Tony Gerber » Theatre Intangible

Wedgewood-Houston Tonight: Auroric Dreams w/ Josh Gumelia, Craig Schenker’s Last Hurrah in Nashville 08-25-2013

Aug 252013

There are two great events happening in the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood tonight, and as the scheduling gods have ordained, you should be able to catch (at least most of) both.

The first happens from 7pm to 9:30pm at the Notable Blends coffeehouse inside Houston Station. Tony Gerber and Bryan Burnett‘s space music project Auroric Dreams will perform to the live OpenGL visuals of artist Josh Gumiela.

From the Facebook event page:

Back together for a second live concert for the Nashville audience, Auroric Dreams will be performing live space music during the astronomical event, Neptune’s Opposition 2013 at the enchanting and intimate venue of Noteable Blends. Join us for a cosmic evening of music from Tony Gerber and Bryan Burnett and original motion graphic projections by video and sound installation artist, Josh Gumiela.

At Noa Noa house from 8:30pm to 12am, saxophonist Craig Schenker will perform his final Nashville show before moving to New York. Craig is one of the hardest working musicians in Nashville, having played with Square People, Lyrebird, Four Sided Circle, Arclyte, Afton Wolfe, Lylas, Cenobium, and more. He’s been on a whopping 17 Theatre Intangible episodes, and that doesn’t include several that are waiting to be published, including a Lyrebird artist showcase.

At his farewell show, Craig will conduct extemporaneous assemblies of past collaborators. The Facebook event page says Craig will,

curate the evening alternating pre-determined group/acts with spontaneous improvisational duos and trios chosen the night of the show.

Confirmed performers include:

If you know Craig or are a fan of his music, don’t miss this intimate final show. While there is a bit of an overlap between the two Wedgewood-Houston events, I’m guessing you’ll miss no more than 30 minutes of the latter if you decide to attend the former.

Auroric Dreams w/ visuals by Josh Gumiela
Sunday, August 25th, 7pm-9:30pm, $10

@ Notable Blends (inside Houston Station)
434 Houston Street
Nashville, Tennessee 3720

Craig Schenker’s Last Nashville Hurrah
Sunday, August 25th, 8:30pm-12am, free

@Noa Noa (house)
620 Hamilton Avenue
Nashville, TN 37203

This Weekend in Shows: Greg Bryant, Paul Horton, Gerber & Gerber, Textbook Punk & More

Concerts No Responses »

May 302013

Greg Bryant

There are several great shows happening this weekend, including at least three featuring Theatre Intangible participants.

Joe Nolan says June’s First Saturday Downtown Art Crawl will be one of the biggest of the year, and I have no reason to doubt him. A highlight for music fans will be T.I. participant Joe “Jocephus Brody” Hudson’s new monthly music series at The Space Gallery. The first installment will be Textbook Punk (T.I. participant Chris Murray of Square People). This all goes down Saturday night from 6pm to 9pm at the Downtown Arcade.

On Sunday, you have a tough choice: Space music or free improv. There’s Gerber & Gerber w/ Torben Asp at Notable Blends at 5pm or The Greg Bryant Expansion feat. Paul Horton, James DaSilva, Giovanni Rodriguez and Josh Hunt at Nine48Jazz at 6pm. The Gerber brothers, Greg Bryant and Paul Horton have all appeared on T.I. in the past.

Notable Blends is the private coffee club of the Davis brothers (of Davis Cookware in Hillsboro Village). Todd and Tony Gerber blew minds at the Tim Kaiser Brick Factory show last year. Torben Asp is a space musician from Denmark who will be in town for this very special show. Dr. Michael O’Bannon from Atlanta will be doing the video projections. Plus, FREE coffee! Sunday, June 2nd, 5pm, Notable Blends, 434 Houston Street, Nashville, Tennessee 37203.

Nine48Jazz is one of Nashville’s most intimate jazz clubs. The Greg Bryant Expansion performance will be the LAST performance in their current space. Soon after, Nine48Jazz will be moving to a new location on Rosa Parks Blvd. Expect really amazing free improv music. More info on the Facebook event page. Sunday, June 2nd, 6pm, Nine48Jazz, 948 35th Av. North, Nashville, Tennessee 37209.

Greg has a great podcast called JazzWatch, featuring interviews with jazz greats. Check it out here.

Gerber & Gerber appeared on this T.I. episode. Greg Bryant and Paul Horton appeared on this one. Chris Murray, this one.

Space Music at The Stone Fox: Auroric Dreams (Tony Gerber and Bryan Burnett), DJ James Cathcart, Josh Gumiela on visuals, Wednesday, March 13th

Concerts No Responses »

Mar 052013

On Wednesday, March 13th at The Stone Fox, space music legend Tony Gerber joins forces with electronic music’s next generation Noize Index (aka Bryan Burnett) in their new band Auroric Dreams. The show also features DJ James Cathcart spinning “spacy minimal synth to freaked out earthy commune jams” and Circuit Benders’ Ball alum Josh Gumiela projecting trippy OpenGL visuals. James recently teamed up with Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre for a monthly experimental film series called The Light and Sound Machine. Josh just unveiled his newest art installation (which involves water dropping into an old metal pan in increasing frequency) at Boheme Collectif’s Future Night. He hopes to have the installation up again at another venue soon.

