first laptop

so, a few nights ago, 4/28/08, specifically, I played my first ever laptop show, as the first of three very different sets at a Bowerbird show at the Gallery at the Gershman YMCA in Philadelphia. I'd originally been gearing up for a piano set, but it turned out the piano wasn't obtainable, so I got a chance to finally get a solo set together. So, I gathered some acoustic guitar junk samples and rock some Zebra synth over it, and voila. In retro I wish I'd set the master volume a touch louder, but it was a smallish room and the main set, which turned out to be the fantastic trio of Nate Wooley/Sean Meehan/Carl Ludwig Huebsch, I figured [correctly] was going to be super minimal and quiet, so i initially erred on the slightly lower side of volume. Also playing was an extremely cool duo of Tim Albro and Dan Cappechi, very unique and inspring, nice melodic guitar shards with Oxley-inspired percussion.

all in all, a great night, a great communal feel, at least for me. thanks to Dustin Hurt for having me on the show, and to Ian Fraser for taking the above picture and sending it to me. BTW, missing from the picture, above my head and to the left, was a big sign reading 'AIDS'. As you might surmise from the ones you can make out in the above photo, the gallery at the time was filled with photos of AIDS orphans, children with AIDS and rehabilitated child soldiers, all from Africa [like a dipshit, I don't remember exactly where]. Very depressing and perspective inducing.

I'm lucky as shit, ultimately.

to Poland and back

So, this past week I was in Katowice, Poland as a SIM faculty member. SIM stands for School for Improvised Music http://www.schoolforimprov.org/, it's run by my friend Ralph Alessi, who was also there. Also also there was Ravi Coltrane, Brad Shepik, Mark Helias, and Jim Black. Except for Ralph, these are all musicians I had played with only a little bit [Ravi] or not at all [the rest] before this past week; including Ralph, these are all some seriously amazing musicians of whom I've been a fan for a long time. So, the week was a total blast. We played two concerts, each of which featured 6 tunes, one by each group member. And there were of course some jam session moments which were also hilarious and fun. I averaged at most 5 hours a night of sleep, and we taught a good deal of the day every day as well, so it was exhausting when coupled with the transatlantic flights and connections and so forth. Then, to top it all off, a nice old lady inadvertently stole my bag back after I arrived in NYC. She did bring it back to Aer Lingus, who are shipping it to me today.

Yes, I had pierogies, which were delicious. Plus, Polish vodka - Zubrowka!

So, now I'm back and recovered. Pictures were taken, not by me, but as soon as I can coax any out of the ether I'll post some.

allrighty. I'll be getting to some new stuff soon, to begin the cycle of new postings.

Mad Dog! Mad Dog! http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink10324.html

-mm