Funny Rat

[Guest Chaney]

For those interested, David and I will be having a listening session tonight in the chatroom. All are very welcome to join us and, if at all possible, listen and comment along.

Don't know how many of you will have this one, but the early leader is:

the Happymakers (Balance Point Acoustics)

Wolfgang Fuchs, sopranino saxophone, bass clarinet; Jacob Lindsay, Ab, Bb and bass clarinet; Damon Smith, double bass; Serge Baghdassarians, guitar, electronics; Boris Baltschun, electronics.

Ma®ker#1 (04.26)

Ma®ker#2 (04.32)

Ma®ker#3 (03.24)

Ma®ker#4 (05.49)

Ma®ker#5 (06.09)

Ma®ker#6 (02.59)

Ma®ker#7 (05.17)

Ma®ker#8 (04.54)

Ma®ker#9 (03.36)

Ma®ker#10 (08.08)

Ma®ker#11 (05.29)

Recorded in May 2003 at 1502 8th St, Oakland, CA.

If anyone has a more readilly available Ratty title they'd like to suggest, feel free to do so.

[Д.Д.]

For those interested, David and I will be having a listening session tonight in the chatroom. All are very welcome to join us and, if at all possible, listen and comment along.

Don't know how many of you will have this one, but the early leader is:

the Happymakers (Balance Point Acoustics)

Wolfgang Fuchs, sopranino saxophone, bass clarinet; Jacob Lindsay, Ab, Bb and bass clarinet; Damon Smith, double bass; Serge Baghdassarians, guitar, electronics; Boris Baltschun, electronics.

Ma®ker#1 (04.26)

Ma®ker#2 (04.32)

Ma®ker#3 (03.24)

Ma®ker#4 (05.49)

Ma®ker#5 (06.09)

Ma®ker#6 (02.59)

Ma®ker#7 (05.17)

Ma®ker#8 (04.54)

Ma®ker#9 (03.36)

Ma®ker#10 (08.08)

Ma®ker#11 (05.29)

Recorded in May 2003 at 1502 8th St, Oakland, CA.

If anyone has a more readilly available Ratty title they'd like to suggest, feel free to do so.

Time is 9PM CET (3PM EST). Change of time possible, according to requests.

Edited May 7, 2006 by Д.Д.

[Guest Chaney]

For those who like this sort of thing:

CONFRONT PERFORMANCE SERIES

Confront have instigated a new cdr label dedicated to the swift dispersal of concert recordings. The intention is to release live material within a few weeks of the performance, enabling those that are interested to keep abreast of the fast moving, ever changing nature of live performance. Each release will be limited to a collectors edition of 100 copies and come housed in a hinged alluminium dvd case with circular clear window plus minimal printed insert.

The debut release was recorded a little over a month ago at the I-and-E Festival that took place in Dublin, Ireland.

Direct orders to info@sound323.com

£4.99

+

£1 post uk / europe

£1.50 post rest of world

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

david lacey : percussion & e-bowed monochord

paul vogel : computer and clarinet

mark wastell : ride cymbal, cd player, mixer

live concert from the i-and-e festival 1 april 2006

recorded at the unitarian church, dublin, ireland

digital recording by david reid

www.i-and-e.org

confront performance series 01

www.confront.info

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review from Rod Warner

Saturday Afternoon: Unitarian Church, Dublin.

David Lacey, Paul Vogel and Mark Wastell.

An impressive venue, light-filled and dominated by the rather beautiful stained glass windows, it seemed a (more?) appropriate place for this brand of improv which at times seems to embrace an austere albeit antinomian search for purity, whether coincidental or intentional – or whose strategies contain fluctuating incidences of both. (More appropriate because of the space as well – the long room at Trinity while possessing great acoustics was a bit too cramped and the sitelines were not that great accordingly). A good crowd of about fifty or more... I had no idea what the guy who introduced the afternoon was saying (again) as his voice didn't carry beyond the first couple of pew rows – this could have been remedied easily enough with a microphone. (If I hadn't printed off a program before leaving England I would have had no idea who some of the musicians were). The first cohort of improvisers: David Lacey, Paul Vogel and Mark Wastell. Their performance commenced with a barely-audible sustained tone – (signature of the festival?) the occasional slight rustling in the audience and the scratching of my pen on pad again were as easily heard – a democracy of sound. As the volume of the tone rose, it seemed to fill the air. When other elements slowly came into the mix I became further aware of the space of the church – at these low levels of sound, the constituent elements have considerable acoustic room to move through. When the volume increased, I could tangibly register the individual expansion and collective contraction as the constituent musics proceeded to fill the space, rubbing up against each other. As the piece develops, I became aware of three motival distinct levels- a deep, remote bass tone, a rushing granular sound in the middle and a high, pure sine wave overall. The bass provided an approximation of rhythmic pulse, the reverberating granularity of cymbals a thickening centre and the woody clarinet mutated by laptop manipulation becoming an actual slow moving harmony when additional clarinet notes were added in real time. They built quite a head of steam, rising in volume as reverberating cymbal(?) set up cross-rhythms, susurrations that evoked a sea washing over a beach. Stunning.

