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Road Reports 2003
(click pics to enlarge)

For upcoming concert dates, go here

January - on tour at home

January 11 - E# - Bobby Previte duo at SubTonic
The first gig of 2003 for me is a NY record-release event for The Prisoner's Dilemma. We decide to play for free in the Tonic basement, also known as SubTonic. This dark space has a DJ setup and very small PA plus a bar and secluded lounge spaces made from the huge empty barrels that once housed the Kedem wine produced on these premises. It's a great place for an after-hours hang, especially for DJ Toshio's Phonomena on Thursday's. There are also infrequent performances often collaborations between electronicists and DJ's with occasional players of "real" instruments. We bring our own amps for a self-contained sound - Bobby brings his D-Drums, I have bass clarinet, 8-string, and electornics, no computer. We're burning right from the start and play for about an hour - there are places of great sparseness and delicacy that maintain intensity as well as sections of heavy-grooving density. There's a full house and they're quite appreciative. We hope to do this monthly.

January 17 - Benefit for Downtown Music Gallery - Tonic
The Downtown Music Gallery has been an important resource for all of the varieties of extreme music. Forced by a rent increase to move, Bruce called on many of his musician friends to help in a series of benefit concerts at various locations.
The January 17th event focussed on guitar and began with Tisiji Munoz, a virtuosic guitarist in a spiritualist fusion vein. Next up were the duo of Raoul Bjorkenheim and drummer Lukas Ligeti. Raoul is newly moved to NYC and is also virtuosic and creative. In addition to the electronically enhanced sound of his Parker Fly, Raoul also played a solid-body viola da gamba of his own design. Next I performed a 20-minute solo set using the Dell Arte. While practicing the day before, the top cracked in three places. While disturbing, the top still seemed well-attached and the sound had actually improved a bit, especially after I raised the action to compensate for the lesser tension. The set began with E-bowed slide and progressed through arpeggiated chordal sequences, harmonic tapping, gnarly melodic lines, and more pianistic tapping, ending with a chordal progression. I had been concerned that a quiet acoustic guitar wouldn't work in this room filled with 200-odd people but the audience was incredibly attentive and responsive. After my set came the duo of Loren Mazzacane-Connors and Alan Licht playing a stretched-out dark meditation for two electric guitars. The evening finished with Thurston Moore, Lee Renaldo, and Jim O'Rourke of Sonic Youth in a massive guitargasm joined by the energetic drumming of Chris Corsano.

January 21 - "Howlin' for Hubert" - B.B. King's - NYC
In November, guitar legend Hubert Sumlin found out that he had a cancer in one of his lungs. It was decided that the best approach was the most radical: removal of the entire lung. Hubert was back out gigging 5 weeks after the operation! Many of his friends rallied to his need for money to cover the huge medical expenses. One strategy to raise money and pay tribute to one of the great innovators of American music was "Howlin' For Hubert," a benefit concert at B.B.King's in midtown NYC. First up was the The Finns, a big band in the tradition T-Bone Walker and Big Joe Turner. This was followed by Michael Hill's powerful trio sometimes reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix's Band Of Gypsies with Michael's amazing guitar-playing and bluesy wailing topical lyrics. Next up was a guitar quartet featuring Hubert himself with Michael Hill, Marc Ribot, and E#. We followed as Hubert led us through an unpredictable set of shuffles and standards - all soloed beautifully. I brought the white Strat and the Richenbacher lap-steel. Michael opened with some singing and then Hubert took over. To hear the power of his voice and the strength and inventiveness of his guitar-playing, one would never know he'd recently had major surgery! We were all thrilled at the response. After the quartet, longtime Hubert-supporter Jimmy Vivino led a powerful band featuring Hubert and fantastic pianist David Maxwell and a series of all-star guests including Ann Rabson, Shemekia Copeland, David Johansen, and Bob Margolin.
 

February

February 2 - Agatsama w/ E# at Joe's Pub
Hiro Agatsama is a young virtuoso on the tsugaru-shamisen. Here are some notes on the shamisen from Japan Society's Michiki Hirano: "There are three kinds of shamisen, depending on the 'thickness' of the neck. Tsugaru-shamisen has the thickest neck ('futozao'), thus has a deep, powerful, 'bluesy' tone. In comparison, 'hosozao' (thinnest neck) shamisen has a softer sound, and it uses cat skin instead of dog skin. The 'chuzao' (medium neck) shamisen uses cat skin as well. The original instrument (Okinawa's sanshin), which came via China, used snake skin."
I was invited by friends at the Japan Society to have an improvisation session with him which we did at my studio on Feb. 1. Joining us for part of the session was the incredible violinist Mari Kimura. Agatsama plays both traditional shamisen pieces and also places the instrument in a rock context. He plays fleet and bluesy pentatonic lines with a pungent bright tone. The next day at Joe's Pub (a downtown cabaret venue with excellent sound and sightlines), Agatsama performed 3 solo pieces after which I joined him using my Godin electro-acoustic guitar with the Boomerang. Our first piece, in D, was dramatic and fiery throughout with surprising passages of rhythmic unison and areas of bluesy bends and slides. We concluded with a piece in C that was more searching and dark which also built to large climaxes.

 February 9 -Benefit Against The Occupation - Knitting Factory, NYC
After months of planning, the fruits of our labors were manifest in this second event to benefit Al-Mezan, Gush Shalom, and Ta'ayush . Our MC for most of the evening was a young Palestinian-American stand-up comedian named Maysoon Zayid. Besides welcoming the performers, she made pointed and topical references to the situation in Palestine, in the US, and to her own life with cerebral palsy as a "Muslim-virgin-cripple from New Jersey." She sometimes made the audience laugh, sometimes made them uncomfortable - she was truly a raw personality who I like very much.
Opening the event was pianist Liz Magnes with the actress Kathleen Chalfant in a moving set followed by Ammiel Alcalay's speaking and poems. Alan Licht did a hypnotic solo on electric guitar after which Anthony Coleman played a wonderfully pungent solo piano piece, filled with both soul and reference. Next was Judith Malina and a partner of the Living Theatre, an important presence for decades in both theatre and resistance, doing a reading of excerpts from Antigone, most appropriate for the time. She was followed by a spirited piece by saxophonists Roy Nathanson and Marty Ehrlich with Jerome Harris on bass and E.J. Rodriguez on drums joined by Anthony on piano. Next Rebecca Murray of the International Solidarity Movement gave a harrowing account of her experiences in Palestine. The ISM puts their asses on the line there - check them out at: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main.html. After Rebecca, Lynne Tillman read some of her writing: powerful and funny both after which Zafer Tawil and I did a soprano sax/tabla duet followed by vocalist Nahed with Zafer on oud and finally, Zafer solo. Maysoon did her own controversial set next. The audience was shocked by her referring to the Israeli astronaut dying as good news - unfortunately, they did not have the background info that this "hero" bombed Palestinian refugee camps in his military "service." Some background would have helped - Lenny Bruce could shock people and yet they were on the same page as him - context is everything (and especially difficult for Westerners to understand form the Palestinian viewpoint!) Nathalie Handal next read from her work and then Meredith Monk enthralled us with her voice. Both Grace Paley and Barbara Barg were unable to attend because of illness and were sorely missed. DJ Mutamassik and Morgan Craft improvised texture and ambience followed by an ethereal set from the Elysian Fields duo of Jennifer Charles and Oren Bloedow. Next up was a virtuosic performance from clarinetist Kinan Azmeh with pianist Rami Khalife after which poet Anne Waldman read. Raz Mesinai with violinist Eyvind Kang and a female Greek vocalist whose name I can't remember played an electrifying piece after which Living Color's Corey Glover and Vernon Reid joined by guitarist Dennis testified in pure gospel style. Shelley Hirsch sang a short piece and then Marc Ribot played Albert Ayler's "Bells" with Bruce Cox on drums and E# on 6-string bass in full luminescence. The marathon evening ended with young Brooklyn punk band Feast. Besides the amazing performances, there was a very successful art auction with many prominent local artists donating pieces and information tables from Al-Awda and Jews Against The Occupation. A good amount of money was raised and awareness too!

February 16 - Damo Suzuki at Knitting Factory NYC
Suzuki with E# - guitar, Keef Roberts - keyboards, Jonathan La Master - bass, violin, Ulli Putsch - drums, Shu-ni Tsou - Chinese bamboo flutes, Rik Hambra - percussion, voice, and Jameela - belly dance. Damo is well-known for his stint as lead vocalist for the pioneering "Krautrock" band Can. He's recently been touring with Boston band Cul-de-Sac and also doing shows with various collaborators. Cul-de-Sac's bassist Jonathan invited me to join for this performance. No one expected Sunday's blizzard and Suzuki and LaMaster arrived 5 hours late, driving up Route 95 in the middle of the storm for almost the entire trip from North Carolina. We did the first set without them to a smallish but very enthusiastic house. The big surprise for me was Shu-Ni Tsou, a recent immigrant from Washington, D.C. and an amazing virtuoso on a variety of Chinese bamboo flutes. Our first set was always grooving and ranged in dynamics from very delicate to full-on raging. Dancer Jameela knocked us out in her 8-minute performance about halfway through the set. Damo and Jonathan arrived just as we were beginning the second set. It was great to have Damo's voice and energetic presence as well the bass kicking the low end. The set operated in a realm that was simultaneously psychedelic, African, gamelan-like, punky, and funky. I brought a hollowbody Telecaster with 3 P-90's, a few pedals (fuzz, delay, compression, Boomerang) and a tiny Fender Champ amp, the cranked tubes sounding very sweet.

