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Road Reports 2009
(click pics to enlarge)

For upcoming concert dates, go here

January

January 1 St. Mark's Poetry Project Benefit - NYC
A chance to run into many people whom I rarely see except for this event. We bring the twins who have a great time backstage and don't make too much of a nuisance though I'm sure there are some who find their presence annoying. They climb in and out of my guitar case, eat pizza, chase each other around, laugh and sing. Great sets from Marty Ehrlich, Patti Smith/Lenny Kaye, Emily XYZ and much more. I've brought the Tricone and perform a bluesy improvisation culminating in a North African sounding segment of polyrhythmic tapping. We're getting ready to leave when I see Tracie Morris. Her guitarist can't make it so I'm recruited for her piece about domestic abuse - a sonic and textual recasting of "Cheek To Cheek." I don't know the song so try for harmolodic swing rhythm guitar - the plunkiness of the tricone giving Tracie's vocals a twisted old-time feel. She adds an ominous percussive cross rhythm on her cheek as she sings.

January 10 - Sirius String Quartet - Warhol Museum - Pittsburgh
I've been invited by Music On The Edge's Mathew Rosenblum (who is a professor at University of Pittsburgh) to join the Sirius String Quartet (Gregor Huebner, Fung Chern Hwei, Ron Lawrence, Dave Eggar) in a concert in the theater at the Warhol Museum as well as to do a presentation on my work to his composition class. The quartet arrives in Pittsburgh the day before me to do a reading of student works.
La Guardia is empty on the morning of the 9th and the weather is fine for this short flight though we face pretty serious gustiness as we take off. Pittsburgh is abuzz with ominous weather forecasts predicting five to eight inches of snow plus ice and freezing rain. I spend the afternoon working on the Binibon score and dozing then awaken to over an inch of snow. It's still snowing lightly when we all meet for a great Vietnamese dinner at the extremely popular restaurant Tran's where we discuss the impending apocalyptic weather.
The morning of the 10th reveals a tiny bit of ice and freezing rain but the predictions are still grim. Good turnout for my talk which lasts over 90 minutes. Great to see composer/pianist Amy Williams there as well as her father Jan Williams who besides being a phenomenal percussionist, also provided great encouragement to us young composers back in Buffalo days. I started the talk by playing recorded excerpts of "On Corlear's Hook" and "Eye In The Sky" as a way in to discussing my strategies for composing and scoring, the state of being both composer and performer, and current plans and activities. Some excellent questions and then it's time to meet the Quartet and head to the Warhol for soundcheck, a simple process.
The winter storm is a total dud - there's only a slight bit of freezing rain, an annoyance but hardly the disaster that everyone was led to believe was imminent. Another case of "Amber Alert" syndrome: the tendency after 9/11 and Homeland Stupidity's example to overinflate the danger of everyday occurrences.
Badly needing caffeination after soundcheck, I set out over the nearby bridge (quite icy and slippery) to the "Culture District" in hopes of finding an espresso. The only thing open is a sportsbar where I order a double espresso and am served a tiny cup of wretched and watery coffee that tastes like it was the leftovers from a greasy-spoon breakfast. I'm presented with a $6.50 bill for it and express outrage to the bartender. He quickly bargains himself down to $3.99 - okay, whatever. I pay and head back to the Warhol.
The show is sold out and the house is crackling as we begin the evening with the quartet's beautiful rendition of "Dispersion of Seeds" followed by Gregor's exciting multi-movement "String Quartet No. 3" after which I perform fifteen minutes of "Momentum Anomaly". Everything sounded fantastic in soundcheck but the packed house absorbs most of the resonance and natural room reverberation and so I'm shocked on beginning with the flatness of the sound of my Godin. I signal frantically to the engineer to raise my monitor level and soon I'm able to forget about the sound and just play. The entire first set meets with great response and there's no audience attrition for the second set which begins with a piece by Fred Frith and concludes with "Volapuk", my graphic score composed for Gunnar Geisse's Munich guitar quartet, here arranged for the string quartet plus my guitar. Great sonics and wonderfully creative interpretation from the group and we finish the evening to extended applause then head out for drinks and food, our first stop a huge church converted to a micro-brewery. If only more churches (and synagogues and mosques) could be converted into something useful! Early call in the morning for our drive back to NYC in a rented van. We make great time making the trip in just over six hours.

January 12 - Velocity of Hue solo - Company of Heaven Jazz Festival - Monkeytown - Brooklyn
The festival is actually a showcase organized by Company of Heaven to feature some of its roster of artists, yours truly included. I head over the bridge to Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, arriving just in time for my set. The venue is actually part of a Pan-Asian restaurant and the performance space is the center of a 25'x25' square room with long low couches enclosing the space and video projections on the walls. One sets up in the center and is surrounded by diners. A strange feeling: the performer is very much the focus but at the same time, not. I plug directly into the mixing desk and the sound has good level but the house system is EQ'd for electronic dance music with lots of bass and high-treble but no midrange clarity. The Godin sounds both muffled and edgy at the same time. It's difficult to make the tapped harmonics sing but I dig right in without thinking too much about the sound and enjoy revisiting this material. Good response then a quick pack-up and back to Manhattan.

January 14 Noodle Shop - Le Poisson Rouge - Manhattan
Out of the blue, I received an email from John Kruth, author and multi-instrumentalist, about reviving our Noodle Shop project (aptly named for the pasta-like approah to our collective improvisations.) Revival is actually a misnomer as Noodle Shop made only one CD in 1999 and never performed. The original lineup inlcuded Kruth on mandocello, mandolin, and various flutes and double-reed instruments; Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven on electric guitar and violin; Attila Engin on drums; and myself on baritone guitar, steel guitar, and alto sax. For this gig, drummer Billy Ficca (of Television) joined us along with a brief guest appearance from vocalist/fiddler Jolie Holland. As with the original recording, we planned nothing in the set , only briefly hinting at some Appalachian songs with Jolie at soundcheck. Le Poisson Rouge is owned by musicians and is extremely well-appointed: excellent PA equipment and layout plus a friendly and helpful crew. Still, soundcheck took way too long and the house bass amp that I used with the baritone guitar was pretty wonky.
Dogbowl began the evening with his intense songs accompanied only by his electric guitar and later in the set, with Kruth added. We hit wailing with John on zurna while I played my curved soprano and Jonathan and Billy building big waves. The set touched on fractured funk and something that almost sounded like Nigerian pop. Jolie joined us about halfway through and things took a lovely Celtic turn which I eventually felt compelled to subvert with bass clarinet, sometimes played sans mouthpiece like a tuba, and later with slashing baritone chords. Some very psychedelic moments interspersed throughout a basically folky flavor. Perhaps a higher ratio of meat to noodles would have been welcome but we all had a lot of fun. I'd long admired the group Television and Billy's rocking but orchestrated drumming. He and I played together about 20 years previously in a swing session at the old Ear Inn but this was the first time since then. With baritone guitar, I was bridging the gap between bass and the higher frequencies but in the absence of a "real" bass player, found myself drawn towards that mode of functioning.

January 17 Future of the Blues - Brecht Forum - NYC
Organized by WFMU's Kurt Gottschalk, this event started with a panel discussion and concluded with a concert. Kurt asked Cooper-Moore and I to first speak on our relationship to the blues including definitions, first hearing, first playing. Cooper-Moore grew up in northern Virginia and had first-hand experiences with a front-porch bluesman. My awareness of the blues began with The Yardbirds and Rolling Stones but my listening was then exponentially expanded through library LP's, my experience as a DJ at WRCT, and in mutual searches with friends also interested in guitar and the blues. My first hearing of slide guitar (Fred McDowell on an Alan Lomax Sounds of the South) LP blew my mind and opened my ears. Some good audience questions and exchanges between the three of us onstage after which we break to prepare for the concert.
Loren Mazzacane-Connors opened with a set on electric guitar with fragmented bittersweet melodies alternating with chordal sequences and noise. It's not technical music at all but it is very affecting. Next Cooper-Moore did a typically revelatory set using his homemade instruments: a small fife, an amplified mouth bow, and his frame drums accompanying his singing. His mouth-bow solo alone encapsulated the entire history of the blues from the most primitive diddley-bow to envelope-filtered futuristic funk. Next I performed a 30-minute Velocity of Hue/Quadrature set after which Cooper-Moore joined me on drums for a very intuitive and energizing musical conversation. I've known Cooper-Moore since 1987 when I first heard him from a block away playing Bach on a large electric diddley-bow. I was trying to figure out what I was hearing as i approached the intersection of Broadway and Canal where he had set up. During his break, we spoke and agreed to meet - especially as he lived only a block away from me. We had some very enjoyable jams but never found an opportunity to perform together before this. Now, it will certainly happen again!

January 22 "Is That Jazz?" Festival - Good Shepherd Center - Seattle
Early ride to JFK for my flights to San Francisco then on to Seattle where I'm picked up by the organizer, guitarist and composer Tom Baker whom I first met through the Unfretted Festival. I have some chill time at Al Kaatz' house and then head down to the venue for a bite and soundcheck. The venue is a beautiful concert hall within what was a large religious school and is now a cultural center, an evolution that I applaud. The room is perfect for acoustic and lightly amplified music and my Godin Duet Multiac sounds excellent through the small PA. I set up the computer as well to do some processing and Ableton Live is acting up - erratic routing and sound levels. I finally tweak things to my satisfaction and then greet old Seattle friends before the concert begins with Tom's group, The Triptet, a trio that often sounds much larger with a shifting blend of interaction and solos - not sharply etched but meditative and fluid.
I begin with slide and E-Bow for a longish set of Velocity of Hue/Quadrature material to great response. I'm enjoying the Godin's sound and response and don't feel a burning desire to use the computer but since it's there, I might as well. Unfortunately, the computer has returned to an uncooperative mode and no audio is being output even though I can see the levels of the input signal within the mixer in the software. It's not worth dwelling on and certainly not worth interrupting the flow to find the problem so I return to the previous gesture.
In the days of my Virtual Stance project of 1986-90 when I used the software M with an Atari ST computer, it was not a question of if the computer would crash but when. I kept my 16-second delay on one side of the stereo output and a Digitech 8-second on the other so that when the crash occurred, I could grab whatever was in the buffers and loop it until the computer rebooted. This sometimes required lifting the computer about 12" above the table and dropping it (gently) to re-seat the D-RAM's.
After completing the VelHue material, I perform Monk's Bemsha Swing and the evening is finished.
The next day, in a bank in the U-district, I run into Tom Varner, a french horn player and transplanted New Yorker. I enjoy a rare day off in Seattle with Al and Kimie and on Saturday leave their house at 0530 to catch my flight to Washington-Dulles and from there to NYC, the small Embraer jet heaving and bouncing in some seriously shifting wind blasts as we make our final approach into LaGuardia over Jamaica Bay.

February

February 15 Ches Smith/Adam Minkoff/E# Trio - Rose Live - Brooklyn
I was greatly looking forward to this improvised set at the little bar in Williamsburgh that is Rose Live as I'd been feeling a bit cooped up with most of my time spent in the studio working on a commissioned string quartet "The Boreal" to be performed by Jack Quartet at Witten Festival this spring as well as on "Ecliptical," a piece for Magnus Andersson to be performed on 10-string classical guitar (a monstrous beast), and on the Binibon score. On the Thursday before I begin to feel waves of chills and pretty soon I'm down with a raging fever. Ibuprofen and espresso keeps me together enough to finish some work and pick up the kids at school. I then spend the next 60 hours mostly flat on my back with the high fever, muscle aches, and general exhaustion of influenza. I rarely fall ill but when I do, it's usually intense! It's looking as if the gig will have to be cancelled, a disturbing thought as I've NEVER cancelled a gig due to illness in over 40 years of playing (more if I count my childhood music career as a classical pianist and then clarinetist). On Saturday night I give Adam the heads up about finding a sub but later that evening find myself relaxing with a very comfortable 100.9 F and the next morning feel almost human. I run up to the studio to pack a guitar and some pedals and while there, have a relapse of the fever. I try to rest but I'm shaking with the chills - I don't want to know what the thermometer reads but I'm vibrating so much that I wouldn't even be able to use one. Get a car service with my equipment back down to the apartment and try to rest in the warmth after consuming 600mg of ibuprofen and a liter of water. Eating has been nearly impossible as the illness has destroyed my sense of smell rendering all food quite unpalatable. Finally as evening approaces, I cram down some toast and coffee and head over to the club. I hadn't been to this venue before and was surprised by it's homey and funky vibe. I run into Tony Buck, drummer of The Necks (on tour in the US) at the bar and Okkyung Le and trumpeter Thomas Herberer are just finishing their set - soon we're ready to play. What followed was a very vital set of improvised rock with jazzy and noisy overtones. We shift gestures on a dime (thanks partly to the intimacy of the stage) with no conscious contact or discussion. We find it amusing that a number of people ask if we'd rehearsed this set for a long time. Adam and Ches are both extremely inventive and virtuosic on their instruments without ever resorting to ostentatious displays of empty chops. Each gesture feels composed, inevitable. I've brought a sweet Warmoth guitar that I purchased quite inexpensively on EBay last year: an imitation of a rare Gibson L5S. It has a bolt-on neck but other than that, has the vibe and feel of a small hollowbody jazz guitar - warm and resonant, excellent for chords and textures. When I hit it hard during some heavy-metal wank sections, I find that it compresses a bit rather than giving out with a just a little more sound as would a Fender. Still, quite an enjoyable instrument to play and featherweight to boot. The 60 minutes goes in a flash and we finish to strong applause. We play one more short piece then call it with plans to meet again. The adrenalin of the gig makes me feel quite well though the fever returns in the morning.

February 28 Velocity of Hue - Cinema Babylon - Berlin
Sit down in my seat on the 747 at JFK and close my eyes and I'm out - wake briefly for take-off then again somewhere over the Atlantic and then just before landing - very smooth flight! Time for breakfast in Frankfurt Airport then a quick flight to Berlin. My case comes out rapidly at the baggage carousel but I'm disturbed to see that my "insurance" strap is missing - this is a web-strap that wraps around the case and only becomes functional if the zippers on the case are destroyed by the thugs in baggage handling. This has happened before and the presence of that strap has prevented my things from being lost or scattered. This looks like the work of Homeland Stupidity, and sure enough, when I open the case to make sure everything is there, I find a total shambles. I make a point of packing carefully and efficiently with the guitar pedals in individual protective cases, cables and power supplies also in their own cases, everything then in a zipper-bag, likewise my clothing and a box of CD's. This makes separating out materials for hotel and stage quick and simple. The sight presented to me is chaos totale - a complete mess with everything dumped loose in the case: pedals, clothes, CD's, cables. At first glance, nothing seems to be missing so there's nought to be done except head for the hotel and at least enjoy some chill time there before meeting Maurice deMartin and Reinhold Friedl (and Julia and kinder) for a great dinner. Saturday is also relaxed with a chance to read and then meet with Manuel Göttsching and Ilona Ziok before soundcheck. I head to the Babylon at 6, a beautiful cinema complete with pipe organ for silent film accompaniment. The room seems to be acoustically flat at first but as I check my sound i discover an 8ms slapback in the reflections - not in itself a big issue. I do have problems though setting up - none of the electronics seems to be working. I find that some of the plugs do not seat solidly in the jacks - I eventually shuffle the cables around until everything is solid and working. Stage sound is clear and powerful. Besides the Godin, I've brought the Boomerang, UltraFuzz, a volume pedal, and the laptop. I can use the (not so pure) acoustic sound of the guitar or fade in the pedals and/or the computer. I start my set a bit tentatively, trying to get a good signal from the EBow which takes a bit of time - maybe 10 seconds (though 10 seconds on-stage in front of 400 people can feel like 20 minutes.) Once i get it, I'm off, running through various modules from Velocity of Hue and Quadrature and getting an especially rich sound from the tapping and harmonics. I finish my 45 minute set to great response after which pianist Hermann Keller plays both prepared acoustic and electric piano - sometimes noisy, sometimes kitschy, followed by Marc Ribot's solo electric set also alternating noise, 30's jazz, and bluesy kitsch. We hang at the theater for a bit then I head to the hotel to catch a little sleep before my early flight to Frankfurt and from there on to NYC where the twins have cooked up a surprise birthday greeting for me when I walk in the door.

