We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

The Tent of Olaf Csiszaro

by Kent Liverpool

supported by
James Filkins
James Filkins thumbnail
mario matamoro iglesias
mario matamoro iglesias thumbnail
/
1.
Move the System 05:29
buy track
2.
To the Ages 02:20
buy track
3.
Round the Clock News 03:53
buy track
4.
Nietzsche's Blues 04:50
buy track
5.
Mystical Touch 03:21
buy track
6.
Prove Myself 04:14
buy track
7.
Excess of Honesty 04:07
buy track
8.
Particularly Cruel 05:10
buy track
9.
The Grapefruit Warning 03:35
buy track

about

2005 proved to be an eventful summer for Kent. In June, he took up a friends offer to foot the bill for the two of them to attend a three week meditation retreat in the Hindu Kush, somewhere near Tibet, where under a vow of silence, Kent battled a torture chamber of ceaseless mental chatter and intermittent bouts of dysentery. After a week back home stateside, a second spontaneous trip was undertaken to the Amazon in Brazil, where the two friends participated in a harrowing ayahuasca ceremony.

Kent arrived back home just three days before a gig commitment scheduled to take place at a small county fair a few miles outside of Bowling Green, Ohio. Inspired by his two enlightenment seeking trips, he arrived back home with a completely revised vision for the band that moved away from the more succinct, British Invasion inspired catchy pop-rock format toward a sound that was more hard-rock based, and included more enigma, ambiguity, mystery, and darkness. After retching and leaving behind ego attachments on two separate foreign continents, Kent temporarily couldn't face his usual optimistic turbo-charged boy/girl pop fair.

The problem was that the band had only one day to rehearse the new set, and so the arrangements were still very tentative by the time of the gig. But the band allegedly made up in chutzpa what they lacked in technical assurance.

The gig was in 'The Captain Morgan Rum Tent' at the back of the fair, on a makeshift plywood stage about two feet high, and due to the late start time (11 pm) was only lightly attended by the general population. But there was one caveat - as the gig was technically after hours, it also served as the location of a wedding party for two recently hitched carnival workers, whose guests numbered approximately one hundred, which added a festive air to the proceedings. The show started late, at 11:30, amidst much drinking, eating, dancing, as well much carnivalesque activity - juggling, fire eating, card trickery, and more. Reportedly a few pigs, two donkeys, a cheetah, and a small elephant ran loose for most of the gig. At one point, the band was joined onstage by a few fire stick jugglers, a man on stilts, and two trapeze artists, who danced, yelled into the mics, and swiped at the guitar and bass strings with inebriated abandon.

There was no actual 'Olaf Csiszaro.' This was apocryphal. It was a nom de plume given to the sour, portly, balding, rather soiled and cynical waistcoat-attired older gent, who was the venue's manager and the band's principle contact. He guided them to the electrical outlets, pre-payed them $300 for the gig, then sat back on a barrel, sipping a dark mysterious liquid from a mason jar and observing the proceedings for the duration. This fellow, christened 'Olaf,' and the referral to the show as 'The Tent Gig' began as part of the band's joking, self-mythologizing, free associating banter during long, tedious van rides, and grew with the fans as time went on.

There is no tape of the actual show, and no photographs were taken. The set-list is known as Kent had written it down on the back of an advertisement flyer for a home and driveway pressure-washing service that was under the band's vehicle's windshield wiper after the gig. Kent jotted it down with the intention of tweaking it, but it was never performed in this order again. Included here on 'The Tent of Olaf Csiszaro' are the studio recordings of the set in the sequence that they were performed; missing is a 15 minute sing-along version of Gino Vinelli's 'I Just Want to Stop,' which closed out the show.

Dissatisfied with the performance, Kent booked the band into 'The Tent' for a second, hopefully better rehearsed performance at the same traveling fair's run in a town outside of St. Paul, Minnesota, a few weeks a later. By then, the material was solid, but Kent, again, inspired by continuing reflection on the revelations produced by his Hindu Kush meditations and Amazonian psychedelic experiences, elected to revamp the set yet again, with nine entirely different songs, which the band again performed shambolically, under-rehearsed and a bit disgruntled and near the end of their rope with the mercurial Liverpool. The second set was documented on paper as well, and studio versions will be released as 'Tent II: The Second Show' at some time in the near future.

All in all, time has proven it was the most unique, if not musically the best show in the long and fragmented history of Kent Liverpool Live. The 'big top' vibe, the carnival atmosphere (Kent donned a dirty top hat he'd found abandoned on the ground behind the water pistol game for most of the show), and the general vibe of the employees, the loose animals, "Olaf's" paralyzed, shark-eyed sentry post position on the barrel, the paraphernalia and trappings of 'the midway,' along with a harsh ominous, rumbling dustbowlesque high wind that lasted all evening, made it a singularly unique rock experience.

credits

released September 1, 2023

All songs written, performed and recorded by Kent Liverpool, 2003-2007, except:

'Move the System' recorded and mixed by George Bradfute, East Nashville, Tennessee, 1993.

'Round the Clock News' recorded and mixed at Reflections; Charlotte, North Carolina, 1990.

'Mystical Touch' recorded and mixed at Pearl Sound in Ann Arbor, Michigan by Geoff Michael, 1989.

'Prove Myself' mixed by Geoff Michael at Big Sky Recording, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2006

George Bradfute: lead and rhythm guitars on 'Move the System.'

Female Background Singer, identity unknown: BR Vocals on 'Move the System.'

Chris Arduser: drums on 'Round the Clock News' and 'Mystical Touch.'

Matt Kendrick: bass on 'Round the Clock News.'

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Kent Liverpool image

Kent Liverpool

Kent Liverpool, originally from Michigan, is a musician who wrote, performed and recorded in many places within the USA between 1980 and 2011.

He worked in a classic rock style, influenced primarily by 1960s and early 1970s am radio, SoCal singer-songwriters, AOR, Heartland Rock, and New Wave.

He's currently releasing his vast back catalog (900+ songs) in weekly, themed album length collections. ... more

contact / help

Contact Kent Liverpool

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

Kent Liverpool recommends:

If you like Kent Liverpool, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) from the theatrical NYC rockers, Castle Rat.
listen now