Thanks to everyone who came out for the free Slasher Flicks/Party With Death show on Monday! All photos by Alex Marks.

Guitarist Marisa Anderson played an intimate candlelit performance behind the Ballroom Marfa office on April 21, 2014 at 8pm. In case you missed the show, you can listen to her music on her Bandcamp page, and enjoy these photos courtesy of Lesley Brown and Alex Marks …

Robert Ashley and Alex Waterman, Performance of El Parque, Vidas Perfectas, Irondale Theater, Brooklyn, NY; December 2011, Pictured: Ned Sublette as ‘R’, aka Raoul de Noget, Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Phillip Stearns.

For anyone unable to make it to the performances of Vidas Perfectas at the Whitney Biennial, be sure to tune into the performance’s live stream beginning today.

Here is the schedule (all times EST):

each episode is 30 minutes, plus 15-minute changeovers between episodes

Thursday, April 17

1:30pm (El Parque, La Iglesia)

4:30pm (La Iglesia, El Parque

Friday, April 18

1:30pm (El Banco, El Salon)

6:30pm (El Banco, El Salon, El Bar)

Saturday, April 19

12pm (El Supermercado, El Banco)

4:30pm (El Bar, El Patio de Atras)

Sunday, April 20

12pm (El Supermercado, El Bar)

4:30pm (El Parque,

Vidas Perfectas premieres tomorrow at the Whitney Biennial and many have taken this opportunity to reflect on Robert Ashley’s legacy and the great works he left behind, particularly this recent three-opera series at the Whitney.

In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Corinne Ramey discusses with director Alex Waterman what drew him to Ashley’s operas:

“That’s the genius of Bob’s work,” said Mr. Waterman, in the Williamsburg apartment he shares with his wife Elisa Santiago, who performs in “Vidas Perfectas,” and their toddler son. “His idea of an opera is that it’s characters in a landscape telling stories musically.”

For Mr. Waterman, a major attraction of Ashley’s work is the idea of music as a social and collaborative process, where a less formal interpretation—like that of the performance collective Varispeed, which produced a site-specific “Perfect Lives” in the Catskills—is just as valid as Mr. Waterman’s more formal one.

“I’m interested in music not just as a way of organizing sound,” said Mr. Waterman, “but as a way of thinking about who we are when we gather together, and how we listen and speak together, and how we produce things together.”

Paul Grimstad focuses on the importance of Ashley’s Perfect Lives: A Television Opera for N+1 Magazine. An excerpt:

While the operas for television might seem yet another way in which the calculatedly outrageous became a commonplace of 20th-century art, Ashley’s work looks more like an ingenious trick of defamiliarization whereby that quaint banality “television” is transformed into a medium for opera. In the end, I think, Ashley was mostly interested in the sound of Americans talking to each other, or talking to themselves: insistent, often indistinct, never meaningless, demotic. In these voices can be heard something revelatory and strange, as if someone took the lid off life and let us see the works.

Finally, Steve Smith eulogizes Ashley in The New York Times. Finding comfort in the fact that Waterman’s new productions of Ashley’s work manage to both be faithful to Ashley’s vision while cleverly building upon them. An excerpt:

What I have appreciated most about previous reconceptions of Ashley’s operas was the extent to which newcomers found fresh possibilities. Already in “Crash,” broadened horizons were evident. Ms. Bell’s inquisitive “yeah” was not Mr. Pinto’s hipster aside. Mr. McCorkle’s stammer was more pronounced than Ms. Kidambi’s. Ms. Simons and Mr. Ruder employed distinct hues of wistfulness. If the specter of death haunted this wistful, articulate swan song, prospects of preservation and renewal were also at hand.

After extensive filming on location in Marfa, Vidas Perfectas will debut at the Whitney Biennial tomorrow, April 17, 2014. Please join us here in Far West Texas as the production returns to Marfa and El Paso from July 10-14.

The Crowley Theater, December 30, 2013. Photo by Lesley Brown.

