Gigging Stories: Biker Wedding

My son Zach answered an add in Craig’s list some months ago to play in a Southern Rock cover band.  He eventually talked his younger brother into playing in the band as well.  That my children play in a Southern Rock cover band in Lincoln, Nebraska only serves to confirm Avi’s profound assessment of his heritage:  "I got my sense of wit from my father and my good taste in music from my mother."


We were sitting around the dinner table some time ago discussing their first gig.  It was to be at a biker rally in the small town of Seward, Nebraska.  I was already aware that the drummer - who submitted the Craig’s list add - went by the name “Ogre”.  I began to ask Avi if the drummer’s personal appearance was imposing enough to earn the moniker “Ogre”.  After a brief description, Avi concluded by saying, “Oh, and did I mention that he only has one eye?” 

“Really?!  That is so cool!  You have a one-eyed drummer named ‘Ogre’?!”

“No, not really, I was just teasing you.”

I’m still not quite over that.  My hopes were raised very high.  Avi knows how to lead me on pretty well, and I will take my revenge at some future point. 

The day of the gig arrived, and Jenn and I decided to head to the biker rally at the 4H club in Seward.  Zach was kind enough to pass along a dress code for me.  I was to wear blue jeans and a t-shirt.  I was not to wear socks that didn’t match.  I was not to wear a lime green button down.  I selected a Rolling Stones crew t-shirt that my brother gave to Jennifer from his time working on tours.  Looking back, I’m not sure that Birkenstocks were the best choice for blending in at a biker rally, but they had me pegged as an outsider long before they saw my feet.

We arrived and sat in the front while the opening band was playing.  Avi and Zach came up and pointed Ogre out to us.  Eventually, Ogre made his way up to where we were sitting and introduced himself.  Shortly after meeting him, he said, “I have to go.  One of my brothers is getting married.”  (By “brothers”, he meant one of the other members of the “Nebraska Tribesmen” biker club.) 

“When?”  I asked.

“Right now.”  he said.

“Where?”

“Right here.”

He stepped aside and a couple of biker ladies appeared stretching a paper runner down the bare concrete floor of the 4H club.  It went from the main door to the band stand.  Some music started playing on the sound system and a couple of bikers walked up on the band stand in their traditional clothes.  Black leather jackets over t-shirts, blue jeans, tattoos, lots of pins in the jackets, and amply amounts of facial hair.  The music continued and the maid of honor appeared walking down the aisle with a small bouquet of flowers.

She was wearing pleated shorts of a sort that I had never seen before.  They had rings of pleats that ran horizontally around the shorts.  There were perhaps 10 pleats in all.  As I searched for a description in my mind, I leaned over to Jenn and asked, “What to you call the kind of shorts that she is wearing?” 

“I call them a ‘lampshade’.” she replied.

The pleated shorts were complimented with a black tank top that allowed a plentiful view of her more than ample bosom.  As she was baring so much cleavage coming down the aisle, I briefly thought of the newly released UNL study on the way that women are objectivized into their sexual body parts.  I think I did not objectivize the lampshade.

Soon after the lampshade was in place, the bride came down the aisle.  I learned that in biker culture it is considered acceptable to whistle and make cat calls at the bride as she comes down the aisle.  Alas, like my choice in footwear, it was another area in which I was sadly out of touch with biker culture.

As she arrived on the bandstand, the officiant began.  After a few incomprehensible sentences, the biker gang and their lady friends all started shouting that he needed to use the mic.  He took it and began the service again.  There were a few words of introduction, and it was time for the couple to make promises to each other.

(You can see in the photo that the wedding photographer was thoughtful enough to wear a matching top that complimented the maid of honors' haute couture.)

