grey ghost 3030 impetus 2-20-2005

first time in awhile for grey ghost to play. tonight was a double bill with daniel givens at the 3030 space in logan square. i like the series that rai ichimiro is putting together, the impetus series, he is making good choices in terms of pairings - having diverse bills, and he works hard to make the concert worthwhile, he gets people out and puts together a cd-r of unreleased music by the folks playing as a gift to folk that come out. johnathan was out of town with head of femur for the week and half before, they were opening up with wilco down south - big shows, warm weather, what could be wrong? but, that meant we didn't have time to get together beforehand, so this show was a to be a loose one. i felt like the first half of the set was pretty good - as we let the improvising be the most important part. it seemed once we got into some of the material we have, we tightened up, and there were some tenative moments. the end especially didn't turn out the way it should. it's a tricky group balancing different worlds of sounds and concepts of free improvisation and structured computer parts. we'll play again on march 4th, i'm thinking it will be a good show.

daniel givens played with josh abrams and nicole mitchell - his music is based on precomposed electronic beat driven music, josh & nikki improvised along for the set; they were also playing accopmanied by a paul robeson movie: the emperorer jones i think it was. kind of a dark mood made by the black & white feel and the music - it was a good performance.

dragons 1976 virginia 2-10 through 12 2005

we finished our tour by going to virginia - two towns, richmond & charlottesville. i'd never been to richmond before, only passed it on i-95 before and never really thought it would be a nice place to hang out in, but i was wrong - it's a nice looking town with lots of old architecture, harking back to colonial days and all of that. we played at a place called emilio's, which serves tapas and has music several nights a week. we shared the night with an improvising quartet led by Marty McCavitt on the laptop. they were pretty good - reminded me of supersilent. a good chunk of the crowd were relatives of jason's - so they were all rambunctious in their support of our playing. the ajemian's tried to keep us out late - they succeeded with jason, but tim & i headed back earlier to charels ajemian's place. the next day we got to cruise around richmond a bit, seeing the avenue of monuments. the road that has all the big statues of the civil war southern generals and other important people. it's kind of strange when you think of it - having monuments to a country that broke away from united states.
we stayed in town for dinner before taking the hour drive to charlottesville where we stayed the night. a nice day in charlottesville with clear skies and good coffee. we played at the tea house again, where we played just last october. afterwards stopped in at a dance party - met some locals; my friend drew thiemann came down from DC. actually the most memorable thing of the evening was this crazy guy in some sort of flowery robe at the tea house. when Drew got there, he had put his things on a bar stool. this crazy guy comes by and tosses all of Drew's things on the floor. a few minutes later he butts into our conversation which was about chicago. patrick (friend we stayed with) & i both ask him why he threw the things on the floor - he gets real upset, bends a fork in his hand threateningly and asks if we want to talk about it outside. freak.
we had the long drive back to chicago the next day - 13 hours, home at 1 am.

dragons 1976 charlotte, nc 2-9-2005

throw a stone
Originally uploaded by dragonseventysix.

out of georgia, back to the carolina's. i was excited about this date - this fellow brent bagwell set things up and he seemed to be really excited about it - got a 12 piece band together to play free jazz and got some press. we rolled into town in the evening (pretty routine by this point) and met up with him and others for a bite. not that we were hungry as we had the big meal only a few hours before in atlanta. the place we played at was kind of a dive, and i was a bit worried, what with a unc vs duke game going on and being shown on about 20 tvs but the night turned out to be a real good time. the first group was a duo that used plenty of different electronic sounds, and which i thought was quite good. another thing - it struck me while listening to them, that it must be really tough to play out there music in places like charlotte. but people get alot of satisfaction out of it - why else would they be doing it? after they were done, the game also ended, so thankfully all the tvs in the music room were turned off. dragons played acoustically, as always (the other bands were amplified) and i think it really changed the tone of the evening from "hey, these people play weird music" to " wow, these people are serious about it and are making some music in a way i haven't heard before". we played our set with a good amount of changes in the way we normally play the tunes. these last few shows are time to get ready for recording, which we're going to be able to do as soon as we get back to chicago.
the 12 piece band sounded good - i really enjoyed them because it seemed like everyone playing was really getting in to it - they were playing straight up free jazz - 4 saxes, trumpet, two basses, two drummers, two guitarists, and a keyboard player. there were a couple of spots in the improvising that were great - this alto & tenor player that were really going off - screaming into their horns to get the feelings out. brent also did a great job with the arrangements, using the whole group together, while having nice spacing between solos & duos.
we went out to his place afterwards - it was almost an hour drive out of charlotte outside of the small town of oakbar, nc. he lives in a house that is on a piece of land of about 300 acres. he and his wife moved down from nyc about 2 years ago = trying to find a place completely different from their last experience - they've found it. i finally got to sleep outside for a night - i've been wanting to the whole trip, but it hadn't really been warm enough until that night. it's strange sleeping outside when you almost never do it - little sounds can get you excited - and in the morning when the sun rises it's great, but you have no idea what time it is, for some reason i let it get me anxious. also in the morning it got real windy and i had to move inside. brent is a real good guy - really glad to have met him. we also got to take a nice walk to the river near his place - we skipped stones for awhile and got spooked by some cows that were pretty interestedin what we were up to...