March

March 5 E#3 - Two Boots Pizza
This is a favorite place for the twins and we were all surprised to see it closed in January. Turned out that it was only for re-modeling and for the opening. owner Phil Hartman (who I've know throught the art-scene for many years), asked me to bring in a trio to play some blues. A perfect little gig: close to home and early enough for Janene to bring the twins. For this hit, the E#3 included my longstanding colleague Dave Hofstra on bass and Don McKenzie on drums. I brought the lime-green Strat and a small but tasty Fender Princeton amp. We played two sets ranging through songs by Howlin' Wolf, Freddie King, Thelonious Monk, The Meters, Muddy Waters, Earl King, pedal steel-player Herb Remington, and even a little E# from the first Terraplane CD. Lots of fun in the packed house and Lila and Kai and their friend Emma enjoyed playing Don's drums during the break.

March 6 Nels Cline/Alex Cline/Steuart Liebig/Jeff Gauthier/E# - Museum of Neon Art - Los Angeles
Up at 0430 to get to the airport for a fine flight to Los Angeles. This trip to LA was originally planned for a performance of Manuel Göttsching's guitar trio at Royce Hall. Unfortunately, a battle ensued between Royce's management and Manuel's and the gig was cancelled just 3 weeks before. I had a ticket that was not refundable or changeable so I sent the word out to Carl Stone, Titus Levi, and promoter Rocco Somazzi of Angel City Jazz Festival. Fortunately, Rocco, working together with Jeff Gauthier of Cryptogrammophone was able to set up two shows at two very different and quite interesting spaces. On the 6th, we did two sets of an improvising rock quartet, loud and turbulent, joined halfway through each by Jeff on violin. The space is filled with classic neon art that has been rescued from ignominy as well as new works commissioned by the gallery. Acoustics a bit murky (not to mention a bit of a hum problem!) but a fun place and packed with people including Carl, Titus, Sara Parkins, and other old friends. Along with the Godin and various pedals, the lime-green Strat came with me to LA - I like it's feel and sound but it's also very hum-resistant. It was arranged for me to stay in the historic Culver Hotel in Culver City, famed as the hotel where all of the munchkins were housed during the filming of The Wizard Of Oz. The munchkins apparently had wild sex orgies and trashed the place.

March 7 Velocity of Hue - Royal-T - Culver City
A relaxed day including a drive to Santa Monica with Nels to the incredible Truetone Music where we run into Ry Cooder. The Royal-T is a huge space combining art galleries, a bookstore and other shops, and a cafe/restaurant run by Rocco whose hospitality is unmatched. This was the first time that Rocco was presenting music at the Royal-T, an uncertain proposition as audiences like familiarity. The performance area had quite decent acoustics, perfect for my Godin. Not an overwhelming crowd but a decent turnout and the feedback loop between us felt fine. More old friends in attendance: Manuel Göttsching and Ilona Ziok (who also came to LA despite the cancellation at Royce), Maggie Parkins, Paul Diamond, Carla Bozulich, G.E. Stinson. The first set is Velocity of Hue/Quadrature material and in the second I perform Momentum Anomaly, Bemsha Swing/Epistrophy, and a blues abstraction. Lots of new directions in this evenings' sets. Post-gig hang and then back to the hotel for 2 hours sleep before my 0600 flight back to NYC.

March 9 Binibon Reading & Fundraiser - Harvestworks
In addition to the work of creating the music, refining the script, casting the actors, and developing costumes and set, an important aspect of mounting a large music-theater work is fundraising, a daunting task in these times! Binibon will run May 6-9 at the Kitchen and they are providing us with approximately 25% of what we need to manifest the production, leaving the rest for us to raise. I've been selling some of my instruments and electronics on EBay to generate capital for the project (painful but necessary) and we've received a few small grants. Now we are reaching out to friends and supporters, near and far, and asking for donations (fully tax-deductible.)
Dear readers, anyone who may wish to contribute, whether large or small, may send checks earmarked for Binibon to my producer, Beth Morrison Projects (a 501c3 corporation) at 305 E. 93rd St, 4B, New York, NY 10128. This event was hosted by Harvestworks (where my first opera, Innosense, was performed in 1981) and director Carol Parkinson introduced us followed by a brief talk from producer Beth Morrison. I then spoke about the genesis and development of the project after which author Jack Womack spoke about his approach to the script. Finally, we did a 30-minute reading of Binibon highlights with Jack doing all parts with my accompaniment on guitar, tenor sax, and computer. I even sang two of the songs that will be sung by cast members. Beth spoke again about fundraising to cap the event.

March 10 Jenny Lin/E# - Brooklyn College
An afternoon concert in a series organized by drummer/percussionist and BC faculty member Brian Wilson. We interspersed our performances with talks about the works to be played and the concepts behind them. Jenny opened with a piece by Gabriela Ortiz inspired by Ligeti and Debussy after which we performed Suberrebus with my computer processing working especially well. Next I performed a short selection of Velocity of Hue elements on the Godin followed by a free-ranging 20-minute duo improvisation. We finished with Q&A from the assembled student audience.

March 16 Velocity of Hue - Bar Matchless - Greenpoint
An event organized by Escape By Ostrich, the lastest band incarnation of Chris Nelson and Willie Klein whose roots extend to the seminal late '70's NYC No Wave bands Information and Mofungo and extending through The Scene Is Now and Eyeball 9000. There were also short sets by electronic artists Mark McGuire, Stellar Om Source, and Infinity Window. Escape By Ostrich dished up a powerful set of rock variety, ranging from No Wave noise through "classic" rock tropes with Willie and Bob Bannister on guitars, Robert Dennis on drums, and Chris on bass. It was great to see/hear twin Stratocasters. Alternative rock seems to have banished the Strat (which I favor) for the Jazzmaster and Jaguar, inferior both ergonomically and sonically IMHO. Set-up times were slow and my set was up an hour later than planned. Bad house XLR cable slowed things down more. Finally working and had to deal with a less-than-optimum monitor EQ'd for punkrock vocals with no apparent audible frequencies outside of the narrow band of 300-1500 hz. I relied mostly on what I could hear of the house sound and played a concentrated 45-minute set to great response.

March 25 - Duo Antoine Berthaume/E# - La Sala Rossa - Montreal, Quebec
Easy flight to Montreal and a quick soundcheck after some chill time at the hotel. La Sala Rossa is an old wooden ballroom with great acoustics upstairs from an excellent Spanish restaurant. Antoine first visited me at Studio zOaR a few years ago - we improvised together and he gave some CD's of his that I liked very much. Later he proposed a duo recording for the Quebecois label Ambiences Magnetiques which we recorded at my place and was mixed by him in Montreal. The CD, BASE, was released last year but this was our first opportunity to present the collaboration in concert.
I've brought the solidbody 8-string and various pedals and laptop. Antoine has both electric and acoustic guitars and a number of pedals. We dig right in with layered loops and dark textures that explode into huge sheets of sound then subside again. We end the 60-minute set with a gentle but bluesy vamp. We agreed that we both felt the intense listening by the audience which fed our playing. Good to see old friends Jean Derome and Fabrizio Gilardino there. Some post-gig hang, a bit of sleep at the nearby hotel and off to the airport for my flight back.
At check-in I'm told that I cannot take my guitar onboard. I tell the agent that ATA regulations allow an instrument and that I fly over one-hundred thousand miles a year and have never been asked to check the guitar. She calls the supervisor, a typically snotty exec who gives me the "nyeah-nyeah" treatment:"The rules have changed about instruments - nothing larger than a violin allowed" - I told him that it's not posted on their website. His response is that it's there but you must know where to look for it. Very useful. Because I carried the guitar onboard on my flight fom NYC, the agent prevails on him to give me a cabin-baggage tag. This used to be major problem at the Montreal airport but then it relaxed for awhile. Sitting in the lounge before boarding, the panoramic windows reveal multiple V-shaped flocks of Canadian geese on their migrations - this does not build confidence (especially after the US Airways flight brought down into the Hudson by these birds a few months ago.) I asked our pilot about it and he said that it was certainly a problem but they have lots of practice dealing with it!

April

April 1 E#3 - Two Boots - NYC
The trio with Dave and Don returns to this tiny pizzeria down the street from my apartment. Heavily pouring rain as we're loading in and by our 9pm start time Grand St. is deserted - if it wasn't so wet, there would be tumbleweeds rolling by. Still, some friends make it down and we have a fine time playing the classics.

April 2 Octal/All-String SyndaKit - Issue Project Room - Brooklyn
Out to the wilds of Gowanus for this double set. First is the suite of "Octal" pieces for the Koll 8-string. I'm not superstitious but I've always kept at least one extra set of strings onstage in the belief that if I don't have a spare, a string will certainly break and over the years, I've rarely broken a string in concert. Setting up, I discovered that I somehow left all of my spare strings back at the studio. No guitar strings to be found anywhere in Issue so I start. Sure enough, within 2 minutes, I break the high-E string. No choice but to continue and so this version is for 7-string. I certainly miss that high string for it's pitch possibilities, adjacent-string close harmonies, for high tapping, and in general for the ringing overtones it imparts. Still, an intense set with some discoveries in the pieces. After the break, I exchange the Koll for my trusty $75 viola and am joined by the string players for an excellent collection of acoustic SyndaKit iterations, varying greatly in gesture, density, and dynamics. The group includes Rachel Golub, Jessica Pavone, Liuh Wen-Ting, Ron Lawrence, Ruben Kohdeli, Dave Hofstra, Will Martina, Kevin Ray, Reuben Radding, and Okkyung Lee.

April 3 E# Solo Acoustic Guitar -"Train Songs" - Educational Alliance - NYC
I bring my Martin OO18 down to "Edgies" where the twins are both in pre-school. The two classes are combined and the kids form a bubbling mass seated on the floor in front of me with Kai and Lila directly below. I speak a little about trains and the sounds they make and demonstrate some of the classic slide guitar and thumping thumb techniques that evoke them and play a selection of pieces with a train theme including Mystery Train, Alma's Train (from the Yellowman score), Smokestack Lightning, and Love In Vain. The kids sometimes help out with rhythmic (and non-) handclaps and exclamations and mostly pay great attention for the 30-minute set.

April 16 John Berndt - Emily Gallery - NYC
John is a musician, instrument builder, and artist from Baltimore adept at many media including sound installation, painting and sculpture. This show at a small Soho Gallery displays a number of his projects as well featuring a number of evenings of improvsation with various guests. This particular night begins with my duo with John - I've brought the Koll and a few pedals and John plays a severely modified guitar as well as a large amplified spring on a stick, both routed into a laptop. His setup gives him a wide range of percussive sounds and wild twangs and glisses. We play off each other for 30 minutes in a range of shifting soundscapes. Lukas Ligeti has brought a drum kit and he and John do a high-intensity free jazz set with John switching to alto sax.
More info on John's work here: http://www.johnberndt.org/

April 26 "The Boreal" performed by Jack Quartet - Saalbau - Witten Festival - Germany
Commissioned by the WDR in Köln, this 15-minute piece was composed in January. It makes use of the spring bows as well as a ballchain bows that I constructed for the players as a way of modulating the sound of the instruments to create scratchy clusters, noisy sweeps, and delicate microrhythms. The title refers to the multiple feelings of "North" and derived its inspiration in part from Glenn Gould's essay but also by readings about the Aurora Borealis and from freezing in my less-than-well-heated studio as I compose. It's difficult to leave NYC at this time as we're right in the middle of Binibon rehearsals but this is quite an important festival for chamber music and I don't want to miss the premiere of the piece. Fine flight to Dusseldorf then a train to Witten and a chance to sleep a bit before our rehearsal. The Jack plays superbly in pieces by Schullhörn and Smolka this evening followed by a ravishing piece by Jo Kondo performed by Ensemble Recherche. I've admired Kondo's music since my student days in Buffalo and it's great to finally meet him. Good hang at the hotel bar with Kondo, Matthias Kaul, Astrid and others. The next morning we have an 0800 call for dress rehearsal and recording by the WDR (who will also record the concert.) It takes some doing to get the noisy ventilation system turned off and to prevent the custodial staff to from contributing loud entrances despite the bright red light and "Recording - Do Not Enter" signs posted at the entrances to the hall. We finally get a good version with some inserts to cover a few passages that are less than precise. The concert is later that morning and the quartet plays a riveting version of The Boreal with a very gratifying acclaim from the large audience. The next morning we find ourselves forsaken by the WDR van that was supposed to drive us to the airport. Taxis are called and we descend into the rush hour quagmire but arrive just in time for our flights.
More about the Jack Quartet here: http://www.jackquartet.com/

May

May 6-9 Binibon - The Kitchen - NYC
Some technical problems with the dress rehearsal so I approach opening night with a touch of dread. During rehearsals at the Kitchen, we've been given a few different sound engineers who are not notating their operations within the piece (and the analog soundboard has no digital memory for scenes or levels) - this makes for lots of redundant work and missed cues. We were finally able to lock down one engineer for the final rehearsals and the entire run. Besides playing guitar, tenor sax, Bb clarinet, and bass clarinet live, I'm also bringing in various audio cues - some just simple soundfile playback but others involving multiple tracks plus processing with various plug-ins that I'm mixing in realtime. I'm using Ableton Live, an extremely powerful and versatile platform, and have added a Korg NanoKontrol to my setup which substitutes physical faders and buttons for the onscreen virtual mouse-driven ones that I had been using. Opening night is technically exact, if a little stiff. Everyone performs well - not surprising as they're all terrific actors under the direction of Tea Alagic. In fact, the whole crew is excellent and have worked often with Tea. The beautifully stark set evoking the East Village of the 80's is by Zane Pihlstrom with lighting by Gena Scherr. Janene Higgins has created gorgeously mysterious video to be projected on the fluorescent tube wall during musical interludes and slowly shifting but extremely evocative textures during text passages. The actors were costumed by Jen Moeller and all look great, especially Jedadiah Schultz playing the killer, Jack Henry Abbott. As the run proceeds, everyone gets a bit looser and digs in a bit more. The fourth and final night is really burning with a palpable sense of excitement in the air (not-to-mention a sold-out house with lines down the block).
Photo by Slaven Vlasic.

