Upcoming Events

Tonight Owen Cartwright and I will be playing with Charlie Hendrick and Jason Dean's new band Tit City at New Years by the Bay in Belfast, Maine. Before getting into, here's a little background on Tit City:
 
I first heard Tit City this spring in its early stage as a duo (Jason Dean on drums/Korg synthesizer and Charlie Hendrick on computers/vocals) as they were developing their set for some gigs in New York. The blend of computer generated drums with the live drummer was something that Charlie, Jason, and I had played around with in the past at the Gilbert's Open Mic before that establishment closed. This combination sounded really great when it evolved from an open mic improvisational atmosphere to an arranged set. Fast forward to summer of 2010: after the set had evolved and much of the lyrics been more clearly defined, I began helping Charlie and Jason record an album version of their set and developing some new ideas possible only on a studio version.
 
After learning the songs through the recording process, I was invited to join Tit City to play at a Halloween dance party put on by Hot Pink Flannel at The Underground Lounge in Rockland, ME. I thought about playing vibes with Tit City (or perhaps digital mallets like in The Limited Time Only Band days--but I decided keyboards and my standard live electronics setup was enough gear to bring around). The gig went great (the obscene amount of technical setup time Charlie and I had probably had something to do with it), there were some great costumes (my favorites being the giant skull and the magic mushroom), I had become one of the mayors of Tit City (as a "citizen"/audience member called me at a later gig), and we got a decent sounding live recording. Hot Pink Flannel liked us enough to immediately schedule us to play at their holiday dance party (The Bad Sweater Dance Party). We then called up Owen Cartwright and asked him to join the band on guitar--don't worry, he brings a computer too.
 
We are missing Clint Hartzel, but Tit City while making a different kind of music, in some ways feels like a reunion of The Limited Time Only Band. The two gigs we have played since Owen joined the band have been a lot of fun. We have even added a few The Limited Time Only Band songs with new twists to our set (Bleeding on Venus, Untitled, and Logjam). Last night at rehearsal I had an interesting realization about a structural development in the music of The Limited Time Only Band to Tit City: The Limited Time Only Band played theme and variations improvisations with some pop/dance tunes and extended free improvisations while Tit City plays a primarily dance oriented set with highly focused avant garde transitions.  With our cross-genre influences, electronic sounds, and improvisational structures, I would classify Tit City as a new type of fusion but when asked, the simple answer I give is that it is a pop/rock electronic band with live drums and guitar playing tunes from a wide variety of genres.
 
Charlie posted some samples of the album recordings (before Owen and I joined the band).
 
Tonight we will be playing at Beflast, ME's New Year's by the Bay at the First Church UCC Hall (on Spring St. between Church St. and Court St.).  Our first set will be 6:00-6:45pm and 7:00-7:45pm.

Last Thursday the Dartmouth Contemporary Music Ensemble had our first concert of the season at Spheris Gallery. We opened with a performance Steve Reich's Pendulum Music that I must say ended up sounding pretty good--even better news: while I did have them, I probably didn't really need earplugs! Johanne Heraty, Paul Osetinsky, Alex Wroten, and I performed this piece with some coaching to Doug Perkins. The key to a pleasant sounding Pendulum Music performance seems to be overdriving the preamplifier circuit. While speaker/microphone choice and placement does play a big role in timbre/range of pitches, overdriving the preamp allows for a broader spectrum at the same SPL output from the speaker--after that, season for taste with some EQ. We pulled the plug (sort of, that will remain an inside store) on the piece before the mics had come to a totally complete stop (but they were close), but we chose a time of stasis based on audience reactions. I think we made the right choice.

Pendulum Music Setup
Doug Perkins (right) and Josh Hudelson (left) in the back Devin Maxwell (left) and Chris Peck (right) are setting up the sound system for Devin's set

 

After Pendulum Music, everyone went downstairs for the second set performed by the Contemporary Music Lab. Our lineup was:

• Patrick Barter - live electronics
• Josh Hudelson - digital keyboard and found object percussion
• Roth Michaels - vibraphone
• Chris Peck - electric guitar + live electronics
• Alex Wroten - megatar + effects

Downstairs we opened with a realization of a text piece by Kenneth Gaburo, Twenty Sensing Compositions (we performed one of the twenty concrete poems that comprise this piece).

Then we performed a response piece to the Gaburo by band member Chris Peck. Chris' 3 of 4 Senses of Finger was a three movement text piece where each movement was a realization of a list of synonyms for a different meaning of the verb "finger".

We closed this set with a free improvisation.

Back upstairs for the third set, our guests Devin Maxwell and Katie Porter performed some of Devin's original music and realizations of a few John Cage pieces. Overall it was a fun concert and we had a great turnout. I'm sure we are all looking forward to the next show at Spheris on December 4th.

