Review: Metal machine music

Geoff Carter

Tuesday, July 2, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Gary Singh's Washing Machine Orchestra

Saturday, June 29 at The Attic's Cafe Neon

Something about avant-garde music makes people want to kill. Whether it's the classic ground-breaking work of John Cage, the Balanescu Quartet's clever interpretations of popular songs, even the calliope-style cadences of Philip Glass, there's just something to it that inspires violence.

Let's say you're washing your car while bobbing your head to the sounds of Praxis' "Metatron." You're enjoying yourself- who wouldn't be, with the sound of Moog synthesizers, distorted guitars, and amplified belt sanders blaring away? Yet this sound isn't for everyone, and before you know it, your roommate is mangling the stereo with a gas-powered chainsaw - an instrument he/she fully intends to use on you immediately thereafter. And there you stand, thinking aloud, "Wow! That would sound great with congas." In the midst of all this carnage sits your washing machine. It doesn't make too much of a fuss; it just churns, spins, and eats the occasional sock. But don't be fooled. In the hands of Gary Singh, your Maytag is a heavy metal beast capable of headlining Lollapalooza.

Singh, a longhaired fellow from Northern California, plays washing machines. There's no other way to describe it. He jacks a bunch of them to his laptop computer, fills them with bricks or shards of metal, places microphones in a variety of key spots, and sets them off at appropriate moments.

Whether the result could be called music is a matter of interpretation, but the fact stands that last Saturday I went to see a bunch of washing machines rock out and I wasn't the only one. About sixty people stood there, utterly mesmerized, as the mostly stationary performers did their thing. In a way, it was like watching a progressive rock unit, circa 1976. The musicians stand stock still, generating waves of feedback and purely synthetic sound, while one lone Ziggy Stardust out in front bobs back and forth as he solos. Seemingly aware of the parallels, Singh filled the front machine with enough bricks to make it slam back and forth angrily as a lone spotlight shone upon it. Everybody get up and Cheer! You can't stop the Tide!

Singh pleads innocent to the progressive-rock charges, but doesn't deny there's a few levels of parody at work.

"It's more a satire of technology, a satire of computer hobbyism, (and) a ridicule of music, all at the same time, " he says. "A washing machine is the domestic symbol of Americana. You're taking this domestic entity out of its context, and doing a mock-concert with it."

He smiled broadly at the suggestion his charges could usurp Neil Young's noise crown.

"There's a lot of aural and visual possibilities from washing machines that usually go untapped," Singh says. "There's all kinds of stuff you can put inside 'em, like bricks and bowling balls, so when when you spin 'em around, they'll be really off balance, moving around. It's almost as if they have a life of their own." Almost.

Immediately following Singh's army was Mock Artillery, a mob of local eclectics featuring Bil Hooper on saxophone and Alex Vaughan on keyboards. Their brand of avant-garde warfare was mostly ambient in natureQ layers of sound floating on top of each other serenely with an occasional blast. Good as they were, it wasn't enough to drive the sound of the spin cycle from our heads.

While Singh's sounds may not have changed my life forever, they certainly elevated my opinion of my old Kenmore. I may just go home tonight and feed it a few socks in the hope I may have a potential Hendrix out there.

Rock and roll!