CASSIBER 1982-1992

Of course the question is not that simple: as soon as one realizes that Monk does this with his rings, another kind of aura is born that replaces the aura of his silences; there is a morphing effect of one kind of aura to another. What I am trying to say is that before I saw the original, I had the copy (the LP), and I was very happy with my aura - with Monk’s silences - but after I encountered the original, it was as if an illusionist had revealed a trick to me, or I had discovered that it’s not Santa Claus who delivers the presents on Christmas Day.

Telectu, in 1985/6, used to record on four-track cassettes and then master to normal cassette. When PCM recorders appeared, we’d copy the cassette to the PCM - the sound was still great and close to the original live sound. What was interesting was that the original tape (the cassette) seemed now to be the copy, while the copy - on the PCM - seemed to be the original. The PCM seemed to carry the aura - not the original cassette.

This introduction serves to locate a public who were informed with a sense of Cassiber’s aura before they saw the band on stage, that is, when they only knew Cassiber by their records (the copy). I will argue that - for this audience - it seems they missed their sense of aura when they actually saw the band live (the original).

Do Shankar tunes of electric journalist?

Let’s think for a moment about music. Spiritual music. There’s nothing more spiritual than Indian music. Let’s think about a Raga played by a transcendental tamboura, some hypnotic tablas and the angelic voice of a female singer. Are you picturing this: an exotic rug on which the musicians sit, candlelight, incense, an audience sitting and listening in a trance. Well, the audience may be in trance but, I would argue, the musicians are not. They are completely concentrated on the technic, on their instruments, on the scale or rhythm. I have seen many videos of Indian classical concerts, and in almost all of them I’ve seen something like this: musicians speaking with one another, speaking to the sound technicians, sometime speaking to the public. They do this to make the concert better, not because of any lack of professionalism. They speak with the sound engineer in order to improve the sound, they speak with each other about what is happening at that moment or what might happen next, they speak with the public to explain what they are doing - much as Stockhausen did, whenever possible, at his concerts.

Christoph Anders

There’s a story, repeated millions of times, everywhere, about Ravi Shankar tuning his sitar. It took some time and at the end everyone applauded because they thought it was the end of a song. It’s nonsense. The fact is a stupid journalist who was watching the show, seeing everybody applaud, thought that they were applauding because they believed what they heard was music, which, obviously was not the case. Everybody knew Shankar was tuning (even those who were completely stoned); they were clapping because it took a long time, because they were anxious; because they were happy; because there were 500,000 of them. That’s the reason, not the journalistic fairytale. Everyone with any intelligence understands the difference between tuning and playing - even if they are not familiar with a particular instrument - because people identify, through intuition and good sense, the difference between the ritual of tuning and the ritual of playing.

Cassiber and unritual performance.

When Cassiber appeared on stage at the Gulbenkian Theatre in Lisbon, talking to one another and laughing just before they began to play - and when, 30 seconds into the first piece, Heiner Goebbels stopped the music and asked the sound technicians to make some alterations to the mix - and when, once the changes had been made, the group began to play again from the beginning of the first piece, almost all of the Portuguese musicians in the auditorium thought that all this demonstrated a thoroughly unprofessional attitude. I, on the contrary, argue that unprofessional would be if a group continued to play with a bad sound. In fact, that would not only be unprofessional but also show a careless disrespect toward the public. As for the fact that musicians talk and laugh as they enter the stage, that is no more than part of the process of relaxation - and a deritualization of the social relationship to be established between the musicians and the public.

I conclude in both cases, the Indian and this Cassiber concert, that the musicians made the right decision in the moment of the event. Doing nothing, saying nothing, not trying to change things that are wrong or could be better - that would have been the unprofessional way to act.

Chris Cutler