Talking Heads at The Kitchen in 1976 (photo by Kathy Landman)

On the occasion of The Kitchen's 40th Anniversary, legendary experimental musician and composer Rhys Chatham curates a shared program of music from his time as a performer and music curator at The Kitchen during the 1970s. Avant-garde luminaries Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros, Joan La Barbara, and Laurie Spiegel will return to The Kitchen's stage and perform the now canonical experimental music pieces they debuted at The Kitchen in the 1970s, an incredibly fertile and experimental period in New York when these pioneering artists helped create the original "downtown sound."

Congrats to the legendary Kitchen for on their 40th Anniversary! Come celebrate the venue over two nights, Friday 9/9 with Pauline Oliveros, Joan La Barbara, and Rhys Chatham and Saturday 9/10 with Tony Conrad, Laurie Spiegel, and Rhys Chatham. Tickets for both nights are still available by phone or by foot, and will set you back $12 each.

A week after that you can continue withe the celebration at the annual Kitchen Block Party on 9/17, a FREE street fair that goes down at 11AM - 4PM on 19th between 10th and 11th Avenue. Come check out multiple art booths, live music & dance, kid friendly activites, and much more. More details on the block party, as well as a short documentary on the significance of The Kitchen, below...

Continue reading "The Kitchen celebrating 40 w/ 'Pioneers of the Downtown Sound', hosting annual block party"

photos by Amanda Hatfield

Deradoorian @ Union Pool - 5/10/11

Deradoorian aka Angel Deradoorian of Dirty Projectors played a show with Hiro Kone at Union Pool in Brooklyn Tuesday night (5/10)...

"Deradoorian has just one five-song EP to her credit thus far, 2009's entrancing Mind Raft, plus a split single from earlier this year and some stray tracks (apparently the Dirty Projectors have been busy?). But her sound has evolved, and she has a sharp trio that's headed to the Animal Collective-curated ATP in England in a few days. They took the stage and played "Moon," the circular, hypnotic song that closes Mind Raft, and this completely fucked me up. At the end of that EP, "Moon" somehow bears witness to the four songs that precede it, focusing their most affecting traits into one six-minute spell. It is an end song. What's it doing at the beginning of the set? But when the full band blew in at a dramatic moment halfway through the song, all complaints were forgotten." [Village Voice]

Deradoorian's Brooklyn setlist is below. Deradoorian play the AC ATP in Minehead on Sunday which is the same day Tony Conrad plays the UK shindig. For a second I thought that was a lot of last minute traveling for Tony, but then I remembered he's not actually playing the Table of the Elements Fest in NYC this weekend - they're just showing a video of a show he played in 1996.

Hiro Kone next plays a show at Cake Shop on June 4th, with (her old band) Effi Briest and Pillars and Tongues.

In barely related news, Dirty Projectors' & Animal Collective's Domino label-mate Cass McCombs is currently on the road and plays a tour-ending show at Bowery Ballroom tonight (5/12) with Jana Hunter. Tickets are still available.

More pictures from Union Pool, below...

Continue reading "Deradoorian played Union Pool w/ Hiro Kone (pics & setlist), Cass McCombs plays Bowery Ballroom tonight"

An image from Robert Longo's Pictures for Music (1979), which will be played alongside Rhys Chatham's Guitar Trio...

Since 1993 the record label Table of the Elements has staked its claim on a massive enterprise, intending nothing less than to rewrite the history of American music in the second half of the 20th century, and beyond. Its projects have focused on musicians whose light shimmers outside the frames of convention, and comprise a vital contemporary archive of experimental, minimalist, improvised and outsider musics.

The Table of The Elements is caling it quits after eighteen years, and will go out with the three-day Copernicum Festival at Issue Project Room that kicks off tonight (5/12). Electric harpist Zeena Parkins, M2 (improv duo made up of Mission of Burma's Roger Miller and brother Ben Miller), Agathe Max, and electronic musician Ateleia will round out the first night entitled "TotE from A - Z". Tickets are still available. Agathe Max will perform selections from the silver string, which is due on Table of the Elements in September.

Friday night (5/13), " Free/Not Free" night, will honor Rhys Chatham's 1977 opus Guitar Trio with projections by Robert Longo and a performance from The Lords of Tinnitus (Robert Longo, Jonathan Kane, Robert Poss, Ernie Brooks, Zach Layton, Adam Wills, Colin Langenus, Bill Brovold). Text Of Light (featuring William Hooker, Alan Licht, Nels Cline), Jon Mueller, and Peg Simone round out the lineup. Tickets are still available.