March

March 3 "Entertaining Science" at Cornelia St. Cafe - NYC
For my second invitation to this series curated by Roald Hoffmann, I brought the 1936 Richenbacher lap steel. The theme for the evening was Heavy Metal and the Ric with its chrome-plated covers on a black bakelite body looks the part. The lap steel is actually named for the heavy steel bar which is wielded by the left hand to generate chords and melodies (and also in my case, glisses, swoops, beats, and crashes.)
The evening began with noted neurologist and author Oliver Sacks reading from his autobiographical Uncle Tungsten replete with a panoply of curious objects to illustrate the many references to the heavy metals in his life. Sculptor Daniel Brush then spoke of his work while showing slides. His work with pure gold and steel is amazingly intricate and makes use of innovative techniques and a unique artistic vision. Roald (a Nobel laureate in chemistry) then spoke of and illustrated the "gamma brass" problem in a too-short segment after which I finished the evening with an improvisation, running the Ric through a Tube Screamer and Boomerang to build up waves of sound contrasted with delicate fractal harmonic patterns and microtonal melodies. In fact, Benoit Mandelbrot, discoverer of fractal geometry and past participant in this series, was in attendance with his wife and joined us (and Cornelia owner actor/writer Robin Hirsch) for the post-concert dinner that is such a wonderful part of this event.

March 11 - Sonic Provocateurs at Tonic
In addition to his solo performance at Phill Niblock's Experimental Intermedia Foundation, John Duncan asked me to arrange another event for his stay in NYC and so I invited Marina Rosenfeld and Charles K. Noyes to join us for an evening of solos plus a quartet at Tonic.
I began the evening with a new solo piece as yet untitled. It made use of my GrainBrain Max Patch on the Powerbook (developed with Luke Dubois) and mixed live microphone input with a soundfile based on processed acoustic guitar sounds plus a short intro performed on the Freakenspeak (a SpeakNSpell "bent" by David Barnes.) As in Living Room, a portion of the piece makes use of the microphone being spun making use of both feedback and the mechanical mic sounds. Marina Rosenfeld then played a new composition with both piano and acetate records that she has created specifically for this piece. Consisting of piquant yet tranquil chords on the piano morphing into or out of the turntable sounds, the music had a timeless air yet retained drama and development. Charles K. Noyes next played a Powerbook piece that manipulated his original soundfiles in a variety of ways. John Duncan then played a pre-recorded piece from a CD but used the miximg desk to shape EQ and levels. The first half of his piece was dense and very loud but filled with compelling detail. The second half had a ritual quality and was quieter. At a certain point, Marina, Charles, and I all joined in with John for a 15 minute improvisation that created a surprising terrain of movement and texture.

March 18 - Benefit For United For Peace And Justice at Tonic
Because of other work at the studio, I arrived at Tonic late and caught only about 20 minutes of the beautifully textured trip-hop and funk of the group Maroon - their singer is one of the organizers of this event.
As in the benefit at the Knit against the Israeli West Bank occupation, I'm playing bass in Marc Ribot's trio, this time with Lance Carter on drums. We've rehearsed a number of tunes which Marc calls out at random. I've brought my old doubleneck, originally built by Ken Heer in 1984 and later refurbished by Doug Henderson in 1994. It has the best bass neck and pickups of my various instruments and I use the GT3 preamp with the house bass amp. The cause is right (to help defray costs of the March 22 peace march in NYC) and the packed house is stoked so we're fired up right from the beginning. Most of the pieces don't really have titles but they refer to various American rock genres which we twist, less than gently. Albert Ayler's Bells is a highlight. Marc plays a 3/4 size Gibson Melody Maker with a bright distorted tone. I normally appreciate Lance's powerful drumming from the viewpoint of guitarist, soaring over his grooves. As a bassplayer, it's a different kind of thrill to lock into the pockets and also ride the waves of sound generated on some of the wilder tunes.
Here are some pics of the march taken by Andreas Sterzing.

March 22 - Wall-To-Wall Joni - Symphony Space - NYC
This is a 12-hour marathon tribute to Joni Mitchell at the Symphony Space at Broadway and 95th. I've played at this hall a number of times since 1982. It's an impressive space, well-sculpted with a good stage and sightlines. There's something about the acoustics that I've always found unsettling, a certain "hollowness" of sound and lack of focus. Still and all, it's a great event with performers from across the entire musical spectrum. I choose to perform "Shadows and Light" from the "Hissing of Summer Lawns" record from 1975 and arrange it for a version of Terraplane with just Sim and Dave. I play the 8-string steel. The piece begins with a quiet reading of the melody with the bass and drums joining in like a choir. We enter a modal groove for the first part of the improvisation then switch to a darker minor and frenzy out until a quiet return to the melody.

March 23 - Terraplane - Joe's Pub - NYC
It's difficult to find appropriate venues for Terraplane in NYC. We're too "out" for the blues clubs and normal rock venues yet the music is too earnest and bluesy for Tonic so I welcomed the opportunity to do an event at Joe's Pub to celebrate the release of the new CD "Do The Don't" and to give the band a live rehearsal opportunity before our European tour - especially for Curtis Fowlkes to get the feel of the band as he'll be substituting for Sam Furnace. In the week before the gig, we realized that not only were we up against that new "reality TV show" called the War In Iraq but also competing against the Oscar awards. I didn't expect any audience at all but we were pleasantly surprised - not a full house by any means but comfortable and a very welcoming audience. The band was a little hesitant on the new material, some of which had only been played one or two times for recording during July and in the rehearsal a few days before. We tore into the familiar material ferociously and Curtis sounded great (as he always does!) and Eric and Dean killed in their solo features and played off of each other on the duos.

March 26 - Steffan Wittwer/E# duo - Swiss Peaks festival at Tonic
I've known Steffi for over 20 years and always admired his guitarism and exploratory sonic bent. We first met at the legendary A7 club when I would play a few nights per week with the Hi-Sheriffs Of Blue and he would often be hanging out. We next met again when Carbon performed at the Zurich Jazz Festival in 1983 and crossed paths every couple of years or so. Christian Marclay curated this festival taking place over a number of days at Tonic and agreed that a duo with Steffan would be a good thing. Our setups were quite well-matched. He uses a Steinberg guitar through a rack of effects and a Powerbook running SuperCollider. I brought the 8-string, soprano sax, my electronics, and the Powerbook running Max/MSP. Our 40-minute set emphasized hyperrhythms and microsounds - many layers and shifting tectonic plates.

April

April 10 - Double-header: Sirius String Quartet and Marc Ribot Mystery Trio
For this concert at Roulette of the newly-reformed Sirius String Quartet (violins: Meg Okura, Gregor Huebner; viola: Ron Lawrence, cello: David Eggar), the group asked me to compose something new for them to go along with a theme for the evening of quartet + electronics. I had been working on a MAX/MSP patch to make use of the powerful GRM Tools and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. The piece was titled "The Dispersion Of Seeds," taken from the recently-discovered natural history work by Henry David Thoreau dealing with the mechanism of reforestation and the propagation of plant tree species. With the Iraq war, I've been despairing of late at the propagation of the most crass and stupid American nationalism which will catalyze a state of "permanent war" not to mention the undertaking of a new phase of imperialism designed to consolidate substantial petroleum reserves under American corporate control, undermine the new European economic alliance, and to give huge windfall profits to those "military-industrial-complex" companies that are almost indistinguishable from the American government. I would like to see positive memes thrive and spread, hence, the dispersion of seeds.
The musical element of this 16-minute piece consists of nine 4-note chords arpeggiated and exploded at various independent rates by the quartet's players. Simultaneously, the the sound of the group is manipulated using various GRM plug-ins, especially the Resonator and Shuffling. We recorded the piece on April 9 at Studio zOaR with excellent results so I was greatly anticipating the concert. Soundcheck was problematic and delayed while the quartet sorted out various problems brought on by a very ambitious program with daunting technical issues. Unfortunately, the performance itself was disappointing and felt as if the group was not in sync with itself plus the overall dynamic shape of the piece was off. I also had problems with levels from the group's pickups which were substantially different from soundcheck. Maintaining control of these shifting levels took away from my concentration on the sonic manipulations. Still, the audience response was quite positive - they could hear and appreciate a different composition from what I was intending.

After my performance at Roulette, I packed up my Powerbook and ran up to the Bowery Poetry Club, sorry to miss the rest of the quartet's performance. We set up quickly and began playing to a moderately full house. I used the black doubleneck through a 200-watt Pearce guitar head into a Hartke 4x10 cabinet. Marc brought his hollow-body ES225 and an old Les Paul Special and started out on a sardonic note with a version of "Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie" that we massaged and pummeled into unrecognizability. Our lack of rehearsal time led us to rely heavily on improvisation and the set contained many wonderful surprises for us including walking jazz grooves, seriously noisy and violent rock episodes and a brief reading of "Stella By Starlight." Lance Carter killed on drums as always and Marc played with a searing tone.

By the way, Lance, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and I just completed a recording project titled "Raw Meet" for the Swiss Intakt label. It should be released in early 2004 and could be considered a warped power trio. The recording includes a tribute to Sonny Sharrock titled "Sonny's Way" (Lance and Melvin were the rhythm section for one of Sonny's most powerful groups.)

Terraplane tours Europe

April 23 - Stans Jazztage - Stans - Switzerland
I'm excited to be getting out of the US for awhile - Iraq War Fever is depressing and enraging. I can't help but keep on top of all of the news but one is always inundated with the most ridiculous propaganda. It's unfortunate that most Americans can't see through it. Depart JFK on April 21 on a smooth Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt then a short hop to Zurich where I meet the gang at baggage claim, just arrived on an American flight. We're met by the festival drivers and take two cramped vans to Stans, about 90 minutes drive. We have a lot of equipment plus we're four big guys (and two smaller ones, Sim & I) so space is at a premium. Reaching Stans, we head up the mountain on twisting roads with sheer drops on the side to the hotel where we're greeted by a spectacular view of Lake Luzern and a nearby snow-capped mountain. We have arrival day off and a good part of the next day free. Soundcheck is smooth and the hall acoustics are fine. It's a small theatre for about 300 people. One hitch: somehow my amplifier has disappeared from the tech rider so some scrambling has to be done to get one, a silverface Twin with a very flat and uninspiring sound. The band plays two sets to the excited crowd, hitting surprisingly hard right from the beginning.
Pictures from the show may be found here.

