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That was the week that was, the other week, that is

Wed, 09 May 2012 14:12:39 +0000

I'm still dazed from all of the awesomeness last week, beginning out of the La-Bas 'Concept of Performance' biennale in Helsinki, which ran from 25-29 April. I already posted about the DIS/Orientations workshop I co-led on Sunday, which was really the beginning of an unforgettable week - amazing people, brilliant performances, and a real feeling like we were trying some new ideas here.

After the workshop was a lovely post-festival comedown, all set on Harakka, where lots of the bizarre and wonderful people I had spent the week with enjoyed a sauna and campfire on the back of the island. Returning to Tallinn seemed impossible mentally as well as physically, but there was a pretty intense gauntlet of activities waiting here.

A few months ago, when I realised that a plethora of creative forces were aligning in Tallinn during the first week of May, I thought to organise a mini-festival around it all. I drafted up a plan for Unknown Feathers: A Festival of participation in the experimental arts before realising that I was starting to overdo it. I have such a tendency to expand things and overload what would be already a busy week; call it 'festival bloat' perhaps, but it's a real problem, and I didn't need to pack the week even more. As it was too late to seek any sort of financial assistance, I wisely shelved the idea of Unknown Feathers for a later date and just focused on making the already-scheduled events happen.

Dr. Felicity Ford arrived on Monday. She's going to MoKS for a month-long residency to investigate the "deep wool" connection in Estonia, which is supported by the British Council Estonia. We met up Monday night and showed her Slothrop's, and ended up recording an impromptu podcast - a bit of a departure from our regular efforts, without Binx present, but still a good deal of fun.

On Tuesday, Alexei Borisov and Patrick McGinley arrived. Alexei is a legend of experimental music in Russia, and we set up a concert at Kodu Baar that was originally intended to be the kick-off event of the non-festival. It still effectively was a kick-off to a week of greatness. Patrick, performing as his Murmer project, did a brilliant set that used the total space of Kodu in a way I haven't seen before, drawing the audience closer to engage with slowly unfolding resonant sounds. Patrick and Alexei collaborated briefly at the end, and it was a nice balance of energy and deep listening - perfect for a Tuesday night. Also on the bill was the Raw Synth Sound Lounge project, led by Hobilabor's Toomas Savi and Rene Rebane - a workshop on synth building that slowly turned into a band, the five participants experimented with homemade electronics and actually honored the "lounge" term in their name.

Thursday, daytime, was Felicity's Instant Clothes Museum workshop, which she's already detailed wonderfully on her own blog, so here's a link to it.

In the evening, my pet project on alternative currencies had it's first (and possibly last) manifestation in Tallinn. Though I previously thought alternate currencies were purely a Discordian pipe dream, Christian Nold's Bijlmer Euro project illustrated the full potential that such a project can have. I met Christian last year at Pixelache in Helsinki, where he is working on a currency-based project on Suomenlinna. Since then, I've dreamt of assembling the various artist-run projects, small creative centres, and cultural organisations to discuss how we might implement a local currency in Tallinn. This night, which Justin dubbed 'Make it Rain', featured three presentations: Christian (via Skype), Rainer Eidemuller from the P.A.I.de Pank in Paide, and Kaspars Lielgalvis from Totaldobze in Riga. After the presentations, we ate some excellent lentil dahl, prepared by Felicity, and began to discuss as an open group how these currency project might or might not work in Tallinn. It was an extremely stimulating discussion, though I'm not sure what we concluded. But the event overall is exactly the type of event I love the most - one that is inclusive, cross-discipline, constructive, and casual.

Friday, the Totaldobze gang presented their Idearium interactive installation in the garden of Tiib. We were lucky to have great weather and a great turnout; there were many ideas planted, good food, and a nice time had by all.

At midnight on Friday we held a slumber party, this month's installment of the GFYP variety party. Called GgggggggggFffffffffrrrrrrrrYyyyyyyymmmmPppppzzzzz (to create maximum confusion, of course), this was my second attempt at an all-night low-key event. This idea actually goes back over ten years, where Luke Ferdinand and I would talk about how much we would love to have an 'anti-rave' - an event where we would listen to minimalist music, quietly, and sleep. I tried this in Helsinki in 2010 with Antarctica Starts Here, but the night, while fun, failed to be the immersive sleep-saturated audiovisual feast I dreamt of.

