Playlist

Live

September 14, 2012

Back Burner
The Gypsy Trader Cafe, Seattle

I have sat in the tenor section of our church choir with Dave Campbell, the banjo/bass player and occasional vocalist with Back Burner, for more years than I care to acknowledge. His bluegrass/swing outfit doesn't get into town very often, but it is always a pleasure when they do. What struck me most on this lovely evening, the big doors open to a quietly humming Stone Way North, was how well balanced the blue-grass string band is as an ensemble. Guitar, dobro, upright bass, mandolin, banjo, and fiddle - or nearly any subset thereof - forms a mixed choir capable of remarkable subtleness and astonishing supplety. The prevailing performance practice valorizes the collective mix, rather than the strutting soloismus of many another popular idiom. The pleasure is in the playing with, and in the sharing with.

Recorded

September 11, 2012

Righteous

Righteous Blues - Blind Blake [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Kalvierstück VIII - Stockhausen - Kontarsky

Crystal sparks: each note from a different cognitive plane, only gradually, and partially, coalescing.

Free Jazz (excerpt) - Ornette Colman [from The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz]

From this distance in time, after free jazz has developed itself for decades, it is hard to recognize this as much more than some really great players barely managing to poke their toes into the pool.


Nowhere to Run - Martha and the Vandellas [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Nail Soup - Benjamin Boretz, Doug Henderson [from Inter/Play]

Trying to keep it heaped. Knocking it together.

September 12, 2012
Three Chapters from the Book of Dreams - Richard Boulanger

String sound (live violin?) with heavy reverb & electrosound finds a trajectory moving from ordinary music, or like ordinary music, to space-age. It is finally taken up into the hold. B'bye!

Banned Rehearsal 241 (December 1990, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt)

September 13, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 586 (October 2000, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt)

In Session at The Tintinabulary

September 10, 2012
Assembly Rechoired 54 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy

Assembly Rechoired is any improvisation made by Karen and me that doesn't also involve one of the other founding members of Banned Rehearsal. A sizeable number of the sessions were made in the late 80's when we were left holding down the fort in Seattle while Neal & Anna started their family in San Diego and Aaron was at school in Berkeley.

Upcoming

Thursday October 4, 2012
Your Mother Should Know at Blue Moon, Seattle

Saturday October 20, 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

September 1, 2012

Sidewinder

Sidewinder

 

- University Heights Farmer's Market, Seattle James DeJoie: Reeds/flute, Jim Knodle: Trumpet, Everett Sarono: Guitar, Ryan Berg: Bass, Dylan Savage: Drums
On a perfect Saturday afternoon we sat on the grass in the shade sharing excellent El Salvadoran Pupusas and enjoyed this fine local souljazz outfit. I believe this is the first time I have heard an instrumental cover of the Lennon/McCartney song The Word, a song so precisely of its era that it sounded dated within a week. And yet, turned just a bit to the side and it became a Chicago-pop nod to Miles Davis. It got a bit warm for us, so we took a bus downtown to catch the last day of a gallery show only to find the door locked. So instead we stopped in at SAM to see the exhibit of Australian Aboriginal art. If you missed it, like we almost did, you missed the loudest music ever seen on Seattle walls. Ear purge jacked in through the eyes.

September 4, 2012
Empty Words/Indeterminacy - Jack Straw Studios, Seattle
Celebrating the One Hundredth Birthday of John Cage
in order of appearance: Stuart Dempster, Neal Meyer, Roger Nelson, William O. Smith, Doug Haire

This show ran from noon to midnight, and included performances of Solo for Sliding Trombone, Empty Words, Indeterminacy, Sonata for Clarinet, Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegans Wake IV, and In a Landscape, all by John Cage, and Seattle Environmental Recording by Doug Haire. We were able to attend from just past 7 to just past 9, hearing some of Neal's intonation of Empty Words, some of Roger's readings from Indeterminacy, and also his performance of In A Landscape. I scribbled two and a half pages of notes, consisting for the most part of an unsuccessful attempt to figure out how or why emptying a word would be a good idea. For my part, emptying a word of meaning is the same as emptying out my responsibility from my utterance - as though emptying myself of ego would render me innocent. I'm not buying it.

For all that, the event was an heroic effort and I heartily thank all those involved for this presentation of some of Cage's thorniest expressive artifacts.

September 7, 2012
Seattle Composer's Salon - Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Matthew Briggs had the first presentation, but since I was up next I'm afraid my brain was not fully engaged. His piece opened with canned crickets, into which big bass-y piano sonorities were ladled, with slow violin and cello. At the end the drums played a slow beat, as though descending into prog rock out of a thick fog.

