Home Again Home Again, Jiggity-jig

March 06, 2025 in Article, Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor

The American experiment appears to be ending in a not-so-stealthy authoritarian power grab. In fact, the current administration would like you to believe the struggle’s already over and the foxes have already secured the henhouse—as they ramp up libel laws and rule by executive fiat and deport legal asylum seekers to 21st century concentration camps in El Salvador—but these are not the most omnipotent of men, and our newscasters and historians are ringing the bell from their sound stages and social media accounts. The nation you grew up in is no more! The darkness has come and you need to wake up now if you ever want to wake up again. Look into the eyes of your children and align yourself with the light before the midnight of our homeland becomes so complete that you forget where your mouth is and your body becomes strange to you. Now is the time to panic!

But even as we watch the disenfranchised and lost being treated as dogs and less than dogs, as we witness media outlets and our most hallowed institutions of learning being coerced to bend the knee or suffer the consequences, even as the alleged leader of the free world spits bile in the face of the camera like a regular schoolyard punk, as students are disappeared and the threats have only just started threading their way into our mailboxes and through the tinkling glass of our shattered windows—still—as you turn walking wound and angels castrated of their wings—even then—there is nothing there. And there’s not even that.

Because this is how it’s always been. As you marched through the corridor of your life—its graduation ceremonies and heartbreak—from the infinite promise of adolescence and on into any given number of cardboard cut-out futures and their many alternate endings and bonus tracks—bankruptcies and biopsies—the webbing of your daydreams strung with meetings and the occasional colostomy bag—where are you in this equation? At what point are you? Because you are not the person in this corridor—this corridor that never was.

Gabriel Boyer

January 04, 2025 in Article

Tour Dates

Throughout January, Mr. Boyer will be touring the US, visiting old haunts and singing sad sack country classics written by himself and collaborator M. Felder, as well as doing readings from What Light Becomes Me, his post-apocalyptic noir recently released by Montag Press. Dates and venues below:

12/28—Adobe Books: 7PM @ 3130 24th St, San Francisco, CA, (415) 864-3936

1/2—Recreational Psychoacoustic Lab: 7PM @ 601 NW 80th St Unit B, Seattle, WA, (206) 651-5937

1/3—The Cabin Show: By invitation only

1/9—Mutable HQ: By invitation only

1/12—The Mothership: 6 Sergeant Richard Quinn Drive, Woodstock, NY, (845) 679-3392

1/17—The Lilypad: 7PM @ 1353 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA, (617) 955-7729

1/19—Pierce’s Hall: 7PM @ 121 East Putney Falls Rd, Putney, VT

Gabriel Boyer has been deluding himself for as long as he can remember. His latest release can be found below. You can read more about him here.

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What Light Becomes Me

January 01, 2025 in Article, Isstillcools**t, Feature

In the Mutableye

“Imagine an AI trained on Quentin Tarantino films, William Burroughs novels, a few bits of David Ohle's weirder surrealism, and a Pittsburgh street map is told to write a dystopian noir, and halfway through that project someone feeds in a bunch of William Gibson and Philip K. Dick, and the AI meanwhile has fleshy arms and is growing sticky and pungent and wet. And imagine this AI hands off a first draft to a wandering poet with an ear for torqued language, a lonely figure, a touch sentimental but with a bitter streak. And then this poet revises the draft while reading abstruse philosophy and accounts of mystic visions. Now speed up whatever you're imagining, such that it becomes a propulsive hyperviolent plunge through fractured layers of perception and possibilities, ends of the world without end, the impossible tortures of the post-post, the indifference of hallucination and prophecy. Perhaps this might approach Devil Everywhere I Look, but it's still unlikely you will have anticipated the bears,” Ben Segal, author of The Wes Letters and Pool Party Trap Loop

Pretty much sums it up. You can find a copy of What Light Becomes Me by Mutable regular Gabriel Boyer … here.

In the Mutableye is a segment that sometimes showcases something interesting that is happening somewhere in the world at this moment, and sometimes showcases some fad or person from the past that we here at Mutable acknowledge is still cool s**t.

Chapter 14: Alone Again, Naturally

November 28, 2024 in Podcast, Series, Weltschmerz

Welcome to Weltschmerz

Gabe and Jill wonder about the Pacific Northwest, running out of money, stumbling into dinner parties, working at a buritto shack during hempfest, attempting to spoon, and ultimately saying their final goodbyes. As we approach the end of our Bedroom Theater tour of America, Gabe and Jill have only succeeded in completely breaking each other's spirit in this penultimate episode of Welcome to Weltschmerz, USA

You can find Chapters 1 - 13 here.

