For anyone who wants a big chunk of Jugalbandi listening on Internet radio, don't miss Screamin' Streamin Audio' s 12/27 show, which kicks off with all 17 minutes of the the title track from "The View Is Better From The Top Of The Food Chain".
Also over at the Jugalbandi site, there's a new piece of writing/ rumination on the title track of "Night Crazy" by new correspondent Bryan Davis.
Big news: announcing the release of the next CD of the '03 solo sessions, "Adventures Of Forever And Nowhere"; and the next of the '03 Jugalbandi session CDs, "Laydown Delivery". "Adventures" is primarily hard space-rock; "Laydown" is, well, Jugalbandi. I hope to have at least one download posted soon.
There's a review of "An Awareness Of Frameworks" at the Italian site Movementi Prog. It's in Italian, but an unintentionally hilarious translation I was able to get via Google reveals that basically, reviewer Donato Zoppo liked it, but found the variety challenging ("A disc for prog lovers brave"). Cool.
Wait! This just in! Donato's posted a review of "The Eye That Shines In Darkness" as well! The translated review once again reveals he liked it but found it challenging. I must be doing something right.
Alchemical Radio Show #76 included "Alone", from "In Search Of The Fantastic".
And most recently, there's a review of "Standard" in the newest issue of Improvijazzation Nation (#68).
Check out this great review of "Episodes" in the latest issue of Aural innovations.
Also, "Wrongs of Passage" from "Episodes" is featured on AI Radio's Drool Trough show #20.
Airplay on Adventures In Plasticland: the show on 10/17 was a special on the Hamilton Paranormal group , and again featured "The Eye That Shines In Darkness " as an aural backdrop for their discussions; and the 10/24 show ended with Jugalbandi's "The Lost Transit Center" from the "Night Crazy" CD.
Jugalbandi's "Erwin Park (jam)", from "The View Is Better From The Top Of The Food Chain", was played on the 10/21 show of Screamin' Streamin Audio.
The newest issue of Expose' (#30) features excellent reviews of "An Awareness Of Frameworks" and "The Eye That Shines In Darkness". (For the record: by excellent, I don't mean that their author, Jim Chokey, liked everything on both discs- he didn't, and I have no reason to expect that from anyone. What I mean is that I feel his descriptions of the music are very insightful, detailed and accurate, with a minimum of personal baggage [and most of that is acknowledged as such]. If you like the kinds of things he describes, you will probably like the CDs. That, in my opinion, is a good review. )
I've just received my copy of Charles Rice Goff III 's "Composition 3" today. Basically, this involves an avante garde piece with detailed performance instruction. Musicians from around the world were invited to perform the piece and send in a copy. Each version is radically different because the piece is written to include lots of random elements and individual choices. I'd been asked to participate many months ago but didn't think I'd be able to; however, the deadline got extended and I managed to make time to participate. I've just listened to all the versions on vol. 1 and they're very different. Other contributers include C. Rice Goff III himself, Hal McGee, Eric Matchett, Mikadams, Marcel Herms, and Pascal Hament. This is a fun CD and I highly recommend checking it out.
No Other Radio meister das included "intext" in his setlist for September. The show is archived as an mp3 at the KPFA.org web site.
One of the recently posted soundclips, "Returns", has been reviewed at Industrial.org.
In the "it's about time" department, I've added a bunch of full length, high quality downloads (128kbps/44khz) to the Sound Clips page. These focus on my newer material (from "In Search Of The Fantastic" on), or as I like to refer to it, Phase 2. (Phase 1 would be everything up to/anthologized on "Always Look On The Dark Side Of Life".)
It's not always easy to keep up with all the places I send packages to. Case in point: Spain- based E-zine Amazing Sounds was sent some things for review quite a while ago. After a while I got out of the habit of checking to see if they'd done anything with them; and last night, I discovered they'd posted something a month ago. It's in with the reviews but is a general blurb about my work. Perhaps only a paragraph, but a nice one. Follow this link and scroll down a ways to see it.