dragons 1976 atlanta, ga 2-8-2005

we keep finding ways to make our short drives into longer ones. we took a route into atlanta which hit no interstates during rush hour. so it took us between two & three hours to get to atlanta from athens..... we stopped in at my old friend gregg's place - he's staying with his sister for a bit - it's nice to finally meet his sister who has lived the past 6 years abroad, first in toronto, then in moscow. we went on over to the eyedrum gallery around 8 or 9 - i didn't really know what to expect in the show - we played there a year ago and it was allright - this time it seemed like setting it up wasn't as solid. maybe my fault. two bands played before us - it was actually the first night we've played with other groups on this trip - unfortunately the bands seemed to be playing their first shows, or close to it. the first band was dominated by the lead singer/ keyboard player who was all about letting everyone know that he could sing and play piano. they played a very long set - probably an hour and a half. pretty tiring. rule #1 - if there isn't a huge crowd and you're the first band, it's probably a good idea to not try to convince folk you're the reason to be there by playing everything you know. i guess the good part of the first band playing for so long was that gregg & i got to hang out for awhile - there was a cool show at the space with all of these structures made with homeless folk in mind - we found a tent-type space that had a desk and writing paper, also a space heater - really a perfect place to be away from things. the second group was interesting, but the performance didn't really keep you interested. they made music on computers, alot of the sounds coming from phone tones - a good idea - they probably would have been better off playing at a dance party of some kind. by the time we played alot of the folk that had come had already given up, we played maybe 45 minutes and were done sometime after 1 o'clock. a low key evening - went back to gregg's and hit the beds.
the next day we went to this fish restaurant called six feet under because ross taylor's brother lee had dropped off $40 worth of gift certificates at the eyedrum. the place was good - and actually lee showed up there and we got to hang out with him, a good guy - into real estate - the food was great - i had blackened catfish and key lime pie -

dragons 1976 athens, ga 2-7-2005

so, a day off and then a nice drive to athens, georgia, a place i've not been to before but have heard much about. we got in right at sundown, we had a show set up for us at the 40 watt club, it was just to be us playing 2 sets, a monday night, my expectations weren't so high. after getting some good coffee and taking a walk i got the feeling that athens is really a music town - it seems people take it pretty seriously there - i just got a sense about it. we went and got some dinner at the restaurant next door to the 40 watt, had plenty of time to relax and warm up. i was really surprised with the turnout & the reception - about 70 people came and stayed for both sets - athens has a strange law that keeps a smoking ban until 11:00 pm, i could really tell the difference during our second set. i got to talk to a good amount of people afterwards, including bari, the owner of the club. she's very nice- we talked politics - athens & atlanta are the only liberal spots in georgia, and they're far outnumbered by the conservatives -basically it seemed like all the people that worked at the club were really into what we were doing, which gives me a good feeling for coming down again - we got out of the place around 1and went back to friend john's place. slept in late in the morning, then went for breakfast at the grit - apparently a famous vegetarian joint - i had some really good gumbo with dumplings....

dragons 1976 columbia 2-5-2005

down in the south and feeling good about it. we had a nice short drive from greenville to columbia - the capitol of SC, the place where they have a statue of the late Senator Strom Thurmond, that beacon of american hope and equailty. our friend Ross Taylor always helps us out when we're down here - we were headed to his place just on the edge of Cayce, driving by some folk walking on the side of the road and to our surprise it is our friend Anthony Mathile - he who has been working as video documentarian for the lieks fo the rolling stones and david bowie for the past 3+ years. wild coincidence, no? he was in town from Berlin for just a few days visiting his grandma - so we invited him & his girlfriend jessie to the show.
as we rolled up into Ross's place he was working on some knife throwing - we tried a shake at it with different degrees of success - he made us a a great dinner that featured dichon radishes, tofu and hot stuff - Ross likes it hot for sure. we had a nice relaxing afternoon & evening, went over to the hunter gatherer around 8 or 9 to get going. it was a real good crowd, the standout was this guy jerry who introduced himself to us - a southerner of the tyed dyed harley davidson style. the most memorable part of the night for him was loooking at jason's sketch book, declaring - y'all need some flames on that shit" and proceeding to put flames on it. a gem.
the bar closed up at midnight on saturday due to some crazy south carolina licensing fee paid for bars that choose to be open on sundays. so, we played two focused sets that got folk excited and left them satisfied.afterwards we went back to Ross's place with a few folk including anthony & jessie - we all hung upside down in the stretcher Ross has before going to bed around 3.

