Detroit December 18, 2007

A short drive from Oberlin. The authorities of the Ohio turnpike were friendly to me. Got up to the Bohemian National House around 6. Was able to have a good set up and talk a bit to Frode Gjerstad, Paal Nilssen-Love and Oyvind Storesund who were a bit past midway on their on tour that had crossed paths in Lexington with the Engines a few days after I did in Columbia. Not much of a turnout this night - it was quite cold outside. After playing my set for a week, I'd become much more comfortable with it and was able to enjoy its' slow-movement quality. Allowing the music to develop, not forcing any changes. Letting things be. The music felt settled, complete. I'm looking forward to working more on this music and creating a full album. For now, the music can be heard from the flash player on my site.

Thanks to Joel at the Bohemian.

On my way back to Chicago I took some photos of this bridge in Ann Arbor:

Oberlin December 17, 2007

A cold pretty uneventful day long drive from Philly to Ohio - I changed my route to avoid the tolls and found myself in some nice out of the way places in central pennsylvania. They got alot of snow the day before which made for a gorgeous drive. Glad I didn't have to drive through the storm. Made it to Oberlin Ohio around 6 - it's not a big enough town to make it onto the map I had with me, so I had to get a little creative to find it after I stopped following the google map I'd printed out. No worries though, just got in a little later. Drove to Jeff Christiani's place which is right next to the Oberlin campus. We went towards Cleveland to get Indian food with a crew of his friends and on our way back we got off track - a long day of being off track. He was interested in learning about Mills and when I found out he was St. Louis I was able to almost shock him with my second hand knowledge of that city that I've learned from Jen.

Didn't end up playing until around 9:30 or so - and I played the only set in a small chapel called Fairchild. A reverberant space - stone walls, wooden pews. I did my best with it and tried to bring the sound to a full loud level. I think I did it for awhile. It was good to play there, a cold cold night in rural Ohio. Jeff showed me around the next day as I didn't have far to go for my next date. Oberlin's an interesting little place - students from the coasts, living away from lots of things, forces them to stay active, get creative. I remember having an Oberlin poster in highschool for some reason - didn't really know what it was, it seemed like it was on a higher level....

Philadelphia 12-16-2007

With the Red Room show being done not so late, I was able to get up early and have a nice full day with my sister and family in Baltimore before heading up the Toll filled 95 to Philadelphia. My original show had been canceled and Audrey Chen (cello, vocals) arranged a date for us to play with Katt Hernandez, a violinist originally from Ann Arbor. It was at Big Jar, a bookstore in Old City. The weather was supposed to be real bad, but was instead only quite cold with strong winds. Audrey was headed to Baltimore from NYC after a string of dates there. We played one set together with Katt and Audrey beginning. Very patient exploration of held tones, slowly shifting with minuscule rapid changes occurring throughout. I joined them best I could. Playing that style of music and making it work is difficult - playing with Audrey and Katt worked well. The second set was a duet between Katt and Erik Ruin, who creates live visuals via paper projections. Erik did quite a bit with paper cutouts and a projector - I imagine getting the same result with a computer would be near impossible.

Baltimore 12-15-2007

An eight plus hour drive from south carolina to maryland - with a stopover to get some fireworks for my nephew. Played at the the Red Room - it was a three set night starting with the trio of Catherine Pancake, Dan Conrad (brother of Tony), and Kate Porter; followed by my set, and a final set where I joined the trio. Catherine played drums, I hadn't seen her play drums before and I really was glad to hear her. Kate played cello, she's a good player with a strong classical background I believe. Dan played what is called a Veena Bambina - an instrument he built himself out of a large PVC tube with a single string on the outside. Alot of variety from a simple instrument.

Despite the cold snap in Baltimore there was a good turnout, and when I played my set I felt that the audience was there to listen and had no preconceptions - which is a great thing. I felt very comfortable with my set and thought it was one of the best performances of the tour. The quartet set was fun - we played two longer improvisations - I used both saxophone and laptop. The only thing I wanted to take back was at the end of each I and Dan were still playing and I prematurely turned off the output sound of the laptop - should of extended the endings....


Thanks to Samuel Burt for the hospitality, and thanks to Devin Hurd for this posting:

http://hurdaudio.blogspot.com/2007/12/shelton-from-storm.html

Columbia December 14, 2007

Stayed an extra day in Asheville to visit some family and went down to Columbia on early friday afternoon. Got into town and went looking for sweaters at thrift stores with Ross - even though it was warm enough there that they were unnecessary. on this day my tour was crossing with the Engines tour - Dave Rempis, TIm Daisy, Jeb Bishop and Nate McBride. We shared a bill at the School of Music at the University of South Caroline in this super nice recital room that featured a gigantic pipe organ. The crowd showed up pretty much on time - and I played first. Tim Simmons brought the PA for me to use and as I got into the louder part of my set - which is a drone based on overblown low-tones - i noticed these kids (actual kids) in the first row covering their ears - sorry bout that one kids. I had some technical issues with this set and realized that I needed to change some things in my patch to make certain things easier to access. I want to get to the point that I can change parameters with no more than three movements on the keyboard - a tough task. The Engines set was very good - they all contribute pieces and all the arrangements combine different sections and feels - a good band for sure.