May 12 White Box Benefit Auction - White Box Gallery - NYC
A fundraiser for Juan Puntes' gallery. I've been a friend and supporter of the gallery for a number of years and have always enjoyed performing there. With the move from Chelsea to a new space (quite nearby to my home on the edge of Chinatown) the gallery needs some capital and has a fundraising auction honoring pioneering sound/body/film artist Carolee Schneemann and gallerist/artist Willoughby Sharp (no relation) with performances by C. Ryder Cooley and my Velocity of Hue. It was great to meet and speak with Ryder - her mystical performance is quite hypnotic: she is suspended on a fabric rope with a deer's head strapped to her back while her recorded music and sound art forms the soundtrack. This description does not do the work justice - I would recommend seeing her if given the chance. More info here: http://www.carolynrydercooley.com/. After her set and the crowd had a further chance to get lubed, I performed a 30-minute Velocity of Hue, compacting the various gestures and compostions into a fast-moving suite. The sound-system didn't give me the entire spectrum of desired freqencies, but enough to do the job. The audience was quite strictly divided between those deeply engaged in the performances and those just there to buy art and guzzle freely at the open bar.

May 14 Pamela Z/E# Tectonics- Mixology Festival - Harvestworks at Roulette - NYC
This event is within the Harvestworks section of the larger Mixology Festival. I'm using the latest version 8 of Ableton Live for the first time this evening - the improvements include a looper and some other useful plugs and enhancements. After installing the software, I worked with it in my studio for three days and felt quite comfortable with it's operations and solidity. But soundcheck plunges me into computer hell as nothing seems to be working correctly. Long after the house is scheduled to open, I'm still tweaking. Finally, through hardware and software futzing, I come up with enough compromise solutions to be able to perform my set. Pamela Z begins the evening with an engaging set of abstract songs built upon loops, often originating with a physical gesture translated into sound via various input devices including an ultrasonic controlled synthesizer and the video camera in her laptop. Her voice ranges from a deep sprechstimme to a soaring operatic soprano. After a pause, I start my Tectonics set with a short version of Living Room, the swinging mic creating waves of feedback, looped and processed. With a switch to soprano sax with a bell mute, I segue into layers of circular-breathed overtones and multiphonics onto the microphone drone, eventually bringing in one of the prepared grooves. Finally I switch to the Koll 8-string guitarbass, processed with an Eventide TimeFactor as well as the plug-ins in the laptop, for more shifting and sometimes granulated layers. I felt relief to complete the set without any major disasters but I felt too preoccupied with the tech to abandon myself to the music. I also felt that balances were off-kilter in the house (confirmed by friends in the audience.) Still, the audience feedback was very positive so something was transmitted. To cap the evening, Pamela and I did some short improvisations together, something we had discussed doing for years. They were exploratory and a bit cautious, each trying to hear the other clearly - but some beautiful textures resulted.

May 21 Octal + Sharp Plays Monk - CCB - Lisbon, Portugal
Fine flights to Frankfurt and then Lisbon with a very relaxed day before heading to dinner and soundcheck. The venue is a bar downstairs at this huge arts complex where I've performed before with Terraplane and the duo with Scott Fields - a very Spinal Tap moment wandering through the Alphaville-style corridors trying to find the cafe. I've brought the Koll for this tour and plug in direct to the PA. I find that the preamp for the piezo pickup is not working so the sound is a bit compromised but still decent. Hopefully the problem will be solved in Saarbrucken. I'm provided with a Taylor flat-top for the Monk portion of the set and it plays easily and sounds fine. The crowd gathers outside as soundcheck proceeds and packs in as soon as the glass doors are opened. The room holds about 250 and many more spill outside. First set is the Monk and I begin with Bemsha Swing. I haven't played this material in quite some time and I'm invigorated by these classic tunes and structures. The crowd is amazingly quiet and attentive and applauds heartily when I finish the set. After a short break, I play the Octal suite. I stay close to the written structures but find new sonic realms in the improvised sections. In one way, I'm hampered by going direct - the magnetic pickup on the guitar responds quite differently when played through an amp - it's sound is then more supple and juicy. But the clarity opens up other realms and the piezo adds a touch of percussive hyperreality. I'm surprised at how quickly the set goes down. A wild crowd and I'm called back for an encore. I return to the acoustic and detune it to play a selection of Velocity of Hue material. Post-gig hang then back to the hotel for 2 hours sleep and taxi to the airport and a smooth flight to Frankfurt followed by two trains to Saarbrucken for the Festival Mouvements. There are events at the festival on this day but I have lots of work to do and mostly stay in my room and the computer. Still, great to run into old friends on this day with whom I will collaborate on the next including violinists Malcolm Goldstein and Mark Feldman and turntablist Marina Rosenfeld.

May 23 Octal + "Edges" performed by Art Pour L'Art + - Festival Mouvements - Saarbrucken, Germany
The festival theme is "American Dreams". First up on this day is an onstage talk at the Stadtgalerie moderated by the festival curator Wolfgang Korb. Included are percussionist and composer Matthias Kaul, violinist Malcolm Goldstein, and sound performer ID M THEFTABLE. Wolfgang's theme for the talk is "Why Not?" as an overarching motto to encompass what is seen as the American strain of non-conformism and self-motivated inventiveness. The Europeans have perhaps a more romantic notion of how this operates than we do. While basically agreeing that the idea of freedom from prescribed restrictions has been an important component of new music in America, we all spoke to how it wasn't necessarilly rebellion but also just personal necessity, a subjective process. A lot of the spirit of adventurousness, especially in the New York scene, is attributed to the influence of John Cage but I feel that it goes deeper with a continuity to Charles Ives, Edgar Varese, Henry Cowell, Harry Partch, and such transcendentalist composers as Carl Ruggles and Henry Brant. After the talk, I'm driven to the top of the hill outside of town to the Sendesaal of the Saarbrucken Radio to soundcheck for the evening's concert which opens at 1800 with my Octal solo. The preamp for my acoustic pickup works fine - I had suggested to the Lisbon sound engineer that he was using the wrong kind of cable, an idea that he rejected. This was indeed the problem. The sound in the room is excellent for a solo and I dig in, albeit a bit sloppily on the beginning of "Through The Wormhole." This is a live radio broadcast and I'm given a fairly strict half-hour slot so it's necessary for me to decide on doing a compressed version of all eight Octal pieces or choosing fewer of them to perform at greater length. I opt for the former giving the suite a compact and nearly pixillated quality. I'm told afterwards by a friend that my set was considered "aggressive." It did receive loud and sustained applause so perhaps this was a desired quality. There are next some small ensemble pieces by Philip Corner, Matthias Kaul, and others after which a number of us head out to the only walkable restaurant, an outdoor bistro nearby. Refreshed, we return to catch the last half of Mark Feldman's effortlessly virtuosic solo set followed by four very fine musicians playing an absolutely wretched and seemingly endless "Tribute to Jimi Hendrix" by a composer who shall remain nameless. It no doubt had poor Jimi spinning in his grave. During the next pause, we built the stage up for Christian Wolff's "Edges", composed in 1969. This graphic score has a fine balance between specifically defined sound gestures and open interpretation. The ensemble included the members of Art Pour L'Art (Kaul, Astrid Schmeling on flutes, Michael Schröder on guitar) plus guests Goldstein, ID M, Marina Rosenfeld, Feldman, and myself. We played a 30' version that was notable for its transparency, subtle interactions, and high tension laced with positive humor - a fine rendition that was met with fantastic audience response. The inevitable and thoroughly enjoyable hang at the hotel bar followed until late. The wakeup call comes too early but I must get a train back to Frankfurt Airport and from there a flight to Berlin were I'm met by Reinhold Friedl who is hosting me at his house.

May 24 Duo John Eckhardt/E#Ausland - Berlin
John Eckhardt and I first met when he was substituting for the regular bassist in Hamburg's Ensemble Rezonanz when they played my "Proof Of Erdös" at Witten Festival in 2006. I was very impressed with his playing and in fact, his solo bass CD "Xylobiont" is one of my favorite releases of last year. We had stayed in touch and he arranged this concert, our first time improvising together. Ausland is a austere bunker-like space with thick sound-insulated walls and a shag-carpet covered DJ/radio booth suspended from the wall. It exists with very little funding and is quite the labor of love for its director and colleagues. It turns out that I had met the director, Felix, years before when Carbon played at the Sauschdall in Ulm. The amplifiers are a bit tired and the Traynor that I end up using would be great for playing overdriven blues but doesn't have a lot of clean headroom for the Koll guitar's output. Still, quite workable. John plugs his clip-on microphone directly into the PA and uses one of the spekers onstage as an amp. We do one set of approximately 60 minutes. When we commenced, I noticed an irritatingly loud hum that had not been there before due to the presence of the lighting faders which were not on during soundcheck. Normally, the Koll is well-shielded and very quiet. The only solution was to turn off my Celmo compressor which was emphasizing the hum during quiet parts (the Celmo makes guitars sound great though and I missed its presence.) John and I operate in different time-rates so our improvising was not always in sync, especially regarding the durations spent on a particular gesture. Nonetheless we created some magnificent textures together and when we were on the beam, it was very exciting. Even the parts that seemed in search of something unnameable sounded pretty good! As we discussed the concert after, I explained to him how I may translate a gesture "topologically" into a different form that is still essentially the original gesture ("a torus is a torus"). Late post-gig hang at a Turkish cafe in Kreuzberg and then some sleep. A relaxed free day in Berlin including a tour of the Ableton offices and meetings with their welcoming staff.

May 26 Octal + Scharfefelder - Loft - Köln
Morning flight to Cologne the next day delayed 30 minutes by weather. We take off to the east then turn 180º and climb through a bad storm - 20 minutes of lurching and bumping followed by 15 minutes of unsettled cruising and then a hellish 20 minute descent in gusty winds. I love flying but I was happy to be on the ground! A relaxed afternoon walking around and meeting with Harry Vogt of the WDR and director of Witten Festival. Soundcheck at the Loft a little difficult as there's no sound engineer for some reason. Filmmaker Pavel Borodin is there with a small crew to film the show and one of his guys helps set up the microphones. Scott Fields has arranged for me to use a Macaferri-style guitar built by Thomas Reg'l for our duo set. It's a beautifully made instrument with the punchy midrange chracteristic of this type of construction. We haven't played together since Lisbon last year and we opt for dinner over rehearsing before the show. As a result, our set starts slowly but builds into a strong flow, sometimes raging torrents. By ten minutes in, we've found the groove and the compositions come back to us. We'll be recording a new set of pieces for Neos in July. After a break, I set up for the Octal suite, using an in-house Fender Blues deVille amplifier. The rig sounds fine and the guitar feels great - as a result, the eight pieces segue effortlessly. There's a very subtle feedback loop at play between ears/fingers and instrument/room acoustics that must always be considered when analyzing a performance or even doing a soundcheck - you know it when it's all working but when it's not, it's often quite difficult to isolate the source of issues.

May 27 Duo Reinhold Friedl/E# - Instants Chavires - Montreuil, France
Very civilized morning with enough time for breakfast in the hotel and a leisurely walk to the station with my equipment to catch the high-speed Thalys to Paris Nord where I'm met by JF of the venue and Reinhold who has flown in from Berlin. Montreuil might be considered the Brooklyn of Paris' Manhattan. We find a great Lebanese cafe and walk along the avenue where I spot fresh almonds in their pods, a new sight for me. Soundcheck is quite efficient. Reinhold's piano is mic'd for recording but his hand at the Bösendorfer requires no amplification in the house. I go DI with the Koll and the laptop running Live to process my guitar. After soundcheck, I have to strike my setup, never a good idea, so that Olivier Bruning may set up. His solo opening set is powerful and compelling with random noises growing into walls of microrhythmic noise. When I re-stage my equipment, I find that my computer is no longer getting audio from the send on my desk. It takes awhile to isolate the source of the problem: a cable that had been working fine earlier. We're on and quickly commenced to layering drones and harmonics, thumps and rapid ostinati, percussive waves, feedback and imitation feedback. We were quite pleased with the set which was recorded to multitrack - at some point, we'll audition our results and run a mix. A final post-gig hang for this tour, a little bit of sleep and it's off to CDG for my flights to Frankfurt and home.

June

June 7 Duo w/ Franck Vigroux - Temple M - Harlem
Franck has a residency here in NYC for the summer and has booked our duo as part of a series way uptown at this beautifully renovated building that has served over the years variously as church, synagogue, and community hall. The audience is small but extremely enthusiastic with a number of friends in attendance. We were to begin at 8:30 pm with a 7:30 soundcheck but a play goes way over its scheduled run-time. We're finally able to set up and check at 8:20 and perform our set at 9. I'm traveling light as I'm taking the subway to the gig and bring just my solidbody 8-string plus fuzz and delay pedals. Franck has a much more elaborate arsenal. Our set traverses different territories than all of our previous concerts and all are pleased. Very happy to get a ride back downtown with composer/guitarist/conductor Ben Miller (who sang in my opera "A Modicum Of Passion.")

June 12 Darmstadt presents Conference of the Guitars - Issue Project Room - Brooklyn
As part of Zach Layton and Nick Hallett's "Darmstadt" series at Issue, an evening of guitar music has been organized by Dan Josephs. There are beautifully textured compositions for the Dither Guitar Quartet by Paula Matthusen, Lisa Coons, and Dan followed by a piece by Marco Cappelli in which I perform as featured improvising soloist. Next up is James Tenney's "Septet" for electric guitars in which Dan, Marco, and I join Dither for this gorgeous Just Intonation composition based on mathematical proportions yielding dense polyrhythms and difference-tone effects. Septet has rarely if ever been performed live - there are two studio recordings that I know of. We play the piece once to great acclaim followed by demands that we "play it again!" This we do and the second version is much tighter and altogether better. We finish the evening with an exciting SyndaKit for the seven guitarists - great listening and interaction with relentless buildups contrasted with quiet pools.

June 13 Terraplane - 92Y Tribeca - Manhattan
This was booked as "the early set" which I had interpreted as being at 8pm or so. Instead, a few days before the show we're told of our afternoon soundcheck and 7pm start-time. It's a daunting prospect as I can't imagine anyone coming to see us at a time that would be normal for Tokyo but way far out for NYC. Still, there are 30 or so people and the band plays a loose but inspired set to great response. Former Terraplane drummer Sim Cain joins us for this show as Tony Lewis is in France. As always, Sim plays with power and grace and a deep groove.

June 14 PanAram/Clockwork Mercury - Drom - Manhattan
The debut concert of this project at the well-equipped East Village basement club. Deep Singh on tablas and percussion; Zafer Tawil on oud, hand-drums, and violin; Melvin Gibbs on electric bass; I'm playing electric guitar (the Guild Nightingale) and laptop grooves. We've left the music quite open but each piece centers around a particular key and pre-recorded electronic percussion track. Great listening and playing and an auspicious debut. We're amused after to hear people comparing us to John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra as the basic approach is quite different. The set was filmed by director Bert Shapiro and we hope to post some excerpts on YouTube once they're edited. The evening opens with the poetry and music of Eric Mingus and saxophonist Catherine Sikora as Clockwork Mercury followed by Zafer Tawil playing a number of solo pieces on oud.