Finally, the Table of The Elements wraps up their celebration on Saturday, "Drone x 4" night, with the previously discussed Stephen O'Malley solo show with Jonathan Kane's February, a Tony Conrad / Gastr Del Sol performance film, and Igor Cubrilovic. Tickets are still available.

R.I.P. to Table Of The Elements, but at least they're going out with a bang.

--

In related news, Zeena Parkins is also on board for the upcoming Undead Jazz Festival as part of Zeena Parkins and The Adorables.

Roger Miller also has a show coming up as part of the Alloy Orchestra who will "perform its original live score to the newly restored version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis" in Prospect Park this summer.

Stephen O'Malley also has a show coming up in Pennsylvania.

The Table of the Elements fest lineup in list format, below...

Continue reading "the final Table of the Elements Festival is this week @ IPR, Alloy Orchestra plays Prospect Park this summer"

Rhys Chatham at Lincoln Center (more by Tim Griffin)

Avant great Rhys Chatham will step away from the six-strings and strap on the trumpet for a string of US dates as Rhys Chatham's Brass Trio, kicking off the trek with a headlining date at Le Poisson Rouge on Feb 9th. Tickets are still available.

His band, which consists of David Daniell on guitar and Ryan Sawyer on drums, will be joined at LPR by violin deconstructionist Tony Conrad and Face the Music, "an ensemble of astonishingly talented teenagers... in residence at the Kaufman Center" who will be performing avant composer Steve Reich's "Tehillim".

Rhys Chatham released his last LP A Crimson Grail via Nonesuch in the tail end of last year. Stream portions of that LP at the Nonesuch site where you can order it on CD/LP/digital.

All tour dates and some video is below.

Continue reading "Rhys Chatham Brass Trio playing shows, NYC w/ Tony Conrad"

photos by Erez Avissar

Queen Mermaid Laurie Anderson (at Santos Party House)...

Mark your calendar for this year's Mermaid Parade, happening Saturday, June 19th at 2pm. Leading the proceedings will be "King Neptune" Lou Reed and "Queen Mermaid" Laurie Anderson. The parade's afterparty, featuring burlesque and music, is at the nearby NY Aquarium later that night. More details on the route and transportation are here.

Check out some pictures from the 2009 parade (which had Harvey Keitel and wife Daphna Kastner as the king and queen) and 2008's ball/afterparty

Laurie Anderson has a new album on the way.

Laurie Anderson's forthcoming Nonesuch release, Homeland, is due out on June 22. To count down the weeks till then, Nonesuch will release one short video clip featuring Anderson's male alter ego, Fenway Bergamot, every Tuesday now through release day. In today's inaugural clip, Bergamot revisits the early days of the 2008 financial crisis. BAM has announced that Anderson will give the NY premiere of her new work, Delusion, at the Next Wave Festival this fall. [Nonesuch]

Delusion will run at BAM's Harvey Theater Sep 21-25, Sep 28-30, Oct 1 & 2 at 7:30pm and Sep 26 & Oct 3 at 3pm. Tickets will be $20, 35, 45, 60. "Next Wave Festival subscription tickets for Friends of BAM (as well as subscribers to both the 2010 Spring Season and 2009 Next Wave Festival) are on sale Jun 7; subscription tickets for the general public are on sale Jun 14. Single tickets for Delusion and Vollmond are on sale Aug 30 (Aug 23 for Friends of BAM)."

The above-mentioned Nonesuch videos get posted here. There's also a remix contest for the song "Only an Expert" off that record, which runs through May 27th (the winner will get $1,000 and their song will be available on iTunes).

Looking way into the future, Laurie Anderson joins Lou Reed, Mike Patton, Marc Ribot, Dave Douglas, and Uri Caine to perform with John Zorn in "a series of mind-bending sonic compositions and no-holds-barred improvisations" at NYC Opera on Wednesday, March 30, 2011. Tickets...TBA?

Lou recently took part in the Anthology Film Archives benefit at Hiro, but never made it to the Codes Festival in Poland where he was scheduled to play with Laurie and John Zorn on May 15th (Laurie and John did go though). All three of them are next scheduled to appear together on July 2nd at the Montreal Jazz Festival.