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My Asinine Life: Unrequited Me as Still Life

November 18, 2024 in Article, My Asinine Life, Series

Gabriel Boyer

How do you summarize a life? How do you conclude yourself? Where are you when the boulders come bouncing down the incline? Are you at home and gazing at the glowing screen with some excitement? Are you out on a hike with your long-suffering spouse? Do you have your fingers in many pies at the moment? Have you given up on ever being anything like yourself?

Are you alone in your room and realizing that you are always going to be alone in your room from now on as you nurse your gout-ridden foot? What about that you didn’t end up here because you slid into a giant trap door in the sky or because of some other deception of the scene and the people in it but more because of the general complications of being, some of which very much have nothing to do with you and who you are, and some of which very much do—you ended up here because you just couldn’t help yourself—whatever that means in your specific case—or because you didn’t have the courage to do it differently—or maybe you did and that’s why. ‘Here’ herein meaning wherever you happen to be at the moment.

Could of been you didn’t think it through. Or you just got lonely. Or your mother got sick and someone had to take of her and it ended up being you. Or there came a point in your marriage when nothing made sense any more and now you’ve been divorced for five years and it still doesn’t make sense.

This is where I am.

Chapter 13: Anarchy for You and for Me

September 19, 2024 in Podcast, Series, Weltschmerz

Welcome to Weltschmerz

Jill and Gabe find themselves on an anarchist compound in Saginaw, OR. Do they actually have lamas? Gabe reminisces about the future, when he will one day indeed live on this compound while working as a wildland firefighter while Jill is nowhere to be found. Beer is procured and an anarchist musical is performed. Later, that musical will be filmed. You can view the results of this filming here and the final shot of the Kenny Rogers Rock Opera (also performed in Saginaw) can be found here. Eventually, Gabe gets a haircut. Everything ends in tragedy.

You can find Chapters 1 - 12 here.

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Chapter 12: I Sing a Slice of Life

June 06, 2024 in Podcast, Series, Weltschmerz

Welcome to Weltschmerz

Jill has cooked a delicious kale dinner for Boyer and co in Silicon Valley. A performance at a loft in Oakland goes terribly and Jill goes missing. They journey north, to a pebbly beach, a pizza shack and its lost waitress, through dreams of John C. Lilly, into the redwoods and the future of 20 years from now, and ultimately, to Riddle, Oregon.

You can find Chapters 1 - 11 here.

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Video: Bardo Songs in Dharamshala

April 27, 2024 in Mutablesoundofthemonth, Feature, Podcast

Mutable Sound of the Month

We here at Mutable have been venturing into the Far East and its vicinity for some time, and this most recent addition to our library of auditory delights comes from one of these forays. To Dharamshala and Cafe 129 where Mutable regular Gabriel Boyer was performing songs from various unreleased albums, and one or two you may have heard before but never like this. In this most intimate of concerts, at a venue perched high in the Himalayas and coming directly from the monastery he has been calling home for more than a year, Mr. Boyer sings songs of heartache in the Vietnam jungle and songs steeped in a wistfulness he wrote while living with the Tibetan monks of Northern India. Enjoy!

Mutable Sound is pleased to present a unique musical experience every month or so by ourselves or someone we’ve been introduced to. These are from the reel-to-reels and tascams of the garages and basements of the world. If you have a track you would like us to hear, please feel free to send it on to mail@mutablesound.com along with credits and a brief description.

Chapter 11: Unicorns & the Rest of the Bestiary

September 24, 2023 in Podcast, Series, Weltschmerz

Welcome to Weltschmerz

Boyer is in San Francisco, but his mind is wandering, from his childhood to the 90’s and being young in hacker houses at the turn of the century, or performance lofts, or somewhere in between, and somewhere in there, God plays a part. This chapter is more a rumination than a Bedroom Theater, although it does contain a smashing musical number from the forgotten classic, Free-Thinking Man as Commodity. And food is featured prominently.

You can find Chapters 1 - 10 here.

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Remember Yourself Ironically, False Messiah

August 19, 2023 in Article, Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor

The truth is, I always loved you.

