Manuel Gottsching performs E2-E4 live in NYC Aug. 15th

one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't things, i guess...

world premiere of A Crimson Grail (Outdoor Version)

In addition, the work has been extensively revised to suit the dynamics of the park's outdoor acoustic

doesn't seem like they would have done it inside even w/ more lead time

Hmm, from what I've read, they had St. Paul's ready for a performance space on Friday. Sounds like they had to make a decision by noon, and decided to stay optimistic and take their chances w/ the weather.

They practiced at St. Paul the night before and by all guitarist accounts it sounded great. Oh wellz.

yeah, i heard some of the guitarists say something about a noon decision as well.

guess I wuz wrong

"Alright I'm going to be the first to chime in here - how about telling us it was cancelled before sitting through an hour of gottsching. I respect him, don't get me wrong, but I did not go to sit through an hour of dance music surrounded by people thinking they were at bonnaroo. They should have done it unplugged, even with electric guitars, it would have sounded better than nothing." Anonymous 1

"i'm so effing pissed off that they made me sit through an hour of monotonous as hell gottsching. it was torture and then only to be told that the guitar performance was NOT going to happen, when the VERY well could have told us that it was cancelled before making us sit through that misery." Anonymous 2

"There were contingency plans to play the whole thing in the church with a smaller audience but they kept it outside hope against hope (hi Robert Poss). Weather forecasts are more accurate now than Woodstock and I was pretty surprised at the decision." Hugh

"sh!t, i was one of the 200 guitarists that was supposed to play in this, and *i'm* pissed about sitting through that show. we gave up 3 nights for rehearsals, were there for soundcheck at 1pm on friday, and then stood in the rain for 4 hours...and then through that endless E2-E4 b.s. show...
there was a contingency in place (the show would have happened at st. paul) but they had to make the decision about the choice of venue at noon due to all the equipment & people involved. i still can't believe, however, that they didn't have a way of dealing with the weather. i'm no electrician, but..." Anonymous 3

how are rhys chatham fans such idiots?

rolling Dr Morbius @ Brooklyn Vegan thread

This is pretty terrible.. although given how rainy the summers can be in NYC, I'm guessing they had no choice but to cancel. Sounds like an indoor Plan-B didn't pan out. :(

LOL at Gottsching haters tho

i'm no electrician, but..." Anonymous 3

but what? you could have fixed it? i would love to see that!

i'm no electrician, but i wish i knew enough to electrocute myself as penance for dissing e2-e4..." Anonymous 3

LOLOLOLOL

LOL at Gottsching haters tho

My guess is that plenty of the people hating Gottsching went in part to see E2-E4. I know I did and really loved the first 1/2 hour, even with about 300 umbrellas flapping around in front of me. But the guitar stuff ... I had two separate people describe it the same way: "It was like he was bored in his dorm room, hit the Graffix, sunk into a couch, turned on the TV and put it on mute, and then just kinda jammed out for 30 minutes."

I mean, this is great for Gottsching because he can finally start touring the US jamband circuit and open for Sound Tribe Sector 9 and start getting paid in hetty crystals and Mayan calendar pamphlets.

have you heard E2-E4, Jamesy?

Worst moment was when Gottsching got up and picked up the guitar.

First half-hour was pretty enjoyable, but the guitar made no sense.

That's probably a huge "no."

THAT GNARLS BARKLEY SHOW WAS FUN BUT THAT "CRAZY" SONG MADE NO SENSE.

what was this infamous guitar part?? you know the recording has guitar solo for second 1/2 hour too right???

did he play a bad solo or what?

well I can't sit through about 90% of his guitar playing, I only came around to his late 70's stuff through the sequencer-only tracks on Private Tapes. since it's just him on stage, I can imagine how the one-dude-on-stage doing a fusion guitar solo for 30 minutes could have been totally maddening, especially if they'd turned out for Chatham

in high school I really took all the late Ashra & Tangerine Dream records for total garbage, partially because they glutted the electronic music bins I'd comb through hoping for solo Cluster records & all you'd find is three copies of 'exit', when I got to my old aged thirties I got sentimental & went back to check & in the end I kept these:

Kazoo 5:39 Belle Alliance
Lotus Parts I-IV 16:52 Blackouts
Niemand lacht Rueckwarts 12:06 The Private Tapes Vol. 4
Eloquentes Weisel 28:58 The Private Tapes Vol. 1 - *****

ok i get that ppl were disappointed about the chatham - i was, too - but couldn't they get over the guitar for 2 min to listen to all the other stuff going on in the piece? it's not like it's some super-showy in your face solo that doesn't let you hear the rest of the music.

can't wait for "manuel gottsching rocks"

Exit is great, Milton!

the private tapes are very daunting to me. i'll do an s/d thread.

S/D: Manuel Gottsching's (Manuel Göttsching/ Ash Ra Tempel/ Ashra) Private Tapes

in these days of online plenty the good TD moments have grown on me a lot, but just imagine young-angry-high-school guy trying to find even just one copy of Zuckerzeit in 1986 and finding only endless Kitaro and three more copies of Ricochet

xpost elan the two sequencer-only tracks from Private Tapes are the two I mentioned upthread

The irony is that the Chatham piece, A Crimson Grail, is very similar to Gottsching's 1975 solo album, as far as sounding cold, ambient, and/or "new age"-y. Both the Chatham and Gottsching albums are wonderful. You can buy the Italian performance of Chatham's A Crimson Glory which came out on CD two years or so ago.

All respect to whoever organized this Chatham thing, especially the scalability.. this must bite.

But, is there a guaranteed dry and comfortable weather period in NYC?

If not, WHY do people schedule huge ensembles outside *without cover* if they know there's a chance it could be rained out on any given day? I understand the purpose of this Chatham performance was to be the first *outside* performance of A Crimson Grail, but did no one think about putting the musicians under some sort of guaranteed covering like in a mini-amphitheater setting?

(sorry, A Crimson Grail above)

Göttsching live in London in September:

http://ovalspace.co.uk/portfolio/0509-oval-space-music-and-need2soul-present-manuel-gottsching-and-schwarzmann-henrik-schwarz-ame-live/

huh that might be fun

I'm listeing to E2-E4 for the first time and thinking to myself "why the heck haven't I heard this years ago????!?!?!?!?!?! what's wrong with you octobeard?!!!"

I'm not even 20 minutes in and I'm floored. 1984? This sounds better than many seminal 1994 albums. WTF.

And he performed this live less than a decade ago?

sooooo good

vinyl reissues of e2-e4 and ash ra tempel in the coming months

good!! mine has an unfortunate scratch right in the first few seconds.

I thought we had a dedicated E2-E4 thread, but I guess this is it (rather than revive a second Steve Hillage thread in a week which might be a bit too much Steve Hillage for anyone) but maybe I should search for an Ash Ra Tempel thread instead, I dunno. I just wanted to read more about the piece.

One of my colleagues at work selected E2-E4 for one of their ~Mystery Desert Island Discs~ (I'm pretty sure it's someone else from IT, but not 100%) and I hadn't listened to it in like a decade so I found it on YouTube and my overwhelming feeling within the first five minutes is just AAAAAWWWWWW YEAH! So here for this! Gimme that krauty synthy goodness! For as long as it takes!

I wish I cared about chess more, but I have just never cared for games.