The 9/4 show of Adventures In Plasticland (note: new link) ended with Jugalbandi's "Approaching Readiness", from "The Cram And Stuff Method" CD. Also, on 8/21, "The Eye That Shines In Darkness (the whole CD) was played during an interview segment with members of the Hamilton Paranormal group, an Ontario-based paranormal study organization.
Drug Music played Jugalbandi's "Successfully Assimilated", from the "Night Crazy" CD, on the 9/8 show.
The Ear-Relevent Hoedown show #33 contains "The Hero As Pantry, pt. 3".
Splendid Ezine finishes up coverage on my current material with their review of "Standard".
"The Eye That Shines In Darkness" has just received a really excellent and descriptive review at Splendid Ezine. They've been pissing me off lately- in ways not even reported here- but not this time. The only negative part of the review is the last paragraph, which says basically that at nearly an hour and a half the album seems a bit long and could be hard on the attention span. The full page of descriptions that precede this short paragraph more than make up for the negative edge of that statement. I wrote the reviewer a thank-you note and pointed out that some people may be able to take the album in doses, and so still get full enjoyment out of it. Hey prog fans, 'fess up- did you ALWAYS listen to side two of Tarkus or Close To The Edge when side one was finished? I didn't. Ditto that for many albums. If there's a sufficient amount of stuff you enjoy there- or even all of it, but just not all in one sitting- I say you'll be getting your eight bucks worth.
The latest Alchemical Radio show contains "Discharge (edit)" from "Always Look On The Dark Side Of Life". (The full version- with a different mix- is on "The Fourth Of The Three".)
"The Lost Transit Center", from the Jugalbandi CD "Night Crazy", was played on the 8/15 show of Adventures In Plasticland.
Today's Drug Music show features "Dead Landscape" from "The Eye That Shines In Darkness".
"The Floodwaters Of Memory" from "Episodes" was played on Sunday's edition of Dreams Wide Awake.
There are two new reviews over at ProgressoR, one of "The Eye That Shines In Darkness" and the other of "An Awareness Of Frameworks". The review for "Eye" is fully negative, but the one for "Awareness" is mostly positive. (That said, I thought the review of "Eye" was pretty funny.) There are factual errors, such as saying "Eye" was done with guitar and bass (it's all bowed device & effects), or in the "Awareness" review, where he claims that tracks 20-23 are unlisted bonus tracks, when in fact they are simply listed one column over to the right on the tray card. I filled Vitaly in on these, thinking he might be interested in correcting them- and NOT, you understand, trying to change his opinion of the music, which I accept and which has nothing to do with these; but he just seemed annoyed. Oh well. I tried.
"The Seventh Moon" from "The Eye That Shines In Darkness" is part of the latest Alchemical Radio show.
There's a lukewarm review of "An Awareness Of Frameworks" at Splendid E-Zine. It's got a number of factual errors, such as claiming that the recorder parts on "Calling" 1, 2 and 3 are actually the same performance with different tracks. They aren't, those are all different takes. They sound similar because...the part is composed! Shocking. (And...loon call? Kinda complex for a bird call....in fact, it's a fanfare with a distinct, repeated melody. But if that's what he heard, that's what he heard.) Also, last time I checked, the bowed device (which he put in quotes, as thought it were perhaps only an alleged "bowed device") is not an electronic effect but an actual instrument.
Drug Music gives "Episodes" its first airplay: today's show includes "Darkland College Library".
The latest Alchemical Radio show includes "Neal Smith's Invisible Trike, pt. 2", from Standard.
A decision has been reached as to the fate of the "CD-a-month" releases: things will now come out as they are ready. Thanks to all those who supported the experiment up to this point; it is simply not the best option to continue with it.
Jugalbandi news: there's a new review of "Night Crazy" at Improvijazzation Nation; and the 7/8 edition of Screamin' Streamin Audio features that album's "Successfully Assimilated" as its first song.
Technical difficulties continue but appear to be slowly unraveling. Lots of cleanup work ahead though.
