Playlist

Live


March 29, 2012

Embers of Discontent - Ian Bell & John Teske, with Begin Scarseth, violin; Brianna Atwell, viola; Maria Scherer Wilson, cello
Gallery 1412 - Seattle

Two sets of songs - Honeymoon and Embers of Discontent - each exploring quintessential tropes of the evolved Seattle male animal: heartfelt sensitivity and leftish leanings respectively. Ian has a listenable, if breathy, voice, and his straight-ahead delivery provided a stable point of reference as the string arrangements periodically veered us into traffic or suddenly tipped the floor into a wall. I left thinking that parts of this were unfinished, which is not a bad place for a collaboration to be.

Recorded

March 25, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 235 - (November 1990 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt)
Psalm 22:9-10 - Keith Eisenbrey - Karen Eisenbrey

Thread of violin. Rock and bone.

March 27, 2012
Gradus at Gallery 1412 (May 2005) - part 1 - Neal Meyer

Scribble In Wax

In Session at The Tintinabulary

March 26, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 810 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer


Upcoming

Friday April 6, 2012 doors open at 8:30 PM
Your Mother Should Know - Live at the High Dive
Karen's & Neal's rock band opens for Curtains For You, The Tailenders, and Youth Rescue Mission, in a benefit to support UNICEF's TAP project.

Saturday June 23, 2012 concert begins at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey - piano recital at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
music by Emily Doolittle, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, and J. K. Randall

Saturday October 13, 2012 concert begins at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey - piano recital at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Preludes in Seattle Part 4: Preludes by Ken Benshoof, Keith Eisenbrey, Lockrem Johnson, and Greg Short

Playlist

Recorded


March 20, 2012
Squeeze Me - Bessie Smith [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune] 
We Got The Same Kinda Power Over Here - Rev D. C. Rice and his Sanctified Congregation [from Dust to Digital's Goodbye, Babylon]

And they got some fancy piano playing too.

Rev. D. C. Rice

 
















White Christmas - The Drifters [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Deep in the background check out the organ track. Nice!

This Magic Moment - The Drifters [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
I Don't Know What You Got, But It's Got Me - Little Richard [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

An index point for the committed vocal.

Now Be Thankful - Fairport Convention [from Meet On The Ledge: The Classic Years (1967-1975)]
Clocked In - Black Flag [from The First Four Years]

Irony without irony.

March 22, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 27 - (May 1985 - Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer)

Militantly non-interactive incessancy. A dis-cooperative venture. Part of what has been so fascinating about participating in this project all these years is how often the sessions are far more interesting than they are good.

In Session at The Tintinabulary

March 19, 2012
Gradus 208 - Neal Meyer

Upcoming

Friday April 6, 2012 doors open at 8:30 PM
Your Mother Should Know - Live at the High Dive
Karen's & Neal's rock band opens for Curtains For You, The Tailenders, and Youth Rescue Mission, in a benefit to support UNICEF's TAP project.

Saturday June 23, 2012 concert begins at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey - piano recital at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
music by Emily Doolittle, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, and J. K. Randall

Saturday October 13, 2012 concert begins at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey - piano recital at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Preludes in Seattle Part 4: Preludes by Ken Benshoof, Keith Eisenbrey, Lockrem Johnson, and Greg Short

Playlist

Live

March 10, 2012
Orfee et Eurydice - Gluck

Seattle Opera - McCaw Hall, Seattle

In considering another time's consideration of another time's story it is important to keep in mind that our own time's consideration of that other time's story is just as suspect. Hence our discomfort with the neo-classical aspects that seem to us most perverse - the happy ending and the Deus ex machina - was made evident in the Teletubbysian fields and the clown on the bicycle. But opera staging, at its very best, is a botch, and this production did have some attractive aspects. We seem more comfortable with the dark aspects of the story, and the production of those moments was effectively stark. Musically I can only listen with jaw agape. It is a truly stunning thing.