April 24 - Porgy & Bess - Wien - Austria
We have a 6:30 call to make our train to Zurich and then Wien, not so easy as the previous evening's festivities stretched until about 3 but we can sleep on the ride. We arrive in Wien just in time to quickly check in to the hotel, change clothes and run to the club. There's not enough time for a soundcheck but only a quick dinner.
This is my first time playing at the new Porgy. I had often played at the old one, a long low basement room in the First District with red velvet wallpaper and not known for its' sterling sound but still, a very fine place to hang out and perform. The new room is quite sophisticated both in sound and appearance with good sight-lines and sound equipment, a wrap-around balcony, and a restaurant. The Viennese audience is enthusiastic and we play two encores after two long sets. I believe the audience would have happily listened to much more. Stage patter: "You know, with this war, many people are comparing Bush to Hitler. But there are major differences between them that should be remembered. First of all, Bush never went to art school, and secondly, Hitler was actually legally elected."

April 25 - Deep Blue - Lienz - Austria
It's quite late when we return to the hotel and once again, in only a few short hours we're up and heading to the station for our 8-hour trip to Lienz in the Tirol. After arrival we have dinner and only a partial soundcheck but this is more of a "roadhouse" kind of gig so it suffices. This is my fourth time in Lienz and the Mutschlechner brothers are great hosts and organizers. It's always a pleasure to see them and my old friend Egon. The audience is full and mostly quite young. They're up and dancing by the end of the night. A dancing audience completely changes the dynamic of how a band plays, an enjoyable change from the concert-hall or theatre. A more civilized start-time allows 4 hours of sleep in the hotel - what a luxury!
Our equipment is loaded in a van for the station and we walk down to meet it. We're quite a spectacle for this little burg - a good mix of weirdos and blacks. Our train is waiting on the platform and soon after we board, we're met by four local gendarmes (very visibly armed) who take some time looking through our papers. They're finally satisfied and off we go. We have one critical change in trains involving stairs and much running to the opposite end of the platform. We just make it and arrive in Graz in time for a brief sojourn at the hotel before soundcheck.

April 26 - MOXX - Graz- Austria
This event turns out to be 50th birthday party for Ludwig, a longtime supporter of the arts and a big fan of Terraplane. The room is part of a student cultural center for arts and architecture that he has built and the acoustics have been well considered. We can play moderately loudly and still retain detail. There's a suppleness to the sound that is quite pleasing. We again play two sets and the audience is quite welcoming, also up and dancing by the end of the evening. For one of the encores we premiere "Eurosity", a new song written on the train. We hang out for awhile then return to the hotel, to bed at 3 and out the door at 8:15 to head to Schwaz, arriving in the late afternoon.

April 27 - Eremitage - Schwaz- Austria
Some time to rest at the hotel then off to this sweet little club in the Tirol. Leo greets us and prepares a fine dinner while we set up after which we play two sets to a full and enthusiastic crowd. The next day is completely free so no early call. It's a very relaxed day and in the evening we find a gasthaus for an excellent meal of local specialities including venison then return to the Eremitage to catch Steve Coleman's Five Elements. The day after is only for travel to Bielefeld so also quite easy.

April 30 - Bunker Ulmenwall - Bielefeld - Germany
A slow day in Bielefeld after the relaxed evening of the travel day so the band is rested and itching to play when we hit the Bunker. I had previously played at this venue in 1986 on the first Semantics tour in Europe. It is literally an old bunker which was transformed into a town jazz society and club in 1953 and then became a privately operated collective in 1991. The booking policy was always quite eclectic and the audience well-informed and responsive.
Because of the layout of the space, we're essentially performing "in the round," facing each other rather than the audience making for good sonic and visual communication. My amp tonight is a Rivera-era Fender Twin-Amp. These amps can sound great although I found this one to be quite nasal in tonality but still responsive and giving sweet sustain. Before the set we run over to a nearby music store where I purchase a Hering chromatic harmonica made in Brazil. Much woodchopping to be done!
We play strong versions of "Work Or Leave," "As It Falls," and "Slow Drag" to open the first set. On this tour, I'm enjoying the way the trombone and soprano sax both contrast and blend though I miss the honk and depth of the tenor sax (not to mention Sam's bari and alto!) I switch to guitar for "Life In A Crackerbox" and break a high-E string just before Curtis' solo. Time seems to stand still when you're changing a string in front of an audience. We resume the action and burn through the set. "Like Showers Of Rain" is quite happening. Eric and Dean return to finish the set with "Please Don't" and I break a D-string during the ending riff causing a momentary interruption and a radical timbre change (!) as well as massive tuning problems. Trem Strats go WAY out if one string breaks - there's no avoiding it. We take a break and return with "Othar" (one of our better performances of this tune ) after which we sail through the rest of the set. "Oil Blues" is much slower this night - it gains a certain ominous strength though teeters on its own weight. I break out my new harmonica for "Eurosity" but also break another high-E when I switch to guitar. When we finish with "Lost Souls", the packed crowd demands an encore. We end up playing 2 more of them.

May

May 2 - La Spirale - Fribourg - Switzerland
Another bunker-like club at the bottom of Fribourg's gorge. Standing outside the club by the river, we can view one of the bridges and an immense natural abuttment with a huge eroded hole through which a house is visible. The stage is tiny for a band of our number and there isn't time to work out the kinks in the monitors so we just repair to the loge for the delicious curry cooked for us. Two sets this night displaying both the kind of wonderfully-twisted creative reworkings that happen spontaneously with this band as well as the amazingly horrifying train wrecks that also are a potential. The evening was recorded by Radio Suisse Romande for later broadcast - I am both intensely curious and dreading to hear the results.

May 3 - L'Usine - Geneve
A large and acoustically inviting room converted from a power plant down by an inlet from the lake is the venue but the concert is a project of the AMR and Christian Steulet. The equipment is first-rate as are the sound engineers for front-of-house and monitor. A number of old friends of mine are in attendance and the room feels alive and friendly. A tight, accurate, and inventive first set though perhaps a touch sluggish in tempos. Things pick up in the second and the evening feels charged by the completion.
We play a new tune based on a riff from the Yellowman score with singing from Eric and Dean with the line "They say we is...," ("DeySayWeIz") a slogan from Danny Richmond. We use it as shorthand to emphasize the serious jive element in all of the recent polls and news defining the "American people as being 75% behind the president". We just don't believe it. The polls are used to push a wishful thinking mode and to get the Americans (who tend to be followers anyway) back in line. Back to the hotel by 3 and up at 7:30 for the train.

May 4 - Teatro Palcoscenico del Ponchielli - Cremona
This is a grand opera house, second only to La Scala in size. In a funny twist, the entire concert, both band and audience, is set up on the stage with a second stage built on top. It' s amusing to have this majestic backdrop to our stage. An added plus is the open space eliminating reflections from the rear, always a problem with a loud band. The equipment and crew are excellent and we're soon set up and soundchecked and off to a fantastic meal with enough time to take a relaxed walk through the town back to the hall for the concert. We play two tight sets with a subdued but very positive response. We can tell that the audience listens intently and with pleasure but they just don't give much back sonically. Still, when we finish there is sustained applause and cheering and we return for an encore of "DeySayWeIz" starting out instrumentally with references to Miles' "On The Corner" and "Jack Johnson" era and then we're joined by Dean and Eric to reprise the theme in a Sly/Band Of Gypsies mode.

May 5 - Stazione Leopoldo - Firenze
We arrive in Firenze in the late afternoon for the last Terraplane concert of this tour. It's hot and sunny so off for a walk around town stopping off for snacks and many cups of the incredible espresso. On our free evening, we meet Giuseppe (of the Musicus Concentus organization) at a favorite restaurant for a wonderful and inexpensive meal. The next afternoon we head to the Leopoldo and are caught in an intense storm of clumps of pollen falling like snow.
The venue is a vast building that served as a servicing station for trains. Given to the cultural council of Firenze about 10 years ago, it's used for concerts, as a gallery, and for fashion shows. On entering the first huge room we are greeted by Nigel Coates' installation: pastel-painted car bodies, empty oil drums, old hospital-style beds behind chicken wire, constructions of old clothes hanging - very much a mix of BladeRunner meets refugee camp. There are dance and theatre performances in other rooms on this evening. Our room is also cavernous but the sound is surprisingly focussed and again, a great stage crew and equipment. For this event we play one long set. In contrast to Cremona, the audience is immediately responsive (perhaps younger as well). A few hundred people, mostly sitting but many standing and by the end of the concert, dancing. A long version of "DeySayWeIz" finishes the set. Many comments after from audience members who greatly appreciate hearing Americans offer intelligent and critical commentary about the policies of the Bush junta. In the morning Eric Mingus and Dean Bowman return to NYC and the rest of us head to Switzerland.

May 9 - Taktlos Festival: Gare du Nord - Basel
This is the 20th anniversary of this festival of new and improvised music. For this event, we've put together an evening mixing mostly Swiss improvisors with the instrumentalist members of Terraplane to perform small-group improvisations and SyndaKit. The group includes the fantastic violist Charlotte Hug, saxophonist Tobias Delius, trumpeter Thomas Heberer, Sim Cain, Dave Hofstra, cellist Martin Schutz, reed-player Hans Koch, pianist Claudia Binder, drummer Fredy Studer, accordionist Hans Hassler, and myself. I've known and played with Studer, Koch, and Schutz for a long time so the group feels comfortable. We rehearse in the hall with full sound and the group takes to SyndaKit very quickly (they've also had good advance preparation with the score and recordings). The hall was once the restaurant in this still-active train-station at the border of Switzerland and Germany. It has high ceilings and is appointed with dark wood and looks and sounds fine. The concert itself goes quite well - a full house, receptive and appreciative. The first set is a collection of small groups, each chosen by each of the players. For my choice, Terraplane performs "Work Or Leave" to finish the set. After a 30-minute break we perform a beautifully-frenetic SyndaKit. The only thing missing for me are enough complex unisons. Still, I'm quite pleased (as is the audience.)

