Schedule and Musicians Announced For
Welcome Inn Time Machine
Over a Dozen Micro Concerts in Motel Rooms
Touring LA’s Experimental Music History
At Welcome Inn in Eagle Rock
Presented by SASSAS
Part of Pacific Standard Time Performance & Public Art Festival
Sunday, January 29, 2012

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Society for the Activation of Social Space Through Art and Sound (SASSAS) will transform Eagle Rock’s Welcome Inn into a six-hour tour through key moments in LA’s experimental music history with Welcome Inn Time Machine on Sunday, January 29, 2012.  Over a dozen concurrent micro concerts will transform individual motel rooms into venues for installations and live performances allowing key moments in Southern California sound and music history to be experienced simultaneously and sequentially in a single location. Welcome Inn Time Machine runs from 4:00pm to 10:00pm. The event is free.  The Welcome Inn is located at 1840 Colorado Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90041. For more information on SASSAS and this event please call 323-960-5723 or visit http://www.sassas.org/welcomeinn.

Welcome Inn Time Machine revisits works created between 1949 and 1977. The duration of the event is derived from the 1963 premiere performance of John Cage’s Variations IV at UCLA, which was six hours in length. Among the more than 40 works included are John Cage’s Variations IV, Bruce Nauman’s Violin Tuned D.E.A.D., Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations, The Los Angeles Free Music Society’s Pyramid Headphones, James Tenney’s Postal Pieces, and David Ornette Cherry and poet Kamau Daaood will revisit Something Else, The Music of Ornette Coleman.  In addition to presenting historic works, SASSAS is commissioning two new works based on existing fragments and documents. The Calder Quartet will premiere a new work derived from Arnold Schoenberg’s Entwürfe zu einem Streichquartett [Draft of a String Quartet] (1949) and choreographer Anita Pace will re-envision Merce Cunningham’s Field Dances (1963) as part of a presentation of Variations IV.

Welcome Inn motel in Eagle Rock

Welcome Inn Time Machine Micro Concerts –

The Calder Quartet, Untitled
Based on: Arnold Schoenberg, Entwürfe zu einem Streichquartett [Draft of a String Quartet] (1949)
Composer Arnold Schoenberg moved to the United States in 1934 and soon settled in Los Angeles. During his time in LA, he wrote such notable pieces as the Violin Concerto (1942), A Survivor from Warsaw (1947) and Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte (1942). In addition to this and numerous other works he wrote while in Los Angeles, several were unfinished upon his death in 1951, including the Draft of a String Quartet from 1949.

– Performance times: 6:30pm, 7:30pm 8:30pm
– Location: Balcony
– Performers: The Calder Quartet [Benjamin Jacobson (violin), Andrew Bulbrook (violin), Jonathan Moerschel (viola), Eric Byers (cello)

Free Jazz: Something Else! based on Something Else!!!
Los Angeles was the home for several seminal free jazz recordings including, Something Else!!! The Music of Ornette Coleman recorded February 10, 1958 at Contemporary Studios, Ornette’s first recording under his own name.  In addition to Coleman (alto sax), the album included Don Cherry (trumpet), Don Payne (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums).   David Ornette Cherry (the son of Don Cherry) and poet Kamau Daaood (who founded the World Stage Performance Gallery with Billy Higgins) revisit this recording along with other important free jazz works that originated or were recorded in Los Angeles.

– Performance times: 4:30pm, 5:30pm
– Location: Balcony
– Performers: Kamau Daaood (vocals/spoken word), Justo Almario (alto sax), Roberto Miguel Miranda (Bass), Don Littleton (Drums), David Ornette Cherry (piano)

John Cage, Variations IV (1963)
Variations IV is intended for any number of players producing any sounds by any means, “with or without other activities.” The score consists of seven points and two circles on a transparent sheet. The sheet is cut into nine small sheets. One of the circles is then placed anywhere on a map of the area where the performance is to take place. Then the rest of the sheets are dropped anywhere on the same map and straight lines are drawn from the first circle to the seven points; if a line intersects or is tangent to another circle, the same procedure is applied to that circle. Performers do not need to confine themselves to a performance of the piece during the entire performance and are free to engage in any other activities at any time. The duration of Welcome Inn Time Machine is derived from the 1963 six hour-long premiere performance of Variations IV at UCLA.

– Performance time: continuous, 4:00pm – 10:00pm
– Location: Rooms 11 and 25
– Realized by: Scott Benzel and Dave Muller

Anita Pace, Field Activity, 2012 (inspired by documents describing the performance of Merce Cunningham’s Field Dances, 1963)
Cunningham abandoned the traditional collaborative process among choreographer, composer, and designer while liberating his dancers from hierarchical symmetrical patterns, allowing the audience the choice of where and at whom to look. The possibilities for choreographic invention appeared limitless. Field Dances was originally performed as a part of the UCLA premiere of Variations IV. Choreographer Anita Pace revisits this work, using Cage’s description of Variations IV – ‘samsara’, ‘the turmoil of everyday life’ – as impetus for the movement gestalt.

