Juggler's Challenge Revival (Episode 22)!

Set 1 (56 megs)

Break it down! (1.3 megs)

Set 2 (45 megs)

Hey All! Here's another great Juggler's Challenge Revival show, featuring a drummer-less electric quartet of TQ Berg (Guitar), Dennis Jolin (Guitar), Donovan Raymond (Bass and Rapmaster...more on that later! :), and Me Woods (Keyboard and Vocals). By Tuesday, efforts to find a drummer for this one already weren't going well, and so I decided to see what would happen if we tried an electric group without drums. We'd done this before, but usually with an attempt to fill some of the gap with looping. This time, since I knew I'd be racing over from my soccer game at the last minute, I decided to forego the loops -- and even the vocal fx -- and just showed up with an old Yamaha keyboard and a mic.  I have mixed feelings when I say it was a *huge* success for the format! ...mixed because I know so many fantastic drummers. But the vocals were effortlessly audible throughout the evening here (a first for the new format...I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to *sing* more and shout less :), and without the looping, the music organically rose and fell orchestrally in response whatever the movement desired. Even though the guitars are usually what buries the vocals, it seems that it's the drums that set the volume that push the guitars into that territory. Perhaps I can convince some of my drummer friends to come out with simplified hand-drum setups for the next few of these...? I'd really like to try this again!

TQ and Dennis were like stereo treble magic all evening long, 

both playing rhythmically and texturally in a way that elevates the guitar beyond it's stereotypical role in rock music. Both of these guys really work from their tone. They seem to build reactively off of whatever sound is in the air and this really keeps things true! Donovan was typically brilliant on the bass and supplemented this with some ground-breaking work on his Realistic (TM ;) Rap-Master. A tiny radio-shack keyboard with an attached microphone that packs in a couple dozen (?) "awesome" keyboard voices and somehow allows you to sing through a weird shiftable harmonizer at insane volumes without feeding back. There is truly something weird going on with that mic-setup! It would audibly harmonize casual conversations at the other end of the room right through the PA, but wouldn't feed-back unless pushed to ridiculous levels and would nicely clamp any close vocals down to a pleasant dirty crunch. Donovan worked this and his bass (alternately and simultaneously) throughout the evening to truly spellbinding ends.

Thanks to the donated Yamaha from my mom, this was perhaps my first real appearance on keyboard since my last cover-band in the very early 90's.  Oh the memories...  (shiver)

   

The audience of Challengers for the evening was certainly small in numbers (tiny actually!), but giant in inspiration. The photos from this post include just a few of the sheets they provided. In a way, it was great that it was so slow. It felt a bit like an intimate house-party, and Chloe even had enough time to complete a few sheets -- including two of my favorites: Set 1's epic closer, "Oh Shit, It's a Cactus!" and perhaps our most abstract graphical-score to date (which -- I think -- opens Set 2).

So that's about it for me on this one, except I'll just say that switching back to recording with the external mics (as opposed to the Edirol's built-in pair) has been well worth it! The recordings have been really rich and spacious renderings of the evening's sound. Check 'em out! And let me know what you think here in the comments...

Woodland Acoustic Orchestra Presents: "System of a Clown"!

Set 1 71 megs

Set 2 23 megs

Here's a fresh and ultimately very satisfying WAO performance. The Orchestra for September included TQ Berg (v-bass and voice), Dennis Jolin (percussion, electro-uke, and voice), Ian McKagen (6-string and voice), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe, other percussion, and voice) Adrian Woods (percussion at the very end of set 2) and Me Woods (charango, trumpet, percussion, and voice). The Chai House had provided the theme "System of a Clown" for the evening and it was a great springboard -- both lyrically and, eventually, energetically.

By browsing the parentheticals in the list above, you can see there was quite a bit of instrumental diversity this month! It was also fantastic to have so many players adding their voices throughout the evening. Jesse (in his first -- and hopefully *not* last! -- NBP appearance ever) not only brought a new depth and solidity to the groove with his tasteful Djembe playing, but adeptly jumped right into the mix with great signals and vocals both. TQ, in the absense of "Filthy" on bass, gradually brought in more low end and contrapuntal rhythm as the evening progressed, building up the mass and momentum of the sound in a smooth trajectory aimed squarely at 10:00.

