Category Archives: Music

Guitar Trio at Arts Center Saratoga Springs

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Guitar Trio unleashed again.

Saturday November 20 @ 8pm
The Arts Center
320 Broadway
Saratoga Springs, NY
$5
I’m looking forward to another great night with SoundBarn and members of the Albany Sonic Arts Collective. We’ll play Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Trio and my companion piece, Swallowtail. The ensemble includes the indefatigable Matt Weston on drums, Eric Hardiman on electric bass, and six electric guitars played by Matthew Ernst, Tara Fracalossi, Ray Hare, Thomas Lail, Patrick Wecklar, and myself.

Read more in The Saratogian preview article.

Bring hearing protection.

Drone-Along at the Arts Center of the Capital Region

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I’m looking forward to the Drone-Along tonight @ 7pm. Details and description are below.

Thursday, November 11 | 7:00 pm | FREE!
Arts Center of the Capital Region
265 River Street
Troy NY 12180

Whether you’re an experienced sound artist or an open-minded newbie, grab the soundmaker of your choice and join a community of those who make hypnotic and meditative sonic art. Those who just want to listen are welcome too!

Wikipedia defines drone music as “a minimalist musical style that emphasizes the use of sustained or repeated sounds, notes, or tone-clusters…” This event is presented in partnership with Albany Sonic Arts Collective.

Swallowtail Maiden Flight at Flywheel

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Here’s a recording of the premiere performance of Swallowtail from Saturday’s SoundBarn/ASAC Guitar Trio show at Flywheel.

[audio:101009_swallowtail.mp3]

Swallowtail

I think the piece sounds like a huge train barreling straight at you in slow motion. The performance of Rhys Chatham’s “Guitar Trio” went swimmingly. We’ll be performing the entire program again Saturday, November 20 at the Arts Center Saratoga. Hope to see you there.

Saturday at the Flywheel was an outstanding lineup. Christoph Heeman played a beautiful set, but Son of Earth stole the show, in my opinion. They performed delicate yet far from fragile percussion music–bells, chimes, and pillowy bass drum.

Guitar Trio at Flywheel, Swallowtail Premiere, Christoph Heeman, More!

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Easthampton! Are you ready to rock?!

Saturday October 9 @ 8pm
Flywheel
Old Town Hall
43 Main Street (Rt. 10)
Easthampton MA

I can’t wait for Saturday night to play at Flywheel with SoundBarn and members of the Albany Sonic Arts Collective. We’ll play Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Trio and premiere my new work, Swallowtail. The ensemble includes the pummeling Matt Weston on drums, Eric Hardiman on electric bass, and six (!) electric guitars played by Matthew Ernst, Tara Fracalossi, Ray Hare, Thomas Lail, Patrick Wecklar, and myself).

If you’d like to follow along, you can bring your own copy of the Swallowtail score. The piece is the next installment of my glissando music series–in the tradition of glissando masters James Tenney, Alvin Lucier, Iannis Xenakis, Lois V Vierk.

And at the risk of sounding like a ginsu knife commercial…But wait, there’s more…

Surrealist noise legend Christoph Heeman will perform, as will Easthampton locals Son of Earth.

Bring hearing protection.

ASAC Presents Robert Millis and Parashi

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Albany Sonic Arts Presents Robert Millis of the Climax Golden Twins and Parashi.

Friday October 8 @ 8pm
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St.
Albany NY
$5 suggested donation

Robert Millis of the Climax Golden Twins will perform solo, and will also present a brand new Sublime Frequencies film, called “This World is Unreal Like A Snake in a Rope.”

Parashi is the solo project of Mike Griffin–microphones, pedals, tapes, synthesizers, guitar, metal bowl, washboard, tin box, tin whistle, noise generator, and more.

Amie Street Closed

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Online music marketplace Amie Street (amiestreet.com) closed today. Amie Street pages now redirect to amazon.com.

I’m sad to see Amie Street go. It was an interesting model for online music sales: all music began free and the price of each track rose according to its popularity. There was an active social network that allowed users to follow each other’s interests as well as artists and labels. And most importantly for me, anyone could upload music to sell on the site, which led to an interesting community of music lovers and music makers. (How often did I log on to discover the frighteningly prolific Crimson Razorback or Robert Waddington had posted yet another track?)

