(Photo left: Austin Young)
New Yorkers have a chance to catch avant vocalist/composer/keyboardist Diamanda Galas three times this month at the Highline Ballroom, August 6th, 12th and 19th performing two different works, and her live presence any time is a reason to take note because her reappearance often signals a new project being unveiled. This time out Galas will be transforming French ballads and jazz standards into her own form with Imitation of Life (Aug. 6 and 12), and also Chansons Malheureuses and Amanedhes (Aug. 19) combining her own works inspired by assorted French surrealist and symbolist poets with improvised vocal traditions of Asia Minor/Middle East (music of the Amanedhes), Armenian and Greek traditions.
Upon my first experience witnessing some mindblowingly freaked live performance video of Galas on a late night MTV show in the 80's, I was pretty sure there was no one operating on her level in popular, classical, underground or any kind of music. To others out there trying to venture into some extremo vocal presentations (or for a scarifying presence in general) there was no competition, clearly that she was the Cassius Clay of it all. Here was a clip of someone not only blitzing the TV screen with some insanely acrobatic (apparently capable of three and a half octaves) vocalizing, but it was all processed to boot over some demonic delay and electronics. I basically didn't know what the hell was going on, but it sure wasn't MTV fare. Later I realized that it was Galas' Litanies of Satan performance (You Tube) and that she was no mere shock-performance artist; very much associating herself with history and tradition rather than just obliterating one's senses, and indeed she had as much in common with Willie Dixon and Maria Callas as she did with Einsturzende Neubauten and Throbbing Gristle.
(More on Diamanda Galas below plus a 1992 interview with Brian)
Galas was raised in San Diego by Greek Orthodox parents and received some hefty classical and jazz training early on; she later fell in with experimentalists like Henry Kaiser, and experiences working with Iannis Xenakis and Vinko Globokar (for whom she sang an opera that ruined her predecessor's voice) gave her some greater exposure to the ultimate possibilities of sound, and using her singular presence in the realm of extreme, visceral sonic potential. Through her career she's always concentrated on specific topical elements to interpret and refer to via her performances, notably the 1980's advent of AIDS (which took the life of her brother). Works like the Divine Punishment and other segments of her Masque of the Red Death trilogy addressed the subject on multiple levels in detail. She especially took the Roman Catholic Church to task for what she believed to be its abandonment of those suffering, and became very outspoken activist for the cause both on and off stage. I interviewed Diamanda around this time and while my exposure to her videos and music certainly made me wonder what I was in for, I have to say that upon pouring herself coffee and sitting down to talk she was one of the nicest interview subjects I'd ever encountered. Rereading back 
on this (it was around 1992 and she had just sealed up her AIDS-centric addressing period with the live album Plague Mass), it seems like so much of what were considered the darkest shadows over history and culture are so far removed from what's going on today. Galas was also about to embark on searching different traditions in blues, R&B, and gospel in a less assaultive but still commanding manner. She later went on to make a bonafide rock record with John Paul Jones, but never forgot her alliances to putting the magnifying glass on various social injustices. Last year I saw her perform a set based around her Defixiones: Will and Testament, Orders from the Dead (a memorial to Greek, Armenian and Assyrian victims of Turkish genocide) and 24 years after delivering the one-two punch of her debut Litanies, her performance, presence, and voice were just as powerful if not richer. Her new album Guilty Guilty Guilty is out on Mute this fall.
BT: It's interesting that you can opt to play places like Maxwells (Hoboken club) as well as these cathedrals.
Diamanda: Yes, I like that a lot, because when I'm a small space I can get a wider dynamic range than when I'm playing for 3000. Plus, it's more of a psychological thing.
BT: Tell me about the recent Plague Mass issue.
Diamanda: The Plague Mass was the shot itself from St. John the Divine Cathedral for which I selected parts of the Masque of the Red Death, but I composed half of the material for the performance as well; performed as a mass. Some of the work on the Masque isn't designed to be performed, but appears in the recorded context.
BT: Is (forthcoming album) The Singer the beginning of another sort of trilogy where you investigate American roots music?
Diamanda: No, The Singer is not about a series. At an early age I played with my father's band, he was my first music teacher. We did all the stuff, Ellington, Thelonious Monk, all the blues stuff. So The Singer gave me the chance to do that. I'm a big fan of Willie Dixon. The material I'm working on now is a bit more Al Green. I would've recorded this older stuff sooner, but I felt really the Plague Mass was my first recorded
priority. The very next piece to be recorded is Vena Cava, and that's the piece I developed in Philadelphia at the Samuel Fleicher Memorial. It's a sanctuary, I was living and working there for two or three weeks, and I was able to work day and night and eventually developed this piece dealing with the relationship between AIDS dementia and clinical depression. I think this will sound more like the work I did with "Wild Women
With Steak Knives", more of that solo voice tradition. But I'm using lots of electronic processing and tapes, not composed by me, but tapes that I chose to provide a kind of chaotic hospital or isolation chamber environment.
BT: And you went and experienced this first hand?
Diamanda: Yeah!
