This week I'll be playing two more shows wit Surplus 1980!
Thursday night at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, Friday night at the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles! Both shows with the Ex & Ken Vandermark!
Bottom of the Hill
10/29
1233 17th St.
SF CA 94107
9 PM
with Apogee Sound Club and the Ex & Ken Vandermark
Roxy Theater
10/30
9009 W. Sunset Blvd
LA CA 90069
with the Ex & Ken Vandermark
Looking forward to playing with so many great musicians!
Unfortunately, due to illness our show for this evening has been postponed. We will reschedule a new date.
Naan Violence and the John McCowen/Adam Adhiyatma Duo will still be playing.
I am happy to be playing with Andrew Palmer this Tuesday at VAMP in Oakland! Purefinder will be utilizing contact mics, drums, and synthesizer/laptop mechanics to process them. We hope to conjure some space-ey sounds!
VAMP is located at:
331 19th St.
Oakland 94612
The show will start at 9PM. Also on the bill will be John McCowen/Adam Adhiyatma and Naan Violence. Please join us in you're in the East Bay!
I guess that it doesn't really bear repeating, just how much I enjoy playing music with Rent Romus, but I'll reiterate how much I had been looking forward to this gig. I was not disappointed!
First off, the 509 Cultural Space is a really fun room in which to play. Yes, it's small, and raw, but those are qualities that suit me just fine. I am somewhat sad that it's not going to be the venue for Outsound after this week! Oh, well, I got to play there once.
Along with the excitement of playing with Mr. Romus again, I was stoked to be playing with great guitarist Karl A. Evangelista, bass player Nathan Swedlow, and trumpeter/violinist Jeff Hobbs. The last two, I'd not jammed with before, but just that combination of sound sources....yeah! Ruminations really need upright bass, in my opinion.
After a sweet set of solo electric guitar from Ross Hammond, we quickly set up and jumped into ours. I felt "on" from the first. It just seemed like one of those musical experiences wherein preparation matched nicely with inner calm, willful whimsy, and close listening. It is my hope that those in the audience, along with my fellow Ruminations, felt the same way! I really enjoyed my kit, a stripped down set with just one tom tom and a China cymbal, along with this older 16" cymbal, sheared down on one side, that I am really starting to love. Oh yes, and cowbell, too! Didn't Baby Dodds have one?
After about 38 minutes of improvisation, four pieces I believe, we stopped, and the sweat on my brow felt fucking GREAT, even as it dripped into my tired eyes.
Many thanks to Rent, Karl, Nathan, and Jeff, along with Ross and all the Outsound crew. Fun night! Let's do it again some time soon!
Below: Live Ruminations shots (color by Kersti Abrams, b/w by Ross Hammond. Thanks, Ross and Kersti!)
Above: 3/5ths of the 10-15-15 Ruminations (Jeff and Karl had already drifted off)
I'm stoked to announce that the Ruminations will be playing again! It's been a while since I've had a chance to play with Rent, and I always enjoy that experience. Also in the group for our 10/15 at the 509 Cultural Center show will be: Karl Evangelista on guitar, Jeff Hobbs on violin, and Nathan Swedlow on bass.
509 Cultural Center is located at:
509 Ellis St.
San Francisco 94109
The show starts at 8PM sharp. Also on the bill will be Ross Hammond on solo guitar!
Riding home on BART from this gig, I was very much of two minds, in a kind of split between objective analysis and subjective feeling.
On the former side, I was pretty disappointed with my drumming. I had no time to really set the drums up in the way that I like to play them, I could not hook up my bass drum pedal, the throne sucked, and finally, my toe really hurt from a bad stub earlier in the week. Years ago, these feelings would have sent me into an emotional tailspin, but, now, I know better. Sometimes being not the best band in the world is even better! Additionally, it seemed like the bill for APAture 2015 event was more made up of Soul/R & B/Hip Hop acts. Not that I have a problem with or don't enjoy those styles: I can and do! ebolabuddha just seemed like the odd man out.
