True Sons Of Chiptune
At 9:00 last night I was eating a sandwich on the sidewalk parklet outside DNA Lounge when DH texted me: “Dude come up here you are missing something weird.”
Coming from DH, that meant something.
The “something weird” was the last entrant in the open mic portion of the 8BitSF evening. A weathered Tina Yothers meets Michael McKean from Spinal Tap in a flowy pirate shirt dropping a David Byrne staccato over aggressive video game beats. Not just weird, but also awesome.
Glad I swallowed my sandwich in two bites and ran upstairs to see the tail end of this guy’s set, but I was also happily marveling at the crowd assembling street level for the show in the main auditorium.
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A band of superstars. And Shows to see them at.
Look, I’m not even going to try to catch you up on all the stuff I’ve failed to write about over the past few months. Just know that it was awesome and you should have been there. There’s a lot of great upcoming stuff though, and you should know about it, so here we go.
First off, Flight of the Bleeper Bird has been programmed for an upcoming concert by the Bay Area new music group Composers, Inc – the concert is called BAMM!, it’s happening in Berkeley, and it features works by some of the raddest bay area composers, as well as some of the raddest bay area ensembles – including, of course, the fabulous Meerenai Shim playing my piece and a piece by Winton Yuichiro White titled Erratic Tale.
There are no presale tickets, but check out the Composers, Inc website and the Facebook event for more info.
http://composersinc.org/main.html | https://www.facebook.com/events/415182995250987/
Speaking of Meerenai, I’m very VERY excited to announce my new, permanent band. In no particular order:
Meerenai Shim – flutes
Ryan Rey – guitars, background vocals, trombone
Michael Booker – tenor saxophone
Donald Hanson aka VCO Vault – visuals
Alex Attard – alto saxophone
But WHERE, you ask – WHERE can I see such a fabulous ensemble perform the music of Matthew Joseph Payne? Well I’ve got not one, but TWO places for that.
See? There’s one. This will be the debut of the Matthew Joseph Payne ensemble – and bonus points! I’m sitting in on drums with Cartoon Violence (along with Dawn Deacon of The Killer Queens) and any amount of madness is scheduled and likely to ensue afterwords during the Gnarboots and A Yawn Worth Yelling sets… also, Star Wars stuff.
Saturday, May 3rd
SLG Art Boutiki
44 Race St., San Jose
7:30
$10 at the door.
COME IN A STAR WARS THEMED COSTUME AND GET $2.00 OFF ADMISSION.
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1431042500469104/
Also in May, I’m happy to be returning home to 8bitSF, to play a wild set with my band AND provide a horn section for our awesome friends in Slime Girls – more info on this later, but you will be SO BUMMED BRO if you miss it.
Thursday, May 15th
Above DNA Lounge
8:00PM
All Ages
$8 Advance | $11 Door
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1879684568839156/
December 16th show in SF, plus A/B Duo EP release and ILBT Indiegogo!
A week from tonight, I’ll be cracking some older tunes out of the archive for a two saxophone and guitar set in SF with some fabulous, fabulous bands.
I made my acquaintance with Garage Voice (hailing from Seattle) when I played a show with them as part of The Family Crest a few months back. They’re passing through town again this month and I jumped at the chance to share a stage with them. Also joining us is my always amazing friends in Makeunder. I would love to see you at this event, on a nice lazy Monday evening!
In other news, A/B Duo (Meerenai Shim and Chris Jones) recently released their first EP titled “Things We Dream About” which features the titular piece by Ivan Trevino, as well as my own “Echoloquacious” for flute, drumset/vibraphone and LSDJ! You can get it on Amazon, iTunes, Spotify and the rest, but I always recommend you check it out on Bandcamp.
If you like the fuzzy NewMusicPop feeling that gave you, I would encourage you to support the International Low Brass Trio in their Indiegogo campaign, which ends in just six short days! Besides touring Canada and taking my piece “Tolerances” with them (along with a Game Boy), they’re hoping to record an expanded version when they come home, along with a bevy of awesome new works that they commissioned this season. You can check out what they’re doing here and pledge to help out!
Oh and here, check out the premiere performance of “Tolerances”!
And more new and more news… Rockage returns next February with Rockage 3.0 at a new location! I’ve got fun exciting things in store for this year, including collaborations and a new record (I hope!) so keep tuned. For now, you should probalby pre-order your tickets – 3-day passes are still $20 on brownpapertickets!
Oh and I don’t know if you heard, but The Glowing Stars are playing a few shows. 🙂
More info to come, but the first thing you should know about is that we’re playing 8bitLA’s fabulous Frequency 3.0 in January. You can get 3-day passes for $20 for this too!
“Tolerances” video, and the ILBT Indiegogo campaign!
Let’s just cut to the chase.
A huge thanks to the International Low Brass Trio and the Guerilla Composer’s Guild for putting on this event and hosting an awesome set of new compositions! It was a fantastic concert and I’m sure the tour will be just as wonderful.
