not new music tuesdays

Airway - Live at LACE (1978, LAFMS)

With all of the excitement surrounding this evening's portion of the no idea festival at Lola's, I'm taking the opportunity to share one of my personal favorite pieces of improvisational music.

Airway was a project of Joe Potts, a member of the Los Angeles Free Music Society. This version of the these recordings were taken from the LAFMS box set, The Lowest Form of Music (Cortical Foundation, 1996), which are apparently "different in feeling" from the original vinyl release. Both the record and it's limited individual cd release on Harbinger Sound are fucking impossible to find, or retardedly expensive, so I can only provide this one.

I can ramble on about this shit, but I think the liner notes are much more concise than anything I can say, so here goes:

"In the Spring of 1977, Joe Potts released the single, "Airway" as part of an art exhibition at the Lunami Gallery in Tokyo, Japan. The show featured morgue photographs with imbedded subliminal messages. The Airway single and the poster, which served as its sleeve, were designed to be taken home by the viewers to subliminally reinforce the message put out at the exhibition. After the exhibit, Chip Chapman and Joe put together a crude tape delay and processing system out of new and used bits and pieces (most prominently miles of tangled patch cords), in the hopes of recreating live, the "wall of Sound" effect from the single. The setup was revised for every performance, with varying degrees of success. The subliminal message which the music masked changed every time as well. This performance at LACE was Airway's first live performance. The gallery was on the third floor. During the performance the audience streamed out of the room until it was nearly empty. When the music stopped, a cheer came from outside. The volume level was so high that the drywall and hardwood floor vibrated like speaker cones, so apparently the optimum listening point was three floors below and across the street. This is the original uncut version of the recording, rather than the trimmed version released on vinyl as LAFMS #6. Recorded live 8-78. (SEE ESSAY). AIRWAY-Vetza; vocals, Dennis Duck; sax, Rick Potts; mandolin, Juan Gomez; bass guitar, Tom Recchion; drums, Chip Chapman; circuits, Joe Potts; circuits, tapes.