shelton, boykin, ajemian, reed empty bottle 3-29-2005

tonight was a good one - played a set at the bottle with david boykin on soprano saxophone, jason ajemian on bass and mike reed on drums. i'd never really played with david before, the only time that we did was in a much larger group where there wasn't much interaction between individuals. i really liked how we played together along with jason and mike. there aren't too many saxophone players that i feel good playing with after the fact - it's a very difficult thing to find someone else's style that works with your own, also, a combination that can work off of each other without mimicking while staying away from any kind of "cutting contest". we played a set with two improvisations - one longer, one very short. we had a a good amount of group think and i felt we really made some interesting music. the short improvisation was purely group orientated, with no solos - one of the best improvising i've had with other people in a while.
afterwards the wilhelm breuker kolleltief played - i wasn't so into it. i talked to tony buck for awhile about life in & out of australia - he's a nice fellow & knows how to throw a boomerang.
after the bottle went by sonoteque with mike reed - josh abrams & jeff parker were playing records, but we made it as things had already wound down -

shelton hess convey buck 3-26-2005

a saturday night & played at hotti biscotti, the place run by former nervous center stalwarts richard & ken syska. a few weeks ago i had seen steve hess play with an electric bass player joshua convey and wanted to get in on the action so set up this date for us to play. coinciding with this was a visit by thomas mejer from switzerland, he ended up playing in two groups that night, one with paul giallarenzo & fred lonberg-holm, another with fred, michael zerang and jim baker. i do like playing with steve and joshua - we had gotten together a few nights before to play - we share an aestheic towards the building style improvisations - tony buck is another foreigner visiting town - he's a drummer that is best known for work with the band the necks, though he plays with lots of different folk including the band the ex. he played with joshua & me for a while & it was really good - jsut leapt into it & it was good. by the time we were finished a good crowd had showed up - it was a good time. after the last band had played thomas busted out a bottle of absinthe he had brought over form switzerland. apparently they just made it legal to buy there. strong stuff for sure - tastes like sambuca, but i didn't get any halluciantions, so maybe it wasn't the real thing.

flockterkit renaissance society 3-14-2005

this was the first time in awhile for flockterkit to play a concert & it was in the perfect space. the renaissance society is at the university of chicago; it is a gallery space which focuses on contemporary art, and every now and then has concerts. this one featured flockterkit and a group from new york called the z's; which is a double trio of two drummers, two saxophonists, and two guitarists. for this concert the the flockterkt lineup was slightly changed: ernst karel, fred lonberg-holm, jason robek and myself were joined by steve hess who replaced the very busy frank rosaly, steve fit in nicely, his style of playing fits the aesthetic of the group and his background in more rock type music gives a nice edge to the drum parts. the space is very reverberant, so all of the long tones that we play in flockterkit were able to ring out and the clean tonality of the pieces filled out the room. we also had the pa speakers spread out to opposite ends at the back of the room, behind the audience, to have surround sound.
the z's started loud - and unfortunately for them , the room doesn't really seem to work for the loud - the drums overpowered all the other instruments for the first few pieces - when they brought the total volume down, the music was quite good - a band somewhere between steve reich and prog rock....

grey ghost ice factory 3-3-2005

this show for grey ghost went pretty well - the ice factory is a space in which people live & have shows - it's really close to where i live, walkin gdistance for sure, and i was glad to play there. we played the first set of three - it felt much better than our last show, johnathan really got into it - i got into it. when we play well together i really feel it's exactly what i want to be doing. when we don't play so well i worry. what else to say about the night - steve hess's group was good - a low key affair with guitar, bass & brushed drums - long form, slowly moving cinematic pieces. the last group i didn't stay for the whole thing, but they were good - an eclectic rock band with a young violinist who really seemed to know what he was doing - i'll put in the names of the other bands as soon as i find them out -
d76

saxophone / computer / electronics / drums myopic 2-28-2005

played with robb drinkwater and mike reed this night at the myopic bookstore. it was a good time - i brought my saxophone and computer along to do some processing; robb brought his homemade electronics and reed his drums. robb's electronics are good - with them he seems to be pretty flexible as an improvisor, much more so than someone using a computer. we played with mike reed in the center, and with our electronic sounds coming from opposite sides of the room - robb's amp was next to me, mine next to him. i think this worked well & i'll do it again. with this set up, it's easier to hear your electronic sound in relationship to the rest of the group - when you have the amp right next to you, it can be hard to gauge your volume relative to the other musicians. we played really free, had moments of pretty intense loudness, and nice mellow quiet. i really liked how mike interacted with what i was doing on the computer. i'd like to do it again - jsut have to find the place to do it.