September, 2004

did a show at the hotti biscotti. this is a small bar/cafe on fullerton avenue in logan square run by the syska brothers ken and richard. the series is booked by rotten milk, who also does a weekly at the buddy gallery. amanda guttierez, steve hess and i decided to play together again. amanda on the radio, steve on a few drums and myself doing some work on soundfiles and live samples of steve with max/msp. we had a played a few weeks back at the myopic bookstore and i felt that this set went a bit better. by using just the computer it’s much easier to be part of a sound environment & i felt more part of the group. i had a bit of trouble getting a good signal on my mic from steve as he was playing very quietly, so it was dificult at times to get a nice build going, but overall we were listening to each other and some good music happened. at one point my cell phone started ringing – i thought i’d turned it off – luckily i recently changed my ring to a more normal tone (before it was the robo nx-1) so it wasn’t too intrusive. it was jen calling, and the funny thing was the first thing she said on her message was “i hope you remembered to turn off your ringer if you’re playing a set right now”.

the other set of the night was jake elliott, brian labycz and vadim sprikut. they each played laptop, and the music was good – some crisp sound environment sound mixed with minimal synthesized sounds.

before i left to catch the bus, rotten milk was talking about how it woul dbe great to have chicago laptop musician action figures. he suggested todd carter with special pot smoking action, aram shelton with signature wisecrack phrases, and others. but the main stipulation on all the action figures is that they be hunched over a laptop – ah, signs of the times –



on friday dragons 1976 hit the road for about 10 days…

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Ah, it was Sunday night and that means time to play at the Hungry Brain, a cozy bar near the intersection of Western Ave and Belmont on the north side of Chicago. The group I played with this night was the Nick Broste Quintet, which includes me on alto, Kevin Davis on cello, Frank Rosaly on drums and Anton Hatwich on bass. Broste plays the trombone and has written the music which we play in the group. We played the first set of the night, the second played by the quintet Herculaneum. The thing with the Broste Quintete is that it never seems that we can get together to practice, and many gigs feel like the first.

However, we had a fine night, there was a good turnout, though what was strange was the fact that there was a small crowd of goth folk there – this one girl looked liked an evil pixie. That’s one trait of the Brain, you never really know what the crowd will be like – there’s pretty much always a steady crowd of people who are really into the music being played and one night there will be lots of listeneres, but then another night you could get all talkers. Last night there were a few talkers, but most were listeners and some were shush-ers. The best thing about the Brain is that it can be a real nice hang – there’s always someone to talk to about what you’ve been up to, as lots of musicians go there.

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Fred at 3030

Originally uploaded by dragonseventysix.

tonight i played with shevitz at the 3030. we were kind of asked last minute to fill in a set to go along with the duo of bruce lamont (who plays in yakuza) and fred lonberg-holm (in the picture). shevitz brought his vibes and some cymbals and a snare drum, while i brought my alto and computer. we played an all improvised set, and i used the computer to record bits of the vibraphone. the gain on the mic i used had to be cranked, so it was also picking up some of my sound and the drums. we played about an hour, i was most happy with the last bit of improvising we did – i recorded something shevitz was playing into 8 different short files of different length and played them back at different speeds, thus making the harmonies a bit more complex. i also threw some of the files into reverse to create a nice loopy atmosphere which shevitz and i found ways to improvise over.

bruce and fred played next – Bruce also plays saxophone, he plays it through an effects rig, lots of delay and controlled feedback. Fred was using at least 6 pedals with his cello, getting some really great layers of sound over time.

it was a nice night, and made me want to do more experimenting with using the vibraphone as a sound source for computer manipulation.

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Another night, another show – this one at the Empty Bottle with the group Rolldown, led by jason adasiewicz on vibraphone. The rest of the group is me on alto and bass clarinet, josh berman on cornet, jason roebke on bass and frank rosaly on drums. I wasn’t originally in this group, keefe jackson was, but keefe decided he didn’t want to do it, so shevitz asked me to fill in the reed role. it was tuesday night, part of the jazz series they have there, mostly on tuesday nights, but wednesdays as well. unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a crowd to speak of, though this has kind of been a problem many times that i’ve played the bottle recently. i’m starting to think that people don’t want to go to the bottle cause they don’t want to pay a cover charge, other places where this music is happening in town, the hungry brain, hideout, myopic, etc…there is never a cover, as the places can only ask for donations due to city licensing. why pay a cover when you can go see people for a less amount of money on a different night of the week?