Oh, you false messiah, what do you have to offer our perpetually flooded, brokedown and generally speaking nonexistent universe—what platitudes and what shopping tips—and what will come of it when it comes—the suburbs turned into a no-man’s land between the scavenging riches of the liquefied and decomposing downtown and what wilds have grown beyond—the family dog murdered for its meat—an eye for an eye—and nothing but silence in between—all wrong place wrong time on account of some of us weren’t built to survive the apocalypse, but you think you’ll do just fine, don’t you?

You and me are you, my false messiah—who sit here pontificating in our cynicism, because—with the apocalypse just around the corner, all your favorite romantic comedies don’t do it for you anymore.

So—who are we? We’re the ones with our feet in two epochs, and our greatest hope is to get to the credits of this madcap comedy of a genocidal romp without being swept up in its killing fields. Many of us believe even now that the annihilation of everything and everyone will only happen on the far side of the globe from us, in the global south of our former vacation spots, but no one panics like a suburbanite, not to mention a mob of panicked suburbanites, armed with rifles and tiki torches.

Chapter 10: The House of the Rising Sun

May 17, 2023 in Podcast, Series, Weltschmerz

Welcome to Weltschmerz

Boyer and Jill get swept up in the nightlife of LA and its lederhosen and stripper clowns. They have made it to the other side of America and celebrations are in order. Although, when they find themselves in a Danish wonderland Gabe can’t shake the feeling that they’re surrounded by rosy-cheeked elderly Satanists, and that night, his dreams are troubled and John C. Lilly plays a part.

You can find Chapters 1 - 9 here.

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This is Not a Review: of Dark

April 21, 2023 in Article, This is not a Review, Feature

Gabriel Boyer

Twin Peaks will forever be my favorite show of all time. It’s weirdness is unprecedented. It sits both at the peak of David Lynch’s career and at this perfect point in history when television was still just trash and when you consumed it, you did with the same relish that you consumed Bagel Bites or Oreo O’s. It was a time when FOX was just getting started with shows like 90210 and Married With Children, when trashiness and disgustingness were hilarious, when Jerry Springer was both a genius and a charlatan, a world of satire and deadpan comedy that will never come again.

But in the sea change that came with the coming decades, new kinds of serialized video content began being produced. There are those shows everyone talks about: The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones… The first two seasons of both True Detective and Westworld were a revelation. But these were all masterful works of genre, whereas with Dark something new came into the world that for once could rival Twin Peaks with its weirdness.

Dark raises questions of causality and plays with dichotomies like good and evil, but it also manipulates our expectations in an almost mathematical way. What is so mind-meltingly good about it isn’t the dialogue or the characters, but the puzzle of its narratological universe and the way in which this puzzle has been realized. In a streaming universe dominated by sequels and spin-offs, Dark is something of a miracle. It exists in a genre all its own, a genre that is distinct from science fiction, a kind of postmodern realism.

Chapter 9: Frank & Eddy

January 02, 2023 in Podcast, Series, Weltschmerz

Welcome to Weltschmerz

Boyer and Jill have arrived in Flagstaff, and now the city of Flagstaff is putting out its feelers and rubbing all over them. Jill keeps vanishing, to the other side of town, and out with unknown persons, while Gabe loiters on streetcorners with Vietnam vets and reminisces about his inherently credulous nature. We learn about toothless mystics and the time Gabe was almost pimped out in Dublin. In a kind of terror they continue on into California.

You can find Chapters 1 - 8 here.

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My Asinine Life: The End Game

September 18, 2022 in Article, My Asinine Life, Series

Gabriel Boyer

Hanoi is a mobius strip.

You think you are moving in one direction and then find yourself back round towards the intersection that started it all, except for somehow it’s changed in the interim. Like somehow you slipped into an alternate reality Hanoi. Or. There are parts of Hanoi that sing with remarkable birds and vegetation hangs out from every window, off of every balcony, and into these back streets, and there are parts of Hanoi that are tight walls of junk shoppery crammed with a river of angry motorbikes and their murmuring engines. Hanoi contains every possible version of Hanoi.

Or to put it another way. Hanoi is functioning as a stand-in for my mind at the moment and its many frustrations and confusions. It is what a broken mind looks like. A mind racing in many directions at once. A mind facing the inevitable end times and the games we play to avoid facing it.

We, the human race, are the greatest procrastinators. When faced with our own impending doom, our answer is always, “Not yet.” We watch the lava rolling over the lip of our front yard and think, “Maybe it’ll go away on its own.” We witness our neighbors in the furthest housing unit swept off into the sea and say, “It has nothing to do with me.” This is us.

