Drummer Bob D’Amico (Sebadoh, The Fiery Furnaces) gets triggered onstage, and it’s intentional. Working under the project name No Chief, D’Amico explores the concept of synesthesia—i.e. the involuntary experiencing of a second sense while experiencing a primary one (e.g. tasting colors, hearing images, etc.). The focal point of his live show is a piece named “Il Contadino,” during which D’Amico plays drums live behind a semi-transparent screen and reacts immediately to images projected over him.
“The imagery and its projection in a live setting will automatically trigger a response from me during the parts that are meant to be improvised,” he says. “Playing to what I’m seeing, basically.” As he puts it, his presentation of synesthesia is “the perception of rhythm through the ears, but also the eyes.”
What he’s seeing is a tribute created by him from the works of early 20th century Bauhaus artist Gertrud Grunow and Carlo Levi, who was exiled to remote regions in his native Italy during the 1930s. The film D’Amico compiled is titled Christ Stopped At Eboli, a title shared with Levi’s self-penned 1945 memoir and the 1979 film based on his book. The visuals selected by D’Amico are drawn from the film version.
“With Gertrud Grunow, it was her sensory and 12-tone work that related to the core idea of this project, which is synesthesia. Her tone-circle painting being the most prominent,” D’Amico says. “Carlo Levi was just an artist whose paintings I used to improv to occasionally, but when I read his novel last year, it gave me the idea that there are loose, related threads between these artists and what I’m trying to do with this project.”
While D’Amico’s work isn’t immediately overtly political, there was some sense of situational similarity in this piece’s creation. He says, “It [was made] during the spring, summer and fall before the 2024 U.S. election, when we had the potential for a fascist-like government looming over our heads. With Grunow and the Bauhaus, it was the thriving period of the 1920s, before Hitler came into power. With Carlo Levi, he was working during the worst parts of the Mussolini regime, and was exiled because of his resistance to the government. It seemed like an interesting relation to explore and build on. What was, what could be and how did they function under these conditions?”
D’Amico is also inspired by the work of composer and musician Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, who was also an influence on Grunow, and D’Amico uses a still image of his choreography in the show.
Musically speaking, his performance isn’t all improvisational. He composed intro and outro sections, including the drums of those sections. When asked to describe this project to potential audiences he responded, “I see it as more of a method than a style of music… We’re always playing a role in whatever musical situation we’re in. With Sebadoh, my role is to support and lock in to how Lou [Barlow] and Jake want their songs to feel and move. It was the same in Fiery Furnaces, but with much more improv thrown in.”
Specific to No Chief, though, D’Amico says, “I would just describe it as a different experience from the usual ‘band playing their songs’ scenario, mostly because of the visual component. If I were to compare it, there are bands/musicians that do or have done similar things that have certainly influenced this project—Sigur Ros, Philip Glass, Air, to name a few.”
His connection to Levi’s town of exile is personal for him. Whereas it was fictionalized in the film, it was based on Basilicata, formerly Lucania, where D’Amico’s Italian side of his family is from. D’Amico says, “It was so miserable and destitute that the fascists considered it worse than prison. My great-grandfather’s—also named Carlo—listed occupation on his emigration papers was ‘contadino’ or peasant. He was a peasant, economically speaking, but he was much more than that, as I came to learn… I went to visit the town where he was from last November, after the election, and I wrote a lot of the music for this thing. The loose and related themes are and were interesting and inspiring. How can you stay productive and creative under the worst conditions? How can you do what you have to do to do what you want to do? If you come from a long line of struggling, working class people how do you resist the urges to ‘stop wasting your time with this stuff?’”
Further describing his live show he says, “The movement of the image alone is rhythmic. And because there is so much room for improv, it can and will sound like ‘rock-ish’ music occasionally, but not always. My hope is that the audience can appreciate it as a whole, instead of focusing on just one element. And hopefully the experience will evoke ideas for them, too!”
WHO: Hayride, No Chief
WHEN: Tuesday, Sept. 9, 7 p.m. (doors), 8 p.m. (show)
WHERE: Ciné
HOW MUCH: $10
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