June 17 Octal Book Two - Stone - Manhattan
I have two fairly open days to prepare for this concert, the premiere of the second collection of pieces for the Koll 8-string guitarbass. I had been working on them in my inner ear over the previous months and so was able to put them into a good working shape fairly quickly. The Stone guitar amp, a Fender Deluxe, is getting pretty beat: intermittent clicking noises, reverb broken, undesired distortion even at the lowest volumes - i wish it was better maintained. The Koll's magnetic pickup goes into the Fender and the piezo into the house bass amp (which is in decent working order.) I'm pretty pleased with the dimensionality of the total sound though the guitar amp is disappointing - i have no clean headroom. Nothing to do but play so I dig right in and perform the six pieces over the course of 45 minutes without stopping. The full house is quite enthusiastic. I'm charged up about the upcoming recording which will be released by Cleanfeed.
picture by Scott Friedlander

June 18 "Coriolis Effect" performed by Tilt Brass - Issue Project Room - Brooklyn
Also part of the Darmstadt series, Tilt performs a concert titled "New York Noise" with various "classic" pieces by Nick Didkovsky, Lois Vierk, Rhys Chatham, and my Coriolis Effect. Tilt's version of Coriolis is one of my favorites as the homophonic nature of the all-brass ensemble allows the shifting harmonies and textures to be heard as part of a monolithic sound plus the hocketed wah-mute horns and the difference tone effects in the peak sections are more pronounced. Greg Evans conducted with precision and passion.
More about Tilt may be found here: http://www.tiltbrass.org/

June 19 Benefit Concert for Roulette - Roulette - Manhattan
This event was organized by keyboardist/synthesist Shoko Nagai to raise some needed money for this important and long-lived but always endangered venue. Shoko has invited a diverse crew: Ned Rothenberg on clarinet, Okkyung Le on cello, Satoshi Takeishi on percussion & electroics, bassist Kato Hideki, and a new face for me, turntablist Maria Chavez. I've brought the green Strat and just a few pedals including the new Eventide Pitchfactor. Shoko has organized the evening into four different configurations allowing everyone a chance to play with each other. At the end, all six of us play together. The improvisations are wide ranging and dynamic and display excellent listening between the players.

June 24 E#3 at Two Boots Tavern - NYC
Another rainy and quiet evening on Grand Street though there is at least a continuous stream of people coming in for drinks and free pizza and listening enthusiastically, very giving in their applause. Subbing on drums is Kevin Zuber and Dave Hofstra, of course, on bass. I'm in an Earl Hooker kind of mood and try to channel his firey and notey style. He had an unmatched incredibly vocal technique on slide guitar.
More about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Hooker


July

July 1 Duo Lukas Ligeti/E# - "Memory Amor" - White Box Gallery - NYC
This was the opening for Heinrich Nikolaus' installation/performance series Theater of More: http://www.whiteboxny.org/program/upcomingexhibition.html
I'd been looking forward to playing together again with Lukas and this was to be our first duo concert. I arrived a bit early for soundcheck and some logistical meetings about the project and found a construction site in full swing (or roar.) Impossible to set-up or even be in the room as the plaster walls fully reflected every sound of the power saws and hammers. Nothing to do but head out to do some errands and have a double espresso in nearby Little Italy and hope that when i returned the installation would be complete enough for the opening to proceed. Miracle transformation by the time of my return one hour later and Lukas and I set up on a large and beautiful oriental carpet. Lukas augmented his drum kit with a glockenspiel as well as some small percussion instruments. I brought the solidbody 8-string and a few pedals: Pitchfactor, Boomerang, and Ultra-Fuzz and plugged in direct to the powerful PA. We performed two sets of improvisation, loosely based on my graphic piece "Memory Amor", a pun on the archival references of Heinrich's project and the intimate relationship between memory and music-making. Each set had a variety of textures and strategies, from abstract sonics to polyrhythmic grooving. Lukas at one point bowed the glock to fantastic effect in the resonant room. The gallery had hundreds of visitors over the course of the event and we had a great response to our set.

July 5 "The Boreal" performed by Jack Quartet - Joe's Pub - NYC
This was the record-release party for the Jack's CD of Xenakis' string quartets. Xenakis' has been a huge source of inspiration for me since first hearing his "Metastasis" in 1969 and delving into his book "Formalized Music" shortly after. It's an honor to be included in this program and I'm very pleased that the quartet will present the US premiere of "The Boreal" on this evening. The concert began with a piece by Jeff Myers followed by mine. The sound system is set too quietly as Joe's Pub is right above the IRT subway near the Astor Place stop and their rumbling easily drowns out the more quiet passages (not to mention that it is a restaurant and bar and one hears preparation and serving noises as well as the wait-staff and audience talking.) Still, the quartet plays my difficult score with fire and with ease and commands the house - I'm happy to be "pulled through" by this band of young virtuosi. The audience seems to agree. The Kevin Keller piece follows after which Xenakis' wrenching "Tetras" is played passionately and with incredible precision. Truly phenomenal. I noticed that the house sound engineer increased the sound level in the house over the course of the set. By the middle of the Xenakis, the sound is what it should have been at the beginning. Both my piece and Myers' suffered from too-low levels. This is a common trait in clubs - they must teach it in "Live Sound 101" classes: make the music louder as it goes on. Infuriating. The level should be set and then let the musicians control the dynamics so that each piece is heard at its best.

July 12 Adam Minkoff - Anton Fier - E# - Improvised trio - Rose Live Room
Adam has organized another trio hit for this Sunday night. We're scheduled to start at 8:30pm but the club is empty. We shrug a collective "what the hell?" and take the stage and look up and the room is packed. Okay. We play a continuous one-hour set that feels like 20 minutes. We're all quite surprised at the length and intensity. The final part is a wicked psycho-funk groove reminiscent of Miles Davis' On The Corner.

July 24 - Carbon - Union Hall - Brooklyn
Over the years, I'd often been asked when Carbon would tour again or make a new record. This constellation with Zeena Parkins, David Weinstein, Joseph Trump and Marc Sloan was arguably the most powerful and popular version of the band and made the records Tocsin, Amusia, and Interference – all rode high on the college radio charts and Amusia even was Nr. 2 in Rolling Stone's Alternative Chart! We toured Europe relentlessly and even made two tours in the USA by van in 1994: experiments in sleep-dep, bad food & coffee, and great fun. Our last show as a quintet was in 1996 after which I incorporated the band into Orchestra Carbon with emphasis on more formal and algorithmic works such as Rheo~Umbra, Radiolaria, and SyndaKit.
Patrik Landolt of Intakt Records was interested in reviving the quintet as well and the time seemed right. I had some ideas for structures that demanded the monstrous rhythms of Trump and Sloan and sonic excess and originality of Parkins and Weinstein. Joe flew in from Portland, Oregon where he now resides and we set up at Studio zOaR to rehearse for two afternoons. It's impossible to have a full drum kit in my studio but just as impossible to find a reasonable rehearsal studio in Manhattan so we opted for zOaR - if not technically perfect, at least the coffee is good. Joe cobbled together a kit sans kick from various drums and percussives here and everyone else went through various amplifiers. There is a strong advantage to rehearsing quietly in that we were able to focus on details without an overwhelming sound blurring them over (we save that for the concerts!) I also chose to have very little scored out except for a few complex rhythm patterns, preferring that everyone learn their parts by ear. It was quite a lot of material to learn in a short period of time but by the end of the second day I felt that we were sounding like a band again, and sometimes approaching the sound of one giant instrument, the intended strategy behind the pieces Quaternary and Hypercubus.
On Friday afternoon we loaded up a car-service Suburban and headed over to Park Slope for our soundcheck at the Union Hall, a very pleasant tavern and restaurant plus basement rumpus room with surprisingly good sound system and engineer. The drum kit was not so fine though and it took Joe a bit of time to get it into shape. Once we were set up, soundcheck was quick. A break for dinner and then our first set. It took a couple of tunes to find our center, both musically and sonically, but after that, the band tore into the material with a surprising tightness given the short rehearsal time. Second set was even better and the feedback from the audience was very positive.

July 25 - Carbon - WarmUp - PS1 Contemporary Art Center - Long island City
Hot hot hot outside while we set up - reminded me of a Gtr Oblq (with Vernon Reid and David Torn) concert at a stadium in Calabria in Italy in July 1998 where we were essentially and simultaneously & completely broiled and steamed before we even played a note. Fortunately, by the time of the Carbon set, the sun's movement left us protected by a tarp erected over the stage though the feel was still fairly tropical. Given the recent weather, we were all grateful that it didn't pour.
Excellent sound onstage and the pieces were much more focussed than the previous night. During Quaternary and Hypercubus, the band truly disappeared into the void. J brought the twins and Kai gathered a crowd around him to watch his wild dancing and air-guitar. Lila confessed to me after the set that it was little too loud for her. The band packed lots of intensity into our 45-minute set and the response was great. After greeting friends, family, and fans, we packed all of the equipment into another Suburban and dropped it off at Loho Studio in the Lower East Side where we would convene the next day to record basic tracks for the upcoming CD "Void Coordinates." We recorded pretty complete versions of eight tunes which I will finish at zOaR, fixing some of my own parts and then mixing and mastering.

August

August 10 Italian Doc Remix - Drom - NYC
For Marco Cappelli's 44th birthday, he decided to book his band, Italian Doc Remix, into this Avenue A club and invite some guests to join in. The core of the band includes Doug Wieselman on reeds, Jim Pugliese on drums and percussion, Ken Filiano on bass, and Marco on various guitars. Guest reedplayer Avram Fefer played throughout the set and guitarist Marc Ribot began mid-way. I was called up with my soprano sax on the next tune after that. Marco had posted audio samples of most of the set on his site and I had prepped earlier that day. The tunes are based for the most part on Italian folk and pop classics with very stretched arrangements. Lots of latitude and a high level of musicianship makes for a very enjoyable set. As we neared the end of the songlist, percussionist Christine Bard took over the drum chair and Jim conducted the ensemble in a crackling high-energy suite of improvised movements. At the end, everyone repaired to Takahachi upstairs for libations.

August 12 Kash for Klang - White Box Gallery - NYC
To raise money so that White Box can get a PA system for a New Music series, I invited some musician friends to join me in 2 sets of improvisations. Taking part were drummers Lukas Ligeti and Jim Pugliese, cellist Okkyung Lee, guitarist Lorin Roser, David Weinstein on laptop, and Franck Vigroux on guitar and electronics. I 've brought the green Strat and a few pedals. Relaxed set-up though some troubles tweaking the crude PA that we hope to replace. Still and all, by the time of our first set at 7:30, things were sounding pretty good (though the cello was under-mic'd.) Two sets of very open and sensitive playing with everyone listening and leaving lots of space. Some explicit groove sections but most remained fragmented. The audience was very enthusiastic and engaged in discussions with everyone after we finished. I had to rush to pack up and head over to Local 269 for another hit (just like the good ole days.)

August 12 E#3/Bobby Radcliff Trio - Local 269 - NYC
A short taxi ride brings me to this compact and pleasantly dark and sleazy little dive. Dee Pop's Radio I Ching is onstage when I arrive and drummer Don McKenzie has just arrived from Newark Airport and his trip to Sweden where he was playing a large pop festival with Kat deLuna. He and Dave Hofstra are chilling out front (literally and comparatively) as the club is packed and steamy. We hit the stage soon after and play a heavy and high-intensity blues abstraction with a few different swampy feels and lots of guitar torture. Band of Gypsies might be an appropriate comparison. We're completely soaked with sweat within seconds of beginning and the set feels like a baptism of fire. By the end, we're purged and cleansed. Bobby Radcliff is up next with Dave and Dee. Bobby is one of my favorite blues performers and I would often enjoy hearing him play at such dives as Nightingale's in the East Village and the Galway in Tribeca back in the early '80's. Bobby lived with Magic Sam and his wife in Chicago during Sam's final years and his style has been well-integrated into Bobby's. Bobby has Sam's old Strat and would often use it live but now plays a Les Paul but retaining his percussive and rhythmically incisive attack, brilliant and highly articulated. After two-thirds of a wrenching set, Bobby calls me up to join him and band in a few tunes drawing on Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Magic Sam, and finishing up with The Twist! It's a joy and an honor to play with Bobby and we'll try to do it again.