Regarding the latter, I had a REALLY good time just blowing the fuck up after a long week! It felt really good to just pound the crap out of the drums while Steve, Eli, and Jason went off in with their axes. Jason was particularly compelling in his Plague persona, lifting and spinning the painting that I made. This painting was part of a verbally charted piece called Signal Loops. I'm not sure how closely we stuck to the script! Ah, well! The fun of just making awful noise superseded that, I guess! It was also really cool to see the evening's MC get up on the mic and try to do a Metal growl!
All in all, a fun, albeit odd, night! Many thanks to Steve for setting up this gig, and to Eli and Jason for playing! Also, thanks to Amanda Chaudhary at www.catsynth.com for the live photos below!
This Friday in S.F., ebolabuddha will play at Bindlestiff Studio as part of the 2015 ApaTure Music Showcase! We plan on playing a composed/improvised piece!
Bindlestiff is located at:
What a treat it was to get to play twice at this year's Norcal Noisefest! This event has always been a fun one for me, and I love the community that comprises it. Tons of great, creative, fascinating, and generally cool people. Lob and crew did a fine job-I was impressed by how varied the performers were. From really young and enthusiastic acts to some of the original Noise stalwarts (how much further can one go back than Monte Cazazza?), it was cool to take in a wide range of acts.
Earspray-our set started off a bit wonky, due to some pretty extensive issues with a speaker cable, but, thankfully, Carlos managed to do some quick trouble shooting and save our sound. I had a blast using my newly acquired circuit bent keyboard: it has some deliciously noisy settings! Primitive, but pretty effective, I'd say. I also manged to coax some feedback out of small electric m'bira, utilizing a nice Roland amp that Ann lent to me. I guess one could say that I got a bit, ah, theatrical, riding the amp like a horsey at one point, but, hey, it's a show, right? Things ended with a fine hard stop, cued by Carlos. On the whole, pretty OK, if a bit frustrating to start.
Below: simple rig for Earspray
Above: Ann and Carlos set up (I need to help more!)
I watched about seven more acts after Earspray's set, at which point I became fatigued and my ears started to hurt. On the way to an Air B 'n B nearby, I watched a really bizarre electrical storm front take shape. Odd events in the sky!
Above: Lob doing his thing (and how!) at Cafe Colonial, 10/3/15
Infinite Plastic Internal-after a really pleasant morning, during which I took in a ton of great California Art at the Crocker Museum in Downtown Sacramento (go there, it's great!), I managed to find my way back to Cafe Colonial for Infinite Plastic Internal's 4PM set. I was a bit nervous, as it was to be my first solo show for Noisefest. While waiting for my set, I made note of the flooring of the performance space: perfect for bouncing the somewhat tuned metal rods that I had in the boot of my car off of! I quickly added them to the other parts of the rig: snare drum, two Utopia Synths, and a Diabolical Devices pedal. My plan of attack was this: start up a drone with the electronics, add in snare drum patterns (based on rudiments), and then toss the metal rods onto the flooring in hope that audience members would play along somehow. Thankfully, a few did, and it was great-that sounded added a really nice, almost chime-like sound to the drone. In hindsight, I wish that I'd have stayed on the snare drum a bit more, but, for the most part I got the Noise sound desired. The interaction with audience members I have dubbed "Noise Catch", and hope to reprise it at some time in the future. Many thanks to those that played along with me!
Below: Infinite Plastic Internal rig
All told, it was a damn fun weekend! I can't say enough positive and Lob and the crew of Norcal Noisefest-those folks are fucking incredible.
Hopefully I will get to play another one in the future!
Below: brief video snippet of Infinite Plastic Internal playing "Noise Catch", courtesy of Jeff Klukowski. Thanks, Jeff!
I had to leave a bit early on Sunday, as my new job requires me to get up sort of early. Apologies to those that I missed!
Driving west toward The Bay, I could not have been more stoked.....