In addition to all of that, this concert is a big deal to me because of Tony Gerber’s massive contributions to the Nashville music scene. Many are unaware of Nashville’s ties to the development of space music, the genre of ambient experimental music popularized by the Hearts of Space public radio show. Vanderbilt Department of Fine Arts faculty member Don Evans began the Vanderbilt Media Experimentation Center in 1969 and fostered a spirit of exploration and rule-breaking in the many students who took his video art, multimedia, photography, and computer graphics courses.

Tony Gerber moved to Nashville from Northern Indiana in the early 80s and developed a friendship with Don. In a 1999 interview with Aural Innovations, Tony said:

I had also started collaborating with Don Evan’s at Vanderbilt University in the early 80s. Don is well known for his multimedia work in the 60s and continues to this day. He has a huge collection of esoteric electronic music recordings and is a great supporter of electronic music. He had been using eMusic composers with his performances since the 60s and it was a natural for me to start working with him. Thus I was introduced to multimedia performance in conjunction with eMusic.

Tony formed Space for Music, a Hearts of Space listening group that eventually evolved into a radio show, music festival, and label. The listening group helped foment Nashville’s space music community, with notable members including Jack Tamul, Gil Trythall, William Linton, Robin Crow, Allen Green, and Giles Reaves, whose 1986 album Wunjo made Electronic Musician magazine’s list of top electronic albums of all time. In 1996, Tony formed the influential space music group Spacecraft with Lexington, Kentucky’s John Rose (later adding Diane Timmons).

Tony continues to innovate. As his avatar Cypress Rosewood, he hosts a weekly Ambient Sunday concert on the virtual realty world Second Life. Tony and his brother Todd talk about their musical accomplishments and the Nashville music community on episode 90 of Theatre Intangible.

The Facebook event page states Auroric Dreams is “an electro-acoustic music duo group with members Bryan Burnett of Noize Index and veteran live space music performer Tony Gerber. Instruments include synthesizers, guitars, EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument), native flutes, computers, ipads, iphones and vocals.”

I’m incredibly excited for this show, and I hope to see you there!

Auroric Dreams
DJ James Cathcart
Josh Gumiela (OpenGL visuals)

@ The Stone Fox
Wednesday, March 13th, 9pm, $5
712 51st Ave N, Nashville, TN 37209

E090 Tony Gerber and Todd Gerber Artist Showcase 2012-08-15

All Podcasts, Artist Showcases, Brick Factory, Free Downloads, Post-WRVU Era, Todd Gerber, Tony Gerber No Responses »

Aug 152012

Gerber & Gerber live at Brick Factory Nashville

Today on the podcast, I interview brothers Tony and Todd Gerber. Tony and Todd have been making music together and separate since they were ages 9 and 3, first in Northern Indiana where they grew up, and later in Nashville, TN.

Tony Gerber wears many hats, including visual artist, virtual reality homesteader, and record label founder; but it’s his contribution to electronic, ambient, and space music that put him on the map. As a solo artist, with his band Spacecraft, and in dozens of other projects, Tony’s music has been featured in movie soundtracks, planetarium shows, and on the NPR program “Hearts of Space.” His alter ego and avatar Cypress Rosewood performs concerts in the virtual reality world of Second Life.

In 1992, Todd Gerber helped establish the Casio SK-1 keyboard as a valid musical instrument in his band UMLAUT with Troy Sharp, long before the instrument achieved cult-cool status. Soon after, he co-founded the bands drrdrr and Dinah Shore, Jr., and with the latter he performed on bills with Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Trey Gunn, The Amazing Delores, and Trans Am.

On May 7th 2012 at Brick Factory Nashville, Tony and Todd performed together for the first time in 9 years as the new project Gerber & Gerber. We play a clip of that performance on this showcase. You can download the full performance for FREE right here: Gerber & Gerber live at Brick Factory Nashville, May 7th, 2012. (Left click to stream, right click to save.)

Here is the full listing of the songs we play on this episode. (Ordered by band, album, title.) 1. Spacecraft, Hummel, Galileo. 2. Umlaut, SK-1 Works 1989-1994, Untitled. 3. Spacecraft, Spacecraft, Transmission. 4. Port of Saints, Falling Shadows. 5. Todd Gerber, Ponder Solo Work, Love’s Philosophy. 6. Gerber & Gerber, Live at Brick Factory Nashville. 7. Cypress Rosewood, Isle of Wyrms, Weightless in Flight.

Todd and Tony will be playing as Gerber & Gerber Friday, August 17th at the Midwest Electro-Music Experience in Indianapolis, Indiana. Tony will also play the festival Saturday, August 18th with Paul Vnuk, Jr.

Todd is performing in Nashville on a bill with tape loop master Jason Lescalleet, Saturday, August 25th at Brick Factory Nashville.

Tony and Todd have been at the heart of the Nashville experimental and electronic music scenes since the late 1980s. I’m incredibly excited to have them on the show!

On the episode, we discuss TonyGerber.com, Spacecraft, Cypress Rosewood’s YouTube channel, Dinah Shore Jr., Space for Music, the Casio SK-1, Tim Kaiser, City Skies Festival, Umlaut, Masterfonics, Brick Factory Nashville, Kirby Shelstad, Mary Mancini, Lucy’s Record Shop, Sudekum Planetarium, The Nashville Intelligence Report, Suburban Baroque, Don Evans, Gil Trythall, Moog Music, Giles Reaves, William Linton, Johnny Blackburn, John Rose, Diane Timmons, Rob Mitchell, Stephen Anderson, Matt Swanson, Hummel Planetarium, Nashville Parthenon, Second Life.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:16:40 — 175.6MB)

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