The Flaming Lips' 1997 album ZAIREEKA is a participatory, experimental album comprised of four discreet recordings, intended to be played back simultaneously, via four CD players. While much has been written about the Lips' ZAIREEKA (and much more should be, including how the anything-goes sessions served the band's creativity, acting as a bridge between the post-punk pop Clouds Taste Metallic to their 1999 masterwork, The Soft Bulletin), little documentation exists regarding the production of a given performance. On December 7, 2017, in Judd Gym at Vermont Technical College in Randolph Center, students in my fall 2017 Introduction to Rock and Roll course performed ZAIREEKA. This blog provides context, a description of the event, as well as technical details related to this specific production.
Through the semester, students learned not only about the history of rock music, but of how technology influenced the development of musical genres and styles: we passed LPs and 45s and old brittle 78s around the room, held lengths of 1/8" magnetic tape, and listened to both stereo and mono recordings. The class covers 1950-1999, so by the end of the course, the role of the concert film and MTV in changing music and music consumption habits is evident to students. The course insists on the direct and conscious effort of listening, in class, to specific landmark recordings, from Les Paul to Frank Zappa. These listening experiences in class have sometimes led to awkward moments, as dozens of undergraduates stare at pale-colored walls trying to care about the nuances of Steely Dan's "Peg." Compulsory, flourescent-lit classroom landscapes may also not invite modern undergraduates' deep listening-- a skill I wanted students to hone through this course.
The inclusion of The Flaming Lips' ZAIREEKA as a culminating event was conditional: I wanted to be able to relocate the class into an extraordinary venue, and needed to implement substantial sound equipment. The best space on campus I could think of was a concrete cavern of a gymnasium the size of a small grocery store, refurbished a few years ago to include some sound padding and a rubberized floor. The massive concrete bleachers-- more than a dozen rows, reaching to the ceiling-- were left intact during the renovation, inviting all sorts of speaker placement possibilities. With the space reserved, I began thinking about stereo systems.
ZAIREEKA is four discs, with each disc containing eight stereo tracks of sound. The intention-- one that was not lost on, but unsolicitedly highlighted by students afterward-- is that the operators of each of four disc players is serving as an 'instrument' themselves, making the music play through their individual effort, at the start of each track. This meant digging up four disc players, as well as four stereo amplifiers of some sort.
A Bose public address system was installed in Judd Gym during its renovation; I don't know the model numbers, or all of its features as available through its soft-key illuminated control panel. But I did know we could connect a CD player via the provided RCA jacks. This system is suspended in the ceiling, facing the concrete bleachers, and is comprised of two speakers and a subwoofer.
The second system used was the largest: a PA system with two large speakers on stands, as well as a massive subwoofer. To make best use of the room's natural acoustic tendencies, this subwoofer was placed in one of the far-corner entryways, firing directly into the room. This allowed for a natural dampening of the subwoofer, which would have been otherwise overpowering all other systems. This system had over 7,000 watts of power, and made the performance come alive.
The third system was brought in by students, from their dorm room. An extension cord allowed for rigging this system high in the rafters, directly facing the house PA, and almost at its level. Another student brought in sound-activated, color-changing lights, hanging them in the rafters above this stereo, to great effect.
The four system was one I recently acquired-- and the one that proved faulty. I have yet to see or participate in any production of ZAIREEKA that did not encounter at least one technical glitch (beyond the intentional drifting-in-sync of the disc players). The Acoustic Research AR94 speakers held up wonderfully, but the Pioneer SA-7500-- likely uncleaned and unchecked since the 1970s-- arrived at the gym with only one channel working. I clicked it into a 'mono' mode, with some success, but during track two, the crackling fade of a bad connection made clear the Pioneer wasn't happy. Wiggling the volume knob and balance control did something of the trick, at times, it seemed. By track eight the amp was giving off the smell of warm vintage electronics: not failing, but working harder than perhaps ever before.
I know that disc #1, which contains many of the main themes, was played back by the second system, with the giant sub, and disc #3 was played back by my system-- and the AR94s were given a chance to project the track's obscene frequencies (meant to help listeners see the future, and/or go mad). Luckily, this came at a moment when the Pioneer amp was working properly, because the effect was tremendous: as Wayne belts out one of the album's stronger compositions, and a raging orchestra releases its tension, the pinging, searing frequencies arrested all of us, sitting still among the dim light of a few strings of Christmas lights, as well as a white illuminated plastic star in the front of the room, which I used to signal when to start each track, after a countdown.
Before the performance, I encouraged students to move about the room, to experience different blends of the eight active channels of sound. Students drifted in and out of the room, perhaps more than I was aware: at the beginning of each track, I had a student shut off the one large house light, just as the track began. Once, a student's cueing was so bad that he asked for the track to be started again, which we did.
I've listened to ZAIREEKA previously, but have never experienced it as a high-wattage event as this was. The size of the room combined with good equipment to create immersive and echo-filled soundscapes: the blend between the discs during this performance was unlike anything I've experienced before. This was due to the concrete walls as much as any large amplifier.
Students provided information prior to our pressing play on track #1, about the band's history before and after ZAIREEKA, the album's music and its Parking-Lot-Experiments origin, and the album's lyrics. In the prior class, I gave them background info on the band, and context for ZAIREEKA-- but didn't highlight the album's main theme, beyond distributing some of the liner notes in class: a society breaking down. What would their music sound like? For many of these students, immersive and transformative music-- not just background noise to their lives, not just another file to download-- may require the direct subversion of our known technological forms, to create something participatory, an event to be remembered. I wondered, as I watched students carrying in speakers, and volunteers' fingers controlled all-important buttons, if ZAIREEKA was underappreciated in its time, back in 1997, when CD players were in abundance, and the media was common, and that maybe only now, as all music is available at all places at all times to us, that participatory events with pre-recorded music could serve a creative, expressive need.
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