An old recording from 2010 from the very first time I played my music live. It was at a DIY house show on April 16th, 2010, in Berea, Ohio, where I currently reside. I bowed a crash cymbal, while I had alligator clips on my Yamaha Pacifica, and I had a cassette recording of Rocky River, a local waterway near my house, playing back through a four-track tape machine.

The recording of the river was made with a hand-held tape recorder (the kind one would use to record a teacher's lecture), set on the "fast" recording setting, so that if played back at regular speed, it would sound slowed down. On top of which, I then adjusted the pitch knob on the tape machine to its lowest setting.

At the time I was completely obsessed with the music of the group Mirror, which consisted of Christoph Heemann of H.N.A.S. and Andrew Chalk of Ferial Confine. This is essentially me miming them.

Live @ Kemoton House 4/16/10

Piece made for the SPACES Gallery exhibition "Apopheny – Epiphany: What is Random?," curated by Chris Auerbach-Brown, in Cleveland, OH. The exhibition ran from May 30 - July 25 2014.

More information about the exhibition here: http://www.spacesgallery.org/project/the-vault-may--july-2014

Artist biography here: http://www.spacesgallery.org/artists/rob-galo

Drone For Chris (Drone Not Drones)

Daniel Ryan Balderas and I jam. DRB is bowing my guitar while I am holding down keys on a chord organ as well as making various sounds with my free hand.



basement drone

Live set featuring myself on prepared guitar, at Now That's Class in Cleveland. The show was the October Noise Lunch curated by Andrew Auten. The theme, as determined by Andrew, was "devolution."

Before I began my set, I gave a very rough outline of my beliefs concerning the idea of devolution, and how the real problem is our complacency with late capitalism and neo-liberalism.

What happens next is that there was a technical issue concerning the amplifier that I was using (a used/abused Silvertone practice amp). Once the issue was resolved, as you hear, the performance began.

The guitar is a Cort electric guitar (unknown make/model) that has damage to the bridge and is missing tuning heads, among other signs of wear and tear. I have a metal bracket that is magnetized to the bridge pick-up.

The guitar is strung with a banjo string, two guitar strings, and a bass guitar string.

At the end of the set, I am taking the guitar jack and dragging it across the neck of the guitar, as well as rubbing it against the metal bracket (still magnetized to the bridge).

Live at Now That's Class, Cleveland 10/05/14

A live presentation I gave on the work and life of experimental composer Éliane Radigue, starting with her earliest experiences with music, through her electronic works on the ARP 2500 and lastly into her series of acoustic works such as the Naldjorlak and Occam Ocean cycles.

The lecture was given at Mahall's 20 Lanes, a bowling alley located in the Cleveland suburb Lakewood, on Tuesday, Feb. 10th, 2015. The lecture was part of the Lecture In A Bar Modern Music Master series, presented by The Mysterious Black Box.

Unfortunately, the PA I had to use was set up as dual-mono and so when I would play an audio sample, the system would tend to blow up with distortion and other things that were beyond my control. 

In addition, I also had a few problems concerning the samples I had embedded in my presentation. You'll hear those too.

That said, everyone who came to the lecture enjoyed it quite a bit and it worked well as an introduction to her accomplishments as an experimental musician and composer, as well as sharing information not known to fellow fans of her work who were in the audience.

Special thanks to Counter Rucking for the audio recording!

Lecture In A Bar: Éliane Radigue 2/10/2015

I'm bowing a bracket that is magnetized to my guitar pick-up.

Bracket

I decided to play some guitar unprepared and completely improvised. I have no idea what tuning this is - I just picked it up and started playing. Inspired by being slightly buzzed, feeling energetic for once, and watching Jandek on youtube.

Unprepared playing 09/13/15

Sounds from Saturday evening

Sean McCann's "Pacifics" pg. 9

My attempt at a specific approach to "musique concrète" and "cinéma pour l'oreille" for the December 2018 Noise Lunch, the theme being "Cinema Sound." All sounds were sourced from over two years of video and audio recorded on my Samsung Galaxy 6 smartphone.

For fans of Christoph Heemann, Graham Lambkin's "Salmon Run," Jim O'Rourke's "ambient" pieces, and Walter Ruttmann's "Weekend," arguably the first "cinéma pour l'oreille" piece from 1930.

An Attempt at Cinéma Pour L'Oreille

A recording made with my phone's voice recorder software in the summer of 2019, from the inside of a pedestrian tunnel that is directly below train tracks. Headphones or sub-woofers are highly recommended.

Train over W. 65 Tunnel

A recording of my computer chair made during the 2020 novel coronavirus pandemic. Made under "shelter in place" using the voice recorder function on my phone. Dedicated to Aaron Dilloway.

Rob Galo

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