7. La Monte Young31 VII 69 10:26 – 10:49 PM / 23 VIII 64 2:50:45 – 3:11 AM The Volga Delta
La Monte is a bit special. He always wants a lot of money to do anything, so I wasn’t too sure about booking him at The Kitchen. We offered 100 per cent of the door plus we’d do the publicity, because we had government arts funding. La Monte’s wife said, "We don’t have grocery money, maybe we could play there and sell records." They came over on Monday night and just played this record! They sold some records afterwards and Marian told me, "We made our grocery money for this week." Then La Monte invited me to his loft and he realised I knew his work the way only a teenager can – inside and out. I went to every concert that I could after 1970.
I studied with Pandit Pran Nath who was also his teacher, and that was where I first laid eyes on the live La Monte, since they were his tambura players. La Monte realised I knew lots about his music, so played me his Well-Tuned Piano piece, the version he played on upright piano. I wanted to get composition lessons but couldn’t afford them so I said, "I think your piano is out of tune, I could tune it for you." Basically angling for free lessons. But he laughed, was very kind and agreed to do lessons in exchange for tuning. I got the better end of the bargain, since I learned his system of tuning in just intonation. We had a relationship for two or three years and sang in their group the Theatre of Eternal Music.