BT: You've had some training in biochemistry as well.
Diamanda: That was my initial study. Music I've always done, but that was my study in college. I've had a lot of training in behavioral psychology and I'm sort of self educated in a lot of areas dealing with clinical studies.
BT: Was Vena Cava the piece you were perfoming in New York this past February?
Diamanda: That's right; and I'll probably be doing it again. I'd like to do it at St. Mark's. That would be beautiful. It's only designed to be performed for 200 people maximum at one time. Plague Mass was a piece dealing pretty much with the individual among the voices. Sometimes separate and sometimes among the voices afflicted by the disease. This piece is more internal, introspective piece, for someone in isolation. I think that AIDS dementia and, let's say "enforced isolation" have much in common.
BT: You just played a multi-act benefit for the New Music Seminar (now defunct music biz/show convention held yearly in NYC), I guess they put on in memory of a late staffer?
Diamanda: They never mentioned his fucking name ONCE during the benefit! They didn't even spell it right. That benefit was just about the New Music Seminar because they've been attacked by me and other people for pretending to address the AIDS issue in the past by doing the sloppy little dance benefits. This year was their attempt to say "We're gonna do the real thing now and better than anyone else," and all that horseshit. And I agreed to do it because I'd heard from different organizers that these people were very
sincere, and all sorts of shit. What it came down to was the same exploitative crap. The people that were invited, myself, Soul Asylum, and Prong, were put in a very bad position by the organizers because what they basically wanted to do was organize a sort of normal rock gig, y'know, and use AIDS as, like, I don't know, a tax deduction. I don't think very much money at all went to AIDS, and they fucking...after Ice T decided to promote his fuckin' record on the wrong gig, an AIDS benefit, and burned up that stage, that money, the $1500, $2000, $2500, whatever, went away from the AIDS benefit. I don't think he's such a big man for trashing an auditorium. I just think that guy really fucked things up, along with the Butthole Surfers who are complete fuckin' morons. Gibby's an idiot. He's just into making money, and being a careerist, and he pretty well admitted that to me. I dunno, I mean, I like their shit musically; well, early stuff, this concert was bullshit. But I don't have an issue with the rest of the band, just Gibby. Basically just this fucking thing, this fucking benefit, was a total sham. It said all proceeds to go specific AIDS organizations. And that wasn't true, because they paid the fuckin' Surfers $15,000. When I did Plague Mass and traveled with that thing it didn't cost no fuckin' $15,000, and we had a lot of people with us. You ask that when you wanna get paid real good. I think we're really tired of people using...
BT: Well, yeah, one has seen these kinds of events give artists like Guns & Roses or whatever an excuse to sort of make some ammunition for their consciences while they still carry on...
Diamanda: Well, my whole thing is I just said Axl Rose shouldn't be doing an AIDS benefit unless he gets up on stage and basically sucks my ass and everyone else's involved with the AIDS movement as an apology. And then if he wants to raise money that'd be just fine (laughs). I don't see any problem with someone putting on a wig, and y'know, stage Axl Rose doing a bunch of blowjobs. But on the other hand, who has the fuckin' time to waste. I mean, these are my fuckin' peers in the music business. It's not all of them, but so many of them come in my face with all this apologetic crap trying to look politically concerned when they're just jerking off as always. And the problem with taking money from an asshole like Axl Rose is that he can always walk down the street and say "Hey faggot, I just paid for your hospital bill."
BT: While you certainly have a message to the masses in that, is it frustrating to you that due to what people deem 'difficult' music, you'll be relegated to certain fringe elements of exposure? I mean, it's not Europe here by a long shot, where someone like you can often get a bit of scope from larger arts organizations which more everyday people have access to.
Diamanda: Well, they DID have me on MTV for that benefit, but I won't watch that channel.
BT: (in mock MTV voice) "Are you influenced by that girl from the Sisters of Mercy?"
Diamanda: (cackles) I know what you're saying. I'd have to say that my first allegiance is to doing work that interests me. There's certain kind of work that's seen by a larger audience. As much as anyone cares about communicating with the world, I'm very selfish about wanting to create these works that have more importance than I do, and are much more involving for me. I don't have much time or inclination to try to approximate a market's interest. Now, there is shit that I do, very bizarre rhythmic stuff with this friend of mine, DJ Aldo Hernandez; it's some serious, I guess house or whatever, but I think it's what should be happening if people want to take it into a shamanistic place, where it belongs. Perhaps because of that rhythmic element there's a larger group that could relate, but the shit I'm saying is going to be in my own language, which is too "out" to confuse with any kind of mainstream. If you want to say some "out" shit you still have to say it in a way that's different. You can't say "oh, I'm doing some mainstream, but I'm still radical." That's why Ice-T is a fuckin' clown as far as I'm concerned. That's probably an extreme analogy.
BT: Oh man, Ice-T is still in the guillotine!
