Some say, some say! In the years before yesteryear (1970's San Francisco), John Gruntfest and Greg Goodman met their match: each other. Then they lit the Flame. This record starts close to their entrance into a fantastical leap of ritualistic and acrobatic somersaults, where crowds, clowns, and waves tumbled everybody thrice. As Woody Woodman always used to say: "Sometimes a story is told in reverse, and starts with a refund." Of course, they carried on.
One Side reveals two engagements from 1984 and 1986, while the Other Side throws both auricular pugilists against the wall of a later century — 2008. These indices might stand as bookends to torrid performance and laboratory revelations spanning 34 odd years, but the two adventurers seem likely alive, and might just fall off the shelf in pursuit of whatever you think this all is.
ONE SIDE
Pure Mind
(1984)
Pure Mind is a grand dance with Indian Sorcerers & Magicians. It goes on into many nights and days,
and can be played repeatedly until the moon or The Great Bird itself arrives and takes you away.
Great Bird
(1986)
Great Bird removes the grit and hemp seeds from between any Cranial Crevices that remain unexamined; it is homage to an ear that hears itself hearing itself.
Or, as Woody Woodman probably said, "There really is no reason to doubt there is no reason to doubt!"
Or perhaps that is a typo and should read, "There is no doubt reason to doubt there is reason."
Great Bird cleans these kinds of sentences from the sonic page,
and allows one to swallow the space in between the space between.
Think of it this way; no, the other way!
OTHER SIDE
In This Land All The Birds Wore Hats And Spurs
Acts I-III
(2008)
The risotto of this Operatic Symphony is triptych; that is the only issue uncontested in its long, and mostly ridden, history. Suggested perhaps originally in The Oxyrhynchus Codex, the saga of ancient intrigue, warfare, and social detest attests to the mysteries buried deep within the Memories Of The Feather World that spanned what is usually now quaintly called "The Time Before Beaks."
The urgent tentacles of this ancient tragedy tether betrayal, dust, comedy, and resurrection, and unroll as a ball through the opera of imagination into the musical fusilage of this Epic. Certainly, the three movements* offer the indelible and iconic landscape of that torrid world, and the characters all give grievance to the peculiarities of their adventures and triumphs.
Act I: The Principle Librarian
The story surfaces after a major siege in Vorhana-Sans, when the Noble Manuscripts were secured by The Principle Librarian from the ravages of pillage and immolation. The journey once commenced to save "The Scrolls" — as they originally were referred to — takes the phlegmatic hero through many vicissitudes and recommendations of consciousness, fulfilling its secondary urge at The Sphere-War Of Oxyrhynchus. Act I introduces the listener to the subtle clamor and internal combustion of these intricacies, although mostly through suggestions of events yet to bloom, then fester.
Act II: The Elusive Mime Of Oxyrhynchus
The Mime sings The Song Of Evolution And Emergence, as defeat is not yet imagined. Were it not for The Elusive Mime, six events would have doomed The Quest. But the contestants and contests endured were more of a diversion by the perpetrators: The Incurable Escape through the ancient Crocodilopolis Sand-Maze was as spectacular as it was Spectacle.
Act III: The Sugar-Cane Codex
Only after "The Sugar-Cane Codex" is savagely unearthed in Act III — but right before The Moor is strangled — do the magic and ministry of The Quest reveal the final Game Of Remembrance, and its ultimate consequence to the living, the dead, and those who couldn't make up their minds. "The story has been handed down from hoof to mouth, through cowless generations" until the reverberations became unbearable, and until now, unrepeatable!
In This Land All The Birds Wore Hats And Spurs is that story revealed through this Opera-Symphony in three acts, which span almost 3,000 years. The intermissions are each approximately 280 years.
Cast Of Main Characters: (In order of disappearance)
The Principle Librarian — An Extremely Rotund Cockatoo
The Elusive Mime — A Starling
The Jezebel — Carrier Pigeon
Claw-Foot — Unidentified
The Rat-Bird Of Olan — Black-Billed Buzzard (One Eye)
The Moor — Blue Footed Booby
The Perpetrator's Chorus — Ravens
deComposers — John Gruntfest: Alto Saxophone / Greg Goodman: Every Thing Else
Medium — Witold Wolfe
Investigations — Nyzer Glock
Out Of Focus Studio — Weazle Waxwood
Libretto — Jean de Bosschère & Woody Woodman
Official Recording Archivist — George Cremaschi
*These excerpts comprise parts mostly in the hintergrund of the opera; the complete score cannot reasonably be presented.
Pure Mind and Great Bird recorded at Woody Woodman’s Finger Palace
Pure Mind composed by GG/JG
Great Bird composed by JG, decomposed by GG/JG
In This Land All The Birds Wore Hats And Spurs composed & revealed by GG/JG
One Side recorded 1984/1986; Other Side recorded 2008
All compositions © & ℗ 2017 (BMI)
Titles and cover illustration from Jean de Bosschère, "The City Curious," 1920
One Side edited & compiled by John Gruntfest
and mastered by Mike Wells
Other Side edited & compiled by George Cremaschi
and mastered by Martin Seiwert
Produced by Woody Woodman
