Go Van - Go Van - Go Van Gogh
Go Van Gogh has a story, but most of it, I have been persuaded, is not for consumption by the public at large. Being a participant in this drama, I have a biased, and some say jaundiced, view of the proceedings. What I am allowed to impart is but the small left hand bones that are stuck half out the closet door. The harmless facts of time and place, lacking the gruesome pot boiler of this turgid romance between people power and the music they worship.
The story starts just before Halloween 1982. Three disparate individuals find each other through bulletin boards, networks of friends, and happenstance. They seem to be moving in a similar direction, just from far flung origins. Over the next 3 years they build a machine, adding and discarding parts as this vessel is buffeted by the forces of time culture and personality. They finally run aground on a Brussels sidewalk. One fleeing the scene, fleeing music, never to be heard again. The other two pick themselves up, brush off their fabulous raiments, and continue down the road towards now.
Flash forward, San Francisco. 3 years of opening the way for original instrumental music to blossom in their home town, a critically acclaimed debut album under the name Comic Book Opera. Summer of 89 buskin from the green Aegean to the murky Seine. New York City for three more years wandering in the wilderness. A shiny automatic, a half eaten donut, a brief tussle on the subway stairs and our friends are back again.
And then there was Go Van Gogh.
While I had been on top of Mount Sinai arranging things with god, those who had followed us out of Egypt had rushed headlong into idolatry. Replacing there own creativity with the wonderful ideas of Miles Davis. How could I hear the thoughts in my own head, I said, if I was busy thinking the thoughts of another. We could no more play his music , than we could have lived his life. The door we had helped open in 1986 was now leading nowhere. Rather than bow to the conventions of those times we opened ourselves to the interesting potentials of modal eastern melodicism, married to the pump it up possibilities of our roots in American culture. The results were many fine records consisting of an ever changing kaleidoscope of instrumental aggregations, starting with the euphonious "Go Van Gogh" on the Accretions label, and ending in some unforeseen future, where we are inducted into some planetary hall of fame for the ground breaking work in which we are now involved.
Quite a roster of players flowed through the band over those years. First Sax chair and main compositional duties were completely filled by Connie Walkershaw on Alto and Soprano.
At some previous juncture we were joined by Brad Bechtel on Lap Steel. Brad has returned for a second round, so can’t complain as things progress. Besides playing in Hawaiian roots band The Faux Hawaiians, Brad is one of our nation foremost authorities on the plank he plays with such dexterity. Visit him online at www.well.com/user/wellvis/steel.html
Rhythm Guitar duties are appealingly handled by Paul Bergmann who has performed and/or recorded with Mingo 2000, Barbara Manning's SF Seals, Fisherman’s Xylophonic Orchestra, San Francisco’s Famous Burlesque Orchestra, and others. I would tell you about Paul’s other current projects, but then I would have to show you the videos, and you would be frightened.
Our current violinist is Michel Walther, who perform a variety of music styles: Jazz, Classical, Tango, Latin, Balkan, Klezmer, and we are quickly turning her to the dark side with our own brand of Go Van Gogh.
Drummers come, and drummers go. At the moment, the drummer, she is gone, but tomorrow is another day. And “I swear I will never lose Tara againâ€.
Oh... and of course my own minor role in this story, Jesse Walkershaw as the Bass player.