– Performance times: 4:30pm, 5:30pm, 6:30pm, 7:30pm, 8:30pm
– Location: Rooms 11, 25 and adjacent stairway
– Performers: Anita Pace, Michelle Lai

Instrument and telephone from Bob Wilhite in Concert, A Telephone Concert, 1975 (Photo credit: Gary Bedyer & Jerry Byrd)

James Tenney, Postal Pieces (1965 – 1971)
The Postal Pieces are a series of 11 indeterminate scores composed between 1965 and 1971. Called Postal Pieces because they were printed on post cards (or as Tenney referred to them, “score cards”), most of the works were produced for the first time while Tenney was teaching at CalArts between 1971 and 1976.

SASSAS has a long connection with Tenney—he was an advisor to the organization from the time it was formed. Additionally SASSAS worked with him on two concerts during his lifetime – a performance of his own works in 2001, which included Having Never Written a Note for Percussion and a performance of several early works of John Cage in 2002. As a part of the 2009 Anniversary Concert, SASSAS presented Tributaries: Dedicated to the Memory of James Tenney, which included both Having Never Written a Note for Percussion and Koan among other works.

“To some extent, he was the ultimate Western composer. He approached each new piece as an adventure, with the goal of discovering original territory and, if need be, taming some theoretical musical beast or acoustical bugbear.”  Mark Swed, in Tenney’s obituary for Los Angeles Times in 2006.

– All eleven Postal Pieces will be performed.
– Location: All works in Room 8 unless otherwise noted

A Rose is a Rose is a Round (1970)
– Performance time: 4:00pm (Balcony)
– Played by: Jessica Catron, Julia Holter, Adrian Tenney

Beast (1971)
– Performance time: 4:30pm
– Played by: Dave Tranchina

Koan (1971)
– Performance time: 5:00pm
– Played by: Andrew McIntosh

Cellogram (1971)
– Performance time: 5:30pm
– Played by: Eric Byers

Swell Piece #2 (1971)
– Performance time: 6:00pm
– Played by: Matt Barbier, Jessica Catron, Jeremy Drake, Andrew Macintosh, Dave Tranchina

August Harp (1971)
– Performance time: 6:30pm
– Played by: Jane Grothe

Having Never Written a Note for Percussion (1971)
– Performance time: 7:00pm
– Played by: Danny Holt

For Percussion Perhaps, Or (night) (1971)
– Performance time: 7:30pm
– Played by: Julia Holter

Swell Piece #3 (1971)
– Performance time: 8:00pm
– Played by: Matt Barbier, Andrew Bulbrook, Danny Holt , Julie Holter, Andrew McIntosh, Nick Terry, Andrew Tholl, Dave Tranchina

Maximusic (1975)
– Performance time: 8:45pm
– Played by: Nick Terry

Swell Piece (1967)
– Performance time: 9:30pm (Balcony and across site)

Pauline Oliveros, Sonic Meditations (1971)
Leaving the Bay Area to accept a teaching position at the University of California, San Diego, Pauline Oliveros began learning about meditation. This interest created a shift in her own musical composition in which she began focusing on the significance of long tones. By 1971, Oliveros had collected a number of meditations and published them together as Sonic Meditations. These sonic explorations, open to anyone who wished to participate, were rooted in ancient musical forms that precluded the listener focusing on the healing power of Sonic Energy and its transmission within groups. Each meditation is an activity conceived to assist in making, imagining, listening and remembering sounds. The meditations exist as text giving the participants activities to do and think about over an indeterminate period of time.

– Location: Room 22
– Performers: Jessica Catron, Jeremy Drake, Adam Overton, Elana Mann

Sonic Meditations (1971)
IX. The Greeting
– Performance time: 4:45pm

XXV. Your Name – The Signature Meditation
– Performance time: 5:15pm

X.  (no name)
– Performance time: 5:45 PM

I. Teach Yourself To Fly
– Performance time: 6:15pm

XV. Zina’s Circle
– Performance time: 6:45pm

VIII. Environmental Dialogue
– Performance time: 7:15pm

III. Pacific Tell
– Performance time: 7:45pm

XII.  One Word
– Performance time: 8:15pm

XVII. Ear Ly
– Performance time 8:40pm

XVI. (no name)
– Performance time: 9:00pm

Bruce Nauman, Violin Tuned D.E.A.D. (1969)
Bruce Nauman’s Violin Tuned D.E.A.D. exemplifies his practice of incorporating boredom, exhaustion, and the superimposition of unlike systems into art and, in this case, music. In an interview with Willoughby Sharp, Nauman stated: “I wanted to set up a problem where it wouldn’t matter whether I knew how to play the violin or not. What I did was to play as fast as I could on all four strings with the violin tuned D, E, A, D. I thought it would just be a lot of noise, but it turned out to be musically very interesting. It is a very tense piece.” The D.E.A.D. tuned violin will be played for approximately 2 hours over the course of the event.

