Landfill 5 tonight at Max Steiners, Long Beach, CA

Tonight the phog masheeen side project the landfill 5 will be presenting Duke Ellington songs and two chord guitar jams at Max Steiners in Long Beach.

Some say that jazz is funner to play than it is to hear. This should be fun on all levels! If you're in Long Beach check it out.

Landfill 5 will play 2 sets starting at 8:45 PM. FREE!

Max's Steiner 

2500 East Anaheim Street, Long Beach, CA 90804-3607

(562) 433-5823 

Incase these gigs didn't fit your schedule...

There are some posted recordings of some interesting gigs.
The phog masheeen show at SANF3 is up on Soundcloud here.

And the Drone shift recording is available for download here. Streaming here.

Just a note on the times, Droneshift was a three hour event and the download is over 300 megabytes. So plan accordingly. It is long and elegant. Suitable for watching shadows cross a room.

The SANF3 show was thirty minutes of howling intensity. The feature for the evening was Eric Strauss' instrument "The Shambler." The way it dominated the sonic space is impressive. It could crowd the entire audio spectrum at one time!

Enjoy!

The Santa Ana Noise Fest looms large this weekend! Saturday 12-17-11. 3PM start time.

It is FREE!

We have the honor of debuting Eric Strauss' newest invention......The Shambler!

Eric will be joining us at the controls of The Shambler, Ryan Hunt will be operating the Pick-0-Phone and Dr. Kaplan will be rolling out the Kitchen Percussion.

We will be performing in the second set of bands around 7:30 PM.

Pick-0-Phone

I (heart) Noise cake for the potluck at SANF3

The Shambler

Santa Barbara, Droneshift and OCCCA

We are faced with a flurry of activity coming up this December.

We will be performing at Muddy Waters in Santa Barbara on Thursday the 8th.

Then up to San Francisco to participate in Droneshift on Saturday the 10th.

The following Saturday is The Santa Ana Noise Festival at the OCCCA. The line-up for phog masheeen expands for the Santa Ana Noise Fest with Dr. Kaplan, Ryan Hunt and Eric Strauss. All this and FREE admission too! Such a deal.

Max Stieners video.

Video has been posted of the Max Stieners gig. In this version you get to see Bills video! Ryan Hunt's Pick-0-phone playing is well represented on this as well!

Available here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TALWSeeniIg&feature=colike

This video also features the loudest bar maids in Long Beach!



The beginning of the set.

http://youtu.be/CVoDaHhTr4Y

Not performing at Jawbone Canyon.

Regrettably phog masheeen will not be performing at Jawbone Canyon.
Sorry for the short notice.
Maybe next year.

Much to our delight, phog masheeen has a track on the Wire Tapper! The Wire Tapper is a CD that is included with The Wire Magazine!

This is huge for us and we would encourage you to check it out further here: http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/7776/

Coming up next Friday the 21st of October we will be heading out to Jawbone Canyon in the Mojave desert for the Hop-Frog Collective's festival of experimentation in the dirt! This year titled Dust Streams, Fire Skies and Tarantula Thighs.

Here is the link to the Urch Records Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/URCK-Recordsthe-hop-frog-kollectiv/240815479163

This is the lovely stage setting on Sunday Morning after the festivities last year.

This is the sunrise the same day.

And the flyer!

And the weather!

Max Steiners gig recording up!

I know, it was a Monday night. You couldn't make it out to Max Steiners to see phog masheeen. But! As an ongoing service to our fans that evening lives again through the ongoing miracle that is the internet! Ryan Hunt joined the proceedings with the newest addition to the Pick-0-Phone set-up the Kick Drum. Covering the low end in a non-pitched sort of way.

