Post as written from yesterday afternoon.It’s the end of my day here at work and I’m struggling to stay awake. I’ve just come back from one of those meetings where I only participate for 5 minutes, but I have to sit through the entire thing waiting for my bit to come up. Why am I so tired, you ask? It’s because I was up too late last night, but not necessarily by my own hand. I was up late last night because I went to Valencia after work yesterday to attend a concert at Cal Arts. My friend Dom was having a young composer’s concert there with several of his fellow classmates and so out of support my family, Jess and I went down to watch.
I had heard the horror stories of the past when my mom and brother went to previous concerts and heard some strange music, but I knew what to expect. I went to college; I took some music classes and a film class so I know how odd and “out there” these artist-types can be. Eccentric doesn’t even begin to describe some of the people I met at USC, so I wasn’t going to be completely caught off guard by anything out of the ordinary. For the most part that statement was true, but I suppose I never really braced myself properly before the concert started.
The evening started fine with compositions that though weren’t terribly strong, showed intrigue and promise. Dom’s piece was somewhat the climax of the first act with an interesting mix of live performances and electronic music (his instrument in the program was listed as “laptop”). He had three different sections that each had their different tones and I enjoyed it. However, after his piece was over it was all downhill from there.
I cannot give the following scenario justice because it is so difficult to describe the last two performances we witnessed. The next composer played a CD of his composition to which he requested the lights be turned down and for all to close their eyes or lie on the floor (which some guy took too seriously and lay in the aisle until intermission) for a meager 9-minute piece. That was eccentric enough, but the following track was an electronic performance including strange percussive sounds, faint voices, the sounds of a bong, then towards the end maniacal laughter. It made me wonder how this guy spent his college career.
But it was the final act of the first half that took the cake. A guy walked on stage with a couple of guitars and proceeded to play them. I wish I had a recording of the music because I cannot begin to describe how AWFUL it sounded. It sounded like a stoned guy in his garage trying to play his guitar as fast and furiously as possible. It was unbelievable! Jessica and I did everything in our power to not burst out laughing, which was one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do in my life. His big finale included playing a guitar with a power drill (yes, you read that right), which made an interesting sound, but was still very bizarre.
We left at intermission since it was getting late, which somehow saved us from almost certain torture. The fact that people could pass some of this stuff off as music is baffling. Someone made the comment on our way out to the car that some of these student’s parents are not getting their money’s worth. If only you could see what I saw and hear what I heard that night to truly get the full understanding of the evening. Despite my previous experience with college weirdos, this one might take the cake.
