NWEAMO presents: — -Pre-Election Sex & Politics Music Fest at Joe’s Pub, Galapagos Art Space & Diapason- —
Posted by sequenza21 in Concert AnnouncementTHREE NYC EVENTS: JOE’S PUB, GALAPAGOS ARTS SPACE & DIAPASON
FEATURING: SWARMIUS, Scott Johnson, Sxip Shirey, Radio Wonderland, Jody Redhage, Robert Mackay & more
October 31 through November 1, 2008
The Sound of Sex Politics makes strange bedfellows, and strange bedfellows make interesting music! Put all three together and you get the ingredients of the 2008 NWEAMO-Festival, making its 3rd annual stop in NYC, for 3 pre-election shows starting with Halloween @ Joe’s Pub, and continuing on Sat. afternoon at Galapagos and topping off at Diapason Sat. night.
Since 1998 NWEAMO (New West Electronic Arts and Music Organization) has been presenting highly eclectic concert-events that fill the room with beats, invented instruments, video, dance and electronic music from the far reaches of concept and aesthetics. High and low, street and laboratory — anything and everything converges, by design, at a NWEAMO event. On Oct. 31 & Nov. 1 the traveling festival arrives at Joe’s Pub, Galapagos Art Space & Diapason, with 3 concerts headlining composers’ takes on sexuality and politics from around the globe along with some of NYC’s most audacious.
Imagine how it will be on Halloween before this momentous election — the air will be super-charged — the Carl Rove propaganda machine will be in full force — it will be horrible — with obscene amounts of cash from hidden corners and latent racism seeping out all over the place To stay sane we need a ritual, a purgative: a Halloween music festival based on mankind’s eternal preoccupations with sex and politics …. and their inevitable conflation …
Festival Headliners:
- SWARMIUS – San Diego based classical power quartet – Joe’s Pub: Oct. 31-9:30 PM - http://www.myspace.com/swarmius
http://swarmius.com/ “…dizzying, multi-genre-leaping work … simultaneously exotic and familiar, intricate and inviting…[a] shape-shifting synthesis… ” San Diego Union Tribune
- Scott Johnson – Described by NYT as “superamplified guitars hovering like angels above the fray…a compelling marriage of rock elements and classical formalism…”, Koussevitsky and Guggenheim recipient Scott Johnson has been a pioneering voice in the new relationship being forged between the classical tradition and the popular culture that surrounds it. http://scottjohnsoncomposer.com/index.html
- Sxip Shirey - comedian-circus musician, Shirey is equal parts gypsy, tango, klezmer and punk – Galapagos: Nov. 1-5:00-8:30 http://www.sxipshirey.com/
- Radio Wonderland – They Might Be Giants long time collaborator Joshua Fried and his retro radio waveship – Joe’s Pub: Oct. 31-9:30 http://radiowonderland.org
- Robert Mackay – from Scarborough England, sound artist Mackay paints the sensuous side of sex in sumptuous surround sound tapestries – Diapason: Nov. 1-9:30 http://www.myspace.com/robflute
- Jody Redhage/Paula Mathusen – crossover cellist-vocalist Jody Redhage teams up with electro-acoustic composer Paula Matthusen to create contemporary sound art – Diapason: Nov. 1-9:30 http://www.myspace.com/jodyredhage
Festival artists: Sxip Shirey, Radio Wonderland, SWARMIUS, Scott Johnson, Robert Mackey, Sam Pluta, CK Barlow, Kinesthetech Sense, Chickashi Miyama, Fearsome Sparrow, Tom Lopez, Paula Matthusen, Tim Poulin, Erik DeLuca
General info: “Joseph Waters”
tel. (619) 750-7125
Show #1: Joe’s Pub: Rock, Sex & Politics
Date/Time: Oct. 31; 9:30 PM
Venue: Joe’s Pub (complete details below)
featuring Scott Johnson, SWARMIUS, Radio Wonderland
Show #2: Galapagos Art Space: Sex as Outrageous & Humorous
Date/Time: Nov. 1; 5:00-8:30 PM (afternoon show)
Venue: Galapagos Art Space (complete details below)
featuring: Sxip Shirey (MC), Tim Poulin, CK Barlow, Sam Pluta, Kinesthetech Sense, SWARMIUS, Joshua Fried, Fearsome Sparrow
Show #3: Diapason: Sex and Sensuality
Date/Time: Nov. 1; 9:30 PM
Venue: Diapason (complete details below)
featuring: Robert Mackay, Tom Lopez, Chickashi Miyama, Paula Matthusen
Ticket Prices (all shows): $15 General
Information: 619-750-7125
Website: http://nweamo.org/HOME.html
SEX SELLS!! is the cliche that is muttered sarcastically by “serious” artists, and is the time-honored sacred weapon of commercial marketeers. But can art be about sex, or the emotional swirl that surrounds it?
