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Prelude to an Internet article in the key of green
~Iner
Souster |
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The process of building experimental instruments out of junk and common household appliances can at times be an exercise in futility. There are those moments when the junk, (along with the collection of various hardware store parts that you have accumulated during the attempted construction of this so called instrument) just don't really seem to want to work together. It is at this point that I take special care in selecting the largest and most persuasive of hammers. After a few cathartic whacks of said hammer on a completely unrelated piece of junk, I am ready to continue. Often I find myself sitting in my workshop, which is also my spaceship for hours on end, sifting through all the wonderful pieces of "what the heck is that" that have accumulated over the years. Things found on the street, things that the local inhabitants of my neighborhood donate to the cause by leaving their garbage on my doorstep, or at my local watering hole. Broken chairs and video machines are all the craze this summer. Picking up one piece of junk and trying to match it to another can often take hours, but there are also the times when things just fall nicely into place. I once woke from my peaceful slumber with the idea for a frame in my foggy head. With out giving it a second thought I pulled the futon from the spare room and started cutting it into it's predestined lengths. Went back to bed when I was done and woke up a few hours later only to find my futon was gone and my dream was leaning against the wall in my living room. There are also those moments that seem to be created and controlled by the gods themselves. In this case it was my girlfriend. Often when working on project there is a thing called spillover that happens. It is when all of the debris in my spaceship spills over into our living room, and from there to our kitchen. The hallways are always the first casualties of the spillover effect. Anyways this was one of those situations. I was on a three day instrument building bender with very little sleep. This one piece had been dogging me the whole time, and I was quite close to bringing in the hammer. Common sense kicked in and told me to take a nap on the too small to be comfortable couch. This usually helps in the creative processing of junk. So off to sleep I go. When I awoke my lady friend had cleaned up my fantastic mess of a living room and in doing so had placed the not so co-operative piece and all its struggling components in the corner out of the way and in doing so she had solved the problem. All I had to do was bolt it together and add strings. It's just that easy at times. Whether building instruments by design, by accident, or by rage something interesting always comes out in the end. Sometimes interesting can be mind boggling and not very functional. I call those instruments wall pieces. When performing I like to encourage people in the audience to take the instruments off the wall and join in. Or leave them on the wall and play from there. At one show there was this fellow who ran around the bar banging and plucking as many instruments as he could get his hands on. In doing so it helped to encourage others in the audience to do the same. At one point there were around fifteen people with instruments in there hands and this crazy guy running back and forth adding to our sound and overall visuals of the night. It was perhaps one of the best shows I have ever played. Iner Souster |