Grex (Karl Evangelista) West Coast Tour, 8/4-8/16

[ep1str0phy]

Hello, all-

I'd be more than happy to merge this with my last topic (the East Coast tour), though I could not figure out how to alter the thread title--my trio Grex (me/Karl Evangelista-guitar/vocals, Rei Scampavia-keys/vocals, Robert Lopez-drums) is on its way out on the second leg of our summer tour. The East Coast leg comprised some of the best music we've ever made, and we're happy to be sharing it on my native coast.

Of particular interest to organissimo-ites--we're playing on August 4 with one of the finest jazz groups in Sacramento, on August 5 with The Lurk (one of the most amazing one-man bands I've ever seen, similar in aspects to Abner Jay), on August 7 with some of Portland's most powerful avant rock groups, and on August 16 with some of Los Angeles's greatest underground improv legends (including Joe Berardi, lately drummer for Duke Silver on the TV show Parks & Recreation--actually an amazing player). August 10 is an open session in Seattle, so musicians would do well to bring their axes...

August 4, 7:30pm, $5-10 sliding scale, Sacramento, CA
at Luna's (1414 16th Street)
w/CRKD Quartet (w/Clifford Childers, Ross Hammond, etc.)

August 5, 8pm doors, $6, Sacramento, CA
at Witch Room (1815 19th Street)
w/Practice & The Lurk

August 6, 5:30pm, $5, (Grex at 10pm)
Live Broadcast on V103
w/Devon Galley + Ken Koenig

August 7, 9pm, $6, Portland, OR
at Slabtown (1033 NW 16th Avenue)
w/U SCO & The Sarcastic Dharma Society

August 8, Seattle, WA
The Woodshed (11343 8th Ave NE)
w/Insistent Caterpillars, Honey Noble

August 10, 8pm, Free, Seattle WA
at Cafe Racer (5828 Roosevelt Way NE)
Part of Racer Sessions

August 15, 8pm, Long Beach, CA
at 4th Street Vine (2142 E 4th Street)
w/Don't Trip

August 16, 8pm, $10 general/$5 students, Los Angeles, CA
at Curve Line Space (1577 Colorado Blvd)
w/Dead Air Trio (Brian Christopherson, Dan Clucas, Jeremy Keller) + Joe Berardi

Grex might best be described as free jazz/art rock--we're former students of the great Roscoe Mitchell (of AACM fame) and have worked with the likes of Fred Frith (and his band Cosa Brava), Zeena Parkins, Hafez Modirzadeh, Francis Wong, and Tony Levin (of King Crimson fame).

This is a special tour for us, in support of our new album Monster Music. It's a summation of our activities in the past half decade, a very new step on our quest to create both "new improvised music" and contemporary "people's" music, and a rare opportunity to bring our music outside of the Bay.

Here's a choice cut from our Philly show on July 13:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPfkODjR-fU

A Don Cherry piece from July 16: https://soundcloud.com/grexsounds/guinea

The album:

http://grex.bandcamp.com/album/monster-music

For further background, here's an interview I just gave for the online magazine Prepared Guitar (actually a pretty interesting website--among the heavier interviewees are the likes of Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, Frith, etc.): http://preparedguitar.blogspot.com/2014/07/karl-evangelista-13-questions.htm

And some choice reviews:

http://wordsonsounds.blogspot.com/2014/06/grex-monster-music.html (insightfully mentioning Frith, Charlie Hunter, and Henry Cowell, in turn)

http://zookeeper.stanford.edu/index.php?action=viewRecentReview&tag=1053032 (likening us to a band comprised of literal cinematic monsters)

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/chocolate-grinder/premiere-grex-monster-music (dead-on analysis by our own resident virtuoso critic, the great Clifford Allen)

Cheers and thank you again, fellow travelers,

K/ep1

Edited August 4, 2014 by ep1str0phy