Adrianne Geffel

by David Hajdu

  Nightline was in the process of producing a whole segment on the burgeoning downtown arts scene—“Weird Wonders of the New World of Music.” They heard all about Adry and wanted to feature her. I was working directly with one of Ted Koppel’s personal assistants. It was practically a lock. My contact—Ted’s own assistant, one of the top ones—went to see Adry at The Kitchen, and that was the end of that. I called her office the next day, and then every day for several days after that, and when I finally reached her, she said, “Oh, I’m so sorry, but that isn’t quite what we’re looking for.” I got the message—all of a sudden, Adry Geffel wasn’t weird enough.

  Something had to be done, and someone had to do it. If someone didn’t do it, it would probably never get done.

  Karen Gigliardi:

  He called Mr. Mendelman, and I patched him in right away—Biran. I didn’t make him wait, like Mr. Mendelman liked for me to make people wait, so it would look like he was always too busy to talk. I could tell this was real important. “Put me through to Harvé,” Biran said in that cute little squeaky voice he had.

  I could only hear Mr. Mendelman’s side of the conversation. He didn’t like the speaker phone—all those buttons! “Yeah, yeah—you don’t have to tell me . . .” It went like that, but with curse words. “Okay—I’ll tell Karen to get right on it.”

  He slammed down the phone and called me into his office. “Karen!” he said. “Set up a meeting with Biran and me. Soon as possible!” I got to work and arranged a meeting for the two of them for that same afternoon. Things were happening so fast!

  I took notes at the meeting, like I always did. I don’t have the steno pad anymore. Mr. Mendelman taught me, “Throw away the notes.” He didn’t like a paper record of the business happenings where people might find them some day. But I remember that [meeting]. Mr. Mendelman was all upset over the music Adry Geffel was giving him, which he didn’t approve of one bit. He was ranting and raving to Biran—“What does she think she’s doing? I can’t release that . . . stuff.” He used another word—you can use your imagination. “What’s gotten into that girl of yours?”

  Mr. Mendelman was beside himself because he thought Adry’s music had gotten so nice. This made no sense to me. But I was used to that in my job. It was a learning experience. I remember writing down “lollipops and roses,” because Mr. Mendelman said that about Adry’s music. That stuck with me because my mother always, always sang that song—“roses and lollipops, lollipops and roses . . .” That’s all I know of the song. I never connected that with Adry Geffel before. Biran started trying to explain that Adry was happy about something that he didn’t seem to like at all, and that was why her music was so happy.

  I said to myself, just being sarcastic to myself, “Oh, so, make the girl unhappy!” But I really said it out loud, without realizing I was talking.

  Biran turned to me and stared at me for, it felt like forever. “Karen,” he said, “that’s what I call strategic thinking. Write that down. Now we have a workable plan.”

  Harvé Mendelman:

  My friend Biran Zervakis tell you anything about the emergency meeting I called?

  [Mendelman is answered in the affirmative.]

  He came soon as I called him. Didn’t even take the time to buy flowers for Karen. [Mendelman once again attempts to laugh.]

  We brainstormed a strategy, and I gave Biran and Karen their marching orders. Told them, we are Infini Records—we are experimenteurs. We will experiment our way out of the Geffel problem, as I called it.

  First thing we did, my concept—I tapped the expertise in experimentation I had developed to put Infini on the map of the new-music world when we launched our first line of product, The Infini Archive of Anomalies of Musique Mechanique. I told Karen, “Send the tapes Geffel made at the Judson Church to our mastering lab, and tell them to use their imagination. Run them backwards, quarter-speed. Cut them into pieces, throw the pieces in a hat, put it on their head, dance the Cossack Dance, and splice the pieces back together. Go to town with the tapes—any town they want! Go to a town in another state, in a whole other part of the country. Go to Florida with them, in their minds.”

  The lab got the message, sent back a master no one would ever be able to recognize or listen to. I had no idea what they did to those tapes, and I didn’t want to know, till I got the bill and asked for an itemized breakdown of the job.

