Kingtone

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.

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.

I have not been playing or listening to much music for the past four or five months, partly to minimize exposure to sound due to aggravated levels of tinnitus. This experiment has had some benefit in the realization that I can still perform, create and record with a more sensible, stripped down approach. And since there is an ongoing film soundtrack project to be completed and a call recently went out to perform at a benefit show for a fellow musician, the time came to saddle up!

First the gig. Local musician, Mark Growden recently sustained injuries from a nasty bicycle crash (something i know plenty about) and a crew of local musicians are playing a Benefit for the Being of Mark Growden this Sat. Mar 29 at 12 Galaxies in SF, CA. I played guitar in a crazy rock band with Mark five years years ago, along with Tommy Cappel of Yard Dogs, Simon from Extra Action/Crash Worship and Michael Mellender of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Damn, that’s a super group. We did, I think, 3 gigs before it imploded, unnamed. I might just be in the mood for some loud guitar (with earplugs)…

Nightsoil. My good friend, film maker Thad Povey and I are preparing this 16mm projected image and live music performance piece for the big time. Originally conceived and created with hand-manipulated and found footage by Thad and Al Alvarez and with a live performance soundtrack by myself and Mark De Gli Antoni (of Soul Coughing fame), it has seen a gorgeous HD digital transfer and is in the process of receiving a new soundtrack. This past weekend saw our first studio session at New, Improved Recording in Oakland, CA. We were able to capture the epic end composition, Katarina, some great sound effects and improvisational musique concrete with Jenya Chernoff on drums, Suki O’Kane on vibes, Jonathan Segel on violin and myself on guitar.

I love SPLITLIP and the people in it,
Jon Brumit,
Wayne Grim,
Suki O’Kane
and from time to time, the one and only
Jeff Hobbs.

We played in Sacramento last night at the Prescott Showcase of new, improv and jazz music hosted by our friend Ross Hammond. For some reason SPLITLIP has played more shows to fewer people in Sacto than anywhere else. But the shows are always interesting there, so the few who make it get the goods.

Things felt really great onstage and we could have played on all night or as Suki said, ‘until the electricity runs out.’

A great overheard comment (during a lull in one of our pieces):

‘Do these people have any talent?’

And the following Q&A w/ Ross transpired -

Q: ‘What do you think their influences are?’
A: ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

ALBUM next year, we should hope…(the wonderful Michael Zelner recorded this and most of our shows, so…)

The Overdub Club lays new sounds over old film footage - hence the usage of the term overdub. We screen films that tickle your brain and are pleasurably insane. And since it is live, no two shows are ever the same. The soundtracks are for the most part live, but sometimes we use pre-recorded material.

And yes, we are actually a club with a rotating cast of characters. Currently: Thad Povey, Alphonso Alvarez, Kitty Hutton, Chris Santeramo, Suki O’Kane and myself.

Thad’s film studio under Bob Ostertag’s house in SF is the closest thing we have to a meeting house. It has really low ceilings and is crammed with cool old equipment, films, musical instruments and a hot plate for making tea.

Projects:
The Overdub Cub is currently in the process of converting its 2003 piece, Nightsoil, to Hi-res digital, complete with a new prerecorded soundtrack, for future distribution to film festivals, etc.

The group has also been working on a rather complex multi-image and sound piece tentatively entitled, Year of the Caves.