Notes

---

Munich February 18, 1999

FM Source
Superb concert. Very good quality recording.

From the John Zorn mailing list, 2/19/1999:

The Fred Frith Guitar Quartet (w/ Mark Stewart, René Lussier and Nick
Didkovsky) gave a concert in the Unterfahrt (Munich) yesterday. First of all,
if you can receive German radio, the concert will be broadcast on Bayern 2
on March 13, at 23.05 - I'm not sure whether they'll broadcast the whole show,
though.

It was an incredible concert. I didn't catch all of the song names, two were
called "Traffic Continues" (two parts), one was called "Die Krankenschwester
unsauber anlachen" (ahem) and another was, according to Fred, "inspired by
a very irritating Australian bird". Never mind, all pieces were great. The
interplay between the four guitarists was incredibly tight - if their album,
"Ayaya Moses" is like that then this might be rather old news - and they had
an intense dialogue going on. Fred and René were a bit more in the foreground,
often doing some call-and-response and duels and whatever. René had an amazing
solo part where got various freaky sounds out of his guitar, and at the end of
it he played a little riff, then held his hands up in the air while the riff
continued - since everyone was watching him & his hands, noone noticed that
Fred had started to play. Another great part included a collage of amp buzzes.
The band covered a large spectrum, from peaceful ballad-like stuff, to near-
ambient drones, to funky (slightly atonal) rhythmic playing, a little country
interlude, noise collages and more. Both Mark and Nick were more in the
background, but they held everything together and contributed more sublimely,
but equally great. Nick did have a great solo where his guitar almost sounded
like you're switching frequencies on a shortwave radio. Oh well, I could go
on forever. I do also have to praise the audience, which really went off on
this stuff and applauded very enthusiastically. And I have to mention that
the band was quite humorous, they certainly had a good time and enjoyed
themselves, which hightened the enjoyment and, yes, the quality of the music
even more.