HEADS UP, sax seekers! Venue is now Laura's Coffee on Pacific, down the street from the Saltaire -- head towards the water, then turn left on Pacific!
Flash back 15 years ago, to 2009. The Cobalt is still Vancouver's Hardcore Bar, as run by wendythirteen. On this particular night, Mr. Chi Pig is bussing tables, as usual, but he's theatrically sticking his fingers in his ears, because it's a Wednesday, and the music being made onstage registers to him as aggravating, unnecessary noise. Being rejected by Chi only adds to the amusement to some of us; we've come there for that noise, and we're enjoying it (and Chi's irritation) plenty.
Fake Jazz Wednesdays -- probably a name borrowed from an offhand comment that John Lurie made about the kind of music his band the Lounge Lizards performed, or perhaps separately and spontaneously generated by Fake Jazz founders Jeremy van Wyck (of Shearing Pinx) and Bill Batt (of Stamina Mantis) -- was just one showcase for experimental music in the city around that time, a jazzier side of which can be found at 1067, a venue located in a disused office space at 1067 Granville, where local instrumentalists like JP Carter performed in projects like the Inhabitants (I'm pretty sure Zubot and Dawson used to play there now and then too). There were No Wave bands like the Mutators performing at below-ground venues like the Emergency Room -- subject of a 2008 compilation -- or the Secret Location, and there was some overlap with more "above-ground" arts organizations like Vancouver New Music and the Western Front, with some performers moving from space to space. But Fake Jazz -- because the people were younger, because the venue was more colourful, and because the music more unpredictably weird, less enfranchised -- was always my personal favourite option for Wednesday night weirdness.
It was a very fertile scene, a very creative scene, and an interesting moment in Vancouver's musical evolution. It didn't exactly explode into anything -- it's the sort of pocket like the MoDaMu scene of the 1980s that existed outside mainstream awareness, with influence and impact mostly felt by the people involved -- but it nurtured some very creative people who made some very intriguing music, surviving somewhat under-the-radar for several years. Some of the key players are still active, musically -- van Wyck will be playing in Earthball, his new avant-rock project, at this year's jazz fest (he told me, unless I got this wrong, that "Earthball" prefers to be one word, though it is seldom given as such); Anju Singh, who later became one of the co-organizers of Fake Jazz, is mostly involved in the metal scene, but will be doing an avant-garde/ improvised score for a film, A Page of Madness, at the VIFF Centre with improvising noise artist Harlow McFarlane (Sistrenatus, Funerary Call).
And for awhile there -- a thing I wrote for the Wire may have helped, in fact -- Fake Jazz was a destination for visiting avant-gardists to blow some steam out of their ears. Swedish-heavy hitter Mats Gustafsson played there (weirdly enough, he'll be performing at the Vault, the space in Nanaimo that van Wyck books, on June 18th, in a duo offshoot of his current project The End). American guitar/ banjo genius Eugene Chadbourne led an unruly rave-up there with storied Dutch wildman/ drummer Han Bennink. And by coincidence, both appearances involved the same saxophone powerhouse: Darren Williams.
Williams -- previously interviewed by me here, about his gigs with Chadbourne -- played with at least two different bands back then. My favourite was The Sorrow And The Pity, with drummer/ vocalist Dave Chokroun -- interviewed by me here, back in 2008 (sadly, I can find no video or audio evidence online of The Sorrow And The Pity's works; they were very, very funny, with acerbic/ ironic lyrical rants and punkish drum frenzies, punctuated by Williams' skronky, explosive saxmanship; they self-released at least two CDrs worth of music, maybe more, but how you might hear them now, I cannot say).Then there was Robots on Fire, a larger unit (drummer Kenton Loewen might have been involved, with Chokroun on bass and Williams on sax and maybe someone else besides...? It's been awhile, and I usually saw them in unusual permutations, with people like Gustafsson, Bennink, and Chadbourne distracting me, so I'm not sure I have a full grasp on the membership). Those were the high points of my Fake Jazz experiences (smoking some pot outside the Cobalt with Han Bennink was particularly fun: "Do you want some?"/ "Of course, I'm from Amsterdam!"). Though Ejaculation Death Rattle was pretty special, too...
Despite a move to Kelowna, Darren Williams is still active, and is one of several artists performing at Casse-Tête: A Festival of Experimental Music this coming weekend in White Rock (to my understanding, attendance is free!). I do not know that I have seen him since those days at the Cobalt. Darren took the time to answer a few questions about his career, his upcoming performance, and his new album, Musical Idiot, which was recently released on the Infidels Jazz imprint, which also books live shows around the city, for people curious about other jazz, avant-garde or otherwise, happening around town.