Check out this short but epic set!

http://www.archive.org/details/PhogMasheeenMaxSteiners10-10-2011


Here is the embedded stream player:

Soundwalk 2011 recording up for your amusment and perusal

A distilled one hour and seventeeen minute version of the phog masheeen five hour soundwalk performances is available here http://www.archive.org/details/PhogMasheeenSoundwalk10-1-2011

Here is the hyperbole attached to the file:
A one hour seventeen minute composite of the five hour phog masheeen performance at the Soundwalk in Long Beach, CA 10-1-2011. Performers William Almas, Dr. Kaplan, Ryan Hunt, Eric Strauss and Mark Soden Jr. Highlights include, the debut of the Pick-0-phone. (a musical instruments constructed of railroad picks, bundt pans and a plow disk from a tractor) and the Duodenum (an instrument constructed from a motorcycle exhaust) receiving a dry-ice rub down. The general tone is lovely, abrasive and percussively alluring. A defining moment in West Coast Free Noise and Post-Industrial Exotica!


We here at phog masheeen understand that the likelyhood that people are able to schedule anything these days is slim. So we provide as many ways as we can devise to allow you to timeshift our performances to fit your schedule.


Enjoy,


the management 


Here is the streaming option to experience this file.

Soundwalk 2011 Recap!

Thank you Igor Amokian for filming the phog masheeen snippet for Youtube. It was a perfect evening, warm and dry. Big thanks to Ryan Hunt who joined us as Pick-0-phone operator and Eric Strauss who sat-in with Dr. Kaplan on percussion!



Next we are on to Jawbone Canyon in the Mojave desert on Oct. 21st and 22nd. Phog masheeen will be performing on Friday the 21st. This event is a free and fun campout.

Jawbone Canyon is as "Mixed Use" as it gets. Guns, Dirt Bikes and Noise Concerts, it all happens there. It is a post-apocalyptic weekend with gas enough for everyone. Worth checking out if you can hang with sleeping on the ground.

Here is your last minute cheerful reminder that Soundwalk 2011 is occurring this coming Saturday Oct. 1st in Long Beach from 5:00 to 10:00 pm. 


It is FREE!


phog masheeen is #6 on the map, which you can view here http://maps.google.com/maps/msmsid=214839954856713076552.0004ab483e981afb54931&msa=0

The main Soundwalk 2011 website is here http://soundwalk.org/index.html

phog masheeen will be performing from sunset projecting video on the side of the building in the alley between 1st st. and Broadway. 


We will be rolling out new technology with the Pick-0-Phone as well as some of our old favorites Kitchen percussion and the Duodenum.

Please stop by and say hi!

9-17-11 live show recording up now!

The recording of the 9-17-11 phog masheeen show at the Handbag Factory in LA is up now for your listening pleasure. It is embedded below or click here to go to the page.

It was a great night with a great line up. Thanks again to Steve Davis for promoting the show.

Handbag Factory 9-17, Soundwalk map up!

The location Map for the Soundwalk 2011 is up here http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=214839954856713076552.0004ab483e981afb54931&msa=0&ll=33.76849,-118.186734&spn=0.001449,0.002207

We will imbed it as well just for fun!

View SoundWalk 2011 in a larger map

This weekends mirth and merriment will be at the Handbag Factory in downest downtown LA.

Saturday 9-17-11, 8:30 PM. Phog masheeen will be appearing with a variety of local luminaries, such as +dog+ and Pretty Agony.

The link to the particulars is here http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=245738285464189

This show has some potentially thrilling features. Including a cover of a Bavab Bavab song!

Certainly worth the drive!

The first one's still free! & New video for your viewing pleasure!

We got some great comments from Suki O'Kane (Curator of Oakland's spectacular Illuminated Corridor) regarding our submission to her project. Here is what she had to say...

"I've watched Color, Movement and Theatrical Violence now, oh, i dunno, about a million times. The selection of gestures and focal points for this keeps amazing me, surprising the viewer with so much more than kicking and punching. It's David Lean-ish in its intimations of violence: using footage just before and after it, or if a classic battle, layering the psychedelic upon it to mirror our own clouded, subconscious ultraviolence. It compels us to reform our idea of Lee: the martial artist as thinker, critical observer, calm (and calming) warrior sliding elegantly into a ritual jacket in the midst of a relentless chaos."

You can view the video at the Illuminated Corridor channel on Youtube. Or the direct link is http://youtu.be/1QqbghhgIZU?hd=1

Don't forget... The first track is still free at CD Baby! Click Here to go there.

The first one's free!

Taking a tip from Multi-level marketers, The first tracks free! Check it out! Click through HERE to 23 Duets on CD Baby, The first track Rocktastic Noise is Free and Download Baby, Download!

