as i’ve been putting up posters for geographies #1, i’ve been thinking that maybe the phrase “concert + zine #1″ is a little confusing.
geographies is a zine in which some of the pages are on paper, and some of them unfold in front of you, on stage. some are text that the audience will read at designated times throughout the concert, and some are a piece of live percussion music, either alone or with dance. this concert is “experimental” in every sense of the word. i’ve never tried to integrate a printed zine and a live concert before, and i don’t know exactly how it will work, but i’ll sure have fun trying.
what’s the zine connection? i spent most of my high school and undergrad years as an active part of the zine community, which was a great creative outlet and the means by which i made many dear friends. as a musician and composer, i sometimes envy artists whose work produces a tangible physical product, so i wanted to experience that again for myself, since it’s been about 11 years since my last zine.
if it’s a concert, why all the reading? i find a lot of my old zine habits cropping up in my composing process, and writing is an especially huge part of that, so i wanted to find a way to bring that into the product as well. initially, i considered having the text read aloud, but part of the appeal of zines is the intimacy between creator and reader. holding something in your hands that someone else made with theirs is an intimate act, moreso than reading something on the internet or hearing it read in a roomful of people; i want to give the audience a chance to engage with the text on their own terms and in their own time.
what kind of music is it? i guess you could call it contemporary chamber music, experimental, or something along those lines. most of it is composed and performed by me, all of it uses percussion instruments (mainly drum set, vibraphone, and found objects). it’s not especially loud or noisy, and i think it’s all pretty accessible, whether or not experimental music is your cup of tea.
can i just get a copy of the zine without coming to the concert? sure, but you’ll be missing about half the content.
what’s it about? you should probably just come and find out for yourself.
