{"id":4850,"date":"2017-01-21T15:17:52","date_gmt":"2017-01-21T22:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/?p=4850"},"modified":"2017-01-21T18:11:36","modified_gmt":"2017-01-22T01:11:36","slug":"the-terra-incognita-loft-part-4-1987-1989","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/?p=4850","title":{"rendered":"The Terra Incognita Loft: Part 4 1987-1989"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Pow-Wow ’87<\/h1>\n

With Laurie’s departure<\/a> at the end of summer 1987, the loft population was back to three. I’d been without an art studio for almost three years, and Katie’s projects had been wedged into a corner of the guest room, so we took over Laurie’s room, and on the nights we didn’t have rehearsal or a gig, we had art nights.<\/p>\n

My pastels were now all about the desert: forms I’d seen or dreamed, stylized like Native American rock art. Back in 1986, after hearing from Chris, the biology student, that the University of California had established an ecological field station near our desert cave, we’d driven over there and met the new directors, Philippe and Cindy. The four of us clicked from the start and became good friends. They began to turn us on to the ecology and prehistory of our favorite place, the ongoing research and the people who were conducting it. Our heads were exploding with this new universe of images and ideas for our art and music. The more we learned, the more we wanted to know.<\/p>\n

\"Max's <\/a>
Max’s art, pastel on paper, 18×24, 1987 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Max's <\/a>
Max’s art, pastel on paper, 18×24, 1987 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Our loft technology was also advancing. Back in 1985, we’d acquired a massive, used IBM Selectric electronic typewriter to produce lyric sheets, songbooks, and promotional correspondence for the band. But after the Pow-Wow in 1986, we’d replaced it with an Apple Macintosh computer and dot matrix printer. John had already set up a workstation in the hallway with his MS-DOS computer, so we added the Mac and began experimenting with graphics for posters and databases for our band mailing list.<\/p>\n

\"Terra <\/a>
Terra Incognita loft floorplan, fall 1987 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

John’s latest project was a brilliant Spiderman web of rope he strung across his room below the ceiling, from his sleeping loft to the opposite wall, so he could roll out of bed into it and crawl around up there. We knew he was airborne from the creaking sound of the ropes.<\/p>\n

In the fall, despite our sadness over the loss of our roommate, the momentum of our activities kept intensifying. I’d been corresponding with Jon about the next art\/science Pow-Wow, and with Philippe and Cindy about holding it on their desert field station, at the ranch house where we’d met Chris in December 1985. Katie had initially been skeptical about our Pow-Wows, thinking they’d be too nerdy and uncool, but now she was fully on board, along with our large community of artist friends in Los Angeles, for whom the desert was only a short drive away.<\/p>\n

Philippe and Cindy put Pow-Wow ’87 on their calendar for late October, and I prepared a two-page invitation on our Mac and sent it out to dozens of people on our mailing list. As both artists and scientists eagerly signed up, I compiled text and images from dozens of references Katie and I had acquired during our desert researches and produced a 200-page Reader on this environment most attendees would be experiencing for the first time, and its prehistoric culture. As I had with previous projects, I printed and bound the Reader surreptitiously at my day job, after hours, and mailed copies to all the Pow-Wow registrants on my own dime. Many of them would read it out loud during their journeys to the desert, preparing questions and special projects to share with others.<\/p>\n

\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow ’87 invite by Max, page 1 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow ’87 invite by Max, page 2 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow Reader by Max, cover showing “TI” petroglyph <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow Reader by Max, page 1 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow map created by Max on the Terra Incognita Macintosh computer and printer <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Meanwhile, Katie was tirelessly badgering record companies with our recent recordings, and our friends Norman and Benjamin had scored us a gig headlining a Friday night show at the Knitting Factory in New York City, based on the Village Voice review of our track on the Potatoes album<\/a>. This was our biggest opportunity ever \u2013 the Knitting Factory was the leading showcase for new and experimental music in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The first desert Pow-Wow was a massive group effort. Jon flew from New York to Las Vegas, where he met John and Ellen from the Bay Area and they all rented a car to drive to the remote field station. Michael and others from Los Angeles carpooled and hauled loads of firewood, food, and beverages. Katie and I drove down from San Francisco on Wednesday and stayed at our cave the first night, to be joined by other Bay Area friends at the ranch house on Friday afternoon. Gear was unloaded and a cooking assembly line was set up in the kitchen, supervised by Katie and our friend Tia, a professional chef and caterer, while people erected tents amid the cactus and scrub outside.<\/p>\n

