Mood:
lyricalTopic: Live on Stage
What with Christopher Gray having moving away, the SNAFU improv group long since dissolved, and my job in Sna Jose keeping me away from S.F. on weeknights, I've sort of fallen out of the improv arts scene. Tonight was my first stab of 2005 to get back into going to these things. I had thought I wasn't going to be able to go, as I was originally scheduled to be coming back from the CTIA trade show in New Orleans today, but as I cancelled that trip to work in the office, I was around. And, to ensure I got to the show, I made sure I schedules a meeting with developer Ben Lee this afternoon, as that would put me in S.F. near the venue in question.
Bryan Chang, one of my Producers at Namco, joined me for the show, which was held in a theater space called "The Luggage Store", which is above a storefront on a part of Market street just in the transitional zone from tourist trap to transient town.
The main reason I was there was to see/hear a performance of the a capella improv singing group Tonal Chaos, of which above-mentioned Christopher was once a member. They were good as always, making up all kinds of music and tonalities based on suggestions fro the audience. At one point they launched into song by imitating the beep Bryan's cell phone made as he shut the ringer off. They climaxed with a nonsense-word operatic piece.
The were followed by a group called the Board on Inquiry, which consisted of one fellow using mixing board to do odd things with sounds coming from a laptop computer, a toman who sang and made vocal tonalities, and a man who made sounds with everything from a bow on a pipe to a vibrator in a towel pulsing on a drum. It was interesting, but somewhat distracting. i had to close my eyes and let the sound just wash over me. Still, in the end it seemed like Ligeti meets the electronic score for Forbidden Planet, and sounded like the soundtrack to some weird artsy short subject film.
Posted by molyneaux
at 12:01 AM PST
Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 11:30 PM PDT