The first set featured a few bumpy patches, interspersed with sporadic brilliance. I perhaps took a little of the creative wind out of our sails by encouraging signalers to focus on structural -- as opposed to thematic/story -- signals. Usually we get our legs under us by charging off on a collective realization of something like "Bamboo-Lord Deals Robotussen". ...which is also fun! :) I was interested in bringing out more of the hard-shifting, challenging odd-time grooves that the WAO format is capable of. (I think my revised approach would be to encourage people to simply supplement any conceptual signals with a structural one.)

Granted, the structure of this show strayed a little further than I would generally like from the core strengths of the 'Acoustic Orchestra' format (mostly around the two goals of intentional-ambiguity/overlapping-threads and playing *through* the signaled-changes). But I realize now that this is mostly due to the gradual influx of so many great new players, and I think I should be able to easily bring some of those elements back with a simple review of the tools before the next show.

So, all that being said, many of the signaled changes still pack a nice wallop here, and many of the "songs" from this particular evening are unmatched in recent WAO history. Truly spontaneous, sprawling, and vibrant...ecstatic collective tributes to the concept of the moment! My personal favorite is probably the first set's "It Aint Easy" (starting at around 29 minutes in). The whole celebratory movement builds gradually against Ian's and my traded verses, with some spot-on clown-FX from Dennis gleefully slapping us in the face like a pair of size-22 shoes. And the brief second set is nearly all gold!

What was your experience of the flower-spray?

Juggler's Challenge Revival (Episode 21)!

Set 1 56 megs

Set 2 (truncated) 18 megs

Here's another typically atypical and -- for me at least -- highly entertaining Juggler's Challenge Revival show. Jugglers for the evening were TQ Berg (guitar and voice), Dennis Jolin (percussion and voice), Ian McKagen (bass for 1st set, guitar for 2nd), Michael Perry (drum-kit), and Me Woods (trumpet and voice for 1st set, bass and voice for 2nd).  The JCR idea-engine whizzed smoothly along in 21st gear for the whole evening here, with the return of some veteran Challengers from the early shows providing so many colorful and odd-shaped "balls" that by the end of the second set, we'd Juggled barely over half of them.  For me, the highlight was perhaps the 1st Abstract Graphical Score (starting at about the 40 minute mark in Set 1), which landed on the overhead projector with 3 perfectly open-ended linked-symbols/drawings. We'd just worked through the dangling necklace of notes and the slice-of-bread with the giant keyhole in the center, and I had just begun wondering what to put on the other side of the door when Krista (sp?) added the sparkly octopus. For me, that's what Juggler's Challenge is all about!

The first set began right as Ian (who had graciously showed up to fill-in on bass at the last minute) finished setting up his rig and then abruptly and mysteriously booked out the door, saying that he'd be back in a couple of minutes. In the absence of bass, the first few minutes featured some beautiful open space and then an "interlude" of some of the most vicious feedback we've gotten in years (the biggest peak is actually clipped out of the recording here to spare your ears :).  Unfortunately, since TQ was set up near the PA I think we mistakenly focused on the wrong mics in fixing the problem (his and Ian's), when I'm pretty sure now that it was the mic that we had set up for Michael's harmonicas, but which by then had been passed over to Dennis who was much closer to the speakers. Oh you bitter whiner, blasted "hind-sight"!! In any case, within another minute or two, Ian was back and we were off and running again on our first module. From there, it was a supremely beautiful evening, marred only slightly by one guy's repeated requests for "Takin' Care of Business".

On the recording front, I think the return to the split-mic really helps spread the mix and bring the vocals forward a bit (the left mic was strategically placed quite close to one of the PA speakers).  But apparently the excitement of the set-break erased any memory of the recording gear from my mind and I didn't remember to restart it again until probably over half-way through the second set, missing a stellar warm-funk warmup, a bluegrass-folk-boogiewoogie-motown-electronica version of the innuendo-fueled mad-lib song, and a story of Frodo the Hampster Farmer and Jinxmooh the Assistant Demigod.

One detail I wanted to call out: I *think* most of the other Jugglers understood at the time, but since I've been known to advocate for lower volumes in the past, I wanted to clarify that the bit that starts just before 8 minutes into what remains of the second set was pure theater. ...not an artsy way to try to get people to turn down! This was the 2nd graphical score of the evening, and I was pretending to be an elephant getting paranoid that the cops would bust him for smoking pot with his fellow pachydudes in the storm-sewers. I swear it was right there plain as day in the score! ;)

Okay, that does it for me for this one. Anything else that I might've called out? ...please add it in the comments here.

