I just finished a 2 week recording project with balloon artist Addi Somekh. He has traveled the world making balloon hats for people of all walks of life, and recently starred in the reality TV show The Unpoppables. The purpose of this project was to develop the balloon drum set as a viable, recordable musical instrument, and to create a collection of balloon drum loops and samples. We had several drummers come to play it and offer their input as the kit took a new shape and sound of it’s own. The clip here features George Bernardo playing the balloon drum set as I accompany him with an original composition on piano and synth.
I am constructing my own lightweight backcountry backpack…
I was inspired by Ray Jardine’s book “Trail Life” to do it. Ray sells inexpensive “Ray-Way” kits on his website with which you can make all your own camping gear from scratch.
30 or 40 hours in, I’m about 2/3 completed now, with only a large purple extension collar to add to the top, a waist strap, and perhaps also a Rise Industries patch? When completed it will only weigh about 10oz, which is far lighter than any factory-made pack of similar capacity.
Doing this is making me wish that my music projects also came with step-by-step instruction guides!
Electronic Sound Trio ‘Green Dad’ Reunites for the first time in nearly 5 years. The group is strictly improvisatory. We use laptops, instruments, found sounds, synthesized speech. The goal is to make noise that is inquisitive.
7.4.10 Ever wonder what happens when you put a few Rise Industries members together with a bunch of other sonically inclined friends and cram them in a small room with a bunch of musical toys and microphones….? Listen on! Beware, this is un-edited material. But for the patient linear listeners or the determined skip-aheaders alike, there’s surely to be found some cool moments and perhaps even a few ‘gems’!
My father asked for a CD for father’s day, so I made him this. Piano layerings and smooth and erratic free improvisation was most probably not what he was hoping for, but how boring would the world be if all our children grew up to be exactly how we want them to be?? The last track is the jazz standard ‘Israel’ by John Carisi.
This is a project I started working on with painter Ellen Hackl Fagan several years ago to convert/interpret abstract visuals into sound. She has continued it with several other collaborators since. This is the current iteration. They are working on a version that works over the web…
The documentary film I mixed and composed some of the music for, No Subtitles Necessary: László & Vilmos, is making it’s network premiere Tonight @ 10PM on PBS as part of the Independent Lens series.
Last night I stepped outside around 3AM to take a peak at the rare Leonids meteor shower. Bundled up in warm clothes, I layed down timidly in the sktechy alley behind my apartment and gazed up at the overly light-poluted LA sky hoping for a few fireballs to provoke my imagination.
Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing shooting stars….but the term ‘meteor shower’ evokes images more like the famous 1833 coming of the Leonids, when the sky was literally ‘showered’ with falling stars such that people were roused in the middle of the night to come out and witness the end of the world unfolding before them! Hype aside, that’s certainly not what I experienced last night.
I know this isn’t a direct comparison… but this gives me the same kind of feeling I got on a cold night when I was a little kid and my parents were roused to a frenzied search around the house to find that there was a, “draft coming in the front door!” Me… not understanding the word ‘draft’, was sadly looking to the front door and all out the windows up and down the street for the giraffe… Imagine my disappointment!
Now I think I’ve got most of my words figured out at this point in my life, but in my quest for idealism I must ask why they call them ‘meteor showers’ when they know that aint right? These more typical celestial events, that bring us outside to gaze at the sky for perhaps a glimpse of a small slice of happenings of the cosmos, should be called something more like ‘meteor slightly drippy faucets’. Then they won’t keep getting my hopes up!
CJB will be playing at easily the coolest music club in DTLA (if not all of LA). This place is what happens when integrity motivates. Couches. Great service. Hot food. Hot people. LATE drinks. (early drinks.) Come as you are. Be who you are. Dinner House M loves all.
When: Saturday, October 17th
We hit it at 10 and go to around 1:30.
(That’s a whole lot of funk.)
Where: Dinner House M
1263 W Temple St. 90026
$: 6 cover, all of which goes directly to the band!
I heard this song on KXLU last week, was really intrigued by this guy, Moondog. Lived on the streets of NY for 20 years and was known as “The Viking of 6th Avenue” due to his following of beliefs of Viking god Thor. I purchased his album “H’art Songs’ and discovered a delightful exploration of piano harmonies, and bach-like fugues mixed with quarky lyrics of sociopolitical and philosophical themes. This guy was out there, to say the least!
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