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On Friday at the Empty Bottle, composer, writer, philosopher, violinist, and art-world gadfly Henry Flynt gave an incredibly rare performance as part of the annual Adventures in Modern Music festival. It followed on the heels of several east-coast gigs this year, his first since the mid-80s, and from what I’ve read this show followed the same template those did. Joined by his niece Libby Flynt (a rockabilly guitarist who’d briefly been in Band of Susans), they played electric guitars over a mind-numbing high-decibel loop that consisted of a single organ chord and a hammering beat that sounded like a one-second Stereolab sample. If that sounds like fun, just wait.
I suppose it’s possible that this was performance art and I just missed the message. But to me it sounded like Flynt was either losing it or so full of himself that he never doubted his right to stage such a mess.
