WEIRDO MUSICK

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You are a musician--a composer and guitarist. You spent ten years playing jazz and original improvisational music (but NOT New Age, for Christsake!). Your influences were Coryell, McLaughlin, Towner & OREGON, Manitas De Plata, flamenco, classical Indian music, Miles, Coltrane, & ECM. You started playing electric but switched to acoustic because you loved the pure unadulterated sound of the acoustic guitar (especially the nylon string). Did some recording, but not near enough to get used to the studio and the fear that what you put down (including mistakes) will remain forever. (And wasn't the absolute best shit you ever played always done at your house at one in the morning when nobody but your dog was listening?!) But then for whatever reason (maybe practicing seven hours a day had something to do with it) your hands started going bad. First the left; sluggish, recalcitrant. Then the right; loss of control, spastic. Then the pain like a voice saying, "ENOUGH!". "NOT carpal tunnel," said the doctors. Then what? Wore a brace for a year or two. ("Perhaps chronic overuse," they said.) The years go by as it gets worse. What a goat fuck! Sell off all your beautiful guitars as you can no longer play. (Write the literary novel "The Serial Killer's Diet Book" --published in 2001--as one career ends another begins.) So here are some songs from the vault of one man's abbreviated career in music (with commentary by said musician, yours truly).

KEVIN POSTUPACK, June 2008
Staunton, Virginia



1. "Fireheart" (3:45)

Composer--Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitar--Kevin Postupack

The song I would end solo gigs with; my pseudo-flamenco number. Begins in 17/8 with my index finger used as a pick as my old mentor, Al Romanelli, showed me long ago ("Cuz you may lose your pick but you'll never lose your finger!"). At this point as things were getting bad, my left hand cramps up during the hammer-on part, I grit my teeth and soldier on. Cool, violent strumming part near the end in 10/4--more Soundgarden than traditional flamenco. Nice tremolo. After this recording could never play this song again because hands got too bad.





2. "Song For A Friend" (1:33)

Composer--Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitar--Kevin Postupack

Written at the very end of my career, and somehow pulled off a decent recording of it (my last time in the studio). A short jazz ballad with some nice chords (some with killer stretches for those with good hands!). Nice harmonics a la Lenny Breau...




3. "The Power Of Love" (2:16)

Composer--Kevin Postupack
Bass recorder, wind chimes--Kevin Postupack

At times a multi-instrumentalist, this piece was a bass recorder improvisation (with some nice over-blowing and humming) to wind chimes from my front porch.




4."The Cloudwatcher" (2:44)

Composer--Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitar--Kevin Postupack

Lying in the grass on a hot summer day staring at the billowy clouds overhead inspired this jazz ballad. I got the sense of being above the earth with the clouds below, and all I had to do was let go to float away and land in a giant cumulonimbus. (The noise in the background is me breathing. I could never figure out how to record without breathing. Sometimes I even wore a bandanna around my nose and mouth in the studio to keep the noise down. This one sounds good, but some of the other songs from this session took over 50 takes because of the hands' unpredictability.)




5. "The Consciousness Of A Tree" (5:32)

Composer--Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitars, twelve-string guitar, tamboura, wood flute, percussion--Kevin Postupack

Inspired by a hike in the Bitterroot Mountains in Montana, imagining the life and times of a Ponderosa pine on the edge of a mountain. Raga-like, it begins with the tamboura (the Indian drone instrument made from a gourd) and builds throughout with more instruments added until the climax (with some very cool bowed cymbals & various percussion throughout, and a solo on a wood flute that I bought for a dollar-fifty at an Oriental gift shop).




6. "Badlands" (7:52)

Composer--Kevin Postupack
Steel string acoustic guitar, tenor recorder, tin whistle, nylon string guitars--Kevin Postupack

Inspired by a drive out west, the first time I saw the North Dakota badlands appear from out of nowhere! Begins with a super-fast 15/8 picked part, to a fast strum with harmonics, to a slow 13/8 finger-picked pattern and the solos (the tin whistle sounds especially nice).




7. "Mary Had A Little Lamb" (0:32)

Arranged by Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitar--Kevin Postupack

My own jazz arrangement of the traditional song, with some cool Coryellesque harmonics at the end! This was played on the very first guitar I ever owned, a beater Ventura classical bought for fifty bucks when I was a teenager (one of the few guitars I had left at this point).





8. "Variations On A Theme By Robert de Visee" (3:26)

Composer main theme--Robert de Visee (1650-1725)
Composer variations--Kevin Postupack
Nylon string guitar--Kevin Postupack

A set of four variations I wrote for my students at the time, on the 17th century composer's original theme. Recorded when my hands were way too unruly for the demands of classical playing (it was a bitch staying in time, especially during the "counterpoint variation"). Although I loved classical guitar I preferred the freedom of jazz, not only to improvise, but to elaborate on and celebrate mistakes (as Miles did) instead of shunning them. The fourth variation is a "jazz variation" on a theme written 300 years before. Truly amazing, that just a few added notes to the original chords and we're heavily into jazz!




9. "Whitewater" (6:36)

Composer--Kevin Postupack
Steel string acoustic guitars, percussion--Kevin Postupack
Tabla, percussion--Warren Good

A song originally performed by the progressive jazz group ZERO (of which I was a founding member), it was recorded in Ithaca, NY. The opening guitar part was doubled by me in the studio (which was no simple task for a studio neophyte). Warren Good provides the rhythm on tabla drums, plus some nifty bowed cymbal & various & sundry percussive effects.




10. "Shadows & Light" (7:10)

Composer--Kevin Postupack
Steel string acoustic guitars, tenor & alto recorders, percussion--Kevin Postupack
Tabla, percussion--Warren Good
Drums, percussion--Michael Wellen
Acoustic bass--Harry Aceto
Piano--Ron Heerema

Shortly after my father died of cancer this piece was written for him and recorded as part of the Ithaca, NY session. In three parts, the opening section features a tenor recorder solo. Then it goes into the slower middle section in 11/8, with solos from the alto recorder and the guitar. The third section, in a very fast 7/4, features another guitar solo. Percussion highlights include a spaghetti pot partially filled with water, hit and tilted (in the opening few bars), and a discarded piece of a brass lamp (found in the studio's closet) which has a marvelously crisp bell tone (as the first section moves into the second). Having a traditional jazz drummer along with an Indian tabla player gives a nice rhythmic texture to play against (not to mention the warmth and timbre of the upright bass, and the lovely sound of the Steinway acoustic piano).




11. "Voice of Silence" (8:22)

Composer--Kevin Postupack
Steel string acoustic guitars, sound sculpture--Kevin Postupack
Tabla--Warren Good

Recorded as part of the Ithaca, NY session, "Voice of Silence" is a raga-like improvisation. The background drone is unique. I knew of these "sound sculptures" by the artist Harry Bertoia, which were parallel copper and beryllium rods of varying lengths on a sounding-board base. When vibrated (usually outside by the wind) they give off a beautiful, haunting, otherworldly sound. So I went to the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, NY and recorded myself manipulating them (since they were inside the museum), and this was used as the background to improvise to on "Voice of Silence". The extended guitar solo is followed by a tabla solo, and the piece ends with an upbeat strumming part in 5/4. (The occasional pops and scratches are because this was originally recorded onto vinyl back in the day.)