News, Concerts/Performances, 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.

For the past month, fellow first year Digital Musics grad students Josh Hudelson, Alex Wroten, and myself having been working on Ken Ueno's Yellow 632 (a trio for Tickle-Me-Big-Birds) in preparation for the Dartmouth Contemporary Music Lab tour we have planned for April. We will be debuting our first performance of the pice at Spheris Gallery (Hanover, NH - map) tonight. Also on the gig, Emily Schecter '12 and Doug Perkins will be performing Tristan Perich's Observations (duo for crotales and one-bit music) and Julia Floberg '11 will be performing J. S. Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major. 6pm - Free and open to the public!

So I realized it has been a while since my last update and there is a video from last term that never got posted. On December 3rd, we had Seth Cluett come to Hanover as the guest artist for the final concert of 2009 in our Spheris Art Gallery series.  In addition to a solo live electronics set performed by Seth and Thierry de Mey's Table Music (performed by Heewon Kim '10, Emily Schecter '12, and Doug Perkins), my fellow Dartmouth Digital Musics students performed Seth Cluett's Focus.  In our realization, we performed a simultaneous performance of Focus, for two performers and Focus, for four performers (and yes, I brought the whole vibraphone—minus the "black notes"—to play a single pitch).  Check out the video below:

• Patrick Barter - live electronics
• Josh Hudelson - melodica
• Roth Michaels - vibraphone
• Chris Peck - flute, piccolo
• Paul Osetinsky - live electronics
• Alex Wroten - stylophone

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 much to say after such an extended break from posting--how to begin? Let me begin with a timeline not of reality but of continuity (i.e. a table of contents) (the next question is, is this table of contents for you the reader, or purely an organizational tool to help me jump back into posting?):

1. Search Engine Battle
2. Starting school at Dartmouth
3. Time Travel
4. Some projects soon to be online for you (and I) to look forward to...

Search Engine Battle

To avoid helping my nemesis, I will not get into all the details of this battle. Here's what you do get:

Shortly after arriving at Dartmouth, my information (photo, website, email) was being posted to the Digital Musics website and I was getting my accounts to all the related servers when Spencer helped me discover that for certain search terms I'm not top of the rankings. I won't tell you who or what beats me, but it could (and at least once has) lead to some humorously unfortunately--and potentially unpleasant--mistaken identity. This was my reminder that I had been neglecting the blog (although it probably wouldn't have made a difference in this specific search circumstance--check out that alliteration). I will be back in full force with the normal Roth-news updates that have been posted in the past as well as some writings on topics associated with digital music/electroacoustic music--including the relationship between those terms (which will begin in the next section).

Starting school at Dartmouth

Last month I started my M.A. at the Dartmouth Digital Musics Program. The move away from Boston went more smoothly than I had imagined and so far I've been having a lot of fun here. I've been learning a lot of cool math behind DSP techniques in seminar with Michael Casey, working on some interesting music in the Contemporary Music Lab with Doug Perkins, and there is cool new music in the pipeline. Between the current students and faculty, this also turns out to be a great time to be at Dartmouth when it comes to doing some improvisation. Perhaps best of all--now that I'm back in school--is having time to focus on my art and various technology projects.

Time Travel

The complete lack of posts since April was not because there was nothing interesting going on to post about, but I had so many cool projects that were going on that the blog got neglected. I will give a brief update on my summer activities, but stay tuned for some "Time Travel" posts over the next month where I will post about some of those past events in more detail.

At the end of the course I took with Hans Tutschku at Harvard, John Aylward and I performed a new improv based piece of mine--Substantive Take, for piano, Rhodes electric piano, vibraphone, marimba, tam-tam, and live electronics on the spring Hydra concert. Thanks to Bert van Herk for diffusing the electronics.

I spent a lot of time up in Maine working with Mary Anne Driscoll playing in a her septet for a gig in Portland and later to play at the Hope Jazz Festival. We worked on some great music, but mostly got a good start for some even cooler things to come. There was talk among the band members of putting together another gig in Belfast this fall, so hopefully we end up putting that together. Mary Anne and I also began some work on some duo material (both free improvisation and non-standard versions of standards) for piano, voice, and vibes. We also began talking about some voice, vibes, and live electronics work as well.

Quite a bit of my time up in Maine was helping my parents set up their new gallery before it opened. Stay tuned for more info about this as well as the multimedia system I've designed for them.