I performed Preludes 9 - 16, from my 24 Preludes for Piano. 

John's bass wagon

John Teske presented a short version of a long ensemble piece that will be performed whole in a few weeks. I was still post-occupied with my own performance (the real drawback to having a piece on the show) so I am eager to hear the whole thing with the full ensemble. It is interesting how, in working largely with textures and transformations of textures, this piece throws into relief an aspect of music that is otherwise often overlooked, and which is completely and pointedly absent here: any image of number and quantity. To steal a turn of phrase from J.K. Randall, it matters a great deal that counting things does not matter.

Recorded

September 3, 2012
Got The Farm Land Blues - The Carolina Tarheels [from Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music]
Klavierstück VII - Stockhausen - Kontarsky
Gloria - Jan Novak
New York's A Lonely Town - The Tradewinds [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
Alleuja Psallat - William Matthias
Sequence Symbols - James Dashow

An interesting disjuncture between the textural rhythm and the harmonic rhythm.

September 5, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 240 (December 1990, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt)

Lots of big.


September 6, 2012
Confessions of a Polyphonist - Keith Eisenbrey - Neal Meyer

Neal reads my textsound score.

Gradus 83 - Neal Meyer
YMSK Drums - Neal Meyer

An early thought about how to record a Your Mother Should Know song, all parts to be performed by Neal. I think it got as far as these 60+ minutes of drum tracks.

Upcoming

Thursday October 4, 2012
Your Mother Should Know at Blue Moon, Seattle

Saturday October 20, 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

August 28, 2012
Will You Love Me Tomorrow - Shirelles [from The Shirelles Anthology, Rhino Records]

J. K. Randall

Mystery Train - Elvis Presley [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]
Kiddierama - J. K. Randall, Linda Smukler [from Inter/Play]

sfloppydrum, tightdrum, thuddrum, twangngngngng

August 29, 2012
Roger Sessions: In Memoriam - William O. Smith

W.O. Smith

Huge hangtime allows a natural pseudo tape delay effect. Nobody makes the extended clarinet sound as poetic as W.O.S.









Over The Rise - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]
Confessions of a Polyphonist KEE - Keith Eisenbrey

Mad Trio - Mad Trio (Alan Lechusza, Carolyn Lechusza, Mark Weaver)

An earthquake turned sideways. As though attempting to conjure a Machaut motet as an exercise in free jazz.

Banned Rehearsal 777 (July 2010, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Meyer)

A study in the liquidity of steady states.

In Session at The Tintinabulary

August 27, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 820 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt

For the most part each sticking to a single station, if not a single instrument: Karen on drums, me on guitar/piano/percussion at hand, Aaron on trumpet.

Upcoming

Thursday October 4, 2012
Your Mother Should Know at Blue Moon, Seattle

Saturday October 20, 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

August 16, 2012
Turandot - Puccini
Seattle Opera - McCaw Hall, Seattle

Claudio Arrau

I know it's a fairy tale, but I can't help wondering about the morning after, when the confederated armies of the kings whose sons had been cruelly slain attack the city and slaughter all, including the happy couple. The set was colorful and brave, especially since all those hoops could be mistaken for all sorts of things: cheerios, pineapple slices, or even (given the configuration) a certain common household plumbing fixture, complete with a gong where the handle would be. The music was performed fabulously. I just have a hard time taking the enterprise seriously.

Recorded

August 21, 2012
Fantasie-Impromptu Op. 66 - Chopin - Arrau

Polychronality.

Hal Kemp

Them There Eyes - Hal Kemp [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Klavierstück VI - Stockhausen - Kontarsky

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Plates of stone stacked: imaged in terms of the relative persistence of pitch classes in registral space. The pacing of texture to texture gives it the affectual characteristics of a classical theme & variations.


Upcoming

Thursday October 4, 2012
Your Mother Should Know at Blue Moon, Seattle

Saturday October 20, 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

August 11, 2012

Neal Meyer - the memorizist

Writing For The Second Time Through Finnegans Wake - John Cage

Neal Meyer, voice; Jake Thompson, sound design
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Theater, poetry, hilarity, darkness, terror. Not only soggy with the greater, outer, sound-world, but also the time-theater of performance is interpermeate with the time-theater of solar-terrestrial interaction. Cosmic to the gut. Gesamtkunstwerk for real.

