WoG 0013 - Architects Office - Dispensation
1984
Side A
1. Live at Kakes Studio
March 6, 1984
musicians: Joel Haertling, Charles Verrette, Rick Corrigan, Paul Kern, Claude Martz, David Lichtenberg, Evan Cantor, Trevor Haertling, BW, Lynn Ablondi
2. Live at the Boulder Center for Visual Arts
March 25, 1984
musicians: Joel Haertling, Charles Verrette, Paul Kern, Claude Martz, David Lichtenberg, Evan Cantor, Trevor Haertling
note by Evan Cantor: The Boulder Center For The Visual Arts (BCVA) is now the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMCA).
1. Live at Kakes Studio
March 6, 1984
musicians: Joel Haertling, Charles Verrette, Rick Corrigan, Paul Kern, Claude Martz, David Lichtenberg, Evan Cantor, Trevor Haertling, BW, Lynn Ablondi
2. Live at the Boulder Center for Visual Arts
March 25, 1984
musicians: Joel Haertling, Charles Verrette, Paul Kern, Claude Martz, David Lichtenberg, Evan Cantor, Trevor Haertling
note by Evan Cantor: The Boulder Center For The Visual Arts (BCVA) is now the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMCA).
above, the first side of copy of Dispensation owned by Hal McGee, from the 1980s
Architects Office, live at Kakes, photos courtesy of Joel Haertling.
Above: Joel Haertling and Charles Verrette
Below: Joel Haertling (on his back, feet in the air), Paul Kern, unidentified person (on knees), Charles Verrette, Evan Cantor, unidentified, Rick Corrigan, other unidentified people.
Above: Joel Haertling and Charles Verrette
Below: Joel Haertling (on his back, feet in the air), Paul Kern, unidentified person (on knees), Charles Verrette, Evan Cantor, unidentified, Rick Corrigan, other unidentified people.
LF:
Dispensation starts off with Evan’s percussion sounding very echo-y, I’m not sure if there were effects on it or if this was ambient sound from the room, I’m guessing the latter. We were playing in a dance studio. Then we hear some of Joel’s son Trevor singing, either into a microphone or from a backing track, probably the latter.
This music sounds a little more like what I remember of AO, with an array of synthesizers going at it, played by me and Rick Corrigan and Paul Kern and Charlie Verrette. (I don’t remember the Bruce Orr credited on Partitions.) Paul and Rick both took turns playing in Charlie’s more pop-oriented band, Doll Parts, with Rick later actually moving out to San Francisco with Charlie (and Lynn Ablondi) at least in part to make a go of that band, though it didn’t work out. Well, it didn’t bring them fame and fortune, and it didn’t last real long (more details elsewhere in this archive). Rick was also the last collaborator in AO that I knew of before he left town. In the present day, Rick plays accordion in The Pickpocket Ensemble, a “Gypsy” or Eastern European styled band in the Bay Area. Paul put out his own experimental pop cassette tapes as Room 291, which he still makes mention of on his Facebook page. For a while he was running an imports store with his wife just down the block from my house in Denver. I don’t think I’ve talked to him since that location closed, though I continue to see his frequent FB posts, often on political matters.
Dispensation starts off with Evan’s percussion sounding very echo-y, I’m not sure if there were effects on it or if this was ambient sound from the room, I’m guessing the latter. We were playing in a dance studio. Then we hear some of Joel’s son Trevor singing, either into a microphone or from a backing track, probably the latter.
