1992
ECM
Press Release
THE FALL OF US ALL
The
Fall Of Us All is the sixth ECM recording by Steve Tibbetts; this long-awaited
tour de force from the unique guitarist will be greeted with cries of delight
and one question: "What took so long?" Fortunately, we have the answer
to that and all other questions about Tibbetts and his music. First, for those
of you who don't know, Tibbetts was born in Madison in 1954; at the age of 12,
he heard the distorted guitar of the Blind Joe Mendelbaum Blues Band in the
Teen Tent at the Dane County Junior Fair, and "was overwhelmed by the splendor
and majesty of it all. They were very loud." He has been playing distorted
and loud guitar ever since, recording such highly acclaimed albums as Yr,
Exploded View, and Big Map Idea, as well as occasionally touring,
with long-suffering percussionist / partner Marc Anderson. In between, he has
traveled to Asia to study music, bum around, and even work, and this album is
the result of that journeying, outlined here by Steve:
1989 Feb-May: Deliver Big Map Idea to ECM, hop flight from Frankfurt
to Delhi. Throw up on plane to Kathmandu. India closes Nepal border, (riots
force government to chopper out Westerners, first ride on a helicopter piloted
by a guy with a green turban). Hitch back to Kathmandu, get ride from Swiss
man in Land Rover who gets hopelessly lost. Attacked by dogs in Darjeeling.
May: Beat jaywalking charge in U.S.Jun-Aug: Travel with wife-to-be through Thailand,
Malaysia, Java, and Bali. Propose to wife-to-be at summit of volcano. Study
drumming. Jump off wrong train in Thailand (moving) and out of burning van in
Bali (also moving). Monkeys steal wife-to-be's glasses. More dog attacks.
1990 Mar-Dec: Midwest tour, German tour, studio work, buy house in awful neighborhood,
get married.
1991 Jan-Apr: Back to Indonesia. See trances in South Bali. See guy eat light
bulb in Java. Apr-May: Tour midwest and east coast. Aug: Canadian tour. Driving
truck, tear off gate at tollbooth in Chicago and peel off front of Honda Accord
in Montreal. Same night in Montreal, walk up stairs to stage at Club Foufounes
Electriques and gash head on lit-up metal sign that says "Dangereux".
Bleed all over self and Strat, causing crowd to go wild.
1992 Mar: Tour midwest, west coast, and east coast. Batman (Michael Keaton)
comes to see gig in L.A. Blow up P.A. at L.A. gig. Sound guy leaves pinch-hitter
on dashboard of truck returning from Winnipeg gig. Busted at border by U.S.
Customs, truck seized. Marc and Steve, sick of life in general and each other
in particular, nearly strangle each other in cab of truck driving between horrible
gigs in Columbus and Detroit. August: Wife shakes Clinton's hand at rally in
Baldwin, Wisconsin. Sep-Dec: Travel to Nepal again. Bhutanese government waives
$120/day fee for tourists and lets Naropa Institute Study Abroad program in
free for cremation of high lama. Jim Reeves tape playing in hotel lobby in Paro,
Bhutan.
1993: Sep: Finish The Fall Of Us All and deliver to ECM. Go to Nepal,
India, and Tibet with wife. Get out of van after arriving at guest house in
Lhasa and hear someone yell, "Hey, Steve, I like your album." Turns
out to be monk gave cassette to in Sikkim in '89. Survive dog attack near Samye
in Tibet. 1994: Feb: The Fall Of Us All released in U.S.
In Indonesia, Tibbetts was moved by the furious double drumming styles of Balinese
Gong Kybar, in '89 and again in '91, he studied drumming with I Nyoman Pak Sumandhi,
in Denpasar. The endless gong cycles of music in Indonesia fascinated him; "In
the course of an eight-hour nighttime performance, one's ears would begin to
hear more and more clearly the long arc of sound that anchors a piece of music."
In Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet, Tibbetts stayed in or near monasteries, awaking
and going to sleep to the sounds of the horns,
crashing cymbals, and drums used in the pujas (prayer services). Between travels,
Tibbetts "tried to forget what I'd heard and learned, lest the music I
was working on become a cheap and all-too-easy grafting of mutually disparate
forms."
The Fall Of Us All is the fourth and last of a series that started with
Safe Journey and includes Exploded View and Big Map Idea
("Why not impose order on chaos?"). Tibbetts began his recording career
in 1977 with a record released on his own label, Frammis; this youthful effort
was followed by the five-star "guitar freak's dream" (Down Beat),
Yr, also on Frammis originally but now available via ECM. Northern
Song was Tibbetts's first ECM release; the second was Safe Journey.
Steve has been joined on all his recordings by percussionist Marc Anderson,
who also tours with him. Marc released his first album as a leader, Time
Fish, in 1993. On The Fall Of Us All, other contributors include
Marcus Wise on tabla, double basses (shades of Spinal Tap?) in Jim Anton and
Eric Andersen, Claudia Schmidt and Rhea Valentine on vocals, and Mike Olson
(synth, Linn).
The Fall Of Us All is two albums; the first six electric songs are one
suite, the last five acoustic ones another. ("There's a lot of electric
guitar in the first few songs, probably because we did a fair amount of frustrating
touring, and we're loud when we're frustrated.") Tibbetts's explanation:
"It's a big meal all around, easy to choke on. The best way to listen to
it: You've got a fine new driveaway car with a top-notch stereo system. You're
traveling cross-country from Ohio to California. It's 1:30 am and you've just
finished your greasy dinner at a truck stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa. You drive
off. You've got a large, weak, and extremely hot coffee positioned between your
legs, and you listen to the album between Kearney, Nebraska, and Sterling, Colorado.
It needs that kind of captive audience."
Most reviews of Steve Tibbetts's music describe it in the context of what it's
not; what it is, plain and simple, is Tibbettsian.