On December 30, Jeff Zeigler and Mary Lattimore visited Marfa to score Ballroom’s fifth-annual New Year’s eve film: Philippe Garrel’s, La Révélateur (1968). Music blog, the Repeater, recently met with Zeigler and Lattimore to discuss their thoughts on west Texas, why they were attracted to La Révélateur, and what’s next for the duo.

Here is an excerpt from part I of the interview, where the musicians discuss creating the score:

Jeff: Despite our previous experience scoring films, the task was not easy. We started by just watching the film and trying to come up with themes, not totally sure what approach to take. While the film has some general recurring ideas—relationship conflict, emotional distance, and coming of age— this doesn’t totally translate into an obvious angle from a musical standpoint.

We decided to start from the most logical path: Improvising to the film as a whole, coming up with musical themes from that, and then building it into a cohesive idea.

Mary: ….We set up in Jeff’s studio and watched the film once through in silence, getting to know the characters. We pinpointed the family’s recurring activities. The film’s pace varies from almost excruciatingly slow, to measured and weary escape, and then to rapid, terrorized flight. So, one of our objectives was to create sounds that reacted instinctively to the movement or stillness in the film. Some of the most memorable scenes were of the couple running through the forest, of the boy moving through a tunnel, and of waves delivering swans elegantly to shore. The boy is the hero of the film, and carries with him a levity and playfulness that contrasts with the dark and troubled parents, and we wanted to focus on that, too.

When we watched the film a second time, Jeff and I jammed from a static drone, and then I started to play a slow melody as the boy walked through a lonely tunnel. This melody came back and morphed into different keys later on, whenever the slow walking reappeared. We created a few themes, and then took them to different places depending on the action. Jeff’s melodica was a really important voice in the melody. He would play a mournful ribbon over my repetitive figures, and the combination of instruments fit together very organically.

Some of the music was just texture, noise, lowered loops of fingernails scraping on harp strings and aggressive banging on stuff. Some of it was silence and negative space. I made Jeff take over the scene of the laughing boy in the bathroom because I had no idea what to do. Our notes were just pages of “Fur Coat = Sparse. Boy Walks Alone. Crucified Parents Theme F#. Silence – Wall Words. Slow Crucified Parents. Tunnel Bed Thick Gliss. Boring Bedroom 2. Fast Train Dm-Cmajor,” and on and on in our language.

Images from the March 8, 2014 Ballroom Marfa and Mexican Summer’s festival at El Cosmico, featuring Connan Mockasin, No joy, Quilt, Weyes Blood and ARP. All photos by Alex Marks.

Images from the March 1, 2014 Ballroom Marfa’s Sound Speed Marker opening weekend concert by Grupo de la Paz and the Tish Hinojosa Band at Marfa’s USO Building. All photos by Alex Marks.

Poster by Rob Carmichael/SEEN.

Mexican Summer and Ballroom Marfa have come together to curate a day-long celebration full of music, star ogling, and good vibes at the El Cosmico campground in Marfa, Texas on Saturday, March 8, 2014 (noon to sundown). A long celebrated artist’s outpost and hotbed of metaphysical inspiration, Marfa will provide a blissful backdrop for this inaugural gathering of Mexican Summer friends and family.

This event will be free and open to the public, featuring performances by an auspicious slice of the Mexican Summer roster:

Connan Mockasin (6pm)

No Joy (5pm)

Quilt (4pm)

Weyes Blood (3pm)

Arp (2pm)

Attendees can also expect to enjoy a thriving community of local artists and visionaries, tasty local eats & drinks, a restorative soak in El Cosmico’s Dutch tubs, and awe-inspiring views of the Trans-Pecos.

We hope to see you there!

Thomas in StI fought hard. She is alluding here to her 11 siblings and half siblings. She says, the taboo, and where does taboo usually happen. Plus tôt,

All images courtesy of Brice Beasley and Under Pressure Screenprinting in Austin, TX.