For her part, the bride had a chair brought forward and asked her affianced to be seated.  Immediately, people began shouting, “Is there going to be a lap dance?”  “Give him a lap dance!”  She took the mic, and music began playing on the speakers again.  Something went wrong and they had to start it over.  The music began a little softer, and the bride – instead of pledging her troth – sang “From this moment”.  The mic fed back right on cue.  It was like a Hollywood movie.  The singing was bad and out of tune like you might expect, but that wasn’t the weirdest part.  There is a point in that song when a modulation happens.  During the modulation, she wasn’t even singing.  She was taking a breath or something.  Nevertheless, when the modulation happened, all the bikers and their biker ladies started cheering for the modulation on the recording.  I’m still not sure what that means.  She came in for the last chorus and broke down as she was singing.  Her biker lady tears got the best of her, and her singing turned into choking sobs that were quite touching. 

With her troth now thoroughly pledged, it was his turn.  He took the mic.  In a gravelly voice he said, “I’m not going to sing.  We’ve been together for a long time.  Nine years.  We’ve been through a lotta shit.  You’ve always stood by me.  I love you.”  It was not romantic in the traditional sense, but there are some aspects of biker culture that are terribly unfamiliar to me.  There is certainly a candor and honesty that I think everyone should appreciate.

The officiant said a few sentences.  They exchanged vows.  There was a kiss that was a little longer and more French than you might see at a traditional wedding, and it was done.  He pronounced them “Missy and Abram” and they left.

As my children began getting their gear set up on the band stand, I unfortunately turned away and missed what had to be one of the more exciting events of the night.  Avi’s girlfriend assured me that the man running sound – everyone called him “Tiny” – had for some incomprehensible reason removed his prosthetic leg on stage and then put it back on.  Shortly after, the sound check was interrupted for an announcement. 

“Only two girls have signed up for the wet t-shirt contest, and we definitely needed some more entries.  Also, we have a silent auction going on in the back, so you all need to go bid on some stuff.”  You know it’s classy when there is a wet t-shirt contest and a silent auction. 

The bride reappeared in her reception outfit.  Ripped bluejeans were supporting a tightly fitted black corset.  She had her own biker lady jacket that said, “Property of Abram” on the back. 

The kids played really well.  I sat in the front row and wore neon orange earplugs.  One of the bikers even complimented me for wearing them.  I’m not sure what that means either, but on this night I was grateful for anything that didn't result in bodily harm to my person.  A compliment on earplugs from a burly biker was just gravy on top.  When they finished their second set, we made a quick exit before the wet t-shirt contest began.

As we drove home, Jenn and I reflected on how many times we have managed to wind up in these surprising situations.  I also complained that we didn’t have a wet t-shirt contest at our wedding reception.  Come to think of it, we didn’t have a silent auction either.

Mostly musicology: sea mammals ultimately responsible for the music at Dionysian orgy?

According to Aristotle and other ancient authorities we have the dithyramb because Arion developed it in Corinth.  Arion flourish from 625 to 600 BCE.  He was born on Lesbos – which is always funny in and of itself.  Even better, we learn from Herodotus that we might have missed out on the dithyramb altogether because we almost lost Arion.  Without him, the Dionysian’s would presumably have had to work themselves into a frenzy using a Pythagorean monochord and an urn.

Arion traveled to Sicily where he won a music competition.  On his return trip, pirates snatched him up in order steal his fabulous prizes.  This, of course, was the last time in history that a musician made enough money at a gig to make it worthwhile to steal from him. They gave him the choice of walking the plank or killing himself and having a land burial.   Naturally, Arion pulled out his axe and started playing his last tune.  His kithara playing and singing was so boss that it attracted some of the music loving dolphins that frequent the Mediterranean. 

When he finished, he hopped into the drink and began to drown.  One of the music loving dolphins rescued him and took him to shore where he eventually managed his way to Corinth and developed the dithyramb so that the Dionysian’s could get themselves worked up using more raucous means.  When you break the string on your monochord the party ends pretty quickly.

Since I grew up watching Flipper, I have long known that no matter how Byzantine and land-based your criminal machinations may be, they are never so labyrinthine that they cannot be foiled by a large sea mammal.  I didn’t know that they had been fighting crime for so long…or that they liked kithara music.   

A brief panegyric for my now departed green sweater

A brief panegyric to my now departed sweater. 

