Writing About Architecture is Like Dancing Without Music

But first. It's funny. You know? Are writers supposed to self- promote? These things confuse me.

I'm a better writer than I am a musician. I know that. But I almost never send out emails saying "Hey, I have an article published." And I never ever would have thought to start a blog about my writing. Writing about writing is like writing about writing.

In other words, I all the time get emails from people saying "come to my gig." I never see any saying "buy this magazine." So, yeah, that's the way self-pr goes, I guess.

But Bora Yoon, for example, she's supercool. She does amazing, beautiful music, and I know she looks at this because she left a comment before. I wrote a piece about her for The Wire. So there. Go buy The Wire.

Here's two favorite musician profile things I ever wrote:

Mr. Taylor's Filibuster

In Memoriam: Derek Bailey

So there, now everything's integrated. On with the show.

On June 2 I'll be playing with Philip Gayle at the Yippie Cafe. Also Blaise Siwula and Sten Hostfalt and the killer Sympathy for Lady Vengence. We're first, at 8. 9 Bleeker St.

June 7, I'm organizing with the awesome Marie Evelyn the Tin Can Telewalk in Carroll Gardens as a part of Issue Project Room's Soundwalk day. You should participate.

June 21 Ecstasy Mule is playing at the Ring Garden at Dyckman and Broadway in Inwood as a part of Make Music New York. Stuff all day all over and stuff. We will be scaring horses.

And on July 5, the rockstar dancer Jennifer Mesch and I will perform "Vacant" at Temple M in Harlem. 555 W. 141ST Street (just off Broadway). 6:30 SHARP! Miguel Frasconi and Joshua Convey are also performing, all part of the Outwood at Temple M extravaganza.

Dang. OK. I'm exhausted now.

1 Old Thing

There's some stuff I'm excited about, but I'm not ready to type about it yet. But I was talking to a friend about Nelson and his amazing Electric Chaircuts, and went looking for the vid of my performance with him and thought I'd posted it and here I hadn't so here it is.

3 New Things

One thing is that I made a CD called
A Day in the Night, that is available right now for no money on Desetxea, so there's little reason not to get it.

Another thing is that I made another CD called 24b though now I'm kinda wishing I would have called it Twenty-Four B because that's longer and more impressive or something but anyway it's an actual CD, or a CDr at any rate, but you can write me or something if you want a copy. Maybe I'll get it in a store or something.

The third thing is that I'm excited to be doing this piece called "Vacant" with dancer Jennifer Mesch at ABCNoRio, 156 Rivington, NYC, at 8 pm on April 12. Well, after 8 really. I think we're second. But you should come for the first group, too. They look like they'll be good.

My Almost Pekar

WP recently reminded of this piece I was happy to collaborate on for Signal to Noise magazine, so I thought I'd put it up here. And since he asked, I'll say here too, it's a true story. Thanks Jed McGowan for working on it with me, and Pete Gershon for making it possible.

August Showers, September Flowers

Yeah, the Rhys Chatham thing? Didn't happen. Rain didn't go away, we'll play again some other day. But I'm curating one of the WFMU nights at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn next month. Sweet. I asked some people to play and they said OK. And I'll be visibly playing records between sets.

The Brother Lucy Show with Kurt Gottschalk Presents
A Neil Peart Birthday Celebration
Friday, Sept. 12, 8 pm, $10

With Brown Wing Overdrive and David Watson / Sean Meehan


Brown Wing Overdrive is Chuck Bettis (electronics + vocals), Mikey IQ Jones (electronics + jaw harps + percussion + objects + vocals) and Derek Morton (electronics + banjo). They cite as influences pollution, angry shamans, burning circuitry, lonely poltergeists, sandpaper, dental work, alarm clocks, hallucinogenic banjo claw hammer, trash trucks, beat box'in, synthy modular meltdown and chaotic analog. Their CD ESP Organism will be released in October on Tzadik.




Sean Meehan and David Watson Drum/Bagpipe duo

Sean Meehan has been active in improvised music in New York since the late 80s. He plays a single snare drum, sometimes augmented with cymbals or other objects, in a manner that sheds conventional usage and reconstructs the conception and function of the instrument. His concerts around the world are often staged in unobserved and unconsidered outdoor locations. He has recorded solo and with Sachiko M, Ellen Fullman, Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura and others. His artistic output also includes the construction of "performance objects" that serve as "compositional things," such as "gift iii'" which musically activated a sink full of dishes, and a boxed set of four sculpted cassettes to be played in the mind.



Guitarist and bagpiper David Watson hails from New Zealand, where he was a member of Primitive Arts Group and co-founded Braille Records. He released three LPs on Braille, and did much to create an improv/noise-music scene where previously there was none. In 1987 he moved to New York and has performed in clubs, new music and concert venues throughout New York, Europe, Australia, NZ and Japan. He has worked with Ikue Mori, Marc Ribot, Zeena Parkins, Kato Hideki, Cecil Taylor, Andrea Parkins and others, and has curated music series at Roulette, Experimental Intermedia, St. Marks Church, Greenwich House, Bang-on-a-Can, PS 1, and PS 122. In 2007, he released Fingering an Idea (XI), a two-disc set for multiple guitars and bagpipes, and Throats (Ecstatic Peace) with Shelley Hirsch and Makagami Koichi.

Check the whole schedule there.

Electric Chaircut Monday Night!

I'll be doing an Electric Chaircut duet with the most awesome Nelson this Monday around 11 at Rehab. You should come.

http://www.chaircut.com

Rehab used to be Club Midway at 25 Ave. B. In fact, they haven't even changed the URL!

http://www.clubmidway.com/indexfull.htm

A Crimson Grail

I am very, very excited to be a part of the 200 electric guitar (and 16 electric basses!) orchestra that will perform Rhys Chatham's A Crimson Grail August 15 at Lincoln Center. Here's the official words:

Composer Rhys Chatham and section leaders John King, Ned Sublette, David Daniell, and Seth Olinsky (Akron/Family) lead an oversized orchestra of 200 volunteer guitarists and electric bassists in the world premiere of A Crimson Grail for 200 Electric Guitars (Outdoor Version) performed on on the Bandshell stage but along the sides of the audience at Damrosch Park, to heighten the work's polyphonic effect. The work, originally composed for Paris' famed Sacre-Coeur, has been extensively revised to suit the dynamics of the Park's outdoor acoustic.

I'll be the one playing a sparkly gold Gretsch.