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!