Matmos at Miller...

In the future, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people, or more, will claim that they saw Matmos (and Zeena the harpist) at The Henry Miller Library in Big Sur on 09/08/07. But less than a hunded of us were actually there. So stirring and indellible was this performance under the stars, it is destined to become part of the core mythology of the early 21st C. Particulary moving was the band's minimal and time-stopping rendition of "Perfect Lives" a modern opera by Robert Ashley, orignally written for tabla and sitar but played here on a computer and an African-looking harp. Other unconventional instruments included packing tape, roses (used as drumsticks), kerosene tanks, tuned teacups, pages of bibles turning, amplified crayfish nerve tissue, and walkie talkies.

Also great was an impromptu acoustic ditty by the Library's own Magnus Toren, in which listeners were reminded that HENRY Miller and Maralyn Monroe were never married (but if they were he'd of taken her to Paris and eaten dinner off her body and dyed her hair blue...)

(Poster by Steven Erdman)