Woodland Acoustic Orchestra (August 2009)!

Set 1 57 megs

Set 2 19 megs

Bonus: aWoods Solo Set Opener 18 megs

Here's an unusual and -- I think -- very successful WAO show featuring TQ Berg (6-string and voice), Filthy (fretless bass), Johnny Greene (dumbek), Bill Wolford (banjo and 1-string bendy thing), and Me Woods (guitar, voice, trumpet, and miscellaneous percussion).

As we were playing, I think many of us were oscillating back and forth between complete absorption in navigating the gentle musical chaos and thinking "wow, this sure has been chaotic for a while now!".   As such, in spite of the glowing reviews from several listeners, I wasn't sure whether it was as strong as our average show, but now that I've heard the recordings I'm a complete convert. Rhythms, melodies, lyrics rise and fall amidst a loosely-organized, constantly collapsing and overturning musical babble. Each thread seems to emerge, gently pull on some neighboring tangles and then unwind back into the mass of soft colourful yarn. The maturity and active ears of each musician are on full-display as they patiently respond to each other without forcing any particular groove or motif to the forefront. The general patience with inconsistency allows layers and layers of overlapping and loosely-connected patterns to build and shift against each other. This is advanced listening to be sure, but not so easily dismissed as wankery in my opinion.  In the second set, things became more conventionally stable but still great.

So, I think I'll leave it at that for this one. As always, I encourage you to add your own thoughts below in the comments section. Oh, and one more thing: Many of the "signals" written up on the white-board by the various band members were unusually conceptual and even pleasantly risky...just so you don't give me too much of the credit (or blame ;) for the somewhat questionable lyrics!

JCR Episode 20 !!

Set 1 56 megs 

Set 2 24 megs

The 2nd Wednesday of August was another in what feels like a steadily-building series of Juggler's Challenge Revival shows: Episode 20! Jugglers included Woody Frank (Electric Guitar), Dennis Jolin (Percussion Spread), Donovan Raymond (Bass), Paul Turner (Drums), Adrian Woods (Loops, Chimes, Vocals, Percussion, "Crust-Wave"), and Me Woods (Vocals and Trumpet).The audience-interactive portion of the show went better than ever, with the seasoned band making grand use of input-sheets that seemed to pile up on stage before we were even plugged in. A heaping of heartfelt thanks to everyone who added their words, ideas, and drawings! It was a model JCR show. (Also, for posterity, this was the debut of the "5-Adjectives" sheet.)

This was Woody's last show of the Summer before he heads back to CA for the school-year. We had thought we were going to have TQ on guitar again this week as well, so Dennis was 'all-percussion' instead of his usual strings/percussion mix. As it turned out, instead of our usual 3-or-4 treble-guitars, it was just Woody. But let me tell you, if anybody can play with enough energy and versatility to make up for 2 extra guitarists, it's Woody! And indeed he did. With his single guitar playing a key role in outlining a wide range of diverse styles and syncopations for each movement, it was an inspired and fitting end to our all-too-brief Summer run with him. We'll definitely be looking forward to seeing Woody again whenever he's back in town next!

Dennis had decided to (for the evening) trade in his strings for an impressive spread of hand-percussion that just about filled the entire abandoned drum-riser. It seemed that no one -- except possibly Dennis himself -- was hearing enough of him at the time, but on the recording his supremely tasteful grooves and pinpoint-targeted soundscape additions come through pretty clearly and really bring some tang to the sauce.

I'd been eager for my next chance to play with Paul, but had been waiting for a non-chai-house show, in light of our common Juggler's Challenge difficulty with volume-balance and Paul being one of the hardest-hitting drummers in the city. But in running into him at the previous show, it was suddenly clear that we needed to try it. Mercifully, he brought a range of lighter drum-whackers, allowing his precise, intricate, dynamic-driving magic to transform the JCR format. I now greatly look forward to rotating him into the band more regularly!

It was fantastic to have Adrian back again as well, soundscaping just below the threshold of perception with mostly just house-mic input and hacked fx-loops as only he can! (I even caught him playing percussion on the table-legs towards the end of the night. :)

I played Trumpet again! ...and it was much less embarrassing this time. I think I'll do it some more.