We will be adding to this post for a while, as the "first one's free promotion is rolling on.

Preparations are well under way for Soundwalk 2011 in Long Beach, CA. We will be rolling out a pumped up Pick-0-Phone. Improved with resonators and improved playability, the Pick-0-Phone is ready for prime time. Here is the pic.

Link to Soundwalk 2011.

Touch the Gear is a go!

I will be heading to San Francisco on July 17 to participate in the Outsound New Music Summit's "Touch the Gear" event.

The event will be at San Francisco Community Music Center, 544 Capp Street @ 20th, San Francisco, CA
on July 17, 2011. We were involved last year and it was a great event! Lots of cool setups and you can play them. From this event I got some new ideas of how to use my setup.

Is the "art" getting there?

For this event I am taking the Pick-0-phone and the Boise Bundts + 1.

I am flying to San Francisco. The seven pick heads come to around sixty pounds in a bag. I am sorting through whether to package them carefully or just put a bolt through them and put them in a duffle bag.

The TSA commonly searches all my bags. Perhaps I should put a sign in the bag to explain that I am:

1- Taking these picks to the "Antiques Roadshow"

2- Going to a digging tool convention.

3- I am making sure I have the right tool for the job. As long as the Job requires seven picks.

It kind of reminds me of the postal art days of the '80's. A good amount of the "art part" was seeing if the postal service would deliver the item. Here we are struggling to get everything on a plane in our current travel environment.

Here is the setup I am planning to bring.

Stomata Loaf (work in progress)

I have posted A work in progress track called "Stomata Loaf" (Thank you Kevin C. for the title.)

It features some of the experiments with the Boise Bundts +1 and the Pick-0-phone.

It is a love-thing that settles the score with your home speakers.

Here is the stream:

Download at: http://www.archive.org/details/StigmataLoaf

New Tools, Pick-0-Phone, Boise Bundts +1

Check this out ladies and gentlemen, new phog masheeen tools to bring the noise.

The Boise Bundts are joined by the recently acquired Yucca Valley Bundt. Colored Orange the Yucca Valley Bundt is a prize indeed bringing an A concert to the Bundt rack.

In the lower front of the photo is the Pick-0-Phone. Utilizing pick heads as an instant idiophone. The Pick-0-Phone brings a skewed version of tonal music to the noise of phog masheeen. I am planning to lay out the electronics and see what this setup has to offer.

Ok here is the setup with the electronics.

Here is the link to how it sounds (Dig if you will the Barking cadenza performed by Red (the dog):

Recap of the OCCCA show....

What a delicious evening, three long sets and lots of time to stretch and try new things.

Big thanks to Skip, Abbey, Max, David, Vince, Bob, Craig and all the people that came out to check out the Mirth and merriment.

For all you that couldn't make it to Santa Ana, here is a segment of the proceedings. It is available for download at this address:

http://www.archive.org/details/PhogMasheeenOccca6-4-2011

You can stream is here:

Enjoy!

phog

Performing this Saturday at OCCCA in Santa Ana, CA

The phog masheeen experience is coming back to the OCCCA in Santa Ana this Saturday 6-4-11 for the second opening of the Deep show.

We will be performing from 7:00 to 10:00 PM in three long sets of atmospheric sound. We are hoping for Rapture of the Deep without the nitrogen narcosis.

Click here for Directions.

Did I mention that it is FREE!

The "Boise Bundts" go Drone Crazy!

I am rolling out the "Boise Bundts" for the Le Placard headphone festival tonight at 10:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time. I will be streaming to Hamburg Germany where it will be 7:00 AM.

The event in Hamburg is titled Blurred Edges. It looks to be a great festival, judging from the program.

If you want to catch the stream. Log onto the Placard Chat and get the url then open it in your media player.

Here is the recording of The Boise Bundts Go Drone Crazy! for your streaming pleasure.

The Wonder Valley Set is up!

The Wonder Valley Experimental 3 set is now up on the internet archive.

You can find it here.

Or listen to the stream here:

Boise Set, Bundt Pans and event notes...

Here is the Boise set for your entertainment, the link to the stream is at the bottom of this post.

