Wanted to report on an excellent SV gig featuring Ira Lightman Mike
Higgins and Mike the drummer - on Tuesday night. These three
characters operate as a band, Mike and Ira as the songwriters (Ira -
words, Mike - music) and their first set with guitar, voice and ceramic
toms/knees & hands represented a selection of recent and not so recent
numbers. Their music combining great expressive power with subtle
modulations of space and silence. Their version of the old standard
Jerusalem is impressive - Mike slowly singing and enunciating every
particle of sound and strumming whilst ira declaims - i noticed an
illuminating exchange of bow and spear - intentional or not doesn't
matter.
The lyricism of these works is stunning - the language precise taut and
ringing, yet intimate, revealing.
The second set featured Mike reading his rewriting or writing through of
Wittgenstein's Tractatus - changing all instances of the word language to
music, speech to song and probably some other musical terms too -
prefacing his reading with the thought that Wittgenstein, coming from a
very musical family and fascinated as he was by music suggests this
relation of his ideas to it as well as to language. During this reading Mike
the drummer accompanied on guitar whilst Ira and Shaun (?) played a
curious game entitled Winter Carvings - invented By Mike H.
This was played on an A4 board divided diagonally - one half orange, the
other blue and with small triangular shaped counters of both colours. At
rolls of a 20-sided dice counters were pushed back and forth across the
divide - one player had blue, one orange. Something to do with Fibonnaci
numbers too and the attempt to maintain an equilibrium (?) but anyway
fascinating to watch.
Third set featured Ira performing visual and sound texts from the
impending RWC Postermodern - with Mikes accompanying. I've never
heard ira push his reading so far before - precisely wild - backwards
speech almost to start with - but never far from the incisive articulated
statement, weighed and delievered with exhilaration and humour.
Movement too. An piece featured the words ADDORNOTRACTION (i
think) - the performance played between mike h and Ira batted back and
forth the different patterns of transforming stress - add or NO traction
etc - laugh? YES.
It was excellent to be at certainly one of the best and most various
readings I've seen at The Three Cups - cheers gentlemen!
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