Night of the Living Drone is on!

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The night of loud, mind-scraping drone-y texture-y immersion-in-sound that I posted about earlier (requesting music suggestions) is officially set now. It will be on Friday, November 30th at 8:30 PM at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. I know it's a longshot, but I'd really love to meet you guys, and if you can make it down here, I think it's going to be pretty intense and fun.

Again, just to remind you, I will be DJing (at very loud volumes) things like Ryoji Ikeda (at least half of '+/-'), Labradford, Fennesz, Maryanne Amacher, Xenakis, Gas, etc. It's going to be about four hours long, and I'm still working on the music selections, so if you have any suggestions you didn't name on the last thread, feel free to make them here.

If you guys have any questions, or need directions, just pop me an email. Sorry in advance for the self-promotion...

― Clarke B., Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes, my suggestion is WHY THE HECK DON'T YOU COME AND DO THIS IN LONDON SO WE CAN ALL JOIN IN! Humph.

― Ugly Wife, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Why don't we do one in London?

― RickyT, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If this turns into one of those "Let's put on a SHOW!!!" threads, I am going to hurl. Maybe we should. I'll book the Betsey, and bring the tremolo pedals if someone else brings the "tone generator" (read: casiotone with the keys glued down). Hah!

― Ugly Wife, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I missed the first thread, sorry.

How about Jean-Francois Laporte's "Mantra" on Metamkine? Bit of a favourite round our way, derived as it is entirely from ice-rink compressor noise. Only 21 minutes long. I only recently acquired one of the Asphodel comps (triple-CD) mentioned on the other thread (4 quid in our local junk store!), so I'm ploughing through that, but I could bung some choice snippets + Laporte on a CD-R if you fancy. Does sound like you've got enough to be going on with though...

E-mail me if interested...

― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

lets do one in london guys - anyone know a free hall?

― bob snoom, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes, actually I do. Plus, I know enough friends with DJ-ing equipment and amplification that it would be very easy to do.

However, on my daily walk down to the River Lee or Lea, I started thinking even bigger and more interesting things. Would it not be fun not just to do a DJ night, but a participatory drone experience? I know enough musicians and/or people with interesting ideas that I had the idea of having a night, part DJing, part performance, but all participatory.

Musicians bring their instruments (stringed, analogue, digital, percussive, whatever), others bring pieces to be played, others bring lighting or visuals, and then everybody sits down in a big circle, and plays D for an hour, LaMonte Young stylee. Or something like that. People wander in and out, join in if they choose, just observe if they choose. The idea just being to create the perfect drone, the hum of the universe. Not a jam session, and all the horrors that invokes, but an attempt to create drone together. I know people off- board who would be fascinated by this idea as well. If there is interest in doing this in London, I will start a thread, provide a working e-mail address, and we should try to set it up. Anyone else interested, or is it totally unworkable?

― Ugly Wife, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes, very much so.

― RickyT, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This reminds of something I saw in college (UC Santa Barbara). There was this older guy who billed himself as the Cosmic Beam Experience (late 70s, cut him some slack) and what the beam was was a steel I- beam, about 20 feet long, strung with wires length-wise, and amplified. He played it with a bow, perhaps also plucking or striking the strings. The resulting sound was loud, with a lot of low-end, probably some distortion too. I had just graduated from prog to punk a year or two earlier, so this was the kind of thing I liked. I think the piece was called "World War III - the Machine That Never Stops." Anyone else ever hear of this guy?

― nickn, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

count me in for london participatory drone. although count me out if you're going to be droning to anyone else's specifications. screw lamont young's "composition". like it wasn't there before he thought of it. duh?

― bob snoom, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I appreciate you guys' enthusiasm, and I think it would be great if this kicked off a world-wide drone... still, if you guys want to plan a London one, could you make a new thread for it? I guess it's kind of late now, but I'd rather try and keep this thread focused on the Williamsburg drone night.

I think it would be awesome, BTW, to work up to a completely live drone, but there's so much recorded music that deserves to be heard at extreme volumes--to be physically felt, really--that I want to do something like this first.

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

SP3 Rollercoaster would be great fun to inflict on the unsuspecting, on and on and on. Building A Rope by Shalabi, Kristen and St Onge. Silence Is Golden Applesauce - Imajinary Friends, A History of Gorilla Warfare - Exhaust, Fare To Get There - Do Make Say Think, Aural Florida - Shalabi Effect.

So I like Constellation records, can you tell?

― Mr Noodles, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you don't mind a random District of Columbian attending, Clarke, I am planning on driving down.

Mark?

― Chris, Thursday, 15 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Chris, that would be awesome... If you need directions, I'll be happy to email them to you.

― Clarke B., Thursday, 15 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nine months pass...

did this london drone thing ever happen?

― toby (tsg20), Monday, 19 August 2002 18:50 (twenty-three years ago)

three years pass...

talking of laporte

http://cec.concordia.ca/econtact/YESA2/

― terry lennox. (gareth), Monday, 2 January 2006 23:15 (twenty years ago)

six years pass...

This reminds of something I saw in college (UC Santa Barbara). There was this older guy who billed himself as the Cosmic Beam Experience (late 70s, cut him some slack) and what the beam was was a steel I- beam, about 20 feet long, strung with wires length-wise, and amplified. He played it with a bow, perhaps also plucking or striking the strings. The resulting sound was loud, with a lot of low-end, probably some distortion too. I had just graduated from prog to punk a year or two earlier, so this was the kind of thing I liked. I think the piece was called "World War III - the Machine That Never Stops." Anyone else ever hear of this guy?
― nickn, Wednesday, November 14, 2001 1:00 AM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Francisco, fantastic underrated work. Even has a great drone pop song (that I just posted in the "that Motorik beat" thread).

This is probably more like what you saw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhydrhDVaEE

― Soundslike, Sunday, 15 July 2012 01:36 (thirteen years ago)

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