some band history
Dave: I’d played solo at the 2002
Meatwaters Festival, doing my songs/spoken-word/guitar/weirdo
thing, and Kieran Monaghan (Meatwaters organizer and mr sterile
frontman) invited me to do something for the 2003 event. I’d
always wanted to play with a big group so that was my
opportunity. I wanted to get a mixture of people from different
backgrounds, with and without musical training, and tried to think
of something that everyone would be able to get behind. John
Coltrane seemed like a good reference point since most of the
local people into ‘interesting music’ (Kieran’s preferred term)
get into Coltrane on some level. Some people have a grasp on the
amazing harmonic structures he’s using, while self-taught punks
like myself can just enjoy the visceral kick. And there’s the
whole thing of Coltrane as a beacon of artistic integrity, always
pushing forwards etc.
So the idea I
came up with was to play something based on his big-band piece
‘Ascension’, since that was kind of his inter-generational summit
meeting. We took the opening melody as a reference point for
people to throw in here and there, and used his structure of
alternating sections of everyone playing at once with solo
sections where each person could make their own individual
statement. Except it didn’t quite work like that on the night; we
didn’t have a rehearsal and so it was a bit chaotic and didn’t
reach as high a level of energy as it could have. Definitely good
in parts though. We had about 12 people in the band, including a
conductor. One interesting phenomenon was that some people who
said they’d be in couldn’t make it on the night, but others joined
in at the last minute. We got Campbell Kneale (aka Birchville Cat
Motel) on drums and Clayton Thomas from Sydney on double bass, so
they were great surprise additions.
So with that performance standing
as an odd curio or interesting failure rather than a brilliant
masterpiece, when Meatwaters 2004 came around I was keen to give
it another try. I kept the Ascension Band name but came up with a
different piece, which was a loose structure in three movements:
first movement everyone improvises together, second movement just
one or two people at a time, third movement big monster rock riff
that I’d come up with years before on a nylon-string acoustic
guitar. I’d been meaning to write a song using it but never did.
So we had a rehearsal this time and played the gig, with about
half the band from the previous year and half new people. Nigel
asked to take over as conductor which was fine by me as he’s got a
lot more ensemble experience than I – I’m not really a musician as
such, more a writer/artist with a guitar, and there are big gaps
in my technical knowledge.
We were lucky enough to have Ian Goldsmith
catch that performance on video, and there was a good sound mix
from the desk so it became the ‘Live 2004’ album on DVD. I’ve
been making on average an album a year since I was 19 (I’m 26
now), and I try to make each one a reaction to & development on
from the last one. My previous album, ‘Loose Autumn Moans’ was
mostly acoustic guitar with a bit of cello, violin and harmonica,
deliberately sparse, so going into electricity & bigness (and
adding the visual dimension) was the logical reaction to that.
It’s going from sepia tones to full colour. But everyone in the
band has their own idea of what it all means, that’s just my
particular angle.
From there it seemed like something
worth keeping going so we’ve been jamming semi-regularly since and
played another gig in December at the Newtown Community Centre
which is kind of our home base. There’s always someone who can’t
make it on a given night but then someone else joins in – it’s
never had the same lineup twice. And now we’re in the Fringe
Festival…
maybe some info on the
meatwaters festival
Dave: Meatwaters is an annual event
organized by Kieran Monaghan who leads the punk/cabaret ensemble
mr sterile. It’s a real mix of
stuff – punk bands, electronica, alt-country, death metal, free
improvisation etc, usually over about three nights. It’s hard to
say what they all have in common but the festival always has a
definite ‘feel’ to it. It’s been going since 2001.
how you actually go about physically
performing (i always find experimental stuff so kinetik and
visual)
Dave: Everyone’s got their own
performance style. It can be anywhere from a full theatrical
presentation with costumes & stage moves down to someone sitting
completely still. Personally I like to move around a bit, I do
get slightly annoyed at a gig when the performers turn their back
to the audience or sit in front of a laptop and their only
movement is the occasional swig of beer. But that’s just personal
preference.
One good thing with Ascension Band
is that there’s such a range of different approaches and
individual styles, in movement as well as sound. We should also
have some video projections to illustrate the piece we’re doing
for these shows (which Nigel can tell you more about).
Nigel: "EVOLUTION" is a five-movement
symphonic piece tracking the history of evolution, and combining a
macro classical form with modern orchestration. It’s basically a
symphony in the standard form - but instead of using violins and
woodwinds etc, we use two electric guitars, two keyboards, two
bass guitars, two vocalists, two trumpets, computer, tone
generator, piano and drums.
"EVOLUTION" draws its sonic palette from
experimental, free-jazz, noise, industrial, punk and contemporary
classical musics. It’s less free-improvised than our
previous performances – it’s an attempt to compose a piece
allowing for improvisation within a macro structure.
Often with modern improvised music the listener is almost
totally reliant on the absolute properties of the music: eg the
new weird and wonderful noises that you never knew that instrument
could make. But by utilizing a programmatic approach we hope to
create a piece of music that is both stimulating in an absolute
context – ie sounds and textures - as well as realisable in a
programmatic context, by telling the story of evolution.
MAIN OBJECTIVE: A REALIZEABLE STATEMENT OF MODERN MUSIC
Nigel Patterson
Composer, Conductor
how you see the wellington fringe festival
(and the musicans involved in the 'happy' scene) fitting in
domestically and on an international scope. creation are actually
planning a christchurch fringe festival for later in the year, so
i guess in general the new zealand underground seems to be pushing
towards fringe culture at the moment.
Dave: The Fringe
seems to be mostly theatre events but there’s always music in it
too. It’s up to anyone who wants to do a show to make something
happen. I’m just hoping we can get a bit of an audience along –
our tickets are cheaper than most other shows so people will
definitely get their money’s worth. It’s also going to be my last
project in NZ for a while as I’m heading over to Melbourne after
the shows, then hopefully further afield to do my OE. Trying to
go out with a bang maybe.
One of the ideas with a big band is that
there are so many interesting musicians in Wellington it would
take months or years to collaborate with all of them, so why not
get them all together at once? Having said that, Ascension Band
contains only a small fraction of the interesting players in town,
and it’s also partly about bringing some new faces onto the scene
(which can look a bit incestuous at times).
As far as the international scene goes,
getting the music out around the world has to be the goal – NZ’s
just too small in terms of number of people who enjoy ‘weird
shit’. It’s something I’m just starting to get into, and it’s not
really any harder than finding an audience locally. The
internet’s a great tool. And there’s bound to be a good album
from these Fringe shows.
On the other hand
playing live is where the most fun is, and that has to be for the
locals & visitors. It would be great to take Ascension Band on
tour later in the year if we could get some funding for it. A
three or four piece band on tour can find couches to stay on, but
a ten or twelve piece would need some outside help. Touring would
be great though - I do feel it’s easy to get blasé in Wellington
since there is a lot of good stuff happening on a regular basis.
The best live venue I’ve come across is the Kaponga Backgammon
Club in South Taranaki. But that’s another story…