Tony Conrad at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery
New York, New York
November 9, 2008
I walked into a Tony Oursler book signing and heard Tony Conrad totally droning out and feedbacking really loudly. No one was paying any attention at all. I came back a little while later and went to the upstairs part of the gallery and took this photo. It sounded really good. Again, no one was paying attention. He was playing with a woman named MV Carbon, who was on cello. Both of them had tiny Marshal amps that were cranked. It was super good.
After the event, Tony told some friends and I about a recent car accident he had been in. Since he was blindsided, he claimed that it felt as though he had been hit by missile. Luckily, he was okay. He also said he normally would have had a friend in the passenger side, but somehow opted to not pick her up that day, or she might not have been as lucky as Tony was. Yikes! I told him that I thought his music that day sounded really rad, and he said something to the affect of, “Well, I tried to make it sound bad, but it came out sounding good,” and that he had not succeeded. Pretty funny…pretty Tony, too, actually.–Rich Jacobs
Text and photo ©2008 Rich Jacobs.
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