have a special ocular filter fitted, in a midnight ceremony behind the Oxford ice rink.  You cocking idiot”.

Want to say you saw a famous band first?  Then go out and see some unfamous bands now.  Stands to reason.  And, just maybe, some of the unfamous bands that never become famous will turn out to be even better than those that do.  In fact, I declare that the Band of 2013 to be…any you’ve not heard of.  Go and see them.  They’re great.  Except when they’re dire.  But you’ll be supporting local music either way.

IAN STAPLES/ JACK GOLDSTEIN/ MICHAEL THOMPSON/ MAX LEVY/ ROO BHASIN, Port Mahon, 12.1.13

It doesn’t start well.  Jack Goldstein’s introduction to this John Cage centenary concert contains the word “crazy” at least three times.  The composer may have been many things, good and bad, but crazy isn’t one of them, and we’re concerned that nodding to Cage might have become another safely wacky lifestyle choice, like Jaegerbombs or Movember.  Luckily the performances steer clear of unnecessary theatricality, and the players seem to be honestly interested in Cage’s approach.

Ian Staples’ opening guitar improvisations might not be exactly “Derek Bailey craziness” (thanks, Jack), but they do feature some Baileyesque jarring chords and dampened scrabbles, although some of the best moments are when he drops in tiny hints of roadhouse boogie, the ghost of the blues louring from the fog.  His performance of “Water Walk”, a piece that involves ostensibly non-musical activities such as mixing a drink and turning on radios, is fascinating because we can’t see past the throng to the stage, so we have to take all sounds on their own merits, which is about the Cagiest thing going; oh, and because someone brought a bathtub up the Port’s stairs.

A performance of “Inlets” is less interesting, because the sounds of fire and water are more easily assimilated mentally, and exhibit the “sonic nature ramble” side of Buddhist and mycologist Cage that we’ve never been drawn to.  And although it’s not meant to be laughed at, the famed “4’33””, like most conceptual art, has the structure if not intention of a gag, and as such, fades with repeated exposure.   Half the audience go home after having ticked off “that one without any music”, but those who remain hear the evening’s highlight, in which Max “King Of Cats” Levy reads extracts from Cage’s narrative lecture “Indeterminacy”, accompanied – or perhaps infiltrated – by electronic and concrete sounds from Goldstein and his Fixers colleague Roo Bhasin.  The sententious air of the texts, and Levy’s wonderfully stately, wry intonation make it sound like a stand-up set by Woody Allen’s zen cousin in the corner of Delia Derbyshire’s workshop.  Like the best of Cage’s work it’s both thoughtful and almost avuncularly warm, and half the audience are in the bar.  Crazy.