Because of this, as mentioned below, the CD-a-month schedule of 2003 sessions releases may get altered. And at this point there is another factor to seriously consider: as of about a month ago, the technological means to make each of these albums significantly better became available to me. Following through on this could mean scrapping the schedule altogether and simply releasing each album as it's ready. As someone who usually prefers quality over novelty for its own sake, I am leaning very strongly towards this option and will most likely take it. If it's possible to keep the quality right where it should be and maintain the original schedule, I will; if not, then despite my very publicly called shot, the schedule goes. Check back here for details as they arise.
I've put in an addendum to the writing I posted on the 3rd, "Some Thoughts On Being A Solo Artist". I hadn't really given my full take on the band angle and felt there were some things left to say that would improve the overall piece.
Technical difficulties have stalled out the old Phantom Airship until further notice. What this means is: the first shipment of "Episodes" has been cut way back, and only a few promo CDs will be going out; and the "one-a-month" experiment, already slowed down by various factors, will get set back even further while the problems are ironed out. Possibly, the schedule will end up skipping a month and finishing out the beginning of next year. Or not; keep your fingers crossed.
Meanwhile, since much of the cleanup has involved long hours of waiting, I've had time to do a little more writing for the site. New today are structural notes for "In Search Of The Fantastic", some notes for "An Awareness Of Frameworks", and an essay, "Some Thoughts On Being A Solo Artist". There'll probably be more to come soon.
"Human In Sleep", from Standard, has been posted as part of the current Alchemical Radio show. Alchemical Radio is produced by Terri~B and The Reverend Rabbit from the Stone Premonitions label- if they are unfamiliar to you, they shouldn't be for long! Check 'em out!
In other news: I feel it's time to give a long overdue public thanks to George Radai for his Yoda-like assistance in getting me through my hideous computer crash in February, ditto all the digital editing and multi-track procedures which made the production of "Episodes" possible. He's also been responsible for similar assistance to Kenny Ryman, making possible all sorts of upcoming releases- archival and new (yep!) Points Of Friction, Kenny's upcoming solo CD, and last but definitely not least the soon to be released Paper Bag CD "Airwave Rituals". All that and much more to come. Thank you George!
"Better late than never" dept.: announcing the release of "Episodes", the June CD of the 2003 sessions series. While I wasn't happy it took so long to finish, I am happy I took the time to be satisfied with the result. Hope you all enjoy it.
The latest Aural Innovations Radio show (#105) features "Defeat Garbanzo Medallion" from Jugalbandi's "Night Crazy" CD.
First off, check out these excellent new reviews of "The Hero As Pantry" and "Planet Of Garbage", from the 2003 sessions, at Aural Innovations. Also, click here for the AI review of Jugalbandi's "Night Crazy".
Second, here's the list of some things getting played since the last update:
Tracks from "An Awareness Of Frameworks" are in circulation on Remember The Future (and I also saw "Standard pt. 1" playing there the other night, sandwiched between Eno and Tangerine Dream).
Adventures In Plasticland has played these tracks, from these albums (on these dates): "Standard pt. 1", from "Standard", (5/23), Jugalbandi "Rest Stop", from "The View Is Better From The Top Of The Food Chain" (5/30); and "Solid State Life" from "Standard" (6/13).
"Jugalbandi: 1999" and "Deep Cuts" have been reviewed in the latest issue of Expose'.
Work continues on "Episodes"- yes, I know it was supposed to be out already, but if I have to push the "one a month" thing to the point where I release the sucker on the 30th if it's necessary to ensure an album I feel right about- well, so be it. I'd sooner scuttle it than deliberately release a turkey- luckily, I'm very proud of it, it's just not quite finished yet. Soon.
"Laydown Delivery", the 2nd of this year's crop of new Jugalbandi releases (there'll be 4 in all), will soon be ready to go. Basic mastering and cover design (courtesy the irrepressible H.R. Sosnow) have been completed.
Audio mastering has been completed on the Paper Bag release "Airwave Rituals". Speaking of the Bag, bassist George Radai (also my compadre in Cold Sky) has just put his own website up here.