I'm pleased that it worked well in Tallinn - it was a dream, really, with some actual dreaming probably taking place. Laurence Boyce began with 'Coming Soon', his personal history of film trailers. Kimbal Bumstead (UK) did a performative presentation of his travel-based projcet, Vertically Down. Kaspars and I DJ'd quiet, minimal records (Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing, Eno, Pelt, etc.) in between, and very very late (maybe 4:00?) Felicity began to present her field recordings from the British wool industry. As people slowly fell asleep to the sounds of farmers and sheep, Villem Jahu, Patrick, and myself began to play improvised music, spread across two rooms of mostly sleeping participants, which continued roughly until 6 AM.

Then, just as suddenly, everyone was gone. The week, a smash success, again made me grateful for all of the incredible people I've gotten to build my life around, and it's been hard to adjust without the presence of Felicity, Patrick, Kimbal, the Latvians, and of course all of the Tallinn regulars who always make life great here. But this weekend is Camp Pixelache 2012, so I'm off to Helsinki in a few hours to immerse myself in another batch of amazing people and ideas.

My little corner of the world

Tue, 08 May 2012 06:43:42 +0000

My little corner of the world

DIS/Orientations workshop in Helsinki

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:04:58 +0000

Yesterday, John Grzinich, Sari TM Kivinen and myself led a workshop called DIS/Orientations on Harakka Island, Helsinki. This was part of the La-Bas 'Concept of Performance' Biennale, a 5-day investigation of performance and sound art. This was our first shot at trying something extremely experimental and improvisational on the theme of orientation and disorientation. For a few hours, the ten of us explored various exercises that were performative in nature, at least enough to justify it's inclusion in the festival. In terms of orientation we looked at re-mapping - exploring our surroundings by superimposing the map of an entirely different place - and intuition towards compass points. Disorientation was achieved via sense blocking (using blindfolds, earplugs, and bungee cords), textual games (by modifying each others biographies as an introduction) and simple performative scores: "Find a problem, and instead of solving it, enlarge it." The purpose, if there must be one, was to massage the unintentional serendipities that may come out of failures, misinterpretations and mistakes.

John (a sound artist and co-organiser of MoKS) and Sari (a visual and performance artist who is director of Ptarmigan Helsinki) were a dream to work with, and as we're quite good friends it was natural and fun. I hope we can develop DIS/Orientations a bit further and take it elsewhere -- and some other ideas for workshops or other collaborative forms were born, such as the idea of "object re-purposing".

Great participants made it great fun, and it was very much an experiment for us as well. Some of the exercises, such as the sense blocking, didn't need any additional structure, while others would have benefited from more clear instructions. And while the value of workshops as an art practice, for me, is in the moments of people creating together, sometimes I do feel the need to have "findings". It's not that we have to draw conclusion or have specific objectives, but at least face towards some convergences.

Despite not actually being a performance artist myself - in any way whatsoever - I love experimenting with action in groups. The opening of our workshop, where we passed out slight variations on the problem-extending score mentioned above, turned into a surreal, wacky bit of wordless group nonsense. This part reminded me a lot of the Resonance workshop that Bilwa and Kristin Orav led in Ptarmigan Tallinn last September - perplexing aberrations of behaviour, breakdowns of order, and repetition without a goal. While it's easy to be seduced by the humourous components, it's also wonderful to reimagine elements of the quotidian through such absurdity. That I can follow these threads as a component of an art practice is also wonderful, and I count my blessed stars to be in a position like this.

True Finn.

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 10:23:07 +0000

True Finn.

Bring it.

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 23:30:18 +0000

Bring it.

Playoff beard 2012. Here we go.

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 23:29:41 +0000

Playoff beard 2012. Here we go.

Continuing my tradition of posting unflattering photos of myself as I watch late-night hockey in the EET timezone. Game 1 starts in a few minutes, and I'M READY. I just shaved; note that I even cut myself and you can see the blood near my nose. Just like there will be blood on the ice tonight.

POP vs IMAP

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 09:49:13 +0000

POP vs IMAP

Why does POP still exist?