Recorded

August 12, 2012
Somebody Stole My Gal - Frankie Franko [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Klavierstück V - Stockhausen - Kontarsky

Every gesture pulls back. It would be interesting to re-listen to this in terms of just how far and in what way each gesture pulls back.

Boys - Shirelles [from The Shirelles Anthology, Rhino Records]

To the adolescent, the other is a commodity.

My Girl - The Temptations [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

To the adult, the other is a person.

Lenox - Tickanetley Primitive Baptist Church [from Art Rosenbaum's The Art of Field Recording volume 1]
Banned Rehearsal 31 (May 1985 - Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer)
When The Lights Go Out - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

Advice from the next bar stool.

Banned Rehearsal 585 (September 2000 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer)

A short session, delicate with bells and drums.

August 14, 2012
Beware Of The Fox (album) - Antique Scream

Every inch a studio-sound album with fairly strong song-writing and detailed arrangements. It partakes of a wide range aural depth, from full bodied rock & roll to heard over a tinny radio acoustic demo. The vocal lines throughout seem to harp on a just-off-key lower neighbor note about which I was undecided as to whether it was a compositional trope that worked or a modest annoyance. I couldn't help thinking it sounded like as if Pink Floyd had sprung forth in late '90s Seattle, instead of late '60s London. The final, 13+ minute cut contains, in its center, a long long stretch of digital silence - a good 7 minutes at least. A gimmick to be sure, but kind of stunning in a way.

August 15-16, 2012
Wet With Sweat (album) - Antique Scream

 A few years later and up to some of the same shenanigans studio-wise. But the vocalist has expanded his repertoire, occasionally exuding a bit of Bowie from his Tin Machine days. The songs have also branched out a little, showing a psychedelic side of neo-vaudeville. These are both smart, capable albums, nicely arranged to be listenable as a thing. Neither is necessarily an obvious Concept Album, but they take from that ilk a sense of how songs can fit together, and a freedom to take all the time necessary.

In Session at The Tintinabulary

August 13, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 819 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer


Warm day, so we played on the porch crepuscular.


Upcoming

Saturday October 20, 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

August 9, 2012
Andrew James Robison, Your Mother Should Know, The Ancients, Tyrannosaurus Grace
Rat and Raven, Seattle

Andrew played a solo set, mixing original songs with creditable covers of Springsteen, The Replacements, and others, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. His voice hovers in the upper region of baritone, tempering an americana yawp with a smooth slipcover of headvoice. The original material is lyrically dense, like Springsteen or Dylan, though not heavyhanded or uncomfortably maudlin. His stage presence is a familiar Seattle trope: just one of y'all, but completely confident to be on stage singing. He was joined in the last song by Neal Meyer, of YMSK.

Your Mother Should Know at the Comet

Anyone following this blog is aware that Your Mother Should Know consists of my long-time collaborator Neal Meyer on vocals & guitar, and my lovely spouse Karen, Neal's sister, on drums & occasional vocal. They played a slightly curtailed version of the set from their last gig, which was at the Comet on July 29th. Being involved with the band, I will forbear from public commentary other than to say their garage punk style was a good contrast with the other bands on the bill.

The Ancients

The Ancients is a five-piece band from Ellensburg playing some sub-genre or other of Heavy Metal. The singer has all his stagy compulsories down pat: hammily conducting the band with biceps and pecs and arms aloft in glory triumphant. They'd fit right in with Spinal Tap or with Jack Black in School of Rock, and it didn't seem the humor of it all was lost on them at all. Unfortunately I kept flashing on Leonard Bernstein at his most egregious, giving the whole affair a patina of icky horror. Nevertheless, their sound was capable and tight, well worth a listen if not (for some of us) a look.

After a quick switch of an awful lot of equipment another Ellensburg hailing five-piece, Tyrannosaurus Grace, brought in a lively set with an attractive variety of vocal sound. The drummer, playing on a nicely tuned Gretsch set, mugs a goofy grin that brought to mind The Young Fresh Fellows. Two singers, a male and a female, trade off the lead spot and sing harmony. X meets Betty Boop meets Ramones. Lots of fun and energy, and no slouches on their instruments either.

Recorded

August 7, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 584 (September 2000, Isaac Eisenbrey, John Eisenbrey, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Jay Loucks, Neal Meyer)

Opening with a nearly trite gesture we are invited to be discomfited. We settle in a pit and slowly rise out, like a vapor, co-opting higher spheres with tactics of permeation.

