Augustwolf / The band
Augustwolf, the band.
Long before Augustwolf became the name for a whole body of work, it was a band.
01 The band
A name that stuck, and a sound that never left.
Nights on stage, a name that stuck, and a sound that still shapes how Doug approaches everything he makes.
Augustwolf began as a band — and as a way of seeing. Work made real, in front of people, night after night. Whatever the medium has been since, that is where the instinct was formed.
A band is the fastest education available in a few things that are hard to learn any other way. That an audience tells you the truth immediately, and does not care what you meant. That the arrangement matters more than the idea. That the player who cannot hear the rest of the band is the problem, however well they play.
None of that is really about music. It is about how work gets made by more than one person, which turned out to be the subject for the next forty years.
A band is the fastest education available in a few things that are hard to learn any other way. That an audience tells you the truth immediately, and does not care what you meant. That the arrangement matters more than the idea. That the player who cannot hear the rest of the band is the problem, however well they play.
None of that is really about music. It is about how work gets made by more than one person, which turned out to be the subject for the next forty years.
Plate II
The band on stage, after the show.
02 The line-up
Seven on the boards.
Seven players are visible in the photograph above. Their names belong here — a band photograph without a line-up is only half a record of it.
Name
Vocals, guitar — Douglas Wolf Reid
Name
Instrument
Name
Saxophone
Name
Instrument
Name
Instrument
Name
Instrument
Name
Instrument
- Vocals, guitar — Douglas Wolf ReidTest PuropsesDownload
- SaxophoneTest Purposes 2Download Playlist ZIP
03 On the board
Proof, in plastic letters.
Almost nothing survives of a working band except the photographs and, if you are lucky, a letterboard.
This one is from the Civic Arts Theatre and Gallery. The night is shared with a repertory production and a gallery show — which is exactly how it went.
Plate III
Civic Arts Theatre and Gallery.
What the board says
Civic Arts Theatre and Gallery
Theatre — Civic Arts Repertory
“The Fourposter” — Tue thru Aug 18
Augustwolf Concert
Gallery — Intro 79
Printed Matter — thru Aug 18
04 On stage
Night after night.
Red light, an acoustic guitar, and a room in the dark. The photograph is grainy because of what it is: a film frame from the back of a hall, and the only kind of picture anyone was taking.
You cannot argue with a room. Either it is working by the third song or it is not, and nothing said afterwards changes the verdict. That is a hard standard to be held to at a young age, and a useful one to carry.
Stage
Mid-set, under red light.
05 Record releases
The catalogue.
One release is documented in full. The earlier records are still being gathered.
—
Earlier releases
Catalogue in progress
Next
© Augustwolf Productions
The work of Douglas Wolf Reid