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.

Droneshift recap and Slide Trumpet!

Dronshift was a lovely and illuminating evening. I had just rolled into San Francisco on a late flight and went directly to the Luggage Store Gallery from the airport. I was not the first arrival, but there was still space around the outside of the gallery to set up. The picture to the right is my view from my chair. CJ Borosque it chilling with her trumpet and Rent Romus' table is front and center. The room was full with participants and audience as well. As things got underway, there was a sense of sparseness that required people to step up from time to time to keep the drone going.

I got the hang of timing my contributions with the stopwatch on the Iphone. About two thirds of the way through the event Matt Davignon walked around the room with a bar napkin with "+ 5 minutes to your time." I was delighted to get the high sign. This amounted to a total playing time of 28 minutes in two hours. I liked the game like parameters of setting the amount of playing for each participant. It seems like an interesting way to get groups of players to interact in a uniform but undefined way. Something I would like to try with a quartet setting.

The next night in Oakland was equally amazing at Frank Moore's performance. A dance studio was transformed with lights, murals and warmth, Frank asked only questions of his audience and achieved amazing results. I see Frank on the vanguard of mining the human psyche to find fear and transmute that into action. I was honored to be there.

On the acquisition side of things, I located a slide trumpet on Craig's list. It required some serious repair. I took it to the legendary repair person Bruce Belo and it has been remediated. Bruce also put some true fear into me in terms of the proper maintenance of the instrument. Using phrases like "it is building a coral reef inside the horn." Bruce persuasively sold the idea of ongoing maintenance as a form of brass hygiene. I see a world of microtonal possibilities and slippery intonation with this tool! Stay tuned for further developments!

The new CD 23 Duets is entering the final phases of mastering. Pictures have been taken and the cover is coming together. The hum of excitement is pulsing through the Coastal Lair.

Droneshift tonight at the Luggage Store Gallery, SF

I am heading up to San Francisco for Droneshift tonight. It is at the Luggage Store Gallery on Market St. at 8PM.

I will be one out of many in this event, with 23 minutes of "play time." I thought this sounded intriguing enough to book a flight to do this. Long tones in the dark of winter. What a theme.

Here are some notes on the event:

Aesthetics:
This event should be a drone concert in that each person's notes begin
and end gradually and are of very long duration. There should not be
any noticeable rhythms or melodies. Please think of your contributions
as elements and aspects of a singular "group sound". If you play a
breath-related instrument, and do not have circular breathing
techniques, you can play in a "gradual ebb and flow" style. There will
be natural changes in dynamics and mood. At some points, non-drone
sounds such as field recordings or singular bell sounds may be
appropriate element to the group sound.

Performance:
As I mentioned earlier, you're each going to need some sort of
stopwatch. Cell phones and ipods often have them, but I realized last
time that my ipod seems to turn itself off after a minute or so. I'm
not worried about the quiet beeping noises of wristwatches. (In fact,
they may be kind of nice.) The rules are:
1) Each musician can play for up to 23 minutes. When you play is up to
you - just make sure your stop watch is running as you play.
2) We will get started at exactly 8pm and finish at exactly 10pm.
3) As a group, however, we need to make sure that the music
continuously happens for the entire 2 hours.

On Friday I will be sitting in with Frank Moore for his performance in Oakland.