National Electronics Museum – Electronica Fest 2014

I’m playing in this year’s Electronica Fest at the National Electronics Museum, in Linthicum, Maryland (near BWI Airport), on Saturday, 8 November 2014, in the 4:30-5:00 slot. The Fest is an amazing day-long celebration of electronic and electroacoustic music that runs from noon till ten o’clock and gives audiences an opportunity to hear a dizzying array of genres touched by the thrilling spark of electricity for a delightfully paltry ten bucks. The music ranges from the downright lovely to the down-home peculiar and the atmosphere just can’t be matched by anything else going on in the region. It’s a great Saturday for sound.

EFEST_Poster2014 editing with earth 500px

http://nationalelectronica.com/

Upping the voltage.

flyer - Sonic Circuits 2014

I’m thrilled to be playing with the inimitable Keith Sinzinger once again, this time as a participant in the Sonic Circuits Festival 2014, a three-day assortment of aural delights held from 3-5 October 2014 at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, 8230 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910. We’re on during the final evening of the festival, on Sunday, 5 October, performing under our collective monicker, Fast Against The Wall, in a playful set of peculiar noises, particular grooves, and happy accidents. We’ll be in good company, and the folks behind Sonic Circuits bring together the best audiences for new and experimental music in the area and the best performers. I’m always delighted by the variety and quality of the music Sonic Circuits puts on, and I am happy as a dang lark to be playing.

Come on out and listen!

Working summer becomes performing fall.

I’ve got a lot going on in the next four months—gigs booked in September, October, and November!

I’ll be playing at the super-amazing Electro-Music Festival 2014 in Huguenot, NY, a three day campout of unbelievable musicians performing, connecting, and collaborating up in the woods in NY state. It’s an immersive experience for musicians that’s just lovely and embracing and full of all sorts of electric music, played out in a great setting.

Electro-Music 2014

Last year was my first, and I just enjoyed the company and camaraderie, but this year, on Friday, September 5th at 5:30PM, I’m premiering a little work in progress, All Night Radio, a short cycle of spoken word storytelling on my love of noise set to the tune of digital modular synthesis.

I’ll be performing the work again in November, as part of the terrific Electromusic Festival at the National Electronics Museum in Linthicum, Maryland.


On Sunday, October 5th, I’m privileged to share the stage with the thoroughly distinct and delightful Keith Sinzinger (aka Fast Forty) for the second round of our collaboration, Fast Against The Wall, as part of the Sonic Circuits Festival 2014, taking place from October 3-5, 2014 at Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Spring Maryland.

Playing live in DC, 28 Feb 2014

Winterfest flyer 001

For those of you living in the DC orbit, I’ll be performing with chaotic synthesist extraordinaire, Keith Sinzinger, as “Fast Against The Wall” on Friday, 28 February 2014, in the second slot of the first day of the two-day Baltimore SDIY Group‘s Electronic Music Winterfest at Electric Maid, 268 Carroll Street, Washington DC 20012 (Across from the Takoma Metro Station).

The event opens at 7:45 each night, and tickets are just $10, with five diverse and electrifying musical acts in each. Fast Against The Wall is scheduled for the second set of Friday night, and there’s always amazing talent on stage for these events. The music ranges from noisy experimental to smooth dance grooves and whole worlds in-between.

I’ve been largely concentrating on beatless, long-form drone and atmosphere music for a while, but this is set to be a playful departure into herky-jerky grooveland and I’m really enthusiastic about the juicy, alien energy we’re conjuring up.

Be there if you can!

I’ll sign your cast and punch your ticket!

For more info about the venue:

http://electricmaid.org/

Live at the controls of the Lotus Toolbox, 14 June 2013

I’m excited to be playing a live ambient set in Baltimore on Friday, 14 June 2013. It’s part of a two-day series of concerts curated by the Baltimore SDIY group, called the Baltimore Electronic Music 2013 Summerfest Concerts, on 14 & 15 June 2013 at Club K.

The line-ups for each day are available here:

Baltimore Electronic Music 2013 Summerfest Concert One [14 June 2013]
Baltimore Electronic Music 2013 Summerfest Concert Two [15 June 2013]

Club K is on 2101 Maryland Avenue Baltimore MD 21210, physically located at 2101 W. 21st Street, Baltimore MD 21210, two doors from the corner of Maryland Avenue & W. 21st Street. Admission is $5 per person per concert.

I’m in the line-up from 9:30-10:00 on Friday, but the events run from 8-11 each night, with an array of electronic musicians ranging from the experimental to the beatworthy. The SDIY group does a great job of mashing a lot of genres together in these events, so you’re almost certain to find something that stokes the fires.

I’ll be playing sort of cascading shambling digital slow music with electronics using the lotus toolbox, a stripped-down live rig I’ve been refining with the intention of getting my gear simplified to the point that I can fit all I need across the seat of a motorcycle.

C’mon down and see me!

a new blessing and upcoming notions

 

Performed my fifteenth psychotronic blessout of the holy rollers and their grimy feet at the American Visionary Art Museum‘s 15th annual Kinetic Sculpture Race in Baltimore last weekend and it was a blast. This is my best video yet, thanks to Will Wall‘s steady camera work, though with increased resolution comes a realization that I could stand to take an iron to my habit. I did double duty this year, being recruited to do announcements and color commentary at the water entry in the race, and it was a thoroughly fun and fantastically action-packed day, as usual.

A few old and new projects are in the works, and I’m gradually getting my old stale web presence dusted off for the year. I’ve written a script for a one act play, “Overdue,” based on a particularly aggravating phone conversation with a bill collector back in hairier days, I’m continuing to work on a new edition of my one man show, My Fairy Godmothers Smoke Too Much, with the intention of doing a little touring version sometime in the next year or so (drop me a line if you have a venue, please!). It’s expanded to the original script length, with new music and sound and the same old staging (me and a microphone). Will be posting some teasers as the completed version gets closer.

In the process of consolidating fifteen years of various web presences, I’m going to revive my stalled ambient music podcast, 12 Minute Travelogues, in order to get it back online and to finally air the final two episodes. It’s a nice, pastoral thing, consisting of twelve twelve-minute ambient experiments created between 2008 and 2013, so watch this page for an announcement of its reappearance. In a similar vein, I’m working on a new podcast of generative music pieces, to be described in more detail very soon.

The hum drift at Pyramid Atlantic.

I had the great pleasure to perform a short ambient set at Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Spring, Maryland as a part of the Sonic Circuits Broken Mic Night for July 30th, 2012. I’d just come in from a long road trip, got home in time for the derecho storms that knocked out power and generally tore up the area, and made my way south the very next day, which was no mean feat, given that every traffic light in the county was out and lines at the gas stations that still had power were up to an hour long. There was a full house, the audience were cool and properly into experimental sound, and I had a great time.

I was a bit tense, though, and there was a hum in my gear I couldn’t quite shake, so I went with it. Essence of the moment.

See an annotated photo of the rig I used here.