Tomorrow starts of the first show in the Dartmouth Digital Musics fall concert series: Digital Harvest. This series will continue through november as we put on three concerts of new graduate student and faculty music. For the first concert, my good friend John Aylward will be coming up from Boston to perform an original improvisation for vibes, Rhodes electric piano, and live electronics. This will be our first duo performance since the spring Hydra concert at Harvard now that we have had the summer to continue developing material. Also while he is here, John and I will be working on a demo disc/website to show off the improv material we have been working on. The concerts will be at 7pm in Hovey's Lounge (basement of Thayer Dining Hall), and most importantly: free music, free milk, and free cookies! The current schedule and lineup for the concerts is as follows: October 29, 2009

• Chris Peck
• John Aylward+Roth Michaels
• Paul Osetinsky
• Patrick Barter
• Alex Wroten

November 5, 2009

• Patrick Barter
• David Casal+Spencer Topel
• Alex Wroten
• Josh Hudelson
• Chris Peck
• Guest: Stephe Cooper

November 19, 2009

• Patrick Barter
• Paul Osetinsky
• Michael Casey
• Roth Michaels
• Alex Worten
• Josh Hudelson

I hope to see you there!

This Thursday (tomorow!) at 6pm, I will be playing with the Dartmouth Contemporary Music Lab at Spheris Gallery for our first concert of the season. We will be performing Steve Reich's Pendulum Music, some improv realizations of some text pieces, and a little free improvisation. Special guests Devin Maxwell and Katie Porter will be joining us on the program. It is shaping up for a fun and exciting (yet brief!) night of music. Spheris Gallery on Google Maps

Publicity info for the gig:

So even after some encouragement from Jean-François, and visiting the Dartmouth Digital Musics Studio and finding out I had been googled, I still have not updated this blog since November. I am now making my return. The last event I was supposed to blog about were two Altaira performances in December. First, some students from CUNY invited us down to participate in an electroacoustic music concert in Manhattan. We took the stage for the second half to play our set of original improv and aleatoric material: Christian Gentry's Symbols, James Borchers' Pleiades, Peter McMurray's Mixtape Vol. I, and the first public performance of my video-score based improv Phi Fun 2 (video of this will be coming next week to YouTube). After our set, the CUNY guys came on stage to join us for a performance of John Cage's Four^6. I learned a big lesson while we were performing symbols: make my top level patch uncloseable!  Later that month, Courtney Brown invited us to open for her at Outpost 186 in Cambridge. We played the same set as we played at CUNY (unfortunately, the projector did not have quite enough lumens for a proper Phi Fun 2 performance, but it gave me some ideas for my next video piece). The lineup for these gigs was as follows (no etc. listings necessary, it should be implied when it comes to Altaira): James Borchers - percussion Christian Gentry - piano Peter McMurray - tenor saxophone Roth Michaels - live electronics Peter van Zant Lane - bassoon (at CUNY) / electric guitar and electric winds (at Outpost 168) Then I was off to Maine to visit family for the holidays and lock myself away to work on some new projects. Some of these projects included interface design/prototyping for OSC-based iPhone controller software, piezoelectric timbre manipulation and trigger system for hand percussion (tested with congas), piezoelectric foot-gesture-controller to use with vibes (REALLY buggy at the moment), more preliminary work for my next multimedia installation/composition Please Handle Inside, and some design work and hardware prototyping for an interactive multimedia system for retail environments I am developing first for my parents new art design gallery and then to sell the installation and software package to other high end boutiques. More recently, I have been taking Hans Tutschku's seminar on composition for instruments and live electronics over at Harvard (and the fantastic HUSEAC). While the FFT techniques have not really been new material, being the first time I have done any Max/MSP learning in a class format this has really improved my teaching ability in one of my weaker area electronics instruction. It also has been enjoyable to participate in the collaborative atmosphere of classroom instead of working alone at home on projects--plus some interesting music to listen and discuss (listen to Stockhauen's Mixtur if you haven't before). As part of the course, I have started work on a duo piece for keyboards (rhodes and piano) and mallet percussion (vibes, marimba, and tam-tam). John Aylward has graciously volunteered to perform it with me. I recently had the opportunity to participate in an improv workshop with Nettle and then see them in concert at Brandeis. Jace Clayton (a.k.a. DJ/Rupture) directed the laptopping section in the workshop where the five of us had a chance to do a show-and tell with our setups. Here I met a very interesting artist (improviser with beats and video) Grey Filastine. After some chats with Grey, I was convinced to take some of the Max5 patches I was planning to soon release and make them into VSTs (so that means I'll be updating my Max4.6 versions for all of you not in Max5-land yet). I'm curious to see which VSTs end up interesting Filastine and others. Hopefully this leads to some interesting collaborations in the future. This week I just finished up a recording, mixing, and mastering project from Brandeis-based band Mochila (soon their myspace will be updated with samples from the album). It was fun working with Mohammad on this project and if you are in the area, you should be sure to check out their performance as part of the Brandeis Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts on April 26th. Now the present: Tomorrow I will be joining members of saxophone quartet Element 114 during their concert at Clark University for a performance of my trio electroacoustic improvisation for two saxes+vibes. It should be a great night and an exciting performance as I get to try out the update version of the patch! In conjunction with this performance at Clark, I will be giving a lecture/colloquium on my music at the beginning of April--part of which will include a master-class style discussion of an undergrad project involving a Theremin-like controller. Stay tuned for various media I claimed will be posted soon and blog posts about some of these upcoming events!

Some of my draft posts will go up soon when I have some more free time to finish them. In the meantime, come check out my new piece, Vincible, at a concert of new electroacoustic music at Brandeis University. Brandeis Electroacoustic Music Studio and The Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts presents: The 2008 Half-Marathon of Electroacoustic Music 8 pm - Friday, April 11, 2008 Slosberg Recital Hall, Brandeis University Free admission / Reception afterwards