Anyone go to Instal in Glasgow?

"Jandek has never performed in public. He has never willingly given an interview, though a reporter from Texas Monthly tracked him down a few months ago (they chatted about allergies and gardening, and he politely told her that he never wanted to be contacted in person about Jandek by anybody again). "

and now i'm heartbroken too.

http://www.girliepop.com/10.18.04-15_32_42P1010025.jpg

glasgow is getting everything - kan mikami, haino, jandek, borbetomagus etc...wtf I wanna move!

Came in towards the end of the set. Very strange mutant blues. Intense. Reminded me a bit of the Birthday Party/Lydia Lunch 'Honeymoon in Red' album. He seemed to be having fun.

S

I was just there on the Sunday, so I couldn't tell you.

Keiji Haino rocked, of course, though perhaps not quite as much as the other couple of times he's played in Scotland.

S

I didn't even know it was on this year.

but there was boredoms!!!

I don't think Kan Mikami and Keiji Haino's respective styles were hitting it off together particularly well, though the mix of blues and white noise threatened to come out close to Les Rallizes Denudes at times. I liked the one where they both howled like wolves.

S

dec 10, 11, 12

is there a bar in the arches? is it bigger and or nicer than the subcurrent venue, which seemed to v. much be glasgow's answer to the ICA?

ward, yes there are a couple of bars and, yes, it's bigger and nicer than the CCA.

Well, that's one of the most retarded generalisations I've heard for a while. Most music photographers do it because they love the music. You think we do this because we want to be millionaires or something?

Also, without the press a good load of these gigs wouldn't happen. And those who can't make the gig can read/see what it was like. If some tosser with a tripod or flash (I never use either in that situation) ruins your gig then that's bad, but assuming that's what the rest of us is like is just being a dick.

yeah i was right pissed off about that Nina Nastasia phtographer and he clearly had no respect for the people sitting watching (especially those in the front row) as he was to-ing and fro-ing during the (very quiet) opening sections of the gig. "one of the most retarded generalisations ever" is really going some though! ;)

aka barry's girlfriend
wonder if this rule applies to her?

Neil's article was about funding of Scottish music in general, saying the SAC should have more confidence in grassroots promoters, and give them money directly. As for Instal, he argued that it's about time a festival that gets a lot of SAC funding should feature a few more home grown acts. Nobody's saying it shouldn't have the international acts, but it's lacked a local presence in the past, beyond established artists like Richard Youngs etc.

anyway I'm not sure I agree with neil's argument thus put... but don't have the time to articulate just why at the moment

Fer fuckssake, what parochial nonsense. I live here, I can see home grown noise acts any wet Tuesday. I never believed I'd see Merzbow or the Boredoms without taking a flight.

By all means, use my taxes to send Giant Tank(or whomever) to Tokyo (or wherever) on a cultural exchange, but seeing them on the Instal stage isn't ever going to make my day.

My point was that I'd hate to see Instal have token Scoatish acts foisted on them as the price of their SAC funding. I can't see many acts being willing to accept that role either.

The Instal fringe is a really positive development. This year's Instal line up looks particularly strong, and I look forward to the weekend.

Missed Jandek. Guitar blues set, apparently.

Jojo was great, ordinary looking Japanese bloke just raging away on his guitar, and screaming and ranting on top. Sort of like Keiji Haino without the loops and theatrics. Really engaging performer. Ended up throttling his guitar, holding it horizontal with both hands at the top of the neck. We were discussing just what he might be so pissed off about.

Black Boned Angel did an intense one song set, blasting waves of pure guitar noise and thud. Loads of smoke and a great, very 'classic rock' light show.

Up-Tight reminded me more of Rallizes Denudes than the Velvets: poppy, almost bubblegum, songs over completely strung out instrumental mayhem. Extremely cool looking dudes. Where are the CDs and T-Shirts?

All in all, my only complaint would be that I wanted more and louder (though BBA were loud enough to ruffle my shirt!) Great, great, night. We're just so fucking lucky, lucky, lucky to have events like these. Looking forward to tonight.

I think I'd rather go and see your ma, too

sun city girls on stage round of golf was one of the funniest things i have seen in my life. heroes!

hijokaidan were insane... pretty loud... pretty intense

Crazy rock'n'roll performance for sure, never thought I'd see a mosh pit at Instal, though people seemed a bit unsure about the stage diving.

Got my Up-Tight CD, 'Lucrezia' and it's great.