Sex is used to market everything (EXCEPT avant-garde classical music these days) so it is hard to say that it is overused that would be a magnificent understatement! But the point is that it is used so often because we seem to be a species that is perpetually intrigued (fascinated, embarrassed, outraged, attracted etc.) by that subject.
For the 2008 Festival NWEAMO aims to wrestle (innuendo intended!) with the aesthetics, gender issues, politics, norms, history, rituals, taboos, propaganda, stereotypes, spirituality and physiology of this emotional and physical dance that preoccupies most of us for so much of our lives.
We want to offer a forum that covers the spectrum. We do not want to be preachy or didactic (though some works might take those angles). Instead we want to pose questions and stimulate (sorry) debate!
Is sex too private to be the subject of public spectacle? Can there be an avant-garde music festival that is steamy in 2008? We hope so!
Despite (or perhaps because) of its grassroots organization, this annual all-volunteer extravaganza has spread around the US and Mexico, and leaped across the Atlantic to Germany and Italy. 2008 marks the 3rd year in Manhattan.
This year the festival kicks off Sept. 5 & 6 in Venice, Italy, at the magnificent Forte Marghera, historic military castle built centuries ago to defend the great Republic of Venice. Next stop is San Diego (Oct. 3-4), then Miami (Oct. 17-18), up the coast to SUNY Stony Brook (Oct. 30) Long Island and grand finale on Halloween & Nov. 1 at Joe’s Pub, Galapagos Art Space and Diapason..
Following is show-by-show breakout:
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Show #1 Joe’s Pub: Rock, Sex & Politics
featuring Scott Johnson, SWARMIUS, Radio Wonderland
Date: Friday, Oct. 31
Venue: Joe’s Pub
http://www.joespub.com/
Address: 425 Lafayette Street , NYC 10003
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=425+Lafayette+Street,+NYC+NY.+10003&ll=40.729535,-73.992105&spn=0.014569,0.043259
Artists: 1) Scott Johnson, 2) SWARMIUS, 3) Radio Wonderland
Directions to Joe’s Pub:
By Subway:
West Side: Take the R or W train to the 8th Street Station
East Side: Take the #6 train to Astor Place Station
By Bus:
Take the M2, M3, or M8 to 8 th Street and 4th Avenue
Take the M5 or M6 to 8 th Street and Broadway
Take the M15 to 2 nd Avenue and 9 th Street
Or take the M101 or M102 to 8 th Street and Cooper Union
By Car:
Exit the FDR Drive at Houston Street, drive west to Lafayette Street and turn right.
Or drive down Broadway to 4th Street, turn left on 4th Street and then again on Lafayette Street
Time: 9:30 PM
Ticket Prices: $15 General
Information: 619-750-7125
Website: http://nweamo.org/HOME.html
Bios:
Scott Johnson with Mark Dancigers Bowery Haunt
“superamplified guitars hovering like angels above the fray…a compelling marriage of rock elements and classical formalism…” THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://scottjohnsoncomposer.com/index.html
Composer Scott Johnson has been a pioneering voice in the new relationship being forged between the classical tradition and the popular culture that surrounds it. An early advocate of using rock instruments and technology in scored composition, he has appeared as a virtuosic electric guitarist in many of his pieces. His early work introduced the idea of instrumental writing based on sampled speech, and later works continue to develop his musical gene-splicing, blending complex and intertwined chamber music with a rock band’s hall-filling wall of sound.
Johnson’s music has been commissioned and performed internationally by ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet and the Bang On A Can All-Stars, as well as his own groups. His three decades of effort have been recognized with numerous grants and awards, including a Koussevitsky commission and a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship
SWARMIUS Sonic Fusion of Hip-Hop-Lounge-Techno-Classical
San Diego-based classical power quartet returns to NYC for its 1st full length concert.
