Columbus Trip, by Hal McGee

Columbus Trip

by Hal McGee

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	1.	Columbus Trip 1 17:58
	2.	Columbus Trip 2 17:25
	3.	Columbus Trip 3 18:29
	4.	Columbus Trip 4 18:45

about

Columbus Trip
was recorded July 20th through 23rd, 2023
with four Sony ICD-PX470 stereo digital dictaphones
in Columbus, Ohio and Gainesville, Florida
dictaphone assemblage audio folk art
featuring Chris Phinney, Jeff Chenault, and Jerry Kranitz
with the voices of Lisa Miralia and other attendees
of the Cassette Culture Celebration on the 22nd.
...and of course Stanley
On July 28th I mixed the recordings together using a random shuffle procedure, creating an audio assemblage in which you will hear audio events from many different times, spaces, and places. The continuous 72-minute audio assemblage is divided into four roughly equal parts for the listener’s convenience.

The listener completes the audio assemblage through active listening. If you have never heard this kind of audio art before and you find it bewildering, perhaps just think of it as four talk radio shows playing simultaneously on your car radio, or the aural sensations you might experience at a county fair or a circus, or maybe four films being simultaneously projected. Your mind will find patterns in the chaos. Have fun trying to figure it out!

On Thursday, July 20th 2023 I took an airplane flight from where I live in Gainesville, Florida to attend the Cassette Culture Celebration on Saturday, July 22nd, in Columbus, Ohio, which was curated and produced by Jeff Chenault, and by Alison Colman of The Fuse Factory.

I met Chris Phinney at the Atlanta airport and we sat next to each other on the plane flight to Columbus. Jeff Chenault met us at the Columbus airport and took us back to his house, which would be our home for the next three days.

On Thursday at 5:00 PM the three of us traveled to John and Cathy Bennett's house, where we met Jerry Kranitz. This was a joyous time for all of us! Until that day Chris had never met Jeff, Jerry, John and Cathy. The six of us went to dinner at the nearby Iron Grill restaurant at 5295 North High Street. More hanging out and conversing with Cathy and John inside their art- and book-filled home followed.

On Friday Jerry picked Chris and me up at 6:00 AM and we traveled to the Stauf's coffeehouse at 1277 Grandview Avenue (where I had a triple macchiato to get sufficiently caffeinated for the exciting day ahead). After Stauf's Jerry, Chris and I went to Grand Day Cafe (1284 West 5th Avenue) for breakfast. Mid morning Jeff showed Chris and me the gear setup for our improvisational performances on Saturday, and we hung out in his amazing three basement rooms of records, tapes, art, cassette culture memorabilia, synthesizers, and exotica treasures. At 11:00 AM we met Jerry at El Vaquero Mexican restaurant at 3230 Olentangy River Road. After lunch we traveled to Columbus Performing Arts Center at 549 Franklin Avenue, to check out the space and gain technical setup info for the event on Saturday. Friday afternoon was fun-filled with a stop at the amazing Used Kids Records store at 2500 Summit Street, then a stop for coffee at Cup O Joe (2990 North High Street), and then back to Jeff's for more hangout time and listening to records. Late afternoon Jeff, Chris, and I ate dinner at Panini Opa Greek restaurant at 4799 Sawmill Road. At 7:00 PM they dropped me off at John and Cathy Bennett's house, and the three of us conversed for three hours about William S. Burroughs, fluxus, poetry, and our art life experiences.

On Saturday morning Jerry picked me up from the Bennetts' house and we drove to Jeff's house to pick up Chris for early morning coffee at Starbucks. At 9:30 AM we met at Jeff's house and we all traveled to Cultural Arts Center to pick up sound system gear for the big event. At about 11:00 we loaded in all of the gear and display materials. You will hear bits and pieces of conversations and miscellaneous sounds from CPAC during the Cassette Cultural Celebration. We met many great and enthusiastic and joyful people there that day, too many people to list here, including old friends and new (including Brian Callahan who traveled from Indianapolis to attend). Included are sounds from the numerous sound art performances, and the cassette culture panel discussion moderated by Jerry in which Jeff, Chris and I shared our experiences and insights about our experiences in the 1980s, and what cassette culture means today. My entire solo performance with a handheld Monotron Duo analog synthesizer can be heard in the mix.

Other great moments on Saturday include our mid-show break excursion to Schmidt’s Sausage Haus German restaurant at 240 East Kossuth Street to pick up dinner. Back at CPAC several of us sat around a big long table and ate and conversed: Rob from Saginaw, Otho Thorn and Knox Mitchell from Michigan, Michael Thomas Jackson from North Carolina, Endwar, Lisa, Jeff, Chris, Jerry, and me.

Any way, I could go on and on forever! Ample documentation on video and audio of the Cassette Culture Celebration will follow in the days and weeks to come!

These three days were some of the best times in my entire life, which I will cherish forever. I am grateful and thankful for the opportunities to bond with Chris, Jeff, Jerry, John, and Cathy, and to hang out with Lisa Miralia, Brian Callahan, Mike Jackson, Knox, Otho, Ron Daily, Endwar, Grey Tissue, and so many other nice people whose names I can't remember at the moment.

Special thanks to Jeff and Deb Chenault for their gracious hospitality, and for giving me such a nice and peaceful home to stay in while I was in Columbus. Big thanks also to Alison Colman for helping to organize the Cassette Culture Celebration with Jeff. Thanks to Ron Daily for live sound engineering at the fest. Also thanks to Rachel Rew Wagner for recording the entire event on video and audio.

Thank you thank you thank you to all of you. I love you all, everyone I met, new and old friends alike. I feel badly that I cannot remember the names of everybody I met. If we met and conversed and you read this, contact me with your name and I'll try to add you to the text above.

Photos on the front cover, starting top left and then clockwise:
- Frau McGee and Herr Phinney at Schmidt’s Sausage Haus. Photo by Jeff Chenault.
- left to right: Jeff Chenault, John M. Bennett, Chris Phinney, Cathy Bennett, Hal McGee, and Jerry Kranitz at Iron Grill. Photo by our waitress.
- Hal McGee, Jerry Kranitz, Jeff Chenault, and Chris Phinney at Cup O Joe. Photo by another customer.
- Catherine Mehrl Bennett and John M. Bennett in their home. Photo by Hal McGee.
- Eating German food dinner at CPAC - Jerry Kranitz (back to camera), and then clockwise: Jeff Chenault, Rob from Saginaw, Otho Thorn, Michael Thomas Jackson, Endwar (Andrew Russ), Lisa Miralia, and Chris Phinney. Photo by Hal McGee.
- Hal McGee with Lisa Miralia. Photo by Jeff Chenault.
- Photo above the album title: Brian Callahan, Jerry Kranitz, and Cathy Bennett. Photo by Hal McGee.

For those of you who have Facebook accounts you can view an album of 151 photos from the Columbus trip, here:
www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2325281094345226&type=3