BRIAN J. BEATRICE

I have been chosen as one of 200 guitar players for the Rhys Chatham event at Lincoln center on August 15th. “We” are performing a version his piece “A Crimson Grail” (Outdoor Version) originally performed by 400 guitars indoors at Sacre-Coeur in Paris. This free event part of the Wordless Music Series and takes place outdoors at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park on Friday, August 15, 2008. The expected crowd is… 10,000.

You can read about the original Crimson Grail recording from 2005 at Sacre-Coeur in Paris here:

http://www.rhyschatham.net/crimson/crimsonfrance.htm

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/41078-a-crimson-grail-for-400-electric-guitars

Dear guitarists and bassists,

Congratulations! You have been chosen as one of 200 guitarists and 16 bassists to perform in the world premiere of Rhys Chatham’s A CRIMSON GRAIL (Outdoor Version) at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park on Friday, August 15, 2008, a special co-production by Lincoln Center Out of Doors and Wordless Music.

On behalf of Wordless Music, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Rhys Chatham, and his team, we are thrilled that we’ll be able to present this monumental piece of music for the people of New York City. (Expected capacity for August 15’s production will be around 10,000 people.) We hope that you’ll be able to take part in a truly historic event. Thanks again for your interest and consideration.

It’s funny how history rewrites itself in hindsight. With “Slaughter of the Soul” now being called “genre defining” and subsequently hugely influential, the At the Gates reunion show tomorrow has sold out. In truth, “SOTS” was actually a genre killer, taking the elements of the extreme Earache bands and making a bombastic, melodic record that is pretty awesome, but that no one seemed to care about at the time. It really sounds like “Extreme Aggression” era Kreator with the guitar tone of “Entombed” updated with killer production and drum sound. All good things, but had they not persisted and made more records, such as “The Haunted (Made Me Do It)” (another great record) and remain a vital part of the heavy Swedish music scene, I’m not sure anyone would remember them and Earache’s decision to put SOTS in their top 10 most essential is definitely questionable.

It will be interesting to see how this reunion pans out and if they will stay true to their claim of “Summer Tour only and no more.”