Today we have the first of a few videos from a concert Elodie Lauten performed in 1985 at Music Gallery in Toronto, half of the program on piano and half performing selections from her then-recently-completed record The Death of Don Juan, which we reissued on CD last summer.  Since she couldn’t very well transport the Fairlight CMI from NYU to Toronto (and it seems Peter Zummo and Arthur Russell were busy that week doing their own history making) Lauten performs solo to her own prerecorded music.  The original VHS video of this performance is, in effect, completely black.  The room is quite dark, and the lighting too subtle for the VHS to register well.  We’ve edited the picture significantly to make the scene visible again.  The production is minimal, yet the setting is conceptually elegant for a work that has its sympathies in the psyche of an artist alone in his studio who is, through the allure of his technology, hexed by his exploits.  John Massey’s beautiful, shadow-laden cover image of an empty theater washes over Lauten with her recordings, and, in true post-modern style, she is alone, both the only character and more characters than we can count.

So despite the somewhat spotty quality of the video, it is an improvement over the 3 minutes of darkness waiting for Lauten’s blue-lit visage to appear during her close-up, which is previously the only visible segment of the video [ed. note: though I did find it to have some charm of its own ].

Also Elodie Lauten performed her piece S.O.S.W.T.C. on 9/11 this year at the New Museum to commemorate the tragedy during the Howl Festival.  Two videos of that performance have surfaced on YouTube.  Here and here.

And last but certainly not least is the fact that this week is the week of the November 12th concert at Friends Meetinghouse on 15th street in Manhattan with “Blue” Gene Tyranny and Lubomyr Melnyk.  Please see the two posts below for more info or visit unseenworlds.net/NOV12.html