Ptarmigan at Supermarket 2012

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 08:21:30 +0000

Last month, Ptarmigan went to Supermarket, the artist-run art fair in Stockholm. Thanks to the KulturKontakt Nord Mobility Programme for enabling this to happen - Sari Kivinen, Andra Aaloe, Lewis McGuffie and myself all attended, which was 4/5 of the Ptarmigan staffers and in a way, our first collective project as collaborating artists (outside of the regular administration of Ptarmigan).

As Ptarmigan is emphatically not a gallery, nor did Tiib have anything for us to exhibit, we treated our exhibition booth as a mini-version of Ptarmigan itself. We constructed a theoretical replica of ourselves, dividing the booth into Finland and Estonia, with a small Baltic Sea in the centre. Across the centre we painted a blackboard (a reference of course to the blackboards in Ptarmigan Tallinn), providing an ongoing slate for us to write things, announce activities, and experiment. Throughout the 3 days (and the opening night on Thursday), we held an ongoing series of performances, actions, and activities, encouraging the 6000 attendees of the fair to participate as much as possible.

This was a bit mad, but indicative of what we do; projects rooted in the ephemeral, with a focus on inclusivity and participation, and a reinvention of what constitutes cultural production. Of course, lots of what we did at Supermarket was ludicrous and bizarre, as much of the programme consisted of improvised, impromptu actions: 'Lewis eats a Sandwich' and 'John stands in a bucket' being particularly dull points.

Some might ask why we even bothered going to an art fair when we are not a gallery and had nothing to sell or even really present. I believe that Supermarket is a great opportunity to meet others working in similar fields; sharing ideas and resources is important; and the reach of audience here is invaluable in attracting new people to Ptarmigan. We're always looking for new, worthwhile projects to attempt.

We met a lot of great people and had a lot of fun engaging others in our activities, which were sometimes extremely universal (such as the numerous games of mini-table tennis and paper American football) and some significantly more esoteric.

We had a few proper performances throughout the weekend too, such as Sari's Textual Opera/Rations, where she actively filled sheets of A4 paper with texts constructed, overheard, misheard and reinvented. Sari's performed this before in several environments but at Supermarket she encouraged others to contribute; as the weekend progressed, pages slowly filled the walls.

Our former resident Ola Ståhl stopped by on Friday to do a reading of a textual piece called 'Black Box', and Helsinki friend Marja Viitahuhta re-performed her 'Spotlight' performance in our booth, attracting an entirely different audience than who attended when it was part of the official Supermarket programme.

Beyond this, we had our own improvisations, often marked on the chalkboard with arbitrary times to signify their beginning and ends. We played games, invented some new ones, talked with lots of people, and did a lot of completely ridiculous stuff. "Toss notes over the wall to the booth on the other side". "Build a city out of paper". For an hour on Saturday, we swapped places with the ZET Foundation of Amsterdam, where we manned each other's booths in a game of impersonation. On Sunday we performed "Cling-wrap a visiting artist" with Edwina Goldstone (representing GalleriaKONE, Hämeenlinna). And in probably our most popular activity, we had an 'open haircut lab' where we invited strangers to cut our hair and offered to cut anyone else's hair. I now have a lovely but strange haircut that was the composite efforts of 6 different people, finished by an 11-year old.

Overall, the weekend was amazingly fun, and exhausting. There's more photos below, or you can check out the small Flickr set which has an overview of it all.

'Open haircut lab'.

Andra was keen to wrestle; she was almost undefeated though it never got any wilder than arm-wrestling.

Edwina Goldstone, who let us cling-wrap her to the table.

'Junk Mail for Pete'

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:46:37 +0000

'Junk Mail for Pete'

Exhibition by Lewis McGuffie at Tiib, today and tomorrow only.

LAST NIGHT'S DREAM

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:46:45 +0000

LAST NIGHT'S DREAM

Wilco was playing a free concert, with Spinal Tap opening up. Adam and I were there, sitting in the back, half-watching and having a mild debate about which band was 'bigger'. Spinal Tap played 'Big Bottom' and it was pretty heavy. The venue staff were throwing free Wilco t-shirts into the crowd and I grabbed two of them, a medium and large size; Adam and I briefly fought over the medium before realising that neither one of us actually liked Wilco. We debated the shirt's eBay potential but then threw them both into the crowd for the true fans.