Recorded

March 11, 2012
Sweet Man - Danny Small and His Ukulele Boys [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

As though not directly singing the song, or at least not singing it directly to us.

I'm Just Wild About Henry - Jimmy Dorsey [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Tonguing display almost like crazy Polka music.

The Great Pretender - The Platters [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
Spanish Harlem - Ben E. King [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
I Do - The Marvelow [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
Bonny Bunch of Roses - Fairport Convention [from Meet On The Ledge: The Classic Years (1967-1975)]

The antithesis of eighties drum sound, fat and soft, without impact.

White Dress - Fairport Convention [from Meet On The Ledge: The Classic Years (1967-1975)]
Crocodiles (album) - Echo & The Bunnymen

Narrow vocal melodies, like psalm intonation. Anxiety as a tightly-held corporation.

March 13, 2012
Banned Couple 2 - Banned Rehearsal (1985)

Seattle Gothic - photo by Jill Borner

The tapes going in each have their own distinct trajectory, and their details are heard in the context of that trajectory, forming it, informing it, being formed by it, and being informed by it. When the two tapes are mooshed together the details don't gain a new contextual trajectory so much as become divorced from it, cast loose, flotsamed and jetsamed.

March 15, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 234 - (October 1990 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt)

We share readings of Poe. Aaron begins with the Raven and ends with The Cask of Amontillado.

Psalm 22 (midi) - Keith Eisenbrey
Gradus 80 - Neal Meyer

There is a stillness about it.

Time Spins - Paul Eisenbrey

Another song by my brother. This one is a strongly built number with a fabulous vocal. I might quibble about the mix (too big guitar), but hey, the playing is pretty nice.

In Session at The Tintinabulary

March 12, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 809 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer

Upcoming

Friday April 6, 2012 doors open at 8:30 PM
Your Mother Should Know - Live at the High Dive
Karen's & Neal's rock band opens for Curtains For You, The Tailenders, and Youth Rescue Mission, in a benefit to support UNICEF's TAP project.

Saturday June 23, 2012 concert begins at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey - piano recital at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
music by Emily Doolittle, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, and J. K. Randall

Saturday October 13, 2012 concert begins at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey - piano recital at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Preludes in Seattle Part 4: Preludes by Ken Benshoof, Keith Eisenbrey, Lockrem Johnson, and Greg Short

Playlist

Recorded

March 6, 2012
Banned Couple 1 - Banned Rehearsal

Anna K sets her cap at Neal Meyer - 1985

Early in 1985 it occurred to us that when thirty-two 45 minute tapes are lined up they add up to 24 hours of improvisation. A short leap led to the idea of playing them all at once. Not having 32 tape players handy, hampered by the fact that you can't play both sides of a tape at the same time, and possessed of only rudimentary hardware for mixing (two feeder tape decks, one target tape deck, and some 2-to-1 adapter patch cords from Radio Shack) we did the best we could mixing two at a time to create 16 Banned Couples, again to create 8 Banned Mixers, again to create 4 Banned Seminars, again to create 2 Banned Thologies, and finally again to create the Banned Day. As one might expect the actual result was a nearly unlistenable gray fog of glooby aural crud. As I was recently copying tapes to digital I decided to remix this project in hope of balancing levels more carefully and of preserving a bit more detail into the later iterations. Modest success.

March 8, 2012
Soundtext for J. K. Randall - Elaine Barkin [from Open Space 12]

In listening it is easy to treat the discourse as distinct from the collage elements, until those elements intrude upon and obscure the sound of the discourse in fashions uncomfortably wrong-sounding, as though they have sneaked in illegitimately, via some obscure software glitch, rather than as an intentional just-so placement. The effect is disconcerting and alarming, never resolving itself into what should seem to be the obvious intent, pushing a button we would rather not have been pushed, dis-jarring us from easy enjoyment, acceptance, digestion. It should be the point, if we could accept it.