At this point, I think I should mention that it's hard to imagine even pulling these shows off these days without Donovan on the bass. I guess -- since the format tends to shift happily to accommodate whoever's there -- we'd manage, but Donovan brings it all: rock-solid, bone-shifting grooves (across a diverse range of feels!) that never fail to either trigger or seamlessly integrate a new thread or concept. Somehow he manages to "fill" us towards a new chord or through a turnaround at just the perfect point in the lyrical structure every time. It often feels like he's already memorized the chart for the song that we're supposedly making up on the spot, but I suspect he's just a really good listener.

Okay, that's it for me on this one. Please add your own thoughts and observations here in the comments!

Woodland Acoustic Orchestra Presents: "Super-Cali-Fraggle-Rastafarian"!

Set 1 70 megs
Set 2 24 megs

WAO coalesces again here for another successful run with the whiteboard-based signaling approach! (See the post from the end of June below for more details on the format.) This month featured a plentiful orchestra of regulars, including "Filthy" (Fretless Bass) Woody Frank (6-String and Vocals), Dennis Jolin (Ukelele, Percussion, and Vocals), Ian McKagen (6-String and Vocals), and Andrew "me" Woods (Fretless Classical Guitar, Trumpet, Vocals, etc...). We also had a two-piece dumbek section of new-ish arrivals, Johnny Greene (who gave me a CD of a well-recorded, mind-blowingly technical, and thoroughly listenable 20-minute drum-solo!...but more on that later) and Seth "I-don't-know-his-last-name" (the guy seen directing the Abstract Graphical Score in the post below). For the first set we had John only (from the couch in front of the stage), but sometime later in the evening, Seth grabbed my unused dumbek from the stage and joined him on the neighboring couch. Together, the extra percussion extended the grooves out into the house and untold dimensions beyond.

In addition to the continuous stream of expertly signaled direction from within the Orchestra, we also had an unusually fruitful Chai-House-provided theme for the evening (reportedly by Erin...if so, then bravo, Erin! :): "Super Cali Fraggle Rastafarian". As with a handful of the best themes we've had in the past, the story of a ganja-toking Muppet on the road in Northern California shaped the show from first notes to beer-o'clock. (I only wish the theme had been listed on the Chai House's calendar like it usually is...after the show, I got to talking to a guy who remembered Fraggle Rock better than I did and I realized there was so much untapped potential there! ...so many details that were apparently wiped from my 13-year old pre-rastafarian mind.) But kudos to the group for the nuanced improvisation, the many fantastic -- and often theme-appropriate -- signals, and the stellar muppet-vocals.

I think this might be the first time that the fretless nylon-string has been to the Chai House in at least a couple of years. It seemed to add a nice bit of tonal contrast against the two steel-strings, and the lack of frets forces me to keep things simple, which is great with so many players. It's been much longer since I've seriously picked up the trumpet (...junior year in high-school?), and my impression as I was playing was that I was mostly making a fool out of myself. But listening back to the recordings I really liked the added texture and I don't think it should take me too long to get back to the point where I can find a way to play things that people can enjoy listening to. So perhaps I'll make this combo my WAO rig for a while and see what develops!

Neon Brown Presents: "Juggler's Challenge Revival (Episode 19)"!

Set 1 54 megs

Set 2 25 megs

Timelapse of the Whole Evening 9 megs

Another 2 fine sets of Juggler's Challenge! July's Jugglers included TQ Berg (Guitar from the last bit of Set 1 on), Woody Frank (Guitar and Voice), Michael Perry (Drums), Donovan Raymond (Bass), and Me Woods (Acoustic Guitar and Voice). It's great to have Woody out during these summer months when he's not away at school. He always brings a pot full of melody, driving rhythm, and unique energy. And this evening in particular I got a number of compliments about his playing. The rest of those guys: Idiots, all! ...I mean genius! sorry, "genius" was what I meant to say. It was a good lineup all 'round.

Ian McKagen created the 'Insider's-Surprise' -- the first free-form entry of the evening, played while the bulk of the Challengers are familiarizing themselves with the format and deciding what to put on their first transparencies. He penned a perfectly whimsical riff on the Chai-House-provided theme for the evening: "Acoustick Popsickle" (sic). (If you're new to these shows, see some of the other Juggler's Challenge entries below for more context.) From this point, it seemed that no other explanation was necessary as first-time Challengers immediately grokked the concept and jumped right in with a steady stream of inspired input.

