SHOW NOTES:
TV OR NOT TV
© Alan Reade, 1992 and 1999
Tugs Belmont Nightclub, Seattle, Washington, weekly from October 12 to November 2, 1992
911 Media Arts Center, Seattle, Washington, January 29 and 30, 1993
Parts of this performance were premiered in the show A Boy and His Toys, Pyramid Club, New York, New York, September 1990.
Performers and Participants
Alan Reade--Vocals, Keyboard, Sampling Keyboard
Tom Larsen--Fretless Bass
Slugg Jello--Cello
Mary Stewart--Harp, Vocals
Kelly Brown--Percussion
Corey Hoyt--Sound Production
Robert Russell--Video Production
John Silverio--Still Photographs of Performance
Notes
Right after the Gulf War, I fell into an "art depression." I just could not believe how everyone around me had come out of the closet as a jingo-ist, talking about how just and great America was for blowing all those people away in the Middle East. Maybe I felt it worse because I worked as an editor at Boeing at the time, so I heard all this pro-war rhetoric everywhere I went. I stopped doing performances for a while--except for one where I dressed in a black sheet as a blob of crude oil and ranted against the war in some bookstore. Yeah, whatever. Otherwise, I just stayed home a lot when I didn't have to work.
On Easter Sunday, 1992, I went to a performance that changed my life: Diamanda Galás. Her fury, and the sheer volume of her processed and amplified voice, brought tears to my eyes and a new yen to perform to my spirit. At this performance, one of the bartenders handed me a flier for a show she was producing at the gay nightclub Tugs Belmont--a night of video performance art to benefit AIDS activist group ACT UP.
A day later, I was on the phone with her, asking whether I could be a part of it. I had planned to debut a performance of a piece I'd written in 1989, "Barbie and the Big Hole," but this time with video. Tugs had a stack of video monitors in crucifix form, so it gave whatever video was playing an interesting patterned background. I started working with video producer Robert Russell to give "Barbie" a visual tableau. I also came up with a piece where I interviewed myself on video to "test" whether I was queer enough to be part of the gay community.
On May 5, 1992, Tom Larsen (on bass) showed up with me and we brought the house down. We were the only live act, as they had just planned on showing videos by Sandra Bernhard, Karen Finley, and others. Everyone loved "Barbie," which I performed with dolls and a dildo in addition to the video and bass accompaniment. I think very few in the crowd suspected that the piece was borne out of anger at the body-centric gay culture I saw all around me, with Barbie representing how I saw most gay guys at the time.
Bruce, the owner of Tugs, got in touch with me and asked me to do a full-length show. I was out of my depression! It would be a video-based show, and, I decided, would be the second part of "American Language." This show would be based on the vowel sound "E," as previously planned, but what would the subject matter be?
The letter E connoted eternity, relationships; the letter itself pointed with three fingers to the right--made me think of trains, lines, monotones: EEEEEEE. The Tarot suit for this motif was Swords: thought, communication, media. I had written some pieces about how the Gulf War had galvanized all these people who really seemed to miss not having a war on. Watching war footage in groups seemed to be the equivalent of tuning in to a soap opera or miniseries daily. "I know!" I said, "I'll make the show about the hypnotizing effects of television!"
Again, I put together a band--the songs this time around would have more synthesizer and no guitar, as I wanted a dreamier, smoother sound. There would be Tom on bass, a guy named Slugg Jello on cello, and Kelly Brown on percussion (as full-on 4/4-time drums were provided by the synth). My neighbor Mary Stewart joined the cast to be the "Queen of Satellites" for one piece and play the harp. I marketed the show as "Video Vaudeville," and I included some schtick-y pieces in addition to the more serious stuff, particularly a cast of video puppets who bantered with me throughout the show. I felt those parts in particular were a little contrived, so I did not include any "puppet banter" here, only pictures.
The show premiered on October 12, 1992. The gay press loved it. The mainstream press hated it. We played once a week for a month, to medium crowds. The owner of Tugs, Bruce, didn't understand the show, as it had become less and less of an outright "gay" show in production. No matter. The following January, I brought the show to 911 Media Arts Center for a weekend (with only Slugg on cello and the rest of the musical parts redone on synthesizer), which had a huge screen for video projections.
The show was not without its share of technical problems, although it went much more smoothly than The Alphabet of Savages had gone. This was the first show I'd done that had had a month-long run. It was also, I vowed, the last show I would sing my way through! By the end of the run, I realized that I really needed voice lessons if I ever wanted to try that again. Fortunately, the (lack of) strength of my singing voice has no bearing on the printed page.
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