Tom Algiers 1958- 2004
This is a story about my good friend Tom. As this music was being created, Tom was living the good life up in the backcountry outside of Ketchum, Idaho. I had called a mutual friend of ours a few weeks before, who also lived up in Ketchum, to see how they both were doing. A few days after this music was created, our mutual friend called me up to inform me that Tom had been brutally attacked with a machete by a “friend”, presumably left for dead, and shot and killed by police officers an hour later when ordered to put down his Swiss army knife.
The music was unlike anything that had happed previously in our improvisation sessions, and was quite startling to me in its intensity and drive. Only when I heard about Tom’s passing did I have a sense of where the music was coming from. Though it was originally created a few days before Tom’s death, it seems to me to have acted as a premonition. That I would call and ask about him just a few weeks before was auspicious, as I only have done this every 7 years or so. To my sensibilities, the music was describing the process that Tom was entering into from the moment of the machete attack. The editing and selection process were all done with the spirit of Tom hovering above me.
The first piece “The Machete of God” describes the initial disorientation that happens with 14 machete wounds to the head. “Negotiating the Descent” outlines the process of coming swiftly to terms with one’s mortality as it slips away. “The Lion of Uncertainty” further explores the place between Life and Death, where exact borders become increasingly hazy and ill-defined.
The middle section starts off with “At the Station”, a bizarre moment of arriving somewhere foreign with no knowledge of what transpired in the process of getting there. This is followed by a time of “Momentary Respite” and once again, “The Reappearance of the Lion”.
The final section contains a set if pieces describing how both Life and Death continue on, and how ultimately we must each of us come to some sense of Forgiveness towards ourselves, our friends, those who do us harm, and those who just follow their job description.
May these pieces serve as a musical memento for one of my truest friends during 1974-78.
Stephen Golovnin
Musicians on these pieces:
Stephen Golovnin – Clavier
Robert Pearson – Clavier
Norm Sohl – Theremin, Wind Controller
Robin James – Unprepared Guitar
By Choice No Copyright
Contents:
02 Negotiating the Descent.mp3
03 The Lion of Uncertainty.mp3
06 Reappearance of the Lion.mp3