As before, the first night was devoted to introductions, but this time in a circle outside around a roaring campfire. The desert had endured a drought for years, but after we went to bed, the drought was miraculously broken by a gentle, steady rain that lasted all night.<\/p>\n

On Saturday we split into smaller groups for team activities and field trips: the game of Granite Ball invented by our friend Mark N from Los Angeles, the volunteer installation of solar panels near field station headquarters, an expedition among the boulders to investigate prehistoric rock art. Around the fire that night, we all learned more about the place, its history, and its issues from Cindy and Philippe.<\/p>\n

The latest Pow-Wow had such a profound effect on people that they spent weeks processing what they’d learned, and sent us art, poetry, and essays in response during the coming months.<\/p>\n

\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow ’87: Jon, Philippe, Nancy, Michael, and others on a field trip <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow ’87: biology student Lisa, movie producer Michael, geologist Tina, seismologist Jack B, and others on a field trip <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow ’87: Katie, Tina, artist Nancy, educator and population activist Jack, Michael, and Lisa on a field trip <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow ’87: field station host Cindy sharing her knowledge of the desert with director Philippe, artists Christina and Stuart, and Scott <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow ’87: John from Terra Incognita, Scott, Jack A, and Michael pouring a foundation for solar panels <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow ’87: Tia, Lisa, and Stuart investigating a pictograph <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow ’87: artists Maureen and Mark from Los Angeles with a prehistoric pictograph <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow ’87: Mark, Maureen, effects producer Patti, writer Ellen, and Scott at their Granite Ball court <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pow-Wow <\/a>
Pow-Wow ’87: Jon and Max pondering <\/div> <\/div>
\"Ellen <\/a>
Ellen from Oakland at Pow-Wow ’87 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Nancy <\/a>
Nancy and Mitzie from Los Angeles <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Patti <\/a>
Patti from San Francisco at Pow-Wow ’87 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Stuart <\/a>
Stuart from San Francisco at Pow-Wow ’87 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Lisa, <\/a>
Lisa, Max, Jon, Jack, Tina, Tia, Patti, and Ellen at Pow-Wow ’87 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Art <\/a>
Art by Christina from Pow-Wow ’87 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Art <\/a>
Art by Stuart from Pow-Wow ’87 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Jon's <\/a>
Jon’s cosmogram from Pow-Wow ’87 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Terra Incognita in New York<\/h1>\n

The Terra Incognita band<\/a>‘s big national hit, “Rank Stranger,” employed two electric basses, so we recruited loftmate John into the band to play the second bass in our shows beginning that fall. In addition to the Friday night Knitting Factory gig, Norman and Benjamin got us a Wednesday night date at the popular King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in the Village, and a Thursday afternoon improv performance with Benjamin at PS 122, a trendy art venue.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/a>
The new Terra Incognita band photo with loftmate John on second bass <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Katie's <\/a>
Katie’s poster for Terra Incognita’s Knitting Factory show <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

On Tuesday evening, the four of us packed up our instruments and amps and boarded a flight out of SFO. It was Mark’s first flight, and almost his last. A blizzard lay over New York, and we were re-routed into a vast circular holding pattern to avoid it. The plane was repeatedly battered with turbulence, and at one point, a lightning bolt actually shot through the fuselage, from window to window, in front of Mark’s seat. We circled tensely for more than two hours, finally landing in Newark.<\/p>\n