Building a consistent group for this format was clearly paying off this evening, as the Jugglers brought more subtle cohesion and spontaneous momentum out of their diverse experience with vaguely similar forms from previous shows. I had a lot of fun start to finish! The audience was generous and involved and the players were amazing. The fine-print paragraph that follows addresses my only ongoing difficulty with this format. This difficulty is addressed here in the form of a lengthy analysis of the sound-mix and the presentation of part of my grand-unified-theory-of-ideal-live-performance-EQ. Unless such things interest you, feel free to skip ahead.

Sorry to ramble on about the mix every time, but -- especially with this audience-interactive format -- I really do think that getting a good volume balance is near the top of a very short list of logistical/technical keys to getting the format to work. And I keep kicking myself because I never seem to be able to figure out how to fix the problem at the time. As usual, the vocals were slightly more audible at the beginning of the night (and perhaps generally more intelligible than what was captured on the recording), but again they became progressively buried and by the end of the night, I was again singing in a very narrow and loud dynamic range (shouting), just to get the notes -- much less the words -- to cut through. And I think my conclusion after this show is that this problem generally has everything to do with the treble instruments being out of balance. Again, I couldn't figure it out at the time.  This time, TQ was *plenty* quiet. He tipped his amp up at a 45-degree angle on stage and played at an unusually low volume (most likely too low, since we were both up on the tiny stage, and I know he was being careful not to braise my ears...but it was a good experiment and generally I think the tipped-amp approach pushes things in the right direction).  Woody's amp, on the other hand, was in the traditional flat-to-the-ground position, and -- in retrospect -- was probably a few notches too loud. He's a solid listener and could clearly tell something was up, because by the middle of the set, he wanted me to turn up my guitar to match. But by this point, the vocals were both too loud and buried.  One could argue that I should just turn them up, but I could already see the wincing near the PA, and in retrospect I think the vocals were already perfectly situated in relation to the drums and bass. (If I'm going to complain so much after the fact, I definitely need to get better about figuring these things out on the spot.) But this brings me to my general formula for band eq: The bass should be the very loudest...especially with Donovan's all-lows tone. It provides a solid foundation to the frequency pyramid and doesn't interfere with the audibility of the treble instruments, even if they're much quieter than they generally tend to be. (In fact, if you *did* want an audience to embrace a band playing really loud, the best way to do it is to make sure that the low frequencies are the loudest.  We used this approach for half a decade in 'neon brown' and had virtually no volume-complaints, even at tiny coffee-houses that generally eschewed electric music. Conversely, If the bass frequencies aren't keeping up, even a modest volume can feel harsh and overwhelming.) In terms of instruments and VU meters, the vocals and drums should be next loudest.  You should be able to hear the words and the vocalist should be able to sing at lower dynamic ranges from time to time and still be at least audible. Then the treble instruments (guitars, keys, saxophones, chain-saw) should be notched in a bit below those.  You'll still easily be able to hear every note they play (since the bass and drums don't generally interfere with their frequency-range and the vocals are intermittent) and their tones will provide plenty of power and texture without being on top of the mix. Anyway, that's the theory...

Okay, endless theorizing over! I hope none of the fantastic players who have been joining me feel in any way put-off by my theorizing. I certainly blame no-one but myself and my consistently poor planning and communication on this issue. It's obvious that everyone is trying to get a better mix. But since I'm hosting the show, people are probably trying to listen to my suggestions and I'm not giving good ones at the time.

Some of the highlights of the evening included the "Style-Blender" module (consistently working it's chaotic magic these days), the abstract graphical score (written(?) and directed by Seth), the 2-characters-meet module (with input from both the house and the baristas), any of the purely instrumental bits, and -- for sheer shock-value -- my guitar crashing off the side of the stage at the end of the first set. 

Never fear: though I was vocals-only for the second set, the pickup batteries weren't too hard to get back into their slot on the weekend...once I could loosen the strings and hold the guitar over my head in a little better light.

Did I forget anything? Please feel free to add your own liner-notes (and/or rebuttals to my grand-unified-theory-of-performance-EQ) here in the comments section.