Untitled

O'Rourke's performing career began as a member of The Elvis Messiahs in 1987 in Chicago. According to Please Join Us magazine, the band performed a noisy, theatrical style of free improvisation, playing live regularly and appeared with such noteables as Nicolas Collins and Jack Wright. In 1988, O'Rourke disbanded The Elvis Messiahs and began working with Dan Burke's post-industrial beat combo, Illusion of Safety. O'Rourke has been involved in several of the band's recordings, and on their recent CDs such as Probe and Historical, his influence is particularly noticeable. O'Rourke gained a degree in composition at DePaul University, a background that inevitably separates his work from the post-industrial groups with whom he's sometimes compared. He was over in London for a month in March, and I took the chance to ask him if this education had been important to him in introducing him to a wider variety of new music. O'Rourke's education would seem to have had little influence on his musical work, as for the most part it was based firmly in the post-serialist tradition; here, music is written according to a strict set of rules and a student's work can be judged according to its adherence to those rules. As O'Rourke tells me, "they don't have to deal with taste at all ... they were just trying to mould you into becoming professors. Which is one of the reasons I went for the labels like Extreme in the first place, because I thought 'you're crazy, you're not even in touch any more'". Of course, in the arts and humanities world, it's part and parcel of academia not to be in touch. O'Rourke isn't reactionary enough to suggest that this education was a waste of time, acknowledging that all the time spent learning techniques like counterpoint was relevant to his musical work. He even points out that a new piece he's been working on deals on one level with certain madrigal forms. But most importantly, he says that it gave him an opportunity to have to argue, to have to think about what it was he really wanted to do. He didn't just spend his time learning either, he taught some of the school's electronic music classes while he was there, and gave private guitar lessons. Most of O'Rourke's guitar recordings are documents of improvisations, and as a result he seems marginally more forgiving of them.Other forthcoming releases include one with the Swiss group Voice Crack, and a collaboration with Keith Rowe recorded while both were visiting H.N.A.S.'s Christoph Heemann in Germany. While in London, O'Rourke recorded an improvised music session for BBC Radio Three's Mixing It programme, with Derek Bailey, Vanessa Mackness and Eddie Prévost. Even though O'Rourke's value judgement of the results didn't go much beyond saying "it was OK", he seemd pleased with how it had turned out. O'Rourke also took the opportunity to give a couple of live performances. A scheduled team-up with Conspiracy didn't take place, but he did guest with Put Put (who also feature the Jacques brothers from These Records), who on the night that I saw them delivered an intoxicated, mesmerising drone rock melange. Later in the month, he appeared on stage with Eddie Prévost and Michael Prime, the fill-in act separating a two-part set by Main. I imagine most of the audience had come to see the ex-indie rockers, but there's no doubt that it's the improv trio who got the most applause, mainly thanks to some inspired drumming by Prévost, aided by the sympathetic noise and drones from O'Rourke and Prime. One of the main purposes of O'Rourke's time in London was to make a recording with Main's Robert Hampson. This double CD-set is the companion to the final book reporting on the activities of Het Apollohuis. The recordings on these CDs give an idea of the music and the sound art presented in concerts at Het Apollohuis in the priod from 1980 through 1997. Out of a total of 500 performances I chose 38, from which exceprts of varying lenght have been included in this anthiology. These have been arranged in chronological order. The diversity of the selected pieces is characteristic of the programme of Het Apollohuis. Only limited number of composers and musicians who performed can be heard in brief fragments o these discs. Consequently a considerable number has been excluded. There simply was no way to include them all (this selection does not imply we value one above the other). The choice of the particular musicians has been my responsability (P: Panhuysen). liner notes: René van Peer sound selection: René Adriaans mastering: Frank Donkersgoed design: Tom Homburg, Marcel d'Anjou (Opera)