Three Penny Opera alternate poster

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:39:19 +0000

Alternate poster design, which I think came sooner, because I remember the Positive Ensemble were supposed to play. This was a group of kids that called us up from Goleta, CA and explained that they were putting 11 people in a van and driving around American all summer to spread positivity. They didn't play any music, but they would jump around and try to make people happy and they had t-shirts. The whole thing sounded amazingly stupid but kinda funny, especially if you lived in a world where HeartAttack and Punk Planet were your major sources of media. Anyway, they had to cancel their tour -- how positive is that ? -- so we made the other poster, which was actually much less readable than this one.

Now that I am thinking about it, I think I remember Three Penny Opera a little bit - they were fast and fun but not too aggressive, and I liked them, though not as much as I liked Shotmaker. Who I also can't remember much about.

Three Penny Opera, Acrobat Down, Creta Bourzia, Hovland

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:35:58 +0000

i feel like such an amateur historian doing this - documenting a slice of the Pittsburgh independent music scene from 13 years ago - and the one thing that is "complete" about this poster archive would be for the shows at the Stevenson Theatre, a short-lived venue in East Liberty that I had a hand in running. I have every poster from every Stevenson Theatre event that Doug Mousrak and myself organised, which were the majority of the shows there. Besides us, I remember Manny booking Overhang Party and Primordial Undermind there once (which was AMAZING -- a weird Luke-less lineup of Land opened up and Overhang Party were totally amazing; all stayed at my parents' house); I remember Shawn Brackbill organising Texas is the Reason there. And I also saw Ida and solo Warn Defever, when I asked Warn if he would record the Land album. That's about it though, but perhaps I am forgetting some.

The Stevenson Theatre was a pretty large space - I'd say maybe 150m2 - underneath the Artists and Craftsman's Supply shop on the corner. For some reason, the owners of the property - a couple named Ted and Debbie who also owned a yacht club and had no apparent interest in art or music - were super enthusiastic about our proposal to organise independent rock shows that only 25-50 people would come to. I think we paid them $50 to rent the space each night, but only when the shows did well. There was hardly anything in it for them; it seemed like they were genuinely just into it. (And they went above and beyond the call of duty for a band called Lowercase, which I'll explain when I get around to that poster).

I forget exactly how we approached them - a friend worked at the art store above, and everyone knew it was a great and extremely nice space that was mostly unused. Doug and I had this partnership that summer where we organised a lot of things, and we were always in this push/pull frustration with Manny and Millvale Industrial Theatre. (I've since recanted my negative feelings).

I remember nothing about these bands except the locals. Amusing though that I'm still slapping my phone number on the flyers, and the stuff about the hardware store, which i think referred to Tru-Value Hardware on Forbes Ave in Oakland. An alternate design of this show will follow.

Elf Power, Of Montreal, Sonic Rob & Ollie, Auspice

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:14:15 +0000

Another Elephant 6 related concert - I'm going to get all of these out of the way. This tour came through before either band had really hit; I think Elf Power just had a 7" out, and Of Montreal were something I had only heard of. Both would later go on to modest success, particularly Of Montreal who managed to separate themselves from the E6-identification and probably still put out records today (I don't follow them).

Manny organised this and asked me if I wanted to be the opening act since he knew of my E6 love and (and website). It was kind that he asked, but Land wasn't ready to play live yet (I think we were just starting to practice) so I formed a quickie band with John Lancia. We called ourselves the Auspice Band, though we were only billed as Auspice here. This was (in retrospect) one of the more fun and quirky things I had ever tried to put together. This was, for better or worse, my singer-songwriter project as of autumn 1998. I have some photos of this show, where I am a lanky 18-year old playing the Mosrite electric guitar that I still own and John visible in the background on drums.

This must have been one of the earliest Millvale Industrial Theatre shows I went to. I can't remember when it opened exactly - I want to say summer 1998, and I think the first show there was for a Tim Berne project, maybe Bloodcount? I didn't go, and I was actually not fond of MIT because of it's practical limitations - I didn't have a car and I found it difficult and inaccessible. Now I look back on it as my favourite venue of all-time, disregarding Ptarmigan.

