Keyboard Circle

Clip 1 (22 megs)

Here is the first half of our Sept 1st WEGO rehearsal with Jesse and me and two brand new recruits: Jenny Freeling (on Djembe) and Aaron Sarnat (Piano and percussion) ... both fantastic contributors who I hope will join us again! Nothing but hand-drums and keyboards this time. Damn hippies and their keyboards!! I've edited around a bit of the obvious learning and reviewing here, but even with half the group consisting of brand-new players, the evening was chock-full of sensitive counterpoint and inspired wackiness, and so the remaining material is quite good.

Nevertheless, if you're tight on time, the clear highlight so far is the last 4 minutes of Clip 1 (starting at the 14-minute mark) : "Piggy Toe".

(more soon!)

WEGO First Ever Public Performance! (Gypsy Cafe)

Set 1 (53 megs)
Set 2 (71 megs)

Thanks to everyone who came out to the first 'Woodland Experimental Groove Orchestra' show!! In spite of the fantastic weather, a few of our core members being unavailable for the date, and the unfortunate coincidence with the 'Tool' show at Key arena, we managed to mostly fill the Gypsy Cafe with generous listeners. (This was my first ever show at the Gypsy. Man, what a sweet space! Feels great, sounds great. I really hope they'll have us back again.)

All in all, it was a super-solid, and occasionally awesome first-show for the project, featuring a well-seasoned quintet of Michael Chapman (horns, percussion, and vocals), Dennis Jolin (ukelele and vocals), Abraham Neuwelt (electric and acoustic percussion and vocals), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe, keyboards, and vocals), and Me Woods (keyboard-bass, treble, and vocals).  The 'Lyrical Standards' were hitting pretty hard throughout, including a first-ever version of a rather-well-known song by Queen.  In talking with friends at set-break and closing, I was psyched that long-time listeners seemed to genuinely appreciate both the sound and the concept, and felt that the group already showed great potential beyond some of my previous all-improv experiments. I fully agree! And the fact that most everybody in the group is actually offering constructive criticism and helping plot our next-steps makes it feel like we might be onto something good here.

Check out the recordings and let me know what you think!

(Photo stolen from Dennis' FB page -- which explains why he's not in it … another friend was taking photos as well, so I'll probably post a couple of those when I can get them.)

******

Update (August 29th) ... finally found the other photos from David and Naoko in my inbox!  (...still no sign of Dennis, but some closer looks at Abraham and Michael here)

WEGO Rehearsal #7

June 30th Set 1 (64 megs)
June 30th Set 2 (33 megs)

Here are the recordings from our last get-together (on June 30th) before our first show (at the Gypsy Cafe on July 10th). The lineup for this recording is Chapman, Jolin, Kristmann, Silvertrees, and Woods.

There are a couple of slow patches near the top here, so I've done a tiny bit of pruning right at the beginning of the first set -- removing a tad of the opening build-up and the first half of Crazy Train (which, with the exception of the remaining chorus, is better represented in our earlier recordings). I did, however, decide to leave in the brief call from Tina right after we started up. The background banter, which I hardly noticed at the time, cracked me up on first playback. Beyond that, and some solid versions of several of our established lyrical standards, this rehearsal also features our first ever "Light My Fire" (lifted from the radio on my way over), and our first inclusion of the 7/4 motif in Tom Sawyer.

WEGO Rehearsal #6

WEGO Rehearsal 6, Set 1 (27 megs)
WEGO Rehearsal 6, Set 2 (39 megs)

Okay, I know I said I wasn't going to put any more clips of the new group up until after our first show, but these are just too good! (And there are some even better ones from last week's rehearsal, that I'll probably have bundled up by the middle of next week.) Besides, nobody but the band is really following this blog right now… right?

These are from our June 6th get-together, our first with Daniel (need to look up his last name) on guitar and voice -- mostly sitting out as he absorbs the general concept (you'll hear quite a bit more of him in the next post). Players for the evening were Dennis, Ian, Michael, Abraham, Daniel, Jesse, and me. After our usual rehash of the basics for newcomers and a special presentation of the Gestural Signaling Language (…near the end of the previous get-together, we had decided to convert most of our pre-codified verbal signals to hand-signals and I had written up a rough pass at them in the interim), we started the night still missing Michael (who showed up mid first-set) and Ian (who arrived just as we were wrapping up the first set).

The first set seemed to start a bit slow, and I made quite a few edits for its presentation here, but it's still chock-full of interesting movements, including a surprisingly emotional version of 'Crazy Train' right near the top and a pleasantly loose and lively 'Pour Some Sugar' later on. At the break, we set up Ian's rig and launched into a solid (and here unedited) second set that ran the gamut before closing with our first ever version of 'Tom Sawyer'.