Last, some of you may have noticed that the guestbook is down. It was basically vandalized by someone around the 8th of this month, with a bunch of racist and homophobic drivel. I didn't discover it until around 3:30 a.m. on the 14th. While I figure out how to remove the offending entries (read partially: until I have time to figure that out), the book will remain down. The email link still works, so I am still easily reached- provided you don't mind me having an email to respond to.
I probably should have waited a few days to post that newest piece of writing; as always, a few days later I found myself wanting to expand a sentence here or there, tweak things. So I've done that. If you haven't read it already, you won't know what you missed; if you have, read it again if you're interested, it's a little more precise.
Don Campau's 5/23 installment of No Pigeonholes featured "The Hero As Pantry, Part One". Wow...that was brave. Thanks, Don!
Between ear trouble and possible lightning storms here yesterday, I stopped working on "Episodes" (the June CD) and wrote instead, finally putting together that piece I'd mentioned a couple of updates ago. It's called "Some Thoughts On Variety In Style And Scale", and is hopefully not as dry as it sounds. There's some swear words so that should help.
"The Eye That Shines In Darkness, pt. 5" was played on the 5/9 show of Adventures In Plasticland; mixed reviews of "In Search of the Fantastic" and "An Awareness of Frameworks" have been posted at The Taped Crusaders; "The Lost Transit Center", from the latest Jugalbandi CD "Night Crazy", was part of the 5/17 Screamin' Streamin Audio show. Upcoming: "Airwave Rituals", a CD of excerpts from the first seven radio shows by Paper Bag, should be out next month; mastering is nearly finished on the next Jugalbandi CD, "Laydown Delivery"; and work continues on readying next month's 2003 Sessions installment, "Episodes".
"Human In Sleep" from "Standard" is part of the latest Aural Innovations Radio show (#103).
I've posted a new piece- this one actually in the interviews section- made up of email back and forth between Eric Wallack, Hyam Sosnow and I. Eric had some questions for me about music in general, being both a drummer and a guitarist, working with M. Segal and Hyam Sosnow, and so on. This is pulled from email over a year old- it's taken a while for me to edit the letters into a readable form and get it posted here.
I have full notes for the next piece I want to write up and post here, and would be working on it now, if it wasn't for the grim spectre of the June CD breathing down my neck- lots to do, and not much time! Still, it's very relevent to much of what I've done this year especially, so...I'll see what I can do.
One more thing: I discovered the link to the GuitArt interview was broken, couldn't figure out where to point it to just yet- don't even know if it's currently up anywhere- and so I've hosted a version of that here, still off the interviews page.
In the news: There are excellent new reviews of the first 3 CDs of the 2003 sessions up at Aural Innovations ; "Standard pt. 1" was #6 in the top 20 most listened to tracks for the week of 4/18 on Remember The Future; "One Way Right" was played on Don Campau's No Pigeonholes, 4/25; In Search Of The Fantastic and The Eye That Shines In Darkness were on the playlist for No Other Radio for the month of April.
And, last but not least, the May CD, "Planet Of Garbage", is now available.
Well, not only was the "Night Crazy" (the first of the new Jugalbandi CDs) released last week; it's now getting its first airplay courtesy the current Drug Music show (posted from today through Sunday- show changes M/W/F).
Spaceman Stan, of Adventures In Plasticland, tells me that on the 4/18 show, he played "Of Brief Stays" from "In Search Of The Fantastic" and read a poem with it; also he played "Under The Bridge" from "Cold Sky Live At Be-Bop Records, 2/8/89".
The latest Drool Trough show up at Aural Innovations features "Robopath's Night Out" from "Standard".
ProgressoR has just posted two great reviews of the Jugalbandi: 1999 CDs.
Chris from Remember The Future internet radio informs me that he's just added the following tracks to rotation: "Standard, pt. 1" and "Human In Sleep" from "Standard", and "Dead Landscape" and "The Eye That Shines In Darkness, pt. 6" from "The Eye That Shines In Darkness".
Spaceman Stan has informed me that "Black Cavern River" was played on Adventures In Plasticland very early yesterday morning.