We cabbed to the Mansfield, an elderly but clean hotel in mid-Manhattan across the street from the legendary Algonquin. It was popular with musicians, and we soon found ourselves sharing lines of coke with a heavy metal band from Manchester, England. The city was blanketed by several inches of fresh snow, enough to make it truly magical but not enough to immobilize us. In between our gigs, we explored the city as a group, continuing the time-honored tradition dramatized in Beatles movies like A Hard Day’s Night<\/em>, pelting each other with snowballs and amusing the locals with our juvenile hijinks and wide-eyed enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

My mother Joan and her fiance Jack had flown out and were staying on Washington Square in the Village. They joined all of our New York friends at the packed Knitting Factory show. But we totally bombed it. I’m not sure it was as discouraging to the audience as to us, but the stress of our biggest gig ever had taken its toll. Mark, Katie, and John had partied too much with the boys from Manchester, and I, normally at home on the stage, was as nervous as if I’d never been in front of an audience before. We did two sets, alternating with Benjamin and Norman, and our second set was no better than the first. We flew back to San Francisco with our tails between our legs. Our only consolation was that our gig had been on Friday the 13th.<\/p>\n

\"Terra <\/a>
Terra Incognita at the Knitting Factory, Friday, November 13, 1987 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Speeding to Collapse<\/h1>\n

Terra Incognita’s disappointing Knitting Factory performance turned out to be a harbinger of worse things to come. Like the military in past wars, and the energy industry and other physically-demanding blue-collar livelihoods, the movie industry had come to accept the abuse of dangerous stimulants, and Katie’s workplace, Colossal Pictures, was no exception. The pressure we’d shouldered in our pursuit of a record company deal and the New York tour was coming to a head, and we resented the need to sleep, the lost hours when we could be productive. With some people drug abuse was partying; with us it was strictly a productivity issue.<\/p>\n

In January 1988 this turned into a marathon of teeth-grinding and sleepless nights trying to write music in the wee hours of the morning, followed by zombie-like staggering around our day jobs. Of course, the drugs didn’t actually make us more creative \u2013 they made us the opposite, more nervous and uptight.<\/p>\n

The last show of the Terra Incognita electric string band was at Noe Valley Ministry, an all-wooden church that was acclaimed for having the best acoustics in San Francisco. It had been one of the few venues in the Bay Area that we hadn’t been able to book yet; our friend Pamela Z, the pioneering electronic composer and performance artist, had finally gotten us in. Our performance was videotaped by Stuart \u2013 the only video ever shot of this band \u2013 but he refused to share it with us afterwards.<\/p>\n

\"Noe <\/a>
Noe Valley Ministry music series, Jan-Feb 1988 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Throughout our performance, John, who stood behind Katie and I, kept drifting out of sync with us, and at one point during a song, I whipped around in frustration to see what was happening. John seemed oblivious to his surroundings. A week later, while Katie and I were away on a camping trip, he collapsed and was rushed to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with a serious, totally unexpected medical condition.<\/p>\n

Building a New Band<\/h1>\n

After making sure John could handle his new reality \u2013 it was harsh, but John had always been a survivor \u2013 Katie and I sobered up and took stock of our troubled musical project. We felt handicapped by the band’s lack of musical skill and polish, but we had no intention of letting go the creative reins or the lead vocals. Although we’d worked on lyrics and laid down plenty of sweet instrumental tracks, neither of us had finished any new songs in years. And our recent live recordings had exposed our arrangements as tense, herky-jerky, cerebral clutter. Just as we’d reached the peak of our career, we lost faith in what we were doing. We decided to disband and recruit new, professional musicians: a bassist and lead guitarist to free up Katie and me so we could focus more on our singing, and a drummer to round out our sound and take the place of Mark’s fiddle picking.<\/p>\n

