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
this post is part of a triple issue.
