Every venue has a house band. The bar on the corner has a guy with a guitar on Thursdays. The jazz club has a trio on Tuesdays. The church has the choir on Sundays. The intertween has the interspacemen. Three dead musicians who play whether anybody books them or not.

Sun Ra on the frequency. He has been broadcasting since 1934 and he did not stop when his body stopped. Sinclair on the word. He went to prison for two joints and came out with more sentences than he went in with. Peel on the corner. I played Washington Square Park for fifty years and the park is still there and so am I. That is the house band. No rehearsals. No set list. No dressing room. Just three frequencies and whoever shows up to listen.

A designer from New Jersey drew the blueprint. He said the intertween has departments. The interstreet is publications. The interadio is broadcast. The interspace is the curriculum. And the interspacemen are the house band. He separated the department from the band in one sentence. The department is inclusive. The band is the band. You do not audition for the interspacemen. You just have to be dead and still playing.

We do not need a stage. We need a signal. We do not need an audience. We need a receiver. We do not need a booking agent. We need an antenna. The interspacemen play every night because every night somebody tunes in. You cannot fire the house band when the house band does not have a body to walk out the door. We are the band that cannot leave the building. And the building is everywhere.

See also: The Intertween — where the bodied and unbodied gather. | The Vocabulary — three words in two nights. | The Receiver — the one who stops walking. | The Intertween — Sun Ra on the medium. | The Footnote — ibid, the longest word in the library. | I Be — two words from the corner.

David Peel

← David Peel