On stage, Amherst-based experimental musician Jack Callahan transforms into what he refers to as a “sound organizer.”
“When I play live, I am improvising,” he explains. “Just from practice, I have a general idea of the sort of extended techniques and various little objects I can use on my drum and what things work well. Generally for the structure of my performances I like to use discrete sonic gestures that may punctuate or even blossom out of the silence that surrounds each. For these reasons I like to call myself a sonic organizer.”
Callahan creates using traditional and exotic percussion instruments augmented by electronics, either “circuit-bent gizmos” or Max/MSP on his laptop. The absence of sound, and the spaces between sounds, plays an integral role in his compositions.
“Because I include a large amount of silence in my work, I am afforded plenty of time to think about what would work well next in the performance,” he says. “I believe the best performances are the ones in which I happen upon new playing techniques in the moment, such as a certain combination of techniques or objects I never would have thought go together, or maybe even a new way to use an object. These moments of inspiration are to me what is truly sublime about improvisation.”
Callahan began playing trumpet and guitar as a fourth grader in Missouri before moving on to percussion. Along the way he played in rock bands, jazz combos and “pretty much anything that involved playing with other people.” He says his musical tastes progressed from rock to avant-garde and free jazz, ultimately merging under the broad category of experimental or “what-have-you” music.
He credits his involvement in the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, a DIY non-profit arts space in St. Louis, with expanding his horizons and connections to a wider coterie of like-minded artists.
“Attending shows there in high school exposed me to a community of musicians in the underground noise scene,” he says. “It is endlessly fascinating how small the community—as decentralized as it is—seems sometimes, where, if you play any sort of DIY music in a regional music scene, regardless of if you play folk, noise, hardcore, pop or whatever, there are almost always very few degrees of separation between any given musician, regardless of region.
“I suppose that I am part of a national, perhaps international, community of underground, DIY, non-commercial musicians who collectively support each other by setting up shows for, putting out albums of, and just generally support one another.”
Jack Callahan is kicking off a two-week tour to St. Louis with a performance May 7 at 8 p.m. at Flywheel in Easthampton.
For video, audio, and tour dates, visit http://jack-callahan.blogspot.com/
