Playlist

Live

March 24, 2018
Études d'exécution imminent (as it stands)


Recent Solo Piano Compositions by Keith Eisenbrey

March 24, 2018, 8pm
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

10. Corollaries (Up's Up)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

11. Ghosting Doubles (first sighting) (after Amy Denio)

10. Corollaries (Down's Down)

9. Second Thoughts
                Aa
             Ba Bb
          Ca Cb Cc
       Da Db Dc Dd
    Ea Eb Ec Ed Ee
 Fa Fb Fc Fd Fe Ff

11. Ghosting Doubles (second sighting) (after Amy Denio)

10. Corollaries (Down's Up)

9. Second Thoughts
 Gb Gc Gd Ge Gf
 Hc Hd He Hf
 Id Ie If
 Je Jf
 Kf

11. Ghosting Doubles (third sighting) (after Amy Denio)

10. Corollaries (Up's Down)

"Ghosting" is composed by Amy Denio, © Spoot Music, ASCAP, and is used by the kind permission of the composer.

Recorded

March 25, 2018
Outlaw Drag - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

scholars of the sound the Puget Sound sound
reverb just so - check!
Hammond B3 - check!
all done up in 90's sound drag
an original instrument craze outside of ancient music fandom

Malevolent - Chris DeLaurenti [from Sonicabal 2001]

invisible thread narrative

Oboe di Morte - Brad Anderson [from Dark Energy - Interstellar Pianos]

the uninflected plainness of the oboe tune not unsubtly played but subtly laid out flat
behind it a roar not unlike wind noise
whatever it is it is coming nearer
how many oboes are there!! AAIEEEEEEEE!!!!

Assembly Rechoired 53 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey [April 2011]

Rejiggerment after removal of the Mighty Wurgelitzer (sic)
drums first start with the throne
vacuum made of motor
quietly in the background a lovely capture of airplane
air in tube
engines winding their sounds around each other
or the differential arrival and warp through air mass the echo field
arrayed a raid
setting up the electric keyboard stand
plug it in
makes noise!
an assembly required assembly rechoired

High Goodbye - Strange Like Us [from Strange Peeps]

art school rock, but in the best possible way
in that the vocals are never straight sung but used to cause a mic effect
to cause a certain sound

The Second Grownde - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

O the joy of figuration!
a pleasurable hand twiddly activity
a pleasurable texture in the earbrain
as though fingers touched with tunes dance playfully
love the little cadenza tag

Brotherly Love - Elgar's Creole Orchestra [from Alan Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

slapstick soundtrack showtune

Please Please Please - James Brown [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

invested in every repetition
low in his blues town register

Waltz for Debby (take 2) - Bill Evans Trio [from Waltz for Debby]

laid back for where it gets to

(I Know) I'm Losing You - The Temptations [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Othello post Iago
studio fade quick out

April 3, 2018
Unlabeled Track 7 - Tillicum Junior High School Band - Bob Runyan [from my mom's tape archive]

more jazz band - what is it about the transfer trajectory that so booms the bass?

Jamboree - Walt Wagner [from Caprice]

fast playing to no end at all

Adult Books - X [from Wild Gift]

X as Talking Heads if Talking Heads were X

April 5, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 73 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer, Wally Shoup [April 1986]

It has been a full couple of weeks in our family, which is why I missed blogging last Saturday. I got through 20 minutes of the wrong cut before I realized my error.

start over this time with Wally
history lesson
silent
announcer voice
as though the face of what is announced is in a universe with the what of what is announced

lumpy and clogged
exploring what does not flow
musicology of stagnation

mirror battle
insectoid exoskeletal
hive-y drone
seething mass
no let up
forever scribbling sound
until it does
respite

a brief cliché

discourse on polypulse

this was elsewhere
the ice storm the night Wally Shoup was in Barrytown
forgotten factoid recalled!

caw caw caw caw caw
where it goes after energy dissipates
loose mooring loose moorals

use fresh water
bring to a furious boil

Whirlpool - The Young Fresh Fellows [from Electric Bird Digest]

of whom?
friend done gone lost?
outside inside

(a solid grown-up song, if you're interested in my opinion)

In Session at the Tintinabulary

March 26, 2018
Banned Rehearsal 955 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Neal Kosály-Meyer

Playlist

Recorded

January 20, 2018
Haywire! - The Boss Martians [from 13 Evil Tales]

Just like The Ventures, but with added Wailers ultra-fat B3 organ sound.

