Yesterday's P3 show at Poor David's in Dallas was a mixed affair, for me. Trey figured that about half the performance worked. For an improvising outfit, that's a good hit. The stage was long and thin, so Trey & I were placed at a greater distance from each other than we'd like. The monitoring sound wasn't good. But we are getting to know each other better, particularly in responding together to Pat. Our hunch is that Pat conceptualises form very differently to us, so we are looking to get inside his thinking. Meanwhile, Pat's playing continues to rapidly "improve", integrating the electronics with his playing.
We arrived around 16.00 after a three hour drive. A young man hanging around smiled, & I smiled back. I walked down the road to find a 'phone box & call Toyah, & see what cafes / shops there were. The man followed me calling out my name. As I walked back from the `phone, having left a message on Toyah's answer machine, he reappeared with a friend. Both of them wanted autographs. This, regrettably, was the tenor of my evening.
As I was waiting for the bathroom, one particular pest continued pestering. Finally, dragged down from the wordless heaven where musicians call directly on music, I begged: "Please allow me my space". To which the pest replied that he was applying persistence, implying he was acting in accordance with principle. He confused persistence, a quality one practices in one's personal actions, with harassment - where one constantly, selfishly, carelessly, re-presents an unwanted or rejected demand for attention from another.
Sadly, this coloured my evening. I found myself, yet again, in a not entirely congenial location far from home, yet again confronting egocentric, self-regarding soul-suckers (doubtless sweet & kind in other situations) whose demand for trivial forms of attention compromises & undermines the musical event. I'm beginning to doubt whether I can put up with this for much longer.
I have also received a letter this week from someone in Austin who wants my acknowledgement of their presence at our performances. They call out to me repeatedly, and touch me when I walk on stage.
When I'm at a performance, and moving among the public (otherwise nominally referred to as the "listening community") I don't see anyone. This technique is known as "blocking": no one is personally recognised, received or acknowledged. The ongoing demand for attention drains fine energies which enable me / us to maintain volitional & directed attention, in this example towards the musical event.
There are many forms of blackmail, subtle & very unsubtle, which fans employ to undermine the performer's capacity to maintain their personal sense of presence. This is the energy vampirism referred to years ago by Peter Hammill. The energy of the performer is withdrawn, or illegitimately attracted, and used to feed and strengthen the egotism of the fan.
Readers of Elephant Talk will be familiar with some of these techniques. They are generally presented as "we want something, we have rights to want that something, & Fripp is a creep because he doesn't give it to us". From my side, I have several times responded in detail to the assumptions, inaccuracies & missing facts in the "my encounter with the horrible Fripp" reports. Like, Matt the Tri-Cranial, actually a nice man, never mentioned in his original encounter report that he'd "had a beer too many". In other words, Matt's original posting failed to report that (shortly before his performance) Fripp was avoiding someone not quite sober. And so on. And so on. And so on.
And now off to this evening's leap, with the prayer that triviality doesn't derail the process.
00.42 Lots of fun. Antone's is a good venue: good sound on stage, large enough to open up and small enough to smell the crowd.
"Craft is a universal language."