The pictures above and those below are from an April 28th benefit show at Santos Party House with Laurie Anderson, Tony Conrad, Erik Friedlander and (not pictured) Text of Light. More pictures and videos (including one with Laurie talking about Delusion) are below...

Continue reading "Laurie Anderson & Lou Reed are king & queen of the 2010 Mermaid Parade, playing BAM & other shows & stuff "

Frightened Rabbit @ LPR acoustic in 2009 (more by Jonny Leather)

tonight in NYC
* Hanson (night 3!) @ Gramercy
* Heavy Trash @ The Saint (NJ)
* Hole, Little Fish @ Terminal 5
* Tracy Bonham @ Galapagos Art Space
* Frightened Rabbit @ Sound Fix Records
* Josh Rouse, The Woes @ The Bell House
* Willie Mays, Radical Sons @ Don Pedro
* N.E.R.D., Jay Electronica @ Irving Plaza
* Big Soda, Big Eyes, Nude Beach @ Coco 66
* VV Brown, MNDR, Class Actress @ Bowery Ballroom
* Taylor Hollingsworth, Mia Riddle @ Union Hall
* Frightened Rabbit, Maps and Atlases @ Webster Hall
* Tao Seeger Band, The Morgues, Cassandra Jenkins @ Brooklyn Bowl
* The Morning Benders, Twin Sister, Twin Shadow, Papa @ Mercury Lounge
* Chiara String Quartet play Steve Reich and more @ (Le) Poisson Rouge
* Mottel/Dahl/Nilson/Fox, El Topo, Priestbird, Living Sacrifice, Spider @ Pianos
* Pod Blotz & Zaimph, Purple Haze, MV Carbon, Driphouse, Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt @ Death By Audio
* Laurie Anderson, Tony Conrad, Erik Friedlander, Text of Light (Alan Licht & Lee Ranaldo), Transgendered Jesus @ Santos Party House

From Santos: Charles S. Cohen, executive producer of Academy Award nominated film Frozen River, is celebrated at this Film-makers cooperative benefit concert. Laurie Anderson, Tony Conrad, Erik Friedlander, Text of Light, and Transgendered Jesus will perform live along with films from the cooperative's collection.

The Chiara String Quartet's program at Santos tonight includes Steve Reich's Different Trains, Jefferson Friedman's String Quartet No. 2 and Anton Webern's Five Pieces for String Quartet. Tickets are on sale.

Frightened Rabbit, after having a bit of trouble getting into the country at the beginning of their tour, are here today to play two NYC shows. At 6:30 you can catch them play afree acoustic show at Sound Fix. Then later tonight they headline a sold out Webster Hall.

Did the MNDR and Class Actress show at The Studio at Webster Hall even happen last night? Regardless, both acts open for VV Brown at Bowery Ballroom tonight.

The Morning Benders complete their April series of NYC shows tonight at Mercury Lounge. Twin Sister open up for them. Members of Twin Sister opened up for them (playing in Holiday Shores) Saturday night at Music Hall.

A trailer for the album Cocorosie is releasing on Sub Pop can be watched and listened to below...

A video of Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore performing "My Wealth Comes To Me" live on KEXP, below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Wednesday?"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: The Cribs - We Were Aborted (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: BOAT - Prince of Tacoma (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: BOAT - We've Been Friends Since 1989 (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: BOAT - Lately (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: BOAT - I'm a Donkey for Your Love (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: BOAT - Last Cans of Paint (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Pants Yell! - Cold Hands (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Frankie Rose - Thee Only One (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Brown Recluse - Night Train (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Brown Recluse - Contour and Context (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Ropers - Revolver (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Nord Express - The Natural (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Lorelei - Stale Houses (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Max Tundra - Which Song (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Deastro - Reaction To Substance M (MP3)

Tonight (11/11) and tomorrow are the last two shows of The Answering Machine's extended NYC visit, playing Bruar Falls tonight (with Dinnosaur Feathers and Zambri) and Cake Shop tomorrow (11/12, with Sholi). As I've said before, this Manchester band make superior Brit Indie and like their debut album, Another City, Another Sorry, quite a bit. You can get the whole thing at their bandcamp.com page.

