For the final sunday sound series I had some out of town guests. My family came in from all over and my dear old friends and fellow Footsteps LLC lackies, otto arsenault and taylor cohen, made the trek from LA. (Otto was also kind enough to lend his photo-magic to capture all the good images of this post)The afternoon started with an arousing performance from 60 Watt Kid. Kevin and crew freaked out the squares standing outside of the confines of the space with their telephone mics, sonic and physical energy. Birds and Batteries was next, short one member of their cast, but still put on an arousing set. Their sound, although highly original can be simply put as an intertwining neil young and daft punk kinda sound. Tussle jammed out on a few themes they put together during a pow-wow for the show. This was the first time I met any of these guys, and damn, they are sweethearts. Images of this set are few because they played in the near dark, with occasional flickering light from Josh Churchill’s light installation. The whole series ended with a grandstand performance from Jascha Ephraim Memorial Library (myspace). His 13 piece band ran through Jascha’s original scores magically, they also had a great visual effect on the space.
It was sad to have such an inspirational series come to an end, but it was definitely nice to have such a big full sound to close on, with all my family and friends, both brand new and very old there with me. A deepest thanks to the dozens of warm and talented people who made this possible. Much love and respect.
sunday sunday sunday @ base base base… how I like things in 3’s.
Mark Deutsch brought out his Tea Set to start the afternoon off with his diy cali-positive singer/songwriter rock. I was always impressed how the earlier acts of each day would set up and get right into it no matter who was around or not. the music usually had a way of collecting a crew pretty quickly. Kushi Puri then took thinks to a most experimental place of the day. Charlie Callahan kept near break-beats going through a mirage of oboe, guitar, and balloon brought from above. Nobody Beats… well that kinda says it all, they played, does anyone what to challenge that?
Hannah and Raven brought things in closer with their gentle acoustic stand-up bass/guitar/vocal duo magic. I had never seen these girls play before but I think they naturally touched on the initial ideas behind the project just in the nature of what they do. The quieter you are, the more you are asking of the audience in terms of listening and audience volume level. The day also felt more fall like than some others in the way that the warmth of the room brought on by everyone’s body heat was particularly comforting in contrast to the crisp air outside.
Pale Horse played next. They have gotten more into plugging in their sound and went for mics over the acoustic thing. This was a good call as the two were fighting illness and needed to save whatever strength they could for the fight raging within. These two’s performances and music are strong enough that feel comfortable saying this was not one of their best performances ever, but it was still an honor and treat to get them to share with us.
The house came down with Snowblink, and to start they’re performance they came jumping down off higher place. I think this was instigated by the influential interview Daniella gave me months earlier over space and sound engagement. She proceeded to play in one of the bays while the boys, Frank Lyon, David Wilson, Andrew Connors, and Max Goldberg(my favorite 4-pack in the bay), congregated loosely over the enchanted sitting audience.
This sunday’s developed around homage to the darker forces of the universe. Bert Bergen started the day with a special early morning ceremony accompanied, or vocally led, by Catherine Brooks. It was like church if the waves of the pacific ocean was a pastor.
The afternoon started off with Barn Owls, two long-haired sweet souls with a propensity for meditative sonic space. A cohesive continuation from the morning. Fortune Drum was on next. Rob and Joe make up the vocal and synthetic elements of Bronze. I really like these guys sound, they are a little hard and a lot of fun. Cones then played a rocking set. Wendy is a great drummer and Kurt is a tight musician and puts a lot into his performance.
Then Bert was back with Ascended Master. The size of this band, and their sound, engulfed the environment. Definite sonic warship in action. Josh Churchill closed out things in absolute darkness with his new partner in noise, Rose. These two turn it up to “11″ (more in a volume sense than a classic rock). I wish the smoke machine worked longer, but the atmospheric effect definitely was calling the spirit of the upcoming halloween. The intensity was so great that the life experience gets reduced down to a simple question of mental survival. Far out.
Get high resolution downloads of the above photos at Drew Bennett’s Flickr.
The sound series opened with simulacra, a duo that mysteriously snuck in and out of their beautiful short set without audio or visual documentation. Some groups escaped visual documentation by playing in complete darkness, iXi and Tussle primarily, but neither of those groups are as attractive as Simulacra, oh well, they’re performance will remain in the memories of those who had the chance to see them, if no where else.
Sean Horchy then played his art music acoustic electric custom frequency modulator for a while before turning it over to the audience to experiment with. No one can play it as well as he can, but he really likes to share the experience with others, for which I commend him.
Ship engaged the space next, starting their performance up top in the 7th heaven loft to then jump to the ground and continue from the ground. Frank and David are dear to me and the incarnation of the project. Seeing the intimacy of their performances is one of the few experiences that lead to the development of this project. They brought a more feisty performance then I had ever seen from them, jumping from 10 feet in the air, bells on their toes, swinging, jumping, kicking, and dancing their way through an awesome, often upbeat set. The rad photo of Frank and David counting down was taken by Triplebase artist, Michelle Blade). I only met her on this day, but her paintings are amazing and she does some rad social art too.
I had talked to Lucky Dragons (myspace) about playing only through inter-wave communications. So when the sound series began and I hadn’t heard from the LA based group I started to think they would be a no-show. I should have never doubted they’re glorious ways, as they were spotted by frank rolling around the mission right on time… although a time was never discussed… far out!
Pumpkins closed the first sound series with their blend of west-african/space/trance. These boys, Chris Cox and Gabe Turow are members of Baba Ken and the Afro-Groove Connexion, an afrobeat band based in the east bay. This set was a nice transition into the darkness of the evening.
These are shots of my installation, The Clouds Carved the Mountains, at Triplebase Gallery. I created this space with the intention of making an environment to receive the sounds of music friends. Documentation of these happenings soon to follow.
