San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2020, Fri-Sun, Jan 10-12

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2020
Friday, January 10, 8:30pm
Saturday, January 11, 7:00pm
Saturday, January 11, 9:30pm
Sunday, January 12, 7:00pm
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street
San Francisco
$20 general ($10 Sat 9:30 concert)
$10 balcony/underemployed
$50 fest pass (general seating all concerts)
advance ticket purchase
or at the door (cash only) the day of show
(box office opens one hour before showtime)

Thinking about what I might play at the San Francisco Tape Music Festival next month I rediscovered a “tape” piece of mine along the way — a musical setting that I wrote 23 years ago for a poem by the Beat author Bob Kaufman. The poem’s title is, “To My Son Parker, Asleep in the Next Room.”

I hadn’t listened to this composition (or read the poem for that matter) for at least a decade, but my inspiration to hear it again came a couple of months ago and from the same source that originally inspired its creation, Bob Kaufman.

I had just heard about the newly published collection from City Lights Books of all the surviving as well as some never-before published poems by this late great poet of North Beach fame who died in 1986. He had so inspired me with his words, which I only happened to hear on KPFA one morning during my drive to work. But that’s another story…. (Thank you Vic Bedoian!)

So I got quickly reacquainted with my own composition which like the poem reemerged from the shadows like an old friend from the past. I realized pretty much immediately that I wanted to share them both with you — Bob Kaufman’s poem and my setting of it.

And so in homage to Bob Kaufman and his words, recited perfectly by Roscoe Lee Brown, that moved me in 1995 first to tears and then directly into my studio, I’ll be playing the piece on the Saturday night, 7:00 PM program.

I hope you’ll be there to hear it. It will be in very fine company as you’ll see from the full lineup available at SFTMF.

Here are two radio interviews that SF Tape Music Collective has given prior to past Festivals.