8/20/2006

performance :: order of ephemeroptera

pandatone, twi and the humble feather, and julianna (loring) gathered at an art space in bushwick on saturday night at the order of ephemeroptera. don't ask me. let's just call it o.o.e. the building consists of many art spaces, each holding random home grown exhibits and performances. the only enemy if any of the night was the word "bushwick." say it, and you may conjure up a yucky taste grimace, like ordering a dish from noodle 36 and upon intake realizing it has bittermelon. is bushwick really that far out to see a show? no, it's not the same williamsburg - land of oz, dorothy, but an extra 15 min from some here to some there. i guess it comes down to where the scene is.

the art space had a pleasant atmosphere, very homey; serving can beers out of the fridge with small clusters of friends and fans. nice wooden floors and performance lighting. pandatone started the set, displaying his mad production skills with a laptop performance, indian style on the floor, and sequencing his piece live. the stereo p/a lent well to his stereo panned cuts.[ watch video]

:: listen to pandatone

twi and the humble feather came up next with their master opus movements. a full week of everyday practice paid off. antony's getting really psyched with crowd response to his works. it's always great to hear how people interpret the pieces. jim said they create a transcendental experience. sounds good to me! twi wants to tour this fall, i'm trying to figure out how i can squeeze out of work, considering i blew my vacation days already in europe. anthony's been holed up in tulsa for two weeks previously and has recorded almost an ep's worth of new material. twi and humble feather is also in line to record our performance material soon.[ watch video]

:: listen to twi

julianna put on her most powerful performance yet. i was so thrilled to see her organize her songs into interplayed loops from her casio keyboard and her new hot shit loop pedal, the rc-50. the loop station has become the necessary third arm she really needed to project her sound forward and keep her act solo. and finally a sound system that didn't give her road bumps with her loop outputs! her voice never ceases to amaze anyone in contact. flawless and as professional as any credited vocalist, yet steering for sounds original and sincere.[ watch video]

:: listen to julianna

posted by Unknown @ Sunday, August 20, 2006 0 comments

8/15/2006

performance :: mccarren park pool

last weekend's mccarren park pool party was a blast. the weather was perfect for an outdoor festival; sun and breeze. this time brought a blanket, towel, flask; all the goodies i needed for another relaxing sunday afternoon of indie music. sandro and i got in on some major dodgeball this time, so much that my back muscles are still sore two days after. the first game i regretfully smacked a guy in the face with a ball. luckily hipsters are a peaceful species, like whale sharks. that's cool. there was this strange trend of indie boys who were completely comfortable with riding the slip and slide in their jockeys. pudgy white asses saying hello through their white undies. that was not cool.

in this weekend's line up were harlem shakes, apollo sunshine, beruit, and deerhoof. the nice surprise was ?uestlove from the roots dj'ing in between the sets and for warm up. i didn't catch much of the harlem shakes, too preoccupied trying to make impressive plays in dodgeball. apollo sunshine jam out music was perfect for an outdoor festival. they did a better job entertaining the crowd with banter then the cricket in the audience response the harlem shakes incurred.

i was really impressed by beruit on stage. his voice and the brass sections holding as much credit as the cd. the sound was really full and worked great on stage. it's hard to pinpoint, something like gypsy indie rock with quick comparisons to jens lekman, but soon after beruit established their own.[ watch video]
deerhoof

this was the first time seeing deerhoof minus chris cohen. they still rocked hard, all attention on the drummer. i guess i wasn't gonna hear chris's breathy voice push out "you can see," one of my fav deerhoof vocal melodies. i was always a big fan of the seeing the guitarists play in this band too, because some of the back and forth play was awesome. satomi filled the space with her dance routine singalong hops. but i was on the fence of whether it was a distraction for me from missing chris's absence or playful entertainment; was i happy or sad? i dunno. all i know is i couldn't get "spy on you" out of my head. deerhoof ran through their set playing many notable tunes from their albums. [ watch first video][ watch 2nd video]

3, 2, 1,.... dodgeball!

posted by Unknown @ Tuesday, August 15, 2006 2 comments

8/12/2006

bent instrument :: trendmaster concierge

a couple months ago i picked up this translation device at a flea market, while hunting for things to bend with chia. one dollar only. the device is circa 1990; twenty button phrases to help you on your travels if you don't want to use a dictionary. i finally got around to bending the instrument. this is officially my first clean package instrument bend. very primitive bend, but so much fun. using the basic theories i learned at the bent festival, i added two bends: a body contact that slows the samples down, and a potentiometer that sets the high frequency that the samples speed up to. in the future, i'm gonna add more to this instrument but for right now, the simple bends serve their purpose. the plan is to use a couple of bent instruments in the alias pail set under development.[ watch video]

posted by Unknown @ Saturday, August 12, 2006 0 comments