Sadly, this jam marked Ian's departure for 2 months to fish in Alaska for the Summer, so he won't be there for the show on the 10th. But I'm greatly looking forward to roping him (and hopefully his fishing partner -- and fantastic guitarist/vocalist -- Woody) back into the lineup when August returns him to Seattle.

Man am I looking forward to the Gypsy Cafe show! Here's a flyer:

Split Key Soup with Elephant

SplitKeySoupWithElephant (16 megs)

Before I tell you about the recording for this post, I wanted to say that the new group-project is sounding great and growing well! (If you haven't been back to the blog here in a while, I've been silently updating the previous post with new recordings of each rehearsal, so you can just scroll down there to hear a bit of where it's been headed.) In fact, just this past week, we booked our first show for Saturday, July 10th at the Gypsy Cafe on Stone Way between Wallingford and Fremont. The group is going to be called the "Woodland Experimental Groove Orchestra". And for now, I'll just say that it's an all-improv dance band with -- as you might expect -- a couple of key twists. In order not to reveal too much more of what we're up to, I'll probably keep the next couple of rehearsal recordings off of the blog here, but if for some tragic reason you can't make it to the show on the 10th, check back here in mid July for the recordings from our first show!

In the groove orchestra, I've dropped my traditional role as a player of stringed-instruments and am instead holding down the bass (and a bit of harmonic counterpoint) with an old Yamaha keyboard run through a Boss wah/leslie modeling pedal, the overdriven channel of my Carvin tube guitar head, and out through the ported Aguilar 12"-with-horn bass cabinet that I used with Neon Brown. By splitting the keyboard (bass for the left hand and some form of "keys" for the right) and using a couple of simple effects (the wah and the tube-fuzz) to warm up the diverse (often cheesy) built-in voices, I think I'm getting a surprisingly versatile and pleasantly classic sound.

Which brings us to this week's recording. I haven't really touched a keyboard more than once or twice a year since finally leaving the cover-band business (1993?), so it seemed like maybe I should practice a bit. Keys (as opposed to all but my most electric stringed instruments) have the added bonus of being quiet enough to play in the next room while Lucy is asleep, so I've been spending 15-30 minutes noodling around each evening at around 10pm, and have even started recording these sessions for the last couple of weeks.

The clip above is from the first one that I recorded -- some time last week. Here, as with all of my evening noodling, I'm not running through the amp-configuration that I use with the group. …just through a simple solid-state fuzz-box that's part of the wah-modeler and then straight into the board (which I monitor with headphones). The clip drifts through some mellow improvised changes which occasionally showcase one of the polymeters I've been playing with. Listening back, I'm happy with how easy it is to generate relaxed momentum and spontaneous counterpoint with no looping or delays. It seems I'm playing more like my two-hand 'plank' technique than how I used to play the piano those many years ago, and I'm liking the effect. The vocals are another story… :)) While I sort of like the secretive-sounding hushed tones of the 10pm hour, it doesn't feel like my best lyrical dexterity. So, In spite of the evidence of the last 3rd of this recording, I want to assure you all that I haven't turned to late night solo-drinking. I was just a bit sleepy.

New Project Teaser and Rehearsal Log

Here are some selections from the exploratory "rehearsals" for a new project. I won't reveal too many details yet. For now, I'll just say it attempts to build on the tools, energy, and personnel of the later Chai House years. These selections aren't necessarily representative of what we'll be doing (the numbers -- of players -- are often wrong and I've tried to obscure the process a bit in the edits here, since we're still more learning the tools than employing them in their intended context), but Iiked the sound quality and the energy of these recordings enough that I wanted to share some of them. They're mostly intended as a log for the group itself, and perhaps as a hint to the curious NBP-fan of things to come. Until we start playing shows, I won't add new posts for this material, but will just continue to add tracks to the list below.

R1_TwoOutOfFour (1.5 megs): From the first get-together. We spent most of our time in a productive discussion of the concept and tools this night, but still managed to play for close to an hour. I'll probably add more clips from here eventually ... just wanted to post this one as a good example of what it is (wink wink)

R2_LookinForAGirl (14 megs): Lots of tools built during this get-together, but my bass tone was so tiny and distant that most of the recording is a bit harsh ... that is until this clip from the end of the night where I drastically re-adjusted my sound and we did one last series of movements. (may still post some other condensed clips eventually)

R3 (43 megs): lost the best vocal chorus and some really great jamming when I mistakenly thought I was recording our second movement, but still plenty of great ideas in this condensed version of what was left. Personally, I think the key-bass tone is finally working on this one ... and the tools of the project feel pretty solid now!  Looking forward to at least one more to try it all out with a larger group. Then, hopefully shows!!  (and I'll stop being so secretive about what we're up to :))

