Tag Archives: Music

Austin’s other live music scene

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The Austin American-Statesman is running a month-long series on Austin’s other live music scene: classical music. The first installment mentions the usual establishment players (who, I should point out, do a better-than-usual job with adventurous programming than their national counterparts…).  Also mentioned are some of my much-missed colleagues who are busy

“pushing the boundaries of what classical music can be and how it can be presented in the 21st century. Austin has a tribe of adventurous musicians – composer-performers like Graham Reynolds, Peter Stopschinski, P. Kellach Waddle and Travis Weller; ensemble leaders such as Michelle Schumann and Aurélien Petillot and groups such as the Tosca String Quartet, Audio Inversions and the Invincible Czars – that lead the charge, taking their newly composed classical music to nightclubs, collaborating with filmmakers, dancers and theater companies and otherwise finding ways to challenge the status quo of classical music performance.”

I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Sommeil: A Concert for Sleep

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Tanner Menard, Antenna Gallery and Experimedia Records present Sommeil: A Concert for Sleep in New Orleans on 4/11-4/12. Get details here.

Tanner sent out an open call for sound to be used during the concert. My work will appear alongside approx. 70 artists who submitted work. I’ll be interested to hear how this event comes off, especially having recently participated in the River of Drone.

Al Tharp on WFMU’s Beware of the Blog

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Go find some delightful Al Tharp clawhammer banjo at WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. I haven’t listened to Tharp enough to discern the secrets of his style, but I love the heavily accented thumb-picked slides in his version of Boatin Up Sandy. (At least, that what they sound like to me…)

Thanks to Eric Hardiman for bringing this to my clawhammer-crazed attention.

Big Ears 09

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I just read about the Big Ears 09 fest in the NY Times. Sounds like a great series of events, made even better by its location. Having all the concerts in Knoxville TN makes such perfect sense to those of us who have played unconventional music in non-metropolitan centers for much of our lives. I’d love to see similar events in other “unlikely” places. (Happy to see the Shakin’ Ray Levis get some home crowd love, too…)

ASAC Presents Trauma, Herons, Sleepy Demons, Twilight of the Century

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Albany Sonic Arts Collective presents Trauma, Herons, Sleepy Demons, Twilight of the Century.

Wednesday, January 28
Upstate Artists Guild
247 Lark St. Albany
Doors at 7:30 pm: show at 8:00
$5 suggested donation at the door

More on the musicians from the press release after the break. Continue reading →

Live Gets an Edit Button from Max

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Cycling ’74 and Ableton have provided a peek at Max for Live, the fruit of their partnership announced a few years ago. No specific release date or pricing information is available.

Cycling 74’s David Ziccarelli writes about the origin of the project and reasons for both Live and Max users to be interested. Read it here. My favorite quote:

Ultimately, it came down to this: my Cycling ’74 co-workers and I have come to believe the unique thing we have to offer the world is fundamentally about programming. In other words, we want to make edit buttons, and if we can put them in places where they have never existed before, all the better. It was clear to me that Ableton understood what it meant to have the Max environment work with their software. They weren’t just talking about more plug-ins.

Turns out that many of the new features in Max 5 were a result of Cycling’s collaboration with Ableton, such as the new timing system and presentation mode.

Check out the teaser video here.

I’m not a Live user but I have long admired the Live interface. So Max for Live may be just what I need to finally give it a try.

Where I’d Like to Be Tonight (and Tomorrow and…)

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La MaMa e.t.c and Interpretations are presenting three recent Robert Ashley operas: Dust (1998), Celestial Excursions (2003) and Made Out of Concrete (2007/2009) beginning tonight and running through January 25. It may confound traditional opera-goers to call these operas, but there’s really no other suitable name. So go and be confounded.

Performers include Robert Ashley, Sam Ashley, Thomas Buckner, Tom Hamilton, Jacqueline Humbert, Joan La Barbara, Joan Jonas and “Blue” Gene Tyranny.

Knit One, Purl Two: Knitting Factory Moves Along

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Here’s a report on the last night of the Knitting Factory in Manhattan. Out With the Knitting Factory, In With City Winery – NYTimes.com The move to Williamsburg seems obvious, if 10 years too late. Though the smaller stage at the new location may be a good thing for the club.

I have fond memories of playing the Old Office stage with James Keepnews and attending numerous shows at the Knit. But my favorite memory of the Knit was visiting the original location on Houston Street in late 1989 for a vivid vivisection of a mannequin performed by Eugene Chadbourne. The operation involved amplified electric drills, knives, and barbie doll heads thrown into the audience. I guess it was all downhill from there…

Cut to forlorn photo of an empty club.