We just received our first look at the fantastic posters designed by Brice Beasley and printed by Under Pressure in Austin for our upcoming concert with the great Tish Hinojosa Band. The (FREE!!!) event will take place during the opening weekend for Hubbard/Birchler’s Sound Speed Marker, on March 1st at 8pm at Marfa’s USO Building.

Until then, keep your eyes peeled for these babies around town and get excited!

I’ve been a police officer, a Little League coach, a Boy Scout leader and have volunteered for many, many local organizationsIf you not read books 1 and 2, you probably want to get caught up before reading this next part of the series. “It did get out of hand because the homeowner said, if you ever do this again I will shoot you,” Bagshaw says. Emergency officials are now trying to sift through the charred seniors’ home, but a thick coating of ice has formed on the site in bitterly cold temperatures. “I think that what I did throughout last season was adjust goals and set new goals that would be based on the tournaments I was getting into, and I think that that just needs to continue. Marwan, who is 24, is pursuing his master’s in mechanical engineering,

Tish Hinojosa. Image courtesy of the artist.

As part of the opening weekend celebrations for our upcoming exhibition, Hubbard/Birchler’s Sound Speed Marker, Ballroom Marfa is hosting a free concert by The Tish Hinojosa Band at the USO Building in Marfa at 8pm on Saturday, March 1st.

Tish Hinojosa is an Austin-based singer whose music is a reflection of her borderland background, combining the sounds of Texas country music with a love of traditional Mexican folk tunes, inviting comparisons to Linda Ronstadt and Townes Van Zandt. She’s recorded a dozen albums — singing in both Spanish and English — since her now-classic 1987 debut, From Taos to Tennessee.

We talked to Tish via email about growing up in San Antonio, her years as a back-up singer for Michael Martin Murphy, and her favorite spots in Austin to hear new music.

How has living in Germany affected you and your music?

I spent 2004 through 2012 living in Hamburg Germany. Because my stay there was related to my love and marriage to a German, the effect was one at first of adventure and excitement and a willingness to absorb everything: language, culture, food, everything German.

Their musical influence or history is not something that could really be said to effect my singer-songwriter sensitivity, unless we were to talk about Bavaria and the southern German influence of the accordion on Mexican music due to German immigrants in Texas (which has in it’s way affected my music, but that’s more from a Texas standpoint).

My time in Germany was spent in very urban Hamburg, where cover bands, blues, R&B, and discos rule. This lack of contemporary appreciation of “my kind” of music… and the years of realizing the underside of the German culture I was actually in, left little effect except leaving me more and more homesick for the U.S.A. That’s why my marriage is over and I am back in Austin re-building my career.

Even though you haven’t been to Marfa in some time, what were your impressions of the town and the Big Bend region?

I am excited to visit Marfa. It seems that although it was always a stop on visits to river trips in Big Bend and to El Paso or to Alpine (especially to stay up for the Marfa Lights), it always seemed quaint and sleepy. As for the buzz I am hearing from Austin friends and colleagues, Marfa is now quite a cosmic center for art, culture, and an extension of “keep Austin weird”-ness. I am looking forward to experiencing it from this new perspective!

You’ve been making music for decades, so how do you think your work has changed and evolved since your first album?

[It’s] been a very adventurous journey. My very first recordings were Tex-Mex bubblegum singles released along border radio stations when I was in my teens. This record label actually went on to become the first and premier Tejano label later. I was an experiment for the label in the early ’70s.

My real singer-songwriter career blossomed in the early ’80s when I left my hometown of San Antonio where I had been singing cover songs for tourists on the Riverwalk. I entered the first two songs I ever wrote to the Kerrville Folk Festival song-writing competition in 1979 and won. I then moved to northern New Mexico where the country-swing, two-step-cowboy scene was in full bloom. I helped form a country band and learned and played songs of that genre, which was all-new to this San Antonio city girl. I continued writing and performing my own songs, first with this “country” sensibility, then later spreading out into social issues, Latino, and contemporary singer-songwriter writing.

You’ve said that your time in Nashville encouraged you to start writing your own songs; why is that? Did something in particular happen that motivated you?