Warning: Declaration of Suffusion_MM_Walker::start_el(&$output, $item, $depth, $args) should be compatible with Walker_Nav_Menu::start_el(&$output, $item, $depth = 0, $args = Array, $id = 0) in /home/theatr23/public_html/wp-content/themes/suffusion/library/suffusion-walkers.php on line 39

tonyyoungblood

Jun 062012
 

The Nashville Scene asked me to write a critic’s pick on this show. I’m allowed to quote myself, right?

Thanks to forward-thinking programming by the Nashville Symphony and the Blair School of Music, and the tireless efforts of people like Chris Davis, Leslie Keffer, Brady Sharp and David Maddox, Nashville is finally beginning to embrace avant-garde. If you enjoy expanding your musical horizons, consider free improvisation duo Thomas Lehn and John Butcher a trade-your-firstborn-to-attend event. They are two of the most important players in the European free improv scene. Lehn plays unearthly sounds out of an EMS Synthi A, a unique 1970s analog synthesizer that supplants the Moog-style patch bay for a matrix of Battleship-like resistor pegs. His sputtering, crackling, and at times combative timbres are just as unique as the instrument he plays, and a far cry from the soothing tones of ambient electronic music. If Evan Parker is the pioneer of extended saxophone technique, John Butcher is the lab scientist. Formerly a theoretical physicist, Butcher meticulously catalogs every sound he discovers on the sax — and I do mean every sound. Where most musical adventurers remain content mapping out the big spaces in the middle, Butcher charts every crack, crevice and blind alley. He’s famous for treating the room as an extension of the instrument (having recorded in caves, oil tanks and underground reservoirs), and you can be sure the amazing acoustics of the chapel at DPC will play a big part in both players’ performances. Mass at Dawn helmer Dylan Simon will open with a new work for analog synth based on the Sumerian myth of Inanna. He told me he aims to open a portal into the dream world by manipulating our everyday environment — equal parts opera, science experiment and mass hallucination.— Tony Youngblood

Couldn’t have said it better myself! More info on the Facebook event page.

Thomas Lehn and John Butcher w/Dylan Simon
Downtown Presbyterian Church
Thursday, June 7, 8 pm, all ages, $6-$10

May 302012
 

Microwave Windows

Keeping up the momentum, I present podcast 83: Hardon Collider and Microwave Windows Artist Showcase!

Experimental bands MICROWAVE WINDOWS, HARDON COLLIDER, MU, ASHOCHIOUS, and JEREMY BENNETT played Noa Noa in Nashville on Friday the 13th, April 2012. Last week, we release an interview with Mu’s Douglas Lucas and the Noa Noa sets from Mu and Ashochious. This episode features an interview with Hardon Collider’s Brendan Muccillo and Microwave Window’s Brandon Able as well as their Noa Noa sets. Soon, we’ll release the giant head of this audio Voltron: the live improv featuring all four bands!

We recorded the interview the day after the concert on my back porch. It’s all over the place in the best sense of the term. Brandon, Brendan, and I talk about their upcoming gigs at the Louisville Experimental Festival; ELECTRIC INERTIA; the experimental scenes in Cincinnati, San Francisco, Miami, and other places; the phobias of moving and not moving; JEREMY BENNETT; the soon-to-be-announced 2012 Circuit Benders’ Ball Nashville; father of circuit-bending REED GHAZALATHRIFTSORE BORATORIUM‘s geodesic sound dome; the 2011 FauxBeAnt Art Fair; and Brandon’s run in with police brutality. In the podcast, we mentioned Brandon Able lives in Lexington. Since the taping, Brandon has moved back to the East Coast.

Check out a few video clips of the Noa Noa performances below. The podcast player is at the very bottom of the article. Enjoy!

May 302012
 


Richland Ballroom is quickly becoming one of the best house venues in Nashville. If Glen Danzig’s House was the bastion of punk and garage rock and Noa Noa is the destination for weird, Richland Ballroom is well on the path to becoming the home of low-fi ambient minimalism. Consider the following lineup for Sunday, June 3rd.

We have San Francisco’s ALOONALUNA, Gainesville’s ROAMER X, and locals SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE and STEPHEN MOLYNEUX. Lynn Nguyen Fister is the main force behind Aloonaluna. Her songs are positively spectral, awash in synthesizers, field recordings, and lots of reverb. For a person so prolific (22 albums in 4 years), Frank Baugh’s Sparking Wide Pressure remarkably never repeats itself, and the luscious sound quality makes me hard pressed to ever call it lo-fi. Frank and Stephen are both a part of the Murfreesboro noise collective HORSEHAIR EVERYWHERE. Check them out on Theatre Intangible episode 73: Cuatro Ninos.

More info on the Facebook event page. See you at the show!

Sunday, June 3, 2012 @ 9:00pm
Richland Ballroom
4208 Murphy Rd. Nashville, TN

$5 for traveling artists, BYOB
Park at the Shell gas station on the corner or on Murphy Rd. Bikes & carpooling are encouraged.

May 242012
 

Mu live at Hive 13, Cincinnati, OH, 2011

After a not-so-brief hiatus, the TI podcast is back with Episode 82: Mu Artist Showcase!

MU is the experimental guitar-based project of Louisville, Kentucky resident DOUGLAS LUCAS. Douglas performed a very visceral set hunched over a modified guitar at Noa Noa on April 13th, 2012.

On the podcast, I talk with Douglas about making music, growing up in a small Kentucky town, and his annual event, the Louisville Experimental Festival, kicking off this year on June 27th. The fest is, as the Facebook page states, “an amalgamation of experimental music,” featuring local and national acts. It’s a major event and close enough for Nashvillians to check out. See below for a full lineup.

The podcast also features Mu’s live performance at Noa Noa, as well as the performance of Louisville tape-loop drone kings ASHOCHIOUS. See below for a video clip.

The April 13th show also featured MICROWAVE WINDOWS and HARDON COLLIDER, who I interviewed for an upcoming podcast. All four bands participated in an incredible live improv to be released soon.

Discussed in this episode: The Peeling Wallpaper Ensemble, The Japanese / American Noise Treaty compilation, Wet, John Cage’s 4’33”, and Mu’s new CD-R release “Meal.”

Louisville Experimental Festival 2012 Lineup and schedule:

Wednesday, June 27th @ Lisa’s Oak St. Lounge (1004 E Oak St.):
(Doors at 7:30pm, Show at 8pm)
Bone Crusher, Morgan Evans-Weiler, Developer, XAMBUCA, Cosmological Constant, NO Copper

Thursday, June 28th @ The Bard’s Town (1801 Bardstown Rd.):
(Doors at 7:30pm, Show at 8pm)
Adeptive Radiation, Bear (The Ghost), Solace Media Corporation, Thriftsore Boratorium, Microwave Windows, Mu

Friday, June 29th @ Haymarket Whiskey Bar (331 E Market St.):
(Doors at 7:30pm, Show at 8pm)
Parched Earth, Noiseman433, Talking Computron, Interstates (etc.), Zack Kouns, Ashochious, Hardon Collider, Joey Molinaro

Saturday, June 30th @ Zanzabar (2100 S Preston St.):
(Doors at 7:30pm, Show at 8pm)
Shedding, Sick City Four, Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel, Hearts of Palm, Tropical Trash

Sunday, July 1st @ Uncle Slayton’s (1017 E Broadway):
(Doors at 6:30, Show at 7pm)
R Keenan Lawler and Tim Barnes, Ut Gret, Ryan Jewell, Misha Feigin and Davey Williams, Black Kaspar, Kark

All shows: $5 suggested donation