The First Friday of February turned out to be a sloppy disgusting mess outside. All throughout the Kansas City winter cycle this year, we've been bombarded by more snow than I've ever experienced (I don't travel much, though) and bone rattling cold. On this First Friday, we got another heavy dose of snow without the complete bitterness of cold during the day, so by the night time everything was slushy and muddy, and freezing balls cold on top of that. At work, I got held up, so I wasn't able to make it to Pete Lawless's 7:00 Fishtank performance until 7:30.

Pete Lawless is an interesting cat. His demeanor is slightly mousy, but in an observant, cautious way. But his path always seems clear to him. His musical aesthetics are mostly avant, with balancing hints of resolution, but true to its creator, certain of its intent. There was a brief moment during Fiat's beginning when we thought he might be a part of our group as lead saxophone. He would have been a good fit with his abrasive playing style, and he even wrote a pretty dope tune called Kilgore Trout for us to play, but he decided to move in a different direction. I guess that's a nice way of saying he had better stuff to do.

This concert I was going to was Pete Lawless's performance of a collection of music he composed over the period of a month or so sitting in the display window of the Fishtank Gallery for two hours a day. He called this series, Songs to Fill a Window, and he had apparently chosen as a theme the call for liberty, which has recently been reverberating through the grassroots of American culture and through the internet. His audience consisted of Facebook friends and people who were made curious by passing him by every day.

I arrived at the Fishtank to a surreal scene. The front door was one of those old sturdy ones so common to the Crossroads area, with gaudy deep red paint. Inside the lights in the dark rafters seemed to hang in the air and peer over shoulders. As I walked to the money booth, I heard a perplexing jumble of nonsense coming from the room where the performance was being held. It was happy nonsense, consisting of animal noises, well annunciated observations, scat, and drawling mundane irrelevant storytelling. The lady at the money booth was smiling and explained I could pay anywhere between $5 and $15, which made me wonder, does that mean you would refuse more than $15? If someone asked, "Well, could I pay $25, because I think you guys are just, you know, really swell," would you reply, "No sir, the price is between $5 and $15, please pay the correct price or leave."? I can see the art in that. It may not technically be as lucrative I guess. I payed the $5, (sorry, I know, I'm cheap) and the hostess offered me as much PBR as I liked (sponsorship, huh? score man).

The walls all around the Fishtank are a calm deep blue. The showroom has a stage at the end furthest from the window. On the stage wall was a collection of hand written musical manuscript in three sections held on by blue masking tape, and organized apparently by tune. There was even some documentation of how the musical game he designed, which was the source of the wonderful nonsense that greeted me upon entering, worked. I wish I had made it on time so I could've heard the rules, but it was fascinating and I was able to pick up on a little bit. Pete, Chaski Dye, Lauren Wells, and Katelyn Boone were sitting around a table on top of a laughably small stage with a board game in front of them. From what I could tell, every time they landed on a square, they had to draw a card of some sort and make whatever noise the card told them to. They may have to imitate something on the card, or read directly from it, or talk about whatever subject they found on the card. I wasn't sure if the rules were any more complicated than that, but it also seemed they were trying to coordinate their sounds as best they could to make it musical. They could've been doing it without trying, but it was obviously loads of fun to play, and hilarious to listen to.

Already intrigued, I was anxious to hear the rest. The next act was a collection of three tunes with Pete singing and playing the ukulele, accompanied by Lauren Wells singing and playing pizz violin on the first tune, Chaski on violin on the second, and completely solo on the third.

The first song had a deliriously claustrophobic sound, with the main rhythmic theme a quaint bobbing on the uke. He displayed a bluesy lyrical structure with an obviously untrained voice decrying the unlimited books he wishes he could read if only he had the time. I inferred from his liberty theme that he was referring mainly to the large collection of books that have accumulated over the past few centuries that have been rediscovered and published by the politically active freedom supporting educational organization, the Ludwig Von Mises Institute. Lauren would harmonize with his voice on the hooks, and offered counterpoints with her violin on occasion. In the middle of the song, they went into a deranged duet of ridiculously tiny plinks and dinks that spiraled out of control, meeting clumsily at the end and landing together on the hook.

The second was more of a folk tune about patriotism and his personal definition of it. However, the only thing that truly makes his definition personal is the twisted way which society has changed its generally accepted meaning. Chaski provided soft, droning notes under Pete as he went through his verses, and took a couple of solos over Pete's strangely somber ukulele strumming. The third uke tune also had a folk sound, and the lyrics were again following the liberty theme, but Pete admitted beforehand that he hadn't enough time in the window to complete it.

The final act of the night was a transcription of a speech by Ron Paul, with Lauren reciting it and the rest of the group playing instruments in accompaniment. Katelyn played a synthesizer, Pete picked up an accordion, and Chaski remained on his principal instrument, the violin. The three instruments created an eerie dream-like atmosphere, which was appropriate for that was the theme of the speech. Whenever the speech began referring to the inadequacies and corrupt policies of government, the intensity and discord between the instruments increased. At particularly dramatic sections of the speech, Pete would stand up with his accordion and crash notes into each other in a crescendo of disapproval. I think the drama of this piece could have been contained a little more for the sake of sobriety and clarity in message, but of the work I had seen this night it was my favorite.

Throughout the show, Pete seemed to be quite good at explaining his methods and keeping the small audience interested, which is a difficult task when performing such avant material. At the end, I caught up with him and discussed meeting and learning more of what he's studied on liberty. As a composer who thinks well outside the usually accepted methods of making music and who challenges authority and encourages free thought, I think Pete Lawless has a lot to offer Kansas City. Keep an eye out for more of his performances.

Peter will be providing us with some recordings of the show for our archives.

Published Saturday, 6th January 2010 - Written by Jeff Benjamin