Show Notes: Body / Head at Solar Myth, 5/5/25
A Sonic Youth-leaning coincidence: from March 28th until May 5th, the Solar Myth venue in South Philly played host to three of the seminal and late band’s former members: Thurston Moore (3/28-3/29), Lee Ranaldo (5/3), and Kim Gordon (5/4-5/5).
When these shows were announced, I was unfortunately between paychecks and late in acquiring tickets for most of them, all of which were in high-demand for a low-capacity room. Availability was quickly reduced to nothing. I was, though, able to attend the last of a two-date residency featuring Body / Head, the improvisational duo composed of Gordon and musician, Bill Nace.
As politely as I can put it, being of the art school ilk and well-accustomed to a multitude of expressions, from the banal and the bizarre to the pretentious and the incomparable, I expected to come away from the evening’s performance figuratively hungover from heavy avant-garde intake. And, I wasn’t far-off: the opener of the evening’s set was a screening of 1-800-HOT-DUCK, a media collection culled from the deep recesses of 80s-era VHS culture and the more antiquated corners of YouTube. Having been unaware of 1-800-HOT DUCK, which is the work of artist Chrissy Marie Jones, I didn’t expect to be viewing 30 minutes of glitchy skits, bits, and transgressive humor, most of which had the crowd giggling. For me, one who is old enough to have been raised on VHS tapes, infomercials, and late-night public access TV, the absurdity of this material evoked nostalgia and appreciation for unbridled tastelessness and spirited experimentation. This was an unexpected way to open the evening’s performance.
Soon after the screening ended, a slo-mo video of what appeared to be a decades-old family vacation was projected onscreen. To modest applause, Nace, Gordon, and Aaron Dilloway (of the band Wolf Eyes) cut through the crowd to take the stage, took their respective spots, and slowly began to generate the evening’s multi-act piece, a solitary tonal loop propping up the initial few minutes.
Cultivating a structure-free and enveloping mire of inebriated dissonance, scraggly-styled guitar strokes, and occasional verses or severe shouts from Gordon, the undulating passages of harsh noise or ambient gossamer kept us silent and entranced. Nace, his eyes often closed as he applied pick-to-strings, seemed meditative, producing walls of tremolo via twisted volume and repetition. Dilloway sat behind a table stacked with 8-track cartridges and wired noisemakers, his portion of the evening’s improv mostly hidden behind machines aside from the occasional reveal of small bowed components, the manipulation of which I failed to understand. Gordon’s guitar was at times a percussive instrument, its mutations provoked by knocking and rattling, her balled fist pounding on its body. She’d kneel down to tend to the effects pedals at her feet and then stand to scream into the microphone, startling the radiating mix and those of us might’ve begun to float within its vastness.
I don’t mind saying that that performance took about as long as I did finding a parking space. As the sounds began to settle, the digital timer behind Gordon hit about the 45-minute mark. Gordon thanked the crowd. The heat of the room began to funnel out as we slowly worked our way to the merch table. I left with a t-shirt and a record.
Sincerely,
Letters From A Tapehead
