Oh! Pears Variety Show: Music, Collaboration and the End of the World

On May 21, 2011, the Oh! Pears Variety Show brought together experimental music, chamber pop and improvisation at the MAAS Space in Philadelphia. Conceived by Corey Duncan, the former guitarist of Pattern is Movement, the event brought musicians and collaborators together in an intimate warehouse setting.

The evening unfolded against an unusual backdrop. While predictions of earthquakes, cosmic catastrophe and the end of the world had become part of the cultural atmosphere surrounding the date, the performance offered something considerably more human: music, collaboration and an exploration of intimacy through sound.

Joo Won Park and Experimental Sound

The Variety Show began with an improvised noise performance by Joo Won Park, a music professor at the Community College of Philadelphia. Surrounded by electronic equipment, a projector, synthesizer, sampler, speakers and found objects, Park transformed ordinary materials into an intricate electronic soundscape.

Objects including an umbrella, a slinky, a Hot Wheels car, finger pianos and doorstops became sources of rhythm and texture. Through contact microphones and electronic processing, their otherwise familiar sounds were transformed into something dissonant, atmospheric and otherworldly.

Park's performance also incorporated projected video. A webcam captured the performance while software converted the image into ASCII characters, creating a constantly changing digital surface behind the performer. The projected image interacted with the exposed brick of the MAAS Space, making the physical architecture part of the audiovisual experience.

Oh! Pears and Chamber Pop

Following Park's experimental opening, Oh! Pears reshaped the space through a series of chamber-pop compositions. Corey Duncan originally conceived Oh! Pears as a solo project, but by the time of the Variety Show it had developed into an evolving collective of approximately thirteen musicians and collaborators.

Seven members performed at the May 21 event. The group included Philadelphia friends and collaborators as well as former students connected to Girls Rock Philly. Each new musician contributed to the development of Duncan's original material, allowing the songs to change as the collective itself changed.

An Un-Mic'ed Performance

Duncan wanted the music to sound “un-mic'ed,” and the performance succeeded in creating an unusually direct relationship between musicians, audience and space. Acoustic arrangements existed alongside fuller multi-instrumental compositions, producing a sound that felt intimate rather than heavily separated from its surroundings.

Like Park, Duncan spoke about the origins of the songs as they were performed. These explanations became part of the experience rather than interruptions to it. The audience was allowed to hear not only the finished compositions but something of the process and personal relationships behind them.

Music, Collaboration and Time

The contrast between the two performances is what gives the Variety Show its particular character. Park transformed everyday objects into experimental electronic textures, while Duncan and Oh! Pears created songs through an expanding network of musicians and collaborators.

Both performances nevertheless shared an interest in transformation. Objects became instruments, a warehouse became a performance space, and a group of musicians became an evolving collective.

For Mullin, this process offers an alternative to the familiar imagery of apocalypse and catastrophe. Instead of waiting for an imagined end of the world, the audience participated in something immediate and tangible: sound, collaboration and shared experience.

To experience the music and collaboration of Oh! Pears was, in this sense, to experience time itself as something active and present. The Variety Show suggested that connection and collaboration can be ways of engaging with the present rather than simply anticipating what comes next.