Upcoming shows!

Things are finally starting to pick up for me in 2017 in terms of live music performance. I've got a busy start to the month of March.
Details:

Thu., 3/2
ebolabuddha
Homestead Bowl & the X Bar
20990 Homestead Ave.
Cupertino CA 95014
ebolabuddha plays at 9PM
Also on the bill will be Jayde, Decimate the Opposition, Without Hope, and Hounds of Innsmouth
$10

Fri., 3/3-Sun. 3/5
7-10 PM each night
Next Now's Hardly Strictly Personal Benefit for Earth Justice and Homeless Action Network
Finnish Kaleva Hall
1970 Chestnut St.
Berkeley CA 94702
I will play with Ear Spray, Crow Crash Radio, Voi! Maa, Census Designated Place, and Instagon
$12 per evening or $20 for entire weekend

Looking forward to tons of musical interaction and jamming this weekend!

Crow Crash Radio live on KFJC shots!

Many thanks to Melissa for these screen grabs.

Crow Crash Radio-KFJC, Los Altos Hills; 2/26/17

It's kind of interesting that the only live gigs that I've had so far in 2017 have been live radio shows. That's going to change really soon; still, I'm grateful for stations like KFJC and its "Live In the Pit" series.
Presumably, so too were Andrew and Brian, the other two thirds of Crow Crash Radio. Our set was arranged as a publicity appearance to drum up support for the coming weekend's Hardly Strictly Personal Next Now Festival. Mika Pontecorvo graciously sent us down to Los Altos Hills to play and talk about the show.
After a meticulous set up by the great, friendly, and very supportive engineering staff, we did two 45 minute sets with a promo talk, headed up by DJ the Naysayer, placed in between them.
During our rehearsal for the appearance, we spoke a lot about pacing, and keeping the tempos chilled enough to allow for our songs to expand and have effect. I feel like we stuck well to that concept as we played. On the drive home, Andrew suggested that there were some speed ups. Hopefully, they fit the moods that had already been established!
As for me, I was really happy with our sets.  I enjoyed playing my old beat up Ludwig drums and two riveted cymbals. One of the latter, I've now had since 1990. It's beat to shit, cracked, moldy even, but I love its sound and the memories it evokes. Ugly beauty for sure!
It seemed like we had a really good, swinging energy with some crackle during the swifter pieces and plenty of sludge during the more willfully slow ones. We stretched way out when we wanted to, kept things concise when that was called for. Everything just gelled really nicely, I'd say.
Hopefully some people listened to and enjoyed Crow Crash Radio's sounds as they went out over the airwaves and the 'net! Also, I hope that we convinced some people to attend Hardly Strictly Personal this weekend! Details on that soon.

Above: funky old Ludwig kit with riveted cymbals; Brian tunes up
Below: Crow Crash Radio in action at the Pit; dig on all of that vinyl. Photo by the Naysayer. Thanks, FB!

Crow Crash Radio plays on KFJC this Sunday evening!

As part of the publicity blitz for Mika Pontecorvo's Next Now Hardly Strictly Personal Music Fest for 2017, Crow Crash Radio will play on KFJC this Sunday evening!
We will play from 7-8 PM Pacific Time.
Link here:

http://www.kfjc.org/netcast/index.php

We look forward to bringing our odd sounds to the Wave of the West!
 

Ear Spray digital release and video!

First up, new Ear Spray digital track up at Bandcamp:


Next, video from our KZSU Day of Noise 2017 set:


We are looking forward to playing Next Now Presents Hardly Strictly Personal 2017 in early March at Finnish Kaleva Hall in Berkeley CA!

Ear Spray-KZSU Day of Noise 2017, 2/4/17; Stanford CA

Now that I live in northwest Contra Costa County, Stanford is not exactly right around the corner, but seeing as that Ear Spray's 10 AM set time necessitated my very early departure from home, the drive was a breeze. Really pretty, too, on account of all the recent rain. The East Bay hills have that wonderful shimmery green hue that I just love.
It was really fun to see friends and acquaintances from the Noise and Improvised Music scenes once I arrived at KZSU's studio. Hell, seeing Matt Davignon's David Bowie impression, after I was enthusing about having just listened to the Blackstar for the first time, was worth the drive all by itself!
I was really excited to be playing a percussion instrument made by Dan Gottwald. This bell tree type of piece was given to me by Bob Marsh last year as he was leaving California. Owing to its somewhat cumbersome and fragile nature, I've never really taken it out in public, but it seemed like the relatively safe, controlled environment of a radio studio would be fine for its use.
Ear Spray had sketched out a thirty minute piece in rehearsal, featuring the Gottwald piece roughly the ten minute mark. We spent the time previous to that mark building Noise washes with Carlos's electronics and Ann's vocals and mic'd cymbal scrapings. As this was going on, I was ruminating on Noise as an approach to thought: "what does it mean, what are its implications" type of stuff. As these thoughts were jumping around my noggin, I was also beating upon the 18" roto tom that I'd brought; hopefully that sound was able to impart some of the ruminations. Who knows, really? At the appointed cue, I got a fun solo in on the bell tree, lasting about four minutes. Its aluminum bells are somewhat thick, so they're kind of challenging to get clear tones from. I used several striking implements, including a chain at one point, which seemed to work OK.
After the bell tree solo Ear Spray played with volume and textures, all leading up to a planned hard stop at thirty minutes. Kinda rough there, but oh well. It seemed as though we all had a good time. Hopefully our Noise sat right with KZSU's Noise fans.

Below: David Slusser does his thing at KZSU: it's good to see friends

Above: roto tom and Dan Gottwald bell tree instrument
Below: Carlos sets up

Above: moody Stanford shot

Ear Spray on KZSU this Saturday!

Ear Spray will play on the KZSU Day Of Noise this Saturday, 2/4.
We play at 10:00 AM Pacific Time.

http://kzsu.stanford.edu/live/

We are very excited to participate, and have rehearsed/planned for this set!