Ostrava Music Days

August 19-20 Presentation on Formal Music, first rehearsal for "On Corlear's Hook" These last few weeks has been a densely-packed work time in NYC: recording/mixing/mastering of "Octal: Book Two" for Cleanfeed; mixing the live recordings from 2005 of The Willie Dixon Project so that Henry Kaiser can master them at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley; composing a new piece for two bassoons for Leesa and Nicole Abahuni; overdubbing and pre-mixing/editing on the Carbon studio recording; and being a family man. It's with some regret and some relief that I head out to the airport. We take off from Newark for Dusseldorf through a thicket of towering cumulonimbus clouds. The possibility of thunderstorms has been forecast for the afternoon but I learn afterwards that they hit hard around 10pm, felling many trees in Central Park and manifesting dramatic lightning. My flight is calm as is the short flight to Prague where I take the transfer bus to the Hlavni train station and from there, a three hour train ride to Ostrava. An open evening to meet Phill Niblock, Petr Kotik, Michael Schumacher, Daam Vandewalle, and the students at the designated restaurant (less said about the cuisine the better though the fresh beer is stunningly good) and then a small party at the home of Renata, one of the conservatory directors of this festival (of which Petr is the artistic director.) The next morning I head to the Philharmonic Hall where the Janacek Philharmonic is rehearsing. I'm happy to find that Peter Rundel will be conducting "On Corlear's Hook." Peter did a fantastic job with the Radiosinfonie Frankfurt for my pieces "Racing Hearts" at the HR Sendesaal in 1998 and "Calling" at the Darmstadt Festival in 2002. He's already had one rehearsal with the orchestra before my arrival and things are sounding very good with just a little tweaking necessary for the harpist's techniques and sound and some dynamics issues. The Philharmonic Hall does not have great acoustics so dynamics becomes extremely critical. A break after the rehearsal and head to the Conservatory to do my first presentation which is focussed on my strategies for composing for orchestra, ensemble, and string quartet. I speak about "Calling" and play it in segments while speaking about the techniques used to create it, mostly derived from "SyndaKit." This leads to discussion about algorithmic strategies for creating music and the divide between through-composed and open works. I also describe the larger circumstances around the composition of "Calling": the commission came in the spring of 2001 but I had little time to devote to it. The attacks of Sept. 11 left me furious at what I saw as a manufactured incident (like the Reichstag fire) that would allow Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith & the entire company of liars and serial killers to perpetrate their agenda - my only recourse to maintain my sanity was to begin putting black dots down on a score - a task I did obsessively beginning on Sept. 12 and then every day while devouring news feeds. Later in the talk, I also touch on graphic scoring and how it frames the playing of a piece of music while depending on the feedback loop between performer and composer to actually create the music. By way of illustration I play some of the quartet "Seize Seas Seeth Seen." I also speak more about extra-musical sources of inspiration for compositions and how rarely my pieces are about musical materials in themselves. This leads to more talk about politics, about mathematics, the weather, scientific texts, visual arts and even the business of music: how a commission may call forth resources that one does not normally desire to use. Various other string quartet recordings are then played including "Homage James Tenney" and "Dispersion of Seeds." That evening, the composers are all invited to City Hall for dinner at the invitation of the mayor. Not so likely to happen for a New Music festival in NYC! Great to see Christian Wolff, pianist Joseph Kubera, vocalist Tom Buckner, and writer Alan Lockwood there. August 21 Presentation on the nature of composer/performer/improviser plus meeting with students Quick breakfast and over to the Conservatory with laptop and 8-string. I''d set up an Ableton patch the night before to allow plugging my guitar into the classroom stereo and not have it sound too bad - when I go to sleep the patch is working fine and sounding fine. Get it all patched in to the classroom stereo and... nothing. The patch had worked quite well at 2AM and the computer and cable had just sat on my desk until I left in the morning. Only thing to do is trace it systematically. Do a restart and things are working fine so I assume it's a software problem but a few minutes later the sound stops again. Okay, this points to a cable. I switch cables but no go and the school tech-guy brings one which also does not work. Now thinking it's the jack in the computer (which would be a total drag as it would mean replacing the motherboard as the Intel Macbook Pro has the soundcard integrated - not only is it not easily replaceable but the converters don't sound as good as the previous generation.) Try fiddling with the jack - sometimes it works, sometimes not, try fiddling with the other end of the cable - likewise. Not sure what I did but it stablized allowing me to demonstrate some of my techniques on the 8-string and speak about them. I do a number of sequences of this which leads to discussion about personal vocabulary and style. I also play some portions of the Octal Book 2 mixes. Christian Wolff attends the talk and because I'm only playing excerpts, he asks me about how i feel about longer durations in music. I speak about how difficult it is for me to listen to recordings of my own work once they're finished but in performances I'm happy to both listen and play music in long spans. I move into speaking about how as a "working composer" I sometimes do anonymous music-for-hire for industrial or commercial purposes and how it can be both troublesome but also liberating in terms of allowing one to follow whims and try sounds and techniques that one might avoid in more personal work. This leads me back to my work with computers both as an improvising instrument (dating back to my use of the Atari ST running the software "M" driving samplers and drum machines in my Virtual Stance project of 1986-92) and in composing using early versions of Sound Tools and later Pro Tools. I'm happy when the 2.5 hour session is over - I'm not overly verbal in the morning anyway so this felt a bit tortuous! I head back to the hotel for a brief rest before returning to meet individually with students, 30 minutes each. My role is part teacher, part psychologist. It's great to meet these brilliant young musicians and discuss their projects, ideas, and problems. After the sessions, walking to the hotel with Alan Lockwood, run into Bernhard Lang who has just arrived from Wien. We agree to meet up in a bit and head over to Vitkowice, an out-of-commission mine, smelter, and steel mill where Phill Niblock's concert will take place: an entire evening devoted to various pieces with guitar, saxophones, string quartet and orchestra. The orchestra piece sounds especially wonderful drifting through the ghostly space filled with abandoned machinery both ancient and modern. August 22 Over to the Conservatory for more student meetings in the morning. One, Lusia Vitkova, is quite an accomplished accordionist. She had asked the previous day if we could improvise so I bring my soprano sax and we have quite a good session. The meetings extend well into the afternoon after which I return to the hotel to work a bit before meeting Bernhard and Dam for dinner with discussion which extends well into the evening with a brief foray into a nearby hall where an overbearingly loud electronic performance component of the festival is happening. We return to the bar for more talk. August 23/24 Sunday is a free day for me to spend working on my Ableton Live patches for the Saalfelden concert and "Ganging The Hook", commissioned by the Electronic Music Foundation for their Ear To The Earth festival in October in which I'll use various types of convolution plug-ins to allow my guitar output to modulate recorded environmental sounds from my neighborhood on the East River. That evening was the first concert at the Janacek Philharmonie with a fantastic performance of Morton Feldman's rarely heard "Flute And Orchestra" featuring Petr Kotik as flute soloist and conducted by Peter Rundel. I've know Petr since my student days in Buffalo when I was the resident electornics geek and would do live sound for him and align his Revox tape decks. I've known Joseph Kubera since Buffalo as well (not to mention Bobby Previte, Frances-Marie Uitti, and many others - it was quite an epicenter!) More student meetings on Monday then later in the aftenoon, there's a concert at the Conservatory that includes Lejaren Hiller's "Sonata for Violin and Piano" as part of a theme of Computers and Composition. Hiller was my main composition teacher and academic adviser when I was in university in Buffalo and I appreciated his objectivity in discussing my work. He didn't try to get me to hew to his or any other particular esthetic agenda but to simply get me to focus on my desires for a particular piece of music and find the best strategies to manifest them, whether through notation, electronics, performance techniques. His music is quite underappreciated these days as well as rarely heard. His 5th and 6th string quartets are both deeply interesting in their structure and materials as well as affecting as music. The Sonata, in a fiery performance by Joseph Kubera and violinist Conrad Harris, showed Jerry's wide range of musical resources as well as a proto-punkish sense of sonics, theatrics, and dynamics. That night, returned to the Philharmonie for the Ostravska Banda concert which began with one of the best versions of Charles Ives' "Unanswered Question" that I've ever heard plus violin virtuoso Hanna Kotkova playing Rihm's "Gesungene Zeit" with incredible sensitivity and power. August 25 Night of Solos My soundcheck is delayed as tubaist Robin Heyward is having trouble getting his sound right in the hall - it's either too amplified or too quiet. I'm happy to throw my $.02 in and suggest that the engineers turn the speakers inwards to form a triangle with Robin at the apex. In this way, his acoustic sound merges with the amplified. This works fine and we retain this for my setup. Originally, I had planned to perform Tectonics material but given the long program and the complexity of it's many change-overs, I decide to go for simplicity and perform two of the Octal: Book Two pieces and so just plug the solidbody 8-string directly into the PA desk through my ancient pedals: MXR red compressor plus TS808 Tube Screamer for one harmonics section. Soundcheck goes quite well so I run to the conservatory where the Canticum Ostrava will rehearse OVOXXOVO which I had composed for this festival. The rehearsal room is empty even though they're written into the schedule. Eventually I find out that they changed their rehearsal to the Philharmonie without notifying anyone - there's not enough time for me to get back there but I'll attend a rehearsal on the next day. Show up at the Philharmonie for the concert in time to see two Rihm string quartets before the break. I'm opening this late set and quickly plug in and try the sound. As soon as I begin, I find that the presence of the full audience has quite drastically changed the sound. Cranking the compressor helps but the super-clean sound of the PA doesn't breathe in the way a guitar amp does. Still, there's no point in worrying about it so just dig in and play. "Graviton The Boson" goes quite well with the tapped arpeggios and harmonics pattern building up steam before I switch to EBows for "Inverted Fields". Some trouble with the newer EBows as they put out a much stronger signal which may actually hamper the vibrations before lunging into attack mode. I prefer the sound of my old ones but they've all given up the ghost. Finally get some difference-tone fields going from the EBows and metal slide and then return to reprise "Graviton The Boson" with harmonics. Among the other offerings, Robin plays a compelling set exploring the nether reaches of tuba sound and Daan Wandewaal takes a student piece that is merely a few scales and makes dramatic music from it, begging the question "Where does the composition end and the interpretation begin?" August 26 "On Corlear's Hook" - Janacek Philharmonie Symphony Orchestra After breakfast, ride over to the Philharmonic with Peter Rundel, Petr Kotik, and Joe Kubera for dress rehearsal of "On Corlear's Hook". The orchestra is much improved over the previous reading by shifting it's position 90º in the hall which eliminates some muddiness from standing waves. The pianos are now separated on opposite sides as well. I'm still concerned about the thickness of the string sound. I had specified 8-8-4-4-4 but the group has 41 string players and I'm warned not to change things ("they will be angry and play badly"). Hope that it works! I've been emailed a map with the location of a church where Canticum Ostrava will be and so head over after lunch. The cool interior is the perfect place for a rehearsal in the hot dry afternoon. The composition of OVOXXOVO began with my recording of this invented palindromic sound-word and then time-stretching and filtering it. From the resultant sound, I transcribed the formants and transformations and orchestrated them loosely for the choir using mostly throat sounds and a few open syllables. I've kept the dynamics of the piece low and the music sounds lyrical, almost medieval. I'll miss the performance on the 27th as I must leave for Saalfelden after the concert so this is my only chance to hear the piece. Head back to the hotel to pack and then over to the Philharmonic. "On Corlear's Hook" opens the concert and the orchestra sounds the tightest yet. Peter is able to work wonders with the orchestra but the strings are just too lush. In the final section, they mask many of the internal voices and processes played by the pianos and winds. It's problematic for me, especially from where I'm sitting. Still, the feedback is quite positive. Petr Kotik's stormy "Fragment" follows and after the intermission, Franticek Chaloupka's "Smooth the Heaven" and finally, Bernhard Lang's "Monadology II", inspired by the granular film-editing techniques of Diego Ortiz and Martin Arnold, hypnotic and rippling, finishes the concert. We all meet at the hotel restaurant for food and drink. Past midnight, I excuse myself to prepare for my departure as the taxi will arrive for me in one hour. I've been warned by a number of people about robbers on the trains originating in Poland and the East so I'm a touch apprehensive about the journey to Vienna. There are tales of sleeping gas, slashed bags, struggles. I know firsthand of some of these stories from friends who have been victims. I arrive at the nearly deserted Ostrava main-station with some trepidation - only a few drunks and homeless people are hanging around listlessly in the darkened reaches. I make my way with my baggage up and down far too many staircases until reaching the proper platform. There is a computerized announcement in both Czech and English that my train will be delayed by 10 minutes. A little later, another announcement saying that there will be a 40 minute delay. A few minutes later, we hear the voice announcing the imminent arrival of the train. Then again, announcement of a 20 minute delay. (Did anyone say "Kafka-esque?") Finally, the train arrives 30 minutes after it's scheduled departure time, a bit disturbing as I'd only have 30 minutes to change trains in Vienna if all was running perfectly. I find my car and reserved sleeping compartment but the conductor looks at the printout of my reservation (emailed to me and printed at the Ostrava office) and announces that he will not accept it: "Only paper!" So, the expected robbery is performed not by brigands but by the train crew! After some discussion, $40 US allows me to sleep in my compartment. I settle down and lock and bolt the door but it's nearly 4 by the time I fall asleep and at 6, the conductor bangs loudly on the door to announce "breakfast", a cup of lukewarm tea in a paper cup. We're in Vienna 50 minutes later and I run to my next train and settle into a comfortable seat where I can read and doze. Picked up in Salzburg and guitarist Brandon Ross is also in the car having just arrived at the airport there from NYC. We gab all the way to Saalfelden where we go to our rooms. I have a few hours of sleep time before soundcheck and make good use of it after drinking in the dramatic mountains overlooking my balcony. August 27 Carbon - "Transmigration At The Solar Max" - Short Cuts at Saalfelden Jazz Festival I'd been asked by the festival to put together a version of Carbon using musicians already booked and it was a simple matter to draft Bobby Previte and Zeena Parkins, old friends and Carbon veterans both. The score for the set-long piece made use of some notated elements as well as some graphic and text instructions and descriptions. Improvisation filled out the form. We went over cues and written materials at the soundcheck in the Nexus concert hall, a 300-seat theater with excellent acoustics and fine sound equipment and engineers. The set was intense and loud plus densely packed with lots of sonic activity, stacked and interlocked rhythms and raging harmonics - it seemed to go by in a flash, like an exciting 3-way conversation about vital matters. Lots of surprises plus that sense of inevitability that I crave in improvised music. The packed house demanded an encore - a rocking polyrhythmic groove with frenetic slide guitar -and then demanded another. We came out, took deep bows, and called it a night. August 29 OrkestRova - "Electric Ascension" - Congresshalle - Saalfelden Jazz Festival Nels Cline had given me a copy of the Electric Ascension CD (on which he played) so I was excited when Larry Ochs of Rova Sax Quartet contacted me about performing in the project. I've known the Rova guys for decades and we've often spoken of a collaboration so the time was ripe. This project is a re-casting of Coltrane's monumental work of free jazz, both a long-form composition and a gathering around Trane's core quartet of many of the newer voices in the music at that time: Marion Brown, Pharoah Sanders, John Tchicai, Archie Shepp, Freddie Hubbard, and more. In the ensemble were Andrew Cyrille on drums, Eyvind Kang and Jason Kao Hwang on strings, Ikue Mori and Chris Brown on electronics, Trevor Dunn on electric bass, and Zeena Parkins on electric harp. Jon Raskin of Rova played bari sax but also conducted the ensemble, initiating interactions and cuing sections based on Coltrane's theme and chord progressions. Just a little time for soundcheck rehearsal but this often results in enhanced attention. The performance worked well, the arc seeming to be perfect in length and dynamics with quiet pools, small-group interactions, and profound ensemble crescendi. As always, the combination of adventurous programming and a warm atmosphere conducive for socialization and listening makes Saalfelden my favorite European festival. It's one of the few places where I can meet up with old friends who I never see in the city. I'm looking forward to returning home but am sorry to have to miss Ornette Coleman's group who will close the festival on Sunday night. We have an early van to Munich and then a flight to JFK where overcrowding and chaos meet our arrival.

September

September 02 Vigroux/Blanc/Lee/Miller/E# - IBeam Gallery - Brooklyn
This set of improvised music was arranged by Franck to take place at this combination rehearsal/performance space in Gowanus in Brooklyn. The room is well-appointed but the guy on duty there is rather diffident and unhelpful - can't tell if he's one of the owners or just a hired hand. We have to re-arrange things a bit so that the piano is as much out of the way as possible and that there are amps for everyone. We finish setting up and checking the sound just a few minutes before show time. The space is small and so we easily have a packed house. Ben Miller is singing and mics his alto sax (with a trumpet mouthpiece) through a number of pedals. Okkyung has a pickup on her cello and is plugged into a guitar amp. Franck has various synths and a guitar into his amp and I have my 8-string going into a bass amp with an MXR compressor, Rat Distortion and a Quicksilver delay. Michel uses the house drum kit. When we hit, it's deafeningly loud - too much for the space (at least for my ears) and I normally don't mind loudness. Still, the audience sits at pointblank range and is very enthusiastic when we finish. Despite the volume and density of sound, the improvising is both exciting and well-formed. I'm glad that I've brought earplugs.

September 03 "Dulcianae" premiered by Leesa and Nicole Abahuni - The Stone - NYC
In July, the Abahunis asked if I could compose a piece for their double-bassoon performance. "Dulcianae" is the result and is titled after the original name for the bassoon. A six-minute through-composed two-part moving melody is contrasted by a series of trills. The intervals are chosen to maximize difference-tone interaction. In August I recorded Leesa and Nicole at Studio zOaR performing their written parts which I then process and layer to create a soundfile to be played as part of their performance. I've instructed them to each play the written material at a different rate and to "pop out" with fragmentary improvisations if desired. "Dulcianae" finishes their set, performed in a darkened stone with just a touch of stark lighting, sometimes using strobes, sometimes candles, sometimes darkness. The Stone is absolutely full and the response to their dramatic performance is intensely strong.

September 08 Nagai/Sawyer/E# - The Stone - NYC
A set of dynamic improvisations organized by Shoko. Originally, Anton Fier was to play drums but a family emergency called him to Cleveland so Ryan Sawyer filled in. I'd heard about Ryan but this was my first chance to meet him and play with him. He's worked with a wide range of musicians in town including Charles Gayle and drumming for Rhys Chatham's 200-guitar "Crimson Grail." Ryan's playing is a revelation: great listening and idiosyncratic technique on a very high level. Shoko's also blazing on this evening. I've brought the Koll 8-string and fortunately the 10pm scheduled band allows us to use their backline as the house equipment is in a sorry state. Our set ranges from whisper-quiet to full roar and we're all very pleased by it.

