That night, after recording the “terrifying wall of delay” I crossed McCarren Park and went to a club in Williamsburg to see my friend Mike Evans play drums (more on him in another update). There were quite a number of bands playing that night and included on the bill was a guitarist named Reg Bloor. I knew nothing about her. I remember standing in the back of the club when this petite woman with hair length that appears to have never been cut stepped onto the small stage without fanfare and immediately destroyed the place with six electric strings. I had never witnessed anything as visceral as that before. She was a one woman wrecking crew. Extraordinarily impressive. I usually never do this but I felt compelled to get closer and film the event. I luckily had my camera with me. After she performed (if you could call it that) she sat at a table and sold her CD’s. I went up and bought every available CD she had. I also showed her the footage I shot and asked if I could make a video from it. This footage eventually became a music video for Brain Fluid & Microchips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDRwr5P12SA
As the days passed the thought of pairing her with Bruce McClure’s “wall of terrifying delay” became overwhelming. I told her that I had 25 minutes of a film-projector-produced-rhythm-bed that I would like her, along with ZXE, to improvise to. I’ll never forget her reply. She said “Richard, all my material is around two minutes in length. Twenty five minutes would be a marathon for me.” I replied, “Lot’s of people run marathons.” That was met with silence. Then I said, “OK, let me just send you the audio file and let me know if it’s something you could work with.” A few days later she said, “yes this is definitely material I can work with.”
I’ve described the afternoon of our recording session many times and probably some of you have already heard it but it bears repeating: It was like having a tiger rip your head off and you beg the tiger to do it again. At the rehearsal I played Bruce’s audio three times for a total of seventy five minutes of improvisation that I thought I would edit into eight minutes or less. But when I listened back to the three versions of improvisation I realized that Reg played the same thing three times. She actually composed the material she played. This was remarkable. Miraculous, really. This was a far cry from her usual two minute compositions. What you mainly hear in the second part of Die Nacht Ist Leben is us doing our best to keep up with the mighty Reg Bloor. I've included a short video of the recording sesseion that still resonates with me to this day.
The long and very intense instrumental section to Die Nacht Ist Leben needed to be broken down into units in order for the band to actually talk about them. Listening to the music I came up with these titles that I felt were descriptive of the music I heard.
Section 1: The Ballad
Section 2: Uncharted Space
Section 3: Dueling Guitars
Section 4: Interlude - Synth
Section 5: Screech With Guitar Bursts
Section 6: Interlude - Pietro’s Run Over Reg Trickles
Section 7: Storm Fury With Faulty Sirens
Section 8: Interlude - Tony’s Thrash Over Reg Squiggly Bits
Section 9: Avalanche Including Vincent Price Riff
Section 10: Elevator To Hell
Section 11: After The Apocalypse
I realize that one needs to hear the music in order to verify if these descriptions are apt. For the forseeable future we will not be streaming any of Sound Of Music. At some point we will upload it to Bandcamp but even from that site you will not be able to audition every track - so if curiosity and a sense of adventure fills your spirit then there's really only one thing to do - join our campaign. It's a great help in presenting new music to the world.
Reg Bloor is also the maker of exquisite abstract drawings. You should go to her website to see them. She also makes drawings with a character called Sckitz that lovingly cuts people to pieces with copious amounts of projectile bleeding. Here is her rendition of Sckitz putting my head in a meatgrinder, Pietro hanging on hooks with broken limbs, and Tony’s brains exploding with a hook through his head. It is by far the most accurate portrayal of our recording session together.
Every Thursday night at 6:00pm EST Reg plays guitar and answers questions from her apartment on Twitch. And this Thursday is an April Fool's Special. Everyone should definitely check it out. And she answers any and every question. Don't take my word for it. Just ask her.
https://www.twitch.tv/regbloor
In my next blog I will introduce you to a man in the guise of Bird Radio.
Till then,
Richard