May 10 - Taktlos Festival: Rotefabrik - Zurich
I've performed many times at the Rotefabrik over the years and it feels quite comfortable especially with many old friends in attendance. We're asked to make the evening more lengthy than Basel - a questionable strategy. In addition to the musician-chosen small-groups, I also conduct unisons. This set does not feel as taut with energy as Basel though there are some beautiful things - it's unfortunate to have an external time frame on improvisation. We're free of this for the second set of SyndaKit and the group takes off, performing a rocking version with exciting textural changes, layers, and unisons. The audience is wildly enthusiastic as are we! A fine end to the performance aspect of this tour.
In the morning I return to Firenze for a recording project with the percussionist-composer Alessio Riccio and return to NYC on the 13th. While always happy to come home, I dread facing the stifling and depressing atmosphere of the US under Bush. Because of the war and fears of anti-Americanism, we found there to be many less Americans in Europe, with sizeable numbers to be found only in Firenze. It's embarrassing to be seen as a representative of the heinous policies of the junta - it's fortunate that as performers, we have the possibility of explaining that there is resistance in the US, albeit well-hidden.

May 16 - Not Still Art Festival - MicroMuseum - Brooklyn
Janene Higgins was invited to perform in this small festival and asked me to accompany her with an improvised musical score. She performs with prepared tapes played on DV decks, her laptop, and a video mixer. I brought a new set-up which I would like to use on tour comprising of the Godin electroacoustic guitar, the laptop running MAX/MSP, and a small mixer. It's very light and compact and capable of a huge array of sounds. Unfortunately, the MicroMuseum is not overly well-equipped and the sound system became heavily distorted after about 10 minutes, probably due to heating up. This put a great obstacle in the path of good sonics though I was able to try a number of things with varying degrees of success. At least I know that this new set-up has great potential.
Janene's visuals fared far better, well-displayed on a good screen through a powerful projector.

May 24 - Benefit for the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band
From a preview by organizer Adam Lore: "As you may have heard, Mr. Otha Turner, Mississippi's most celebrated fife player, passed away on the morning of February 27. That evening, his daughter, Ms. Bernice Pratcher, ended her long battle with cancer. Their lives and music were an inspiration to many, myself included, and it is in that spirit that we present a celebration of their lives and legacies, while also providing support for their family and those in their community who aim to continue the fife and drum picnic tradition."
  Otha Turner's music was indeed an inspiration and also damn exciting: timeless music, both African and American, ancient and future. I was thrilled and honored to be part of this event. I had been away on tour both times the Rising Star band played NYC so at the very least, this would finally be a chance to hear them "live," even without Otha. The event took place at the recently re-opened Sin-E club in the Lower East Side. In its previous incarnation, Sin-E was a tiny folk club on St. Mark's Place and a trendy industry A&R spot. The new club is much larger with a decent sound system but the acoustics of a concrete box. The evening began promisingly with a group of West African musicians whose name I did not catch playing a ritualistic chant with cloudlike drumming that grew in intensity. After about 15 trance-inducing minutes they turned on a drum-machine with a monotonous straight quarter-note kickdrum pattern that was >blastingly< loud. They then played on and on over this for nearly 90 minutes, even refusing to stop when told by the organizers! Bizarre and a total drag. They finally left the stage and some rare footage of Otha Turner and band at one of the family picnics in Mississippi was shown, returning the evening to balance. The film was beautifully edited to the music and showed ambience, food preparation, personalities, and of course, the playing. As the film finished, we heard an amplified fife in the house and distant drums, and soon, bursting into the room in full flower, The Rising Star Fife And Drum Band! Otha Turner's 13 year-old granddaughter Sharde Olivia Thomas was on the fife (with a wireless clip-on mic), and the drum section was RL Boyce, Andre Evans, Rodney Evans, and Aubrey "Bill" Turner. It was ecstatic, mournful, and spine-chilling! As she got comfortable on stage, Sharde became an incredible bandleader, evoking shouted responses from the packed house and moving everyone to shake. After a too-short set, they took a break (to return later) and it was my turn.
I brought the Godin guitar (tuned to D minor and plugged into a DI for the house and a Fender Twin on stage) and began with some E-Bow and slide. Unfortunately the high gain that the sound engineer had set was seriously overloading the monitors and they completely crapped out. This was adjusted and I restarted, a little flustered but determined to maintain. I fingerpicked a traditional pattern with some slide countermelodies on top and gradually built up into a tapped section, hoping to bridge my blues with some African sounds and some from the NYC "delta." The fifteen-minute set was enthusiastically received by the audience. I ran out for a quick bite after hearing a few minutes of Ari Up, who was a member of the Slits and returned in time for another rousing set by the Rising Stars, finishing with the classic "Sitting On Top Of The World."
Next up were The Reigning Sound from Memphis, a band mixing R&B, rockabilly, and blues with a manic punk energy. After 4 songs, they brought up the amazing Eddie Kirkland to sing and play a few numbers. One would never guess that Eddie is just about 80 years old but his history stretches back to post-war blues and Memphis R&B. Exhausted, I left after Eddie so missed Mr. Airplane Man and the final Rising Star set.
The Rising Star Fife and Drum Band with Otha are best heard on the CD's "Everybody Hollerin' Goat" and the compilation "Traveling Through The Jungle." Also, Martin Scorsese used Otha Turner's music in his film "The Gangs of New York."

JUNE

June 12 Downtown Music Gallery Anniversary Party - Tonic NYC
Another evening at Tonic arranged by DMG's Bruce Gallanter and Manny Mares. The festivities begin with guitarist Bob Musso's wailing power trio with Lance Carter on drums and Dave Dreiwitz on bass. Next the trio of John Zorn on alto sax with Tim Barnes on percussion and the recently-returned-to-action Anton Fier on drums for a fine set of noisy improv. Finally, the trio of Raoul Bjorkenheim (guitars, electric gamba), Lukas Ligeti (drums), and E# (Bb clarinet, doubleneck guitarbass.) We began with a Korean-flavored jam of both reserve and intensity on which I played clarinet, sticking mostly to the chalumeau register with occasional overtone excursions while Lukas did sparse hits and Raoul created a variety of overdriven textures (causing his new 30-watt Marshall combo amp to blow a fuse.) As we switched to more groove-oriented material, Raoul concentrated on bowing on his gamba (on a different amp) and I focussed on the subterranean with occasional E-Bow slide on the guitar neck. Over the course of our 45-minute set, we also did some hypergrooves and some solid noisiness. Very enjoyable alltold.

June 18 Terraplane at Tonic
A last-minute cancellation gave us the opportunity to do an all-instrumental Terraplane set with both Curtis Fowlkes and Sam Furnace on horns. My old Malverne curved soprano sax was recently tuned up and I wanted to bring it out for a test run as I plan to use it on the Terraplane UK tour in the autumn. Having the three horns on the older acoustic material from Blues For Next gave it an exciting richness, especially in the polyphonic improvisations. On the electric tunes, it was great to have the additional colors of Curtis' trombone work as a foil for Sam's acerbic soloing. Again, the unisons and spontaneous harmonies were inspiring. The band played fantastically to a small but very enthusiastic audience.

June 27 "The Velocity Of Hue" - Issue Project Room - NYC
This was the debut performance of my solo project using the Godin electroacoustic guitar: by itself for the first set and with computer processing for the second. "The Velocity Of Hue" is the title of the studio recording of this music - it will be released in November by the Emanem label in England. This event was also my first gig at the Issue Project Room, a gallery and office very near my studio and a venue that will develop as the site of various music and sound events. The room has a concrete floor and wooden walls - there is still evidence of its previous incarnation as a garage and the sound is reflective but not overly so. I would hesitate to use a loud drummer here but for this project, the acoustics are perfect - resonant and just wet enough. This concert is also an opportunity to try out a simplified and lightweight live rig that I plan to use on tour. It consists of the modified Godin (I added a dobro tailpiece to give a length of string for bending and plucking between the bridge and the strings' anchor point), the MXR DynaComp compressor, a small mixer, and the Powerbook for processing.
The setup performed flawlessly though the Godin's tuning does tend to suffer from over-enthusiastic bending. Both sets were wonderfully received by the incredibly attentive audience. The first consisted of an improvisatory narrative using the various core elements defined as "pieces" in the studio recording. In performance, their parameters diverge greatly from their original manifestation: a mix of my own obsessions with texture, density, groove, and extended techniques filtered through sounds and approaches from country blues, Indian, central-Asian, Arabic, and Korean string music, and the "American primitive" school of John Fahey and Robbie Basho. This set is entirely fingerpicked and tapped except for a few slide and E-Bow passages. The second set uses my Max/MSP patch to call up various plug-ins for processing the sound of the guitar which are manipulated in realtime. In this mode, the guitar may function at times only as a stringed resonant chamber - at other times, the guitar is "played" though heavily transformed, often using a plectrum.
Finally, I had purchased a minidisc recorder a few days prior to this show and this was its' test under fire, with inputs direct from the mixing desk. Listening in the studio the next day, I was happily surprised by the warmth, detail, and ambience in the recording. I will try to make this available as an MP3 at some point in the near future.

AUGUST

August - On Tour At Home
Lots of composing and studio work - live gigs the exception so generally glued to the studio computer from early AM until late-PM. Ensemble Sospeso asked for a piece for a 95th birthday tribute to composer Elliott Carter (the title is "To EC From E# at 95" for string quintet), Continuum asked for a chamber orchestra piece for a November show (this piece is "No Time Like The Stranger"), I had to finally compose the piece for Carbon to perform at Tonic and at the Venice Bienalle in September (it's titled "Quarks Swim Free"), it was necessary begin work on the opera "Jenseits" for the Bonn City-Opera and, lastly, it was time to complete the score to Rodrigo Rey-Rosa's feature film Lo Que Soño Sebastian.

