Sandy Ewen, Keith Rowe, Damon Smith, Goosberry Marmalade

*In process of stocking. 2023 stock "Lady Band (of Various Fruit Names) is an all-female experimental music ensemble founded by Sandy Ewen in 2009. Performances are singular, often site-specific events, featuring a rotating lineup (and different fruit-themed name for each show), with members contributing graphic and text-based scores for structured improvisation.

Drawing parallels between Ewen's group and Scratch Orchestra, the 1960s-70s London experimental music ensemble Rowe was involved in, Smith hatched a plan for Rowe to collaborate with the group on a concert of Scratch Orchestra scores in 2012: "During a previous trip of Keith's to Houston, we were at the Alabama IceHouse and talking about Fluxus, the (Ben) Patterson was up or had been up (at CAMH), and (Keith) talked about Scratch Orchestra. So I made the connection to have him do those pieces with Sandy's group when he wanted to play with Sandy and me."

Gooseberry Marmalade was up for the task. Meeting over tea the night before the show, Rowe's quiet intensity opened an infinite world of possibilities for staging the works. Seven scores were chosen to be performed as an uninterrupted suite, some of the titles bearing code names devised for inclusion in Nature Study Notes, a compendium of scores and "Draft Constitution of the Scratch Orchestra" published in 1969. Also chosen were Christian Wolff's Stones and p. 80 from Cardew's Treatise - realized here as a chorus line of pantomimed gestures and pedestrian movements, heard only on the audio recording as an extended silence punctuated with the padding of footsteps across the polished wooden floorboards of 14 Pews, the converted chapel/cinema/performance space where Ewen and Smith were in residency.

Moments of physical- visual-experiential magic abounded. Marilyn, Cressandra Thibodeaux's then 80-year old mother and bartender of 14 Pews, handed each performer a flower to begin CFIRNTFM145 - Flowers. Chewing on a rose, thorns and all, Regina Agu languidly paced the aisles while carnations were sung to, bits of poetic verse drifted into consciousness and petals were strewn about the stage. The performance ended with Desire, its thought-provoking text echoing in our minds intently as recited by Rowe the night before:

"Want to do something; Do it.
Do something without wanting to.
Do something wanting not to.
Be done to.
Be done."
" - Rebecca Novak