Chapter 8: A Detour From Nowhere

August 30, 2022 in Podcast, Series, Weltschmerz

Welcome to Weltschmerz

Boyer and Jill perform at a hostel, and then are off in search of the National Soul in Southwestern USA. John C. Lilly appears in Gabriel’s dreams, while Jill’s dreams are full of ex’s. A short play is enacted that involves murder. Steaks are enjoyed in the rain and somebody’s in denial about the state of his bank account. In the end, however, chipmunks have all the answers.

You can find Chapters 1 - 7 here.

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Video: Down the Rabbit Hole

March 24, 2022 in Podcast, Bedroom Theater, Series

You may or may not realize but there was a time when performances in loft spaces in and about Boston were a regular thing that drew a good-sized crowd. They were held in spaces that had been carved out by their inhabitants into a maze of drywall decorated in garish murals and filled with junk and treasures and junky treasures and treasure chests of junk.

There are still lofts like this in Boston. You just need to know where to dig. And several weeks ago, we here at Mutable, found ourselves off down the rabbit hole and into onesuch place as this. The techno was ever-present and the manikins had been accessorized.

Stephen Curo was the MC for the evening, and after the loading bay had been thoroughly cleansed of cigarette butts and the proper drapery put in place and lighting magic made from an upside-down lamp of some retro elegance, the crowd dribbled in. It was opening night at the Rabbit Hole.

As you can see above, the evening began with a few short plays read by select members of the audience, and was followed by a remarkable tale of supernatural terror, metalheads, and their Christian parents, written and performed by C. Atari-Bartok. This was followed by an equally unnerving little fable of what happens in the closets of children between cartoons, a story from the mind of Katherine Bergeron. The anecdotes of biting in adolescence by Stephen Curo, sadly were not recorded, but you can read all about them in his on-going memoirs, Reflects Poorly.

Then it was time for a break and off to sample some wine and crackers. The vibe was all ascots, waxed moustaches, and accompanying glitter nail varnish. Smokes were had out by the loading bay as the orange line rolled by, and then, with a snap Stephen Curo was calling our attention back to the stage for another chilling tale by Katherine Bergeron involving children. (Unfortunately, this second gem was also not filmed, but is available at Metastellar.)

And finally, Gabriel Boyer read an excerpt from his post-apocalyptic noir, Devil, EVerywhere I Look. You can watch his performance in its entirety below. Enjoy!

Down the Rabbit Hole is a storytelling hour in the depths of post-industrial Charlestown. It’s a night of the weird, wondrous, and occasionally hilarious, but, from blackholes hovered above the silver fields of the Midwest to yachts stuck in the muck of the wetlands and a broke-backed scream, wherever they take us, it’s always Down the Rabbit Hole.

North, South, & Neverland

February 08, 2022 in Article, Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor

The apocalypse just got a whole hell of a lot more personal. It’s turned its face inside out and made itself into just one of the boys. It’s twisted your arm back and then back again—and back again—until the logjam of muscle memory is gone and you are nothing but %100 rubber, with a corkscrew of an appendage that twirls off comedically into the never-ending night. Welcome to Neverland.

The ups are very much going up and the downs are just around the corner, and they say that civil war is just around the corner, and Americans have always been good at cutting corners.

Neverland is a state of both never-becoming and never-having-been. It is the place where the future we dream of is a dream and the past we remember never was. It is a place where most of us live most of the time. And it itches.

Chapter 7: These Dark Days Have Come Back Again

November 16, 2021 in Podcast, Series, Weltschmerz

Welcome to Weltschmerz

In this installment of Boyer’s audio memoir, Gabe and Jill continue deeper into the unknown, from Departure, TX, to Clines Corners and Santa Fe. Questions are asked, but will they be answered? Is it true that Santa Fe was built upon a mobius strip? Is it true that R. Crumb has an identical twin also named Robert? Jill and Gabe share a moment of wonder. What else can we ask of them? For indeed it is true that these dark days have come back again.

You can find Chapters 1 - 6 here.

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This is Not a Review: of Wally Shawn

October 15, 2021 in Article, This is not a Review, Feature

Gabriel Boyer

It was something like the summer of 1998, and I was living in a warehouse by the Brooklyn Bridge—living illegally in a warehouse that filled with raw sewage one night—where the landlord cut the sewage access and electricity every so often—and the dry wall we’d put up didn’t reach to the ceiling eighteen feet above—and I never had electricity in my room. When I think of that summer, I always remember the time my roommate claimed that a stream of flame sporadically shot out of his upper arm while working construction earlier that day, and the time I met Wally Shawn while working at the Film Forum.