The Cribs

Speaking of superior Brit Indie, The Cribs fourth album, Ignore the Ignorant, was released this week, just in time for their shows at Bowery Ballroom on Thursday (11/12, still tickets available) and Friday (11/13, sold out). As you may know, The Cribs are now a four-piece, having added Johnny Marr to their otherwise all-Jarman lineup for the writing and recording of the new album which actually does sound like what you might expect it to. You've still got the big choruses and raw energy The Cribs are known for, but now with the flourishes and panache the onetime Smith is known for. I'd even say Ignore the Ignorant finds Johnny Marr sounding like Johhny Marr for the first time since his days in The The. It's a really strong record. But The Cribs are almost always better live than on record. I will be curious to see how Marr will affect the usual antics of Gary, Ryan, Ross. Will brothers still act like brothers when there's a legend nearly twice their age on stage?

The shows I'm most looking forward to this weekend are from Seattle's BOAT, a truly fun live band whose new album, Setting the Paces, is just terrific, loaded with irresistible indie pop, as much as you can fit on tangerine-colored vinyl. We're talking giant hooks, lyrics that are funny without being novelty (and have just enough of the crying-on-the-inside clown thing going on too), and production that is neither slick nor low fi. This is how it's done, and I've no doubt this will find its way into my Best of 2009 list.

BOAT play Union Hall on Friday (11/13) and Bruar Falls on Saturday (11/14) and you really should do yourself a favor and go see one of these shows. They don't make it East very often. Their live shows are fairly interactive -- they pass out bags of confetti and homemade shakers, and often work with signs and props -- but it never feels forced. They just want you to have a good time. The Union Hall show on Friday is with How I Became the Bomb; Saturday's Bruar Falls show is with Miniboone and Shark?

Pants Yell!

I feel a little bad that BOAT's show on Saturday is competing with the Slumberland 20th Anniversary show at The Bell House for the indie pop consumer's dollar. As someone who spent his college years going on road trips to Washington DC to see shows and go record shopping, Slumberland is intertwined with my musical upbringing, be it thumbing through Velocity Girl, Henry's Dress and Aislers Set 7"s at Arlington's Go Records, or hearing Stereolab's Switched On for the first time at Smash on M Street.

It's kind of amazing that, after a few years of dormancy, Slumberland has come back stronger than ever in the last year with records that have achieved a national level of attention that seemed impossible in the '90s. I'm still stunned at how popular Pains of Being Pure at Heart have gotten. It's a label that continues to be a labor of love for owner Mike Schulman. Maybe the listening public (now with the wide-reaching abilities of the internet) has come around to his way of thinking.

Anyway, Saturday's eight-band spectacular is a hard-t0-pass-up bill for any indie fan, featuring label heavy hitters The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (previously unannounced) and Crystal Stilts. There's also Boston's Pants Yell!, whose new album Received Pronunciation was just released and is what I'd call a textbook "grower," one whose many pleasures don't reveal themselves till maybe the third listen. The band are also swearing it's their last, and plan to break up next year (Check out an MP3 of "Cold Hands" above). Additionally, the show has Philadelphia's baroque-ish Brown Recluse from the label's current roster, and what is likely to be most people's first time seeing Frankie & the Outs, who were really good opening for Grass Widow at the Woodser a week ago.

There's also sets from three bands from Slumberland's dreamy '90s era: Lorelei, who have been back together since 2003, and The Ropers, and Nord Express who I'm pretty sure are playing their first shows since disbanding. While I know some Slumberland fanatics were hoping, wishing, crossing their fingers Schulman and Bell House booker Skippy might pull a rabbit out of their hat with more classic Slumberland bands (The Aislers Set, Black Tambourine, Velocity Girl or Rocketship), it's hard to argue with this lineup. It's gonna be a great night.

Versus

While on the subject of '90s indie rock, Versus are playing at Knitting Factory on Friday (11/13). Now augmented with a violinist (at least at their fantastic Seaport set this summer), they're sounding as good as they did in the '90s. Maybe even better. I'm told there's a new Versus album in the can and they're just trying to work out the whens and wheres of its release. The whole line-up at the Knit is TeenBeat related actually, with label head (and former Unrest frontman) Mark Robinson's new band Cotton Candy; Plus Minus which features Versus' James Balyut and ex-member Patrick Ramos and who are equally popular in their own right; The Solitary Cyclist which includes John Lindaman of True Love Always, Plus Minus drummer Chris Deaner, and food blogger (and friend of mine) Ganda Suthivarakom who has also performed with Miho Hatori, as well as in David Byrne's Imelda Marcos opera, Here Lies Love. Which leads us to the other band on the bill: Filipino indiepop band Ciudad. They've been playing shows here for the last month or so but this looks to be the final one before they head back to the Philippines.