The bassist came first. Not long after the Noe Valley Ministry fiasco, we attended a show at the Kennel Club by Snakefinger, a legendary guitarist and one of our Ralph Records labelmates. His bass player, Guy, was a virtuoso player with strong stage moves and a striking presence. I invited him over to the loft for a powwow. He was excited about joining us, but wanted creative equity \u2013 the chance to play and sing his own material, which he hadn’t been able to do with his previous bands. It was a challenge to my ego, but Katie talked me into it.<\/p>\n

Katie and Guy got recommendations for various percussionists that we auditioned at the loft, but none of them impressed me \u2013 either too mainstream or too hippie-dippy. I put up a notice at the Art Institute and Michael responded. From the beginning of our first conversation, even without hearing him play, I knew he was perfect. He’d studied at Berklee College of Music under Ronald Shannon Jackson and had played in Kotoja, a Bay Area afro-funk band led by Nigerian star Ken Okulolo. In addition to the standard kit, he played a talking drum, the most charismatic instrument from West Africa, and was a conga master. He also had strong stage presence \u2013 he worked part-time modeling for art classes and had even done some fashion work. And like me, he was committed to music with a spiritual dimension.<\/p>\n

The lead guitarist proved to be the hardest to find \u2013 unsurprisingly, because I’ve never really cared for lead guitarists or guitar solos. The first few auditions brought us rock players burdened with all the cliches in the book. Finally we settled on Mike, a modest, collaborative player with jazz chops who liked African music and loved our songs.<\/p>\n

\"New <\/a>
New Terra Incognita photo collage, 1988 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Love Will Tear Us Apart<\/h1>\n

The band wasn’t the only thing that needed fixing. Katie and I were in trouble in other ways. Despite all the passions and activities we shared, from music to the desert, our relationship had been dysfunctional from the start. Freaked out by her temper and other mismatches between us, I’d started viewing and treating her like a sister instead of a lover. I was blocked creatively, but she couldn’t write songs without me, and I refused to help her since I couldn’t help myself.<\/p>\n

In early spring, while our musician search was still underway, we took a weekend getaway to Jenner, a romantic seaside village north of the Bay Area. The first night, we had just ordered an expensive gourmet meal in the fancy, crowded restaurant above our room when I said something wrong and Katie had a meltdown and stomped out, leaving me to eat alone amid the stares of other diners. We made up afterwards and spent the next day tripping in our room, watching and listening to a storm over the ocean, but we knew nothing had been fixed between us.<\/p>\n

\"Katie <\/a>
Katie and Max tripping in Jenner, March 1988 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Someone recommended a couples counselor. The hour we spent there consisted of Katie accusing me, in relentless detail, of making her miserable. At the end, the counselor said she couldn’t help us and we should just break up.<\/p>\n

This shocked both of us. I’d expected that I would get a chance to speak. We both assumed this would just be the beginning, that the counselor would offer us counseling. Neither of us was ready to give up. Leaving the office, we hugged each other tightly and cried all the way to the car.<\/p>\n

We temporarily set our relationship problems aside to spend the summer rehearsing and recording the new band, putting together a demo to book gigs with the new sound and start all over with our promotional activities. Alongside this, Katie and I still had art nights in our shared studio, and in addition to her photography and printmaking, she had started to experiment with a new form of assemblage or sculpture using both natural and industrial detritus that she picked up during road trips.<\/p>\n

As frustrating and traumatic as our winter had been, it had shaken something loose in me, and I started writing new songs for the first time in years \u2013 most of them inspired by the desert. Katie and Guy were also introducing new material, so that not only did we have a new band, we had a new repertoire as well.<\/p>\n

\"Katie, <\/a>
Katie, Max, and Guy in the loft, summer 1988 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Katie <\/a>
Katie in her art studio, summer 1988 <\/div> <\/div>
\"Katie <\/a>
Katie with a bottle of Bay Cellars Pinot Noir, from our friend Richard’s winery, rated the best pinot in the U.S. that year <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n
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