September 09 All-Guitar SyndaKit - White Box - NYC
Two sets of SyndaKit with the ensemble including Mary Halvorson, Ron Anderson, Marco Cappelli, Angela Babin, Zach Layton, Ben Tyree, Marc Sloan, Anthony Pirog, Zachary Pruitt, Lili Maase, and Lou Rossi. I've asked everyone to bring small amps as the room is quite live but equipment still varies widely. First set is not so successful as players seem to avoid unisons, one of the prime factors in the piece. After some discussion, second set works very much better - in fact, there are some incredible moments where it's impossible to tell the source of some of the sounds: they may be coming from one's own guitar or not. It's truly a beautifully grooving maelstrom of sound. Surprisingly full house considering it's just two days after Labor Day and little publicity was done.

September 22 Octal solo - Sonic Circuits Festival - Washington, DC
No gigs for nearly two weeks as I've been hunkered down in the studio composing a piece "Then Go" for the reconstructed Intonarumori instruments of Luigi Russolo http://performa-arts.org/blog/music-for-16-futurist-noise-intoners/ as well as finishing the mixing and mastering of the new Carbon "Void Coordinates" CD. Happy to play again and boarded the Vamoose bus from Penn Station for an uneventful ride to Bethesda, Md. only marred by some exceptionally corny jokes told in a thick Yiddish accent by our driver. The Festival was taking place at the Clarice Smith Hall of the University of Maryland, a few miles outside of DC.
On the bill this evening first was the trio Black With Bear, ambient improvising with live video, processed turntables, and cello; followed by the duo of Never Work using synthesizers and a laptop with a tablet interface, nicely avoiding face-buried-in-screen for some heavily stereoized sounds. Thom Buckner and Annea Lockwood next performed Annea's composition "Duende" which mixed her pre-recorded musique concrete with Thom's live vocals, Annea at the mixing board. Her sounds were wildly beautiful and inspired Thom to one of the most mesmerizing performances of his that I've witnessed with a huge range of extended techniques on display but all in the service of the composition, sometimes sounding purely electronic, sometimes like a Korean p'ansori singer.
Ed Rickert, a musician himself and one of the festival organizers, provided me with backline and I plugged the Koll 8-string's mag and piezo pickups into 2 DI's for a stereo signal through the PA and a mix into the bass amp onstage. This gave me a spatialized sound rich in both harmonics and bottom. As always, new territory to explore in the mix of Books One and Two and wonderful response from the full house. Thanks to the post-concert hospitality of Chris Haskett, Lila San Roque, and Chris' dad Bill Haskett. The next morning, a relaxed breakfast with lots of espresso, a walk in the woods, and a drive to Baltimore by Ed.

September 23 Octal solo - Red Room - Baltimore
Meet John Berndt for a fantastic Korean dinner then a quick soundcheck and the evening begins. The legendary Red Room is a small space in the back of Normal's Bookstore, the type of place that is so sorely missed now in New York City. Stacks and stacks of books in all realms as well as rows and rows of bins with LP's and CD's - rare classics and weird nuggets from all genres. I would have been very happy to have had a few free hours to browse. Jorge Martine is first with a beautiful dronal set using tone generators and a metal resonator built by local inventors. I'm plugged into good guitar and bass amps and dig right in with a set that substantially expands on the vocabulary of the previous evening. Great feedback from the audience then I'm off to the station for my late train back to NYC arriving at 2 in the morning.

September 26 "Points & Fields" US Premiere by the New Juilliard Ensemble - Peter Jay Sharp Hall - Juilliard Conservatory - NYC
This piece was composed for the NJE under the baton of Joel Sachs last spring and premiered by them at Suntory Hall in Tokyo last June. I was unable to attend the premiere and looked foward to hearing the piece. Dress rehearsal went quite well with a number of balance issues resolved that had come up in the rehearsal that I had attended two days previously. Quite a full house and good crackle in the air. Pieces on the program by an international cast of composers including Chris Gendall, Errolyn Wallen, Du Yun, and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky. "Points & Fields" opens the evening and is given an excellent performance by the ensemble. Heard things that I didn't hear in rehearsal which I'll incorporate into a rewrite when i find the time.
After greeting Joel backstage in his dressing-room, Janene and I headed out via the main staircase. Juilliard and much of Lincoln Center has just been renovated and the entrance looks quite fine although I had felt that the staircase is more concerned with appearances than functionality and safety. I'd found the stairs a bit slippery before and as we're heading down, Janene suddenly slips and somersaults down to the floor below. I help her up to find blood streaming down her face from a cut on her upper forehead. The house manager quickly applies first aid and gets her a towel to stanch the blood. She never lost consciousness and feels that it was not that serious but still, head injuries are not to be trifled with and we head over to nearby Roosevelt Hospital for her to be examined. The actual neurological examination and bandaging of the wound each take only a few seconds but at the hospital one waits and waits for everything so we're there for well over two hours. Finally, we're released and head downtown for a bite and a much-needed glass of wine.

September 30 Limbic Trio - Local 269
It's been quite a while since the trio with Kevin Ray and Don McKenzie has played. We're part of Dee Pop's Wendesday night series and we're opening the night. I've brought only the tenor and our completely improvised 45-minute set references free jazz, twisted blues, and genre-free improvisation.

October

October 02 Orchestra Carbon plays SyndaKit/solo Octal - Issue Project Room - Brooklyn
The group tonight includes drummer Sim Cain, percussionist Danny Tunick, pianist Jenny Lin, violists Jessica Pavone and Judith Insell, cellist Brian Snow, acoustic bassists Reuben Radding and Kevin Ray, electric bassist Marc Sloan, trombonist Reut Regev, tenor saxophonist Catherine Sikora. Reut and Catherine are new to Orchestra Carbon and both will be playing in Terraplane for our upcoming European tour in November. Brian is also new, a last-minute sub for Hayang Kim who is ill.
I begin the evening with a 35-minute Octal set, mostly playing pieces from Book Two but also a few sections from Book One, modified to be played on the tuning for Two. I was quite careful to bring extra strings after my last experience performing Octal here! Both outputs go into the house Twin which sounds quite clear but with a bit juiciness to the sound.
After a short break, the orchestra assembles for one long SyndaKit. Right from the start, the playing is in the groove with Sim Cain's drumming making a special contribution to the operations of the piece though everybody really is playing beautifully. Given the instrumentation, the low end of the spectrum is incredibly deep and rich. Surprising unisons emerge then dissipate only to return in an altered form. At one point the ensemble opens up to reveal what sounds like a warped rumba played by Jenny, Reuben, and the percussionists. There were many little sonic treats of various types throughout the set and we finished with a sweet glow.

On Monday October 5 we all learned of the death of Suzanne Fiol, director and founder of Issue. She fought bravely for a year against cancer and her strength and good cheer throughout the battle had us all believing that she would beat it. Her passing that morning came as a grim surprise. Her love of art and artists was inspiring and we loved her in return. Her incredible vitality made Issue a welcoming place and developed it from its most humble genesis in a small garage on 6th street to one of the better performance spaces in the City. Suzanne understood how performing arts need a space with a vibe, a space where not only the art is allowed to be presented but where it's fostered with a warm environment, a place where people want to hang around and exchange ideas, to listen to each other. Suzanne was a magnet for people with ideas and they flocked to her and to Issue. We're all deeply saddened but all we can do now is continue to help Issue expand into it's new quarters on Livingston Street in Brooklyn, perhaps as the Suzanne Fiol Center (I know that many of us are thinking along these lines!)

October 06 Sound Technology class - NYU Polytechnic - Brooklyn
At Luke DuBois' invitation, I address his class speaking about my work as a composer and how it encompasses various forms of technology: hardware, software, conceptual. Playing excerpts form various string quartets and orchestra pieces as well as solo works and documentation of my sound installations, I try to convey that one's work may have a core identity yet be manifest in a variety of outward forms. The important thing is not how the work is made but ultimately how it sounds and affects the listener.

October 09 "Ganging The Hook" - Ear to the Earth Festival - Judson Church - Manhattan
This festival is a project of the Electronic Music Foundation who commissioned this piece. Ganging The Hook convolves the dawn sounds of Corlear's Hook with guitar, the intermodulation transforming both into something "other", a sonic meditation on the interstitial states between night and day, technology and nature, noise and music. I often witnessed sunrise while living in the Hudson River valley near Rhinebeck between 1972-74 (though usually from the nighttime end.) There were always fantastic sonic displays to greet the dawn from the myriad birds inhabiting the area. Corlear's Hook is the easternmost part of Manhattan at Grand St., the widest point of the Island, and supposedly named for the shape of the nose of one of George Washington's generals. When our twins were born in 2005, I would often walk them in the stroller early in the morning and I became enthralled with the mix of sounds: birds, river traffic, industrial Brooklyn, the lapping of the river itself, and the white-noise drone of the FDR Drive. For Ganging The Hook, I wanted to reduce the sonic interference of the human element and try and capture as much of the river itself and the local wildlife, imagining a glorious dawn chorus. I chose Labor Day morning as the target date for recording, imagining that this holiday would cause most drivers to stay off the road, and headed down to the East River at 5:40AM with my Zoom HF2. I discovered that the reduction in general ambient noise level at this time on this day actually brought into stark sonic relief what little traffic there was. The slow but steady stream of cars became a figured-bass to my expected symphony. The river was calm though broken with occasional tugs and barges and most of the birds (gulls, cormorants, a small falcon) were strangely silent. It was only at the sun's full appearance that a group of sparrows chattered their appreciation in a burst of high chirps. Though my projected results did not appear, the experience was still deeply satisfying and later that morning as I auditioned the four audio channels in ProTools I found many points of sonic interest and began to envision the sonic strategies that I would employ in this performance. I ended up filtering out a lot of the white noise leaving a spectral image that had a sumbliminal rhythmic artifact from the de-noising. The Zoom records 4 channels of audio and I processed the rear 2 channels separately from the front using resonators and filters to enhance cerain sounds and give them a halo of harmonics I also extracted certain events to reinforce by processing with delays and pitch-shifters. These would then be superimposed on the prepared soundfiles. An unprocessed stereo pair of soundfiles, the processed front and rear, and the "special event" files were all loaded into my patch in Ableton Live that convolved the files using Pluggo plug-ins with guitar input from my solidbody 8-string. For the performance, surrounding the audience were stereo rear, the stereo front, the specials (mixed into these 4 channels) plus a tiny amount of my unprocessed guitar and the original unprocessed stereo coming from stereo speakers behind me. There was also a subwoofer with a feed from all channels and a projection on 2 screens of a video realization of stills that I photographed throughout the sunrise. The guitar sounds melted into the river sounds to create a sound that retained the overtone structure and envelopes of all of the sounds yet sounded like neither. The "specia" tracks added a deep dimensionality to those events. The enhanced bird chorus near the end was both spectacularly beautiful and terrifying, evoking scenes from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." The sound was loud and someitmes harsh but not overpowering. I was quite pleased with this initial presentation of "Ganging The Hook" and hope to refine the patch further during my upcoming residency at Atlantic Center for the Arts.

October 10 Janene Higgins/E# Duo - MMix Festival - Theaterlab - Manhattan
Organized by composer Patrick Grant, this festival brought in a wide range of artists making use of interactive technologies with a focus on Ableton Live including Luke DuBois, Bora Yoon, Todd Reynolds, and Kathy Supove at the Theaterlab, a small but important space on 14th street directed by Carlo Altomare. Patrick opened this evening followed by Kathy's set. After a long intermission to strike their setups, Janene and I plugged in to play two 26-minute pieces. Neither projection nor sound setup were ideal for our purposes but we still were able to work well, creating a nonlinear poetic narrative from her images and my sounds (using the Godin + my Tectonics patch in Ableton.)

Early morning on Oct. 12 I flew to Orlando, Florida to begin a three week Master Residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach on the Atlantic Coast http://www.atlanticcenterforthearts.org/ . I'm given a beautiful modern cottage with baby grand piano, full kitchen, and bedroom. ACA has a ProTools studio, a fine library, theater, workshops, and for this session two other Master Residents, photographer Rineke Dijkstra and writer Antonya Nelson and their Associate artists. Joining me in the Music realm are eight Associates that I've chosen on the basis of their advanced compositional thinking and fine work and musicianship to join me for daily discussion sessions as well as music-making and field trips. The crew includes Terri Hron, Daniel Iglesia, David Kant, Yoon-ji Lee, Cecilia Lopez, Paula Matthusen, Sergei Tcherepnin, Jacob Wick. Also joining us (though not necessarily visible) are various snakes, armadillos, possums, tortoises, raccoons, lizards, and frogs. In addition to my work with the Associates, during my time at the Center I'll be composing a commissioned piece for violin virtuoso Hilary Hahn - http://www.hilaryhahn.com/ as well as re-mastering Carbon tracks from the 1991-96 albums Datacide, Tocsin, Truthtable, and Autoboot for reissue by Atavistic and working on drum tracks for an upcoming guitar-groove CD.

October 16 Jacob Wick/E# solos - Joan James Harris Theater - ACA
As part of our time at the Center, we decide that each will do a solo concert or presentation in the theater. We kick the series off with Jacob and myself. In his piece Swarm, Jacob plays trumpet and gets a huge variety of evocative noises and sounds without any mutes, only using various types of breath attack and half-valving. A large palmetto bug (known in NYC as water bugs or giant cockroaches, B52's in Hawaii) crawls out of the bleachers and sits quietly in front during Jacob's set. We find at the end of the set that it is dead. After a short break for my set up, I perform Momentum Anomaly. It's been some time since I've played it and it's refreshing to revisit and find new approaches to the DBbDEbBbD tuning. Midway through my set a large spider (at least not a tarantula though!) walks across the stage stopping briefly in front of me before continuing on. After the concert, a number of us head over to Beachside for a cold beer at an ocean shore bar and then another at a redneck bar off the beach where a terrible Southern rock band murks out the hits while drunk bikers romp.

October 20 Terri Hron/Sergei Tcherepnin - solos- Joan James Harris Theater - ACA
Terri composes and performs both acoustic and electroacoustic music on the full range of recorders as well as using computers, processing, all of the tools and techniques of this time. A virtuoso instrumentalist, her pieces utilize a mix of traditional and extended techniques to create myriad sounds, sometimes melodic, sometimes evoking flocks of birds. Jacob Wick and I joined her on trumpet and clarinet for a sensitive improvisation before she finished the set with another solo. Sergei then performed a deep pulsing piece on his Serge Modular synthesizer, built by his uncle Serge Tcherepnin in 1978. Fantastic sounds and , of course, analog warmth (and fire!) Early the next morning, Yoon-Ji, Terry, Cecilia, David and I drive before sunrise south to the Merritt Island Wildlife Preserve near Cape Canaveral to try and record the dawn chorus of birds. Plenty of birds, mostly pelicans, but they're mostly silent. We're thrilled to see a pair of dolphins frolicking in the channel just after sunrise as well as a few manatees.