GhostDigital

A couple other quick shows of interest. If you ever wondered what became of Einar, the other vocalist in the Sugarcubes (the one who shouted things like "I really don't like lobster!"), his current gig is GhostDigital which matches weird electronics to his particular style of vocals. They play tonight (11/11) at Monkeytown with fellow homemade diode musician Caspar Electronics.

GhostDigital also play on Thursday (11/12) at Town Hall as part of Music For 16 Futurists, which is further described as:

An evening-length concert of original scores and newly commissioned compositions for the intonarumori, or "noise-intoners" As part of its celebration of the 100th anniversary of Italian Futurism, the Performa 09 biennial, in collaboration with the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) and SFMOMA, has invited Luciano Chessa to direct a reconstruction project to produce accurate replicas the legendary instruments (8 noise families of 1-3 instruments each, in various registers) that Russolo built in Milan in the summer of 1913. As the first instruments capable of creating and manipulating noises through entirely mechanical processes, the intonarumori can be considered to be the original analog synthesizer, and the ancestors to the latest electronic synthesizers used today.

The night also features Blixa Bargeld, John Butcher, Luciano Chessa, Joan La Barbara, Nick Hallett, Pauline Oliveros, Mike Patton, Anat Pick, Elliott Sharp, Ulrich Krieger, Jennifer Walshe with Tony Conrad, Ghostigital with Skuli Sverrison, Finboggi Petursson, and Casper Electronics.

Sounds pretty cool. Aside: I used to fantasize that Einar formed a band with Fred Schneider. The most annoying band ever created.

OK that's it for this week. Videos and tour dates follow....

Continue reading "The Cribs, BOAT, Slumberland, Pants Yell!, GhostDigital, Versus, Music For 16 Futurists & more in This Week in Indie"

by Black Bubblegum

DOWNLOAD: John Wiese & C. Spencer Yeh - "Swedish Couch" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Paul Flaherty, C. Spencer Yeh & Greg Kelley - "Track One" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Paul Flaherty, C. Spencer Yeh & Greg Kelley - "Track Two" (MP3)

Tony Conrad & Keiji Haino

Experimentalists collide when Keiji Haino and Tony Conrad team up for a show at The Studio At Webster Hall on April 25th (tonight), one of only three US shows for the duo. Tickets for the NYC show are still available. Full tour dates are below.

Although the duo has not recorded anything, Keiji Haino recently dropped a new record under the moniker The Haino/Masataka Fujikake Duo, on the Japanese label Full Design Records on February 11. A collection of live material from a batch of 2005 shows in Yokohama, the record is currently available to us yankees here.

Opening The Studio show will be another violinist of the avant-garde persuasion, C Spencer Yeh, who recently dropped two collaborative LPs: Cincinatti with noise technician John Wiese (available on CSY's label, DroneDisco) and New York Nuts and Boston Beans with Paul Flaherty and Greg Kelley (available here). April 25th will be the only solo show for CSY over the next few weeks, but he does have dates as part of a duo (with Michael Johnsen) and a trio (with Rafael Toral & Trevor Tremaine). One of those trio dates will take place in NYC in the next few weeks, as part of the No Fun Fest featuring headliner Sonic Youth.

Hopefully SY's Lee Ranaldo gets his long lost Fender Mustang back by then.

The guitar (pictured above) was stolen from Lee in July 1999. Then, last week, someone unknowingly bought it on eBay, and before even receiving it (he still hasn't received it as of this post), the buyer coincidentally was "just looking at Sonic Youth´s guitars", and recognized the guitar that he had just bought as Lee's stolen guitar.

He posted his story in a thread (that is currently 35 pages long) on Offsetguitars.com. Lee was then contacted, offered the guitar back (at the eBay auction cost) and accepted. In another coincidence, the buyer lives in the Netherlands and Sonic Youth is in Europe this week. Unfortunately the guitar didn't arrive from seller to buyer in time for the buyer to hand it to Lee in person, but...