Banned Rehearsal 624 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Isabel K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [November 2001]

ringy metal sound catalyzes

loopy background hockets
(K's Vistalites sound great)
counterpoint for chimney solo
even with all the noise the trombone made me jump

sneeze patent pending

this is an instrument and I am playing it as though it were true

feedback is a structural component of these melodies
like a game with ground or pedaltone
hide and seek
dramatic focus
instant sympathy

comings and goings
who is here now?

we do not know how the room will tune the mix
play what is wonderful in any mix
that's how to get that Banned Rehearsal sound
simple

are we at the edge yet?

Erie Canal - Bruce Springsteen [from The Seeger Sessions]

gets to a big rousing chorus because everybody loves to sing this

Banned Rehearsal 789 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [April 2011]

a very tiny drum roll is the basis for all aspects of this
percussion ensemble develops as a dissipation

bundle tightly bound by the weak magnetical-sonical-gravital force

gets weird

fluctuates real quiet-like

wide open uncompressed space

finally the fife

melody a game like chase
to follow

get out of the way of the really small

A Song for Firefighters - Denise Glover [from Pathways]

How does one treat of the personal sublime? Perhaps this.

January 22, 2018
The Eighte Pavian - William Byrd - Elizabeth Farr [from My Ladye Nevells Booke]

Long, elegantly long, elegantly long negotiated phrases with literal, flat-line, by the book, phrase end markers, as custom dictates, fits or not. Ta. Da.

The more central to the structure of the whole they are, the more plainly they are made. Clarity the watchword.

Christians Fight On Your Time Ain't Long - Sam Butler [from Alan Lowe's Really The Blues]

steel on guitar spring-loads the song
winds up tight
squeezes

ready to bust out

Washington Talkin' Blues - Woody Guthrie [from Columbia River Collection]

"Lotsa good rain"

"Ain' no money changin' hands / just people changin' places".

(hard times)

Love's Old Sweet Song - The Voices of Walter Schumann [a Rescued Record]

Back in the way-back-when, when soft-jazz was blatantly advertised as seduction's soundtrack. Would you like to come up and see my etchings?

Mama Said - The Shirelles [from The Shirelles Anthology]

The first line turns around on itself every time, all wrapped up grammatically. This allows the verses to tell their stories. A well-played Chuck Berry trick.

Love Me - Billy Stewart [from The Best of Billy Stewart]

Recording contracts, labels, the star system: how the economics of the recording industry and the economies of touring musicians collided mid-century. No wonder the business is in such a mess.

Concertina - Weber - Tillicum Jr. High School Band, Bob Runyan, Paul Eisenbrey [from my mom's private tape]

How operatic! When that tutti comes in it by god COMES IN!

Walk Along The Heavenly Road / I Am A Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow - The Phillips Wonders [from The Art of Field Recording Vol. 1]

lean in to that portamento half step slide
so we know where we are
and a fussing baby in the back
music as what we are about when we are about doing what we do

Unnamed Track 3 - The Empire Brass Quintet [from American Brass Band Journal Revisited]

This one sounds vaguely Straussian (JS not RS). Trumpet imitates a violinish cross-string arpeggio.

Banned Rehearsal 70 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Neal Kosály-Meyer [March 1986]

three treatises
fallback position: parallel play planned and strayed from
the Oboe Roi makes its appearance blatant as blatant could be
throbbing heater throb
quiet quacker
squeaking the furniture

toy piano: how presciently up to fashion!

long sung tones tongue shaping mouth to elicit partials for flute long tones to intermessaround with

coming down from a high sort of tape
intent on hanging out near the floor

continues to be about exact intonation (yes I really mean that)

we play, Neal and I, the kazoos of eternal eloquence
Karen keeps us free of ground on ukulele string strung cat's cradle

we pause to readjust our positions and instruments

Anna sings a song with dulcimer appalachienne

we pause again to readjust and discuss

the clavichord when it was new and in the same room
soulful bass ocarina to ukulele choir
conversation among tempos

avante rhythm duel in dual microphony

speaks in the past pawntificate

big snake lumbers past

let the dead bury the || feedback has been summoned again || becomes magic

January 23, 2018

Hillbilly Drummer Girl - The Young Fresh Fellows [from Electric Bird Digest]

My wife has taken the name as an alter ego.
song: A character sketch with very little fat on it.

