It was so good to see Al & Deb again after seven years. Deb & Al are  wonderfully nice & delightful people. I'm always just so relaxed at their place. Al is one of my dearest pals in the underground music thing. I have lots of fond memories, from like 14 years or so ago. Receiving his earliest If, Bwana tapes. The beginnings and growth to mega cassette label of Sound Of Pig Music. When he, Carl Howard, Doug Walker, Manny  Theiner others came out to my & Debbie's house in Indianapolis in like May 1987. Our many recordings together as Bwana Dog. Our Dog tour of Brooklyn, Boston, Toronto, Windsor & Memphis in October 1987. And, my last visit in August 1990. And, all those cats! And, those, great, funny, laid-back people upstairs, Dan & Detta Andreana.

    Man I was hungry. So we went to a nearby deli where I got a sandwich of artichokes, sun-dried. tomatoes and provolone cheese on crusty bread. Then coffee & smokes for me and beer for Al.

    The Sound Of Pig Conservatory POGUS Productions headquarters. In addition to lots of musical instruments including a piano board leaning against the wall, there are hundreds & perhaps thousands of cassette tapes from the grand and glorious days of hte cassette scene. And lots & lot of  CDs including boxes of his Pogus label CDs. It's an interesting space to play in it has a kind of cavernous, cryptish kind of feel--not that that is a bad thing.

    All of the stuff on the new Bwana Dog: Receding Hairlines in Brooklyn tape is one-take free improv direct-to-DAT. He has some nice effects units with sampling. We used a fair amount of long delay settings. Also, we used effects that doubled or layered the sounds. And long patterns of  looping samples over which we played. And lots of ring modulation on the MultiVox synth.

    The last piece on the tape, "Everything But The Rowboat",  was actually the first we recorded. I played tombone and Al played electric bass. I felt kind of awkward during it, uneasy.  It's later, when got the master tape from Al, that I really heard the piece for the first time.

    I played the Vako Orchestron on a lot of the tape. It's an interesting old Mellotron-like synth type thing. It was made in St. Petersburg,  Florida. Any way, there these 12-inch record that you slide into a turntable slot under the keyboard. There is a different patch or instrument on each record, like "organ", or "cello", or "voice" whatever. Well, I found out that by slightly raising the tone arm, the sounds kinda warped even further. The Orchestron's sounds were warpy enough to begin with, not to mention heavy use of delay. Yes, I am shameless. The other great thing about the Orchestron was that it had  developed a crackle every time you touched a key. Others may have turned from the instrument when faced with this crisis. But not me. worked the  noisy/static-y/crackle into the thing w playing.

    Al does a great job of engineering, no doubt. But at times when we were recording I couldn't hear what was going on all that well for some reason. I had some anxious moments. But I just let go of all that.  I let go of control just enough. And I went for the sounds. I think that for improvisation to work well, it is necessary for the players to play a mind game on themselves. To shut off  the normal linear discriminatory attitudes. You have to surrender in  a sense to the thing you are creating. You have to listen to it to shape. I find myself asking niyself what is it I should play. The answer is: what it is that the piece requires at that moment. It could be that my silence best serves, perhaps as contrast. Free iinprov pieces have notches, niches, scenes dialoques, segues, twists, tums. Upon listening back distinct & discrete moments and cinematic, sonic vignettes appear. I have likened improv to a cigarette. As the cigarette burns--each moment passes into others. Gone forever, a wisp.

    We chose to record it as we did because of time constraints. Al & I wanted to get a new 60-minute Bwana Dog tape done. The amount of hours necessary to record multi-tracked overdubbed works was not available. And besides, we wanted to have plenty of time just relaxing. Al & Deb & me talking. Pizza, burritos, beers, cigarettes and smoketc. Hanging with Dan & Detta was fun. They're such interesting & amusing people. The conversation is always good. Thanks to all of you for your warm hospitality.

    Doug stopped by for a little while on saturday and chatted. Doug & Al reminisced about weekly hometaper electro music concerts Doug held at his home in Brooklyn back in the late 80s. Carl Howard came by late Saturday afternoon. Me & Carl & Al recorded about 30 minutes of material together. Analog synths & bass along with Casio digital hom and weirded-out violin and bass clarinet. This material is at the beginning of the Goonz 2 cassette. The three of us had never played together as a trio before.

    Al doesn't do very much tape trading any more. Most of his musical activities are centered on his POGUS CD label  He has several excellent CDs available, including two or three by If, Bwana, of  interesting electroacoustis music. Al's Sound Of Pig Music cassette label had a catalogue of over 300 titles when  he discontinued work on it. He has deleted the first 100 SOP tapes, but says that he will make the other 200 and some available to those who want them. Catalogs are available upon request.  I'm not sure how much he charges for the tapes, but they might be like $5 a piece.

    I joked with Al that I got back and wrote up the report on my New York trip for the next HALZine  I'd have to call that issue "The receding Hairline Issue". Most of the people I visited & recorded with are either my age or a few years older. Many of us have a lot more gray hair and/or a lot less hair than in the past, that's for sure. We're aging, us 80s-decade home tapers. Some of us aren't quite as active in the scene as we once were. Some are just interested in different things and have different things they want to accomplish now. However, this kind of music doesn't have an age limit..L.G. & I had discussed, how we could see ourselves as much older men, in our 70s or 80s even, doing htis kind of music!  This kind of music, when it's done, right and with the right attitude can be timeless. Outside of time, in a sense.
Hal McGee July,1997