It appears that people in Boise do not value their Bundt Pans.

I found two fine specimens at the Idaho Youth Ranch thrift store.

One was the extremely unfinished "holy mother of aluminum" version.

Rare indeed. The sonic qualities of cast aluminum Bundt Pans are legendary for their resonance and sustain. The bell like qualities are like a bell from a parallel universe. Route that through a contact mic and you have a gateway to a wonderland of fun.

The city of Boise is clean walkable and safe. Bill and I had a great time checking out the downtown.

The sets at the Boise Creative and Improvised Music festival were varied and intriguing. Lots of surprises, which is the feature of improvised music that keeps me coming back for more.

I was paired with Colter Frasier to start the random match up part of the festival. That provided an opportunity to stretch out on the newly aquired Bundt Pans and Slide Trumpet. I was a fun feature that was unique to this festival.

Here is the stream of the phog masheeen set at B-CIMF 2011. Also Available at http://www.archive.org/details/PhogMasheeenB-cimf5-7-2011

Enjoy,

phog

WVE3 was Amazing, On to Boise!

Wonder Valley Experimental 3 was a huge success! Many happy/noisy people were present and convivial in the amazing environment that is the Palms in Wonder Valley. Pictured on the right is the skate board/Guitar or Skatar being pressed into service with Punk as a Doornail at WVE3. No frets, played slide style with a liquor bottle.

For the Wonder Valley event Bill projected his video feed onto a tree that was stage left. I liked that alot!

Dr. Kaplan turned in a great set bringing her pots and pans to the phog masheeen experience.

Next we are on to Boise Idaho for the B-CIMF (Boise Creative and Improvised Music Festival).

So if you know people in Boise, Tell them phog masheeen is coming.

Boston Recap, on to Wonder Valley!

The trip to Boston was stunning in its greatness! We had the honor of performing with brilliant performers. We found dry-ice easily. The talk was spectacular.

Many thanks to Vanessa LeFevre for booking the trip and orchestrating the entire event.

The most humbling experience was meeting Performer, Instrument designer and all around great guy Eric Nugent. He spent a decade creating the NU (pictured here). The short version is that it is a Digeridoo with keys.

Let us ponder that information for a moment.

Ten years in development. Casting the parts. Doing the math to locate and size the holes correctly. Then learning to play it brilliantly! I would be stopped at the ten year development cycle. I might scrawl the idea on a note pad that I would eventually not be able to locate. But the patience and skill to design and fab an instrument is a different level of patience and commitment.

But wait there's more!

Eric also fabricated a double trumpet that was operated by Eric Dahlman, the other half of the Auddity duo configuration. This horn had two bells, two sets of valves, a dog toy squeeker mouthpiece. On of the possible configurations included inflating a balloon that could be made to push air through the squeeker. Amazing! Also they had a pan of water with a mic on it that they would submerge the trumpet bell in the water and create an aquatic almost motorboat like sound with it. For added star power they added ENO to the performance. In the form of the fizzing antacid, not the Music for Airports guy.

Walking on Mass Ave. provided some wonderful urban beauty as evidenced in this brilliant work of editing.

Also, since the 119 Gallery was located in Lowell, MA we visited the grave of Jack Kerouac. The city of Lowell has adopted Jack as a tourist attraction. Such that they named a 5K run in his honor. I imagine him spinning in his grave as healthy people run sweating in the streets of Lowell.

Lovely town Lowell. Home of RRR Records as well.

Moving on to next weekend. The Wonder Valley Experimental 3 rolls into the Palms.

There are some updates on this event.

Desert local, Piano Bob will be providing break music between sets with his legendary prepared piano! Bob is a local legend and some would say a national treasure! We are honored to have Bob as part of our line up.

Bob's history with noise is long and storied. He collected metal from illegal dumping in the desert and sorted it by sonic qualities.

This included larger pieces such as automobile gas tanks.

(Automobile gas tanks have a number of different bends and have a similarity to steel drums in that they offer a wide variety of pitches depending on where they are struck.)

Bob would bring his collection to local coffee houses for monthly "noise nights" where people were invited to jam on his collection of sonified metal.