R4Awarmup (6 megs)
R4BamoreKeytastrophe (23 megs)
R4Csalsaritaville (53 megs)

Here's the material from April's get-together, featuring the first-time addition of Abraham Neuwelt on percussion. It just keeps getting better! The grooves are consistently strong (and interesting!!) here, and get even stronger in the third clip, where I begin to focus more on bass. At the time, I thought the second clip -- in spite of some solid playing by the others -- was mostly crap (It seemed the solidity and interest of my bass grooves were suffering as I tried to join TQ with my right hand in the upper melodo-harmonic area of the mix). But in listening back with my ear on the full mix, even the second clip is full of good moments -- even after my keyboard gets stuck in 'dual'-mode and loses all "bass". It's nice to have Jesse alternating back and forth between the djembe and the piano here! Maybe he could bring his keyboard out to shows? It feels like we just need to reach that critical 6+ person mass and we can start playing out!  (I know I said I was going to edit these down to hide the process and remove the rough-spots, but I'm really low on time at the moment, so these are unedited.)

R5_1 (25 megs)
R5_2 (56 megs)
Finally, 'Critical Mass' achieved!!  :))  We had a couple of cancellations and *still* managed to make it to 6.  Great density, momentum, and groove.  Further innovations to be integrated into the tools, but mostly, this was the meeting that proved to me that we're ready to play some shows.

Just realized I hadn't been listing who was playing with me on these until the R4 session (though the metadata on the files will have the last names) ... think I'll continue to avoid outing everyone here for now, but hopefully it'll become clear enough soon when we find a live venue for this stuff.

(iPod-touch doodles courtesy of my long bus-commute to work)

Neon Brown Presents: "The End of Neon Brown Presents"

Aphid Tea (13 megs)
Under the Tent (3 megs)

(WARNING: This post was either going to be super short and sweet or embarrassingly epic ... I think it'll quickly become obvious where it went.)

As it was actually happening, it was hard to get much perspective on the closing of the venue that was my every-other-weekly gig from Summer Solstice of 2002 to January of 2010, Mr. Spot's Chai House. Over time, I've learned to run less from these sorts of things, but I still tend to look at these types of events with my eye mostly on the doors that they open up (and here, as always, I see many new opportunities) ... only later getting much sense of the losses involved.

Lodged at a jaunty angle into the aorta of Ballard, the Chai House was not only the original home of the now-wildly-popular Morning Glory Chai, but became the root venue for 'neon brown'. Adrian and I (neon brown) played at the Chai House's new-location-opening-party on that June evening of 2002 ... and before that, under other band-names at their previous location just down the road. In addition to hosting and/or launching countless other unique musical projects, the Chai House was employment and/or social-center for a large, passionate, witty, diverse, and open-hearted clan of baristas, artists, students, and other assorted freaks and luminaries.

As an audience, the crowd there regularly applied perhaps the broadest ears I've seen in my playing so far, embracing our wildest lunatic moments and then asking for more. For instance, on the 4th Thursday of May, 2003 ("heenD for dummies"), we invited all of the guest musicians who had joined us over the first year and sang hEEnd lyrics over huge walls of improvised-madness. It was actually somewhat frightening at times, but the recordings from that evening -- and throughout our run there -- proved surprisingly listenable -- if you were into that kind of thing... ;)) The results were a continual reminder that risk/vulnerability are vital to getting to a meaningful place with improv. This recurring realization eventually resulted in the generation of structured-improv tools that were specifically designed to maximize not safety but risk. These tools, as we continue to refine them at other venues in the future, will owe their specific shapes in large part to the formative processes of the Chai House ... just as our lineups will owe their constituents to musical connections forged there.

Starting very near the beginning with Victor Trey, a tradition developed: We were never quite organized enough to get the Chai House our list of guest-musicians or a theme in time for the printing of the monthly schedule, so someone there would just invent a title for each show. As Adrian and I eventually phased out our opening set of written material, these short morsels were often so ripe with layered potential, that for many years most of my singing on any given evening focused solely on unpacking various interpretations and free-associations from the show's title. For instance, Neon Brown Presents:

"Kung Fu Biter"
"Chili Cheesecake"
"Can't Brain Today"
"Felonious Monkey"
"The Metal Years"
"Burning the Man"
"Flan-tastic"
"Mo, the Barking Arachnid"
"Gnawing on Kneecaps for 200, Chuck"
"Czech is in the Male"
"Vampy the Dental Wizard"
"Elmo and Grover Attack"
"A Wii for Fido"
"Neon Brown Beats the Rainbows out of Kittens in a Burlap Sack"
"A Pandemic of Extra-Firm Tofu"
"Killer Gerbil Wheels"
"Pretty Boys in Outer Space"
"An Evening with Butter"
"Unilateral Carp Tarp"

...just to name a few.

