Sonic Object Trio

• Todd Margasak: cornet.
• Dave Champion: trombone.
• Toshi Makihara: percussion.

In the past you have expressed doubts that Ben Franklin would support this sort of scene. Can you comment further on this? Do you feel that way today?

Todd Margasak: If Ben Franklin could've made money from free jazz, he would've liked it.

You think Franklin was only money-oriented? What about his founding of the post office?

Todd: He was a printing office.

Ahh! So he was creating a market.

Todd: He was one of the worst public figures ever for awarding himself government contracts. He printed money too, I believe.

Is that the same reason he created the public library?

Todd: That, I don't know. I don't think so. I think he wanted access to other people's books.

Dave, how do you think tonight's show went?

Dave Champion: It had its moments.

The band was very light on its feet.

Dave: It's always hard to tell until you hear it back. Playing seems to be different from listening.

I'm often disappointed when I hear tapes of improv shows.

Dave: I was pleasantly surprised by the tape that I made of the Lightbox Orchestra. I enjoyed listening to it more than the actual playing! Quite a difference to me.

During the playing, were you greatly distracted because you were trying to do all the cues?

Dave: Yeah, and then I became aware of the audience. My favorite [cue] was the boat on the water, cause everybody chose to [react differently]: some people chose to do the waves rising and falling, some people chose to play little sea shanties.

Todd: And then there were these dots on the water.

Dave: I was doing the seagulls.

Todd: Graphic score.

How do you like these game pieces?

Todd: That wasn't a game--that was real.

You have extensively studied the very theoretical side of sound, music, and noise--

Todd: --Not me.

Dave: Part of what appeals to me about free improvisation is that I don't know what the theory is. There don't seem to be a lot of rules, at least not in this totally improvised music.

There are people that have their political thing that they try to say Oh I'm expressing my philosophical/political deal.

Dave: Yeah--and I'm totally ignorant of it. That's why I enjoy it, cause it's not like bebop where you have to play all these patterns and fit into the chord progressions.

I've searched in vain to find a "program" behind Sonic Object Trio--all your shows are different.

Dave: When we start playing, my goal is to play something that's not hackneyed; and I haven't been successful yet. But that's my interest in it.

And yet you continue to play the trombone. You could probably come up with some very unique stuff if you used an instrument that you had no idea how to deal with.

Todd: I don't believe it. I don't believe in that. The more skills you have on your instrument, I believe, the more you can do on your instrument.

Wouldn't you sat that adds to your risk of playing hackneyed stuff?

Todd: You could play hackneyed stuff on another instrument, and not do it very well. I think it's more likely that if you play an instrument you don't know how to play, you're gonna play even more cliched stuff.

If I played the trumpet, I doubt I would be able to play cliched stuff. I think I would spend a lot of time going tpfffththth...Is that cliched?

Dave: Well, Todd's done it.

Todd: You'd have to come up with a different sound. I think that's the challenge of playing an acoustic instrument.

Dave: (to Todd) One of my favorite things that you've played, was that Friday night--and both of us, Toshi and I, just gave up and left you there hanging, and you played for two minutes, totally by yourself, and you kept looking over, wondering if we were going to bail you out at all. It was great--you kept playing all these sounds, and it got more and more ferocious. It was great.

Todd: It was a reflection of my mental state.

Dave: Desperation! It was wonderful.

Todd: I don't think we have a set goal [for SOT]. I don't know what I do. I think I play too much.

There's only three people in the group, and one of them is a non-melodic player.

Todd: Whatever that means.

One of them doesn't play melodies. It's not like you have to stay out of people's way.

Todd: That's not necessarily true, though, because the funny thing about having a small group is that one person's intentions become much clearer. You have to decide whether or not you're going to be cool and let the person do what they want to do. Sometimes, I think, I'm off balance, and I'm not hearing the way I should be hearing.

I think you can get in people's way. But I think that's fine, that's the fun thing about this, when you're playing in a small group and there really aren't any parameters except your limitations on your instrument. And your limitations in terms of what you know, what you can do.

It's all about interacting with whom you're playing. It's a pity when we get stuck in some idiomatic groove, because then you listen to what the person's doing and you respond the way it's been scripted in other recordings by other musicians. Especially when you fall into something that you just call "blues." I don't know what we were doing.

You guys were just like WAAAPwurwurWURR a lot, y'know. Just a lot of bending and a lotta--

Dave: I like (pause) what it turned in to. A little bit frenetic, and then it turned into something worthwhile.