The page is now up for the April CD, "The Hero As Pantry". The first run is completed and will be shipped soon.
If you read these updates regularly, you may recall one about my stuff getting played on Adventures In Plasticland , hosted by Spaceman Stan. He emailed me a while back with the playlist for 3/28 (which is now posted at the site). He opened the show with, appropriately enough, "The Worlds Open" from "An Awareness Of Frameworks", over which he read a poem inspired by the piece; and the show closed with "The India-Appalachia Railway", from "In Search Of The Fantastic".
I've added a link to Unfretted, a website devoted to the fretless guitar. I'll just restate here what I said on the links page: if you play fretless guitar, or are interested in the instrument, this site is a must. And if you're just generally interested in people venturing into uncharted areas of music, the same recommendation stands. I learned things the first time I did a quick scan of the main page.
4/4/04 update part 2 (about an hour later): After adding the above link, I took a good look at my links page and realized how many excellent sites had only been covered in Updates; so I figured I'd better fix that. There are now a lot more links up. The whole thing really needs to be reorganized, hopefully one day in the near future I'll have time for that!
But wait! That's not all! It's the amazing Ginzu (TM) update! No sooner had I posted part 2 than I decided to check in over at Dreams Wide Awake, where I discovered that "Spontaneous Knowledge" was played as part of today's show. (Also played was part of the Tangerine Dream Bootleg Box set, which I very excitedly purchased a while back but have not had a chance to listen to yet! I shoulda been listening to this show!)
Aural Innovations internet radio has a couple of things up from "An Awareness Of Frameworks":
"Black Cavern River" is part of Aural Innovations show #102 (Paper Bag and Night Circus fans take note: there is also a track in this show from Points Of Friction, featuring Kenny Ryman);
and the Drool Trough #7 show features "Moist Earth".
Screamin' Streamin Audio 's show for this date features the 23 minute Jugalbandi track "Castle Bravo" in its entirety, from the CD "The View Is Better From The Top Of The Food Chain".
Drug Music's webcast show for today has "The Eye That Shines In Darkness" part 6.
Finally got the link for the Improvijazzation Nation review of "An Awareness Of Frameworks". (Follow the link, then scroll down to find it.) I was afraid this one was lost forever with the hard drive crash, I wasn't sure Zzaj had actually posted it.
"Psyche van het Folk" radio in Belgium recently did a sort of audio synopsis of "The Eye That Shines In Darkness, which consisted of:
Tr.4, "Mine" 3 min (fragment)
Tr.5, "The Eye that shines in darkness, part 3" 1 min (fragment)
Tr.6, "Life in the condemned apartments" 4 min (fragment)
Tr.7, "Transient pt.1" 3 min Tr.9, "Dead Landscape" 4 min
Tr.14, "The Eye that shines in darkness, part 7" 2 min
Tr.19, "Last Night" 2 min 19 (slightly shortened) 35
In the upcoming month, it's likely there'll be 3 GS related releases: the April CD from the '03 sessions, entitled "The Hero As Pantry"; the first of the '03 Jugalbandi CDs, "Night Crazy", which is just about ready to go; and the first of the archival Paper Bag releases, "Airwave Rituals", also nearly finished. Further details to be posted as they arrive.
Last, news from 2003 has been archived.
I received word from Spaceman Stan today that he'll be playing my stuff on his show Adventures In Plasticland. I asked if he had the show mapped out ahead of time, but like me, he improvises! So I can't tell you specifics, but if you like my stuff you can't lose listening to this show. Look at the playlists! The show is broadcast/webcast in real time every Saturday from 11:59 pm till 3:00 am Sunday (US EST).
Discovered a great review of "Asleep Or Somewhere Else" on this Australian site, The Taped Crusaders. Eric Wallack must have sent it in to them (thanks Eric!), since there are a lot of reviews of other stuff from him there too- some solo, some in colloboration with Rotcod Zzaj, Don Campau, Harlan Mark Vale, and John Zibbel; also CDs by some of these folks on their own. Please, if you're so inclined, read those reviews as well, and find out about these artists if you don't know about them already; they've been putting out great stuff for many years.