...so here's an interview with Darren Williams, and a new chance to see him live, FOR FREE, as part of a weekend's worth of unusual musics in White Rock. See the bottom of the article for the schedule!
Darren: Dave Chokroun is now Olive Shakur and uses they/them pronouns. Olive has been making incredible music in a project called Dark Dials and recently in the beautiful jazz combo Big Shoulders. Olive is doing quite well - we played in a trio with Kenton Loewen at 8 East the night before my Musical Idiot album release show in Vancouver on Feb. 5th of this year. The album was released on The Infidels Jazz label, as coordinated by the tireless and devoted Tim Reinert. Tim is the hardest working concert presenter I know and he is absolutely dedicated to the presentation of jazz, free jazz, and avant-garde stuff in Vancouver.
The last Robots On Fire show was at the Vancouver International JazzFest in 2013 (definitely a high point!) Olive and I haven't done anything with The Sorrow And The Pity since about then, either. Newer things are afoot, but I don't think we'd never say never... After all, Olive and I have been making music together for about 25 years, and they've made me a better musician for it.
Allan: Do I recall that you were also doing standup comedy around then? Is that still a thing? (You were in a project called "the Skinny" or something when I was writing for the Skinny...)
Darren: I had been doing comedy on a regular basis from about 2004 - 2010. I loved doing standup and sketch comedy. There are many parallels between good joke/sketch writing and musical composition. Both require an ability with economy, rhythm, cadence, etc. I think some of the best comedians are quite musical in nature, if they're not musicians already. With The Skinny (Jackie Blackmoore, Michael Unger, and myself) we set out to create shows akin to stream of consciousness, one sketch seamlessly morphing into the other, with a lot of nerdy pop references and parody. We got rave reviews at the Victoria and Edmonton Fringe Festivals, as well as performing at the Sketchfests of Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, and San Francisco. I think maybe I'd like to return to comedy in some capacity, maybe standup, and maybe with my horn. When I do my solo concert performances I often tell jokes anyway, first to rest my lip in between songs, and to connect with the audience - comedy has a disarming quality...
Allan: When and why did you relocate to Kelowna? Is there an avant-garde or jazz scene there? (Do you have regular gigs?).
Darren: We've been living in Kelowna for nearly 13 years now, the move was precipitated by my wife taking a job out here as a medical health officer for BC Interior Health. The scene for experimental/avant-garde music is extremely small here. But I have had the good fortune of meeting and working with Michael Woodworth - a deep music nerd devoted to skronk, punk, noise, freejazz, etc. and together we created the Skin And Bones Music Series. Our concert series has been nominated for the Okanagan Arts award and we've had the privilege of hosting concerts by Peter Brötzmann, Nels Cline, Keiji Haino, Eugene Chadbourne, and so many others. Other than that, I play in a couple of rock groups (The Civil Dead, Charlie Handsome and the Brats), as well as a sludge prog outfit called Wizard Meat.
Allan: Curious - do you ever, in the interests of getting work as a sax player, take gigs playing traditional jazz compositions? (I mean no judgment there -- some greats of free jazz like Archie Shepp ended up making some pretty conservative jazz, and I wouldn't hold it against you if, like, you did Sonny Rollins tunes at a jazz bar in Kelowna on weekends, for example -- if, for instance, you were trying to make a living at this... maybe you don't have to?).
Darren: Sure, I have done the more conventional jazz gigs, or orchestral pit jobs. When I graduated with my music degree, I had far too many questions than I did when I first enrolled. For years I had difficulty reconciling straight ahead jazz/bebop/hard bop with free jazz or contemporary improv, non-idiomatic improv, etc. so I largely eschewed jazz. It's only been over these last several years that I've been making a more concerted effort in jazz playing, learning the language (phraseology and theory) to better navigate through the changes (chords.) This has become more the case these last couple of years since I have taken up the baritone saxophone in addition to my tenor. I feel I can find my voice in more conventional jazz through the baritone, of which there are fewer players than those who play alto or tenor. But of course, I love skronk and blowing shit up on the baritone.
Allan: Are the compositions on Musical Idiot all performed "live" with no manipulation, with the extended passages done via circular breathing?