Banned Rehearsal 436 - Isaac E, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Kosály-Meyer [October 1996]

huge in your face not easy to fit in the alotted space box canyon then to deeper waters veggie choked

Karen with drummer girl grin - ca. 1996

rock slide panic mode twisted river cramped for space
industrialized
hardly lets up every few moments a new crazy enters tape
like a country slaughtered hog every part used e'en the oink
a heap of anything
acres of it
bits and scraps of old sounds and old agendas old activities crammed together shoved in clown car Tokyo subway no respite blot it blatt sax into cassette distortion far from easy listening commute music

and yet it is about sensibility, in the sense that an onslaught against all is a form of about-ness, of concerning itself with all

baby finally cries "enough!" or feed me more

we intone
to calm ourselves

In Session at the Tintinabulary

January 22, 2018
Gradus 326 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

fluctuates in the partials like flowing whale fins
ocean tempo
heavy fluidity of waters' resistance
shift of body's weight is shift in thought's weight

gesture in metaphor

in action

Playlist

Live

September 27, 2014

Dead Bars 
Kraken Bar and Lounge, Seattle

In mid-dues, like a marathon runner at mile 8, still having a blast but shedding inefficiencies, getting that look in their eyes, finding their groove for how to do this thing.

I'm sorry we couldn't stay for the other bands.

October 2, 2014
Broken Bow Ensemble
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

min - John Teske

The species of motion (contrary, similar, oblique) duly debunked. Method: moments are concatenated clouds, not reducible to individual pitch-qualia. Neural maps, mapped to orchestral complexes. About, though not constructed of, differentiation of voice, note, color, person.

October 3, 2014

Macefield Music Festival (day 1)

Boss Martians - KEXP Mainstage (parking lot of Hattie's Hat Restaurant)

We caught the last half of this set as they were playing a cover of Ricky Nelson's  Hello Mary Lou. I don't believe I heard enough of them to really get a bead on what they are, though first impressions are of a competent surf-rock cover band (with some original stuff?) riding a sound that hints of digging Crocodile Rock as much as I do.

The Sonics - KEXP Mainstage

By the time the old guys got on stage the sky was dark and a halfmoon hung high over the building next door. Their presence gave a sense of family reunion to the whole festival - the grandparents and their myriad progeny. They held tight to the strength of their signature rip-tide sound, from the opening "Hey hey hey hey hey Cinderella!" to the final "She's a witch!" Larry Parypa's guitar playing is as ferociously effective as ever, and Gerry Roslie, though occasionally forgetful of a line or two, still flips easily from warble to field shout. The voice of a 20 year-old from a mop of grey with granny glasses.

Inly - The Sunset Tavern

We got to the venue in time for their last song - an a capella duet. It was like arriving at a potluck too late for anything but a 1/4 piece of pie. We'll need to find them again sometime.

Star Anna - The Sunset Tavern

Star doesn't sing the blues. The blues inhabit Star, and she sings.

We were beat and I didn't want to think about anything else, so we went home.

Recorded

September 30, 2014
Concerto No. 2 - Bartok - BBC Symphony Orchestra, Colin Davis, Stephen Bishop

The mix is a bit piano-heavy, but the performance is invigoratingly reckless from all parties, entrances spilling over each other like greedy shoppers over a clearance rack.

Cancao do Marinheiro - Heitor Villa-Lobos - New York Chamber Symphony, Gerard Schwarz, Robert Bonfiglio

This is from a weird album of music for solo harmonica and orchestra by Villa-Lobos that was given to me at some point. Some of the song arrangements work better than others. This one is pretty fabulous, with high string tones messing around with the harmonica's upper partials.

Nague - Machito and his Afro Cubans [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]

Klangfarben-meter, prestissimo. Sixteen maximally differentiated moments within each fly-by-quick measure, always in perfect control.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

September 29, 2014
Banned Rehearsal 870 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt,  Neal Kosály-Meyer

Check it out.