shelton in new york 4-11-2005

the trip conitinues - grey ghost played at the tonic on sunday the 10th - it was a show with two rock type bands, bear in heaven and other passengers. jon philpot of bear in heaven put the show together - i had met him in chicago at an impetus series concert that dragons 1976 played. he's a super nice fellow - i'm glad he took the time to get this show together. crawford came out with giselle on saturday, we went out to the brooklyn museum to see the new basquiat exhibit, which is nice, though on that day it was a bit too crowded so it was difficult to take your time in looking at the pieces. we were supposed to have sound check around 5:30 and we decided to meet up at tonic around 4:30, johnathan coming from brooklyn, me from the upper east side. unforatunately our sound check was pushed off to about 6:30, so plans for a relaxed dinner before the show were nixed. what can you do. we played fully through the pa, which is unusual for us, but the sound person seemed quite good, so we went for it & i think it was worth while - usally i don't trust sound people to balance the sounds, but it was good - i didn't feel like the sax mic was too hot, though it's strange when you can't hear the house pa - you have no control over what people in the crowd are hearing - but in some ways i guess you never do....
we were quite different than the other bands - all the fellows in bear in heaven are nice ones & they were into our music, bauder had come to the show with jessica pavone, i went and talked to them for awhile during the second set, but got to see bear in heaven, which was quite good.
on monday i played with matt bauder, rueben radding & a cellist named lorien. it was matt's piece we had played in chicago at the impetus series (funny how two things that did impetus series months apart in chicago played two nights in a row here). we played at lorien's loft in bushwick - a really beautiful space with nice windows and a view of the higher buildings in that part of brooklyn. we rehearsed the piece and then played it, recording it to minidisc. it would have been nice to have a performance, but i guess out here there aren't too many series having that kind of new music to be performed. advantage chicago.