It seems the avant-garde’s most memorable and course-altering moments are often the result of group efforts. Consider the storied events that took place at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich during World War I. It was the chaotic genesis of sound poetry, an unlikely coalescing of Futurists and Dadaists, and, some might say, the true invention of the avant-garde. Despite the overt nihilism of that group, they were, under the surface, very concerned with making important works that would change the course of high art forever—maybe by destroying high art altogether. Either way, what really came out of these events was, up to that point, the most forward-thinking art ever created. And it wouldn’t have happened that way if each of these artists had stayed home, drawn the blinds, and holed themselves up to create a silent masterpiece.
A similar ethic is in tow as Thurston Moore—best known as the cofounder of Sonic Youth, but also a purveyor of all sorts of art forms—curates a unique two-night celebration of his 60th birthday at the Walker Art Center this weekend. Like the Dadaists before him, these performances are being made into art pieces of their own, except this group is in search of a true celebratory bliss: rock and roll. An eclectic collection of artists, musicians, poets and others will be convening on the McGuire Theater stage to explore the intersections of their respective fields. Nels Cline, Anne Waldman, Eva Prinz, Daniel Carter, Ambrose Bye, Devin Waldman, Brian Gibson, crys cole, Steve Shelley, Deb Googe, and James Sedwards are all scheduled to perform, though in what context and through what mediums are facts yet to be determined—or at least elucidated to us.
The casual onlooker could glance at this event and expect a night filled exclusively with Sonic Youth classics and
Moore has been performing and recording with the same group of musicians for a few album cycles now: Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth’s longtime drummer), James Sedwards, and Deb Googe, the raucous bassist of legendary shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine. The group has put out a handful of exceptional and varied albums, and you wouldn’t be wrong to suspect a few songs from this super-group next week.
The first key to the rest of these collaborations is the inimitable Anne Waldman. One of the most accomplished poets of her generation—which includes the Beat generation, a group she is closely tied to, and the New York School—Waldman’s influence quickly moved beyond the book as she became a performer, teacher, activist, scholar, and archivist, even going so far as to found the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University alongside Allen Ginsburg. After publishing more than 40 books of varying genres, winning innumerable awards, and being involved in countless projects that advocate for poetry, Waldman has been sitting in legendary status for quite some time now. So what is she doing here with noise rock legend Thurston Moore? It turns out they have a lot in common.
Waldman and Moore are actually frequent collaborators. “Thurston and I got close about 12 years ago; he had come to a poetry reading I was giving downtown in New York with an armful of my books to sign,” said Waldman on her relationship with Moore. “He’s a prodigious scholarly collector and archivist as well as all the rest.” Most of the pair’s collaborations can be found on the website for Fast Speaking Music, which Waldman describes as the “collaborative and collective music and poetry experiment, as well as traveling family band and album label” she founded with her son, Ambrose Bye, who will also be involved in these performances. On Fast Speaking Music’s site, you’ll find a wall of album covers, each as worthy of a listen as the next—from free-jazz and noise-rock–inspired riffs on spoken word that prominently feature Thurston Moore to offerings by a myriad of famous poets and sound artists. As it turns out, Moore is just as much interested in the lyric and poem as he is in rock-and-roll chaos. That’s shouldn’t be a surprise to a true Thurston Moore follower; he’s published works of his own lyrics and poetry with help from Eva Prinz and their collective publishing group. Admiration is mutual between Waldman and Moore: “His own poems are direct observations of things and events and relationships that capture whole vibratory worlds with detail and tenderness,” said Waldman. “I felt an instant rapport with his generous energy and inquisitive discipline.”
Prinz and Moore started their collaborative publishing project, Ecstatic Peace Library, in 2010 as an offshoot of Moore’s similarly named record label from the ’80s, Ecstatic Peace. Together they have published a range of genres, primarily poetic works, but they’ve also branched into art books, dissertations on jazz artists, and rare collections of underground zines from the dark archives of music that avoided the mainstream canon. They’re publishing of a book on Mayhem, the unforgettable Norwegian band that’s often thought of as the first black metal group, is another little glimmer into Moore’s wide range of interests; he’s played with as well as inspired a large community of metal bands throughout his career.
Ambrose Bye is also featured on many of the Fast Speaking Music recordings. Waldman and Bye have a long history of working with each other, a creative relationship that has been as fruitful as it has been forward-thinking. One collaboration in particular, titled “Oasis at Biskra,” features five of the artists performing at the Walker events: Waldman, Bye, Moore, the multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter, and Waldman’s nephew, Devin Brahja Waldman. If you want a potential taste of what might be occurring each night, I’d have a listen to that project in particular.
