question_the_podcast

a couple of weeks ago i took part in this event called the 'can we sleep in your barn tonight mystery tour'. it was organized and led by karin bolender, who is an artist and writer living in weyers cave, virginia. a group of mostly musicians set out for a few days on foot through the quasi-rural landscape of the shenandoah valley with a couple of donkeys and a couple of goats in tow. we jammed out in a barn-turned-chapel-turned-nothing, in a funky octagonal barn, and finally in a giant cave. in the cave, each of us took a 'room' and orchestrated what was to happen in that room. this is a recording from my room, called 'the rose garden'. the recording is obviously seriously lacking in terms of its ability to replicate the amazing spatial energy and acoustics, but it is at least in stereo.... my instructions to everyone were first to listen silently to the space, then to slowly begin to hear a sympathetic tone, to begin singing this tone to yrself and then gradually audibly but never so loudly that yr own voice was the loudest thing you heard. (more on the tour at http://www.newsleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060606/NEWS01/606060322/1002/NEWS17 and http://www.free103point9.org/event.php?eventID=417 .)

a remix of an ffffs song i'm working on. you can hear the original at http://www.myspace.com/scdr ('i can hear summer coming').

simple, melancholy slide guitar.

excerpt from a bass clarinet improvisation i recorded in february.

electric gtr (w/ live sampling) plus new found-object metal chimes.

me: yo dude. are you going to be around next weekend? am thinking of coming up for the 'no fun fest' in brooklyn. http://www.nofunfest.com/2006.html you going to be around? you interested in attending any of those nights? you interested in me occupying your futon any of those nights? /// j: hey--actually, i'm going to be in houston for my buddy pablo's wedding. sorry. were i here, i'd definitely go. are you screwed for a place to crash? /// me: no, not screwed. not sure i'm coming. might come but i got options. (you can feel honored that you are the first....) have fun in TEXAS. (pablo, paul deeds?)... p.s., i hearby proffer a long overdue invitation to leave me post-absinthe-binge phone messages any time you wish.... /// j: if only i could remember... feel free to podcast it.

an excerpt from an improvisation i recorded at home last week. all acoustic guitar, with live sampling, just one track. pretty mellow, to say the least. in other words, have patience, this one is not priced to sell (or, priced not to sell). (simone weil, by way of an outstanding essay in the new harper's: "the authentic and pure values - truth, beauty, and goodness - in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object.... absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.")...maybe i'm just getting soft in my old age...

last month the cutest puppy in the world (me + bryan rhodes) was invited to provide live, improvised accompaniment to experimental films by dc filmmakers chris lynn, heather levy, jay rees, and others. the films brought out our more atmospheric side, i think. (we're planning continued collaboration with these great people, as most everyone agreed the films and the sounds complemented and augmented one another nicely..) anyway here is a few minutes from that set. by rights, i guess, this should be a video podcast. alas, next time.... more at www.cutestpuppy.net....

((my first attempt at podcasting. please email me if somethin ain't workin. not really sure i know what i'm doing.....)) so this is a piece i'm working on that consists entirely of samples from a recent winter camping trip to smarts mtn in new hampshire (and guitar recorded the next day in the inter-zone b/w woods and all the rest). headphones strongly encouraged to mitigate the muddiness (everything recorded to mini-disc w/ relatively crappy mic in less-than-ideal conditions, must-keep-recorder-close-to-heart-so-batteries-don't-freeze-must-keep-fingers-from-falling-off conditions........) a work-in-progress so please tell me what you think.... textual accompaniment: human again. sense of self as distinct from world happily crumbles as the earth offers itself to you, opens as it is always open, and you offer yrself open yrself lose yrself sink into crunching earth breathing sky fading light warming friends creeping cold enveloping silence.