Ironically, my iconic wool knit sweater was purchased in Florida before we moved to Nebraska.  A nice old lady accidentally did the best sales job of her life.  I placed the sweater on and took a few steps away.  She somewhat hesitantly said, “You look sort of like an eccentric college professor in that sweater.”  I immediately purchased it.

I cannot determine the precise point at which the sweater started functioning as a cipher for my personality.  That it did is beyond question.  I would occasional hear a passing suggestion that it was the source of my musical powers.  Like Elijah bestowing his mantle on Elisha, I would occasional temporarily bequeath the sweater to a student during an ear training test.  The place where my personality started and the sweater ended became increasingly difficult to define.

That it was pilling, had holes, was stretched out, and discolored was a source of contention.  I do have people that help to dress me in a presentable fashion – namely, my wife and our female friends.  Now, it is true that ever since a church mistook me for a homeless man and insisted on giving me a bag of food, I have tried to look a little more presentable.  However, on the matter of the sweater, I was absolutely impervious to criticism.  If a man can love a sweater, I loved that sweater; and I defended her imperfections with all my heart.

One of my favorite memories of the sweater was the Halloween when a student showed up dressed as me.  She was wearing an old sweater, a wig to make her hair look unkempt, and a wrinkled v-neck t-shirt.  I immediately confronted her saying, “You have not and will not ever see me wearing a v-neck t-shirt!”  She replied, “I’m sorry Dr. Knecht, I know,…but it was the wrinkly-est shirt that I had.”  “I see.” I replied looking down at my non-pressed “button down.”

More than a month had passed before I realized the sweater was missing.  After more than two years of my wife threatening to throw the sweater in the trash, I noticed it was gone.  When I asked if she had seen it, I received an evasive answer.  “What sweater?  You had a sweater?  I don’t remember…”  It was not long before I discovered that I had left it at a friend’s house.  Before I could retrieve it, my wife convinced our friend to throw the sweater away.

I know that I will eventually get a new sweater.  I know that I may even come to the place where I grow to love a new sweater, but the first sweater that I loved will always hold a special place in my heart.  That she was taken from my by wife and friend in an “intervention” style event obviously means that my relationship with her had grown unhealthy.  That it was an “intervention” only shows that I had a deep emotional attachment to that sweater. 

Naturally, there are no 12-step programs to deal with sweater addiction.  Not that they would work for me.  I still can’t even admit that I have a problem.  As I deal with the mourning process, please feel free to encourage me by adding your own encomiums to the sweater in the response section.

Mostly musicology: some 16th century dating advice for the dance floor

Thoinot Arbeau (1520-1595) was the anagram pen name of Jehan Tabourot (remember j and i are interchangeable).  He wrote about dance and music.  His writing remains a principle source for how the two were combined.  Arbeau believed dance to be good for both “health and…the pleasurable search for a mate.” 

While searching for your mate on the 16th century dance floor, however, he advises that you “spit and blow your nose sparingly”.  Obviously, some spitting is unavoidable and won’t result in maidens being put off too much.  Speaking of the young maids, if you are wearing your 16th century “mead goggles”, Arbeau suggests a plan of action.  When the dance is over, dancers are “permitted to kiss their mistresses…to ascertain if they are shapely or emit an unpleasant odour as of bad meat.”

Nothing causes more regret than getting prematurely emotionally attached to someone that smells like bad meat.  I guess some things are just as true 400 years later.

Music you should hear: David von Kampen

I’m starting a new series of intermittent posts about some composers that I know. 

I have always found David’s music interesting largely because I find his writing so different than mine.  Though I don’t know this for sure, he seems to compose with relative ease.  Since I am in the “brooding composer” tradition, I am regularly envious and fascinated with people who can write with such confidence and surety.  Though every composer has his/her conventions, he seems to write without clichés.  There is a tendency for composers that write quickly to retread a lot of the same ground.  David seems to avoid that. Like so many of the composers of his generation, he is equally at home writing concert and popular music.  With composers that spend a lot of time in jazz culture, I think that sometimes the “cool” and the “interesting” are given precedence over emotional content.  I rarely find that in David’s writing.  I’m not suggesting that everything speaks to me equally, but his writing is always tuneful and engaging.  In any case, it is a musical mind, and you should spend some time on his website getting to know his music.  Just click on his name below.

