VOTD 1/30/2024

 Guitar Roberts: In Pittsburgh (St Joan)

Purchased from Susan Langille at a gig

There's a student gallery, The Frame, at the corner of Forbes Avenue and Margaret Morrison St at Carnegie Mellon University. To the best of my recollection, I saw a single concert in that space: Guitar Roberts/Loren Mazzacane (Connors).

The time frame was early 1990s. Considering it's something like thirty years ago, I think I can be forgiven for forgetting some details. Loren was there performing with his wife Susan. I think it was just the two of them. Loren sat in a chair, and played cassettes for accompaniment. Everything was hushed, very quiet. Loren would sometimes hit the play button on his tape player, and he'd let out a crying bend on his guitar. Not a wail; that suggests something entirely too loud. Once in a while, Susan would sing quietly with him. She had no amplification, and none was necessary. The music was all blues/not blues. It was certainly blues-derived, but no blues as I knew it. 

The gallery sits on the bottom floor beneath student apartments. Some point mid-performance, there was a gushing sound coming from the pipes in the side hallway and stairs. It was thunderous compared to the low volume of the concert. I rushed to the stairwell to see if anything could be done; it was probably just someone flushing a toilet on the floor immediately above us. Not much to be done.

The music here, and in concert, sits somewhere between Ry Cooder and Jandek. Jandek is extreme in this case, and determinately doesn't tune his instrument in a traditional manner. Loren isn't precise with his tuning, but is in the neighborhood. Ry lives in a more traditional territory. His music can be similarly low key and beautiful in the way that Loren's is, but Loren seems more unfettered by tradition. He's a little like Albert Ayler on guitar, only .01 times the volume, and coming more directly from the blues rather than Ayler's gospel roots.

May I say I was transfixed? I loved every moment, except for the pipes. 

It's possible I interacted with Loren, but I remember buying this LP from Susan. She might have had several albums, but this one was titled In Pittsburgh.  Of course I would buy it. I can't recall if I asked her the reason for the title. She told me the printed address on the back (New Haven) was incorrect, and I had her pen on their then current address. No, I didn't mind if she wrote directly on the cover. In hindsight, I should have had both of them autograph it.