Instruments

Rebirthing the XyloVan gongs

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Long, long ago, in a city far, far away (2010, Los Angeles), I made this crazy thing with the help of my loving and endlessly tolerant family.

XyloVan – the only musical instrument I know of that got 8 miles a gallon downhill in a tailwind – played and ran for many years at Burning Man and various like-minded creative events and venues, and many thousands of people enjoyed playing on its instruments and generally making happy noise.

In 2019, with much excitement, we moved to New York City – which meant that, with much regret, I had to sell the vehicle, unmount all the instruments to put them into storage, and move on to a new phase in our lives together.

We moved to Seattle in 2021 and this year, I finally got tired of tripping over this set of scrap-aluminum gongs (which I had stripped off of the van and rearranged in this array four years earlier in a fit of creative frustration in NYC) and decided to share them with the world again.

So here they are, mounted on one of our flowering plum trees (carefully, so as not to hurt the tree!)

We’re also planning to bring the xylophones up from storage in L.A. and mount them in the front yard for all to play. In the meantime, you’re invited to come bang on the gongs. Please enjoy.

UPDATE: Confidential to the wonderful stranger who ding-dong-ditched a pair of Sonor percussion mallets on our front porch this week:

Thank you! I’ll rig them up and put them out so people can play together. Next time you’re around, please say hi!

Assemblage

Assemblage pins assembled

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I’ve had dozens, if not hundreds of intriguing little pieces of stuff kicking around the shop for years. Faucet handles, wood scraps, crystals, bits of string.

I decided to throw a few of them together and put pinbacks on them before Christmas, but then the family decided this would be a no-gifts Christmas so we could focus entirely on conversation, games, and good time together. So they kicked around the shop for weeks.

Our neighbors here in Seattle have erected the delightful Red/Orange Door ART Gallery. I hope they don’t mind my offering them there.

If you see them, take one! If you take a pin and don’t mind seeing yourself featured here, please email me a photo of yourself wearing it, and I’ll post it below.

And if you happen down 75th Street between Linden and Fremont, I hope you’ll bang on the gongs mounted on the tree in front of our place.

Gong Fights, Gong Fights project

Gong Fights at Seacompression 2022

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Once again, ladies and gentlemen: the brutality, the majesty, the stupidity of Gong Fights. (What???)

This session was at Seacompression a few weeks ago.

@findthecoretruth (parading the round numbers around the ring), our good friend Lara (in referee garb, judiciously scoring the fights and calling the winner of each round) and I (the robed announcer in the silly hat) were so busy staging the fights and interacting with the wonderful fighters that we forgot to take photos at the time.

Fortunately, @espressobuzz was on the scene and just shared the OUTSTANDING set of action photos they shot. #gongfights #ignitionnw

To see Gong Fights in action, check out our video from the playa.

Gong Fights project, Homo sapiens

Gong Fights at Burning Man 2022

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I wanted to bring something fast, loud, and stupid to the playa this year. Something that was portable, easy to make and use, and memorable. (photo gallery below!)

You know the sound a steel mixing bowl makes when you strike its edge? I love the round, BONGing resonance of it. So:

Equipment: I built two sets of armor from raw materials found at Goodwill and our local hardware store:

  • Two sets of old football or hockey shoulder pads
  • Two old bike helmets
  • About 14-16 steel bowls
  • Assorted bolts, washers, nuts, wingnuts, and bushings
  • About 6 feet of light chain
  • Two superball-tipped, vinyl-dipped, fiberglass pairs of mallets
  • The Septagon – seven linked lengths of painted 1×2 pine on the playa floor to contain the fights.
  • 1 overhead scoop light for atmosphere
  • 1 amazing camp tower at OKNOTOK, the legs of which were roped off as the ring.

Safety gear:

  • Goggles
  • Gauntlets made of polycarbonate sheet
  • Earplugs for all fighters! (that shit gets loud, even in testing)

Rules: 

  • Overall:
    • No intentional blows to the face
    • No intentional blows to the ‘nads
    • If you step outside the Septagon (or you’re pushed), you lose
  • Fight with Violence (see video):
    • Strike the chest or head gong (fitted with chains, to make a distinct noise) to earn points
    • 15 points takes the round
    • 3 rounds wins the fight
  • OR fight with Art (see video):
    • Fighters must strike each other’s armor as musically, creatively, uniquely, balletically as possible
    • You have 60 seconds
    • The crowd judges the winner.

Gong Fights exceeded my wildest dreams! The ferocity of the Violence Fighters, the grace of the Art Fighters, and the the idiot noise and chaos overran all rational concerns, and a kind of animal fervor took over.

It was stupidly magnificent, and magnificently stupid. Thank you especially to Mr. OK, Michelle, Lydia, Dakota, Thor, Sumit, Dandelion, Drift, Jackson, TwoNames, HoneyBear, Mike, Special Snowflake, and everyone else who armored and scored and assisted and fought and danced and hooted and lost and won.

13/10, will do it again.

(photos by Sumit Jamuar, video by @brian_huy_mac and @z_antibeersnob)

 

Vehicle

What do you do with decommissioned gongs?

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You recommission them, that’s what.

I had to leave XyloVan’s keyboards behind in storage when we moved from Los Angeles (no room in NYC).

But I brought the disc gongs with me. I finally got around to rebuilding them into something a lot more compact and portable, and I took the opportunity to engrave them all in the style of the two spare-tire-mount gongs, which are at the center of this array.

There’s a lot of energy stored in these, from all the thousands of people who played them since I first bolted them onto the van back in 2010.

I love that I can still play with those souls through this thing.

Vehicle

Pandemic Warning Mask 3, with magnets

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This mask was the largest one I could manage to cut out and make wearable from the tin ceiling tile, which was originally a 3-by-3-foot sheet of tin.

It is definitely meant to be worn without sunglasses so that the wearer’s eyes are visible.
I also fabbed a new mask, including magnets so that the faceplates are interchangeable (see VIDEOS at the bottom of this post)- and so that I didn’t have to sew a new cloth liner for every single iteration of this series.

The videos below show how easily the faceplates can be changed, and what they look like in three dimensions.



VIDEOS:
Mask 2 and 3
How magnets work

misadventures in resonant metal