This music sounds a little more like what I remember of AO, with an array of synthesizers going at it, played by me and Rick Corrigan and Paul Kern and Charlie Verrette. (I don’t remember the Bruce Orr credited on Partitions.) Paul and Rick both took turns playing in Charlie’s more pop-oriented band, Doll Parts, with Rick later actually moving out to San Francisco with Charlie (and Lynn Ablondi) at least in part to make a go of that band, though it didn’t work out. Well, it didn’t bring them fame and fortune, and it didn’t last real long (more details elsewhere in this archive). Rick was also the last collaborator in AO that I knew of before he left town. In the present day, Rick plays accordion in The Pickpocket Ensemble, a “Gypsy” or Eastern European styled band in the Bay Area. Paul put out his own experimental pop cassette tapes as Room 291, which he still makes mention of on his Facebook page. For a while he was running an imports store with his wife just down the block from my house in Denver. I don’t think I’ve talked to him since that location closed, though I continue to see his frequent FB posts, often on political matters.
AO photo courtesy of Joel Haertling: unidentified, Rick Corrigan, David Lichtenberg, maybe Paul Kern
LF:
At about the 14-minute mark I hear some grinding synth noises that were probably me, and Evan responded on his drums. At about 17 minutes, we hear another of Joel’s Classical music quotations on his backing track, which closes the first piece.
The second piece sounds like it starts with the percussive sound of things falling, which strikes me as a bit of a foreshadowing of The Miracle. In the 21-minute area, there’s a repeated two-note riff that sounds like me, maybe something simple I had quickly programmed. Sounds like it keeps going a while! At about 26 minutes, Evan kind of falls into a groove with it on his roto-toms. At about 27 minutes, I finally start to vary the pattern! And then I fade it out. Not always, but you can usually tell which synthesizer was mine by listening for the highest pitches! And/or the most obnoxious ones, like the two-note riff I get into at around the 39-minute mark, which again Evan gets into a groove with. Wow, that’s practically a downright drum solo Evan does around the 42-minute mark, with someone accompanying him on cabasa, which may have been me, but I really don’t know. Hey, I hear slide whistle now! Don’t think it’s me, though….
At about the 14-minute mark I hear some grinding synth noises that were probably me, and Evan responded on his drums. At about 17 minutes, we hear another of Joel’s Classical music quotations on his backing track, which closes the first piece.
The second piece sounds like it starts with the percussive sound of things falling, which strikes me as a bit of a foreshadowing of The Miracle. In the 21-minute area, there’s a repeated two-note riff that sounds like me, maybe something simple I had quickly programmed. Sounds like it keeps going a while! At about 26 minutes, Evan kind of falls into a groove with it on his roto-toms. At about 27 minutes, I finally start to vary the pattern! And then I fade it out. Not always, but you can usually tell which synthesizer was mine by listening for the highest pitches! And/or the most obnoxious ones, like the two-note riff I get into at around the 39-minute mark, which again Evan gets into a groove with. Wow, that’s practically a downright drum solo Evan does around the 42-minute mark, with someone accompanying him on cabasa, which may have been me, but I really don’t know. Hey, I hear slide whistle now! Don’t think it’s me, though….
above, the second side of a copy of Dispensation owned by Hal McGee, from the 1980s
below, the second side of a master tape of Dispensation, owned by Evan Cantor
below, the second side of a master tape of Dispensation, owned by Evan Cantor
Side B
3. Symphiogenesis Nr. 2
event at the former Woolco location
musicians: Joel Haertling, A. Newberg, Rick Corrigan, Evan Cantor, Trevor Haertling
1st Movement - Bewegt
2nd Movement - Langsam
3rd Movement - Menuet
4th Movement - Rondo/Finale
3. Symphiogenesis Nr. 2
event at the former Woolco location
musicians: Joel Haertling, A. Newberg, Rick Corrigan, Evan Cantor, Trevor Haertling
1st Movement - Bewegt
2nd Movement - Langsam
3rd Movement - Menuet
4th Movement - Rondo/Finale
LF:
After the two-minute mark of Side B, there’s some very interesting drumming by Evan, where he’s keeping a beat, but to an unusual effect. I’m tempted to say it’s detached, but somehow that doesn’t really seem to be the point. There’s a groove going on between him and some synthesizer player that’s not me, but again, it’s of a certain kind. I find myself at a loss for words to describe it.