So I guess perspective on the closing of the Chai House is coming in small waves. Certainly more now as I've begun to notice and really mourn the hole in my creative flow and my social life. Especially in recent years, as Adrian left for Portland and I took over sole responsibility for our slot there (eventually introducing and attempting to evolve two distinct improv formats each month -- the Woodland Acoustic Orchestra and the Juggler's Challenge Revival Series), planning, booking, and anylizing/documenting our work there was a substantial and often emotional piece of my creative life. And it was a piece of such unique flavor that despite working in a fairly creative profession and living in an amazingly creative family, the scene there stimulated specific artistic aspects of me that probably don't get enough stimulation.

In looking on this experience with gratitude, I first need to thank Adrian. In addition to growing up (truly as friends) together, Adrian and I played music somewhat religiously together from 1993-2005. At the time, even though it's occasionally discussed, it's hard to fully appreciate the musical telepathy that develops over all of those years. This telepathy, now established, seems to defy decay, as every rare opportunity that we find to play together is marked throughout by surprising discoveries that bubble up from an inevitable chemistry. Nonetheless, it is indeed a sad situation that I don't get to play with him more often these days, and it's not clear how the demise of the Chai House will help this situation.

One of the audio-clips way back up there at the top of this post is "Aphid Tea", a track from our 2004 CD, "Nice Feathers". Aphid Tea (and several other tracks on that CD) was recorded live at the Chai House in December of 2003. We spent a couple of hours before the show setting up all of our recording gear and then played some of the tunes we wanted on the CD with full abandon -- repeating sections when they became too loose rather than holding back for the recording. We had a great crowd that night. You can hear them joining in on the chanted "Chai" refrain at the end. This particular track was recorded in one take and then condensed (still pretty hefty ... I should go back and look at the un-cut length one of these days). As with the other tracks recorded that night, the sound is pristine, with hardly a clue that we were playing to a room full of people and an espresso machine. ...at least until the "Chai's". The written structure of this tune consisted of a bass-line and a short vocal-chorus, so hopefully lots of room to explore that telepathy that I was talking about.

The second clip is a partial mix of a tune I'm calling "Under the Tent". Not only is this a long-distance collaboration with L.A.'s 5-Track, who sat in with Adrian and I for the first time during that very same Solstice-of-2002 show, but I realized the other day that I may have been subconsciously writing the lyrics about the "Neon Brown Presents" experience. More info on this piece will probably be added HERE, when I put together a final mix.

But back to the present: I want to sincerely thank all of the musicians who sat in with us over the years -- both those we knew from before and the far greater number who I met and learned to love in the heat of the music. There's no way I could possibly list them all here, but you know who you are! Thank you for your particular voice, and the bravery and humility required to share it in the context of 'Neon Brown Presents'.

Sincere love and thanks also to all the super-baristas (Erin, Chloe, Sarah, (Tom from the old days!), and all the rest!) -- genuinely warm and vibrant souls one and all. You guys really set the tone ... Even on occasions where I would arrive in Ballard disheartened from some frustration at my day-job or zombified by the Bellevue-to-Ballard commute, your infectious presence would always dislodge the cruft and set my mind right for play. And it made the ongoing series immeasurably more gratifying that you all seemed to actually enjoy listening to and interacting with our music!

Sincere thanks to both the original (Jessica) and the new owners (Chris) of Mr. Spot's for embracing the clan that lived there. I think many of us were a little worried that something would be lost when the new owners came in, but I think we were all very pleasantly surprised with the respect that was shown for the unique organic character of the place.

Thanks to all of the listeners (and -- in later years -- explicit participants). The Mr. Spot's crowd was certainly one of the most interactive around. But even when you weren't directly messing with us, it really isn't bullshit when I say that your energy often drives the music as much as that of the guys with the guitars around their necks! If the music is to be open, it has to be open to all of that, and the listeners there often brought the magic.

And while on the topic of listeners, a special thanks is certainly due to Jim Varnum, probably our most loyal fan, unofficial benefactor of the project, genuinely great guy, and -- I gradually discovered -- builder of quite a few strange and beautiful instruments (the latest of which I need to bug him for details on, as it was just getting underway when we played our last show in January).

I don't know what else to say. (...not that this isn't already long and incomprehensible enough for any newcomers to this blog! ;) Maybe this will be the last of it. Or maybe I'll be still be adding comments with newly recalled memories to this posting mid-century. Or maybe the Chai House will miraculously spring up again in a new even-more amazing location and I'll look back on this attempt to create some sense of closure and chuckle... who knows.