I had two recordings available on Amie Street: Maps and one 4 one. At the time Amie Street closed down, Maps was selling for a whopping $1.15 and one 4 one was currently at $0.45. Neither record earned enough royalties to warrant a check from Amie Street, but given a long enough tail I could imagine a dollar or two coming in every so often. Neither is currently available on amazon.com. For online distribution of my music, it looks like I’ll rely more and more on bandcamp.

When I heard the news that Amie Street would be closing I did a quick inventory of the music I purchased on the site: (in order, roughly, from most recent to least recent purchases)

  • Denseland
  • A Broken Consort
  • Prefuse 73
  • Charlie Barnet
  • Animal Collective
  • Grizzly Bear
  • Four Tet
  • 20 Minute Loop
  • Sunn 0)))
  • Kathryn Williams
  • Dirty Projectors
  • Sebadoh
  • Collections of Colonies of Bees
  • Faron Young
  • John Berndt
  • Katy Moffatt
  • Erik Friedlander
  • Lou Reed
  • Citymusic Cleveland
  • Nico Muhly
  • The Cave Singers
  • Matmos
  • Mouse on Mars
  • Michael Bullock
  • Clogs
  • Charlie Hunter (the banjo player)
  • Hem
  • Twelve 20 Six
  • The Be Good Tanyas
  • Cecil Taylor

And an untold number of other artists whose work I heard but didn’t keep around. It sounds cruel, but the point of a site like amie street is exactly this kind of exposure–which is likely what I’ll miss the most.

With Hidden Noises at Wired Kingdom

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My installation With Hidden Noises is being presented as part of the Wired Kingdom exhibit at the Arts Center of the Capital Region. The exhibit will have a short, sweet run beginning Monday 9/20 and culminating with performances on Friday 9/24 as part of Troy Night Out.

With Hidden Noises is an interactive sound installation based on Marcel Duchamp’s sculpture of the same name. The original sculpture contains an unkown object placed inside by Duchamp’s patron and collector Walter Arensberg. The sculpture rattles when shaken, making it an early example of audio art. Unfortunately, the original is usually displayed in a vitrine and patrons aren’t allowed to activate it. Visitors to my installation can handle a replica of Duchamp’s readymade containing electronic sensors instead of an unkown object. Their interactions with the scultpture cause it to produce a variety of sounds related to Duchamp’s work. See some photos here and check out the CD based on the installation.

Wired Kingdom features work by Patrick Dodson, Pete Edwards, Angela Washko, Timothy Mahr, Rebekah Jarvis, Ira Marcks, Chris Harvey and Sean Hovendick.

Monday, September 20 – Thursday, September 23 11am-7pm
Friday, September 24 11am-9pm
The Arts Center of the Capital Region
256 River St.
Troy, NY

Troy Night Out: Plants and Insects at the Arts Center of the Capital Region

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I’m excited to play with members of Albany Sonic Arts Collective‘s Century Plants and Insect Posse for a performance dubbed Plants and Insects. The event is part of Troy Night Out so it’s free and drop-in friendly (how else do you say “come on by and stay as long or little as you’d like?”).

Friday, August 26, 5-9pm
The Arts Center of the Capital Region
256 River St.
Troy, NY
Free!

Post and Beam CD Countdown: Sequencing

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I recently finished sequencing the tracks for my upcoming Post and Beam CD. The hardest part was figuring out where to put the long form instrumental pieces like Telephone Temple and Spring Dissent (Bubbling) among the shorter, more song-based pieces. After auditioning countless combinations and creating crazy mind maps of relationships between pieces, I finally decided to jettison the instrumental pieces altogether.

I’m disappointed they didn’t make the cut partly because I wanted Post and Beam to represent a typical set of my current work for banjo and electronics. At the same time, I can’t deny that the album (Yes, I’m actually thinking of it like that; and yes, I do feel old sometimes.) works better without them.

The good news is that they’re not going away forever. I can easily imagine them as the foundation for my next CD, or as online bonus material. And the other good news is that with the sequencing done I can move along with mastering and sleeve design and … and …