regardless, we played two sets and the music was good in both, though personally i was struggling with the bass clarinet which i have had on loan from someone for more than six months now (the thing is is that it is a student model horn in serious need of some repair, but i know that as soon as i get it fixed, someone’s going to want it back. by the way – thank you to dan saylers for letting me use this thing for so long.) the music is of the slow burning energy kind, with alot of improvisation which can move the written music -which is nicely rooted in jazz with chord structures and harmonies – to all kinds of spaces.

after we played, we all hung out for a bit, i talked to berman about trying to figure out places to have some special events. i think a thursday night series at a bar would be really great, but we will have to find a place.

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so, back in chicago after the long drive, i spent the day with birth, we got some good chips & salsa, tacos & margaritas at el cid; then eventually got some coffee from filter and hung out in wicker park for a bit. it was a nice day – a bit warm in the sun, but perfect in the shade. later in the evening we went down to millenium park to see tortoise play a free show at the new pritzker pavillion. that place is pretty awesome – it’s a very large auditorium designed by frank gehry. unfortunately though we thought tortoise would play at 6:30, giving us plenty of time to watch them and then go set up for our show later in the night, there were the most broing dj’s i’ve ever seen perform live. some guys from switzerland. really lame house/jazz music. it was dissappointing.

but hanging out at the pavillion was allright, good for people watching. the best sight was the chicago police officer cruising around on one of those new segway personal human transporter. he looked totally like a robocop, gliding around, looking down at people imperiously. it was both slightly scary and completely hilarious…he had a bike helmet on (one of the fast looking ones) with rearview mirror attached. if only i had a picture… we got to see the first few songs of tortoise’s set – it sounded really good as they came out with alot of energy – it must be nice to play big concert venues and have ltos of nice gear to pull off some of the stuff they pull off. hard work too.

the show at rodan was kind of strange. it was really crowded, but more with people that were just at the bar than people there for the show. birth played first and the crowd was really talking, and at one point when birth got quiet some people had to sing happy birthday. birth did sound really good by the end of there set – they played some high energy sonic stuff that worked well with blocking out the room sound. the crowd kind of thinned out for the grey ghost, which was for the best i think, but i didn’t feel like we were clicking as well as the previous two nights. i appreciate rodan because the owners (adam & dave) are nice guys and supportive of the music, but the crowd can be truly annoying.

we all stayed till the bar closed and later, hanging outside in the perfect temperature night air which we’ve been enjoying every night of these last three shows.

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after the late night cookie session we all slept in. when i woke up i heard joshua and his parents talking with their nephew, who is about two years old i think. we had a nice breakfast of blueberry muffins and eggs; which is actually something that my mom usually makes when i visit her in florida. it took us longer than expected to get out of town as we were waiting for joe tomino and jeremy bleich form birth to get to josh’s house with the van they were riding in. in the meantime josh, johnathan & i all worked on reason for a bit , it’s a new program for us all – we spent a little time learning how to use the sequencers & the synths. we finally got on the road to grand rapids, and it was a nice drive – but it was longer than i thought it would be originally, took us about 5 hours or so. by the time we got to the DAAC (where we played) there was already a full house, which was a good surprise. grey ghost got our set going pretty quickly after the van with joe & jeremy got there (we had put some of our things in their van so josh could ride with us as there weren’t any chairs in the back of their van) and our set felt really good. the audience was also good – the space was set up with chairs and the folks really paid attention to us. afterwards alot of people were complimentary and we sold some cds, hopefully we’ll be able to go back sometime relatively soon.

johnathan & i left pretty quickly after birth finished their set – the drive back to chicago was about 3 hours, not so bad. about halfway i took over the wheel and didn’t have to much trouble staying awake but every now and then felt a little eye closing happen. we got into chicago around 2:30. the boys from birth didn’t get in until around 5, that’s pretty rough.

