After a very fine meal and interesting conversation with the denizens of Dream Kitchen, we headed for downtown Philadelphia in my sister, Louise's van, along with her husband Al, sons, Jason and Andrew and Jason's girlfriend, Angie. I declined the invitation to sit in the front seat with the map to navigate for Al, the driver, figuring that with time running short and none of us knowing where we were going, only a spouse would have the courage to shout, "Why didn't you turn back there?" as we whizzed by an exit. Unfortunately, Sister Louise was too soft spoken (or maybe the map was too confusing) and we wound up completely missing the exit to get downtown, and not realizing the mistake until we were several miles north of Philadelphia and rapidly approaching Camden, New Jersey. I was stuck in the middle seat next to a spouse who kept chanting in a not-so-undertone, "We're going to be late. We should have left earlier."
We finally did find the concert at Nexxus, an art gallery (without any art)located in a trendy part of town (meaning formerly run down but rapidly becoming gentrified) and although we were a few minutes late, the concert hadn't started yet.
First up were the incomparable Fishkin Brothers, Daniel and David, playing the saxophone and daxophone duet. Yes, there is such a thing. A daxophone is an amplified piece of wood which Daniel plays with a bow and another piece of wood. He makes his daxophones out of scraps because of environmental concerns about cutting down the rain forest. It sounds pretty much like you think a piece of wood with a microphone attached to it would sound when it is scraped with a violin bow. Fishkin will sell you a daxophone if you are interested, but since you probably won't be able to find a daxophone CD at your local big box store, you might want to hear an excerpt before you invest in one. Here is a snippet of one of the Fishkin pieces, very dark but the best I could do with a digital camera. At least you can hear what it sounds like. (Visually, this video is terrible; the sound has fidelity, if nothing else.)(Okay, so maybe it would benefit from a little less fidelity, but here it is.)
| A sample of the Fishkin Brothers' Sax and Dax duet at the Nexxus Gallery in Philadelphia on December 16, 2006. | |
I have to go to work now. Next up will be a report on the Calloway/Otto duet, along with a video snippet. Please, please don't go away permanently.
6 comments:
I am sure he must have many years of conservatory and graduate education to coax that concluding fart sound out of a piece of found wood. What a genius!!
John, you could have a second career as a reporter--this was every bit as good as being there, I bet!
My favorite part was the Pink Floyd-y riff from 1:06-1:16, but the "good vibration" at the end was a first in the music world, wasn't it? Was it from one of the instruments, or...?
Anonymous, I think if we could have talked him into using a saw instead of a bow, we would have had something.
Jess, you forget that my first career was as a reporter. I left that field for the money.
Last time I heard sounds like that was when my dad hit a Canada goose with our '56 Ford Fairlane. I'm looking forward to your son's contribution. Maybe I'll learn something yet.
Ah, so, it's like riding a bicycle then...
whoa, thanks for the kind words, amishlaw, anonymous, menno, and jess.
check out myspace.com/dandelionfiction for some recent and not so recent audibles.
much love,
daniel
Post a Comment