from Sid Yiddish:

MCA Show Liner Notes: A Brief History

When I was 36, my interest in bingo was just beginning. I’m 58 now and I haven’t lost interest. In 1997, I took a job as a proofreader in a gaming factory, which included proofreading all the payoff information that goes into a bingo hard card.

While, I’m not going to reveal those bingo secrets here, what I will reveal is my love for the game of bingo and how it’s changed and fascinated me for the last 22 years. It wasn’t until grad school, where by both a stroke of luck and chance operations brought me to combining a basic love for a board game and my performance skills came together.

In my last year of grad school at Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois,
I took a class that involved the study of building sound from nothing. When the topic of chance operations was discussed, I swooned. I was hooked. For my particular end of semester project, I chose to present a simple child’s game, coupled with performative work, synchronized with split-second timing in the form of conducting. I ran several trial and error tests beforehand and presented them to my class. They were intrigued, as was the professor. As I prepared it and planned for all possible things that could occur, I seemed to have forgotten plain human error. We
trudged on that day and it seemingly worked, though a lot less than I had hoped for.

Beyond grad school, I tried the method once more, this time at another bar. It worked a little better, but not by much. Human error was to blame, even after it was performed. Instruction seemed to be understood, but comprehension was the likely culprit. It wasn’t until late September 2017, when the opportunity arose for a chance performance competition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Illinois, which I took 1st place in and won a chance to show my work on a weekday evening, that new life flowed more easily into a once dormant project.

After some lengthy negotiation from the MCA programmers the project was finally underway.

The approach for the project was different this time. Different band members needed more formal training. As a band we talked about it-discussed it in meetings. My original idea was to have four members of the Henchmen, not six as it came to be later, to perform this performative interactive composition. Over the 2018 summer, while on tour in Europe, I perfected and added on at least 10 new gestures to the
staggering 65 gestures I’d already had. Besides the six members, we added a ball caller to the mix. One rehearsal late October was realized.

After what seemed to sound like a chaotic start, the rehearsal went slightly better. In the back of my mind, I was still concerned. Would we pull it off the way I had imagined we would? 10 days soon revealed answers. October 30 came and went and the results were fantastic. To quote an audience member, “It was like playing (bingo) on a spaceship.”
And indeed it was!

Many thanks to The George Matt Bowles of Everything Is Done
Records for releasing this album. Onward! Happy Birthday Mom!

Sid Yiddish-founder, Candy Store Henchmen
October 30, 2020
Evanston, Illinois

Museum Of Contemporary Art, In Progress Presents: Sid Yiddish And His Candy Store Henchmen-Bingo! Must Be In The Front Row!

Commons Room, Tuesday,
October 30, 2018, Chicago, Illinois