It’s a tape recording from a recital I gave at the end of my 3rd year at CalArts, in the Gamelan Room. I’m accompanied by John Bergamo’s drum machine playing a standard tabla solo accompaniment melody that keeps time for the soloist, called a lehara or nagma. I take it at a really conservative tempo, and even so I’m playing quite loose, which is, I guess, a good thing, except for the obvious mistakes.
Somewhere there is a photo of me sitting on the floor of my Grandma Fay’s living room demonstrating tabla to my baby nephew Zac, surrounded by family, with a wall covered in family photos behind me. I’m wearing a button up shirt and tie, and I have dyed fluorescent yellow hair – which I dyed to match the walls of the apartment I was living in. On the photo print I wrote in Wite-Out “May 9” to advertise this concert. Wish I could find that funny photo.