.. comprised of ex-pro-skate-boarder Todd Rewoldt on Sax , virtuoso Violinist Felix Olschofka, percussionsit Joel Bluestone & composer/laptopist Joseph Waters on live electronics…
Part of the wave of artists hell-bent of extracting a classical music from equal parts rock, hip-hop, funk & classical SWARMIUS can bathe the ears into absinthe zones or tear off the face with dizzying speed metal riffs. SWARMIUS makes virtuosic west coast maverick-pop in the tradition of Harry Partch, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, Lou Harrison & other non-believers …
“…dizzying, multi-genre-leaping work … simultaneously exotic and familiar, intricate and inviting…[a] shape-shifting synthesis… “ George Varga, Pop Music Critic – San Diego Union Tribune
“Pull the trick or end up bloody as hell.” Says SAXIMUS, skateboard-pro-turned-rogue-sax-master: “You have to have balls, you have to go for it. If you are speeding across a parking lot, about to kickflip-ollie down a set of 15 stairs, you have a choice to make: Pull the trick or end up bloody as hell.” That is the mindset that SWARMIUS takes onstage
Fridays’ program features premier of Cali’ Karsilama, a work powered by Gypsy dance rhythms, used for centuries as flirtation vehicle from Turkey to Egypt, and shimmying into belly-dancing. Says Waters: “I have been intrigued for some time now by the mechanics of seduction All dance can be said to be sexual, but are there elements intrinsic to some dance music that parallel the neurological systems and patterns of seduction? It occurred to me that belly-dancing is the place to look….”
Music samples at http://www.myspace.com/swarmius
http://swarmius.com/
Joshua Fried’s RADIO WONDERLAND
Long time collaborator with They Might Be Giants, Joshua Fried’s personal approach extends the off-the-beaten-path world of TMBG with an improbable onstage set up that looks like a deconstructed automobile, complete with steering wheel and a set of upside down pedals, with feet attached…
Together with a bunch of other hot-wired gadgets, Fried drives this crazy music space mobile through the omni-present haze of live radio waves — pulling live beats, come-to-me voices and Right Wing diatribes into a living musical stew that bubbles and grooves as he conjures a live mix with whatever the planet is sending into space at any given moment…It’s dancable, outsider art for sure and an iconoclastic, one-of-a-kind experience…
Fried says, “I want to pulverize the corporate media stream and smear it all over the dance floor.”
RADIO WONDERLAND turns live commercial radio into body music. All sounds originate from an old boombox, playing radio LIVE. All processing is live, programmed by me in MaxMSP. But I hardly touch the laptop. My controllers are a vintage Buick steering wheel, old shoes mounted on stands, and some gizmos. You’ll hear me build sexy dance grooves, step by step, out of recognizable radio, and even UN-wind my grooves back to the original radio source. I want to show that we ALL can interrupt and interrogate the endless flow, that embedded in the crass sexuality of commercial culture is a deep frequency we can move to.
I interrogate the media so you can feel the truth: that deep in the crass sexuality of commercial pop is a frequency we can really move to.
“The lounge was doing the Limbo and nobody wanted to stop …” Craig Lee, LA Weekly
http://radiowonderland.org
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Show #2 Galapagos Art Space: Sex as Outrageous & Humorous
featuring Sxip Shirey (MC), Tim Poulin, CK Barlow, Sam Pluta, Kinesthetech Sense, Benoit Maubrey, SWARMIUS, Joshua Fried
Date: Nov. 1
Venue: Galpagos Art Space
http://www.galapagosartspace.com/
Address: 16 Main Street, Brooklyn
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=425+Lafayette+Street,+NYC+NY.+10003&ll=40.729535,-73.992105&spn=0.014569,0.043259
Directions to Galapagos Art Space:
From Manhattan by Subway
A train:
Take the A train to High Street. (1st stop in Brooklyn). Coming our of the subway (there is only one exit) cross the street and walk 100 steps through the beautiful little park to Washington Street.
Turn left to walk down the hill 4 short blocks to Water Street, turn left and we’re on the next corner, at 16 Main Street. F Train:
Take the F train to York Street (1st stop in Brooklyn). Coming our of the subway (there is only one exit) turn right and walk down the hill on Jay Street 1 block to Front Street, turn left and walk 4 blocks to Main Street, turn right and we’re on the next corner, at 16 Main Street.