Asheville December 12, 2007

drove down from lexington - a five hour trip - got into town in the late afternoon, hard to find a parking spot in asheville these days. went to a coffee shop - izzy's - waited there until meeting up with shane perlowin at the bobo gallery around 6. the show was going to be three sets - one by his trio Mind vs. Target, my solo set and then one with all of us as a quartet playing some of their music, and some of mine. I brought two tunes played by the Ton Trio - the Old Way and Internal Frame. We had a short rehearsal at six to check out the music - well, Shane, Joseph and I did - Michael, the drummer, wasn't able to come - but, later on he filled in perfectly, picking up on the pacing of my two things quickly.The show was good - people starting showing up around 9. I felt good about my set, I allowed things to take their time and develop. The quartet set was good times - Shane, Joseph and Michael are all real good listeners as well as players - we didn't let the improvisations go on for too long, they didn't fall too far away from the feel of the tunes they were a part of. After hanging at the Bobo for a while longer we ended up going to Shane friend's house for the ending of a holiday party - lots of sugary snacks were there along with a member of Negativland who lives in Asheville. a good time - special thanks to Shane and Brad from the Bobo Gallery

Lexington December 11, 2007

Drove down from Chicago to Lexington - six hour drive, the same distance from Oakland to LA. Going through Indianapolis the rain was hardest, but then the temperature rose about 30 degrees, from 35 to 65.....got out of Chicago right before a promised ice storm that I don't think really happened.
So I played down here at the Icehouse, the big space run by Ross Compton. I always like playing in Lexington, people are interested in creative music, the crowds that come are listening crowds, not talkers. There were two other short sets, one guitar player with some electronics - some processing, some playback; and a fellow, Jason _____ who used a canvas as an interface with contact mics to manipulate video and create audio that he then processed further. I played through four speakers, though in mono. I set up the speakers in a half circle stretching out towards the audience in an attempt to fill up the space (a large one with very high ceilings) with sound. I think I got there during one section. I felt like I got off the game plan a little bit this night - a couple things threw me off and my pacing wasn't where it should be. A goal with this music is to let it take it's time and develop, and not rush it through. The show was done early, Ross and I talked for awhile, it was good - sometimes I feel like I get in and out of town without having a chance to talk to him - glad this time was different.

Chicago December 7th and 8th, 2007

It's called a practice gig - usually the first time a band plays the music all together - that's when things get internalized, mistakes are made but then corrected by the players without having to discuss them. That's pretty much what happened on Saturday night at Heaven - I flew into town on Friday and had a rehearsal with Josh Berman, Jason Roebke, Jeff Parker and Frank Rosaly - I had brought the Flockterkit music to have them play. Seeing as Roebke and Rosaly were in the original lineup of Flockterkit it made sense to have them play in the group again. Now that the music is more robust than it was a few years ago, adding Berman and Parker were good choices.
We had a three hour rehearsal on friday, going over the charts and even working on Peltep, with electronics. During the practice the electronics were interacting well with the group, and I was satisfied with having two speakers, though it would be ideal to have four. It seemed like in the space a quad set-up wouldn't necessarily be effective, as the room is wider than it is long - in about a two to one ratio. The night of the show at Heaven, Saturday, we weren't able to sound check, as there was a show going on at Enemy and we were going to use their PA once that ended. That ended up being important.
Jason Roebke and Ayako Kato performed as Art Union Humanscape along with Josh Berman. The group, which focuses on small gestures by the musicians and free flowing movement by Ayako, has been developing their style as a trio - it was very good, they used the dimensions of the space to their advantage, Ayako using the bodies of Jason and Josh in someways like obstacles to move around, her movement was much more active than I had seen before. Compared to times I've seen them in the past there was more music to be heard - a result of the addition of a second musical instrument.
So the Chicago version of Flockterkit played second, and though there were moments, it was definitely a run-through for Sunday night at the Hungry Brain - the one piece I regret that it didn't go better was Peltep - the lack of the sound check really made the electronics a non-entity in the the piece, the interaction wasn't happening as it should. Our set at the Brain went very well. The timing of the music was right on - the playing was great. Having a different set of musicians play the music was a good experience, hearing the different interpretation was valuable.
I played my first solo set of this tour at the Brain as well. Using the pieces I've created as basics of the set, I felt that I was able to flow from section to section and have multiple layers of sound happening at almost all times - even though I had heard the PA was not so good, I was able to get the sounds out of it that I wanted.