Auspice Band was pretty auspicious, I guess. The songs are hit and miss. At the time I was really into Mission of Burma and Olivia Tremor Control. I wanted to simultaneously be the singer-songwriter and Martin Swope. I worked out all of these layered noisy 4-track tapes, which were thought out and not just random, with various sound-effects, delay-pedal drones, and noise. I played this with the 4-track hooked up to a volume pedal which I used, at times, to bring the tapes into the mix. John also played keyboards a bit while he drummed. I think we were terrible this show. We played one more time at the first ADD fest the following month. Someone told me that the songs were similar to Daydream Nation-era Sonic Youth but that wasn't much of an influence --probably just a result of the weird guitar tuning I was using.

John took all the 4-track demos we had recorded during the 2 months of the Auspice Band and put out a tape on his Home-Aid label without my permission, called Improvement, modeled after the cover art for New Order's Movement. I'll post it here eventually, as I think there are some charming gems that I still enjoy hearing, like my ode to orange juice and some tender teenage emo tunes. The following year, when I was fully obsessed with Dead C and This Heat, we hung out Thanksgiving night and recorded four really experimental tracks that John also put out as the second Auspice Band CDr. There is nothing I would like more than to reunite the band after 13 years.

Sonic Rob & Ollie were I think a song-based trio of students who went to Pitt with me but I don't remember them. I actually don't remember much about the other bands, except that I enjoyed it. Elf Power covered Eno's 'Needles in the Camel's Eye' and Of Montreal were pretty dainty but I was into that at the time. They all stayed at my apartment in Shadyside but I don't think I ever saw any of them again. I was in touch with Bryan from Elf Power for awhile because of the whole E6 website thing.

The show was fairly poorly-attended, though I also realise now that any show with less than 50 people felt that way at MIT.

Fight the cold : Ptarmigan and related activities, February 2012

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:24:59 +0000

It's really, really cold here right now. Here being Tallinn, Estonia, where as I write it's currently -22 C (-7.6 F) and it "feels like" -33 C (-27.4 F) with the wind chill. I'm sitting here in Slothrop's trying to stay alive, for the feeble electric heating can't keep up with the brutality of an Estonian winter. Thank you, medieval architecture!

But that's okay, because February is going to be a crazy busy month with activities going on all around the Baltic sea - in Tallinn, Helsinki, and Stockholm.

Supermarket 2012

17-19 Feb - Stockholm! Both sides of Ptarmigan are attending Supermarket Art Fair 2012 in Stockholm. We are supported in part by the Kulturkontakt Nord mobility programme. At Supermarket, we will be running various "mini-events" throughout the weekend, all from our booth on the 5th floor of the Swedish Kulturhuset. These events haven't been completely mapped out yet, but they will include performances by friends of ours in Sweden (former Ptarmigan resident Ola Ståhl, and Julia Bondesson who also performed at our Invisible Prom event last April) and our own projects. I'm going to try out a small demonstrative "workshop" on how to make your own hot sauce, and Sari will perform as well. I'm also hoping to have some public discussions about the issues that affect artist-run spaces, like a small roundtable chat. [Ptarmigan profile on Supermarket site]

Workshops and other participatory events

Sunday 5 Feb - Svamp Tallinn. Even though it's Super Bowl Sunday, come by Ptarmigan Tallinn at 14:30 and bring something to make sound with. We'll hopefully get a Helsinki Svamp happening this month too. [link]
Friday 24 Feb - Fake it Til You Make It, February edition. FITYMI is Justin Tyler Tate's monthly workgroup where participants show up without knowing what they will make. Last month everyone created cutout-style animations, and the month before we made inflatable sculptures. [link]
Saturday 25 Feb - 'Fast and Raw' intermediate sushi workshop. Justin also leads a regular workshop at Ptarmigan on sushi-making, which also includes knife-sharpening. Sign up at the Ptarmigan site. [link]
Monday 27 Feb - Fermented foods club, February meeting. I just made some natto which I will share with everyone (I made a lot) - if anyone can stomach it. I also got some tempeh spores so if I have time (unlikely), then I might try making that. [link]
Tuesday 28 Feb - Symposium, the Eesti Humanities association's regular symposium series, resumes activity. Programme TBA.