Time: 5:00-8:30 (afternoon show)
Ticket Prices: $15 General; $10 Students/Seniors
Information: 619-750-7125
Website: http://nweamo.org/HOME.html
Show #2: Agent provocateur Sxip Shirey MC’s as NWEAMO combines sex-themed works that explore humor and have the capacity for outrage. Says Joseph Waters, NWEAMO’s artistic director: “We have a preference for unusual themes, be they risky, quirky, polemic or just weird… Things get categorized as such because they lie near the cultural horizon, which is where we are always headed. However, we really never know if there are enough works on any given topic — it’s an ongoing experiment.
Bios:
Sxip Shirey – http://www.sxipshirey.com/
Drawing from his finesse and facility as a “real-life circus composer,” Sxip Shirey’s imagination for sounds, sound combinations and textural color — ranging from experimental and far-out electronically-enriched nuggets to slow and heavy gypsy folk songs to eccentric Wurlitzer organ pieces to the odd country folk song — makes him one of the most curious combinations of composer-sound designer-performer meets storyteller-curator. As dramatically different as his stylistic signatures may be, and while the album may seem to have multiple personalites, there is a hard-to-define consistent character to it all; a playful, mischievous wink-and-nudge, up-to-no-good theme that ties it all together under one title. Some have called his style a combination of gypsy, tango, klezmer and punk and along with that, you could throw in some circus effects and a little tickling psychosis. With all that genius wrapped up into one little package, you’ve certainly got a peculiarly addictive album here.
Sxip will perform a variey of short pieces inbetween the other works.
Tim Poulen Homosexual Bonobos and the Supreme Court
Topping off Friday’s program will be San Diego composer *Tim Poulin’s* inter-active audio-video piece that explores sexuality among the bonobos mankind’s nearest neighbor in the ape world, who solve interpersonal differences through sex, rather than violence. The open, easy, wide-ranging sexuality of bonobos, often on display among the bonobo family who reside at the San Diego zoo, is a continuous source of embarrassed, outraged twittering among the humans who nonetheless flock to observe them. The work poses questions about our own behaviors.
CK Barlow eFfeM (frequency modulation): Short Pieces for Vibrators and Radios
Originally composed for performance at Tune(In))) Santa Fe, eFfeM uses the composer’s original recordings of vibrators as the primary sound source, accompanied occasionally by drum loops and live-sampled radio transmissions.
Composer, sound designer and performer CK Barlow has created music and sound designs for dozens of video, live theater and dance projects; she also performs as a soloist and with various ensembles including Out of Context and mJane. CK received an M.Mu., summa cum laude, in April 2002 from UNM. CK’s writing has been published in MIT’s Computer Music Journal; she’s also been interviewed about her work for Leonardo Music Journal. Residencies include STEIM Labs in the Netherlands.
http://www.ckbarlow.com
Sam Pluta Pop Rocks PH
Snap, Crack, Pop oral work featuring the composer performing vocal improvisations on amplified Purple Dildo while singing and gurgling Pop Rocks.
Sam Pluta is a composer and improviser working in the fields of acoustic and electronic music. His work has been commissioned and premiered by many notable performers and ensembles including: RIOT Trio, Dave Eggar, Ha-Yang Kim, Prism Saxophone Quartet and Teresa McCollough. As a founding member of Glissando Bin Laden, he has focused in recent years in fusing the worlds of acoustic and electronic instruments through improvisation. Also interested in the world of electronic non-pop, his analog synth band exclusiveOr recently recorded and released their first album. Sam’s music is released on quiet design, Seamus, and Vox Novus labels.
http://www.sampluta.com
Kinesthetech Sense The Color of Waiting multi-media collaboration from NYC-based Meg Schedel inventor-composer and LA denizen, dancer-choreographer Alison Rootberg.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=110849481
SWARMIUS Sonic Fusion of Hip-Hop-Lounge-Techno-Classical
(Please see above under Joe’s Pub)
Music samples at http://www.myspace.com/swarmius
http://swarmius.com/
RADIO WONDERLAND
(Please see above under Joe’s Pub)
http://radiowonderland.org
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Show #3 Diapason: Sex and Sensuality
featuring Robert Mackay, Tom Lopez, Chickashi Miyama, Paula Matthusen
Date: Nov. 1
Venue: Diapason
http://www.diapasongallery.org/
Address: 882 Third Avenue,
between 32nd and 33rd Streets
BROOKLYN (Sunset Park) 10th floor
882 Third Avenue (between 32nd and 33rd Street),
Time: 9:30 PM
Ticket Prices: $15 General; $10 Students/Seniors
Information: 619-750-7125
Website: http://nweamo.org/HOME.html
NWEAMO concludes with a set of quiet, sensuous works that explore spatialization and multi-channel sound.
