Kingtone

There’s something about San Jose that is very beige. Jon Brumit’s South Bay Talent Center - part of San Jose’s Who’s on 1st public art program I had the pleasure of performing in - is not one of them, however.

It was my intention to present a solo ten minute version of the American Pied piece that I debuted at the Boise Experimental Festival (as a 30 minute conducted group improvisation). It met with limited success, but a super-cool spinet wurlitzer organ onstage saved the day, was incorporated into an old ICS song, The Day I Learned to Sell and, despite my rustiness on the keys, went over quite well.

Other talent demonstrations included a gal who spun yarn from her cat’s hair, a very interesting homeless guy named Red who played a penny whistle and told stories and a gal who held a headstand for 3 minutes - with whom I later collaborated on a sound piece as she played a contact mic with her head in a headstand. You know, Art.

However, the real fun started after the gig. We were joined by a few more friends and found ourselves at the Global Village Vietnamese vegetarian restaurant. Things quickly took on David Lynch overtones with curious menu items such as sizzings disk, grilled.com.veg.beef (which I ordered), several that were listed as being out of order and a very hands-on waiter/owner/husband and cook/wife team. The food was delicious, the company grand and the table conversation lively. We blew passed the time to go catch Batman - The Dark Knight at a real drive-in, paid our incredible $45 bill for eight people and hit Beige-town instead.

Highlights included visits to the Cesar Chavez public fountain sign pictured above, a lovely physics/sound exhibit that would have made Rube Goldberg happy, some not so great ‘Who’s on 1st’ public art exhibits and ended back at the Talent Center for an after hours jam. Things got pretty nutty and included some subtle work by the maestro himself (see vid). Fortunately, the San Jose Saturday night revelers walking by on the main drag paid us no mind. Ah yes. So very beige.

Albany CA is a sleepy little city that is part of the East Bay just north of Berkeley. A mostly ‘middle class’ (for the SF Bay Area) kinda place where people raise kids without the fears of many modern urban dwellers. It has a conservative 1950s feel to it, and from what I hear the cops there like it that way. Strangely enough, it is home to some amazing talent and subversiveness. Maybe that is not strange at all.

Here’s some examples I have experienced.

This past weekend I played on a session with Drag City artist, Edith Frost. It was a nice song titled, My Euphorbia and was recorded for a possible future DC comp that apparently has something to do with the tracks being performed live. Those in attendance were Edith, Wil Hendricks on standup bass, myself on guitar, Val Esway and Heather Davison on backup vocals. Edith and Wil (via Chicago) live in Albany.

Last monday night, we kicked off a new monthly ‘Improv Hootenany’ series at the Ivy Room in, you guessed it, Albany, CA. The idea is to have a place for outsound artists to hang out and try new and crazy music collaborations in an upscale, comfy, dimly-lit place where fans can come, sip a cocktail and appreciate the music with no cover. There was a featured set from Myles Boisen and John Hanes, sets curated by Jonathan Segel, Joe Rut, John Shiurba, Carnacki and yours truly - aided and abetted by the likes of Suki O’Kane, John Brumit, Karry Walker, Pat Spurgeon (of Rogue Wave), Morgan Guberman and some great walk ons. The whole evening was glued together with special DJ sets by LA based Scrote and Carnacki.

Several now legendary punk bands hail from Albany, CA - like Operation Ivy and offshoots like Schlong and Rancid. Schlong and OPIvy’s maniac drummer was Dave Mello, whom I played with in the HO! along with Albany’s Tim Romain and Joey Schaaf - who also played in The Dance Hall Crashers and in Zebu with myself and Dave Mello’s brother, Pat Mello (also of Schlong). Tight webs, these band lineages often are.

Albany, CA is also the home of Gerald Gaxiola aka The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists, which is, coincidentally, also a movie by El Cerrito’s Les Blank about The Maestro and making art for art’s sake. Every time I see it I want to be and remain, an artist.

note: El Cerrito is just north of and pretty much the same kind of place as Albany. And yes, Creedence Clearwater Revival started in El Cerrito.

We haven’t talked amps in a while. Been meaning to though as I’ve made some major changes. The first biggie was I sold my beloved 1971 Hiwatt 100 head. It was just too much juice for my tender ears. It lives with a good friend now, so I sleep well knowing that. The second is the recent addition of Harley, a 1952 Gibson GA-20 that I acquired from a nice lady named Dusty. Her dad, Harley, bought it new in nineteen and fifty-two (or three). It needed a fair amount of work done to get it into playing shape, but now it screams with a nasty early B.B. King blues tone. I have also discovered it to be a perfect combination for controlled feedback with my Gretsch and have used it for several performances to date for that express purpose.

My 1965 Princeton Reverb continues to be my main amp and it is great to be able to mix and match it with Harley and my 1959 Alamo Titan (that my comrade Rob Price used to much satisfaction on the recent ‘Steady As She Goes’ west coast tour). This is a shot of the Alamo backstage at the Boise Experimental Festival, on top of some great vintage pails and next to an amazing vintage marching drum I procured for my set.

Just returned from a week of shows with my pals Rob Price and David Grollman. It was a great run culminating with a show at the 3rd annual Boise Experimental Music Festival. I’ll be posting some more mp3s soon and lots of pics. Steady as she goes…

I’ve attended and performed at every BEMF and this one had some really great talent. Here is a quick synopsis…

It was an honor and humbling experience to twice hear acoustic guitarist Jim McAuley. His ability to perform outside music with varied instrumentation, utilizing interesting tunings and a fearless sense of composition were a revelation. Jeff Kaiser and I marveled at Jim’s ability to bring together traditional structures with avant garde techniques and composition. Jim plays melodies, he deconstructs harmonic form and he’s a badass soloist…but above all it was MUSIC. And I tell ya, sometimes these experimental festivals can test just about anyone’s definition.