Performances, concerts and exhibitions

How ta tawk & dans rite - Ptarmigans Helsinki and Tallinn both are producing an interactive media/dance performance piece by Joey Chua Poh Yi, Rhys Turner, Anna Rouhu, and Guadalupe López. The events have already begun in Helsinki and next week we give it a go at Ptarmigan Tallinn. There's only space for 15 audience members per performance; though it's free, we ask that you register through our website for which performance you would like to attend. All of the individual performances are set as separate events, so go to www.ptarmigan.ee and pick the one you want.
Saturday 18 Feb - Ö-E-R orchestra, As Artistas Plasticos, Re:partisan. At Kodu Baar, in Tallinn, we're having a mixed show of music/sound meeting dance and performance. Featuring artists from Helsinki, performing in Tallinn. You know, that's the way it's supposed to work... [link]
Thurdsay 1 March - Lewis McGuffie, Ptarmigan's Director of Creative Hemispheres, will open an exhibition at our gallery space in Tallinn, Tiib. [link]

Talks, presentations, screenings

Monday 6 Feb - Clip Kino comes back to Tallinn with Viktor Lillemäe presenting a selection of his favourite American propaganda films from the 1950's. This is the sequel to the Clip Kino he curated last May. Wow, it's been ages since we did a Clip Kino. [link]
Wednesday 8 Feb - Luciana Ohira & Sergio Bonilha present "transimmanence" + Jane Hughes presents ¨Imagining Other Worlds¨. This is a Labyrinths and Rings performance/presentation by two Brasilian artists and former Ptarmigan artist Jane Hughes, in Helsinki. At XL Art Space. [link]
Tuesday 21 Feb - As William "Bilwa" Costa and Martín Lanz Landázuri will do a 'Labyrinths and Rings' in Tallinn, presenting their Resonance project and screening a performance from The Kitchen NYC last December. [link]
Wednesday 29 Feb - Leap day! I'm going to run a Liminal Images night, though I haven't worked out the programme yet, and it might be guest-curated.

Other events

Monday 13 Feb - Slothrop's Books is going to have a belated opening party from 19:00 - 21:00. We'll have free wine, some musical entertainment probably, and a festive atmosphere. [link]
Thursday 23 Feb - I'm going to do the DJ night at Kodu Baar that I meant to do monthly, but haven't actually managed to. I'll play vinyl in various forms: krautrock, prog, art-rock, jazz, psych, and other strange pulses. Kodu Baar is at Vaimu 1 in Old Town and I'll probably play from 21:00 til about 1 or 2 AM depending on the crowd. Lewis will make a really ridiculous and cryptic poster. We're thinking about trying to make one in the shape of a snowflake.

Atom and His Package alternate poster

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:19:07 +0000

A lot of these Stevenson Theater posters have more than one version, sometimes with different information, suggesting we jumped the gun a bit on making them. I have no idea why we put black militants on this one; I think Doug made these as they are too well-done to be my own work.

I also financed the 53rd State CD which came out this night; not sure why it says the "real" CD release party; maybe there was a fake one before? Also notable is our URL had moved to cenotaph.org now, though I had that domain before I had actually started the label; no phone number is present either.

Atom and His Package, 53rd State, Control Group, El Camino Club

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:14:43 +0000

If one thing is complete about this scattered 'archive' of Pittsburgh indie music posters, it's the ones from shows I booked myself at the Stevenson Theater in Shadyside/East Liberty. Doug Mosura and I booked a bunch of things together during our brief partnership of 1999 and because we made the posters ourselves, I had a lot left over so I'm pretty sure they are complete.

This one was the biggest shows we ever did - I think something like 120 people came, if I remember correctly - obviously capitalising on Atom and His Package's popularity, we packed the house and I don't remember much about the show, except that after paying all of the artists well, and paying the Nypavers who ran the space, we still had a chunk of cash left over so we took $200 for ourselves. Which to this day I think is the only time I actually kept money for myself from organising a show. I think everyone got paid $200, maybe Atom got $300. I really don't remember.

More to come about the short-lived Stevenson Theater in future posts.

Butterglory, Neutral Milk Hotel, Karl Hendricks Trio

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:01:57 +0000

This is the one that blew it wide open for me.

Maybe I've said that before. I went to this show the summer between 11th and 12th grade, excited to see Butterglory. My friend Amy had dubbed me Are You Building a Temple in Heaven? and it's twee-ish indierock harmonies rocked my world. Karl Hendricks Trio were about all I knew of "local music" at the time - I had seen them at Lollapalooza '93 and knew they had been signed to Merge records.