Aug. 13 Tilt at Bowery Poetry Club
I was very pleased to break from this routine to go watch the new brass ensemble Tilt led by trombonist Chris McIntire perform SyndaKit on a varied program. The group includes 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, bass trombone (the wonderful Julie Kalu), 2 french horns, tuba, and drums. They began the evening with an improvised fanfare followed by a mechanistic Nick Didkovsky piece, a Balkan odd-meter dance number, and a Herbie Hancock tune. After a break, they performed SyndaKit and finished with a rowsing arrangement of a Prince tune. SyndaKit had some very good moments but the main problem for my ears was the lack of digging in with the unisons - one of the most important aspects of the composition. Still, there was some ensemble excitement and great individual sounds and playing.

Aug. 21 Velocity Of Hue at Issue
A return to the Issue gallery for another performance of the solo electroacoustic material. We had been having a string of boiling hot days with high humidity and my guitar had a very difficult time of staying in tune. I frequently had to stop and tweak the strings - not conducive to narrative flow but also not without a certain humor. The first set was just the acoustic - the second included the computer-processing and this mostly masked the string slippage. Still, I was all too aware of the lapses in tuning. Found some very beautiful "vocalized" places using the GRM Resonator with the E-Bow and tried to dwell in this realm for an extended episode to finish the set.

Aug. 24 Jenseits at Roulette
This is the opera commissioned for Bonn which will premiere on Sept. 26 and run through Oct. 5. Starring Mathias Scheuring, text written by Bavarian author Werner Fritsch and adapted by producer Laura Berman, directed by Thomas Krupa and with music by myself and Zeena Parkins. I created a number of electronic backgrounds and composed a few songs and melodies based on an A- progression. Zeena composed some harp and piano sections. We also improvised a number of sequences which were then "fixed" in approach and orchestration as well as adding embellishments to each others' written sections. The piece is certainly still in development - we will rehearse for 10 days in Bonn before the premiere which will give ample opportunity for tweaking.
We performed 2 run-throughs on this day - in the afternoon for ourselves and in the evening for an audience of friends and invited colleagues. The afternoon performance was quite hot - perhaps a little too much so as it felt that we ran out of steam about halfway through the evening presentation. I was involved in a solo trainwreck while investigating some strange feedback and nearly missed an important cue and instrument-switch. Still, we received much positive feedback and some solid constructive criticism. This project is the first use for me of the software Halion and Absynth - both very powerful with good sound though Halion has serious performance limitations - I would like to be able to control sample start and looppoints on the fly. Perhaps I just need to dig in deeper to find this. Found a great Russian Roulette sequence in a film to get the sound of a gun-barrel spinning which I processed with various plugs to create a grooove with textural morphing. The "Druck Ab" refrain and chord progression works quite well with this and the sprechstimme of Mathias.

Aug. 28 Saadet Turkoz/E# at Saalfelden Jazz Festival - Austria
After all of the recent work, very much looking forward to the complete abdication of responsibility that taking a flight entails. The plane is quite full and my seat feels like the cushion has long ago been worn flat but despite intermittent turbulence, exhaustion takes over and I sleep most of the way to Munich. We then have a 2.5 hour drive to Saalfelden, a drive that gets progressively more beautiful as we enter the mountainous Tirol region of Austria. The hotel is a large "sporthotel" with spectacular views of the surrounding mountains from my room. A day spent chilling and dinner out with friends from the Akut festival in Mainz.
Saadet and I are to perform the next day at the Nexus, a blackbox theatre in town that holds about 500 people. I've brought the Godin electroacoustic, a Bb clarinet, and the laptop plus a small Soundcraft mixer. I plug the guitar through my ancient Dynacomp - instant "sound." Saadet brings her voice, more than a match for any instrument! Despite this simplicity, soundcheck is long and troublesome with some routing problems which the engineer finally solves. The opening set, quite loud, is by trumpeter Nils-Peter Molvaer and guitarist Martin Koller followed by by another loud set by the great slide guitarist David Tronzo with some Austrian musicians. Our midnight set caps the long evening - by contrast it's very quiet and concentrated with many tangents. Not all of the audience can follow it after the preceding large gestures. Still, the response is strong and sustained. Our set enters new regions from previous ones - Saadet tells me after that she was surprised by the acoustic guitar and no electric.

Aug. 29 Freiburg Jazz Festival - Germany
We have a 6:00 AM call to get a ride to the train in Munich, way too early after the previous night's festivities, lasting well past 3. The trains are quite off schedule when we reach Mannheim to change yet we somehow luck into a previously delayed train that gets us to Freiburg 45 minutes earlier than our intended train (grievously delayed!) would have. Our concert takes place at a club called the Waldsee on a beautiful small lake up a hill from the town. I had played there 9 years previously with Carbon of which I was reminded by the director, Achim. I had well-remembered the fine kitchen and great hospitality. Quick soundcheck! Our set felt much more "inevitable" than the one in Saalfelden - more focussed and digging in longer in each section. It's very humid this evening and as the room (and my guitar) heat up, I develop severe tuning problems in the last part of the set and switch to slide until the end. Our encore is completely acoustic with clarinet and voice and one of my favorite parts of the evening. Post-gig hang at the Freiburg Theatre bar then a day off before returning to NYC.

SEPTEMBER

Sept. 12 Carbon - "Quarks Swim Free" - Tonic NYC
A midnight show on the eve of our departure for Europe. This is the first Carbon show as a "rock band" since 1995 (as differentiated from Orchestra Carbon) and the premiere of a new piece. The band includes Jim Pugliese on percussion, Sim Cain on drums, and Zeena Parkins on electric harp and piano. I'm playing the 8-string guitarbass, bass clarinet, Bb clarinet, and soprano sax. "Quarks Swim Free" is a complex piece similar to the algorithmic approach used in SyndaKit and many other pieces of mine and constructed of 11 Modules comprising 73 Cores of melodic and rhythmic materials generated with prime numbers. I hope to soon post the score on the site for downloading.
We arrive at 11:30 to find John Zorn's Bar Kochba still playing their 10 pm set. They don't finish until almost 12 and it takes them quite a long time to move things enough for us to set up so we can't begin until nearly 1 am. Still, a good audience is there for us and we are greeted by spontaneous and sustained applause when we take the stage - very moving for me. Our preparatory meeting and rehearsal concentrated on learning the Cores and how to manipulate them and the group is able to dig right in without hesitancy with a drum duet over a sustained texture from Zeena and I. The music continuously shifts focus and intensity making for surprising unisons and the emergence of unexpected harmonies and powerful rhythmic interlocks, not to mention segments of great delicacy. I'm quite happy with this debut, a good preparation for Venezia.

Sept. 15 La Biennale di Venezia - Teatro alle Tese - Venice, Italy
A smooth flight to Frankfurt and another to Venice with a spectacular view of the Alps and Dolomiti on the way. A boat taxi gets us to the hotel for rest and a later walk along the canal. I've never been to this part of Venice on the canal south of St. Mark's and an area less-frequented by tourists. We go the Teatro the next morning to set up, soundcheck, and rehearse. In a former military installation area, the buildings of the Biennale are large stone sheds with a great number of exhibitions over a vast area surrounded by canals and utilities. The Teatro has fine acoustics, the stage is large, the equipment is top, and the sound crew are friendly and very competent. The performance is scheduled for 10 PM but we start much later because of the previous concert (Bang On A Can) going on much longer than expected.
We set off blazing with a similar gesture to the NY show and from there into a rocking gamelan-like unison. Many varied and different places created than in the NY show. The audience is ecstatic though I'm not completely satisfied - I'm missing some of the spontaneous unisons that I feel are an important part of the piece and perhaps because of the larger stage, the focus seems diffused. This is, of course, a completely subjective perception! There is often a schism between the viewpoints of the composer, the performer, and the audience. Distance gives one a better objectivity - I was given a DAT of the concert and at some point in the not-too-distant future will take a listen. I hope to perform this piece again and certainly record it, perhaps with a larger ensemble of 7 players.
Early the next morning, Zeena and I are off by boat and van back to the airport and on to Bonn for the preparation and performances of Jenseits at the Theater Bonn.

Sept. 25 Jenseits - Theater Bonn - Dress Rehearsal
The time in Bonn since our arrival has been both hard work and great relaxation for me especially after the intense tasks of the last few months (being equally split between the Jenseits score, the recording of Velocity Of Hue, the composition of Quarks Swim Free and other pieces, and ultimately, the huge score/sound design/soundmix for the feature film Lo Que Soño Sebastian by Rodrigo Rey-Rosa that I completed just before leaving for Venice). Our work here is confined to only about four or five hours each day but is very concentrated. In the free time, I can walk along the Rhine, search for good espresso and food, study German, practice, and read various books - now on a Cesare Pavese kick plus Peter Bogdanovich's amazing collection of interviews with film directors, "Who The Devil Made It."
Besides fine-tuning our music (not to mention actually learning how to play it!), there are technical considerations to be dealt with: movements on stage, lighting cues, sound cues, costumes. It takes most of these ten days to really get the sound working on stage. We're not using guitar amplifiers because of the potential for excessive onstage loudness but are instead relying on direct amplification through the house system. This leaves the final responsibility in the hands of our sound engineer, Stephan - very competent but perhaps a bit conservative in approach which is probably shaped by the usual sonic hierarchies in theatre: music very quiet in the background underneath the text. We've also had continuous and frustrating problems with the line noise induced into the instrument pickups by the huge lighting system in which we are essentially enclosed. Stephan must rewire everything a number of times to isolate power lines for audio equipment from the lighting transformers. Gain structure is also quite an issue - when going direct into the house, it's more difficult to get the electric instruments to "feel" in the way they do when loud through an amp. There is also an optimum gain to achieve best signal-to-noise ratio and best spectral response from the speakers.
I also have a crisis when at one of the last rehearsals on a Friday night, my Godin goes dead in the middle of a scene. We all try various approaches to finding the problem to no avail. Nothing can be done until Monday and I find out the number of the Godin distributor, PB Music, about 2 hours away in Roermond, Holland. The opera lends me a car and off I go. Thanks to Mario at Godin in Montreal and Roy De Kamp at PB, my guitar is soon working fine with a new preamp.
In Jenseits, the musical voices are often equal to the text and must sometimes overpower it. The actor, Matthias (henceforth referred to as Matze) also uses his voice in various extraordinary ways bringing it nearly into the realm of singing (or as Arnold Schoenberg called it "sprechstimme.") By this rehearsal, essentially a performance for the theatre staff, crew and a few invited friends (& critics), the sound is mostly in place. Still, after viewing a crude video doc of the set, we find a number of things to tweak. There are places where the music must really be a massive wall-of-sound - it's difficult to achieve the true physicality of sound that I feel must appear in these places. Hopefully at tonight's premiere we'll get it!

