Chas Smith: What Have You Been Up To??

Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

Subject: WET, A New Multi-Media Chamber Opera by Anne LeBaron premieres in Los Angeles, Dec. 1-3

With music by contemporary American composer Anne LeBaron, and a libretto by Terese Svoboda, WET weaves a tale involving the sale of the world's water to multinational corporations. Set on the banks of a great American river during a flood, the opera portrays the destroyed lives left behind when natural resources are managed for immediate profit rather than sustainability. WET's world premiere production, directed by Nataki Garrett, will open at REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) on Thursday, December 1, for three performances.

WET relates a series of interlocking stories that take place in a small town with an economy largely beholden to a multinational corporation. The characters include an unscrupulous water bottling plant manager, an anguished would-be mom, doomed pregnant teenage twins, hard-drinking lumberjacks, an ambitious investigative reporter, a self-absorbed personal-advice blogger and finally, the figure of Death (a trickster in a business suit and a life jacket, who ferries dead souls to the afterlife while singing "Water is the new oil." ) Water, the substance indispensable to all life on earth, is both a telling symbol of the mismanagement of our natural resources and the actual medium for big-business profiteering.

LeBaron's score opens with hard-driving percussive music and moves into passages that range from deconstructed country and slithery electronica to deeply felt, mournful lyricism. Her instrumentation includes shakuhachi (bamboo flute), electronically processed didjeridu, and pedal steel guitar (an international and folk-derived complement to a more Western ensemble of woodwinds, brass, strings, piano and percussion.) WET is her fourth opera.
For additional information, visit http://www.wettheopera.com

[This message was edited by Jim Cohen on 09 December 2005 at 07:34 AM.]

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Not enough pedal steel so far....

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

Now having read the synopsis, I see that this opera may be more a personal story than a political harangue.
I hear some great tuba but no steel guitar.

[This message was edited by Earnest Bovine on 09 December 2005 at 12:16 PM.]

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Well Jim, it's been a busy couple of months. Anne called me, back in the summer, to go over, how does a steel guitar work, what's available, pitchwise and how would someone write for it. I also gave her some names of players who are far more qualified than I am to read and play in a small orchestra.

I was going to be in London and no where near a guitar, for the month of October, working on an installation at the Whitechapel Gallery (I built the Underwater World), for Paul McCarthy. It's a very interesting art show, but definately not "family fare".

However, I got talked into being involved and it turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I've never been a fan of the bel canto singing style and I've never spent much time with singers who could sing like that. At the first rehearsal, with the singers, I was noticing that several of the women looked like they had just come from the trailer park. Then they started singing and, whoa, where does that sound come from? The visual contrast with the sound was a jaw-dropper. And when the woman, who sang the main aria started, everything where I was sitting just stopped. She was astonishing.

The orchestra was piano, vln, cello/bass, flute, reeds, tpt, tuba, shakuhachi, didjeridu, vibes/xylo, percussion and yours truly. I was set up with my Sho-Bud Professional and with JrBlue, my 6-string bass steel gtr in front. Each gtr had a volume pedal and the rack has a Sarno pre, a Demeter pre, a Real Reverb, an Eventide H-8000 into a MosValve into 2 speakers.

There were sections where I played a traditional "country pastiche" that would dissolve back into the orchestra. And there were sections that were a kind of "drunken" C- blues and a G- tango, for the C6 neck that would dissolve into a big maj, then min then diminished wash.

But as we all know, the steel guitar rivals the "king of instruments" for what it is capable of. There were some delicate sections where I play with the piano, where I bow the strings with glass. E9 neck, bar on the 5th fret, bow the strings at the 17th into the 8K.

I have a lot of different distortion boxes and the one that seemed the 'friendliest' to use in this setting was the COB. I had the bottom 4 strings on the C neck tuned to C's and G's. During the electronic sections, there are places where there was a strong D to Eb to E that I doubled with a ramped "power chord" into the 8K.

JrBlue is tuned to low (bottom of the piano) A's and E's. There were 2 didjeridus, one a low B and the other a low C#. By rolling the bar on the strings, on the 2nd and 4th frets, I could get under him while he did didjeridu solos. And in other sections I was the low bass while she played her cello.

There was a section between the 12th and the 13th scenes where Kiku, shakuhachi, and I did a 2 minute improv. I rolled the bar on JrBlue, low C with the pedal open and picked harmonics on the C neck, at the 5th and 7th frets, that were all fed into the 8K. So I had the top and bottom to "frame" her solo in the middle.

In the scene, when the lead is killing one of the lumberjacks, I provide a bunch of very aggressive, behind-the-bar, schreeches, bar-slaps, whooshes and fuzz-tone stuff with a power-chord down the bottom strings to a fade out.

At the end of the 17th scene, the end of the performance, there is a "chaos section" that resolves into the last note you hear. Steel guitar, high C.

What a fun and delicious experience.

[This message was edited by chas smith on 09 December 2005 at 01:18 PM.]

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

Chas, I'm sure that your artistic contributions went above and beyond what the composer or anybody expected.
Was the production received with critical and popular enthusiasm?

Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

Earnest, you forgot to say that you like the part where the girl dies...

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

I look forward to hearing Jr. Blue.
And the ending, w/ chaos smith.

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

ebb · From: nj

did she die from tb
mimi!

Mike Perlowin · From: Los Angeles CA

Chas, you need to let us know about these things BEFORE they happen.I would have attended, had I known.

How can you expect your fans (like me) to support you if we don't know where you;re playing?

Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

Why when?

(Hi Earnest!)

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Doug, thank you. Mark Swed reviewed it, for the LA Times. He didn't care much for the production and the words/text, but he liked the music, the conductor and the orchestra, a lot. BTW, 95 minutes of music fills a 3-ring loose-leaf binder.

How the girl, one of the lumberjacks, dies? The lead, "bad guy" carves her up with a broken beer bottle. End of scene 14, while chas "carves" up the C neck into a fuzz-tone.

Mike, you know I never tell anyone what I'm doing. Creates expectations and plays into my insecurities. Hmmmm, all those years of therapy, maybe I should have bought a case of tequila. At least I could have returned the bottles.....

ebb · From: nj

or broken them and carved up ex wives. but only after the bel canto over your new cnc machine.

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

Here is the review in Los Angeles Times: http://www.calendarlive.com/music/swed/cl-et-wet3dec03,0,5377238.story

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

More creative writing.

Mike Perlowin · From: Los Angeles CA

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