"So my brother, a friend and me went to Dusseldorf yesterday to see Sonic Youth. We spent the whole afternoon in museums to see the Sonic Youth exhibition, which was really great. I can recommend it to anyone with the possibility of going there. It made me want to start reading William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg immediately.

The concert was supposed to start at 20:30 and we arrived at that time, we figured it probably wouldn´t start until 22:00 or so as that´s what we´re used to. Surprisingly, they started exactly on time so I missed a chance to get onto the balcony for special guests. So we watched the gig among the ´common´ people , which wasn't so bad, though it´s sometimes hard to stand the smell of those puny creatures. Tongue The concert was amazing, as usual with these guys, they played a normal set but when it was over it felt like they had only played for 15 minutes. The highlight for me was Kim´s singing, her voice sounds better than ever. The new songs (I think they played 4) sounded good too, but I can´t comment on the specific songs as I don´t know the titles.

After the gig was over I pushed my way up to the front row and called the guitar tech, Eric Baecht, he came up to us, gave me a mastery bridge (from one of Lee´s guitars, he even included the allen wrench keys!) on which Lee had written a thank you note, along with a couple of picks with Sonic Youth prints on them. Can´t wait to try it on my Jazzmaster! Eric then told me to wait for him to finish clearing the stage and took us to the backstage where I met Lee. We had a little chat about the guitar, Mark Ibold also showed up briefly. I met Eric again who told us we can get on the guest list for any SY gig in the future (!!!). I also spotted Thurston but he left quite early , Kim was there the whole time, didn´t see Steve.

So my friends and me hung out at the bar for a while feeling quite awkward and trying to think of something to talk to Lee about without sounding cliché but it seemed impossible so we left soon after. It was a bit of shame because they´re really kind and approachable people, but I just didn´t know what to talk about.

After all we had a great day and I´m looking forward to going to their gigs in the future. For free! HA! Plus I won´t have to worry about the show being sold out or anything." [Sauerkraut the guitar finder]

Awesome story. (thx Raymond)

Speaking of Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore will perform as part of a trio with saxophonist Daniel Carter and Ryan Sawyer (Tall Firs, Stars Like Fleas) at Union Pool on May 2nd, with Trevor Dunn's Madlove, and Pink Noise. Madlove recently announced the release of their new album, White With Foam on Ipecac Records.

Sonic Youth's new album, The Eternal, drops on June 9th. Check out "Sacred Trickster" here.

Trevor Dunn will play bass with the Melvins when they play all of Houdini at Webster Hall.

Tour dates, and some videos from Sonic Youth's exhibition in Germany, below...

Continue reading "Lee Ranaldo's stolen guitar recovered, Tony Conrad playing w/ Keiji Haino, a Thurston show & stuff"

by Andrew Frisicano

April 11th will be ISSUE Project Room's 6th anniversary. We're amazed at how much has happened in this period of time. ISSUE started on East 6th street as an impromptu and spontaneous music, experimental cinema and performance venue...quickly gaining attention and expanding from 60 performances a year to over 250. By 2005, ISSUE had to leave the East Village and migrated to an iconic and beautiful silo along the banks of the Gowanus Canal. This unusual and extraordinarily fun location was voted "Best Art Bayou" by the Village Voice and named "New York's Best Kept Secret" by the Whitney Museum.

Producing amazing performances by Rhys Chatham, Anthony Coleman, Marianne Amancher, Elliott Sharp, Jandek and WFMU's own Kenny G, ISSUE Project Room enjoyed its stay at the silo immensely but then had to move once again. This time to its current location at the Old American Can Factory at 232 3rd Street in Brooklyn. This room, the "sanctuary", was formerly a rehearsal studio for a circus troupe. Instead of trapeze artists, we've now got Stephan Moore's 16 channel hemispherical speaker system hanging from the ceiling, enabling us to move sound over and around the heads of the audience.

This past year we found out that we were awarded a rent free, 20 year lease on the elk's club room at the former Board of Education building at 110 Livingston Street. It's a pretty amazing room and an amazing opportunity to build a kind of "Carnegie Hall of the Avant Garde" for the next 20 years. It's up to us to bring it up to code and move in, though...so we'll be fundraising for the time being...getting ready for the future. [ISSUE Project Room via Free Music Archive]

To celebrate (and raise money), the Brooklyn venue has lined up some special benefit performances for the month of April.