David von Kampen

La blanca palomica

Here is the premiere of a new piece that was commissioned by my dear friend Tinsley Silcox for the St. Mark's Episcopal School in Dallas, TX.  When the piece was written, I sent it of to Martin Neuman who is one of the singers in the fabulous young group VIP Vokalgruppe.  This recording is from VIP's performance last Tuesday in Eisenstadt, Austria.  The text is from the "Song of the Soul" by San Juan de la Cruz (St. John of the Cross) and the translation is by Dr. Colleen Baade.  VIP is doing it in several European countries this year.  I'm hoping some American conductors decide to pick it up too.

La blanca palomica
    al arca con el ramo se ha tornado
    y ya la tortolica
    al socio deseado
    en las riberas verdes ha hallado.

En soledad vivía,
    y en soledad ha puesto ya su nido,
    y en soledad la guía
    a solas su querido,
    también en soledad de amor herido.

The little white dove has returned with the branch to the ark; and now the sweet turtledove has found her longed-for mate upon the green riverbank.

She lived in solitude, and in solitude she now has built her nest; and in solitude, her beloved guides her alone, likewise in solitude wounded by love.

Love Song or A Prufrock unto myself

 The context for the encounter was appropriately sad.  A beloved English professor had been forced to retire because of poor health.  The honors program at the University decided to give him an award, so they called the students in the honors program and invited us to a reception.

At my University, it was virtually impossible to be a music major and complete the requirements of the honors program.  Most music majors graduated with around 140-150 hrs of credit.  That number didn’t really reflect the fact that my lessons only counted for two hours of credit, but I was practicing three to five hours every day.  I still signed up to be in the honors program though.  I wanted the option to take classes that had long titles like “Asia and the West:  perspectives on life through literature and art” or “Kierkegaard’s influence on Tillich and the Niebuhr brothers”. 


I showed up to the reception as an outsider.  I had taken a few honors courses and one with the retiring professor, but I wasn’t in the circle of students that lived in the honors program.  I saw a table of students, and I recognized two or three from one of my classes.  I sat down and joined in the conversation.  I was introduced to a redheaded girl across the table, and we began to chat. 

Like all conversations among young intellectuals, the conversation could move from highbrow to the gutter with astounding alacrity.  Erudite debates on epistemology come crashing down into fart jokes only to rise again with the next wave of topics.  The professor being honored was quite late to his own reception so there was time to talk.  I jumped into the water and began talking with the redhead. 

She was a creative writing major, and she was mostly interested in poetry. 

“I love poetry too,”  I said.  “Who are some of your favorite poets?”

“Well, I like a lot of different people, but Eliot is probably my favorite.”

“Really?!  I love Eliot.  What’s your favorite poem?”

“Well, I like most of them, except the cat poems, but if I had to pick one, it would probably be “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

“Really?!  That’s my favorite too.  I used to love “The Hollow Men” and “Ash Wednesday”, but “Prufrock” is probably my favorite too.

“Really?!”

At this point, we excitedly started a “quote off”

I looked across the table and said,
“Let us go then, you and I,   
When the evening is spread out against the sky   
Like a patient etherized upon a table;”

She looked back at me and replied,
“In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.”

I said,
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws
 scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

She said,
“For I have known them all already, known them all:   
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,           
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;”

I naturally replied,
“I grow old … I grow old …           
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.   
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?   
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.”

It was right at this point that one of those drastic conversation shifts happened.  Our connection over Prufrock would have to be put on hold because the important topic of conversation at the table had turned to how perfectly awful Lisa was.  Everyone at the table had something to contribute.

