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The third and final in our season of experimental performance inspired by artist and poet Adrian Henri (1932–2000), this event features live musical performances by Thurston Moore and his band, alongside Fast Speaking Music (Anne Waldman, Ambrose Bye and Devin Waldman) and poetry readings.
Henri’s interdisciplinary spirit informs this season of art, poetry and music, reflecting on the experience of the city, and accompanying an exhibition of ephemera, artworks and rare footage from the Adrian Henri Archive. The display charts the development of the UK live poetry scene in the 1960s, and the rise of The Liverpool Scene, the pop poetry rock band fronted by Henri.
This is the last of the three evenings of experimental performance curated by musician Thurston Moore, arts editor Eva Prinz and art historian Catherine Marcangeli, gathering leading poets and musicians from the UK and the US, who share an interest in the rhythms and sounds of urban experience.
Part of City Poems and City Music
Fast Speaking Music is a New York City poetry and music ensemble led by poet Anne Waldman and musicians Ambrose Bye and Devin Brahja Waldman. FSM collaborates with a myriad of dancers, visual artists, poets and musicians. Recent performances include Casul in Mexico City, St. Mark’s Church Poetry Project in NYC and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Taking its name from Waldman’s iconic 1970’s poem Fast Speaking Woman, FSM also serves as a poetry and music record label. Prior releases have featured Amiri Baraka, Eileen Myles, Meredith Monk, CAConrad, Thurston Moore, Clark Coolidge, Heroes Are Gang Leaders, Lydia Lunch, Joanne Kyger, Fred Moten and many others.
Thurston Moore moved to NYC at eighteen in 1976 to play punk. He started Sonic Youth in 1980. Since then Thurston Moore has been at the forefront of the alternative rock scene since that particular sobriquet was first used to signify any music that challenged and defied the mainstream standard. With Sonic Youth, Moore turned on an entire generation to the value of experimentation in rock n roll – from its inspiration on a nascent Nirvana, to Sonic Youth’s own Daydream Nation album being chosen by the US Library of Congress for historical preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2006. Thurston records and performs in a cavalcade of disciplines ranging from free improvisation to acoustic composition to black/white metal/noise disruption. He has worked with Yoko Ono, John Zorn, David Toop, Cecil Taylor, Faust, Glenn Branca and many others. Alongside his various activities in the musical world, he is involved with publishing and poetry, and teaches writing at Naropa University. Presently he performs and records solo, with various ensembles and in his own band, The Thurston Moore Group (with mbv’s Deb Googe, Steve Shelley & James Sedwards).
photo credit: Vera Marmelo