Diamanda: Haha! Well, I brought up this whole money thing about Ice-T and the Surfers, and the way I approached it is that I expected a published statement in the New York Times of the money spent. I got on the table and I was fuckin' angry because I realized after the insult Soul Asylum and Prong and me went through, and for the fact that I lent my name to this stupid fuckin' benefit which made virtually no money because it was wasted...that put me right through the fuckin' roof. And I have talked to people like the Advocate and Page Six. Then the New Music Seminar called me in to try to get me not to talk to the press.
BT: Oh?
Diamanda: Fuck, yeah! (In a whimpering sarcastic voice): "Oh, you have to realize we ALL have friends, we feel sooo bad." Fuck you. My friends with AIDS don't want to hear about your token friends who are HIV positive, like there's some liberal outpouring of grief on the part of people over here? So I basically said "Yeah, well my friends with AIDS say fuck off." I mean, they don't understand, this is a day-by-day, minute-by-minute thing. I'm not (HIV) positive, but I, and every one of my friends deal with this fucking epidemic on daily basis. And we work in MANY different way. Political ways, caretaking ways, finding out information from buyers' clubs for other people who, say, can't get some of the drugs available in New York. There's a lot of different levels. So if I made a big point about it at the seminar it's because it's important for people to know the difference between what appears to be the truth and what the truth is.
BT: Most artists who have these kinds of matters on their plate probably don't get so much tolerance from their labels, you've been lucky to have such a lengthy career with one.
Diamanda: Oh, as far as Daniel's (Mute label boss Miller) concerned, if I told him literally "I have to go to California and go to sleep for two years", he'll say "okay". I'm part of the Mute family. He has such an incredible background, in terms of his knowledge of the film industry, electronic music, primarily in the pop vein, but he knows about Xenakis, all the different composers.
BT: A great background, it's too bad people like Xenakis aren't cleaning up getting more exposure, it's hard to even find his discs in stores that deal in classical.
Diamanda: That's disgusting! This is the reason I signed to Mute. I recognized that if I didn't Plague Mass would just disappear. No one would ever hear it. I don't give a fuck what people want to call Plague Mass; electronic, pop, anything. I don't care, as long as the fucking thing is out there on the stands. I'm terrified of the future of classical electronic music. On other levels too, because a lot of the really great composers are being ripped off by people with great record deals. So it was important for me, as an innovator, to get my shit out there.
BT: I just read today that John Cage died last week.
Diamanda: Yep. You're not gonna be seeing too many people like that around. People are too lured by money.
BT: Is Iannis Xenakis still somewhat active these days?
Diamanda: Oh shit yeah! See in Paris and Europe he can survive, because there's a very high subsidy for the arts there, you can survive doing art. As far as I'm concerned, there hasn't been a gigantic financial windfall here, but the way I survive is by being in contact with every fucking marginal scene I can; we all work together.
BT: How long have you lived in New York City?
Diamanda: A few years. I love it, it's the center of the world for me. I can go back and forth to Europe, get my business done, lot of things.
BT: Speaking of your presence in Europe, have you 'popped up' in any unusual unexpected places there lately?
Diamanda: Like what? Tell me!
BT: I think I read in FE, you were in a hotel room in Germany or something, watching TV in the room where they commonly just broadcast these sleazy softcore porn channels. And some scene came on with a vampire lesbian dominatrix or something that they were overdubbing your voice into.
Diamanda: Oh yes! That was shocking.
MP3 for download: "Lonely Woman" (from 2003's La Serpenta Canta)
Diamanda Galas airplay on WFMU (Real Audio links)
Video for "Double Barrel Prayer"
Video of performance on NBC-TV's Night Music in 1989
"Saint of the Pit" promo clip
my favorite performance of hers was the cmj conference in 88... we were standing out in the hall listening to her slag off everyone in the room, when she goes off about daring someone coming up to fuck her with a condom. we looked in to see her baiting the crowd; my drink-addled memory is of her kneeling on the table, waggling her bare ass at the audience. some guy made it all the way to the stage, pants down, and then ran off.
;serious industry folk' were so PISSED at her for ruining their nice little circlejerk. tho i have to say the psychodrama at the end got talked about more by the layfolk.
knowing me and my friends of that era, it is possible i hallucinated the whole week, so please feel free to correct the details...
i later saw her perform in austin (94?5?) and while i wasn't always enamored of the stuff she did with jones, her voice is always riveting. can't wait to see what this tour is all about.
Posted by: craig | August 03, 2007 at 09:53 PM
Comparatively new to anything besides WDHA, I haven't seen Diamanda Galas perform yet. I did hear she was going to play soon; thanks Brian Turner for facilitating my going to one or more of these shows.
It's amazing to me that she was able to perform Plague Mass. It's emotionally wrenching just to listen. A little awkward on the bus at times to say the least.
Having seen ActUp from the outside back in those days and nowadays being friendly with some of the organizers who survived that era it seems the intensity of that piece rings true in a way that only some music even attempts, much less achieves.
HIV is still prevalent in the prison system and is now joined by Hep C, flesh eating bacteria and resistant TB. Simply because the folks suffering may not have the same access to graphic design studios for their agit-prop, don't think for a minute that the issue is closed.
Posted by: Bartleby | August 05, 2007 at 02:35 AM