Edited May 7, 2006 by Chaney

[7/4]

I mentioned these guys a while back. It seems like nobody had heard of them.

Another, older interview.

I actually bought one Borbetomagus CD ("Barbed Wire Maggots") last time I was in NYC (in DMG; I asked whether they had more - they didn't (to their own confusion), but Bruce said something along the lines of "it's all the same stuff.. and it's a bit intense").

Sounds like Bruce. I know where he's coming from...

- about 12 years ago I was taping the overnight show on WKCR, the next morning I played it back and had my first Borbetomagus experience.

- I don't own any of their albums, you probably only need one.

- I did hear them perform once at the Knit. VERRRY loud. I wouldn't mind checking them out again.

- I've heard Donald Miller many times with other musicans. Like with Charles Curtis:

The disc is at the very top of "to listen to" pile, but for now I just cannot stop listening to this one:

...and given that this is a 5-CD box, and I will most likely want to listen to it all, I doubt I'll get to Borbetomagus too soon.

This set is available for close-to-nothing from amazon.co.uk. Although I see they already raised price a bit (I got it for £15) - but still, this is a steal....

I should go on a Bach binge. It's been a while.

[Д.Д.]

No wonder many people think all this free improv stuff sounds kinda samey...

[David Ayers]

Peggy Lee seems to have branched out a bit since those Beauty and the Beat days...

[Guest Chaney]

Peggy Lee seems to have branched out a bit since those Beauty and the Beat days...

Late in her life, Peggy became quite demented and so was in the perfect frame of mind to play free jazz improv. Really quite sad.

[AmirBagachelles]

Did anybody get their Ictus set yet? Distributor said it was to be mailed a week ago USPS Priority from Calif. I think, nothing here yet in Brooklyn.

[Chuck Nessa]

nothing here yet in Brooklyn.

so, what's new?

[Guest Chaney]

Did anybody get their Ictus set yet? Distributor said it was to be mailed a week ago USPS Priority from Calif. I think, nothing here yet in Brooklyn.

The Ictus box set has once again been delayed.

New release date: May 20th

[Alexander Hawkins]

Where is Brooklyn?

[Matthew]

Bill Shoemaker reviews the Ictus box in the latest Point of Departure:

Imagine you have lost your main source of income, a bad shoulder prevents you from finding new work, and an earthquake has destroyed your home. In the face of all this, starting a record label devoted to improvised music would be, to put it mildly, counter intuitive. However, Italian percussionist Andrea Centazzo did just that in 1976, creating Ictus, “the creative label for creative music.” Within a half dozen years, Ictus became one of the bolder artist-operated labels in a halcyon era for such enterprises. Early Ictus LPs found Centazzo performing in Italy with established figures like Derek Bailey, Alvin Curran, Steve Lacy and Evan Parker. Centazzo also ventured to the US as early as ‘78, showing remarkable prescience by recording with a wide swath of emerging artists including Eugene Chadbourne, Rova Saxophone Quartet and John Zorn....

http://www.pointofdeparture.org/PoD5MoreMoments2.html

This set looks really tempting, it's time I got back into this kind of jazz. Boy, decisions, decisions.......

Edit: Let me restate that -- I need to back to this kind of music.

Edited May 11, 2006 by Matthew

[Guest Chaney]

Matthew: Jazz Loft offered the set at a pre-order price of $99 but has since raised the price to $129. If you'd really like to get the set, you might e-mail Alan at Jazz Loft asking if you could get it at the $99 price, as we're all still waiting for it.

[Matthew]

Matthew: Jazz Loft offered the set at a pre-order price of $99 but has since raised the price to $129. If you'd really like to get the set, you might e-mail Alan at Jazz Loft asking if you could get it at the $99 price, as we're all still waiting for it.

Thanks for the tip, I emailed today and the return email said the offices are closed until the 20th. So we'll see what happens.

[Д.Д.]

