I will play KZSU Day of Noise this Saturday evening!

I'm excited to have another opportunity to play KZSU's Day of Noise this Saturday, 1/30! I will play in a trio with Rent Romus and Collette McCaslin.
We will play from 6-6:30 PMST at:

http://www.kzsu.org/live/

Noise/Improvisational Music fans should just tune in all day! It's gonna be great! 

Pure Finder-Doc's Lab, San Francisco, CA; 1/20/16

Driving into San Francisco last night, Andrew Palmer of Pure Finder, Sung Kim, and myself had a conversation about the drastic changes that have taken place in the cities that we love, and their effects on us, subjectively. This talk hit home for me as walked down into Doc's Lab, the North Beach space that used to house the Purple Onion. The latter, rooted as it was in funky 1950's Beat aesthetics, was an endearing mess of a joint. Doc's Lab, with its smooth lines and chic interior, not so much. San Francisco is no longer interested in dumpiness, and that's just the way that things are now.
As for the music, I felt that Pure Finder had a great, albeit somewhat short, set. We played two pieces, totaling about 25 minutes. It feels like we're getting closer to the concept that we've envisioned for ourselves, one that could be described loosely as "Space-ed Abstraction".
Doc's Lab has a nice Gretsch kit for a back line drum set, and I enjoyed playing it, along with some of my favorite cymbals and the Waterphone. I used a few repeated rhythmic motifs as little mental guideposts, coming back to them when I felt that I needed to. This strategy seemed to work well. Andrew did a nice job tweaking the sounds that his contact mics captured from the drums.
It was a real treat to be a part of the Sonic Scientists show! Look out for the next Pure Finder gig, scheduled for mid-February!

Below: Andrew Sets up

Above: Gretsch Catalina drums, very nice
Below: Sung Kim sets up for his solo set

Above: a nice pic of an SF classic!

Pure Finder this Wednesday!

This Wednesday, Pure Finder will be playing in San Francisco! We are happy to be part of the Sonic Scientists series, and will play with some really great acts. I've seen Smomid and Sung Kim, and they're awesome. Also on the bill will be B1 and Rich DDT. Should be a fun night, full of odd sounds!

1/20/16
Doc's Lab
124 Columbus Ave.
San Francisco CA 94133
8PM Sharp
$10

Feral Luggage live footage!

Live at Berkeley Arts Festival Building, 1/15/16.

Thanks to Jeff Klukowski and Monica Berini for setting this up! 

Hardly Strictly Personal "Loud Bands" Show-Berkeley Arts Festival Building, Berkeley CA; 1/15/16

After an incredibly intense day at work, I was somewhat worried about how I'd have the energy to play last night, but when I arrived to Berkeley Arts Festival Building, things felt sort of emotionally light and happy. I suspect that Mika and Kersti were relieved to have 2016's installment of Hardly Strictly Personal wrapped up!
Just like last weekend, I was happy to have a bunch of chances to play my drums. I'm really grateful for ANY opportunity to do so.

Crow Crash Radio-1/15/16
Just like last year, Crow Crash Radio was joined by our friends Brian Lucas and Garrett Caples on bass and vocals, respectively. In keeping with the Captain Beefheart focus of the event, we presented our take on Sho' Nuff Yes I Do from Safe As Milk. It turned out to be a Psych Blues romp, with Brian Strang pasting all kinds of greasy slide guitar all over it. We vamped for a long time, going through different rhythmic variations. It felt sort of like a Hawkwind jam to me, not a bad thing at all! In light of that, I tried to get a chant of "...time we left this world today..." going, but I'm not sure that anyone else heard me! It was great to get a chance to jam with Brian Lucas again!

Below: Crow Crash Radio vamps it up! (photo courtesy of Alison Niedbalski, thanks Alison!)

Feral Luggage-1/15/16
Feral Luggage did a very short set. We played what Mika described as being "29th Century Pop", an Avant Garde lyric song, really. It featured singing by Eli Pontecorvo, and I kept things pretty quiet at first, at least until Kersti Abrams starting piping in with her alto sax. At that point, things got a bit more Free and loose, and we jammed it up a bit before fading directly into Alphastare's set, during the end of which I sat in for a minute on small percussion and flute.

Below: Feral Luggage (photo courtesy of Alison Niedbalski, thanks Alison!)

ebolabuddha-1/15/16
My evening ended with ebolabuddha. Although I was bummed to miss Jason Ague, who has moved to Colorado, the set was still quite enjoyable. We played three pieces, starting with a Noise-flavored reading piece (I read Ovid!), after which we got, dare I say, Jazz-ey even, before busting into some Black Metal moves. Our Beefheart song was Lick My Decals Off Baby, done sludge-ey slow and peppered with a few more blast beats for good measure. I even sang a bit of the tune, but forget the second half of the tune! Sorry, Mr. Van Vliet, wherever you are! Our pal Lorenzo sat in with us on our third piece, which went from fast to crawling and back again before fading off into a single note from Steve, Eli, and Lorenzo. Raucous fun, as usual!

Below: ebolabuddha sets up

Many thanks to all that showed up, participated, stuck around, or supported Hardly Strictly Personal 2016!

Below: bonus shot of Ruminations from 1/10/16, with Brandon Evans! (photo courtesy of Alison Niedbalski, thanks Alison!)

Bridge of Crows live at Hardly Strictly Personal, Berkeley CA 1/10/16

Hardly Strictly Personal Personal 2016 Concluding Show this Friday night!

This Friday night at Berkeley Arts Festival Building, Hardly Strictly Personal 2016 will have its final installment! I will play a lot, again! Here are the details:

Berkeley Arts Festival Building
2133 University Ave.
Berkeley CA 94704
7:00 PM
$12-20

I will play with Crow Crash Radio, Feral Luggae, and ebolabuddha. Several other acts will play, too! If you're in the East Bay on Friday night, please consider attending some or all of this great benefit event!