– Location: Room 4
– Played by:
– 5:00 PM: Ben Jacobson
– 6:00 PM: Andrew Tholl
– 7:00 PM: Andrew McIntosh
– 8:00 PM: Melinda Rice

Currents Series at the Theater Vanguard (1973 – 1978)
Theater Vanguard presented regular performances of experimental music, theater, film, animation and performance art. Located in the former Stage Society Theatre on Melrose in West Hollywood, The Vanguard provided a nurturing environment for LA performing arts as well as a much-needed venue for local and international artists. Currents was a regular program of electro-acoustic music at the Vanguard, founded by composer Barry Schrader in 1973 and continuing through 1978. It was the first regular presentation of electro-acoustic music in the U.S.

This installation will feature works by Pierre Schaeffer, Louis and Bebe Barron, Barry Schrader, Carl Stone, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, Michel Chion, Warren Burt, and Ilhan Mimaroglu as well as ephemera from the series.

– Performance time: continuous, 4:00pm – 10:00pm
– Location: Room 17

– Pierre Schaeffer, Etudes des bruits (1948)
Etude aux chemins de fer; Etude aux tourniquets; Etude violette; Etude noire; Etude pathétique
– Vladimir Ussachevsky, Sonic Contours (1952)
– Otto Luening & Vladimir Ussachevsky, Incantation (1952)
– Louis & Bebe Barron, score from The Bells of Atlantis (1952) with Anais Nin reading her poem The Bells of Atlantis
– Vladimir Ussachevsky, Piece for Tape Recorder (1956)
– Ilhan Mimaroglu, Bowery Bum (1964)
– Mel Powell, Analogs (1966)
Analog I; Analog II; Analog III; Analog I
– Michel Chion, Requiem (excerpts) (1973)
Dies Irae; Libera Me
– Warren Burt, for Anne, who broke my heart (1974)
– Carl Stone, Sukothai (1977)
– Barry Schrader, Lost Atlantis (excerpts) (1977)
Introduction:  The Pillars of Hercules – The Great Harbor; The Destruction of Atlantis – Epilogue:  “…and Atlantis shall rise”

Robert Wilhite, Bob Wilhite In Concert (1975)
In 1975, Bob Wilhite created his first musical sculpture – a unique one stringed instrument. As a gesture to establish the object and provide it with a provenance, Wilhite gave two concerts heard only via the telephone.  Wilhite placed display advertisements in the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle announcing both performances. Patrons who phoned during the specified time periods heard a short instrumental played live on the one stringed instrument.  Both concerts were performed at his Los Angeles studio. The on-site audience at the Eagle Rock event will access Wilhite’s live performance by calling his motel room from another room in the motel.

– Performance time: continuous, 4:00pm – 10:00pm
– Performer: Robert Wilhite
– Location: Room 6
– To access performance phone 310-739-5773, day of show only

The Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS), Pyramid Headphones (1976)
The Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS), the banner heading of a loose collective of experimental musicians founded in the early 1970s, have had immeasurable influence on the spread and evolution of noise and avant-garde music and DIY culture over the past almost 40 years. In July of 1976, Le Forte Four, one of the earliest groups in the collective, created an installation at the Brand Library Art Center in Glendale, California, which consisted of forty-four black, pyramid-shaped, stereo headphones, with lights on the top, through which were played an audio collage entitled Box Your Ears (which was released in 1976 as part of the double LP LAFMS: Live at the Brand).  This installation recreates the original utilizing the twelve extant original pyramid headphones.

– Performance time: continuous, 4:00pm – 10:00pm
– Location: Room 16

Members of the Los Angeles Free Music Society Testing Pyramid Headphones, 1976. (Photo credit: Fredrik Nilsen)

Credits –
Welcome Inn Time Machine is produced by Cindy Bernard in collaboration with Jessica Catron and the SASSAS Board of Directors.  Project curators are Cindy Bernard, Scott Benzel, Gregory Lenczycki, Renee Petropoulos, Joseph Potts, and Dawson Weber.

Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival –
Los Angeles was a key international birthplace of performance art. Engaging the innovative spirit of that period and LA’s vibrant contemporary art scene, the Performance and Public Art Festival will transform Southern California over eleven days (January 19-29, 2012) during Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980. Featuring more than 30 major performances and large-scale outdoor projects, the festival will include new commissions, reinventions, and restagings inspired by the radical and trailblazing public and performance works that were created by artists during the Pacific Standard Time era. Performances and projects will be located at institutions and sites throughout Southern California, in close proximity to more than two dozen Pacific Standard Time exhibitions.

The festival is organized by the Getty Research Institute and LA > < ART; support is provided by the Getty Foundation. http://www.pacificstandardtimefestival.org

SASSAS –
SASSAS (The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound) is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that serves as a catalyst for the creation, presentation, and recognition of experimental art and sound practices in the Greater Los Angeles area.  Inspired by the resonance that occurs when experimental music is combined with unconventional performance environments, SASSAS seeks to foster new collaborations and improvisation to spark further exploration in the field. The organization is supported in part through grants from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Good Works Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and the West Hollywood Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission. http://www.sassas.org

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For more information, images, or to request an interview, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Tejada at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.