Neutral Milk Hotel, who played first, I knew nothing about.

And of course, we all know what happened. Boy sees band, band rocks boy, boy is never quite the same. NMH erupted with complete and total joy, with the fuzzy 60s pop influences I loved at age 16, but also the flair for the experimental, the eclectic - singing saw, trumpet (played by Scott Spillane who climbed on top of the PA at times); the manic drummer. Songs that just seemed so rich and inviting - and this was music being played as a way of life, a calling.

I wrote a much more gushing and absurd recollection a decade ago on my 'farewell' page, when I shut down my Elephant 6 site, which thankfully archive.org still has a copy of, if you can deal with the font/margins.

I don't remember much though - Karl's set I don't even know if I watched cause I think I was outside being excited. I met my friend Christie that night (where are you now?). I remember being flabbergasted by the 'I love you Jesus Christ' line but not being bothered by it, even though religion in music was total anathema to me. I remember B. Chad outside asking me if they were serious. I remember Butterglory were good but I was already losing interest (though that song 'Rivers' was amazing and I distinctly remember the drummer banging away on the floor tom). I don't remember if they played 'Alexander Bends' which they were (justifiably) known for.

I remember my mom picking me up and my friends (Brian and Nick and Dawn I think were with me) and just being so incredibly excited about this band. I remember buying On Avery Island a few days later at Randy's Alternative Music on the South Side. I remember getting the Apples in Stereo's Fun Trick Noisemaker and soon after the Olivias entered my life. I don't remember at what point I made an Elephant 6 website, but this music became the centre of my word for the next few years.

Of all the posters I found in my parents' basement, I was most happy to find this one mostly intact. This feels like a real beginning for me, even 15 years later; it's part of the holy trinity of formative live music experiences (along with the Mountain Goats at Laga and Chisel at the Beehive).

Svamp Helsinki, January 2012

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:46:27 +0000

Svamp Helsinki, January 2012

A collectively-generated graphical score.

Six Finger Satellite, The Convocation Of, A Stoveboat

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:12:46 +0000

This show actually took place in Baltimore. Dan, who I was living with at the time, was a big Six Finger Satellite fan and also loved Moss Icon, who I was just getting into. He found out somehow (as I don't think the Internet was involved) that Tonie Joy's new band The Convocation Of were playing, so we drove down to it.

I remember the Ottobar being a fairly cool place and that Convocation Of were absolutely incredible. The record they finally put out was disappointing though; I think I listened to it once. Six Finger Satellite were in a fully different mode than The Pigeon is the Most Popular Bird album - much more influenced by sci-fi sounds like Chrome. I didn't like it.

I don't remember where we stayed or if we drove back that night, but I do remember seeing the guys from Oxes and their friends who called themselves the Baltimore Rowdy Collective. In the upstairs part of Ottobar they all decided to get naked and sit around the pool table, and I was impressed. We set up a few shows for Oxes and Goliath over the next year or two.

Experimental Audio Research, Bobby Conn, the Johnsons, Land.

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:01:14 +0000

The first real Land show with me in it. I guess we were insisting on a lowercase L then, and the full stop/period at the end. EAR was a mess of circuit-bent speak and spells; Sonic Boom dug our messy set and wrote down his address for us to send him stuff, but I couldn't read his writing. He smelled like a walking pot plant. Land was a trio that night, or maybe a bassist. I have no memory of Bobby Conn's set. The Johnsons were probably great.

Pasta night 1: The Saint Syndicate, 53rd State

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:42:31 +0000

The first pasta night was a hit; it was the first (or second?) show for the Saint Syndicate, a short-lived Pittsburgh band that was heavy on the organ, and boasted a strong influence of mod 60's pop. They were fronted by an artist who later moved to NYC and was tragically murdered, and I don't think the few recordings they made ever surfaced. A friend from high school was playing bass in the band, though we weren't friends anymore by this time, and I'm not entirely sure if he was still in the lineup then.

53rd State were a young, energetic punk band with a strong emo influence. They were still in high school, and I loved them; there was something accessible and crossover about their songs, and I ended up financing their CD on a pre-Cenotaph venture along with Randy Costanza.

It was only a dollar, and tons of people came including some faces I was surprised to see. We started cooking pasta at 4PM and made a giant vat of it, with cheap supermarket sauce, but people were totally into it and I don't remember the cleanup being that painful.