Other highlights were The Transhumans rockin set, Rob Wallace, Colter Frazier, & Jim Connolly’s mindblowing saturday night trio improvisation, Tom Baker’s glass fretboard and fretless guitar tones, Kribophoric, The Choir Boys, and the duo of Emily Hay and Motoko Honda and their excursions of insanity.

The Mule Racers, Winnemucca, NV

Reno. Weird show. Tough and brutal sounding at times. Very different from the others so far…for one, we set up right next to a pool table in the basement lounge of a hipster bar fer chrissake… In between bits, there was dead silence. Yes, there were people there. The silence was a little unnerving, but David came to the rescue once again, jumping off his drum stool and theatrically getting into everyone’s faces, which seemed to work wonders. We made $40. That’s $105 so far. At least that pays for gas to Boise.

Nat Sherman cigarettes, Basil Hayden whiskey, dim lighting, tattooed lovely bartenders. This is what I want to remember. Not the bleak look on the out of shape, bored, incredibly poorly dressed retired folk, comatose in front of the endless rows of slot machines.

My 1940’s dress up fantasy gambling weekend is just that.

You know, if it weren’t for the fact that there is so little money in touring (unless you are Prince who gets millions for a 2.5 hour set), it might be nice to be on tour all the time. Then again, one would miss the amenities of home, like a nice bed, home cooked food, friends, lovers, pets, etc.

However, when you are driving around the country with people that you like to spend time with and even better, like to perform with, it is an alluring thought. I am currently on a short west coast tour with two New Yawka’s, Rob Price and David Grollman. We started this mini-tour in Oakland, CA at 21 Grand, an art space that programs and supports arty and outside music. Our set was lighter than usual and peppered with moments of comedy that folks seemed to appreciate. As a first show it was quite good. One person commented that one moment it felt like being in a David Lynch movie and the next a comic strip. That works.

We played a deliciously violent set of improv last night in Sacramento, CA - home of friend and fellow musician, Ross Hammond. Fab guitarist, tireless worker and instigator for improv and experimental music there, he invited us to stop by and have a play.

Right now, we’re hanging out in Reno, with a show tonight. The weather is quite nice but there doesn’t seem to be much to do. Probably just what the casinos want. In fact, Rob has already won and lost $50 and David has lost $8. I have not set foot in one.

I just discovered a composer named John Luther Adams. He may be my new favorite composer of all time…influenced by minimalism, but something beyond as well. His piece, The Place captures the great outdoors, using data input from all over the state of Alaska to capture the sound of earthquakes, aurora borealis, the sun, the night…the out there…damn.

Check out this recent New Yorker article and don’t forget to listen to the audio clip at the bottom of his new symphonic piece, Dark Waves. It is truly beautiful and ’suggests a huge entity, of indeterminate shape, that approaches slowly, exerts apocalyptic force, and then recedes.’

I love the sound of old records. Especially ones from the 50’s and 60’s - the golden era of open reel tape recording - often utilizing fewer than 8 tracks. Great musicians made the music (usually all together), great producers coaxed and coerced great performances and brilliant engineers made it sound spectacular - using great rooms, great mics and simple recording paths.

One of those great engineers, Larry Levine has passed away. It was he who invented the Wall of Sound with Phil Spector at the venerable Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles on such hits as The Ronettes, Be My Little Baby and the Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling. He who recorded Eddie Cochran’s, Summertime Blues, The Beach Boys’, Pet Sounds, Herp Albert’s, A Taste of Honey and even the Ramone’s, End of the Century.

Strangelet had its first gig last night and we decided to dress up a bit. Jonathan Segel wore a nice steampunk ensemble, Suki O’Kane a santa suit and myself, a gold lame w/ black fringe jumpsuit that Scottie Chapman scored at a clothing swap party last weekend.

‘Case you didn’t know, the Ivy Room has been transformed from the former dive it was. Now it is comfy couches and DJ’s…but on Mondays…wierd gets to take over - and it was cool.

We played a torrid 25 minute set of improv. We were gonna play longer, but it felt over - although we did forget to do the confusing ‘is the set over?’ outro that was planned. Oh well, next time. As is often the case, MZ and Matt Cora recorded it.

The next bunch of players competently jammed around for a bit, sounding like an unorganized Emerson Lake and Palmer meets Bitches Brew era Miles Davis. Their set suddenly took off when this guy came in with a l.e.d. embellished, pedal powered MC bicycle set-up and rapped about being a fool for fuel, pedaling bikes and taking public transit.

Who says experimental can’t be fun, short and sweet?!

Just so you know - A Stranglet is a theoretical particle that could possibly prove to be the realization of the infamous ‘Ice-Nine’ from Kurt Vonnegut’s, Cat’s Cradle. From Wiki:

If the strange matter hypothesis is correct, and a strangelet comes in contact with a lump of ordinary matter such as Earth, it could convert the ordinary matter to strange matter. This “ice-nine” disaster scenario is as follows: one strangelet hits a nucleus, catalyzing its immediate conversion to strange matter. This liberates energy, producing a larger, more stable strangelet, which in turn hits another nucleus, catalyzing its conversion to strange matter. In the end, all the nuclei of all the atoms of Earth are converted, and Earth is reduced to a hot, large lump of strange matter.

Apparently folks are not quite sure whether the giant new Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland will manage to loose a Strangelet (or even a Micro Black Hole) upon us all.