Noah Wall did something I’ve never thought about doing, even though I’ve been in music instrument stores hundreds of times – He went to the Manhattan Guitar Center and quietly recorded strangers banging on drums, singing, testing the keyboards. Kind of like Moses Ash when starting up his Folkways label, right? Not exactly. He then made the recordings into an album. It’s called Live at Guitar Center and it’s below for you to check out. Fair warning – it’s completely unlistenable more than once. And that’s if you get past a few minutes.
Wall describes his secret project:
March 27, 2015. It’s about 3 on Friday. School’s out and people are headed to Guitar Center Manhattan. I’m going there to do some field recording. A block away, I put on a pair of microphones you might find in a spy catalog. They look like earbud headphones but are actually binaural (stereo) mic’s that go in each ear. No one suspects I’m recording them – more like listening to music or something…