I don't know why I was so against uppercase letters back then. I guess if you look at the current sidebars of icewhistle.com I'm still not so fond of them. It's almost like my own flyer design style was influenced by Manny's, though I certainly wasn't thinking consciously of "design".

Melt-Banana, Monorchid, Shale, Arab on Radar, the 1985

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:32:47 +0000

I started going to see independent/"underground" music at a very early age - I somehow convinced my parents to drive me to CMU in 1993 to see a couple of shows; even though i had to leave before the final acts, I'm pretty sure I saw Guided by Voices on the Vampire on Titus tour, though I don't remember anything of it.

Most of my high school years I dreamed of being able to go to things like this regularly. There was an odd smattering of live shows I was able to attend when I was 14-15 years old, but just a few, which I have no posters saved from. (Number One Cup and Shale at Luciano's was a big one; also I saw J Church there one summer).

By my senior year, I was just waiting to get high school over with. I started to attend gigs more regularly, and even started playing in a band called The Blazing Bulkheads with Weird Paul. This Melt-Banana concert was something I look back on as a major turning point - the transition from high schooler looking in, to person actually being part of the music scene.

I'm not sure actually why I regard this so fondly. I didn't stay to see Melt-Banana and I didn't like the Monorchid at all. But I saw The 1985 for the first time, who I only knew of as being a new band by Jeff who used to be in Vehicle Flips, a local pop-based band whom I loved (and still do). The 1985 blew my mind. I didn't recognise their influences at the time (Nation of Ulysses, Six Finger Sattellite) so to me, this was a radical approach to rock music. I was instantly a massive fan. I went to every one of their shows that I possibly could, probably seeing them 20+ times. I bought their t-shirt that night, with semi-functional glow-in-the-dark ink, which I still have (though it's pretty ratty now).

And to make it better, their drummer approached me after they played because he recognised me from Weird Paul's band the previous month. I met a bunch of people that night - I think that was the first time I met Luke who I later played with as Land. And, I saw Arab on Radar for the first of maybe ten times, who dismantled rock music even further - this was their earliest lineup, with the heavy farting bass sound and the most wild, aggressive stage show I had ever seen (or at least tied with Xerobot, who I had seen at Luciano's the previous summer).

Todd from Shale gave me a copy of their Truth/Lie 12' after the show (for free! just because he was nice and I had met him before through a friend) and I went home feeling like a whole new world was opening up. As soon as I finished high school.

Slothrop's, Tallinn, Estonia

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:25:28 +0000

If you're in Tallinn, please stop by Slothrop's on Müürivahe 19. You'll find a large selection of secondhand books in English - literature, history, art, politics, essays, criticism -- the works. Slothrop's is open Tuesday through Saturday from 12 to 18, Eastern European Time. Soon we'll hopefully have a (carefully-curated) selection of independent publications and analogue musics for your shopping enjoyment.

NYC friends: Marathon reading of Gertrude Stein this weekend

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:07:24 +0000

Triple Canopy is opening the new space at 155 Freeman in Greenpoint, and is celebrating in the most insane way possible - by scheduling a marathon public reading of Gertrude Stein's The Making of Americans.

I can't make it over, of course, but my own copy has been sitting unread for years on my shelf, as I tote it around from move to move .... so I will be starting it myself, in parallel, and if anyone in Tallinn wants to meet up and do a shadow-reading this weekend, give me a call.

More information on the Triple Canopy announcement page!

Recent things.

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:06:36 +0000

Dispatches from a website I do a piss-poor job of keeping up-to-date:

I've been based in or around Tallinn for one year now. Ptarmigan I can say has been going well; it's been an amazing thing and it's more momentum than inertia here. We've had too much going on to fully talk about here, as we've had something like 80 events since April, but there's lots in the works for 2012, the Year of Our Culture Hangover.
Helsinki Ptarmigan as well is bubbling with activity, thanks to the efforts of Sari TM Kivinen, Ptarmigan's Director/Janitor. We managed a lot, I think, despite having no physical space throughout the year, and there are some great new projects bubbling up.
I'm thinking about getting back into recording, working on the followup to the Boat Trip LP which I have about half-recorded, but has been dormant for a few months.

More to come, in detail.