[ONGOING] BOX 09: 'Steel City Outsiders and the Institutional Avant-Garde' + 2022 Recap
Hi, all,
It’s been an incredibly busy year, despite a somewhat antisocial, stay-in-the-house-as-much-as-possible tinge. A quick recap:
This time last year, I was editing my first book project, Just For the Record: Conversations with and about "Blue" Gene Tyranny. This book was released this past spring and contains extended interviews from my film of the same name. It’s really a reflection of my favorite part of making the film—interviewing folks like “Blue,” Joan La Barbara, David Grubbs, Jeff Berman, and others. A good bit has happened since the film was released. “Blue” passed away two years ago, shortly after the premiere. Since then, the Unseen Worlds record label released an immaculate six-CD boxset of unreleased work, including one of my favorite pieces, “The Driver’s Son.” I recommend folks pick up a copy or listen online. Then, when the book was released, I spent nearly every night for a month packing books to ship around the world. A few made it to Japan, Amsterdam, Brussels, and the UK, and lots of US book and record stores carried it. The book did (relatively) very well, selling out the first edition. There was a very nice review in The Wire. I’m down to 30 copies of the second (and final, for now) edition. It’s a break-even kind of project for me, an attempt to make the book as nice and as cheap as possible. So, it sells at cost. Dig in while they last.
Watererer veered down the path of making more complicated music. We’ve never been much for choruses, so it’s probably not surprising that our fourth record, released last summer, is more song cycle than pop disc. Genuflections is still available on LP and can be heard here. It’s a very nice, dynamic pressing. We also recorded two more records, both are at the pressing plant. And our 7th record is nearing the finish line. I’m very excited for all this music to reach willing ears. Well, here’s a brand new tune:
Other activities: Else Collective recorded our second record a few weeks ago. It’s very cool. I made some other records: (30) minute-long electronic pieces, electronics and poems with my friend John Boursnell, and a fourth entry in my ethically-gray Library of Congress recordings collage series. Muoysorng Meng and I made a video of a new song. I took photographs of robots for The Robotics Project at CMU.
'Steel City Outsiders and the Institutional Avant-Garde'
The latest BIG DEAL project is season three of the Cut Pathways oral history podcast, which I co-host with Katherine Barbera. This season, “Steel City Outsiders and the Institutional Avant-Garde,” looks at avant-garde arts organizations in Pittsburgh in the 1970s along with some examples of early computer art, computer music, and the emergence of punk culture. There are seven hour-long episodes covering the history of Sally Dixon and the CMOA Film Section, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, the Selma Burke Art Center, and Pitt’s Electronic Music Studio. Each episode has a ton of cool interviews. I think we’re getting better at podcasting, and personally, I’m having an easier time blending in sonic experiments with the narrative.
Have a listen wherever you listen to podcasts. Or here.
The podcast is a project of the Carnegie Mellon University Oral History Program where I’m very happily employed. We logged 15 new oral history interviews last year, and in the late spring, we premiered an hour-long live performance, telling the history of computer science at CMU—at least, the first 30 years. Lots of new oral history-related projects in the planning stages for 2023.
How Things Are Made in a garden
The other other band I’m in is How Things Are Made. We released 80 records in four years and then haven’t released any music since 2020. That changed this fall when we filmed a segment in the Garden artwork at Mattress Factory for WQED. There’s video to prove it, and a record of the live performances. And mark your calendars—we are going to play a four-hour drone set at The Space Upstairs on 04/01/2023.
Peerless City
Last spring, writer Amanda Page and I made the Peerless City documentary.
Portsmouth, Ohio was once the "Peerless City." Enthusiastic boosters promoted the place with a nickname that suited a city that rivaled Cincinnati and Cleveland at the time. In the 1960s, the city adopted the slogan "Where Southern Hospitality Begins." As industry left and the opioid crisis grew, the city became known more for its hard times than anything else. A small band of dedicated citizens began to promote Portsmouth as the "Comeback City." The Peerless City documentary explores the impact a nickname or a slogan can have on a place and the people who live there, while simultaneously giving viewers insight into all the ways the city has stayed "peerless" through the centuries.
There’s no way to watch it yet—it’s making the festival and regional screening rounds—but you should be able to watch it sometime soon.
I’m sure I’m forgetting projects, but that’s the idea. Thanks for reading, watching, and listening.
Happy New Year!
Best,
Dave