BUTT » FUCK THE TALKING PIANO, LOOK AT THAT ZEBRA THONG MEAT PACKAGE LADIES...OOPS! GUYS! THE PIANIST, PART TWO

In the first installment of Cesar Padilla’s encounter with the thong-wearing piano player Seth Montfort of Guerneville, California, Cesar attended a recital and ended up having wild sex on the floor during the performance. Now in part two, Cesar finally gets to interview Seth and his assistant, Dustin.

‘I am sitting the recital hall of Seth Montfort, pianist. His assistant Dustin lives here too. It is Sunday at 1 pm and he has a scheduled performance. He partied last night with a woman who has arrived for today’s performance with a few friends. His bedroom is off the main room and he is still in bed at 12:40 PM, feeling rough. When I wake him, I notice Dustin and him are sharing the same bed, only Dustin is completely dressed when they rise.’

Cesar: So tell me Seth was last week’s recital a first for you?
Seth: Definitely a first. Rhapsody in Blue will never be the same

Where am I?
The Music Inside Out & Center. It used to be a mortuary and it is now my home and a performing arts hall.

Performance hall for what?
I have an orchestra that I have run for 20 years from San Francisco and we rehearse across the pool. I used to perform my own concerts constantly. I was the most active pianist in San Francisco for 15 years. Then I moved into a Victorian house that seemed haunted and had all my concerts there for six years.

How long ago did you leave San Fran?
I left San Francisco four years ago.

Did you move your orchestra to Guerneville?
Yes. Here we can fit 35 people.  In the city it was up to 70.

Are they original compositions you perform?
Yes, some of them, but I have hundreds of classical compositions memorized that I perform regularly. My orchestra is not your typical orchestra. Over 500 people have seen soloists and conductors or composers with my orchestra in San Francisco. Everyone who participates has the opportunity to conduct at some point whatever they choose and they have a whole orchestra backing them to do what they want. Which isn’t such an easy position to be in. It seemed like the most obvious thing to me to have an orchestra where people get to do what they want and yet I never found it to exist and this is what i want to do with this project. Everybody gets to use the orchestra as they want. They earn this by playing in the orchestra and when it is their turn they can do whatever they want. I also write a lot of ancient temple music that have unfolded themselves to me in dreams and I have ancient Mayans and Aztec people in me that sing and play instruments.

What kind of classical music do you play?
The music I play is jungle music. When I tell the orchestra we are doing Beethoven in bondage they reply, ‘Wow, I feel like that all the time.’

You seem to be in a fringe genre, because if I understand this correctly you perform constantly with your doors open as the disco music from the lodge across the street pumps and competes?
I’m incapable of working in the real world so I live in my world.

How do you feel about this competing disco music?  Do you see it is a battle?
I’m pretty good at tuning things out. I’ve grew up next to railroad tracks. I kind of time my performances with their schedule.

Do you advertise?
In all the papers and on my website. Dustin is here to help me with this

I am little confused about your story.  How did this start?
When I was 19 my world was turned inside out. I had what seemed to me to be an out of body experience. I don’t really talk about this that much, but I will say when people are left alone they do amazing things without guidance. When they are left to do their own thing.

How did you meet Dustin?
He moved here a month ago. I met Dustin on the Amtrak train. He was going to be homeless with this other kid who is a circus performer. They were on their way to be free from the labor environment they had been in.

From what I can gather somehow through your conversation you realized you were both into Mayan crystal skulls?
We were traveling in Texas. I had showed him this book I wrote about myself, my idols, and my travels to Latin America. Something clicked.

Dustin: A few months prior I had finished reading a book called The Alchemist about following your dream. I have loosely been associating my life with that book lately. I had quit working at the GW Exotic Animal Memorial Park. I was traveling from Oklahoma to Eugene, Oregon to intentionally become homeless. In Texas, my friend Jake and I came across Seth. Jake didn’t take to much interest in Seth’s book, but when he showed it to me I was really interested in the crystal skulls.

BUTT » THE PIANIST, PART TWO