Tomorrow I cought about 3 seconds of Brötzmann/Nilssen-Lovoe duo live. Walked into the club just to hear the last extatic taragoto squeak and see all smiling Messrs. Brötzmann and Nilssen-Love bowing to thunderous applause. Had been looking forward to this concert so much, but well, it's hard to get away early enough from the dinner with 50 custoemrs that you are hosting yourself.

But , anyway.

Today will catch Frode Gjerstad duo with Bugge Wesseltoft duo / Veryan Weston Trio - but this is no match to Brötzmann/Nilssen-Love duo (I actually never heard them together, but I think Nilssen-Love should bring out the best in Herr Brötzmann).

Ubu: Brötzmann's Tentet will play on May 21st in Zürich. I am actually flying back from my traveling on May 21st - I might change a ticket to fly to Zürich.

[couw]

Ubu: Brötzmann's Tentet will play on May 21st in Zürich. I am actually flying back from my traveling on May 21st - I might change a ticket to fly to Zürich.

Ubu should be sober by then

[Guest Chaney]

Today will catch Frode Gjerstad duo with Bugge Wesseltoft duo / Veryan Weston Trio - but this is no match to Brötzmann/Nilssen-Love duo (I actually never heard them together, but I think Nilssen-Love should bring out the best in Herr Brötzmann).

Lucky!

I envy you as I've really been enjoying Frode, especially some of his work (reissued?) on Loose Torque.

Be sure to give us your opinion of the show.

Edited May 13, 2006 by Chaney

[king ubu]

Ubu: Brötzmann's Tentet will play on May 21st in Zürich. I am actually flying back from my traveling on May 21st - I might change a ticket to fly to Zürich.

Ubu should be sober by then

Don't think I can make it as by midnight, latest, I'll have to be back in the army for the last week...

[rostasi]

Hallo, Domo, and all that...

My first post in Funny Rat.

I've been really enjoying this ICTUS 30th Ann. boxset

for the past few days, but I wanted to mention something about

it in case anyone else is considering picking it up.

ICTUS Box

You should have a razor blade handy

'cause that's what you'll need to use to get into

not only the box itself, but each of the individual 12 discs.

As a matter of fact, there are even directions for doing just this.

So, if you are at all anal retentive about the way your discs should

be treated or look, then you may want to think twice before getting it.

I kind of wish the artwork for the front of the box was as good as the

beautiful individual discs, but maybe that would've tacked on too many bucks

to the whole thing(?)

The music, as most of you know, is a superb collection of pieces

and just a look at the site above should give you some proof.

Anyway, I'm not really reviewing this set because I'm not good at such things,

but I did want to mention the bit about actually getting to the discs.

Rod

[Guest Chaney]

Rod: Where did you order your set from?

Pretty obvious by now that Jazz Loft is the cause of the delay in my not getting my set and not Ictus.

[rostasi]

Rod: Where did you order your set from?

I don't know what Jazz Loft is,

but the link provided at the Ictus site that goes to Polish Jazz

is where I pre-ordered it last month:

order

[Guest Chaney]

Thanks Rod.

~~~~~~~~~~

Not at all Funny Rat but still good news: Gil Evans: New Bottle Old Wine and Great Jazz Standards are being reissued on one disk as The Complete Pacific Jazz Sessions, available June 06, 2006.

Some guy I know ( ) just sold his single CDs on eBay, with NBOW fetching $36 and GJS $16.

~~~~~~~~~~

FREE MUSIC: Insubordinations

~~~~~~~~~~

Justifiable homicide: Frank Sinatra Murders The Pop Classics

Edited May 17, 2006 by Chaney

[Matthew]

Rod: Where did you order your set from?

Pretty obvious by now that Jazz Loft is the cause of the delay in my not getting my set and not Ictus.

.... And they'll feel so bad about it that they'll give me the pre-order price, right? Of course!

[Guest Chaney]

Speaking of Loose Torque, would anyone have a copy of Late For Lunch they wouldn't mind parting with? From what I hear, seems the disk was pulled, at the request of guitarist Steve Topping. Now that it's unavailable, I must have it! I'll not be denied!

[John B]

Thanks to Chuck Nessa's sale on Okka Disk titles I've been exploring more of Georg Grawe's work. Right now I'm listening to Georg Grawe, Frank Gratkowski, Kent Kessler, Hamid Drake - Melodie & Rhythmus, and am very impressed. This is an excellent album. Very different than what I usually expect from Hamid Drake. Much less "funky" and more supportive. I haven't been focusing on Kessler, but Grawe and Gratkowski are both in top form. Very impressive.

Up next is Evan Parker / Georg Grawe - Unity Variations.

Edited May 15, 2006 by John B