Mourning Moon concert this Thursday in San Francisco

THE PROGRAM:

FIGHTS MONSTERS will ritually bring in the Mourning Moon through the extensive exploration of drones, room harmonics and standing waves to bring about a meditation on loss—all by candlelight.

The contemporary people of LAWSON are the descendants of an ancient civilization. For many generations the ancient Lawsonites lived at sea in ships, traveling and exploring the seemingly endless reaches of the ocean. While it has been forgotten exactly why the Lawsonites suddenly left the ocean, many believe a large storm decimated the majority of the population, and the few remaining people chose to leave the ocean forever. The descendants of these people have never seen the ocean.

In honor of the Mourning Moon, the Lawson ensemble will continue its tradition of performing the ancient songs of the fallen Lawsonite ancestors.

PERFORMER BIOS:

Ryan Gregory Tallman (b. 1977) is an electro-acoustic composer, noise artist, sound experimentalist, multi-instrumentalist and improviser. Tallman’s primary compositional focus is the manipulation and exploitation of the inherent resonant frequencies of acoustic spaces—rendering his work site specific and experiential. As a graduate from the Master of Fine Arts in Electronic Music and Recording Arts program at Mills College, Tallman studied under Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, Maggie Payne, Roscoe Mitchell, and Zeena Parkins.

FIGHTS MONSTERS,the SloMo-PoMo, Atmospheric Noise-Metal project of composer Ryan Gregory Tallman*, was brought to life in East Oakland, CA in the Autumn of 2008. FIGHTS MONSTERS has released albums on Planetarium Records and Subspine Records, and has another full-length album in progress.

Saxophonist Jacob Zimmerman recently completed his Masters Degree in Composition at Mills College in Oakland, where he had the privilege to study privately with Roscoe Mitchell and James Fei. In May of 2008 he graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Jazz Saxophone Performance. There he studied primarily with Anthony Coleman, Jerry Bergonzi, and Joe Morris. Demonstrating a firm knowledge of the history of the alto saxophone in jazz, classical, and improvised music, Jacob is a highly active performer working in a wide range of diverse musical contexts.

The newly formed Lawson Ensemble performs original music inspired by the rich cultural heritage of the Lawsonite people. Comprised of an exceptional cast of local improvising musicians, the project is focused on the navigation of a unique pitch network system recently developed by Zimmerman in his solo work. Current members include Drew Ceccato, Cory Wright, Matt Nelson (saxes), Matt Ingalls (clarinets), Theo Padouvas (trumpet), Rob Ewing (trombone), Michael Coleman, Dan VanHassel (keyboards), and Dan Good (electronics and trumpet). In performance the Lawson Ensemble collectively improvises varying textures of complex, slowly shifting counterpoint. Through the use of pre-composed material, improvisation, and a specific vocabulary of conducting cues the performers actively engage in the discovery of new formations of melody and phrasing, with an emphasis on shapes and contours. Notable influences for the project include Karlheinz Stockhausen’s opera music, Bill Frisell, Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton, and the improvisations of Lee Konitz and the “Tristano School.”

My birthday night

Night Sky, for Cheap
Originally uploaded by Dill Pixels

On my birthday hike

The little puff that shone a shadow
Originally uploaded by Dill Pixels

GOAL!!!!

Yes!  The Kickstarter appeal for the December 18th performers has made it to $1,000 raised!

But don't let that stop you from making a pledge to benefit these great musicians.  The more money we raise for them, the more money can be split among them -- and December 18th will cease to be just another underground gig.

Blood Moon concert this Thursday in SF

How dark can it get and the moon still be full?  Find out this Thursday, October 21 at the Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market Street at 6th Street, San Francisco.  Admission is $6.00 - $10.00 sliding scale, with no one turned away for lack of funds.

8PM: Forms of Things Unknown
9PM: Big City Orchestra

Forms of Things Unknown will attempt to measure the pulse of the Blood Moon using a meter-long cylinder of grenadilla wood paired off with a triangular spruce resonant chamber, piped through a Lexicon MX200 fitted with a handblown telescoping pocket compass of pure fucking titanium.

Big City Orchestra makes sound on the moon: Melody mainly pressure wave moving through a series of conditions. Thus, we often hear at the sky. As the transfer of so-called "Kaleidoscope." After back and forth nature of the lie, if you go back. This means that it is in our vibration of the eardrum ear. Thus, you will not sound when the vacuum of space, but you can hear the air or cooling, or semen. How it all, especially at a distance, or as audio, high-frequency or low frequency current evaporation depends on the media publishing projects or clothing.

Forms of Things Unknown was launched as a solo studio project in 2002 and continues to serve as the primary creative vehicle for the music of Ferrara Brain Pan. Utilizing various woodwinds as primary sound sources, these and other acoustic instruments are interfaced with signal processors, electronics and sampled sounds to fabricate drone-oriented soundscapes of a dark ambient designation, occasionally veering into neofolk, jazz dirge or art-rock territory. While live performances are infrequent, audience members have sometimes reported odd somatic hallucinations, feeling as though interdimensional portals were spontaneously erupting throughout the abdominal cavity, with tiny glass helicopters entering and exiting these dilating orifices.

Big City Orchestra: Back in 1979 in crappy little towns south of LA such as Torrance and Hawthorne a cassette-trading, noise-embracing, non-musician-friendly band was formed and the darned thing still exists today under the same name.

Kickstarter appeal for artist fees

Time to seek funding for the 22 performers I told you about last week!  Please check out the appeal and back them as generously as you are able.