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Nightlife Shots by John Carta |
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Connecticut Will Fund Fest |
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by Pete Walrath
The Connecticut Film Festival (CTFF) picked up some momentum last month, as state lawmakers announced the approval of $50,000 in the form of a matching grant which will go towards this year’s festival. The state funds come in addition to—and contingent upon—the allocation of $65,000 in public funds which the City of Danbury’s Common Council has agreed to put towards the event. The independent film-industry showcase will culminate in Danbury next summer from June 2 to June 7.
The funding was announced at a press conference September 15 by state Rep. Jason Bartlett, D-Bethel, and House Speaker James Amann, D-Milford. Local officials were also present, including Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, Western Connecticut State University President James Schmotter, and Danbury CityCenter manager Andrea Gartner.
Schmotter spoke about the pending completion of the University’s new fine arts center, which has received over $90 million in state funding. Schmotter voiced his desire to gear new curriculum towards training for job opportunities which would arise as a result of the Film Festival and other such collaborations.
Gartner was jubilant, “I truly believe we are galvanizing energy to bring back our downtown,” she stated.
Festival director Tom Carruthers spoke about the festival’s role in helping the state further its goal of becoming the major destination for film production on the east coast. He also said that a major focus of the this year’s event would be the production of music and digital media.
Perhaps fittingly, the press conference was held inside the lobby of the long-dormant Palace Theater on Main Street. The Palace has been showing its own signs of life lately. The most recent of those came in the form of an announcement last month by property owner Joe DaSilva that a portion of the venue will soon be available for rental. According to a recent article in the News-Times, DaSilva plans to rent the lobby as a facility in which to hold corporate and private events. The lobby has a capacity of over 400 people, a fraction of the entire theater’s capacity were it restored to a level of functionality. Ironically, the CTFF recently became the first such group to make use of the facility in decades, having held a portion of this year’s festivities there.
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HCI pushing the boundaries at the Knitting Factory |
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by Conor Andrews
What Is Music?
What is music? One could say that music is sound assembled by man through rhythm, melody, harmony and dynamics. One could say a lot of things about music at this point in history. The sonic boundaries of American music and its subsequent realms—blues, jazz, rock, soul, hip-hop, etc—have been expanding and intermingling since their inception. With each passing trend, the thirst for something new returns; and new generations of creative minds draw their influence from an ever deepening well of recorded sounds.
This envelope-pushing progression culminated, to this reporter’s ears, on the fateful night of September 6, 2008. As Hanna wrought her howling tempest upon Danbury, only those concert-goers with true grit were to be found out and about to see what there was to be seen. For most, Blue Öyster Cult for free was a no-brainer. But for an adventurous few, the Hat City Intuitive’s CD Release Party at the Heirloom Arts Theater was just was the doctor ordered.
With an ominous set of “medieval drone noise,” the duo Salves (pronounced SAL-vis) opened the night from the stage using a strange combination of ethnic acoustic instruments played over a throbbing sequence of beats. Heirloom favorites the Open Star Clusters followed with their raucous spastic freak rock right on the floor. With their ever morphing stage plot, it’s hard to know what to expect from the Open Star Clusters. This night had them in what may be their most cohesive form yet—a more traditional bass, drums, guitar and synth/percussion—and the show was all the more balanced for it, as it proved to be one of only two semi-conventional (rock) set ups of the evening.
Shortly after the Clusters smashed their way through a brief set, a brooding low register sound began to emanate out of the right side of the theater. Looking down from the balcony, one could see a vast array of pedals, loopers, tape machines and mixers all tied up in a rat’s nest of cables and hooked up into an isolated sound system; Oak was beginning what seemed like an endless quest into the depth of a drone. Layers upon layers of sound were added to this singular tone, growing ever louder and seeming to change in a hypnotically subtle way, holding everyone in a trance.
Then came the Hat City Intuitive. A cool blue covered the stage as they embarked on what turned out to be a seamless journey through a myriad of musical countries. Traditional devices, like rhythm and melody, would come and go; what remained was the music. They never stopped playing from the first to last note, though the band switched instruments frequently. To classify the music would be an exercise in futility no matter how clear a hint they would drop to a familiar style. There was obvious communication, indeed, intuition, that steered them boldly from syncopation to chaos and back again.
As the mesmerized listeners elicited their cheers for these Danbury veterans of free music, it seemed a near impossible act to follow, when suddenly another noise came out of the corner. There was no time to think. The solo act A Snake In the Garden (VT) had begun what looked like a desperate battle with his instrument. The instrument was what appeared to be a folded piece of sheet metal containing a tape recorder, some random metal janglies and a contact mic. He knelt in front of this thing and wrestled with it, creating thunderous screeching noises as the contact mic fed a frightening chain of effects. It was a truly primal, almost terrifying sound. We stood in awe as, similarly to Oak, he built layers upon layers of explosive drones and flashes that could have been the soundtrack to a supernova. And just as it seemed as though the threshold had been met, the instinct to run and hide becoming very real, he pulled the plug and it all disappeared, save for one very gentle violin-like tone that echoed into silence. A fitting end to a most ear-challenging evening.
So what is music? Rhythm, melody, harmony and dynamics, yes. And while it is safe to say that much of what exists in the avant-garde seems carelessly thrown together, there does remain a certain sound-scape that defies traditional parameters of music, and does so with integrity. Perhaps in Danbury more than most places do we know this, being that Charles Ives and other notable sonic pioneers hail from here. Maybe it’s something in the water. Whatever the case, definitely keep an eye out for HCI’s new album “A Ticket To Decay,” the Open Star Clusters and the frequent avant-garde happenings at the Heirloom. After all, your ears deserve a run for their money once in a while.
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