His public piano project predated the character in New York that is desperately trying to claim it by years. That project included Bob pushing the piano on the side of highway 62 from one site to the next, where it would then be moored for the public to play till he pushed it on to another site.

I am looking forward to Bob's addition to the noise fest!

Preparations for Boston Trip...

Collecting gear and packing for the trip to Boston.

It is a bit like herding cats and packaging them so the TSA wont kill them in transit.

Bill and I are heading out on a red-eye on Thursday to arrive early Friday.

Buy dry-ice and check the show at 119 Gallery on Friday night then we are on for two shows and a talk Sunday afternoon.

Here are the particulars. If you are in the Boston area and come to the show I would love to meet you, please hit me up for swag or something.

Saturday Show

119 Gallery, 119 Chelmsford St, Lowell MA 01851
978-452-8138 8PM

Phog Masheen + Auddity

WhenSat, April 2, 8pm – 9pm

DescriptionPhog Masheen (from Los Angeles) investigates noise as post-millenial folk music, unusual uses of resonant chambers, and sound as an object that can be stretched, inverted and mutilated. Hear the otherworldly sounds of the Duodenum, an instrument made from the exhaust manifold of a motorcycle and played with dry ice and blowtorch. Auddity (from Massacusetts) combine drones, free improvisation and whirled music grooves creating soundscapes utilizing traditional and invented instruments. Erik Nugent (playing his invention The Nu, a chromatic didgeridoo, as well as slide bagpipes, slide clarinet, overtone singing), Eric Dahlman (trumpets, voice, pasta tin), and Michael Knoblach (percussion, voice) bring humor, amazing technical skills, and fearless experimentation to their improvised performances. Sponsored by Vanessa/Lunar Plexus.

Talk Outpost 186 in Cambridge.

Sunday 3 April @ Outpost, 1-3pm, $5 donation
The Changing Context of Improvisation:
Unplayable Instruments, Disaster Management and the Safe Handling of Dry Ice

A workshop with Mark Soden of Phog Masheen


Phog Masheen (from Los Angeles) investigates noise as post-millenial folk music, unusual uses of resonant chambers, and sound as an object that can be stretched, inverted, and manipulated like sculpture. In this discussion/hands-on workshop, explore topics such as:

· The vuvuzela: was the 2010 World Cup a defining public noise performance or an act of audio terrorism?
· Voted Off the Island: the rise of reality television and its effect on the perception of improvisation.
· Dwellers of the Land that Time Forgot: drum circle, sweat lodge, the trance dehydration vortex.
· The rise of dissonance: cognitive, auditory, economic and political. If noise is the soundtrack of our times, what of the future?
· Loosening the lug nuts on the wheels of orchestration.
· Is the audience part of the performance?
· High Art vs. roadside attraction: some thoughts on community action.

Sunday Show

Phog Masheen Xiphoid Dementia Blac Bloc

Frkse

Trachypithecene Entity

It will be at Starlab, 32 Prospect St, Somerville, MA, Sunday April 3 at 8 PM

Themes for the AHC Monday night 2-28-11

As we are closing in on the Ad Hoc Committee show at the Puka Bar this Monday 2-28-11.

I thought I would share some of the themes for improvisation that we will be using.

Theme #1:

There is a Macdonald's restaurant at the bottom of the marianas trench. Play the lilting strains of muzak drifting out of the Macdomald's into the ocean 6.76 miles under water.

Theme #2:

Trained locust swarm out of a circus tent and make a break for freedom. Their one trick is to attach themselves to the face of a clown and form a beard. The clown walks back to his trailer after the show. He hears a buzzing sound before his world goes black.

Theme #3:

You Build a vehicle of bones and debris. It gets good milage but it is hard to park. Make the sound of parallel parking.

The ad hoc committee meets Monday night at the Puka Bar 710 W. Willow in Long Beach. Show starts at 8pm.

The participants for this round are Drummer Craig, David Bunion and the members of Brutal Poodle. This should be a festive and noisy evening! And FREE!

George Herms: The Artist's Life @ Redcat

The image is the "Concerto for Cell Phone and Saw" George Herms at the saw.

Wow, what a show George Herms: The Artist's Life @ Redcat in the Disney Hall.

