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September 30, 2005
Sounds and surprises in SF
Last night was the Other Minds BRINK show at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco. It was a great show and very well attended. Thanks to everyone who came out. One thing stuck out during my portion of the show--namely that the Hemlock Tavern is indeed a tavern. And being a tavern in a hip part of San Francisco means having a cool jukebox that plays all night and many wonderful talkative patrons. Translation: maybe not the best place to perform a work by Alvin Lucier! All kidding aside, it is brilliant Charles Amirkhanian and the folks at Other Minds were bold enough and brave enough to present a new music series in a bar. Nobody can blame them for not trying to reach out to new audiences. That's exactly the type of thinking and action that will do our cause some good. And I'm honored that I was able to take part in a venture like that in a small way.
Sharing the bill with me was sound artist Dorsey Dunn, who is, in fact, himself also a saxophonist. While he didn't bring his saxophone to the show, Dorsey played his set on laptop, which mainly included saxophone samples. So it was an all saxophone night at Hemlock in a way. And maybe it was the saxophone connection--an instant bond of friendship?--that prompted him to let me crash at his apartment for the night since I didn't have a place to stay (or it could also be that he's just a very nice guy!). Honesly, it didn't seem worth it to get a hotel for the night since I've got an early flight. $100+ for 4-5 hours in a hotel? I was just going to head to the airport after the show and wait for my plane. But BART doesn't run that late. And by the time everything was packed and people were talked to and thanked, it was too late. So I'm lucky to have a place to stay tonight that isn't on benches in the airport terminal.
Anyhow, so there were two surprises last night--one pleasant surprise and one completely unexpected surprise. The former was that Heather came out to the show. It was nice to finally put a face with the words I'd been reading on the screen. It's too bad that she happens to be amazingly busy and needed to get up early and that I was desperately trying to sort out how to get the airport. Otherwise I'm sure we would have had a really nice chat.
The big surprise was that someone I hadn't seen in 10 years, since high school, made an appearance. Sam Pomeroy. It was great to see him. And I wish we had longer to catch up. But as he told me as he took his leave, "Ten years is a lot to catch up on in one night." True but I'm glad we made contact again. I'm still not certain how he found out about the gig. Usually, if I'll be in the SF area, I'll post on the forum, which Sam's been known to lurk around, giving him a heads up. But this time I forgot to post, something I remembered only as we were landing at SFO. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Sam was there and it was cool. So Hemlock, BRINK, new music, and unexpected surprises make for a good night. Goodnight.
Originally posted by Brian Sacawa from Brian Sacawa: Sounds Like Now, ReBlogged by jeff on Sep 30, 2005 at 02:09 PM
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