MICROPHONE MAYHEM: MY TWO MONTHS AS “WORDS” AMONG THE EXTRAORDINARY MUSICIANS WHO FORM THE HETERODYNE MUSIC COLLECTIVE.

Falafel Sandwich Induction Ceremony

I first witnessed Heterodyne at St. Stephen’s Church (D.C.) last October. The band had appeared as part of a “punk rock benefit” to raise funds for a worthy social services organization. In addition to core performers Ted Zook and Maria Shesiuk, four other musicians had arrived to swell the band’s membership. A landscape, a tableau, a panorama ensued, and the bandmates climbed around in that scaffolding without compromising the ethos of ensemble cohesion. They listened to each other. I listened to them listening to each other. I wanted in, and after enduring a grueling application process—just kidding; it mostly involved lunching on a falafel sandwich in Baltimore—I appeared with Heterodyne in early November.

How I Violate the Band’s Basic Premise

At a minimum, Heterodyne performs as a duo. Ted plays basscello and Maria plays Moog synthesizer. Anybody who they invite to contribute as a guest performer, can contribute as a guest performer. The band might feature three (we three performed at the Lutherie in Baltimore during my inaugural appearance in November) or it might feature as many as seven. There are no “tunes,” plural. Each time it plays, the group creates one original, improvised, continuous song that it does not—cannot possibly—rehearse. As “words,” I arrive with prepared texts, and in this way, I violate the band’s basic premise, even as I shuffle the texts throughout. To recite from memory would still violate the premise and to speak extemporaneously would terrify everyone. 

Maria and Ted

The Heterodyne Sound

Maria builds a city at every engagement: a grayscale terrain filled with partial signage, the simultaneous focusing and unfocusing of ideas, and an invigorating sense of desolation. (Too, the moonlit curtain of possibility hovers throughout the fluidity of this terrain.) Enter the guests—Patrick Whitehead, Leah Gage, Doug Kallmeyer, Amanda Huron, Sam Lohman, Bob Boilen, and Sarah Hughes—who inhabit the space that Maria has built, in phrasings that mesh the truest experiments of the American idiom. The dot dots of the trumpet, the murmurs of synth, the horizon of strings, the indivisible odds of percussion, and the undeniable impulse and curvature of the saxophone. In particular, the women of Heterodyne have really astonished.

                                                          

Ted Zook

Ted, of course, contributes mightily to the Heterodyne sound. He begins, he presides, he saws away, he fingers the strings, and he, quite importantly, offers us all a thoughtful level, when we take a moment to repurpose. He rudders, he nods, he does and doesn’t conduct(s). I’ve known Ted for many years, and his stature as a Great Musician and a Gentleman cannot be underscored enough. Ted organizes the group offstage. He keeps Heterodyne swimming in gigs. He “porters” a generous aesthetic that empowers the collective to search. And when I say “porters,” I am punning a little bit on one of Ted’s other well-known qualities—that he arrives at each performance with, and hauls, and installs, and debugs a considerable amount of gear! 

Heterodyne at Dew Drop Inn, January 18, 2018. L to R: Ted Zook (basscello)

Amanda Huron (percussion), Maria Shesiuk (Moog), and Bob Boilen (synth.)

What We’ve Learned As a Band

Individually and collectively, we say “Coltrane” far too often for it to be a coincidence. This—cross-genre collectiveness—is the future of all things. During our two-month stretch, we appeared at ten iconic venues, including An Die Musik in Baltimore and Velvet Lounge in D.C., but our performance at VisArts in Rockville may have been tightest. We have invented many, many meanings of the color “preternatural.” Personally speaking, I didn’t do my best work. Too often, I read whole pieces, when I should’ve stuck to scraps and syllables. I can, however, write for a band like Heterodyne. There is a new kind of integrated art possible, and as someone who has searched, for years, for community, this realization may (literally) save my (literary) life.

Coincidentally, Heterodyne Is a Poetry Term, Too

Nobody understands the “poetry heterodyne,” and thus, it sits dusty in encyclopedic spaces. Purportedly, dear reader—purportedly!—the poetic heterodyne occurs when a physically shorter syllable receives stress (or pitch change) ahead of the physically longer syllable. (So sayeth the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.) It’s not half-mad to think that way, in “telling it slant” (per Dickinson). The better-known definition of heterodyne involves the creation of new frequencies by combining two frequencies. I have seen that firsthand in Ted’s and Maria’s partnership, only they are taking it further, in combining as many as seven frequencies all at once. I am very grateful they allowed me the opportunity to add my frequency to the ruckus.

Recordings & Links

Recording at VisArts, 12/1/2017 

Recording at Rhizome, 12/14/2017 

Recording at Velvet Lounge, 12/22/2017 

Recording at An Die Musik, 1/11/2018 

Recording at Dew Drop Inn, 1/18/2018 

Heterodyne Tumblr page 

Heterodyne Facebook page 

this post is part of a triple issue.

Also see: Sarah Hughes

Also see: Joy On Fire