Also while up in Maine, I had some time to play some live electronics improv with a few guys up there. In addition to a bunch of Gilbert's Open Mic appearances, I played a gig at Zoot with Owne Cartwright, Jason Dean, Clint Hartzell, and Charlie Hendrick.  Charlie, Owen, and I also played a party with a number of other bands at a party over Labor Day.

Back in Massachusetts, I was doing live sound and recording work for the BIMA and Genesis program at Brandeis.  I have to say, some of these high school students I was recording really surprised me.

John Aylward and I also continued on some improvisation projects that grew out of the Hydra performance in the spring. By the end of the month we plan to have a demo ready highlighting three distinct styles of acoustic and electroacoustic improvisation. Stay tuned for a link and info on upcoming gigs.

Some projects soon to be online for you (and I) to look forward to...

I am very close to completing a Max5 programing project for Hans Tutscku; I have been designing a preset management and interpolation system.  I have been working as much as possible to make the system useable in any master patch that implements a similar interface/DSP separated design his improv patch--"Monster"-- that I have been working with. When I am done with this project I will be documenting these objects as well as some of my other Max tools (the "rothMoves" package rm.*). Once I have everything documenting, I will be opening a new section of my website to host all my published Max software.

Before John comes up to play with me in Hanover, NH at the end of the month I will be finishing the mix of Substantive Take from the Hydra concert to post online (he won't let me get away with not doing it). While he is here at the end of the month, we will be finishing our demo and that will be going online as well as we begin booking gigs.

Any more news on my iPhone software developments will stay offline until beta testing is done and things are submitted for launch.

* * *

Well, that post seemed to stay under control in length. More frequent posts to come!

So it turns out MySpace allows posting of videos over 10 minutes. Earlier this week, I had had to post Phi Fun 2 as two separate videos on YouTube. If you would like to watch it interruption free, you can find it here: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=55370854

While we were eating dinner before the concert at Clark, my friend John Aylward's (who organized the concert) uncle stopped by and interviewed all the performers and composers for his YouTube channel. After a night of no sleep updating Max patches, a disaster of a sound check/setup as I had to figure out the Razzo Hall sound booth (none of the students seemed know what was going on), and what was clearly an incomplete rehearsal for Vincible, I was caught on camera (while eating! I can't remember if that was wrap number one or two). You can tell from the constant smerk on my face that I am having a laugh to myself through the whole interview. What am I laughing about? A whole mess of things: I can tell how tired and disorganized (and full of WAY to many "like"s and "um"s), I found some pleasurable irony in the fact that I was being interviewed before a performance that I was not holding my breath for my vision making it fully into reality, and I've been told I'm a very maticulous eater (and to combate this dislike being interviewed while eating you can see I chose to humorously stuff my face at various points instead of speaking)--<--check out that beast of a comma separated list. Not terribly sure how prowd I am of this video, but I figured I should like to it--even if I'm hoping it doesn't get noticed as a big feature on the blog I figure this will motivate me to post more and bump it down the list. It will be bumped tomorrow morning when I post about my seminar visit at Clark.

Now that I have caught up on sleep and recovered from recent projects it is time for a quick note on the Vincible performance at Clark on Saturday. First of all, thank you to Andrew Lieberman and Dave Doescher from Element 114 for being good sports and attempting my non-traditional graphic improv score this weekend--and another thank you to Dave for demonstrating the awesomeness of the saxophone flute tone to the Clark undergrad composition students during the workshop! To be honest I had a tough time hearing the electronics because it turns out I asked the board operator to set the volume lower than it should be so I will have to wait until I get a copy of the recording tomorrow to give my full reaction. Unfortunately out already limited sound check time was cut short by trying to figure out the sound setup dealing with mislabeled cables in the booth. We did our best with the time we had and during performance I tried to go for a good acoustic improvisation since I had a hard time hearing what was going on in the electronics--we at least accomplished that much. In the future, I think I will performe the piece with headphones or monitor speakers because issues hearing the electronics on stage has been an issue to some extent at every performance of the piece. While I need to wait for the recording to make my full judgment of the performance, I will say it was very well received by our small audience (it is tough to get people to come out to Worcester). I'm glad the Clark music students enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to speaking to their composition class in April. One thing I can say now is that I was very pleased by the way Andrew and Dave played the intro and perhaps I am reversing my view that the piece should be played by two matching saxophones. More thoughts to come!