Devin Brahja Waldman, a saxophonist with proficiencies in percussion and
There is still an air of mystery floating around this program, a thin fog through which can be seen only the vague outlines of prominent figures; what the figures are saying, doing, and creating, can only be discerned from up close. Brian Gibson, half of the long-running experimental band Lightning Bolt, expressed his own unknowingness when asked about his relationship with Moore. “We’ve never collaborated,” said Gibson, “I honestly don’t know what will happen, but I’m hoping something neither of us will expect!” It doesn’t take a music nerd to connect Gibson and Moore in the same thought: each are seemingly inspired by the other, with both artists producing music that uses unflinching energy and punk ethics alongside an avant-garde ethos.
I asked Gibson about Lightning Bolt’s relationship with words, as language takes on an interesting role in the group: often yelled, always distorted. “I suspect for us, it’s about the mere presence of words, and how they magically make a song feel more complete,” said Gibson. “Maybe because it’s a cultural expectation. As an artist I’m always trying to steer as far from words as I can, though. Words can only go so deep, and maybe it’s better when you can’t quite understand them in the context of music.”
Rounding out the artists with backgrounds in rock music comes Nels Cline. Cline is popularly known as the lead guitarist in Wilco, a band he’s been playing
The Moore at 60 lineup is inundated with poetry, ambient sound, and abstract collaborations; no other artist embodies all of these themes with such potency as crys cole. A sound artist and conceptual thinker from Canada, cole’s work has been performed and displayed around the world. “I deeply enjoy the collaborative process,” said cole. “Personally I enjoy the process of challenging myself to always explore new paths and improvising, and collaborating with people contributes to this process as it presents new sounds, ideas, and contexts for me to respond to.” cole is also the director of the send + receive festival, an annual showcase of the best in sound art from around the world, held in Winnipeg each year.
Aside from the already long list of influential artists chosen for these events, Thurston decided to bring a few local artists on board: Dameun Strange and Danez Smith on Friday night, and Sun Yung Shin on Saturday. Strange, like most others on the line-up, is multi-talented. An activist and community-builder by day and musician by night, one would be hard pressed to find someone better suited to represent the Twin Cities arts community. You only need to take a look through his website to find the wide range of accomplishments under his name. One of his goals is to “highlight threads of intersectionality and move communities towards wellness,” a bold statement on which his track record follows through.
Danez Smith is a poet and essayist of increasing popularity. If you’re a reader of poetry, to any extent of that word, and haven’t heard their name yet—well, no, you probably have, and rightly so. Their most recent collection of poems, Don’t Call Us Dead, is a searing indictment of contemporary evil as well as a song of healing for marginalized and mistreated communities in America. They’re one of the many poets who are revitalizing performance poetry in America, and using this newfound spotlight to highlight social justice issues. Smith also believes there’s power and a unique bond between artists, no matter their medium. “I’ve always had musicians in my coven and I don’t see much difference between the work of the musicians, poets, visual artist, dancers, whoever,” explained Smith. “We all use our mediums to explore the same human and impossible questions.” This year, Smith became the youngest writer ever to receive the Forward Prize for Poetry, at the age of 29.
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Danez Smith. Photo: David Hong
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Sun Yung Shin. Photo: Uche Iroegb
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Dameun Strange. Photo courtesy the artist
Saturday night’s poet, Sun Yung Shin, an accomplished writer whose most recent collection of cross-genre literature won a Minnesota Book Award, completes this collection of our home-grown artists. These writers being involved with this event makes me think there is something quite special happening in the Twin Cities today, and that Minneapolis is the perfect place for Moore to hold this celebration. “I love places where the people and the art has its own unique funk,” said Smith. “The Twin Cities is the best place on Earth if you ask me. Thurston knows.”
Thurston Moore’s most recent solo album is titled rock n roll consciousness; on its cover, the word “consciousness” appears on a different line above “rock n roll.” As one considers the many different ways to read or hear the same poem, it isn’t hard to see this small detail as a portal into interpretation. It might feel silly to contemplate this sort of thing, but these are the really interesting questions to ask because they embody the ultimate folly of words: their inability to be exact, clear, and definite when detached from the voice. Despite literature’s long history of trying to do exactly that, the reality is that half of everything written is up to the reader to decide on its message. Is this title one distinct noun? To have a consciousness pervaded by rock ‘n’ roll? Or are they separate phrases—rock ‘n’ roll itself running parallel but apart from the indefinable human consciousness? This might be the purpose of this entire event, to straddle words onto the back of our only true universal language: music. But even music and sound cannot fully realize the sleeping body of words; it can merely build them something to stand on, as they remain unfazed and impassive towards our futile attempts at understanding.
This special two-night celebration really is a complex web of avant-garde artists each practicing within a wide range of genres and mediums. Tracing their histories and collaborations feels like sticking pins and strands of yarn to the wall in a desperate attempt to decode the ultimately pervasive pattern of the universe. In the end, this group levels that wall (and all surrounding walls) in an effort to reveal the chaotic bliss at the center of everything.
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