  I gave Karen instructions to call the professor at the New School for Social Research we used—you know who I mean, Professor You-Know-His-Name, very famous—and have him write up some liner notes and give us a good title for the record. Karen asked me for the master tape to send him. I explained to her, “Karen, you should know by now, we need the master to press the record. He doesn’t need to hear the music just to write about it.”

  I knew now we’d have a product we could release. Biran wanted a producer credit, and that was only fair, in consideration of the fact that he’d be getting a good percentage of the revenue. We had a meeting to map out the release plans with Biran, and Karen piped up, “What about Adry? Do you want me to cc her on anything?”

  Biran told her, “Let’s just make it a big surprise.”

  Karen said, “Well, she’s not going be very happy about this.”

  Biran gave her a little pinch on the cheek and said, “Thank you.”

  Dr. Stewart A. Rauschmittel, Ph.D.:

  I was commissioned by the Infini Record Company to compose an essay of postulations regarding a project of aggressively processed and edited electronic music by Adrianne Geffel. In concept, it was a radical departure for her and conceptually fascinating to me. The company provided me with a lay person’s description of the project, in memorandum, which referenced the work by the title Oh, Positive, presumably in irony. You would know the project by the title I gave it, Oh, No, which is self-evidently a fitting rhetorical parallel to the music, as I understood it in concept from the memorandum. I refer you to my essay, which has been published not only as an eight-page booklet accompanying the album, but later in expanded form in my monograph, Spinning Discourses: Toward a Theory of the Rubric of Disequilibrium in Avant-Garde Text and Pretext, revised second edition. The latter would be the more viable source for your reference, the album having been withdrawn from distribution over a dispute with Geffel’s representatives or estate. I was not a party to that. I have been told the album has become a collector’s item. I wish now that I had a copy of it myself. It would be stimulating to read my essay again, and it could be interesting to hear that music.

  Ann Athema:

  I went over to Geffel and Barb’s place fairly often—probably more often than I went when it was Jeffy’s place, because it didn’t use to be so sanitary. I had to meet Geffel once because it was the first of the month and she had to pay the rent, and she misplaced the slip of paper Jeffy had written his Carmine Trembler signature on for Geffel to copy. Jeffy whipped off a great new one for her. The date for this was the first—June or July, an insufferably hot summer day in New York City—and the day of the week was a Wednesday, I’m certain of that because the Village Voice was published on Wednesdays, though you could get it after midnight on Tuesday night while you were out, if you wanted. I picked up a copy that morning on my way to Ninth Avenue. Geffel and I liked to look through the S&M personals in the back, for laughs, and pretend we were going to call Mistress Igor or Mel Torment for a nice lashing and golden shower. We sat at the island Barb built in the kitchen and flipped through the Voice together. Barb wasn’t there that day. She probably had a building job. I admired Barb enormously for her ability to do things I had no patience for, such as work.

  We’re flipping through the Voice—flip, flip . . . flipping through the pages . . . there’s Michael Musto, there’s the Feiffer ballet-dancer cartoon, flip, flip . . . [Athema mimes turning pages in a newspaper.] And there’s a big photo of Geffel—looks like a record-company handout—with a full-page article. Geffel slaps her hand down on the page. We both start reading
, and it’s a review by N. D. Nieve of a new Adrianne Geffel album, complete with a reproduction of the cover in the corner.

  I say, “Hey, Geffel—congratulations! Is this the Judson record?”

  Geffel yanks the paper away from me and reads the piece to herself, pacing around the apartment and humming a strange tune. She stops reading and drops down on the floor. There was a chair a few feet away, but she plops straight down onto the floor and sits there, holding the paper in her hand. She’s still humming this weird, atonal tune, and then she starts singing to herself, putting words to the tune: “How the fuck . . . could they do this to me? How the fuck . . . could they do this to me? How the fuck . . . could they do this to me?”

