Yesterday I pulled the Music from the Once Festival box-set off the shelf intending to attempt to submerge myself in all five discs in one day, as it happened that project failed when I got stuck playing a Donald Scavarda track from the 1962 festival over and over (fans of Axel Dorner’s trumpetings should check out Matrix for Clarinet, prescient stuff). But the point of bringing that up is that it made me notice that the festival venue was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where now resides Hanson Records. I haven’t got a clue just how ‘backwater’ a place Ann Arbor is but it strikes me as an unlikely locale to be weighing into the history of experimental noise music twice in under half a century. Apologies for the pointless digression.
Having written up Romero’s I Know! I Know! a few days ago, I thought I should try to tackle something a bit more typical of his output. I have now listened to Missing Link in several different scenarios and have been pretty alarmed by how different it sounds in each. Romero has rightly gained a solid reputation for his ability to sculpt bass and this tape is all about the low end, so although one of my listens – on a portable boombox – left it feeling rather rather empty, it did reveal the grating metal scrapes that pepper one side and are all but concealed on a decent pair of monitors by the lurching swoops of bass. Romero’s music sets the crockery on my draining board rattling and even vibrates the lampshades, leaving me to wonder what his studio must look like with every object ratchet strapped to the desktop. Even his coffee mug must be metallic so he can sit it on a magnet while he lets rip.
That wasn’t really a review was it? Um.. Two tsunamis of bass collecting all the debris in their path and never losing momentum, but probably not his best.
Hanson
Though I see that this entry was written a couple years ago (I was looking for Donald Scavarda on Google, for personal reasons, when I came across your blog), I feel I must note that Ann Arbor, while a relatively small city, isn't a "backwater" at all. The University Of Michigan, located there, attracts a great many people from around the world; said school has one of the most renowned music schools in the country, which in the past has been an incubator for a great many worthwhile artists, including the ONCE group. The city has long been a safe haven for experimental music. Aside from the ONCE group, obvious exponents include The Stooges (who started in Ann Arbor as a fluxus/Ayler/Harry Partch-informed performance freak troupe before deciding to "rock up" to get a record contract), the original Destroy All Monsters (featuring now-renowned multidisciplinary artists Jim Shaw, Niagara, and Mike Kelley), Couch and a significant portion of the BULB Records stable (incl., of course, Wolf Eyes), and a litany of noise/free improv/experimental/avant performers, composers, and enthusiasts too numerous to mention. Hanson is no longer based in Ann Arbor, incidentally, but it is also just the tip of the iceberg. If you do your homework, you'll see that the Ann Arbor area (nestled about 45 minutes outside of Detroit) has long been a hotbed for radicalism of many stripes.
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