Anyone familiar with the original Alice Cooper Group may notice that "Standard" has a couple of tracks named after the drummer- "Neal Smith's Invisible Trike", parts one and two. (The title would take some explaining- perhaps in some future notes off the "Standard" page.) Just a heads up, if you don't already know: Neal's got his own site and if you're a fan you shouldn't miss it.
"Black Cavern River", from "An Awareness Of Frameworks", was played on today's installment of Dreams Wide Awake.
Slowly catching up- the March CD, "Standard", is almost ready to go, and should be ready to ship no later than the end of next week, possibly as early as the beginning of the week, depending on how things go. Meanwhile, I've posted its web page (click on the album title above if you haven't already).
A month since last update, and not much (visible) to show for it! The Phantom Airship computer had a major meltdown- actual physical hard drive failure- and I've spent this whole time trying to get everything up and running again. With any luck I'll be able to get the March CD, "Standard", actually out in March! It might be late in the month, but...it should happen.
Meanwhile, these nice folks have been actively supporting my music:
There's a great review of "An Awareness Of Frameworks" up at the latest "Improvijazzation Nation"- unfortunately, all attempts to link to it lately have proven ineffective, keep looking back here, it'll turn up.
There's also a very short (and not quite so positive) review of that album now up at Psyche Van Het Folk, along with a (more positive) review of the February CD, "The Eye That Shines In Darkness".
Stephanie Sollow has posted her review of "In Search Of The Fantastic" up at Progressiveworld.net.
Internet radio station Remember The Future has been playing a lot of tracks from "Night Circus" and "In Search Of The Fantastic" recently. In fact, their top 20 for February 24th had "Night Circus pt. 1" (the track, not the album) at #3. (This is based on people tuning in and staying tuned in.)
Last but certainly not least we have "The Seventh Moon", from "The Eye That Shines In Darkness", finishing out the 3/7 show of Dreams Wide Awake.
"Nothing New" from "A Man Who Was Here" is part of the 2/11 Drug Music show.
It has come to my attention that some people are concerned with the use of paper labels, which are used on all Phantom Airship releases. While there has never been any trouble of this type reported to me, Phantom Airship will give a lifetime guarantee on all purchased CDs against label-related problems. If one occurs, just send in your old one and a new one will be sent back.
(If you run over it with your truck, your cat pees on it, you used it for air hockey, etc., sorry, you're on your own.)
You may also purchase, by request, unlabeled copies of any CD in the catalog.
I am working on other options but, due to cost, they may take some time to implement. Your patience is greatly appreciated.
The page is now up for the February CD, "The Eye That Shines In Darkness".
The following tracks are now in rotation on Remember The Future internet radio: from "An Awareness Of Frameworks": Black Cavern River, Calling 1, Moist Earth, Soul Catcher; from "Night Circus" Part One: Introduction, Running Water
"The Worlds Open", from "An Awareness Of Frameworks", was played on Don Campau's No Pigeonholes, 1/25.
The February CD, "The Eye That Shines In Darkness", is ready to go. All sounds on it were made with bowed device and effects. The web page should be up in a few days.
The January CD, "An Awareness Of Frameworks", has already started to get some play: "Moist Earth 2" is featured on Screamin' Streamin Audio's 1/22 show; and "Black Cavern River" is featured on Drug Music's 1/23 show.
"Sahara 1909" from "In Search Of The Fantastic" got played on the 1/11 show of Christopher Curry's "Nature Abhors A Vacuum".
Work is currently underway getting February's CD ready. Also, the first of this year's Jugalbandi CDs, "Night Crazy", should be ready to go by early next month.
Happy new year to everyone, hope you're all staying warm and have recovered from the holidays.
Kicking off the new year is a great review of Bret Hart/Greg Segal "Duets Vol. 2" at Aural Innovations.
The 2003 sessions are about to be let loose: the first batch of January's CD, "An Awareness Of Frameworks", is almost finished and should be shipped soon.