dennis & the vibraphonette

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

the silo on the banks of the gowanus canal

this past january(2006) the vibraphonette accompanied myself, bruce cawdron, t. griffin and catherine mcrae as we accompanied a short film by jem cohen as part of an evening of "protest" music at issue project room on the banks of the gowanus canal in brooklyn, ny. i brought it over to todd's studio so we could rehearse a bit before the show. i really had no idea what the evening was about until we got there. i saw the film we were playing with, but it didn't seem to relate to anything protesting. then jem introduced the film and mentioned that a similar piece of footage from a moving train was confiscated by homeland security and had not been returned to him yet.

our friend bruce cawdron, from the duo esmerine and also godspeed you! black emperor, brought a few of his idiophones (a sort-of bass marimba and a not-so-high glockenspiel). he also brought along a few bows to get the sounds of the bars without the attack of hitting them. it is something you have to see to completely understand, i think. we couldn't bow the vibraphonette because it is set inside the suitcase and you need the bars to stick out a bit so there's room for the bow. there was a nice contrast between all three - vibraphonette, marimba and glockenspiel. in addition to the excitement of somewhat improvising to the film, there was the added mystery of playing in the dark!

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