  Karen Gigliardi:

  Mr. Mendelman told me to make an exception to his rule about phone calls and, if Adry Geffel called, “Don’t make her hold on the line and wait till I pick up. Tell her I’m not in at all, and just take a message.” I did that before, with a couple of the vendors and some of his girlfriends and his wife, so I knew how to do that and not be too bossy about it, so people wouldn’t get mad at me. Mr. Mendelman said I missed my calling—I should have been an actress. He was such a charmer. I bet he’s the same way with his new secretary—excuse me, I mean his new executive assistant. Nobody’s a secretary anymore. I wonder if they still even have a Secretary’s Day. That was a nice thing.

  [Gigliardi is pressed to continue her recollections.]

  Oh, forgive me—I didn’t realize you’re not interested in my opinion on things. I suppose you only want opinions from Biran and Mr. Mendelman and the other men with the fancy titles.

  [Gigliardi is given an apology and encouraged to speak freely.]

  Thank you very much.

  One of my responsibilities was to keep a clipping file of all the articles about the company printed in the newspaper and the magazines, and catalog them. I was much more than a secretary, it shows you there. In the time you’re asking me about, Biran told me to buy an extra copy of one article and take it to the poster shop on Lexington Avenue and have it framed for Adry, just log the cost on her account, and give the nice, framed review to him so he could present it to Adry.

  [Gigliardi is asked if she is referring to the review of Oh, No published in the Village Voice.]

  Yes. It was the only time I was ever asked to do that, have a review framed. I told Biran, “I know what’s going on here, you know. I know what you’re doing.”

  He said, “Why, Karen—it was your idea, don’t forget.”

  I said, “Well, I don’t have to like it.”

  He said, “The important thing is that Adry doesn’t like it. That’s the best thing for her, trust me. It’s for the good of the whole company, and you’re an important part of that.” He sounded very serious, even with that silly little voice of his.

  Adry started calling Mr. Mendelman that day. I did what I was supposed to and told her, “I’m sorry, Adry, but Mr. Mendelman isn’t in at the moment. I’ll make sure he gets your message.” She kept calling back, three or four times a day. After a couple of days of this, I came in to work in the morning, and Adry was there already, waiting outside the door to the office. She was sort of pacing and humming something a little scary-sounding.

  I unlocked the door. I had the keys, because Mr. Mendelman didn’t exactly keep business hours—he had an artistic temperament and things to do outside the office with the accountants and the lawyers. I started to tell Adry that I wasn’t sure when Mr. Mendelman would be in, and if she would like to leave him a message . . . She shot me down real fast and said, “Karen, I’m going to stay right here.” She paced around by my desk, humming something very peculiar.

  I went into Mr. Mendelman’s office, like I had to pull some papers, and used his phone. I called Mr. Mendelman, and he said, “Well, I’m not coming in there. Call Biran. Thank you, Karen.” He was always such a gentleman.

  So I called Biran, and he said, “Wonderful! I’ll be right there.” I came back out of Mr. Mendelman’s office, carrying some papers I pulled out of his file cabinet for show, and sat back down at my desk and did some work. Biran walked in a couple of hours later, holding the review I got framed for him and acting like he just happened to be in our building and thought he’d stop by to chat.

  He said, “Why, Adry! What a surprise! I’m so happy to see you. How are you? Are you happy, too?”

  Adry marched straight toward him, and Biran handed her the framed review—“Look—I have a present for you!”

  Adry took it, didn’t even look at—she just stared at Biran—and let it drop out of her hands. It fell onto the floor and smashed while she just stared Biran in the eyes. She said—I’m not sure how to describe this—she was talking . . . she wasn’t yelling at him, but she sounded almost like she was singing. She said, “Goodbye, Brian.” She called him Brian—weird. “Goodbye. Do . . . you . . . fucking . . . hear . . . me?”

  Biran said, “I hear you very clearly, Adry, and I love the way you sound. That’s my Adry!”

  And Adry left the office, crushing the glass on the floor as she walked out.

  Barbara Lucher:

  I don’t want to talk about the bullshit we had to deal with. Just look it up. Don’t you have a library card in that purse of yours?

  [Lucher is reminded that the historical record on the relevant issues is incomplete, and that the term for what the interviewer carries is a shoulder bag.]