Joel considered his music aleatoric, and from his POV, it certainly was, in that he let loose a bunch of musicians to improvise, as part of what he may have considered to be his “composition.” But setting aside esoteric theories about the manifestation of free will in sentient beings, can anything humans do be entirely a matter of chance? Well, everything involves some degree of chance, even the most precisely-planned activity, and if there’s any chance, one may feel entitled to call it all chance. But there’s always some degrees of intentionality in anything humans do as well. AO improvisers often had very little to go by via which to discern a direction or purpose. Joel certainly succeeded in that! But that just left an existential hole for the players to fill in with their own devices. And fill they/we did. What other choice did we have? But to make a choice!
At about the eight-minute mark, Evan chants something that sounds like mangia, but your guess is as good as mine! About that same point, a repeated bell-like synthetic motif creeps in and asserts itself through the end of the track, and I wish I remembered what was doing that, but alas, I know not! (Although I laid claim to other repeated sounds, this one doesn’t sound like me.) It might have actually been on Joel’s backing track. This is probably my favorite AO material thus far.
The 2nd piece starts off with more of the recording of Lynne and Charlie’s breakup conversation that we first heard a portion of during Partitions. First we hear Lynne accuse Charlie of wanting to drop her like a wet rag (I heard Lynne express to Joel the hope that people who heard this would realize she was joking!) and at about the 17:50-point we hear the ascending utterance that was repeated several times at the start of a piece on Partitions. At about the 26-minute mark, we hear some descending sounds that were actually subtle vocals by Evan. I should say that I’m not trying to short shrift anyone else’s contributions by the amount of attention I’ve been giving mine and Evan’s, it’s just that his and my bits are what I best recognize and thus can comment on! The rest you can hear for yourself…. (And actually I don’t recognize so much of me on this tape as on Partitions, and less still of me on this side than on Side A!).
After the two-minute mark of Side B, there’s some very interesting drumming by Evan, where he’s keeping a beat, but to an unusual effect. I’m tempted to say it’s detached, but somehow that doesn’t really seem to be the point. There’s a groove going on between him and some synthesizer player that’s not me, but again, it’s of a certain kind. I find myself at a loss for words to describe it.
Joel considered his music aleatoric, and from his POV, it certainly was, in that he let loose a bunch of musicians to improvise, as part of what he may have considered to be his “composition.” But setting aside esoteric theories about the manifestation of free will in sentient beings, can anything humans do be entirely a matter of chance? Well, everything involves some degree of chance, even the most precisely-planned activity, and if there’s any chance, one may feel entitled to call it all chance. But there’s always some degrees of intentionality in anything humans do as well. AO improvisers often had very little to go by via which to discern a direction or purpose. Joel certainly succeeded in that! But that just left an existential hole for the players to fill in with their own devices. And fill they/we did. What other choice did we have? But to make a choice!
At about the eight-minute mark, Evan chants something that sounds like mangia, but your guess is as good as mine! About that same point, a repeated bell-like synthetic motif creeps in and asserts itself through the end of the track, and I wish I remembered what was doing that, but alas, I know not! (Although I laid claim to other repeated sounds, this one doesn’t sound like me.) It might have actually been on Joel’s backing track. This is probably my favorite AO material thus far.