dragons 1976 greenville 2-4-2005

to greenville
Originally uploaded by dragonseventysix.

the drive to greenville from knoxville (picture is on the drive) was only to be 3 hours, but we found a way to make it 5. we had an idea of taking that raod that goes through the middle of the smoky mountains - unfortunately it was friday afternoon and it seemed alot of people were headed that way to go to dollywood and the skiing areas (though i'm not sure if skiing is happening down here right now - there's no snow on the ground). so that took a bit, then we stopped in asheville, which is right on the way, to pick up jason's friend keith, who lives in a beautiful old house. got into greenville around 7, and got to the place to play which is the bohemian cafe, an upscale place that shares a building with horizon records, which our man gene berger owns and operates. we went out for some food with gene and back to the cafe, which was packed, to start playing close to ten. apparantly greenville has been waiting for some music like this to come to town. the crowd was mixed, but mainly younger folk - 20's & 30's - we played our music and the people loved it - such a great response for a town that has never really had music like this performed live in it before. as i kep[t talking to more people after the show, including trip, the owner of the cafe, it dawned on me that these people are open to different kinds of music, but they're just never given the opportunity to see it. it's a great thing to be able to come to a place and do something new for them.
there were some talkers, but the majority of place was attentive and into it - it took us a long time to get out of the place and up to gene's house were we relaxed in front of the fire and had some delicious carrot cake made by barb, gene's wife. it's really something coming into different people's lives and getting a glimpse of how they live. gene has run a record store for 30 years, has a nice home in a nice neighborhood with trees all around - a listening room to listen to his passion - classical music - they have a son who is a bass player who is in school in new york ..in the morning we woke up slow and they made us breakfast of eggs, grits, potatos and fresh baked bread. good times.

dragons 1976 knoxville 2-3-2005

p light
Originally uploaded by dragonseventysix.

we headed out of lexington towards knoxville, tennessee - not a long drive, and an easy one on the highway, but it was pretty foggy, so there wasn't much to see. we pulled into the old city part of knoxville around 6 or so, and had some time to kill, so checked out a coffee shop, then talked to kevin davis on the phone, who was in town from chicago visiting his folks. he recommended a pizza place, we tired unsuccessfully to find the place, then headed back to the old city and went to a different pizza place that was pretty good. we went to the pilot light and regina was there, we spent a good hour or so just practicing and relaxing a bit. the pilot light reminded me of a small empty bottle - dark walls, no windows, a good place for late night creativity. i was a bit skeptical at first, but we did get a good crowd in there, they were really listening and into the music. i think it was in the second set - someone kept making exclamation's like "play that bass" "play that saxophone" "play those drums", then, in a few minutes a fellow comes up to the stage and puts three bouquets of long stem flowers at our feet and then walks off. turns out it was this fellow leslie that sells the flowers at clubs, but he was so into the music that he gave us the flowers....we had a multitude of choices of places to stay for the night - we split up a bit - jason and i stayed at regina's place - a nice house with some cats and a dog named fahey. people down in the south really like pets - it's cool because they have the space for them to roam around a bit. in the morning we woke to warmth - well, warmth for chicagoans, it was probably in the 50's but with the light streaming in on a clear day we could comfortably sit outside. we made some tacos with eggs, spinach, mushrooms, potato hash, and guacamole.

dragons 1976 lexington 2-2-2005

mecca a
Originally uploaded by dragonseventysix.

our 2nd annual winter tour has begun. a year ago we went on a week and a half tour into parts of the southeast and after having a good time playing, and escaping the cold of chicago for a bit, we decided that it was something we should try to do again. lexington is one of the first places we always think of playing in because of one man - ross compton. he's so into creative music & has a core group of people around him that have gotten this thing going in lexington that is good. i think the first show they had down there was the brotzmann tentet. imagine that - the brotzmann tentet playing a free show in a college town in the south, and hundreds of people coming out to check it out & it being successfull. everytime i come down to lexington it is a good show and i want to come back. saying all of that, our show was good - we played at the mecca dance studio, a place owned by theresa_____. we made the drive down from chicago in 6 hours under gray skies & through some snow - lexington's weather can feel like chicago's, but will rebound real quickly to the feel of the south. the place was full and we played two sets to a listening audience that showed their appreciation between and after our sets. we played very well in the room that had nice natural reverb tempered by the amount of people in the space. it was a great way to start the tour.
we woke on thursday in lexington, picked up our equipment at mecca and grabbed a bite to eat at ross's place gumbo ya-ya's - a poster on the wall announcing the sun ra arkestra playing that weekend in lexington. ross is busy, getting the sun ra arkestra down for a mardi gras parade.....