  So, what do you want to know about? You want to hear all about the money trouble and legal trouble and real-estate trouble we had that we never should have had? You want to know how it felt to be fucked in our fucking asses by every ass-fucking fuck-ass in New York?

  [Lucher is answered in the affirmative.]

  I really hate this.

  [Lucher stands up, sits back down, and wipes her face with the tail of her shirt.]

  Alright. Okay. And I’m sorry for insulting your accessories. I know what a goddamn shoulder bag is. Ask me something specific.

  [Lucher is asked to elaborate on what she means by “money trouble.”]

  That’s not very specific. But okay. We had a damn sweet setup—great apartment . . . useless neighborhood, you know, but great apartment when I got done with it. I was working steady. Good thing, because Adry’s income was drying up. Biran—know what, I’m not going to call him that anymore. His fucking name was Brian. Adry told me. Brian had finagled control of Adry’s business income, and was draining whatever she had accumulated from her record sales and concerts—I don’t know how much, Adry never got legitimate financial statements—so he could pay his own rent and buy cases of imported dead-baby blood to drink. We were living on the money I was making from building jobs after a while. No complaints. I was doing alright.

  Ann and Jeffy helped Adry find a lawyer to take on Brian, but that wasn’t paying off yet. It was costing us—quite a bit, out of what I was bringing in. But we were holding our own, and then Adry was home alone one morning, while I was working. There was a knock on our door, and it was some guy from the New York City government, like a process server for the city, hand-delivering a warrant for Barbara Lucher. He handed it to Adry. She read the envelope and told the guy that’s not her name, and he ran out like the rat he was.

  The second I walked in the door, she filled me in and handed me the envelope. I opened it up—I wanted to just light a burner on our stove and torch it, but Adry talked me into reading it first, and then I could torch it. I could not be-fucking believe my fucking eyes. It’s a nasty legally notice from the New York Department of Buildings for violations of the building code in a job I did, subcontracting for the contractor Philip Glass hooked me up with. Fat wad of fines, thousands of dollars. And I’m prohibited from doing any further construction work in the five boroughs of New York until the matter is resolved to the satisfaction of the department. And the company that subcontracted me has been notified, so there goes all my future work with my main client down the toilet, and it’s one toilet not even Philip Gla
ss could fix.

  How much do you know about interior construction? Scratch the question. I’ll explain.

  The New York City building code required that the vertical studs in load-bearing walls be spaced at a distance of twenty-four inches. The job I was doing was a kitchen renovation. I broke down a wall to extend the kitchen by three feet. So I had to build a replacement wall. I spaced the studs at sixteen inches, which is the way walls used to be built, and the way I was taught in Pennsylvania. It’s not New York City code—only better.

  The city also specified that the lumber in interior construction had to be number-two pine. Today, it’s all metal, fireproof. But in the Eighties, the requirement was number-two pine. For this job, I happened to use number-one pine, which is planed without knots and stronger, but costs more usually, except I got a deal at Prince Street Lumber, so I used the superior lumber—superior, but not New York City code.

  And the city required that wall surfaces be made of three-eighths-inch gypsum sheathing—sheetrock. I used five-eighths-inch, and not only that, I used “blue” grade, which is waterproof. Stronger wall, less susceptible to mold in the damp environment of a kitchen—better, but not city code.

  It took weeks for us to figure out what was going on, and by then we were flat-on-our-asses broke. Somebody in music circles must have mentioned to Harvé Mendelman at some point that Philip Glass helped get me work. Mendelman or Zervakis—which one, who knows? Who cares? One of them, conniving to make trouble for me—and that means trouble for Adry—strong-arms or scams or bribes some pussy in the Department of Buildings to look up the permits to see where I’m working, and they do a spot inspection after I leave one day, scouring the site to find anything they can use against me. Nasty, sneaky, completely unethical but weirdly legal, and head-fuckingly effective. A few phone calls and a couple hundred bucks folded in a newspaper, and I am totally fucking fucked.