One highlight (of many) is Moby's "first-ever live electronic/ambiant performance" on Friday, April 24th. Tickets for the show are on sale now - regular and VIP. The full package includes: "an intimate pre-performance cocktail party with Moby [to] hear advance tracks from his forthcoming album, meet and talk with the artist, and enjoy a sneak-preview of his new music video directed by David Lynch." Not surprisingly, Moby was one of many artists who recently appeared at Radio City Music Hall to help raise money for the David Lynch Foundation. Moby was also a part of the Issue Project Room fundraiser that took place at Santos Party House last year (that Tony Conrad also performed at).

On ISSUE Project Room's actual birthday, April 11th, Pitre, with special guest avant-composer/filmmaker Tony Conrad, will perform original composition ED09 "with a 17-piece string/woodwind ensemble". Tickets are on sale. ISSUE Project Room is where Tony teamed up with Genesis P-Orridge (of the reunited Throbbing Gristle) for two shows earlier this year. Video from one of those shows below.

The IPR schedule also has a Tuesday, April 21st show with producer and SNL music supervisor Hal Willner featuring Sean Lennon, Yuka Honda, Chloe Webb and special guests. Tickets to that are on sale. One of the albums Hal recently produced is the new Marianne Faithfull. Still waiting to hear if he'll be back at Prospect Park this year.

Noveller/Sarah Lipstate (who is playing Cinema 16 at the Bell House on Sunday, April 19th) performs at the ISSUE Project Room on Saturday, April 25th as part of artist-in-residence Duane Pitre's Bowed Harmonic-Guitar Ensemble.

Some videos and the venue's full April schedule, below...

Continue reading "Issue Project Room is 6 -- April (pre-move to Livingston St) benefit/birthday schedule w/ Moby, Hal Willner & more"

photos by Zach Dilgard

"The narrow room where IPR has its world-renowned, state of the art speaker system was packed, with people seated in the aisle and on the floor. The performers had hooked up their instruments to a separate PA system. I'm all about experimental performance, light and sound theater and dissonant/atonal/weird sounding music. I was looking forward to see something totally bizarre that I probably wouldn't totally understand, but enjoy.

Instead, the first hour and 20 minutes of the show was a way-too-loud continuous looping of speaker feedback. I go to live shows and clubs all the time where the music is too loud, but can get into the music. In this case, it was impossible." [NY Press]

That negative review of one of the Tony Conrad / Genesis Breyer P-Orridge shows at Issue Project Room this weekend doesn't specify if the reviewer was there Saturday or Sunday. Zach was there Sunday (1/11). He said, "They played two sets with an intermission in between. Each set was about 30-45 mins each I think. It was a full house although the seating inside didn't provide for a huge crowd - I'd say 50 seats at the most. I didn't recognize any of the songs as this was the first time Tony and Genesis had ever performed together, an experiment of sorts." I think it's safe to say that there probably weren't any songs to recognize, aka it was complete improvisation. More pictures from the Sunday show below...

Continue reading "Tony Conrad, Genesis P-Orridge @ Issue Project Room - pics"

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge @ Europa (more by Zach Dilgard)

Tony Conrad and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge will meet for the first time and perform on two consecutive days in improvisatory concerts centered on their mutual love for violin. The shows will take place at ISSUE Project Room on January 10 at 9 p.m.
and January 11 at 4 p.m. The event will be recorded for an album release and filmed by Marie Losier for her upcoming feature documentary on P-Orridge.

The idea to unite the two influential musicians was conceived at the screening of "Marie Losier's Film Portraits" at the French Institute Alliance Française in September of 2008. Upon watching Losier's documentary, "Tony Conrad DreaMinimalist," P-Orridge confessed that violin, which figured prominently in the film, was her favorite instrument and that hearing Conrad's personal story made her cherish it even more. "I initially wanted to create a scene for the film on Genesis in which she and Tony would just play the violin together," says Losier. "But very quickly this idea developed into a strong desire to see the two musicians I love perform live for an audience. Even though their paths have not crossed up until this point, it only felt natural to me that they should."

Upcoming @ Issue Project Room
Jan 7 - Talibam! + Car Commercial
Jan 9 - Carlos Giffoni + Dan Friel + Noveller
Jan 10 - Genesis + Tony
Jan 11 - Genesis + Tony

Thurston Moore @ ATP NY 2008 (more by Zach Dilgard)

1. Eight Miles High (Das Wilde Leben) - German movie about Uschi Obermaier, super 60s Rolling Stones groupie who was a commune radical in Berlin.

continued below...

