Bill Horvitz Expanded Band 11-17-2006

A busy few weeks here with travelling down to SoCal and back. A few months ago I was asked by Bill Horvitz to play in a large ensemble he was putting together for a few concerts in November - things tend to creep up on you & here we are at the end of November. The group was a twelve piece with Omid Zoufonoun (conductor), Steve Adams (sax/flute), Jon Raskin (sax), Kyle Bruckmann (oboe), Hal Forman (trumpet), Darren Johnston (trumpet), Liam Staskawicz (trombone), Matt Montgomery (violin), Katie Harlow (cello), George Cremaschi (bass), Robin Eschner (piano/vocals), Joseph Sabella (drums), and Bill Horvitz (composer, guitar and vocals). I played clarinet & bass clarinet - since moving out here a good deal of my playing has been on those instruments - even though there's a good deal of clarinetists out here on the scene that are quite good - (Jacob Lindsey, Matt Ingalls for two). Though, I guess folk have an ear towards the orchestration out here & stay away from having too many saxes in a group (a good thing).

This band in a way was a reunion of Harris Eisenstadt Ahimsa Orchestra that played a few date much earlier in the year and the music was much different. The music was written by Bill as a tribute to his younger brother who passed away suddenly about a year ago. He wrote songs that were reminders of what his brother meant to him.
We played twice - once at the Capp St Community Music Center in San Francisco and two nights later in Sebastopol. The Capp St space is becoming a personal favorite, it seems it would be a perfect setting for a festival of improvised music.

Tiny Lights California November 2006

the Tiny Lights are myself, Ben Bracken and Jacob Danziger. Ben & Jacob hail from Ann Arbor and I met them over the years through Matt Bauder. Once out here on the west coast we three started making music together as we all found ourselves at the Mills College. Last spring we started making some music together and this fall we got the opportunity to play four shows with Anathallo, a band from Ann Arbor. ben's brother Dan plays with Anathallo and was the connection for getting this project form the recording land to the live performance world, which is a good thing.
This last weekend we played shows in San Francisco, Anaheim, Los Angeles and Long Beach and it was a good time. When wer recorded our first few songs we used lots of overdubs to record piano, guitar, violin, clarinets, melodica, glockenspiel, bass clarinet, trumpets etc... for these show we had to pare it down to be played by the three of us with one guest each night for a guitar part and some clapping - this was a tough task, but definitley a good exercise in orchestration. I brought my clrainet, bass clarinet and computer, ben brought guitar and computer, jacob brought violin, glockenspiel andboomerang pedal. In each venue we caught the soundmen off guard - they're just not used to be asked for multiple line inputs and they get spooked when a condenser mic is to be used on stage. For us, a condenser is necessary - bass clarinet and acoustic guitar jsut give too quiet a signal for dynamic mics in a live setting. But, each night as we got more used to our setup the sound improved - I felt that I didn't have any feedback issues with my condenser - the only time anything crazy happened with them was in LA when a bad cable was used - apparantly Monster Cables don't work so hot with phantom power.
Anyway, enough about the tech requirements - our shows were fun and though we were playing to crowds that are more used to straight up rock we had some real positive comments from unexpected people. Check out undressmerobot.com for a possible upcoming interview that happened after we played in Anaheim in front of 100 or so underagers.
Spaceland in LA was the best show for sure - great sound, real friendly folk - the electric piano sounded real only there. Watch out for vegetarian tacos in Long Beach - make sure they realize youre asking for "whole" beans, not "cold" beans.............
Hanging in Los Angeles was a good time - we stayed with Justin Shay in Angelinos Heights each night - had good food at the Brite Spot & Home - Jen came down for the weekend also and we got to hike around Griffith Park and have delicious pie at the House of Pies. LA knows how to cook.
As for Tiny Lights, we'll be recording a 5 song EP in the near future and more shows will come.