October 23 Music Technology Class, FIU-Miami/FLEA & Momentum Anomaly solo - Dorsch Gallery- Miami
After dinner head out in the car provided for my use by the Center. I'm truly sorry to miss the concerts of Dan Iglesia and David Kant. Dan is doing amazing work both with audio and 3D video - David likewise with algorithmic approaches to live processing of instruments. I-95 is a fast road - 80mph - but I'm amazed by the stupidity of the drivers: such tricks as cutting across 3 lanes of traffic to get to an exit. I'm on my guard. Occasional cloudbursts of rain but mostly good weather. I reach Miami in less than four hours and the home of Paula Matthusen, one of my Associates at the Center and a professor at Florida International University and whose class i will address the next day. We arrive before noon and hook up laptop to audio and video and I begin with Seize Seas Seeth Seen. I take a non-linear approach allowing tangents to lead to various areas around a discussion of graphic scores, digital processing (and digital processing of scores to create graphics), use of various software platforms including M back in the Virtual Stance days and later LiSa, Max/MSP, and Ableton Live. Also discuss orchestral composition and the transition from ideas heard in the inner ear to full orchestration (& the practical issues to be dealt with as well such as limited rehearsal time, reactionary players who hate contemporary music, etc!) Composer Orlando Garcia attends my seminar and we speak a bit about our mutual teacher Morton Feldman with whom Orlando shared a close friendship.After class we head over to the gallery in the industrial Wynwood District to set up. Brook Dorsch has long been a supporter of Miami's local artists and the multi-room facility holds a number of interesting shows. Paula works first with the seven musicians in her FLEA ensemble (FIU Electronic Arts Ensemble) to set up for their performance of Hammer Anvil Stirrup for which Paula has created a patch in Max/MSP that works as a performance synthesizer adapted specially for the requirements of the piece (originally composed in 1988 for the Avanti String Quartet in Finland.) The patch will be available for free download - look in Updates for news of it.
The group works on performance practice issues with a focus on rhythmic tightness as well as transitions, tessitura, and sonics. By the end of the rehearsal, they're sounding quite good and i do a quick check with my Godin for Momentum Anomaly which for this performance will include processing of the guitar signal in my Ableton patch. The concert begins with FLEA and it's the best they've sounded with this piece, turning in a spirited version with some remarkable sonic textures in some of the drone sections and great hocketing lines in some of the grooves. A short intermission and I play Momentum Anomaly dedicating the concert to three giants gone this week: Maryanne Amacher, Sirone, and Soupy Sales. Some tuning problems because of the varying temperature (hot humidity to air-conditioned chill) but mostly the Godin sounds great in the room and the playing feels effortless. I'm getting more and more relaxed with the tapping sections and achieve some super high speeds which translates to cascades of overtones and shifting cross-rhythms in the bass. Excellent response and after some post-gig chats wit various people, we head out to dinner. Leadfoot the car back to New Smyrna in short time the next morning, happy to be back at the Center.

October 25 SyndaKit, Homage Leroy Jenkins, Momentum Anomaly - Timucua White House - Orlando
As part of the Atlantic Center's Outreach program to the surrounding communities, I do a concert at Benoit Glazer's Timucua White House in Orlando http://www.benoitglazer.com/ . The White House has a beautiful concert space with soaring ceiling and excellent equipment and acoustics. Benoit is music-director of Cirques du Soleil, an inventor, architect, and accomplished performer. His wife and children are likewise wonderful musicians on a huge range of instruments. He and Woody Igou have lined up a number of musicians for this concert which begins with a sonic meditation in C for family and friends and then continues to a performance of my Homage Leroy Jenkins with violinist Shelley Matthews and clarinetist and pianist whose name i did not get in the rush of the evening! Considering their limited time to rehearse this complex through-composed piece, they play it with great elan and real passion. Shelley especially channeled some of Leroy's sound and touch. I follow with Momentum Anomaly and enjoying the acoustics and crackling vibe of the room, dig in deeply to new areas and work up quite a sweat. The response is overwhelming and I feel genuinely moved. Next, a performance of SyndaKit in which I join the eleven musicians organized for the event by Benoit and bassist Doug Matthews. No time to rehearse before, just some brief discussion. Considering this a "first public rehearsal," the group plays quite well with good listening and many surprises. Some more time together would have been great but still, I was quite pleased. One element that more rehearsal would have enhanced is the notion of the unison, the group merging into one sound and grooving with it, bristling with tension and essential to SyndaKit.

October 29 Yoonji Lee/Paula Matthusen/Cecilia Lopez - solos - Joan James Harris Theater - ACA
The last in our series of solo presentaitons. To begin the evening, Yoonji has created in a very short time a theater piece, quite different from most of her carefully composed but sonically adventurous pieces. She employs the skills of both photographers and writers who are there as associates as well as guided improvisation from various members of our group to make a piece that is quite moving and mysterious. It's my debut as "lighting designer" and I don't make any mistakes. Next Paula presents two pieces. The first uses a four-channel speaker system and is grooving richly with complexity and riveting sounds. The second is a brief presentation of her research with sending pulse and sine waves into speakers that have rice grains in their cones. The excited speakers make the rice dance and jump in an incredibly appealng way. This is just the beginning gestures of this piece - it could develop either for performance or installation. The evening concludes with Cecilia Lopez' giant steel sheet which has piezo elements fixed to it both to excite the sheet emitting sound and to pick up sounds fed in including saxophone and trumpet as well as feedback oscillation using smaller hand-held speakers. Cecilia uses graphic scores and the piece unfolds inevitably but mysteriously.

October 30 "Inside Out" - Joan James Harris Theater - ACA
This is the final event of the residency period. the visual artists and writers both present their works followed by author Jaina Sanga reading the introduction from her novel-in-the-works "Ganges" with an underscore created by our group. The piece began with my synthesized tamboura drone over which we layered live recordings of various late-night improvisations. For our 30' music set, we decided to make a timeline with the first and last 2.5 minutes taken up with the entire group as well as a 15 second blast at 15 minutes. We each individually define our own timelines, completely unsynchronized with the others, to cue our entrances and exits. The result gave almost every possible permutation and created a piece that, though without conscious narrative arc, still maintained a shape and tension that was qute engaging, filled with beautiful sounds and pithy interactions. Late hang, a bit of sleep, then off to the airport for my flight home.

November

November 06 Barry Guy Orchestra + E# - Berlin Jazz Festival - Germany
Too little time at home and then it's off again with a quick trip to Berlin to perform at the Jazz Festival as a soloist for bassist Barry Guy and his large ensemble including Evan Parker, Trevor Watts, and Mats Gustafsson-reeds; Per Texas Johansson-bass clarinet; Herb Robertson-trumpet; Johannes Bauer-trombone; Per Åke Holmlander-tuba; Agusti Fernandez-piano; Paul Lytton and Raymond Strid-drums - some of my favorite players. I thoroughly enjoyed our gig in Mannheim last year and am looking forward to this event. Good flights out of JFK and Munich and a chance to rest in the hotel before soundcheck/rehearsal where we go over a graphic score titled "Danaus", part of the Latin name for the monarch butterfly (my role for the evening.) I've brought the Godin LGX3 solidbody, MXR compressor, Rat distortion, and the Eventide Time Factor delay. My bags get X-rayed multiple times for this trip: twice at JFK, thrice at Munich. This shouldn't affect the electronics yet somewhere between my studio and the stage, all of my presets in the Eventide were wiped. A moment of stupefied shock but there's enough time for me to quickly cook up some patches for the gig (this unit is extremely easy to program) and we try out a number of segments of the piece, break for dinner and hit. "Danaus" seems to be over in a flash and the ensemble plays another long episodic piece on which I join them for the final segment. The hall is full and there is loud acclaim and also some loud booing. We all have a laugh over this. Fine post-gig hang with the musicians and a surprise backstage visit from Jon Rose, a great violinist/improviser/conceptualist who I've known for years. On after us is Dave Holland's quartet with Chris Potter, Jason Moran, and Eric Harland. They turned in an impeccable set with absolutely no surprises or excitement - like watching a pedestrian recital of Baroque music - disappointing as I'd been a huge fan of Holland's for many years. A few hours back at the hotel then a return to Tegel for flights to Frankfurt and back to NYC on the 7th.

Once again home for just a sec. Besides spending time with J and the twins, there's a Terraplane rehearsal at my studio on the 8th and a rehearsal at the Clocktower Gallery on the 9th with the Intonarumori instruments for the Town Hall concert on Nov. 12 that I will, sadly, miss. The Intonarumori ("noise intoners") were devised by Luigi Russolo prior to World War I and were the physical manifestation of the ideas he presented in his manifesto "The Art of Noise." The original instruments were moved to London and destroyed in bombings in WW2. For the Performa festival, musicologist and conductor Luciano Chessa has supervised the reconstruction of the instruments and a number of composers were commissioned to create pieces for them including Joan LaBarbera, Tony Conrad, Blixa Bargeld and Mike Patton. The 16 wooden boxes use membranes, strings, levers, wheels, and bars to acoustically generate all manners of roars, siren screams, buzzes, gurgles, thumps, and scrapes. My piece, "Then Go," features a Korean p'ansori singer mixing notated vocal lines in English (from a text that I wrote) with varying sounds from the instruments. "Then Go" was premiered in San Francisco on Oct. 16 at the Yerba Buena Art Center with Dohee Lee performing the vocal part - see: http://sfciviccenter.blogspot.com/2009/10/music-for-16-futurist-noise-intoners.html For the NY performance, thanks to Ha-Yang Kim, I've found a wonderful singer named Rami Sae who is actually mainly a kayagum player. It's incredible to see the Intoners and rehearsal goes quite efficiently. It's decided that I will transpose the vocal part down a whole-step to allow Rami to use more of the diaphragm range of her voice: deeper and louder. Wish I could be there!

Terraplane tours Europe

November 11 Reigen - Wien, Austria
Crazed morning finishing up things at studio and home then off to the airport for smooth flights to Munich and then on to Wien where I meet Eric Mingus and Catherine Sikora (who fly via Paris) at the airport baggage claim. We head to the hotel in town - Tony Lewis, Dave Hofstra, and Reut Regev are on a later flight and we'll meet up and go to soundcheck together. The check goes quite quickly though I find a pad out from my soprano sax which is fixed with some rubber cement that Andreas (the excellent and most helpful sound engineer) digs up. I've brought the Hohner G3T "fake Steinberger" guitar and the small 8-string lap steel that I had made a few years ago and which mounts on a mic stand eliminating the heavy stainless-steel legs that my heavy maple Fender required. With increasingly strict airline weight and size limits, this combination allows me to carry-on a lot of sonic range in a very compact gigbag. The Timefactor, Rat, and Celmo "Sardine Can" compressor complete my setup. We hit soon after dinner with one long set and the new horn players work in extremely well with the band. The response is great from the smaller-than-expected crowd - we're told that the Reigen has nearly gone bankrupt recently and rarely gets an audience. It's a pity because the room and sound equipment are fine and everybody working there is friendly and competent. The call comes way too early the next morning for our train to Zagreb. We've built in plenty of time to get to the station but the driver brings us to the wrong one so we're counting the seconds but we do make it with a little time to spare. As we cross the border into the Hungarian countryside on our way to Croatia, we feel that strange contentment that the road brings, especially in the form of a European train. Of course, after napping for awhile, the realization sinks in to all of us that this train has no amenities, neither dining car nor snack cart. The Jones comes down hard: no coffee until Zagreb. Looking at the schedule, we see a 20-minute stop at Gyekenyes and hope is kindled only to be dashed at the sight of the station - a dinky little building in the wilderness. Spotting many uniformed men outside the train who soon begin to board, we realize we're at the border with Croatia and soon go through three passport controls each: Hungarian immigration and customs plus Croatian immigration. The ritual is a real flashback to the old days of intra-European border crossings. We laugh at the ease at which the statement "Nothing to declare" is taken at face value. I suppose if we were smuggling nuclear materials or heroin, we'd somehow give it away.

(picture by Janene Higgins)
November 12 N.O. Jazz Festival - University of Zagreb - Zagreb, Croatia
Great surprise to see saxophonist Tony Kofi in the hotel lobby - he's playing with Jamaaladeen Tacuma on the same bill as part of the N.O. Jazz Festival. Tony played with Terraplane in our UK tour of 2003 subbing for the ailing Sam Furnace. And speaking of interlocked histories, I first met Tony Lewis when we played together in a group led by trombonist Craig Harris with Jamaaladeen and Kelvyn Bell in 1988. I was a huge fan of Jamaal's since first hearing him on Ornette Coleman's "Dancing In Your Head" record and on James Blood Ulmer's "Tales of Captain Black." When we arrive at the venue, Jamaal and company have not yet checked as the PA wasn't even built up. We content ourselves with sandwiches and a taste of organizer Mate's father's new wine. Soundcheck goes quite well and a few minutes after we finish the doors are opened and the 200-seat theater is more than packed in with people. Set starts well with the horn-based "Work Or Leave" and "Slow Drag" but as soon as we get a little louder the strangeness of the room sound takes over and proves a bit disorienting. The problem is that the many bodies in the audience absorb and diffuse our sound while the backstage space (there's no wall or curtain behind us) causes out-of-phase reflections. Quiet parts absolutely disappear and loud parts become obnoxiously loud and boomy. One has to operate on automatic in such situations and the frenzied audience response provides a good stimulus for that. We're told after that the sound in the theater was excellent. We get to hear a bit of Jamaaladeen's set before being taken to an enormous pub restaurant with Croatian specialties, perfect for the group carnivores. Later, I speak with Janene and find out from her that the Town Hall Intonarumori concert was a huge success with "Then Go" given an excellent performance with great response.

The 13th is free day to walk around the city, have a fine meal by Tesla Square in a Dalmatian restaurant (seafood, not dog) and do some work. Sleep dep begins again the next morning with a 0645 departure to catch trains to Graz, Selzthal, and our destination, Steyr.

November 14 Röda - Steyr, Austria
Bit of rest in the hotel before soundcheck, dinner and then two long sets. As it so often happens, soundcheck was perfect but the sound during the set was totally different. Difficulties in hearing each other and widely varying levels. When I switched to guitar, found that I was completely out of tune - somehow the tuner had been calibrated 60 cents sharp. Eric sings a beautiful polyrhyhmic bit of sound poetry while I retune and then we're off again. Despite these issues, it feels like the music is getting out there and the audience response is fantastic. We play Sitting On Top Of The World to end the first set and a long Wang Dang Doodle as an encore. The audience does not want us to finish and we return with an instrumental Killing Floor to coplete our Howlin' Wolf tribute and call it a night or rather early morning. It's nearly 0200 when we return to the hotel with another ridiculously early call at 0600 to catch a train to St. Valentin to make connections in Wien and Budapest and on to Belgrade arriving there at 2045. Too-long hike uphill to the hotel (we're told that it's "just over there") and then assemble for a fantastic dinner at a seafood place with homemade ajvar._ Once again, up too early for a short but beautiful flight to Podgorica where we're met at the airport and driven to our extremely comfortable hotel. Found interesting factoids about Podgorica on Wiki: When founded (before the 11th century), the town was called Birziminium. In the Middle Ages, it was known as Ribnica. The name Podgorica was used from 1326. The city was pretty much destroyed during WW2 and then rebuilt. From 1946 to 1992 it was called Titograd.