He’d come in to complain about the line. I remember how I chuckled and shrugged at his incorrigibly irritated self like a person presented with some rom com darling come to life. I couldn’t take him seriously because of the fact of him being him and all that goes along with that, but Wally Shawn should be taken seriously.

He is not just the Sicilian in the Princess Bride. He is not just Woody Allen’s foible in Annie Hall. My Dinner with Andre only scratches the surface of what he is capable of. Uncle Vanya does not do the many talents of Wally Shawn justice, brilliant piece of theater though it may be. These are valid and interesting faces of Mr. Shawn, but the point is that he has more than even these myriad faces, and the more you look for them, the deeper they go.

Different Directions

August 22, 2021 in Product

Gabriel Boyer

This collection of Boyer’s songs is a spirited romp through the rubble of a deteriorating relationship and the memories that cloud vision. Most of it recorded live in a small house in Maine by a 6-piece ensemble of Mutable alumni, Different Directions is a spontaneous yet thoughtful musical interpretation of Boyer’s writing. The songs are unmistakably his, yet flow peacefully through popular motifs, and leave you feeling nostalgic, nostalgic for heartache perhaps. It is a semi-precious mess of sound and emotion distilled down to its purest essence and stirred into a soothing bath of melody and charm.

Lyrics written by Gabriel Boyer
Music written by Gabriel Boyer and Malcolm Felder

Performed by
Gabriel Boyer: Piano, Lead Vocals
Ben Bradford: Cornet, Percussion
Malcolm Felder: Acoustic Guitar, Harmonica, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Jon Madden: Upright and Acoustic Bass
Kevin Micka: Electric Guitar, Backing Vocals
Adam Scotto: Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals

Engineered by Kevin Micka
Produced by Kevin Micka and Malcolm Felder
Mastered by Scott Craggs
Photos by Gabriel Boyer and Ben Bradford

Different Directions by Gabriel Boyer, released 22 February 2021 1. It's Alright Merry 2. Break in the Line 3. Different Directions 4. Hiding Out 5. Parent's Disease 6. Diplomat 7. Theme 8. Now and Here 9. Home 10. Insomnia 11.

1. It's Alright Merry
2. Break in the Line
3. Different Directions
4. Hiding Out
5. Parents Disease
6. Diplomat
7. Directions Theme
8. Now and Here
9. Home
10. Insomnia
11. World of Angels

Digital album available to stream or download now!

Listen

In the Mutableye is a segment that sometimes showcases something interesting that is happening somewhere in the world at this moment, and sometimes showcases some fad or person from the past that we here at Mutable acknowledge is still cool s**t.

Paperback Book8" x 5.25"560 Pages$16.00Now Available

Paperback Book8" x 5.25"560 Pages$16.00Now Available

Paperback Book8" x 5.25"560 Pages$16.00Now Available

Paperback Book8" x 5.25"560 Pages$16.00Now Available

Paperback Book8" x 5.25"560 Pages$16.00Now Available

Paperback Book8" x 5.25"560 Pages$16.00Now Available

Paperback Book8" x 5.25"560 Pages$16.00Now Available

Paperback Book8" x 5.25"560 Pages$16.00Now Available

1. It's Alright Merry 2. Break in the Line 3. Different Directions 4. Hiding Out 5. Parents Disease 6. Diplomat 7. Directions Theme 8. Now and Here9. Home10. Insomnia 11. World of Angels

Digital album available to stream or download now!

Paperback Book
8" x 5.25"
560 Pages
$16.00
Now Available

Paperback Book
8" x 5.25"
560 Pages
$16.00
Now Available

Paperback Book
8" x 5.25"
560 Pages
$16.00
Now Available

Paperback Book
8" x 5.25"
560 Pages
$16.00
Now Available

Paperback Book
8" x 5.25"
560 Pages
$16.00
Now Available

Paperback Book
8" x 5.25"
560 Pages
$16.00
Now Available

Paperback Book
8" x 5.25"
560 Pages
$16.00
Now Available

Paperback Book
8" x 5.25"
560 Pages
$16.00
Now Available

1. It's Alright Merry
2. Break in the Line
3. Different Directions
4. Hiding Out
5. Parents Disease
6. Diplomat
7. Directions Theme
8. Now and Here
9. Home
10. Insomnia
11. World of Angels