Sept. 26 Jenseits - Premiere!
We're a bit nervous but also fairly confident. In German theatre, one does not offer "good luck", the French "merde", or the American "break a leg" - instead it's "toi toi toi" over the shoulder - a representation of spitting three times - some take the spitting more literally than others!
This piece has a slow dark beginning, perhaps a bit confusing to an audience trying to figure out a hint of the story or who Matze is portraying and also trying to make sense of the sounds that they are hearing: the opening collage is based on the sound of the air-conditioner in my studio which our director, Thomas, suggested as an all-enveloping soundbed to create a feeling of claustrophobia. I layer it with processed crowd noises and fragmented mobile-phone ringer melodies. On top of that Zeena and I make short statements on our various instruments almost as a way of introducing characters and foreshadowing events and moods. We proceed quite smoothly and energetically through a few scenes without much of a sense of audience reaction until finally there are some titters and outright laughs at some of the outrageous text, simultaneously horrifying and comical. There is one section that I play on bass clarinet that is very exciting to do: I essentially imitate and interpret Matze's speaking, merge into a unison chorus with him while doing kargyraa singing into the horn and manipulating the keys to create an acoustic vocoding effect and then finally take over the sound completely while he mouths the words in karaoke style. Throughout the set, we all maintain a tight concentration (quite necessary as the score and script are complex) and actually have some fun with it. I'm sure this will expand with the following performances.
The full house of 150 reacts most enthusiastically at the end and we're brought out for six curtain calls! We'll see what the reviewers say in the next few days. This is not something I really care about ultimately except for the fact that it will affect how many people come to see us. I've often railed about critics - in the US especially one scratches the surface of a critic to find an embittered and failed artist, out to wreak revenge on those of us who are actually pursuing the muse. It's unfortunate that their opinions decide if we eat and what.

Sept. 27 Jenseits - Day 2
We know in advance that we'll be playing to a small house so expectations are low in terms of response. Not only is it a holiday weekend but there are five simultaneous competing productions in the theater. We're also told that audiences stay away until the critics tell them how to react. If there are good reviews, then the string of five performances next week will be packed.
The house is indeed half-full but we play a more accurate set than the premiere although without the manic energy. Some technical problems do emerge. There are large fresnel lens suspended around the stage which sporadically allow our faces to be turned into horror masks. During my bass clarinet segment, Zeena's comes crashing down. Mine has become twisted out of position so in a later segment, it's all wrong. The worst problem for me is the return of line noise from the lighting - I had thought we had solved this but it happens in unexpected places. I'm furious about it and ask Stephan for my own switch to turn my music-stand light on-and-off so it's only there when I need it. We'll see if it helps. This night, the audience response is ultimately very good and we still get three curtain calls.
Speaking about the show after with friends, the reaction is mixed. Some liked it very much, some questioned the text and felt that there had been too many sex-and-murder theatrical works in the last 5 years and did we need another? A good question (but can you have an opera without sex, murder, and intrigue?)

Sept. 28 Jenseits - Day 3
Another small house but very receptive. We're more energetic tonight but Matze has a bad cold and there is one major trainwreck (with a good recovery.) More noise problems - I've been given my own switch for the musicstand-light but this is not the source of the trouble - we've set some time on Wednesday to solve this - in the meantime, two welcome days off from Jenseits.

Sept. 29 To The Mosel!
Matze brings Zeena and I on fieldtrip down to the Mosel valley to visit his friend Uli Stein, the winemaker, at his vineyard. We hike up the hils into the woods and climb a tower - at the top you can see the Mosel river in all 4 directions because it twists and turns so much. The house is a combination of gasthaus and salon and there are always many people from various scenes hanging out: today they include an American opera singer, Gordon Hawkins, a theatre director from Berlin, a Persian scientist, and more. Uli is fanatical about his winemaking and in it he combines science (advanced studies in organic chemistry) and alchemical poetry.
Returning to Bonn after dinner, we change trains in Koblenz to find that the entire old trainstation has been turned into a McDonald's with all of the station infrastructure now confined to a few wretched instant-looking little units.

Sept. 30 Velocity Of Hue - Kontor Gallery - Koln
This concert was arranged on very short notice by Peter Daners through Wolfgang at A-Musik.
I was very happy to do something different during this time in Bonn and the trip to Koln was much needed. The Kontor gallery is a tiled room, once a dairy store in an interesting neighborhood with Arab, Turkish, and African shops and restaurants plus galleries and cafes. Setting up, I was a bit apprehensive about the sound - the tiles yielded untrammeled reverberation obscuring all detail. Peter assured me that with people this would not be a problem. He was right: the room was full and the sound was great. I played an uninterrupted set on the Godin interfaced to the Powerbook and found a number of new zones to explore and for an encore played a short NYC-style delta slide blues. A great Kurdish meal and return to Bonn.

OCTOBER

Oct. 1 Jenseits - Day 4
The days off give us renewed energy and we take some liberties during the set - a bit looser and lots of fun. Great audience response although the house is only half-full.

Oct. 2 Jenseits - Day 5
The audience receptive but a little quiet. Our most precise performance and we're pleased. Four curtain calls.

Oct. 3 Jenseits - Day 6
Janene has arrived from NYC this morning - I borrow the opera car again to drive to Frankfurt to pick her up. After so many times in this airport, coming, going, and passing through on the way to wherever, it's a bit strange to drive in and drive out!
It's Friday night so there's a bigger audience and the show is bigger for us as well with more expansive sonic gestures and good energy overall despite Matze's wireless vocal mic breaking at one point. Janene last saw the production in rehearsal at Roulette - no way to perceive the full scope of it without the magnificent set and costumes by Andreas Jander - she's impressed.

Oct. 4 Jenseits - Day 7
Our most energetic set yet. Good transitions and interplay. Our producer, Laura Berman, has been away since the premiere working on other projects and she is happily surprised at the progress over the run of shows. Great audience response - 5 curtain calls but who's counting?

Oct. 5 Jenseits - Day 8 - the final show!
It's difficult to believe that the run is at an end. Our director, Thomas Krupa, is kept in Freiburg for emergency rehearsals for another production so we're saddened at his absence for the final show. We pull out the stops for this one and it's seamless and burning though the house is only half-full. 5 curtain calls and then we break it all down and pack it up in the opera van and head to the Turkish restaurant to celebrate.
It's 2 when we're back at the hotel and 5 when we're getting up to drive to Frankfurt airport and our flight to NYC.

Oct 11 Raw Meet - Leipzig Jazz Festival
Two-and-a-half days in NYC to catch up on various things and then back to Germany for the debut concert of Raw Meet. This is the trio with bassist Melvin Gibbs and drummer Lance Carter. I've known them both for years and we've been collaborators in various projects. I first heard them together in Sonny Sharrock's band and we did a tribute to Sonny as part of the set we recorded for Intakt to be released in January.
Smooth flights to Frankfurt and Leipzig and after a nap in the hotel I go for walk around the town to seek out a good espresso and kuchen. The town of course has McDonalds and the usual American/global commercial idiocy but it still has a muted feel that I quite like and the air quality is vastly improved over the coal-burning days of the past. I had last been in Leipzig when it was still part of the DDR in 1986 with Semantics.
We had been warmly hosted by musicologist and presenter Bert Noglik and it was wonderful to reunite with him again - he is the director of this festival. We also run into Rova Sax Quartet and Paul Lytton who are playing the first night along with Ron Carter and group. Playing on the same night as us is the legendary organist Jimmy Smith with guitarist Phil Upchurch. We meet them in the hotel and Jimmy is warm and funny and a little crazy - in great shape at 75. It's also fine to meet Upchurch who made great funky records in the 70's and was a Motown session player before that. The festival is in a 50's-vintage opera house with great acoustics. I can't turn my Fender "The Twin" up above "1" because the stage is so alive - it's neither boomy nor reverberant though and we can hear everything clearly - a pleasure.
At soundcheck Melvin discovers that battery corrosion has disabled his bass. After repair by one of the crew, we now find that my amp has started making intermittent (and unintentional!) rude sounds - this is finally fixed by switching to the high-gain setting. Still, they bring in a Peavey Classic 50 just in case the amp fails. I've brought the Godin LGX3 which I used extensively on the record. I really like the sound of it and the neck contour but find traveling does not agree with the neck stability - the feel is a little off and it takes a while before tuning settles in (of course, the tuning does have to contend with wanging, banging, sliding, and hammering.)
We open the evening and burn through our set - the 65 minutes flashes by, basing the set on the tunes on the record but wandering far afield in the live versions. "Sonny's Way," the tribute to Sharrock, finishes the set ecstatically. The audience response is wild and we're called back for an encore which we make brief, angular, and noisy.

Oct. 12 Velocity Of Hue - Roulette
Back at the hotel well after 2 and up at 7 to get to the airport. Nice flights back to Frankfurt and NY and I have time for a shower, a big pot of espresso and a bite before heading down to Location One where the Roulette concerts are taking place. Soundcheck is smooth and I play a compact set with the Godin acoustic and Powerbook going direct into the sound system to very warm response. Also on the bill is Kenta Nagai playing a beautiful set with a very ritualized air on electric fretless guitar.

