Announcement
Sunday, December 9 at Our Lady of Public Health (otherwise known as the auditorium in Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health building), I'll be performing as part of local improv explorers CLUTTER, adding textured noise and dissonance to the proceedings. In addition to the sample and guitar textures you know and love, I'm debuting a software analogue synth for that certain extra je ne sais quoi. Robert "Unfinished Symphonies" Press is also contributing his tasteful keyboard stylings, and if this expansion keeps up, maybe it'll be the CLUTTER Big Band before long. You might want to catch us while there are still stages big enough to hold us.

We're opening for NYC's up-and-coming avant-jazz sensations Gutbucket, who have generated quite a buzz. Should be a good show.

Sunday, December 9
8 pm $10 all ages
at the Public Health Auditorium, 5th Ave and DeSoto St., University of Pittsburgh, Oakland. (It's behind the old Oakland Beehive, kind of. Look for the building with the skeletal metal guy stuck to the outside. It's in there.)

Report
Not many people showed, but there was a good synergy in the ensemble, and the Gutbucket guys turn out to be fine folks indeed. I've been listening back to the set, and it's pretty good. There were some problems in addition to the sparse turnout, however: the drummer was in a corner, and heard himself entirely too loud--outside of the corner he was fine, but he couldn't know that at the time; and the keyboardist didn't have enough sonic room to stretch out. While I was able to contribute weird textures, between the other guitarist and the bassist there were too many notes and weird chords happening. And in Robert Press's tune "Good Morning," I had problems hearing both myself (had the pickup volume set too low) and Robert (the keyboard amp was sitting next to me, and I was in a null), so I ended up missing the chord change and the rest afterwards. So instead of giving the tune a unified, dramatic ebb and flow, I smoothed it out and made it more homogenous. Damn. Beyond those things, though, it was a really fun set. I'm digging the software synth as a way of supplying brief stabs of additional strangeness, and the ring modulator is turning out to be essential. There's a kind of Allen Ravenstine-like quality to my contributions, which I like. The guys from Gutbucket also came up to us afterward to chat, which was quite cool of them. A largely successful set, I'd have to say.

Gutbucket proved to be a very tight, energetic ensemble, cutting loose on either rocking out on jazz tunes, or jazzing up rock-based tunes. Kind of hard to tell from the way I've just described it, but in no way could it have been described as "fusion." It's much tighter and more integrated than the F word. All of them are fine musicians with a great touch, and the sax player and guitarist have some significant stage presence going. Perhaps the most emblematic moment of the evening was when the guitarist took up a couple recorders (as in wind instruments) and he and the sax player chased each other around the auditorium. Very Dionysian. I spent a fair chunk of the set paying attention to the bassist's playing and tone, as he plays an Azola Floating Top Bugbass, an instrument I've found interesting and have been wanting to hear. You're not going to mistake it for a full upright, but it was a very good substitute. I'm impressed. The sax player was perhaps the most intense showman of the bunch, dancing around, bobbing and weaving, losing his hat, the whole bit. A very, very enjoyable and impressive live band. Well worth seeing. And nice as hell guys, too. Don't miss 'em.