August 8, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 687 (August 2005, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Meyer)
BF Vocals & Tongue Drum/Tub Drum/Twang/Wood Drum Choruses - Keith Eisenbrey

Upcoming

Saturday October 20, 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

Karen at The Comet Tavern

Your Mother Should Know
with Andrew James Robison and Tyrranosaurus Grace and possibly more!
at Rat and Raven, 5260 University Way Northeast, Seattle
Thursday August 9, 2012 doors open at 8

Live

July 28, 2012
John Teske, Neil Welch, and Natalie Hall
In a grove of red alder by a little creek in Ravenna Park, Seattle

Walking down 20th Avenue Northeast toward Ravenna Park we overheard a live band at a house party doing a more than passable cover of Walk, Don't Run (I think) by the venerable local band The Ventures. A good omen. Descending 50 feet below the urban surface into the cool of a wooded ravine didn't so much leave the noise of the world behind as left it hanging, always present but vertically removed. The burbling creek provided the fourth for a quartet with bass, cello, and sax, improvising in the shady dusk. We sat on logs. Very friendly!

July 29, 2012
Peterman, The Belmont Whips, Charms, Your Mother Should Know
Comet Tavern, Seattle

Neal at The Comet Tavern

Quite a nice night at the Comet with the windows propped open to the heart and heat of urban Seattle. I was sitting toward the back until YMSK came on, but I think the first three bands were all three piece outfits. Peterman was playing their very first show, so they had a short but fabulous set distinguished by a contrasting pair of vocal styles: one shred and raw, the other sung and lyric. The Belmont Whips were playing a deep rhythmic game that had me puzzled for their first two songs, flat square and almost bland, but in the third song and thereafter colliding recklessly in the closest thing I've heard in a live rock show to poly-temporal punk. All that and a couple of wicked covers: Ramones and Replacements, if memory serves. Charms was a personable group of kids, eminently enjoyable, but relying too much (to my ear) on a particular effect plug-in on the vocal (a long delay or echo, I think). My advice, for what it's worth: mix it up, go ahead and sing straight now and then, or even mostly. Being married to the drummer I'm too close to Your Mother Should Know to comment, but I was proud of both Neal and Karen. I'm starting to get less nervous about a major disaster (my problem, not theirs), and Neal's song-writing is getting stronger and stronger.

August 3, 2012
Mark Paschen
Corner of 4th & Pearl, Ellensburg

The reason this blog is a day late is because K & I took the weekend off for a wine-run to the Rattlesnake Hills. We got as far as E-burg Friday night and had a fabulous dinner at The Valley Cafe, which, by the by, I would recommend to anyone anytime. If you can't make it for dinner it's worth the two hour drive just to have lunch. Best grilled cheese sandwich on the planet - no lie. After dinner we thought we'd wander around to see if we could find a club with some live music. Instead, a block away, we heard a busker, sitting on a trashcancover, playing his heart out to nobody at all. Up for anything and enjoying the rare stillness (Ellensburg is notoriously windy) of the evening, we leaned up against a lamppost and listened. After introductions, Mark played us some of his own songs and some covers of old stuff (the Ink Spots!). He plays a lovely Fender acoustic, with a story to go with it, a kazoo where the harmonica would be, and subtly heels a backbeat on the trashcancover. All that and his dog (Charlotte) has got her own busker routine, begging for by-stoppers to toss her rubberducky in the air for athletic twisty catches. I'm not often overly impressed by buskers, but coming across Mark had a time-travelly hit about it. Even his original songs have a depression era feel to them, with completely believable tropes of freight trains and go-it-alone independence. Mark: I hope you catch this post. If you're ever in Seattle I would love to record some of your original songs. Keep in touch!

 Recorded

July 31, 2012
That Too, Do - Bennie Moten [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Autumn Leaves - Art Pepper [from The Way It Was]
Mr. Tambourine Man - The Byrds [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Even without the actual tambourine track, the drum track manages to evoke the image of tambourineness. This is a more interesting performance than I gave it credit for at first.

An Address To All - Tickanetley Primitive Baptist Church [from Art Rosenbaum's The Art of Field Recording volume 1]

PBC singing always, always, stops me cold. Much like late Beethoven, it's difficult to think of anything else in its aftermath. Grand. Strange. Seering.

August 1, 2012
Banned Couple 7

August 2, 2012
My Lover Man - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

In Session at the Tintinabulary

August 2, 2012
Your Mother Should Know
I Don't Know - Neal lays down a demo of a new song.

Upcoming

Thursday August 9, 2012 Confirmed!!
Your Mother Should Know
Rat And Raven, Seattle, 8:00PM

Saturday October 20, 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