November 17 Kulturno-Informativni Centar Budo Tomovic - Podgorica, Montenegro
Mingus and I have a press conference at noon at the Cultural Office in the venue. Our gracious hosts include the organizer, Maja Popovic, and Alex Titolo from the American Embassy (who have contributed to making the concert possible.) The press conference is packed with all of the TV stations in Montenegro plus some from Belgrade as well as radio and newspaper (we're told the turnout is much better than what they get for politicians.) I speak first about Terraplane and my various projects and their history and Eric then speaks about his work with the band and on his own. Some Q & A and then a private interview with one very thoughtful journalist and we're done - I'm free to lead a slug-like existence for the rest of the day: sleep, food, reading. There's a radio interview the next morning and an Atlas TV interview onstage at the venue in the afternoon before soundcheck. The venue is a cool dark theater seating about 400 and the room sound is excellent as is the sound onstage. We can play at a moderate level and the instruments are clear, full, and fat - my guitar seems to sustain forever and even my saxophone feels completely effortless. The audience is rapt with attention and this feeds back nicely to us. We play a tight, hot and lengthy set taking a lot of chances in the open sections of the such songs as They Say We Is and Edifice Wrecked. I was glad that the set went well as weighing on my mind was a message from the Belgrade promoter that our shows in Belgrade and Novi Sad might be cancelled because of the death of the archbishop there - official "days of mourning" were declared and concerts would be forbidden. Indeed, after the show, we find out that Belgrade will not happen but Novi Sad will. Once again, hypocritical posers in ridiculous costumes with their hands in the pants and pockets of the people trump common sense and reality. We're told that it's an "act of God" as mentioned in every contract (though it seems to me that the acting was all done by men) and therefore no one can be held responsible for our lost fees. The Belgrade promoters are not happy with the situation either and will lose money on the extensive promotion that they've done and they will share the cost of the hotel for that night. It's a late night after the concert but the call is still 0545 the next morning for our shuttle to the airport and a fine flight to Belgrade though in our ascent, the ancient Fokker 100 jet, it's windows deeply pitted and scratched, seemed to clear the mountains surrounding Podgorica by only a few hundred feet. The van to meet us is over 30 minutes late leaving us in wonder but we're finally picked up and driven to our hotel passing a number of bombed buildings left over from the recent war. I take a walk in the center and see people everywhere "mourning" by shopping and hanging out in cafes drinking beer. The next morning there is a parade of a few thousand people passing on the main street behind the coffin - most of the population takes it as a holiday though with even more shopping and merriment. A van picks us up later in the afternoon and drives us to Novi Sad where we're given the luxury treatment with a five-star hotel and a great dinner in town followed by a brief visit to the jazz festival happening simultaneously.

November 20 Studio 20 - Novi Sad, Serbia
A relaxed day then assemble for soundcheck. It's quite foggy out and I ask if it might affect our flight the next morning but told it's unlikely. The concert is in the theater of a television production studio. The room, of old light wood in classic Eastern European '50's style and seating about 300, is comfortable with excellent acoustics. Unfortunately, I'm given a Marshall JCM800 combo amp as a Fender was unavailable. This amp has a great lead tone, thick and cutting, but for chordal work and clean lines, it just doesn't sound right - muddy and distorted. Still, the overall stage sound is fine: full and balanced. We hit to a full house and play a 2 hour set to great acclaim. Two encores: Dance For Lance and Wang Dang Doodle. We return the instruments to the hotel and then are taken to the Foxtrot club where a gypsy group with a virtuosic violinist from Hungary, two amplified acoustic guitars, electric bass, drum kit plus percussionist is performing in a modern fusionistic style. We have to leave around 0100 after a few songs though as there's a pickup at 0300 to drive us back to the airport in Belgrade for our 0630 flight to Munich and then on to Milano where a driver will meet us to bring us to Forli, a three-hour drive. It seems like a crazy routing but this itinerary cost us substantially less than a later and more convenient flight to Bologna would have. We arrive at the airport to find that the Munich flight is cancelled - it never arrived in Belgrade the night before because of the fog. We had all checked-in online and so we've already been re-routed by Lufthansa with a later flight to Frankfurt. I was able to change our final destination to Bologna - much more convenient to Forli and saving us 2 hours of driving - the same flight I would have liked to book for us but it would have cost $649 per person as opposed to the $200 each that we paid. Now we have plenty of time to kill but no place to really relax and sleep, the thing that we're most in need of.

November 21 Area Sismica - S. Martino, Italy
We finally board the flight to Frankfurt, have 3.5 hours there and then fly to Bologna with spectacular views of the Alps. The driver was alerted about the change but was already in Milano though he has plenty of time to come to Bologna and meet us with an additional one hour drive to Forli where our hotel is. The flights are too short to allow real sleep so, exhausted, everyone falls out when we arrive. Two hours of deep unconsciousness is not enough but 3 fantastic shots of espresso in the bar downstairs gets me in operating mode. Pickup for soundcheck and then a relaxed dinner. It's a late set, beginning at 2245 and the club is packed when we begin. We play one long set switching Dance For Lance to the middle and saving a long and wild They Say We Is for the encore. The sound on the tight stage is a little too loud but we play with abandon and fire - maybe the sleep dep is not such a bad thing sometimes! As always, a fine post-gig hang at the Area Sismica - great to see director Gionni and Boris Salvodelli. Late return to the hotel for another too-short slab of horizontality before heading to the station early in the morning for trains to Milano and then Torino.

November 22 Teatro Politeama Boglione Bra, Italy
No sign of the driver at the designated meeting point at the track in Torino Porta Nuova but after an exchange of texts with the promoter's office over the course of 30 minutes he turns up and escorts us out to the van for the 30 minute drive to Bra, a beautiful small town halfway between Torino and Cuneo. A little chill time in the hotel, a double espresso, and we walk to soundcheck through the winding streets, perhaps a little too far with equipment. The concert is at a very nice theater for about 300. Good crew, excellent drums, but a less-than-wonderful Fender Twin Amp - not the Twin Reverb that I prefer. We blast through the check as dinner awaits and there's little time before the 9pm start. Bra is where the most admirable "slow food" movement started but unfortunately we will not be taking part on this evening. Dinner at the hotel is excellent though and, well-fueled, we head back to the teatro and hit. Sound is quite good on stage but the audience is far away and though they are enthusiastic, it feels a bit abstract. We play a good long set with encore and head back to the hotel for a few hours rest before our 0800 departure by van for Torino Porta Susa and our train to Paris.

November 23 Theater Charcot - Marcq en Barouel, France
After our stunning Alpine train ride, we're met at Gare de Lyon in Paris by the driver and taken to Marcq en Barouel, a little over two hours on the autoroute cranking at high speed through the rain. Excellent crew and equipment (here I have a Twin Amp that sounds fantastic) in this small modern theater makes for a quick check. Unfortunately, instead of a tuba for Work Or Leave and Slow Drag, they've provided a euphonium - unuseable. Short run back to the hotel to change and we return for two sets, the second going longer than expected but feeling much shorter. Great response, we pack, and the promoter brings us to a brasserie in nearby Lille for the nouveau beaujolais and food - my choucroute de la mer is super. We're back at the hotel way too late - asleep by 0330 and I wake up automatically before 0600 to have a bit of breakfast before we pile in the van again for our 3-hour shuttle in morning rush-hour traffic to Paris Est where we have time for coffee and snacks before boarding our train to Stuttgart. If one is running on sleep dep, continuous input of food and drink takes up the slack.

November 24 Franz K - Reutlingen, Germany
As I've so often found in the last few years, trains in Gemany are generally tardy and it's difficult to plan a tour around tight connections. With a late arrival, what should have been a relaxed transfer in Stuttgart turns into a mad dash across 13 tracks for the local to Reutlingen and our penultimate concert at this club/culture center/restaurant (thanks and a tip of the hat to guitarist Thomas Maos from Tubingen who helped arrange this concert.) We do make it though and have time for a pit stop at the hotel before returning for soundcheck. For this show I'm provided with a Mesa Boogie head and Fender 4x12 cabinet - a good setup for metal but not for what I do - it sounds flat and lifeless (though plenty loud) but I must make the most of it. Two sets this night and we find them exhilarating. Excellent improvisations wthin the tunes and two encores. We even have a civilized return time to the hotel and start-time the next morning for trains to Stuttgart, Zurich, and then Lugano. Our train to Zurich is supposed to be a modern ICE train but instead, signs on the train read "Ersatz Zug" and rather than going non-stop to Zurich as scheduled, we dash across the platform at the bordertown of Schaffhausen to a Swiss train that gets us to Zurich in time for our connection to Lugano. Horror: the coffee machine in the bar-car is broken and there is only instant Nestle "cappucino" - I'm getting that special need-coffee headache and while this beverage supplies the necessary caffeine, in terms of taste and texture it's a chemical abomination.

November 25 Auditorium of the Swiss Radio Television - Lugano, Switzerland
The producer Paolo Keller meets us at the train station with a driver and two cars and brings us to our hotel. The main part of the town lies a few hundred feet below and is reached by winding roads or a funicular. It's picture-perfect and unconscionably wealthy though there is a fear in the air of the bubble bursting as Italian banks are trying to lure Italian money back to Italy from Switzerland. We're performing this last concert of the tour in a small auditorium at the station with an audience of about 150. Soundcheck is quick as the equipment is excellent and the engineers completely knowledgeable and efficient (plus the facility has a bar with an excellent espresso machine - it's more Italy than Switzerland here.) Off for a bite and return for two sets that will be both broadcast live and recorded for future use. The sound is perfect in the room and we're excited by both the proximity and energy of the audience and the fact that this is the last concert of the tour. Two burning and tight sets and again, some real improvisational surprises. Great to say hello to Steve Piccolo and Oxana and violinist Anna Kotkova after the show. A last-minute toast and we head back to the hotel. Dave and Tony have a 0345 call for their early flight from Milano. Reut and I will get picked up at 6 to also be brought to Malpenesa. Mingus and Catherine are gleefully looking forward to sleeping late as they have just a short train ride in the afternoon. After packing and online things, I finally get to sleep around 0300. At 0500 all hell breaks loose at the hotel as an electronic fire alarm goes off loud and insistent. No one knows if it's actually a fire, a drill, or just a mistake until we're all standing groggily out in the street. It takes the hotel staff more than 15 minutes to figure out how to cancel the sound. Given the early calls for most of the tour, it was only inevitable that this night of rest (for two of us anyway) would be disrupted. No sense for me to go back to bed so I bring my things downstairs and have coffee before the 75 minute ride to the airport and fine flights to Munich and then NYC.

December

December 19 Tectonics - 10X10 DECADE-END ART SALE - White Box - Manhattan
Off the road (or is it "on the ground?") for a few days then one extremely brief trip to Munich to meet with the staff at the Bayerische Staatsopera to discuss my commissioned piece to be presented next summer in a festival site to be constructed in the Marstallplatz and to meet and do a workshop with the 75 kids (age 14-19) who applied to be part of the project.
http://www.bayerische.staatsoper.de/322-ZG9tPWRvbTEmbD1kZSZwcmVzc2VfaWQ9MTE2MTA-~presse~presseinfo~presse-information.html I'm writing a short sci-fi story that will be translated into German and that I will turn into the script for this piece. I will also compose the music and direct the production. Truly exciting project! Back from Munich, I concentrate on attempting to restore some order to Studio zOaR after months of neglect as well as finishing a few small projects and making a much needed return to family life. For a fund-raiser for White Box http://www.whiteboxny.org/ director Juan Puntes has asked me to perform a solo set as part of the evening's entertainment which began with a set by the young band Tribal Council, a poetic rant by filmmaker Jonas Mekas accompanied by percussionists Kenny Wollesen and Darius Naujo and saxophonist Jonathan Haffter, my set, a solo set by Renzo from R-Tronika, a reading by Anthony Haden-Guest, and a sale of 10"x10" art pieces by various people, both famous and unknown for $100 a pop. Starting two days before, there were rumblings of an oncoming storm with wild predictions of heavy snowfall. I tend to discount these as I've found the weather services have compounded their usual inaccuracy with a tendency to inflate the disaster content of any weather outside of the most mundane. Still, by Saturday afternoon, the predictions continued to indicate a lot of snow for NYC as there was already substantial accumulations further south in Washington DC. I hadn't experienced a good heavy snow in a long time and certainly the twins were excited about it. By the time I left for the gallery at 6pm, there was an inch or so on the ground and no taxis or cars available - this did not bode well for attendance. I was quite happy to stroll to White Box, passing under the Williamsburg Bridge anchorage in one of my favorite shortcuts. Chaos at the site as many last-minute preps were all underway simultaneously and finally the doors opened as scheduled for 7pm and the house was soon packed. The PA is a little sad these days so fortunately Renzo lent me the use of his Peavey keyboard amp - not stereo but a deep and powerful sound. I chose more dance-oriented tracks for my compact but intense Tectonics set with some use of my Hohner G3T guitar processed with plug-ins in my Ableton patch, all to good response with lots of interesting conversations after. By the time I decided to head home the snow was in full-force with heavy winds making walking difficult. Rather than trudging on, I found a good corner near the Manhattan Bridge and got a taxi soon enough to not get completely soaked and frozen.

December 20 E# 3 - Avant Americana - Cakeshop - Manhattan
Drummer and presenter Dee Pop has had to continually move his always-vital evenings from venue to venue over the years. Crowds are fickle - sometimes the shows are packed, sometimes not and everyone knows that NYC club audiences are completely unpredictable. It's hard to get a clubowner to make much of a committment to a long-term series so Dee has been the gypsy and taken the show from Local 269 to this latest venue, the Cakeshop on Ludlow St. in the now-ultra-hip Lower East Side. When i moved to NYC in 1979, these streets below Houston and between Allen and Pitt were knee-deep in empty syringes and drug packets and a mugging was just around the corner. My street in the East Village was treacherous but these were ridiculous. But that was back then and the LES long ago submitted to the gentrifiers' pen with shooting galleries yielding to expensive boutiques, trendy restaurants, and hipster bars where bands will play for nothing in hopes of getting signed. Even those days are gone with the record companies belly-up. Bands still hold onto various hopes but there are many who just want to make their music and bring it to an audience. Dee usually puts together a theme for his evenings with a lot of the most committed bands, with tonight's being Avant Americana. Low expectations for attendance as arctic winds whistled, blowing the ample quantities of snow - not the 24" predicted but at least 8" - sizeable enough to make a beautiful mess. No taxis or cars available so again walked over via the under-bridge in time for the first set: soulful songs with Jahn Xavier including some classics for a surprisingly decent house. Not sure how avant things were (if that concept still has any weight at all) but it was an enjoyable evening. After Jahn, my trio with Dave Hofstra and Don McKenzie set up. House guitar amp is a Peavey stack with no working reverb. One thing for sure is that the amp was loud and fat though not quite the sound I prefer (overdriven Fender). I brought the green Strat and only the Celmo compressor and Ultra-Fuzz, no delay. Not too happy with the raw directness of my sound at first but grew to love the power of it. We began with Snowy Day, appropriately enough, then drifted in and out of improvisations and blues classics, with the classics receiving an extra twist often bringing us into On The Corner-territory. High intensity and surprising interactions, we were pleased as was the audience. Many old friends in the house including Poppa Chubby and George Gilmore. After us, Bobby Radcliff played a raw and burning set.

 

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