“You won’t believe what happened the other day.  We were in Shakespeare class and she was smacking her gum like she always does, and then…”

“Do you know what she did last semester?  Ok, so she had made a list of all her enemies and brought it to class…”

The stories continued.  There were about 10 people at the table.  I desperately wanted to fit in with the group.  I wanted to impress the Prufrock girl.  It was vital that I think of something bad to say about Lisa.  The problem was, I didn’t know Lisa.  I had never been in class with Lisa.  I continued to listen, but became progressively frustrated that I had no fuel to pile on the Lisa fire.  I sulked quietly on the edge of the conversation vainly racking my brain for some memory.

In an instant, the memory came back.  In the Fall semester of that year, a girl that I didn’t know had taken my number out of the honors program directory.  She called me three separate times and asked me out on a date.  I rejected her each time.  Her name was Lisa.  This would be pure gold for the table. I thought,

“I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all.”

I returned to the conversation in triumph.  I looked across the table at the Prufrock girl with a smile and said very loudly, “Oh!  I know the girl you guys are talking about now!  I think I know who Lisa is.  Isn’t that the girl that kept calling me over and over again last semester for a date, but I kept rejecting her.  It was really awkward.  She just kept calling no matter what I said.  Isn't that the girl?”

In an instant, the entire table became as quiet as a pair of ragged claws scuttling on the floors of silent seas.  The redheaded Prufrock girl looked at me with eyes that fixed me in a formulated phrase.  “No,” she said very sheepishly, and clearly flushed.  “That was me.”

I was pinned and wriggling on the wall wondering how I should begin to spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways.  The dreadful silence at the table spoke to the fact that everyone else seated there was quite aware that the redheaded Prufrock girl had made several amorous attempts in my direction.  I made a poor attempt to feign a lack of maliciousness.  “I…was…just asking…for…the purpose of…finding out if….for information…purposes.”  My voice trailed off.  I didn’t believe what I was saying anymore than anyone else.  Fortunately, the awkward silence was broken by the arrival of the professor.  At the end of the presentation, I quickly slipped away.

For the next 2 years, the redheaded Prufrock girl would not look at me when we passed each other on campus.  I would see her purposefully avoiding me and think, "What was I thinking?  Why would I start quoting a melancholy poem about a lack of ability to make real connections with people?" 

In my last semester of undergrad, I had submitted a poem to the student literary journal.  It was an act of courage.  I had submitted a poem my freshman year.  I heard that there was a meeting where they were discussing submissions.  I wandered around an old hall till I found the room.  I was getting ready to enter when I heard someone reading one of the lines of my poem.  The only line I can remember was from a poem about the moon that used the phrase “a tear in the night’s dark”.  They read that and burst out laughing.  They were going through the poem I had written line by line and laughing at each sentence.  As my creative confidence began to collapse in on itself, tears came to my eyes and I quickly exited the building.

In an act of brazen courage, I submitted a new poem my senior year.  I was delighted to find out that it was accepted.  I was shocked to find out that it had been accepted by Lisa – the redheaded Prufrock girl – who was the poetry editor for the journal. 

About a week later, I went up to a computer lab to type up a paper.  The lab was full except for one seat.  As I began walking toward the seat, I noticed that Lisa was sitting at the adjacent computer.  I took a breath and sat down.  I turned to Lisa and said, “Hey, I don’t know if you remember or not, but about three years ago…”

She interrupted me quickly and painfully said, “I remember.”

“I see…well…I just wanted to say that I’m really, really sorry.  I feel bad about it all the time.”

“Don’t worry about it.  It’s in the past.  I have a boyfriend now.  He’s really great.”

“Thank you, and thank you for letting my poem go in the journal.  That is really amazing of you.”

“Well, it’s a good poem.”

“Thanks.”

When the journal was released, we had a reading.  Lisa and I even hung out a little afterward and had a pleasant conversation.  It was nice.  It was clear that we would never be fast friends, but there was a genuine reconciliation. 

And I thought that it had been worth it, after all,   
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,   
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,   
It had been worth while.

I bit of the matter with a smile and made a vow to never recite Prufrock with a girl again.        

