Damo Suzuki

WHO: Damo Suzuki
WHERE: Amigo's
WHEN: July 7/07
(photos by Maja Montgomery)

I was so intensely focused on the energy the musicians created in this performance that my shoulders knotted themselves up and I spent most of the show in pain.

After the show everyone in the audience looked bewildered over what they had just experienced. The musicians walked off stage not understanding what just happened. Not sure how they had created such a complex vortex of sound, orchestrated by Suzuki, hands clenched tightly around the microphone - channeling energy into it like it was a matter of life or death. Me left wondering how to dissect it. I don't think I can.

Suzuki's democratization of music - travelling around the world and playing improvised gigs with local musicians in each place - is an intensely important project. Surely it was empowering for the musicians to understand that they could create that kind of sound. Because his caliber of talent forced them to play towards that, to strive harder and drive towards the creation of such a finely pointed transfer of energy between the audience and the musicians. It was, in a sense, returning the music to the people. Suzuki deconstructed the idea of a "band" and broke down any of the rock poser musical pretention surrounding music, focusing on the creation of an experience specific to that place or time. As he describes it, the musicians are "sound carriers" and he was focused on creating a communication in sound with the audience and the players.

After the show everyone kept asking "do you think they could have done it on their own?" Yes, but they need to understand how to focus on the music the way Suzuki does, breaking down their own walls and simply working towards the communication of sound together.

For more on Damo Suzuki's Network, check out: http://www.damosuzuki.de/