Oct. 15-18 Mon Inouie Symphonie Festival - Dunkerque, France
A single day in NY to take care of things then back to JFK on the 14th - I'm getting to know the Lufthansa personnel quite well. Fine flights to Frankfurt then Brussel and picked up and brought to this small city on the North Sea, site of a historic British retreat in WW2. We have lunch at a beachfront restaurant, classic soupe au poissons. The old city was pretty completely destroyed in the war and so Dunkerque has not much in the way of inspiring architecture. It is a port town though and there are many industrial buildings near the water, some disused. One in particular, the Lazerof, has been taken over by a collective of people and transformed into a performance space and cafe and the site of this festival. I get my first view of it at twilight where we assemble for a group dinner.
As part of my festival activities, I'm conducting a workshop based on SyndaKit. There are 8 participants: 2 guitarists, alto sax, trombone, violin, cello, electric bass, and tablas. In the beginning of the first session on the 16th, I present various aspects of improvisational and compositional strategies, both theoretical and historical. I also invite the participants to each play a short solo for the group so that everyone may get to know everyone else's sound. There is a great degree of variance in experience and technique. After the lunch break we begin to work on SyndaKit, starting with unisons and simple imitation/transformation. The second day, the 17th we're able to play the piece a bit though there's still misunderstandings about the "how" and "why." More delving into the sub-processes of the piece and things are feeling much better when we break for soundchecks for that evening. I'm still concerned at how the guitarists are approaching the piece. They tend to fill up all spaces - the electric guitar is so often soloistic that improvisational players of the instrument tend to have difficulties thinking orchestrally and fitting into the prevailing flux - one of the most important aspects of SyndaKit.
The evening begins with a band from Dunkerque including three members of the workshop (and also organizers of the festival.) They play a powerful, Magma/Gong influenced set. There is next a computer-enhanced sound poet and then Tectonics followed by the NYC/DC electro-punk of El Guapo. Tectonics is mostly guitar-oriented this evening though I do use a few soundfiles of processed percussion. I've brought the 8-string and perform a long tapping sequence remaining on the low strings for quite a while then morphing into more trebly and less-pitched percussives. There is also a bass clarinet sequence with extended (and filtered) vocalization. Great response from the full house.
It's planned for us to present SyndaKit for the final night of the festival with our workshop/rehearsal/soundcheck to take place at 5 in the afternoon after the soundcheck of Dutch band The Ex, scheduled from 3 -5. They don't show up until nearly 5 so the schedule is completely thrown off. We have a very rushed soundcheck with only a few minutes to discuss and rehearse and then break for the meal. Some of the musicians are nervous and feeling uncertain but I try to encourage them to operate with a sense of abandon: punkrock and sensitivity combined. We open the evening with a 30 minute version of SyndaKit that has surprisingly powerful unison grooves that transform effortlessly into varied soundscapes. Usually I like to have one or two dummer/percussionists to keep things grooving. The lack of drummers gives the ensemble a great transparency and allows the overtone structures to be clearly audible. Olivier, on tablas, adds wonderful textures and grooves. The audience, the musicians, and myself are quite pleased with the results.
Czapzki also performs this evening - another band made of festival organizers Penelope, Nico, and Anna. Very interesting and surprising set.
Two hours of sleep then a ride to Brussel and the flights back. In Frankfurt, security nabs my nail clipper, the same one that I've carried with me for over 20 years and certainly on all of these recent flights - I'm forced to break off an offending portion of it. My 8-string also elicits interest and I'm sent to the molecular sniffer to determine if it's a terroristic device. The operator there is a guitarist and very excited about my instrument. We have a funny chat and he sends me off to JFK.

Oct. 24 Thomas DiMuzio/E# at Issue - NYC An evening of solos and a duo set.
Thomas uses a Kurzweil 2600 interfaced to Max/MSP and various controllers. His Powerbook crashes a few times during the set but we don't notice - the music is seamless and full of dark brooding textures including a gorgeous section of slowly glissing sinewaves that create bubbling difference tones. For my solo, I perform a 20-minute version of Living Room that enters into surprising sonic areas thanks to the room acoustics which contribute oblique reflections and resonances. Great response and I'm also pleased. The original versions of this piece used the cheapo Apple mic included with many generations of Macs - this no longer works with the Titanium Powerbook so now I'm using a RadioShack dynamic. The sound is functional but the chord is too short - I need to take the capsule out and mount it in a sturdy housing with a long and flexible cable. After a short intermission and very social intermission, we resume with our duo. I'm using my very-compact Traveler guitar, modified to be fretless. It goes out through the PA and is bussed into my computer and into Tom's as well. We go deep into realms where neither of us can tell who is doing what - a sure sign of a successful electro-acoustic event.

Oct. 26 Tilt at Joe's Pub
For this concert, Tilt is performing a version of Coriolis Effect that I've prepared for them. The timbres of this all-brass group (+ drums) work well with the sonic strategy of the composition with hocketed horizontal (melodic) rhythms transforming into vertical (harmonic) textures with dramatic difference-tone effects produced. The piece was composed shortly after the death of Fela Kuti and is dedicated to him and one may detect his influence in Section D.
The evening begins with pieces by trumpeter Dave Ballou and drummer Kevin Norton and finishes with Coriolis to strong applause.

Oct. 31 Festival: Concepts of Doing - Stuttgart, Germany
Crowded flight to Frankfurt with dreaded infants seated next to us - fortunately they were quiet and though the flight was a bumpy one, it was restful - it was followed by a short flight to Stuttgart then a relaxed arrival day with some pre-setup at the hall (a 300-seat blackbox theatre within the new Theatre Stuttgart complex)
This festival is organized by virtuoso acoustic bassist Alexander Frangenheim, whom I first met when collaborating with Zeitkratzer. It operates very much like the English improvising Company events with different combinations of people and projects. The transformer supplied for Janene's video equipment does not work so there's nothing left for us to do but repair to a gasthaus for a typical Schwabian dinner in town.
The next day we have time for a thorough soundcheck and setup but the new transformer still doesn't work! At least the house sound equipment and acoustics are great and the sound engineer is my old friend Pit Schmidt from Tubingen. Finally, later that day we get a good transformer and we're completely up and running. On this first evening, the first trio is scheduled to play for 20 minutes but after a 30 minute set of desultory improvisation (with the commencement of the evening already delayed by 20 minutes), they play another piece, going on for another 15 minutes. Why do improvisers continue to do this? It's insulting and disrespectful to the other performers and is rarely artistically enlightening for anyone. Okay. Next up, a 10-minute set of Janene doing video with three dancers. The first block finishes with a stunning set of pungent dance/music improvisation between Yumiko Tanaka on shamisen and dancer Fine Kwiatkowski. It's powerful, exciting, and concise.
The second block begins with a trio of Serge, Boris, and myself on bass clarinet. We're given a 10-minute chunk but we agree ahead of time to keep it brief and indeed, it clocks in at 7 minutes and is fairly action-packed with noisy textures and jagged shifts. Next is Gunther Christmann with some super-8 films he has made over the years. They're graphic and wry and engaging. He accompanies parts on cello, part are interactions with dancers.
The last block, a 40' piece by Janene and I, "Suspension," is played to a half-empty house due to the length of the previous acts and the exceptionally long changeover time between sets. Janene has prepared a visual symphony using material she has shot, processed and edited, presented both from DVD's and her Powerbook, and all mixed live using two video mixers. I use the Godin Duet acoustic, a Boomerang, and the Powerbook running my Max/MSP patch to utilize various plug-ins as well as soundfile playback - I use some Tectonics drum grooves as well as some newer textural things. We've performed this piece before and rehearsed in NY so it goes down well with good energy, interaction, and shape.

November

Nov. 1 Concepts of Doing 2
There is some discussion during the day about the logistical and esthetic problems encountered in the previous night's performance and stage set-up is planned to maximize efficiency in changeover with most setups remaining onstage. First up is a Carl Stone composition with Alexander and Yumiko both playing and wonderfully vocalizing combined with Carl's processing and samples. It's powerful and earthy. Next is a duo between violinist Maartje Ten Hoorn and dancer David Zambrano. Witty and a good length. After the break, a string trio with Alexander, Christmann, and Maartje. I do a 10-minute piece with dancer Isabelle Schad - there's some power in it and she wears a strangely funny bleached-blonde wig. Another break and the final block begins with the trio of Carl, Yumiko and I. I start with bass clarinet and after about 7 minutes switch to guitar. We pass gestures and sounds freely and forcefully. After 20 minutes, different combinations of the dancers as well as Maartje join us. A prescheduled black-out at exactly 40 minutes ends the evening precisely.

Nov. 7 Terraplane w/ Hubert Sumlin - Belfast Festival - Belfast, N. Ireland
The day before departure, we're saddened to learn that our saxophonist, Sam Furnace, has been scheduled for a medical treatment that will prevent him from making the tour. It's necessary for his recovery so this is ultimately a VERY good thing! The Serious organization, finds a replacement for us, Tony Kofi, who knows and has played with both Sam and Curtis Fowlkes. He will meet us in Belfast.
JFK at the United terminal is the normal chaos - they can't figure out how to get our bags routed to Belfast even though I tell them that they're using the wrong city code. It's finally straightened out. We sit on the tarmac for 90 minutes because of thunderstorms but the flight itself is okay - brief areas of turbulence are gravely announced by the captain as if we're going to be encountering the ultimate terror - they prove to be inconsequential - something that Lufthansa would just treat with a "seatbelts" light. It's probably a result of the typically litigious American business culture. It has an upsetting effect on most of the passengers around me though. We finally land in London and after a 2-hour layover make the short flight to Belfast.
Our hotel is way out in the boonies - it's quite nice but remote. Still, arrival-day spent relaxing is not a bad thing. The next afternoon we head for the venue, The Guinness Spot, on the university campus. Empty, with fluorescent illumination and a sticky floor, it doesn't present an appealing first impression - we're assured it will be transformed later, and indeed, with lights and a packed house of 500 (the show was sold-out three weeks in advance), it becomes a funky roadhouse. At soundcheck/rehearsal, the acoustics are daunting - very reflective but again, the audience absorbs much of that. We have a great sound engineer/road manager traveling with us, Bill Strode, who eases the pain of unfamiliar stages and rooms.
We play two long sets beginning with the horn band (with Tony playing as if he'd been with us for years), next bringing up Eric Mingus, and finally Hubert. With Hubert, we begin with the classic Sittin' On Top Of The World and then move on to other Howlin' Wolf songs. As I've mentioned before, Hubert had a lung removed last year and doesn't have his full singing strength so Eric sings most of the Wolf songs with Hubert again taking over on Howlin' For My Darling before we finish the set with Stop That Thing, Hubert burning it up.
Second set follows the first in structure except for the fact that we're on fire. Perhaps the inflow of fresh Guinness is inspiring to my bandmates? In any case, after not playing together for months as Terraplane, it's a great pleasure. After fiery versions of Oil Blues and Please Don't, Hubert returns to sing and play Little Red Rooster, always a thrill for me. It's a little strange to be playing the licks that I learned from Hubert off of Wolf records right to him - the irony is certainly not lost on him as he flashes me a little grin when I hit him with one of his lines, lines etched deeply into my ears and fingers. The band really begins to meld in this set with lots of funny chances taken - near trainwrecks that yield beautiful and gnarly structures, especially on Back Door Man where we approach Bitches Brew territory. Hubert finishes the set with us including an uptempo Lost Souls. Huge acclaim brings us back for a long pulsing encore somewhere between Rollin' and Tumblin' and psychedelic trance.
We're back at the airport the next afternoon for our return flight to London where we meet our driver, Patrick, and have our first ride in the posh and comfortable bus that will be our home and transport for the next week: upper and lower lounges, sleeping berths, refrigerators, coffee-maker, microwave, DVD decks, etc etc.

