by BBG

* Toby Driver photo by Gemma Fleming

Toby Driver is an "other". Not like Benjamin Linus or one of the Dharma Initiative, but in that his artistic endeavors Kayo Dot and Maudlin of The Well exist in the in-between, and outside. Driver's current project, Kayo Dot, is prepping to release their fourth album Coyote via Hydra Head on April 6th. On Coyote, elements of goth, avant-jazz, prog, ambient, and the kitchen sink meld with the avant-garde, making for an intensely fascinating and eclectic listen.

Driver was recently asked to curate the month of February at The Stone, John Zorn's non-profit club in the East Village. We sat down to ask Driver about some of the bands he chose which include solo sets from members of Krallice, Dysrhythmia, Extra Life, and Bloody Panda in addition to Baby Dee, Oxbow, Gnaw, and a full performance by his own band doing Coyote from start to finish, and the recent resurrection of Maudlin of The Well.

Full interview and Stone schedule, below....

Continue reading "Toby Driver curated Feb @ The Stone - interview & schedule"

Sam Hillmer (left) playing with Zs @ the Yard (more by Sarahana)

You Are Here (The Maze) is a performance festival in a sculptural maze taking place at Williamsburg's Death By Audio from September 10 - October 2, 2009. Emphasizing the sprawling and interconnected nature of New York's underground, a trip through the maze offers a peak inside NYC's diy art/music scene. A meditation on passage and desire, You Are Here engulfs the space and presents beckoning inhabitants, dead ends, and uplifting epitaphs. Medium and genre vary and overlapping and simultaneous performances are frequent, each performer establishing a different corner or dead end as his or hers.

The lineup and installation is being put together by TROUBLE (Sam Hillmer & Laura Paris). Acts in the three-week schedule include Calvin Johnson, Screaming Females, Mick Barr, Ty Segal, Grooms, Extra Life and others.

Skeletons kick off the first night of the festival on September 10th as the Skeletons Big Band, a 12-piece band (expanded from their usual four) that's also playing September 7-9th at Roulette. There they'll be performing "New Works for a Larger Ensemble" which includes "excerpts and new arrangements from their record in progress "PEOPLE," a long form piece based around conversations in Greyhound busses and stations, and beyond..."

The full schedule for the Maze (and the lineup for Skeletons Big Band) is below...

Continue reading "Death By Audio's The Maze - schedule (includes 1 of 4 upcoming Skeletons Big Band shows & much more) "

Remember Death By Audio's 12-hour benefit on July 25th for something called You Are Here: A Maze?

Sam Hillmer & Laura Paris, who dubbed their art collaboration Trouble, had the first You Are Here festival in 2007, at 44th street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Paris drew out the floor-plan of the maze, while Hillmer, who plays tenor saxophone for the Zs, booked bands to play in the space and coordinated efforts to bring people inside to interact with the maze.

"It didn't seem like the kind of thing that could just sit in a gallery, it needs constant traffic," Hillmer explained. "That is the piece, people dealing with the situation [presented by the maze]."

This year's festival, scheduled for Spetember 10th through October 2nd, will take up the entire space of Death by Audio and feature a maze constructed out of salvaged doors from Built It Green, a nonprofit organization that sells surplus building materials. The space will also have woodchip-covered floors ("to reference mazes built out of bushes," Hillmer notes). The twists and turns of the venue will be littered by some 200 of Paris' sculptures, molded from some of her pieces and then cast repeatedly. [Greenpoint Gazette]

According to the promoter, "Medium and genre vary and overlapping and simultaneous performances are frequent, each performer establishing a different corner or dead end as his or hers." Sounds fun.

The preliminary lineup (aka almost a month's worth of shows at the venue while the maze is up) mixes interesting out of town names (Calvin Johnson, Ty Segal, The Coathangers) with local acts like Skeletons (as 'Skeletons and the Kings of All Cities'), Mick Barr (he is local right?), Extra life and Stars Like Fleas. Full lineup to be announced soon but more of it is below, along with video footage of the first Maze (starring Dave Longstreth, Thee Oh Sees and others), and other details and the flyer for the new Maze...

Continue reading "Death by Audio maze installation running Sept 10-Oct 2 (Skeletons, Mick Barr, Calvin Johnson, Extra Life, Ty Segall)"