Continue reading "Thurston Moore's top 10 things in 2008 "

photos by Zach Dilgard

host Tony Conrad

"After winning a bid for a 20 year, rent-free lease in downtown Brooklyn, ISSUE Project Room celebrated its victory [on Tuesday] with a benefit at Santos' Party House in Chinatown. A crowd of electronic music connoisseurs took in the sounds of David Linton, Alex Waterman, Charles Cohen, Fair Use Trio, Moby plus many others. The evening was hosted by all-round genius artist and avant-garde pioneer, Tony Conrad.

Since 2003 Project Room has provided a leading-edge performance art space dedicated to experimental music, filmmaking, reading, and sound installation. Currently located at The Can Factory in Gowanus, it will soon take over a stunning 4800 square foot landmark theatre at 110 Livingston Street. [Barely Brooklyn]

More pictures from the benefit below...

Continue reading "Moby, Tony Conrad & others @ the Issue Project benefit @ Santos Party House, NYC - pics"

As Showtrotta pointed out, there is a benefit for (the venue) Issue Project Room at Santos Party House (a different venue) tonight (11/11)...

Continue reading "Issue Project Room benefit @ Santos Party House Tuesday"

photos by Damien Neva, words by Black Bubblegum

Wednesday (10/15) was my first experience with sunn o))) in their original incarnation, and in all honesty, I expected to enjoy it alot less than I did. The band is known to travel with an armada of heavy music overlords (including Joe Preston, Attila Csihar, Julian Cope, Justin Broadrick, Malefic, among many others) and so for me, the announcement of the Shoshin GrimmRobe Tour was a combination of disappointment and piqued interest. Would the band be able to engage the crowd in much the same manner without Moogs, maniacal screams, or odd texture? The answer is yes.

Thou started the evening off with a bang, exceeding my expectations even though I have been a staunch supporter of both their recent To Carry A Stone 7" and their recent Peasant LP. Vocalist Bryan Funck's wide-eyed psychopath paced across the stage, microphone cord wound tightly around his neck. The band was water tight with a much larger sound than their records would have you believe. Look for them next time they come through NYC.

Next up was experimentalist Tony Conrad, who hit the stage with a (VERY) modified violin, pedals galore and lots of droning looped violin chords. Very interesting stuff, and a stark contrast to the venomous antagonism of Thou.

The core lineup of sunn o))), Stephen O'Malley & Greg Anderson, hit the amp-crowded stage around 11:30, clad in their usual monk-robes. In between gulps of red wine, the duo dropped thunderiff after thunderiff (© BrooklynVegan -JOKING-) to the vibrating (with excitement and volume) crowd. There was little respite from their onslaught, save for a few moments when their raised their axes to the sky in praise of the heaviness. As usual, the band played through a dense thicket of fog (a sunn o))) trademark), and was aided by well executed lighting that, on a few occasions, made me throw up the patented black metal invisible orange in salute.

Much has been said about sunn o))) and their commitment to volume (their credo is "maximum volume yields maximum results"), and the band obliged by shaking the Knitting Factory from start to finish. Call me clairvoyant, but I am pretty sure I know the question a lot of you readers have.... "but were they louder than My Bloody Valentine"? The answer to that is no and maybe. No, I say because the Knitting Factory wasn't packing the PA firepower that Kutscher's [or Roseland] did. Maybe, because it is impossible to compare the low-end rumble of sunn o))) to the high-frequency screech My Bloody Valentine. Apples & oranges, as they say.

All in all, fantastic. Hail the darkness! I just wish they would have played on fucking Halloween.

More pictures below...

Continue reading "sunn 0))) (10th anniversary) @ Knitting Factory, NYC - pics"

No Fun Productions is pleased to announce the initial line-up for No Fun Fest 2008. Taking place for three nights (May 16, 17, 18) at the legendary Knitting Factory in New York City, this year's festival, which includes some of the most acclaimed names in experimental music, avant electronics, and noise and beyond will without question create a cacophonic haven for all fans of noise and dissonant experimental sounds.

Full lineup and ticket info below....

Continue reading "No Fun Fest 2008 @ Knitting Factory in NYC, full lineup"