Darren: Most of the tracks are done as 1 take, recorded "live." There are no overdubs, or multitracking anything. Some pieces have some edits, where an entire section was composited in when it was appropriate to do so, i.e. there was a convenient pause where there was no sound. Recording, for me, can be a vicious cycle. I worry about getting a good take, a mistake or a glitch happens, I do another take but worry about repeating or making another mistake, and so the worry begins to pile on, driving a fair bit of anxiety. So it was sometimes just better to stitch sections together from different takes as they would have been played in a live concert anyway. "Plastiquitous," for example, has a first section which is very different in character from the second half, which are each from different takes. It just made the recording process easier and less stressful. The fifth track, "Tone And Relative Dynamics In Space (with apologies to Alvin Lucier)" is a series of played back recordings of the initial 20 second sound gesture, but played back inside the saxophone itself through a small speaker, and recorded, with each successive iteration being played back, and becoming more and more distorted. This is based off of Lucier's famous composition "I Am Sitting In A Room." Not something I can easily reproduce live. I should also acknowledge my partner-in-crime John Almas, who recorded me. John was a steady hand that guided me through the recording process and kept me from getting too "in my head" about it all.
Allan: There is something tuneful about "Making Friends with Future Cannibals," like it is riffing on something I can't quite recognize - is there an allusion to something there or is it just a tuneful track? There's also something that could be a rock riff near the end of "I Still Choose Hope," but again, I don't know if that's a riff ON something or if you just have a rock-ish hook in there?)
Darren: I was a guitarist before I was a horn player, listening to and learning the music of Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and many other guitar heroes. Even when I was studying jazz at university there were still more discoveries I made, like the Velvet Underground, The Stooges, Wire, etc. Rock/punk sensibilities have left an indelible mark, and still inform a lot of what I do on the horn.
Allan: Curious about some of the titles. They're very colourful -- especially "Making Friends with Future Cannibals" and "Pictographs are the Bookends of Civilization." Are there any stories about the titles on the album? (I don't know where the fun stories are so I'm just going to go broad on this question).
Darren: I make music without lyrics, so any content, impression, or concept has to be encapsulated in the title. I admit it's also my dry humour in the works.
Allan: Very inspired and very clear that it is a parody. Is there another good story about the recording of the album that you'd like people to know about? (Again, I don't know where the gold is). No physical media, I guess?
Darren: There are actual CDs that can be purchased from my Bandcamp page:
https://darrenwilliams.bandcamp.com/album/musical-idiot
The CD comes with a sticker of the cover that says "CAUTION: MUSICAL IDIOT" and my website url.
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Allan: Tell me about the White Rock gig? When do you go on? Are you sharing the bill with anyone you know or want to say anything about? How long has it been since you played Vancouver?
Darren: I am performing at the Casse-Tête Festival of Experimental Music in White Rock, on the morning of May 26 at 11am at the Saltaire Amphitheatre. This will be a solo performance, I will be doing pieces from my album Musical Idiot, some improvisations/spontaneous compositions, and probably a cover... http://www.cassetetefestival.com/
Full list of artists with venues, times, schedules, courtesy event organizer Jeremy Stewart:
FRIDAY, MAY 24 at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
8 PM – RACHEL KIYO IWAASA
Pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa will perform a selection of music primarily consisting of the compositions of Rodney Sharman.
FRIDAY, MAY 24 at Ocean Park Hall
10 PM – WELCOME TO DEBBY’S
Raghu Lokanathan and Jeremy Stewart will perform their improvisational play about everything that can only happen once.
SATURDAY, MAY 25 at Ocean Park Hall
2:30 PM – FRUITING BODY
This year’s children and families program will involve a participatory collective improvisation led by Fruiting Body.
3:30 PM – SALON CASSE-TETE
Festival artists will gather to speak about their artistic practices.
8 PM – TBC
8:30 PM – MAGAZINIST
An experimental sound art duo performance.
9 PM – BILL HORIST
Seattle improviser Bill Horist is an electric guitarist whose extraordinary inventiveness and originality are well-attested-to in his incredible range of prepared-guitar approaches.
SUNDAY, MAY 26 at Saltaire Amphitheatre – Casse-Tete x White Rock Jazz & Blues Festival Stage
11 AM – DARREN WILLIAMS
Saxophonist and composer Darren Williams pushes the limits of improvisation and extended instrumental technique.
12 PM – TBC
1 PM – REBECCA BRUTON
Rebecca Bruton will perform a solo guitar and voice version of Toronto-based composer Martin Arnold’s chamber work Tam Lin.
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