Highlights:
Sun City Girls. Theatre/performance section was hilarious and disturbing, while the masks off, more straightforward gig bit was tremendous too.
Hijokaidan were absolutely nuts. Thank goodness for earplugs. From outside it sounded horrific, but watching them it all made sense. Was intense, but more exhilerating than scary.
Henri Chopin - really quite moving and inspiring to see him up there. Some incredible sounds.
Rohan Orchestra - playful Finnish free jazz.
Birchvilee Cat Motel - very metal!
LMC and Alan Licht - dreamy

Enjoyed pretty much everything. The only major disappointment was Directing Hand. Too many cooks with too many toys. Didn't do Alex Neilson's drumming justice.
Tom Bruno's piano was pretty good, his drumming less so. Reminded me a little too much of the bit in Wayne's World where Garth is trying out the drums in the shop and imagines himself on stage paradiddling away.

everything i did see, though, was great. LMC and alan licht took me a while to get into, because from looking at them it seemed LMC was having a parkinsons seizure and licht was tuning up, but when i decided to just listen it turned out to be the highlight of the fest. that and jandek / licht/ HLM.

Pauline Oliveros and David Dove, on a whole other level from everyone else playing in my opinion. Ms O's workshop was very wonderful and affecting too. lifechanging?... quite possibly.

Henri Chopin. Extremely moving and lovely and funny. still way out there. i thought it raised alot of questions about the nature of performance & liveness too. Cozen Wept.

Hijokaidan. intense, extreme, utterly unbelievable & funny as fuck.

Sun City Girls. yeah man, what stew said.

Black Boned Angel. Deep listening art metal. gorgeous/scary. better than Birchville Cat Motel by some way.

Rohan Orchestri. best Drumming of the festival. funny, again.

Loren Mazzacane-Connors & Alan Licht. did exactly what i expected it to but did it beautifully. as stew said: this was dreamy.

didn't particularly care fr Jandek the first night but sunday was teriffic.

Chopin mainly played and "conducted" a pre-recorded tape of his treated vocalisations, but he added some live sounds from time to time. It took me a little while to get into it, but my fascination gradually changed to love as whole sound worlds emerged, all created by the human voice: hums, moans, pops, breaths, burrs etc

it lasted about 2.5 hours. there were about 40 people in the room all seated in a circle. Pauline O introduced the concepts she works with. she got us to take our shoes off and do some basic meditation excersizes to tune in, teaching us how to listen by connecting with the ground we sat on and to imagine different parts of our bodies and how they can experience sound "inclusively" and not just through our ears.

she then got us to do an excersize that she likes called the "extreme slow walk". it's exactly what you would expect that to be. moving so slowly you become aware of ecery part of your body. if you move slowly enough you can "hear" every part of your foot move.
after we had done this for a bit we had to combine this "extreme slow walk" with the next concept: the "extreme slow song".

we all had to choose a song that had a particular meaning for us - the idea was to take the song and to stretch it out so that every phoneme in the song became protracted beyond recognisablity. we each had to sing our individual extreme slow song while we took our extreme slow walk around the room. you could walk in whatever direction you wanted to but it naturally turned into a cirular walk, some people going in one direction while other went the opposite way.

the sound of those 40 people circling slowly round the room was incredible: an organic drone. your own song's pace, pitch etc. became affected by many things: who you happened to be passing while you sang your next slooooooooow word, the fact that you had to have 2 versions of the song playing simultanously in your head (a normal speed one in order to keep track of what came next! as well as the slow version) also it changed as the drone seemed to approach a kind of communal, natural pace, it's own rises and falls, its own silences. the extreme slow song went on for about 30 minutes, i think, and reached it's own natural ending.

it was very moving and energising!

to finish off we stood in a circle and chanted the word "Kaaaa" while we held the back person to our left (and were being held by the person to our right).

it was all love, baby.

Any word on a Kill Your Timid Notion in Dundee for this year?

only set i didn't really enjoy: tom bruno, who seemed stunningly average to me, both as pianist and drummer

where's the love for rhodri davies + ingar zach, whose opening set on sunday confounded all my expectations (i guess i thought they wld be much more worthy/conventional improv) - incredibly inventive and unusual w/out being gimmicky or whacky - one of my personal highlights

great to see/hear alan licht playing blue humans-esque skronk gtr w/ jandek and hlm - also his incredible anticipation/empathy when playing w/ loren connors

loved the venue, and thought the sound was pretty gd - certainly loud enough for Hijokaidan, who i guess were my faves - white light post-whitehouse shirtless skreeeeeeeeeee hurrah

can't wait until next year

you're right, davies & zach were great... nice hugs & bows at the end...

one of the things I liked best abt Instal was the enthusiasm of the audience. the last time i saw Loren Mazzacane Connors, duetting w/ O'Rourke in a London shithole called the Garage, the knobhead bar chatter totally drowned out the first half of their set. this time round everybody was blimey LISTENING and digging the tunage and applauding and whooping rather than being all snooty and cool = result

(i r jealous of u all. its awesome and RIGHT that chopin is getting the love here)