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this weekend grey ghost hit the road – who is grey ghost? it is me playing saxophone and using a computer for live sampling, manipulation and other things along with johnathan crawford playing drums and the kawai analog synth.

we left on saturday afternoon from chicago and drove to cleveland ohio. it took us longer than expected as coming out of chicago we took some strange route through the southeast side because there were signs telling us that the skyway was congested. that route was allright, we got to see parts of the city we’d never seen before – we travelled underneath the green line el tracks and saw strange buildings and churches, there’s lots of poverty down there.

on the road to cleveland we made the mistake of stopping at the woodwind and brasswind – it was hard to get to there from the highway. inside, the place seemed like guitar center – lots of salesman, but things not really laid out in a way conducive to running in and picking up something little. and me there to get some reeds…no salesman was available to help me get those, which seemed ridiculous, so after about 10 minutes we split.

we got to the asterisk gallery around 9 o’clock, the show was supposed to start around ten, but unfortunately the turnout was low, and while waiting for people to show up, we delayed the start until about 1030 or so. we played a good set – almost all improvised, with some snippets of songs we’ve done before. the set was a continuous flow, and we had a good amount of variation in dynamics & timbres. kind of a clinical evaluation, but basically the set felt very good, but unfortunatley we didn’t get to record it.

there was a long break before birth played – johnathan and i got a slice at this little deli nearby, the people that work there have attitude, the style that happens when you really hate your job and have to deal with people all the time. but the pizza was pretty good,

birth played there set, they seemed to get more into it as the set progressed, afterwards we all listened to some records and drank pbr. we stayed at joshua smith’s parents’ house – there were chocolate chips and oatmeal cookies for a snack, i think we went to bed a bit after 4…..

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so last night the second citizens returned to the Hideout.who are the second citizens? keefe jackson on a variety of reeded instruments, normally tenor saxophone, but sometime bass clarinet or baritone saxophone; josh berman on cornet; fred lonberg-holm on cello; anton hatwich on bass and frank rosaly on drums. I play alto saxophone in the group. we’ve been playing at the hideout somewhat regularly the last few months, the idea is that we’ll play two mondays a month, but it’s been a bit spotty as sometimes some of us are out of town & other times another event has been already booked by a the owner of the place. but, hopefully we’ll be able to steady thinds up and make it a routine.

the music is free jazz with rhythm & melody and no rules on the improvisations. last night wasn’t the best crowd we’ve had but was a good time. i invited people to come help me celebrate my birthday (which is on the 14th), and had johnathan crawford and rotten milk do some djing in between the sets.

the evening started pretty mellow with just a few people trickling in before we played the first set around 10:30. the set started out well, but it seemed that maybe we played on too many songs without any rhythm involved as the energy waned as we got past the 45 minute mark. by the time we finished that set more people had showed up and it felt more like a birthday party – rotten milk played the dance music & the hiphop, people had drinks & ate the brownies that jen brought (no, they weren’t pot brownies – but everyone kept asking).

we played a late second set and kept it on the shorter side, but that didn’t keep people from trickling out – it’s definitely tough to have people stay out for two sets on a monday night, the weekend is long dead and people have to work in the morning.

anton and i closed out the bar with the folk who work there and that was the end of the night – not a bad one at all.

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the fury of hurricane frances

tomorrow i go to florida for the weekend. I’ll be visiting my folks in palm city, where they just got hit by a hurricane, hurricane frances. It was the first time in a long time that a hurricane hit our part of the state, which is surprising as we live on the eastern seaboard, right in the middle of the state. i’ve always felt that Florida is unusually lucky when it comes to hurricanes, it’s right in the middle of the bowling pins of the carribean islands, but i guess it’s tough for a hurricane to hit a strike. Frances wasn’t really that powerfull, but it was really big. It started hitting my folks place early saturday and was still hitting it late sunday. the eye passed over our home town, but the news media kept their focus on west palm beach and vero beach, two places each 40 miles away. the killer picture of the Z-28 up above is something i found that got messed up by the hurricane…. now that really shows the fury of a hurricane. If my ride got messed up like that, i’d definitely leave that state. Now, it’s not that I have a ride. And, I already left that state. Actually a main reason why I moved to chicago was so I could not worry about needing a car. And here I am 5 years later, still with no car and feeling fine about it…

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vesuvio bar, san fran
Originally uploaded by dragonseventysix.

this one is taken from a trip out to the western states during the summer – my girl jen and i stopped for a few days in san francisco in between two weeks of camping in washington, oregon and california…

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