Caleb, thanks and yes, I gave my collection of Laughing Clowns LPs to my
youngest brother who passed them on to some young musos who nearly fell
over backwards when they saw them, so I was told.
Since it is no secret to be ashamed of; Louise, Tony Hobbs and myself
shared a house when Tony and Louise were lovers and students in the jazz
course at the Con and myself a student at an avant-garde art college in
Balmain. We also shared an interest in avant-garde music, including
jazz. I remember around this time that Tony made a recording with Jon
Rose, who was then considered an avant-garde improvisational violinist.
(I find myself wanting to hear some of these recordings as well.) I can
also remember giving Louise some money left over from buying my first
Nikon and other photographic gear so she could get a nice flute. These
were days prior to the Laughing Clowns, BTW. Other peek moments I can
remember are the Art Ensemble of Chicago playing live in Chippendale.
Since these first days (half moon hallucinogenic daze) and years as a
young art student when it still appeared possible that one can be an
avant-garde artist, Postmodernism spread a dark and suffocating shadow
of pure formalism and I found myself kicked out of art school for
avant-garde activities outside of the limited choice of abstract
expressionism or conceptual art, both of which demanded only a
reactionary adherence to formal methods and to which my activities
exceeded the limits imposed. I should have known better then to wear a
badge proclaiming homosexual solidarity around a red butterfly I got
when a member of Sydney University Gay Liberation where previously I was
a student in electrical engineering and physics. An avant-garde art
college just was not ready for this. However, when one is still young,
you learn these things the hard way.
It now appears that this dark suffocating lack of air called
Postmodernism is fading quickly to not even a footnote in art history
and us avant-garde students, previously censored by the laws of what
postmodern art considered appropriate behaviour, can come out from the
deep and hidden underground which nurtured our previous existence and so
hence my interest in Louise's latest recordings and compositions which
still in the review articles pass disguised as a cross musical genre
montage, the last vestiges of post-modernist magazine review article
hype yet to be fully destroyed beyond the last postmodern man standing
in the name of avant-garde creation. Long live Archie Shepp. 'trane
africa brass
Also, I would be very interested to hear of any recorded performances
available on CD of the New Zealand composer, Noel Sanders.
On Mon, 2008-11-03 at 18:45 +1100, Caleb Cluff wrote:
> She was a member of the seminal band Laughing Clowns with Ed Kuepper.
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