Strange Strings

Mary Beth and I went to see a play called Succession at Hattiloo in the afternoon. It was pretty good, some flaws, but the main part about running an independent black theater was good. Then at night I went up to Goner for another show. Billy Hayes opened and I hadn't seen him in forever. He did a solo free jazz drum thing though he started off with a mic'd plastic trumpet, skronking the hell out of it. Then it was Bill Nace. I'll make no bones about the fact that Body/Head is the best of the post-Sonic Youth projects, so I was excited to see him. He was playing something that I'll call an "autolute" but I actually have no idea what it was. It may have been a special modified guitar (of sorts). But it was a string instrument with a console on the top of it with buttons and stuff (much like an autoharp, but the acoustic body with the strings longer and not shaped like a harp, kind of like those weird travel guitars, maybe? could have been a guitar with a very modified body, or I'll say lute but I dunno!). Anyway, it sounded cool. It was run through lots of distortion so it sounded a lot like an organ though you could tell there were strings. He played in a style of noisy early minimalism that reminded me a bit of like John Cale's "Sun Blindness Music." Anyway, it was really good. I talked to some people there. Ran into Laura from the Gong Orchestra and met her partner Graham and talked to them a bit. Also talked to Billy some and think I have him on board to play an upcoming show. Then I came home and Mary Beth had ordered some pizza so I got to have some pizza before bed!