Todd: I was reading the liner notes to some AMM record, I forget who wrote them, he says something about the music ultimately being a failure. There's never gonna be a moment where--

Guy driving by: The set was really exciting, I had an awful lot of fun.

Todd: (to guy) Thanks! (to interviewer) He lives like four doors up the street from me.

So, why is the music a failure?

Todd: Well, it's not a failure. We're not gonna do it correctly. There are no requirements that we're going to satisfy that we can walk away knowing that we've done something correctly.

It's not like trying to improvise a fugue.

Todd: There are moments that are good and moments that are bad.

Dave: Is it ever going to reach the point where every moment is good?

Todd: I hope not.

I'd just like to mention that in his autobiography David Lee Roth writes:

From [a teacher at PCC] I learned a singular phrase that I use to this day: "If it sounds good, it is good." Two rules to music. Number one: If it sounds good, it is good. Number two: There ain't no other rule.

(Roth, David Lee. Crazy From The Heat. New York: Hyperion, 1997.)

Todd: (ignoring the above) I think that when you play an acoustic instrument and your body is engaged in making sound, there's a lot of energy in the room.

Maybe for you.

Todd: If you go to a gym, and there's someone lifting weights in the corner... (reading the list of questions over interviewer's shoulder) I'm pleased that you came prepared.

Do you think that there's enough interest in live performance, by the public, to make it worthwhile?

Todd: Public interest doesn't seem to matter. I don't really know what our music is, unsupported. It's something else. It's more fun to play than to listen to. We could just rehearse all the time. I'm sure there are ego things there.

You definitely want people to clap after each song.

Todd: Well, my goal isn't to displease people...

Do you want them to clap after each solo?

Todd: No. We don't take solos.

Do they clap after each solo in Europe?

Todd: Never played in Europe.

I wonder who started that.

Todd: The Romans.

I'm thinking probably Ben Franklin.

Todd: Could be.

Cause he was a glove manufacturer, and figured, "If I can get people to wear out their evening gloves..."

Todd: He was a bad man.

(Toshi emerges)

Todd: Ask him.

"What function does a band of improvisational musicians serve?"

Toshi: Nothing. It's a symbolic presence, in this capitalist society.

So a band is a form that society will recognize.

Toshi: I'm not sure that I want to be recognized as a band. (accusing Todd) He came up with this name. He likes the word "Object." He's used it twice, in different groups.

Dave: It's a good word.

Todd: It is, but then there's this band called "Project Object," which is a fucking Frank Zappa cover band.

Dave Champion hasn't talked enough.

Todd: (to Dave) Do you think that the music should have a broader audience?

Dave: What music is that?

You know: "the" music.

Dave: Everybody likes music. How broad do you want it to be?

Todd: Ask Toshi. (Toshi is fishing a lamp out of a dumpster.) Ask what's his favorite beer.

Toshi: I used to like this beer called Bell Haven Ale, which is from Scotland. But it's too sweet for me these days. I'm kinda into this German non-alcoholic "beverage." I love the taste of beer, but I'm not quite sure about being drunk. But this German thing, it's pretty close to the real thing. It's real good, actually. I'm not into those dark beers. I used to like dark beers a lot, but it's too heavy for me now. I'm approaching 40--I need a "lite" beer.

(Long discussion of the heights of famous and obscure musicians. It always degenerates into this, somehow.)

(Long discussion of mundane stuff.)

(Several attempts to continue interview.)

If I wanted to change my life in an extreme way, what album might I seek out?

Dave: Have you heard that William Shatner album?

A Transformed Man? No.

Todd: He's not as good as Nimoy.

Dave: I think he is. That song--"It Was A Very Good Year," Sinatra. He does a brilliant take of it.

Have you heard that Sinatra song about the nine planets? I'm not sure what kind of career move that was.

Todd: Didn't matter. His career was set.

(Discussion: was Gertrude Stein overweight?)

I would definitely say that in some sense, Gertrude Stein's a lot better writer than Hemingway, just because--

Todd: Herb Alpert is a lot better musician than Bill Dixon, too.

I don't know who Bill Dixon is.

Todd: Or Bill Cosby.

We haven't talked about Cosby--do you have time?

Todd: See "Ben Franklin."

Did Cosby have any influence on your work?

Todd: No.

(Interviewer explains, at length, the major influence Cosby had on his own work.)

Whenever I hear "Chicken Heart," it's just simple words, simple sounds--

Todd: --that's Gertrude Stein coming through Cosby--

--and it paints in my mind a whole virtual reality. It took me years, as a kid, to realize that he was just standing on stage.

Todd: That's an example of how the recorded performance has nothing to do with the live performance.