Nov. 9 Medecine Bar - Birmingham
After a night off in London, we head north to Birmingham, a relaqtively short trip of 3.5 hours. The Medecine Bar is a stark concrete room in an old converted industrial complex called The Custard Factory. The hollow stage is quite high and fronted by massive speaker cabinets and the combination of concrete, glass, and the rather cubical shape make for a big boom. As usual, we're told that the presence of an audience will tame the sound and it turns out to be true. In fact, the combination of factors yields a pleasing resonance and springiness to the sound - the guitars sound especially fat and sustained. Amazing version of Backdoor Man in the first set, assymetrically grooving with the One shifting precariously. Wang Dang Doodle contains inspired crosstalk and an ecstatic alto solo by Tony. Hubert continues to amaze with his biting tone, spontaneous invention, and incredible exuberance.
We have a brief sojourn at the hotel post-gig then drive all night, 11 hours to Aberdeen. The berths in the bus are somewhat coffin-like, a claustrophobic's nightmare, but actually quite comfortable once you settle in.

Nov. 10 Lemon Tree - Aberdeen, Scotland
First gig in Scotland for myself and most of Terraplane. Haggis and single-malts are prime topics of conversation as we approach Aberdeen (the haggis reminded me of a salty bran-muffin in taste and texture. I liked it. No extra comments necessary regarding the single-malts.) The Lemon Tree is a club with a very open and spacious layout, standing audience in the front and tables on the elevated rear. Top notch sound-equipment. First set is very precise and even burning in places but we feel a slight wall with the audience - very reserved. They loosen up quite a bit with the second set but unfortunately, the club is licensed to operate only until midnight so we must cut the set at that point just after Lost Souls when things are finally taking off. We do a 3-minute version of They Say They Is as an encore.

Nov. 11 The Bistro - Newcastle
This club operates inside the old opera house, no longer used for productions. A long thin room and a small stage - the layout is awkward but the sound is quite good. We begin the evening by starting Work Or Leave from the hallway outside of the room, walking around the audience to reach the stage. They're seated but warm and engaged. We play 2 long encores and meet and greet many people after.

Nov. 12 Opera - Royal Northern College of Music - Manchester
This 600-seat hall with a spacious stage has a big sound for the instruments even without amplification. Bill generates a thunderous roar for us and we're swinging from start to finish (except for an Oil Blues trainwreck - nearly fatal.) Hubert plays some unbelievable chords and licks in They Say We Is - jagged and sonic.

Nov. 14 Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer - London
Not optimistic about this one going in: a number of groups playing short sets live from the Foyer on BBC3 for the opening of the London Jazz Festival. It's potentially a logistical nightmare and, in fact, soundcheck takes much longer than it should. We have the first soundcheck and the last set of this concert. The BBC crew is very competent and the sound is quite good considering that we're in a vast open room with huge glass windows. While checking the tuba, David manages to blow one of the woofers in the PA stacks.
Earlier on the bill is Dhafer Yusuf, a wonderful Moroccan musician who sings and plays oud and is an old friend whom I first met in Wien. He's using a Line6 Delay on both his voice and oud and plays a magical solo set. We're on after a more mainstream jazz group who typically play a set far longer than their alloted time slot. When the time comes for our 20-minute set, we play a compact and tight Work Or Leave then bring Hubert and Eric up for blistering versions of Wang Dang Doodle and Lost Souls. We had expected an indifferent response from what we thought would be a "jazz audience" but we were blown away by the applause and cheers.

Nov. 15 Jazz Radio live show
Hubert and I are guests on the Paul Jones show "Jazz Me Blues" on a small London jazz radio station. Paul is very knowledgeable about Hubert and a huge fan and has done his homework on me as well. Besides having cogent interviews, Paul plays various records of Hubert's and of Terraplane and we play three improvised blues live in the studio with Hubert playing into a small Peavey amp - I play using a direct input using my GT3 preamp and monitor with headphones. Tuning is a bit out on the first number but we tighten it up for the rest of the set and have some fun.

Spitz - London
After the radio set, we cruise through the afternoon rush-hour traffic passing through the Mall and are amused at the plethora of American flags erected to welcome W, the "president of the US" due in London in a few days. For welcome balance, there's also an ample set of anti-Bush signs and information tables.
We arrive at the Spitz club, a trendy restaurant in east London with two live rooms. We're in the larger one upstairs with a capacity of about 300 and a tight stage in the middle. Looming over us is the balcony/backstage area giving the overall impression of a low-ceilinged basement. Sound is quite good and we play two sets to a packed and rowdy house with many friends in attendance, the perfect final show for this tour. After the second set's Wang Dang Doodle, Toni brings out a blue Strat-shaped cake in honor of Hubert's birthday. The entire crowd joins in singing and we bring it home.

Nov. 18 40th Nuove Consonanze Festival - Rome
I leave London for Rome on the 16th for a collaboration with the Logos Ensemble at this long-running institution in the more academic wing of New Music. We rehearse Saturate and SyndaKit on the 17th and again on the day of performance. Saturate was composed in 1993 for the Dutch ensemble Loos for the Rotterdam Festival. Their performance then was sorely missing the salient features of the composition and I found it an altogether unsatisfactory experience. For no great reasons, I had not pursued another manifestation of the piece until Cristiano Becherucci of Logos approached me about this event. The instrumentation of Logos worked well for Saturate (with a little tweaking) so it seemed an appropriate opportunity to hear the piece performed correctly. They are a group of outstanding musicians with a 20-year history as an ensemble collaborating with such composers and musicians as Luciano Berio and Otomo Yoshihide. More info about them here.
The concert began with Saturate - unfortunately a peal of feedback from an open microphone threw off the musicians for the first 10 seconds or so. They quickly regained momentum and rendered a beautiful version of the piece - the transformative hockets worked extremely well. I've used this device in various compositions of the last 10 years or so and it allows a horizontal sound (melodic/rhythmic) to be gradually transformed into one that is vertical (harmonic/textural) - it also operates in reverse. Next was a 30-minute solo Tectonics set making no use of groove soundfiles but with many generated between 2-hand tapping, GRM Tools, and Boomerang. Finally we performed a dynamic 30-minute SyndaKit with each of the 6 musicians using 2 sets of 12 Cores.

December 2003 - On tour at home

Dec. 8 Velocity Of Hue - Issue - NYC
I've been greatly enjoying being back in NYC though mostly sequestered in the studio working on the score for director Jonathan Berman's film "Commune" about the Black Bear clan in California late-60's - early 70's. I was quite happy to finally get out and play live again. This "sort-of-a-record-release-party" was planned a month earlier with nary a thought as to weather - December is usually fairly mild in NY. The snow flurries began in the late morning with about 3 inches of accumulation by the late afternoon. By Buffalo standards, just a dusting but a real factor here. Still, we didn't even think of cancelling the concert even though more snow was predicted for the evening. Issue is literally out the rear window of my studio so transporting my guitar and computer just meant a short trudge through the snow. However, it would seriously affect audience attendance so I expected only a few friends to show up. During the days of Carbon, a scheduled concert in NYC was almost certain to bring forth apocalyptic weather so this was a return to form. Bad weather seems to bring out a wonderfully perverse intrepidness in New Yorkers though, and to my surprise, I played to a full house.
First set was acoustic-only and I found some new sound techniques and approaches within the D-minor tuning and the 35-minute span. Second set added the computer and again, I felt energized by the situation and played a 50-minute set with a variety of contrasting sections. This evening I especially enjoyed the GRM Resonator using it to generate both rich warm feedback with shifting vocalized drones and to create gamelan-like textures with two-hand harmonic tapping.
After the concert, a friend in attendance told me the exciting news that the film Lo Que Soño Sebastian that I had been working on last summer has been accepted into the Sundance film festival.

Dec. 10 Amnesty International Benefit - Tonic NYC
This event was organized by producer Dougie Bowne, an old friend and great musician who among many other projects has drummed for Iggy Pop and The Lounge Lizards. Featured this evening were first the trio of Sylvie Courvoisier, Ikue Mori, and Dougie (on synth guitar) followed by a spirited set by Arto Lindsay, Anton Fier, and John Zorn. I performed next with the Velocity Of Hue Godin guitar to a wonderful response. Next was Jim O'Rourke playing piano with an electronic filtered drone in a beautifully static set. The house was full throughout the evening and audience was incredibly attentive throughout.

Road Reports 2002Writings Road Reports 2004

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