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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000076.txt from 2003/04

From: PhilFrei@-----.com
Subj: [DR-L] Re: Jeez, what a cranky group today
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 12:44:57 -0400

>Hey Phil, are you the Phil Freihofner mentioned at this website?
>
>1. Unbelievably Anal Negativland Discography
>Dayton, Chris Grigg, Pyke Allen, Don Joyce, Phil Freihofner, Lauren
>(singing on "Clowns and BallerinasTera Freedman- voice tape (13). Phil
>Freihofner- bomb parts (10). Ed Markmann- paid voice
>http://www.negativland.com/negdisco_detail.html
>

Yes. In the early 1980s I was working as a sound designer for plays, and
would sometimes guest on a radio show called "Over the Edge," hosted by Don
Joyce, which played on Sunday/Monday early A.M. hours. Don had set up a
format where individuals would be given access to lines in the various
studios with which to improvise in any fashion they desired (including phone
lines to the general public). People could contribute orally (e.g.,
commentaries, poetry, or create characters that would interact with callers)
or sound effects or music, while Don mixed all the sources live on air. It
could be a chaotic mess, or it could be quite interesting and entertaining,
depending on who was involved, the quality of their material, and how well
they worked together.

On one occasion I collaborated with a play writer with a small company that
came onto the show and provided some synthesized sound effects I had created
that were intended to suggest the explosion of a spaceship. Don was
apparently impressed enough that he lifted the explosions without my
knowledge and put them into a piece he wrote called "Car Bomb." I was quite
surprised to see myself credited on the record.

I was originally attracted to the high level of creativity and the spirit of
freedom and exploration, especially as contributed by a member named Ian
Allen, a brilliant and perfectionistic sound designer/composer that
tragically slipped into mental illness. I did play in one performance
(keyboards, sound effects) with the band while Ian was a member, but left due
to artistic differences with the group's leader Mark Hosler. I was not
content with what seems to be his preferred mode of expression: the perpetual
jeer.

In the late eighties and early nineties I composed for modern dance, and in
the last big production, "The Fish and the Fire," resumed playing oboe which
I had given up 15 years earlier due to neck weaknesses. I've mostly been
working on my oboe playing since and have only composed one new work in the
meantime, a silent film score.

I just got back from a wonderful weekend, filling in at the last minute on
fourth oboe for St. Matthew's Passion. Glorious, glorious music! I hope I did
well enough to get called back again by The Santa Cruz Chorale. I don't know
if at this somewhat late age (46) I'll be able to pull off winning a regular
orchestra position. But at least I've reached a level where I can continue
with community orchestra work, and, it seems, with writing or arranging new
repertoire to perform here and there.

Phil Freihofner
Oakland

Has there ever been a nation with a big technological advantage, in the
history of mankind, that did not try and create an empire? Has there ever
been a citizenry that didn't think they were doing the world a favor in the
process?