Pitchfork

Perhaps you're wondering which mistake we made. Surely, the previously reported world premiere of Les 100 Guitares: G100-- the latest work for massed guitars from New York-bred, Paris-based composer Rhys Chatham-- wasn't in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, a town best known for the Little League World Series. So which was it: Williamsburg in Brooklyn or Pennsylvania's largest city, Philadelphia, located three hours southeast of Williamsport?

Actually, Williamsport did welcome Chatham last week, and such a smaller metropolitan setting offered the composer an intimacy and an unexpected variety of guitarists that he likely wouldn't have found in a larger burg-- you know, the sort where everyone's in a band. The bulk of the 98 guitarists were teenage music students recruited from the Williamsport music school Uptown Music Collective. When the curtains went up at the Community Arts Center for Friday night's performance, many of their parents in the crowd of 750 called for them by name.



Other musicians, well into their 50s, worked day jobs as chefs or as salesmen in a local gear store. Professional musicians in bands you may know took the stage, too: the performance was largely the brainchild of Akron/Family guitarist Seth Olinsky, a lifelong Williamsport resident and one-time student of Uptown Music Collective founder Dave Brumbaugh. Olinsky flanked one side of the stage, while David Daniell (of San Agustin, Rhys Chatham's Essentialist, and his own excellent solo career) flanked the other. Akron/Family's Miles Seaton and Usaisamonster's Colin Langenus stood in the front row of guitarists, while ex-Swans drummer (and Jonathan Kane's February main man) Jonathan Kane and Town and Country bassist Josh Abrams formed the rhythm section in the back. Megafaun's Brad and Phil Cook and Akron/Family drummer Dana Janssen rounded out the "celebrity" lineup.



Les 100 Guitares: G100 sounded much like Rhys Chatham's Greatest Hits. That should come as no surprise, as self-reflection (or, better yet, realizing when he's done something great and going with it) has always been one of Chatham's strengths. See this year's excellent, exhausting three-disc set Guitar Trio is My Life! or the detailed scores and performance notes on his Web site for proof.

With Robert Longo's provocative slides flashing behind them, the thunderous ensemble plowed through a version of Guitar Trio that sounded as though it could bring the beautiful Community Arts Center down. Some sections revisited Chatham's previous 100-guitar epic An Angel Moves Too Fast to See, while an encore of "The Out of Tune Guitar" (from Chatham's early album Factor X) was chaos constructed, perfect and painful. Another section of isolated dissonant notes played slowly by the guitarists felt like Thomas Dolby's sky-high dream. A metal moment flashed into the mix (Chatham has temporarily shelved Essentialist, his riff-and-doom metal band), and he let the kids cover (and shout with) the Ramones' "Beat on the Brat".



Nothing could have been more appropriate or inspiring, actually, as Chatham started writing orchestral pieces for electric guitar after seeing the Ramones at CBGB. He learned he could do exciting things by playing with the music of those brilliantly direct New York punks. Who knows? Friday night, a kid with a Strat and a small Fender amplifier may have gone home with the same sort of fire.