George loves free jazz. So much he had two free jazz bands on stage. He did his thing; assemblage, live on stage. Making art on paper plates and then flying them into the audience like frisbees. In the picture you can see the spiral staircase. That was played with 2x4s. He also brought out a buoy. Not a little buoy, we are talking eight foot in diameter buoy. It was suspended and then played with 2x4s. It was like an art/noise show. Very Cool!

The one thing I think he will leave as an institution at Redcat was to Start the evening with the After-party. Everyone can feel cool.

It is going tonight and Saturday if you want to see it. Order tickets online or you will be shut out.

The WVE3 flyer has arrived! Please spread it far and wide.

Mark your calendar! This is prime desert time, so plan to be there.

You can even camp on site! Which can be as informal as falling to the ground and sleeping.

I hope you are as thrilled as I am about this!

phog

"ad hoc committee" forming, Club Bit Map returns!

It was a great noise night at the Puka bar last Monday!

From that I got an opportunity to book the February and March shows.

Here's what I have planned.

Feb. 28 - "ad hoc committee" a group of 5 noise artists will be grouped in various ways and given tasks drawn from a hat! Tasks such as, "you have never seen the instruments you are playing, you have 3 minutes to learn to use them or your head will explode." or "you learned everything you know about music by watching two YouTube videos. Now play Eruption by Van Halen."

It has the potential for being an interesting evening.

The committee is forming!

Update: The Brutal Poodle, Johnny Left and Anonymous Bosch are on the ad hoc committee! These members of the Brutal Poodle ensemble rocked the stage at the Hi-desert experimental festival. I can't wait to see them in Long Beach!

Club Bit Map returns March 28th at the Puka bar. Bent electronics over dance beats. The recordings of electonic music pioneers repackaged for the dance floor. With a dance lesson on how to dance to move to this ... "stuff." Paul Wilkins from Clowns and Foetuses is one of the guest artists for this. We have one more opening for a circuit bender. I will keep you posted on that.

toodles,

phog

PS An object at rest....

Tales from the front in the epic battle of heat and cold. The BernzOmatic.

New Link to Tracks, 23 Duets CD is up for download.

Hey there,

The 23 Duets CD is up on CD Baby for download. As it is said "hard copy to follow" the CD object is coming soon. Click on the badge on the right and spice your ipod with these tracks.

The CD description is a work in progress. Here is what I have so far:

23 Duets by phog masheeen is your opportunity to enter a wonderland of pulsing noise. Using dry-ice, shop vacs, trumpets, electronics and a home built aerophone called "the Duodenum" (featured on the cover of 23 Duets) phog masheeen drives deep into the territory that only comes to view when field recordings, groove boxes and trumpets are collaged together in a post-modern mural of sound. Utilizing the esthetic of "distortion is the new reverb." phog masheeen paints with heavy strokes on a sound-field canvas. Swirling shapes, textures and colors are bent into shape by means of the digital audio workstation. Sometimes swirling like a dust devil on a dry lake, the music is on an unpredictable course that delivers the listener to the uncharted Hi-desert of the mind.

If you want one track to get a "Flava" for the 23 Duets experience. Try track 3 "Air Lock," it features some dynamic dry-ice playing and pillowy bending of the "duodenum." The "duodenum" is an instrument synthesized from a re-purposed motorcycle exhaust that is fitted with a trumpet mouthpiece receiver. It has a tone that will starch your socks.

The recording environment for this CD was all over the map. Samples were collected at a palm oasis in the mojave desert, trumpet parts recorded in a quonset hut also in the desert. There the recordings were made during the summer and the hut was just a shade cooler than a ceramics kiln running at full power. You can feel the heat in the sound and performance. Look to track 8 titled "You Can't Stop A Weed Species" for the oasis and the K-hut.

Bullet holes is based on a sample recorded by a cell phone. That recording was from the return trip to a ad hoc gun range in the desert to recover steel objects that were riddled with bullet holes. The sound of the shards of bent metal scraping against each other in the back of a jeep on a bumpy road provided the genesis for "Bullet Holes" Track 9. The track "Bullet Holes is an exploration of the potential of a new genre..... country noise.