The 2nd piece starts off with more of the recording of Lynne and Charlie’s breakup conversation that we first heard a portion of during Partitions. First we hear Lynne accuse Charlie of wanting to drop her like a wet rag (I heard Lynne express to Joel the hope that people who heard this would realize she was joking!) and at about the 17:50-point we hear the ascending utterance that was repeated several times at the start of a piece on Partitions. At about the 26-minute mark, we hear some descending sounds that were actually subtle vocals by Evan. I should say that I’m not trying to short shrift anyone else’s contributions by the amount of attention I’ve been giving mine and Evan’s, it’s just that his and my bits are what I best recognize and thus can comment on! The rest you can hear for yourself…. (And actually I don’t recognize so much of me on this tape as on Partitions, and less still of me on this side than on Side A!).
above, from the fourth Walls Of Genius catalog, The Face Of The Fiend
above, from the sixth Walls Of Genius catalog, Gift Of The Geek
below, from the January 1985 Cause And Effect cassette distribution catalog
below, from the January 1985 Cause And Effect cassette distribution catalog
Review of Dispensation by Brian Ladd in Objekt zine, issue 14, August 1984. Layout by Julie Frith.
Little Fyodor (David Lichtenberg):
You may (or may not) have noticed that the AO Partitions cover was hand-painted. The cover for Dispensation, by contrast, is reproducible, it’s something that can be copied on a photocopier and reproduced en masse. This was a concession Joel made to Evan after a squabble broke out over the packaging for Partitions. Evan and Joel had agreed between the two of them to put AO out on WoG apparently before discussing any of the details of what this arrangement would look like, such as what form the artwork and packaging would take. At my first opportunity to weigh in, I pointed out to Evan that AO's first tape was packaged in cigarette boxes Joel had found in the trash. I said that based on what this might say about Joel’s preferred way of doing things, I wondered how he and Evan would find common ground on the packaging, since WoG’s packaging was primarily reproducible. Evan’s response was, “Well Joel is just going to have to see that he has to do it our way.” My understanding is that Evan brought this up with Joel next time he saw him, telling him that the packaging had to be reproducible, and Joel agreed.
Well, when the packaging arrived for Partitions, it was in the form of hand painted cassette boxes! (I’m talking about the outer box, that normally holds the J-card, not the cassette tape casing itself.) And a Feud had begun! Joel had ticked each of us off before, in small or large ways, but this was really the beginning of the Feud. Though I actually have remained friends with Joel (and still see him on occasion), even if I didn’t approve of how he handled certain things with WoG. Though I also think the fact that Joel and Evan struck their deal without discussing any details first somewhat inevitably led to disagreements and bad blood down the road. I later brought up with Joel the dichotomy between what he said to Evan and how he packaged Partitions, and he sighed and said, “Well, I guess I was just looking at it from an artistic standpoint….”. At another point he showed me a whole drawer full of painted cassette boxes for Partitions to supposedly prove that Evan was worrying about nothing regarding getting an adequate supply. At one point, when we received a Partitions order but had no painted boxes on hand, Evan filled the order with his own version of the packaging, a photocopy he had made of Joel’s painting for just such an occasion. Joel apparently caught wind of this and came over to discuss it, but nothing got resolved and he left with both sides still angry with each other. I’m not sure exactly which parts of all this happened before Dispensation was completed, but Dispensation came with reproducible artwork, which Joel pointedly pointed out to Evan was what Evan wanted. It was a bit of an involved layout, though, and I remember Evan complaining that “you have to be an artist to be able fold it!” Which I thought may have been a reference to my having trouble getting all the folds right….
After Kent Hotchkiss had rejected Walls Of Genius product repeatedly for his Aeon underground music distribution service, Joel sent him a copy of Partitions and Kent contacted us about buying 20 copies at wholesale! This was great news, but I believe it also led to a bit of jealousy and resentment. Things only got worse when Joel phoned up Evan one day and said he was going up to Kent’s (presumably to buy stuff from Kent’s rare and interesting cache, just as he had gone to Mikal Bellan’s to buy rare records) and offered to bring along the 15 copies Kent had subsequently ordered of Dispensation. Evan agreed and Joel delivered the merchandise, but Walls Of Genius never saw the money (30 bucks), which Kent paid to Joel. Evan spoke with Kent about it, and Kent felt bad and said he didn’t realize where the money was supposed to go. If Evan ever spoke to Joel about it, I never heard about it, and my guess is that he never did, but rather just wrote off the money as gone, stolen, the moment he heard Kent had paid Joel. Which, as you might guess, cemented the Feud!
