Boxing Day iii
The holiday season is common for bringing people together, coming from more distant lands to gather and reconnect, often near the places of our origins and the haunts of our youth. Our tribe is no exception, as opportunity is taken to reunite and converse with musical and other peculiar voices. For us, Boxing Day has unexpectedly become such a moment over past years, and this year of 2021 is no exception.
Assembling together will be visiting guitarist/bassist Bob "The Whale" Whitlinger, wheeling in from Massachusetts. His appearing will be enthusiastically celebrated and joined by we locals from the eastern suburbs of southwestern Pennsylvania –– including the multi-instrumental spontaneities of the mononymous Jirus, and Buddy Kelly, as well as the monkey wrench guitaring, Ebow and multi-fx of Vincent Saint Clair, and f-less bassist a la Mot and multi-instrumental experimenter Tom Ketterer. However, to be sure, everyone is free to take hold of any sonic conduit available for their expressive whims at any moment. [pictured is the aftermath of one such previous session, including Steev Y'ung on his Zum pedal steel, amongst other things, in place of Bob the Whale]
These sessions are most always recorded in simultaneous digital and analog, often to recycled cassette tape, where the defects and limitations of the medium become part of the performance sonics itself. Pops, clicks, warbles and tape snags, as well as drop outs, and even the ghostly presence or intrusions of a reader from the recycled damaged library book-on-tape can all add to the charm and/or annoying qualities of what free-form avant-guard improvisational music can be.
The last time we engaged with Mr. Whalinger, back in 2019, the primary digital recording was lost through an unknown mishap. There was no cassette recording at that time, but it was this very event of instantaneous digital evaporation that stirred the desire to capture all sessions thereafter in a more corporeal form. For all of the cons of cassette as a "pro" audio media, it largely has, nevertheless, shown fortitude in its ability to persist as archival over my many decades in the craft. And to be sure, in this modern age of many choices, there is a niche of cassette enthusiasts that likewise enjoy the quirks of the medium. -- Largely due to my personal vintage, I posses well over 300 cassettes of original material in the Caffeine Hyway Radio archives. This December 26th will add at least one or two others. :-)
Part of the aim of this Caffeine Hyway Radio website is to make available - largely for free to casual listeners - choice select recordings from this archive of these sorts of improvisational sessions. Additionally, we are open to the idea of their use by any interested film makers or others in search of weird and beautiful music to accompany other ventures. In this more "commercial" sense, such uses can be negotiated for minor remuneration on mutually satisfactory terms. We're easy, and happy to talk to all interested parties.
Looking forward to the next episode....