Jody Redhage/Paula Mathusen [10:00] – crossover cellist-vocalist Jody Redhage teams up with electro-acoustic composer Paula to create contemporary sound-art Diapason: Nov. 1-9:30 http://www.myspace.com/jodyredhage
Tom Lopez Immaculata Erotica
A lovely, gentle work about having sex with classical musical instruments — caressed your oboe lately?
One might regard this piece as a melding of two sensitivities. The performance physicalizes timbre and simultaneously the music sonifies texture. The meeting point is an erogenous zone where I hope to reveal that the two should never be separated. This addresses a problem similar to the paradox of “immaculate conception;” reproduction without sex, sex without touching. What does it feel like to have sex without touching? What does an instrument sound like without playing it?
Some of the words people have written about Tom Lopez and his creative work: “A rich and sensuous piece…”…incredibly effective…”…extremely well-written…”…the most artistically satisfying work on the program.”
“Using great imagination and a keen sense for the dramatic…”…adeptly playing with tension and delicacy…”…clear delineations…”…understated athleticism…”…well-crafted and distinctive musical ideas…”…the sound coming from the stage is enveloped in a sphere of reprocessed sounds, as if the air inside the theater itself were a resonant shell…”…allowing the audience to feel as well as hear the sensuousness of the sounds.”
Robert Mackay from beautiful Scarborough, UK , Mackay is a sensuos sound art composer who uses natural sounds to create exquisite aural paintings.
”Heloise”
The opera is based on the lives and writings of Abelard and Heloise. Two real life characters, whose tale echoes down from the 12th Century as one of the world’s great love stories. Abelard was a brilliant theologian who became a teacher at Notre-Dame. He was also tutor to Heloise, the exceptionally bright and learned 17 year old niece of Canon Fulbert, her guardian. They fell passionately in love, and secretly eloped.
‘Love’s Beginning’s’
This piece introduces the beginning of the story, shortly after Heloise and Abelard have fallen in love.
‘Need Without Reason’
At this point, Abelard sleeps before he travels back to Paris, after fleeing to Britany where Heloise bore him a son, to confront her uncle Fulbert and ask for her hand in marriage. The piece reflects his thoughts and dreams as he prepares for the day ahead
‘Augustine’s Message’
In this section of the story, Saint Augustine visits Abelard in a dream, in which he is battling to come to terms with his recent castration.
(All of the sounds within this piece, with the exception of one, have been derived from recordings of the human voice. Using either sung or spoken text. I have tried to evoke the meaning of the spoken text, incorporating word painting in certain passages.)
‘Heloise’
With our lessons as a pretext we abandoned ourselves entirely to love. Her studies allowed us to withdraw in private, as love desired, with our books open before us more words of love than of our reading passed between us, and more kissing than teaching. My hands strayed more often over the curves of her body than to the pages; love drew our eyes to look on each other more than reading kept them on our texts.’
Chickashi Miyama Keo
- Japanese composer Chickashi Miyama invents and performs on exotic electro-acoustic instruments.
http://chikashi.net
“Keo” is a performance for voice improvisation, Qgo sensor instrument , and live electronics. The author attempts to realize three concepts in the work. The first is “dual-layered control,” in which the performer improvises phrases by singing and providing sound materials for a computer. Simultaneously, he sends commands to the computer to process vocals using a pair of sensor devices worn on both hands. The second is the connection between the visuality of the performance and the musical gestures. In most parts of the performance, the movement of the sensor instrument and the musical parameters are clearly connected. If the performer moves his hand even slightly, particular aspects of the sound are influenced in an obvious manner. The third is the strong connection between music and theatricality. In several parts of this work, the body motions of the performer not only control the sensor device, but also provide some theatrical meanings.
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