Boxmedia’s Balancing Act
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He’s got inertia on his side: since graduating from Kalamazoo’s Western Michigan University in 1994 with a bachelor’s in sculpture, Gutzeit’s been moving at the speed of sound. In August of that year he headed for Nagoya, Japan, to study with renowned ceramicist Ryoji Koie on a two-week scholarship. But he had ulterior motives: while in school he’d discovered Japanese noise bands like the Boredoms, Ruins, and Ground Zero, and he wanted to infiltrate their world.
When he finished with Koie, Gutzeit hopped a train to Tokyo, where a former classmate had an apartment. He survived on a diet of bread and rice for a month, until he landed a job in a bar that catered to Americans. Michael Hartman, who’d played with Gutzeit in a drone project called Liminal back in Michigan, soon joined him, teaching English to get by, and the two shared a one-room apartment. Using a combination of instruments–they’ve been known to include electric koto, drums, and a 20-string steel “bass”–and electronics, they started playing what Gutzeit calls “junk noise” under the name TV Pow.
Gutzeit also plans to rerecord his stolen album for Meme, and next month the local Kranky label will release Mosquito Dream, his two-year-long collaboration-by-mail with ambient guitarist James Plotkin, whom he met at a Jim O’Rourke gig in Tokyo. He now has a full-time job, running a wood and thin-metal shop for the Art and Design department at Columbia College, and a few weeks ago he began programming Monday nights at Roby’s. This week he’s booked Boykin’s Outet, and starting on February 22, Lonberg-Holm will conduct his Lightbox Orchestra experiment there on the last Monday of each month. Friday at Lounge Ax, TV Pow, Boykin’s group, Town and Country, and the trio of Zerang, Baker, and Lonberg-Holm perform in a Boxmedia showcase.
