Had this one on the calendar since it hit in early spring. A firth of Fred Frith at the Firehouse, on a Friday of all things. Frith has a storied but under the radar career. An experimental guitarist of the “prepared” school, Fred started his career in England in the late 60s with the art rock outfit Henry Cow. HC put out a few records adorned with just a picture of a crocheted sock, no title or band name, this act of self-sabotage insured their anonymity and doomed any financial success. Maybe that was the point, put one of these sock records on the turntable and you are assaulted with sounds that straddled prog and avant garde. Too weird for the Floydian or Crimsonian prog heads and (I’m assuming) too young for the Cage and Stockhausen classicists, the Cow disbanded. Frith went on to create fresh guitar workouts in the 70s, the 1974 Guitar Solos record attaining cult status. Moving to NYC and immersing himself in the NoWave downtown scene, Frith found like-minded music savants like Zorn and Laswell. An in demand fringe musical mind, Fred played on a few Eno and Residents records which would cement his CV. He moved to California and settled into Professor status at Mills College. Last year he composed 50, a fifty year tribute to the Guitar Solos record which topped many fringe best of lists. This evening had Fred on solo guitar. Playing it on his lap made for poor visibility, especially with a capacity crowd. I was left to imagine how these sounds were made, which was impossible. The acoustics of this space are top rate and Fred had an uncanny ability to inhabit foreground and background. One sequence sounded like seagulls, while another sounded like the execution of Charlie Brown’s teacher. Tapping, scraping, dragging chains over the strings, made for quite the incomprehensible racket. One sequence had vocal fragments followed by low moaning. All sounds were looped and phased. Showing all his wares, one passage had a beautiful almost Japanese koto lilt, while another had him outright shredding. The timing whiplash was impressive. He also had this ability to play with the tuning pegs while looping which resulted in a woozy liquid sequence. Fred Frith may not be a household name, but in my household he has been a thread that binds many musical excursions.
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