Banned Rehearsal 577 (eisenbrey) - Banned Rehearsal (July 2000, Peter Comley, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer)


My recording (rather than Pete's).

Songs, Psalms, Sarabande - Keith Eisenbrey

I assembled this album in 2005, collecting all of my Gathered Songs, sung by Karen Eisenbrey, Sarabande for trumpet and piano, performed by Jim Knodle, an improvisation by Jim and me at Gallery 1412, and my 2005 remix of Psalm 23 (meditation, responses) using taped sounds of me at the clavichord and of Neal Meyer reading. There are some technical issues here and there, but I think the album holds up pretty well as an interesting listen. The Psalm 23 setting is so off kilter from the rest that it brought me up short, in a way I really like.

Driving To Hawaii - Paul Eisenbrey

My brother Paul is a fine singer/songwriter/guitarist and amateur luthier. This song is a fully realized studio demo. "I'm driving to Hawaii / I hope the danged bridge ain't out".

The world needs more guitars

In Session at The Tintinabulary

Gradus 207 - Neal Meyer

Playlist

Live

February 25, 2012
Adam Tendler
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Sonatas & Interludes for prepared piano - John Cage

Within the context of keyboard literature this piece provides an intriguing comment on the apparent flatness of the timbral surface. The conceptual impact of the various preparations doesn't so much create the image of a new instrument - it is always clearly a piano piece - as bring into brilliant relief the figurational aspect, the fingery playingness of it, anchoring us firmly within the discursive realm of Couperin, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Scriabin, Debussy, and possibly more apropos, Scarlatti. On top of that it is sheerly gorgeous, and Adam knocked it out of the park. You can download a free recording of a recent live performance on his website. I did. Thank you Adam!

March 2, 2012
Seattle Composers' Salon
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Solo String Bass Piece - John Teske

A stunner. John tuned the lowest string down to an A and bowed it slowly 28 times, leaving space between each iteration long enough for him to no longer hear it or to feel his instrument producing it. An elegant dynamic design both freed us from the need to con his game and riveted our attention to his engaged care in producing sound. And a ferociously lovely sound it was. Damn!

88 - Terry Wergelend

Interestingly, this piece shares with John Teske's the nearly instant liberation from any need to figure out what is going on, leaving us to enjoy the delight of wondering and discovering which note would and did come next. I was particularly pleased at how different the effect of this was from my own "all the notes but each just once" piano piece N. Apparently Terry had to write a computer program to discover an ordering that would accomplish his intended image of proper randomness - or perhaps more precisely, his particular image of maximal local variety. Fascinating on all sorts of levels.

Prelude for Piano Trio - Clement Reid

A series of harmonic stations without progression, twisting around itself.

Selections from Who Are You And How Do You Know? - Jay Hamilton

Our local side-arm pitcher emitting ideas so fast and from so many directions your head will spin. Always a treat. The whole show, God-puppet and all, will be produced at the Chapel on April 7th.

Recorded

February 25, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 577 (comley) - (July 2000, Peter Comley, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer)

Pete brought over some new microphones and this is his recording.

February 26, 2012

Gathered Songs Takes 2 - Eisenbrey
Gradus 177 - Neal Meyer

February 28, 2012
Sugarfoot Stomp - Merrit Brunies and Friar's Inn Orchestra [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Delights. A new one every few bars.

China Boy -  Red Nichols [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

There's a piano solo in the middle of this that is well on the way to Cecil Taylor. The other treat is the opening as it emerges and re-emerges and re-re-emerges.

Smokey Joe's Cafe - The Robins [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

The brilliantly wicked sideways sax entrance is prefigured by the vocalist's entrance right at the beginning. In media res all over again.

Save The Last Dance For Me - The Drifters [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
I Can't Explain - The Who [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
Sloth - Fairport Convention [from Meet On The Ledge: The Classic Years (1967-1975)]

A high-school friend was a major FC aficionado. I recently decided it was long past time I gave it a listen and see what was up. At the time I was more of a Pink Floyd-ianado. Who would have thunk that at times, conceptually, the only real difference was a few amplifiers?