The ILBT is in the midst of an Indigogo campaign to support both their touring and subsequent recording sessions. They intend to record (a possibly expanded version of) “Tolerances”, so if you want that to be super rad, you should support the campaign!
MJP @ GCG + ILBT = !!! Also, A/B Duo preorders!
I’ve been a busy busy composer lately…
The International Low Brass Trio, in collaboration with the Guerilla Composer’s Guild, will be debuting a new piece by yours truly for french horn, trombone, tuba and LSDJ on November 15th along with a host of other awesome new compositions by local composers! Not to be missed.
This has been a really fun and exciting project and I’m super excited to hear it come to life! I talked a little bit about working with the ILBT in a mini feature they posted on their blog – while you’re there, be sure to check out the features on the other eight composers whose works are being debuted!
Check out the facebook event!
Meanwhile…
That’s right, A/B Duo is making this rad limited edition CDs of their EP of “Echoloquacious” and Ivan Trevino’s “Things We Dream About”, and you can pre order them (and the digital version) at the A/B Duo Bandcamp! Right now! In case you haven’t seen it already, here’s a neat teaser for Echoloquacious. The recording they did of these piece is absolutely fabulous!
All-woodwinds set this coming Saturday in San Jose…
Just a reminder, I’m lining up a woodwind-centric set for this Saturday’s WILD show with D&D Sluggers, Mega Ran and MORE in San Jose at Café Strich… not to be missed!
Oh, and LA was fun, at least until the cops showed up (not joking).
I was very lucky to be joined unexpectedly by the fabulous Emily Elkin of the band LA River Bend. Also, if you aren’t already privvy to the glory that is my good friend Makeunder, now’s a good time to fix that.
New Track! New shows! LA! SJ!
If you were at 8bitSF early last night, you may have caught me previewing a new tune at the open mic. Or maybe you were in the back room playing Dragon Fantasy, but I’m not judging. Either way, that track, Quintation, is available today on pxl-bot’s Weekly Treats series along with a rad interview – check it out!
Additionally, I should probably mention that I’ve got a couple more shows set up this year. More may come about, but for the moment you can feast your calendar-oriented senses on these puppies:
For my first appearance in LA as MJP, I’ll be flying down the freeway with my good friend (and one of two excellent clarinetists who have already loaned their talents to my next record) Hamilton, who performs as Makeunder, representing a body of music that you MUST experience. This show will be a rare solo show for him. It MIGHT be a rare 2xLSDJ solo show for me, but I’m still keeping my options and surprises open…
And then…
I’m excited to be making a triumphant return to San Jose’s fabulous Cafe Strich in this free megashow of epic proportions! I’m especially excited to be sharing the stage with North Carolina’s D&D Sluggers for the first time. I am fairly confident that something unusual, interesting and collaborative will occur at this show.
These shows are everybody’s first opportunity to get their hands on these puppies:
Happy Hour with A/B Duo, featuring “Echoloquacious” – THIS FRIDAY
Just a little reminder – the bi-coastal A/B Duo will be in town this week debuting my new piece for flute, percussion and LSDJ – “Echoloquacious”, along with a new work by Ivan Trevino. It’s gonna be rad! Hope to see you there!
Happy Hour with A/B Duo at San Francisco’s Center for New Music on September 27th
Gargantuan Acoustic Locator – physical release at last!
First I should say this – I am deep in the throes of producing a new album. It is mostly tracked, but it won’t appear in your hands until some time early next year.
In the meantime, by popular demand I have produced physical (CD) copies of Gargantuan Acoustic Locator for you to enjoy. Behold!
There are some slight edits in this edition of the record, which will be reflected soon in the bandcamp version. In the meantime, you can look forward to seeing KeFF’s fabulous artwork in the shiny, inksoaked flesh. Each copy comes with lyrics and liner notes printed on mimeograph paper, as well as a sticker.
When will they be available? Due to the limited nature of this pressing, they will initially be available only at shows, of which there will be a few more this year, due for impending announcement. As such, following this blog might prove fortuitous.
New piece for A/B Duo; “Echoloquacious”, to debut on Sept 27th, 2013
I’ve been working on this cool thing – well okay, most of the work is done for me already. First if you’ll think back a bit, you might recall “Flight of the Bleeper Bird” for flute and LSDJ, which was commissioned by and has been performed extensively now by the wonderful Meerenai Shim…
Meerenai has been touring that 12min epic around the country and getting a fantastically positive response. The gorgeous 7″ records she had pressed have been moving into the excited hands of concertgoers. Meanwhile, I’ve been toiling away at a new piece for Meerenai and her duet with percussionist Chris Jones called A/B Duo. They’ve been leaking some teeny bits of their rehearsals of the piece here and there, like this one:
You will also notice a little snippet of Ivan Trevino‘s new work also written specifically for Meerenai and Chris titled “Things We Dream About”. Both pieces are being debuted at Happy Hour with A/B Duo at San Francisco’s Center for New Music on September 27th. I’m so very wildly excited to see this work hit the streets, so I hope you’ll come join me!
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