Announcement
Subject: Cheap, cheap, cheap Garfield Artworks show, Thursday 6/24!

In what's shaping up to be a busy performing season, I'll be playing a showcase on Thursday June 24 at the Garfield Artworks, a space I've long liked but not yet played. I'll be reprising the piece I just did for a belly dance, although I'll be making some additions to it. And I'll trot out some old favorites, as well as a guitar cloud or two. And probably a surprise of some kind to shake things up, because I'm just like that.

I'll be back on the bill with Manherringbone, who will either lay down some intriguing ambient textures, or take the top layer of enamel off your teeth. Which will it be? Only Bob knows for sure. Relative Q will be doing some downtempo IDM, and Shadowdancer will be letting us in on his experimental techno MIDI box magic. He's a good guy, too, and brought a lot of people into two Club Cafe shows last summer. So come on down and check it out.

Also, if you're going, email me--due to scheduling issues, I may need a ride to the venue. I'll get you in.

Thursday, June 24, 8 PM, all ages. The cost? One! Measly! Dollar! It's cheaper than staying at home! Garfield Artworks, 4931 Penn Ave., in rapidly gentrifying Garfield, Pittsburgh.

Report
This was another set I wasn't exactly happy with, but there were some nice aspects--an actual audience of some size (see the photo--quite a witty, urbane, and attractive group, no?), an overall pleasant evening, a CD sale(!), and continuing my recent practice of bringing guitar clouds back into the set. The negative aspects: less-than-ideal performance on the W piece, and an ill-considered decision to incorporate W samples into the belly dance piece. I also went on way too long with these.

Despite the fact that I was the first person to come in (not needing a ride to the venue, happily--our car scheduling worked out), the place started attracting a bit of a population, perhaps from the low ticket price, some promotion, and Manny's decision to have a book sale at the front. I was up first, which is fine by me. Since there were some new faces, I started with the poem, which tends to build some rapport through humor, although the humor isn't really sustained through the set. I next did the belly dance piece with the additional W samples, and I'm starting to admit that I'm just not connecting with a second W piece. I think I'm burnt out on this. Also, I let the rhythms go on a bit too long and ran out of soloing ideas. The speech samples here meant that I had way too much to do, with the playing, the choosing of the loop points, the samples, and nothing got the right amount of attention. The first W piece ("Bush League") is generally OK, and I get some traction there, but this piece was best when it was new. Y'know, yeah, he stumbles, he misspeaks, etc. and it's such an obvious point, it's made over and over again. Still, I did both W pieces, which is pretty much overload.

I followed this up with the tritone cloud in B, which seemed to open something up for a little while, and Music seemed to be happening here. Interestingly, the frequency and delay settings were very similar to "Cloud 1 (440)," which I'd never written down, so I now have a chance to notate that piece. I incorporated some guitar percussion and played with the delay modulation, which had some nice effects, and the piece was kind of promising in places, giving me hope for doing more of these. As a set-closer, I'd prepared some shills in the audience to call out "Freebird!" which was my signal to do "Red Fiber." It went over well, if possibly a bit shrill in this long, rectangular room. Some people seemed to have dug the set, notably Bob (Manherringbone), who expressed a liking for the clouds, which was once again reinforcing.

Relative Q were up next, and they did some nice work with guitar and bass, joined by drum tracks. Nice guys, too. Sometime during their set I answered some questions about the poem asked by one woman who had been doing some home recording of her own, but not yet taken it into performance; she actually bought the last copy of this run of the poem. It's all online now, if you want one.

Manherringbone came up next, and did a very nice set of processed microphone feedback, ranging from ambient to noise. The set had a good structure and shape to it, and it was a bit of a disappointment that he wasn't recording it. I would have put it out. Following Bob's set, Chris ("Shadow Dancer") did his friendly beats and textures with the MIDI box, and we were done. Bob had some car scheduling issues of his own, so I stepped in to help. We got a chance to talk music, sound, and improv for a bit before I dropped him off. Looks like we'll be on the same bill in a month at the Eye, just down the street.