I’ve never spoken to Joel either about this one, so I can only speculate about his side of it. It sometimes seemed he could think of himself as an Übermensch, and he may have found it funny or vindicating when people were pissed off at him. Another possibility (not mutually exclusive) is that he may have been bitter that he never saw a cent from the sale of Partitions, to Kent or to anyone else. Of course, we never made any profit on Walls Of Genius and all the money (well, practically all of it) went back into our operations, which is hardly an unheard of way of doing things. Thing is, it would have been a whole lot better had both sides had a mutual understanding of what they were getting into before getting into it. Of course, neither side really knew where it would all go as we were all complete novices at this and the whole cassette scene was still a brand new phenomenon. It’s understandable why Evan and Joel didn’t think they needed to hash anything out ahead of time but could just “be cool” as things came up. Well – that didn’t work! After this happened with the Dispensation money not coming to us, I suggested to Evan that we should pay Joel one dollar for each $5 dollar AO tape we sold, just to show that we were making a good faith effort to pay him a reasonable cut, and Evan agreed to this and I believe we went ahead and did that, though I don’t recall how it was accomplished. We may have mailed the money to Joel’s address. I’m sure it never would have come to very much….
Evan Cantor:
In the wake of the second Architects Office release on the Walls Of Genius label, Dispensation, we were in a very strained relationship with Joel. I had negotiated a catalog sale with Kent Hotchkiss’ international tape distribution service in Fort Collins, Colorado. I believe it was Partitions that we were going to distribute via Kent because I remember thinking that Joel was being difficult about painting the cassette boxes. He kept putting me off and putting me off. Finally, we discovered, from Kent, that Joel had delivered the painted-box cassettes and collected the money for himself. Joel never told us about what he had done, nor had anything to say about it whatsoever. After that, he simply disappeared from our lives. He very likely believed that he deserved the money from the cassettes. It was only $30 if I recall, but this was all incredibly important stuff, albeit on a very small scale. He probably thought that David and I were a couple of idiots. We never participated in A/O again after that, were never invited to do so, and Joel, with the exception of occasional sightings downtown, simply disappeared from our scene and my life as well.
You may (or may not) have noticed that the AO Partitions cover was hand-painted. The cover for Dispensation, by contrast, is reproducible, it’s something that can be copied on a photocopier and reproduced en masse. This was a concession Joel made to Evan after a squabble broke out over the packaging for Partitions. Evan and Joel had agreed between the two of them to put AO out on WoG apparently before discussing any of the details of what this arrangement would look like, such as what form the artwork and packaging would take. At my first opportunity to weigh in, I pointed out to Evan that AO's first tape was packaged in cigarette boxes Joel had found in the trash. I said that based on what this might say about Joel’s preferred way of doing things, I wondered how he and Evan would find common ground on the packaging, since WoG’s packaging was primarily reproducible. Evan’s response was, “Well Joel is just going to have to see that he has to do it our way.” My understanding is that Evan brought this up with Joel next time he saw him, telling him that the packaging had to be reproducible, and Joel agreed.