Love Song Prequel or How to Get Kicked Out of Sunday School

Love Song (prequel)

Churches that I work for have often sent me to various conferences.  Most of them are fairly terrible, and this one was no exception.  After the usual barrage of bad music and poor speakers, we had a break to meet other people.  I was in attendance with a senior pastor.  As we looked across the room, he spotted another pastor that he knew. 

“Kurt, I’m going to go say hello to my friend over there.”

I looked at the man across the room and was shocked to recognize him. 

“You aren’t going to believe this,” I said.  “I know him too.  He won’t remember me.  He was my Sunday School teacher in 9th grade.  He kicked me out of class for saying that Jesus was a communist.”

“Oh, I’m definitely going to ask him if he knows you.”

He walked across the room and began to chat with his friend.  A few minutes later, he came back.

“Did he remember me?”  I asked.

“Oh, yes.  Right away.”

“Well, what did he say.”

“I said, ‘Hey, I think you know my music director.’ and I pointed you out.  He said, ‘Oh yeah.  I know him.  I kicked him out of Sunday School class when he was in 9th grade because he said Jesus was a communist.’”

I do love that story, and it put me in mind of the terrible time when I made (and simultaneously lost) an intimate connection with a girl over Eliot’s “Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

To be continued…

Aesthetics: reinterpretation and Gershwin

I was listening to the Smiley & West podcast this week. They interviewed the amazing Audra McDonald and spoke about the controversial new adaptation of Porgy and Bess that is currently on Broadway.  The naturally mentioned Sondheim’s vehement reaction (which you can read here.)

They also played a little clip of some of the rewritten music – which sounded perfectly awful – and it put me in mind of many of the other adaptations and re-interpretations that Porgy and Bess has spawned.  I had a particularly bad reaction to the little clip that I heard, but I’ve always been fond of the Ella and Louis versions of songs from the show.  I love the Miles Davis and Gil Evans versions.  There are countless other versions.  It’s a testimony to the structural sturdiness of Gershwin’s writing.  It can handle a tremendous amounts of tectonic shifting without collapsing. 
 
I think Sondheim has some of this right.  Part of the offensiveness of this particular Porgy and Bess is not that it is a new interpretation, but that it is called “Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess” when it is clearly not that. 

I was playing for a particularly well known conductor once, and he openly told the group that he viewed music as “a vehicle to express his own personal emotions”.    This attitude gave him tremendous freedom and latitude to change what the composer wrote in the score in order to better express himself.   So, how far can you go?  He felt free to change tempos and dynamics.  I’ve known some conductors that make changes to voicings and even the endings of pieces.  What percentage of a work has to be altered before it becomes a completely new work?

With my own work, I’ve heard ensembles perform things in ways that were very different than I had conceived them.  Often, I like it.  I like that the works can handle a diversity of interpretations.  It’s the structural sturdiness thing again.  One time, however, an ensemble sent me a recording of a fast piece. They had taken a tempo that was about 50% slower than I had indicated.  It changed the piece into a radically different work. 

The times when I have been most offended have been when a work that I love was “reinterpreted” by someone that truly shouldn’t have been doing it.  A choreographer I used to work with made a vocal arrangement of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and felt free to change the structure of the piece.   I clearly remember thinking, “Who do you think you are?  Why do you feel so free to claim that you know how the music should go better than Copland did?” 

I’m not sure the choreographer was even thinking in those terms, but it clarified the issue for me.  I can handle Miles reworking Gershwin because I respect his musical ability, and I know that he respects the tradition.  I can handle Ella and Louis because when they perform, the focus is not on some self-aggrandizing claim of improving the score and the story.  In other words, I trust them. 

This is particularly important because I’ve also had the experience of someone doing something that I thought was harming the work only to find out later that their "new" conception was actually better than my own.  I learned to walk in a deeper and more patient trust with them afterward. 

It is always difficult to name the precise thing that a conductor or director does that convinces me that the performance is more about his/her own reputation than it is about the music.  I know it when it happens, and when it does, even their “traditional” interpretations of a piece seem less satisfying.  I still play the notes like a professional, but I don’t give myself over to them in the same way.  I don’t trust them to be any more respectful with my emotions than they are with the tradition.