Stranger To Himself - Fairport Convention [from Meet On The Ledge: The Classic Years (1967-1975)]
The Puppet - Echo & The Bunnymen [collected from Nancy's Mix]

I'll say it now so I never have to say it again. Echo & The Bunnymen made U2 unnecessary.

In Session at The Tintinabulary

February 27, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 808 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer


Ping pong balls were released.

Playlist

Live

February 24, 2012
Crystal Beth
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Beth Fleenor

An electronically enabled she-minstrel traveling relatively light, equipment-wise: a clarinet, an amplifier with a few gizmos, and some small percussion. Build-a-music on the spot. Lighthearted but too rich in timbre and rhythm to be lightweight. Focused, center-of-the head vocal production (think mid-eurasian folk singing). Bravely winning.

Recorded

February 19, 2012
Yes! I'm In The Barrel - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five [from Hot Fives And Sevens]
Fifty Miles of Elbow Room - Rev. F. W. McGee [from Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music]

Somewhere in the back of James Brown's head is this sound, keeping him honest, chasing him.

Wednesday Evening - John Lee Hooker  [from The Legendary Modern Recordings 1948 - 1954]
Sincerely - The Moonglows [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Fancy brush-work on the drums. Check it out.

Rank Strangers - The Stanley Brothers [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
Help Me Rhonda - the Beach Boys [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
Poor Will And The Jolly Hangman - Fairport Convention [from Meet On The Ledge: The Classic Years (1967-1975)]
Rising For The Moon - Fairport Convention [from Meet On The Ledge: The Classic Years (1967-1975)]

Deeply back-cross-mixed influences. Syncretism upon and within syncretism.

On The Radio - Donna Summer [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

February 21, 2012
Banned Sectional 2 KEENWM - (May 1985, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Meyer)

A fragment of the highly technical interface

In 1984 I bought a used Wurlitzer Funmaker Sprite in Greenwood for $200. What sold it for me was that you could play all the push-button rhythms at once, and slow them way way down. Here the effect of the mechanical rhythms is not to set a tempo but to delineate exactly in what wise there is no such thing. The other beauty of the Sprite much on display here is that  not a single sound that can be made on it is in good taste. It is all and throughout rich cheap crudiness. We got a lot of use out of it, and its wonders are amply documented. Currently it is being slowly reborn into an entirely new device.






 Dear 23 - The Posies

The ironic '80s counterpart to the psychedelic '60s sincerity.

In Session at The Tintinabulary

February 20, 2012
Gradus 206 - Neal Meyer

Just Like That

Playlist

Recorded


February 12, 2012
Jerome Kern Tribute - UPS Women's Chorus (1985), Sylvia Munsen
Banned Rehearsal 233 (September 1990 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt)

February 16, 2012
Hanonew - Amy Denio & Petunia

For those who did not come up through the vernacular, or who listen as though they had not come up through the vernacular, the gestures that are merely neutral to those who did, pop out. This music is both completely stable and ready to slide off into a heap on the floor, like a pile of books on a graduate student's coffee table.

Gradus 79 - Neal Meyer
Banned Rehearsal 775 - (June 2010 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Meyer)

A lovely session - the link is to the sound on soundcloud. Navigating the balance of sounding like music but not going like music.

In Session at The Tintinabulary

February 13, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 807 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer

In light of the recently completed Seattle Improvised Music Festival, which I heard and enjoyed a little of, and also of the many thought-provoking essays in Wally Shoup's Adventures in Music, I have been thinking of the claims made for improvisation as an activity, and of the social aesthetics that often adhere to its practice. No conclusions of course - How could there be? - but a question I find in a talk given by Warren Burt at Bard back in 1984, as reported in News of Music, [February 1984] "Can one ask one's own language to remove itself in its own terms?"

Fabulous logo by Nelson Bragg. The more I dig it the more I dig it.