Well, when the packaging arrived for Partitions, it was in the form of hand painted cassette boxes! (I’m talking about the outer box, that normally holds the J-card, not the cassette tape casing itself.) And a Feud had begun! Joel had ticked each of us off before, in small or large ways, but this was really the beginning of the Feud. Though I actually have remained friends with Joel (and still see him on occasion), even if I didn’t approve of how he handled certain things with WoG. Though I also think the fact that Joel and Evan struck their deal without discussing any details first somewhat inevitably led to disagreements and bad blood down the road. I later brought up with Joel the dichotomy between what he said to Evan and how he packaged Partitions, and he sighed and said, “Well, I guess I was just looking at it from an artistic standpoint….”. At another point he showed me a whole drawer full of painted cassette boxes for Partitions to supposedly prove that Evan was worrying about nothing regarding getting an adequate supply. At one point, when we received a Partitions order but had no painted boxes on hand, Evan filled the order with his own version of the packaging, a photocopy he had made of Joel’s painting for just such an occasion. Joel apparently caught wind of this and came over to discuss it, but nothing got resolved and he left with both sides still angry with each other. I’m not sure exactly which parts of all this happened before Dispensation was completed, but Dispensation came with reproducible artwork, which Joel pointedly pointed out to Evan was what Evan wanted. It was a bit of an involved layout, though, and I remember Evan complaining that “you have to be an artist to be able fold it!” Which I thought may have been a reference to my having trouble getting all the folds right….
After Kent Hotchkiss had rejected Walls Of Genius product repeatedly for his Aeon underground music distribution service, Joel sent him a copy of Partitions and Kent contacted us about buying 20 copies at wholesale! This was great news, but I believe it also led to a bit of jealousy and resentment. Things only got worse when Joel phoned up Evan one day and said he was going up to Kent’s (presumably to buy stuff from Kent’s rare and interesting cache, just as he had gone to Mikal Bellan’s to buy rare records) and offered to bring along the 15 copies Kent had subsequently ordered of Dispensation. Evan agreed and Joel delivered the merchandise, but Walls Of Genius never saw the money (30 bucks), which Kent paid to Joel. Evan spoke with Kent about it, and Kent felt bad and said he didn’t realize where the money was supposed to go. If Evan ever spoke to Joel about it, I never heard about it, and my guess is that he never did, but rather just wrote off the money as gone, stolen, the moment he heard Kent had paid Joel. Which, as you might guess, cemented the Feud!
I’ve never spoken to Joel either about this one, so I can only speculate about his side of it. It sometimes seemed he could think of himself as an Übermensch, and he may have found it funny or vindicating when people were pissed off at him. Another possibility (not mutually exclusive) is that he may have been bitter that he never saw a cent from the sale of Partitions, to Kent or to anyone else. Of course, we never made any profit on Walls Of Genius and all the money (well, practically all of it) went back into our operations, which is hardly an unheard of way of doing things. Thing is, it would have been a whole lot better had both sides had a mutual understanding of what they were getting into before getting into it. Of course, neither side really knew where it would all go as we were all complete novices at this and the whole cassette scene was still a brand new phenomenon. It’s understandable why Evan and Joel didn’t think they needed to hash anything out ahead of time but could just “be cool” as things came up. Well – that didn’t work! After this happened with the Dispensation money not coming to us, I suggested to Evan that we should pay Joel one dollar for each $5 dollar AO tape we sold, just to show that we were making a good faith effort to pay him a reasonable cut, and Evan agreed to this and I believe we went ahead and did that, though I don’t recall how it was accomplished. We may have mailed the money to Joel’s address. I’m sure it never would have come to very much….
Evan Cantor:
In the wake of the second Architects Office release on the Walls Of Genius label, Dispensation, we were in a very strained relationship with Joel. I had negotiated a catalog sale with Kent Hotchkiss’ international tape distribution service in Fort Collins, Colorado. I believe it was Partitions that we were going to distribute via Kent because I remember thinking that Joel was being difficult about painting the cassette boxes. He kept putting me off and putting me off. Finally, we discovered, from Kent, that Joel had delivered the painted-box cassettes and collected the money for himself. Joel never told us about what he had done, nor had anything to say about it whatsoever. After that, he simply disappeared from our lives. He very likely believed that he deserved the money from the cassettes. It was only $30 if I recall, but this was all incredibly important stuff, albeit on a very small scale. He probably thought that David and I were a couple of idiots. We never participated in A/O again after that, were never invited to do so, and Joel, with the exception of occasional sightings downtown, simply disappeared from our scene and my life as well.
