Broadcast

Broadcast, Click Picks, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Online

They’re Officially In The House

A little while back on S21, I mentioned the good news that the indomitable / indubitable / inscrutable / incontinent Kalvos & Damian were bringing back an online-only version of their (ASCAP Deems Taylor) award-winning broadcasts. Though the name has changed from New Music Bazaar  to In The House, The show retains all of its trademark off-the-wall storytelling, banter, and enthusiasm for sharing the music and thought of all kind of interesting NON-POP musicians at work today. Our duo may be out in the wilds of rural Vermont, but there isn’t anything backwoods about their awareness of the new-music scene. Each show is provided in both a high- and low-bandwidth version, so there’s just no excuse to not be listening, hear?

[Note: Happy as I am about this return, I’d be remiss not to also acknowledge the New Music Bazaar’s different yet fine replacement, Noizepunk and Das Krooner. Since 2005 Gene Pritsker and Charles Coleman have been running their own mostly-monthly show, with lots of the same type of K&D-worthy guests. All of their shows are archived for listening at the K&D site right along with the New Music Bazzar’s vast archive.]

Art JarvinenThough Kalvos (Dennis Bathory-Kitsz) and Damian (David Gunn) last appeared in 2005, they more or less pick up just where they left off, with an fun interview of the muy importante left-coaster Art Jarvinen. Art has been a big factor in helping shape what’s come out of CalArts (and Cal, period) lately, and Art’s own music and interview heard in this show perfectly show off much of what California/West-Coast/Southwest music has been concerned with these last 30+ years (hint: it ain’t set-theory or the New Complexity… oh, they probably know it, but “thanks, no thanks”; life’s just too short and sweet…).

Shame on you if you’ve never bookmarked the K&D site; but all is forgiven if you do it now, and be sure to check back regularly for all the fun to come. …Oh, and send ’em a check every so often too, OK? Pure love and enthusiasm can’t pay those production costs and server bills, and Paypal couldn’t be simpler to use. They’re doing this for you, so do a little back.

by Steve Layton
Broadcast, Click Picks, Contemporary Classical

Re-cue the Wobbly “Meistersinger”

Robert Gable at his aworks blog flagged this gem of news from Dennis Bathory-Kitsz’s We Are All Mozart site:

Beginning this summer, we are bringing back Kalvos & Damian — not the old format of the New Music Bazaar, but rather Kalvos and Damian: In the House!  … We shut down the show in September 2005 after 537 episodes, but the demand for our show has never quite relented. We will start with the four interviews we did not broadcast during the show’s initial run, and then continue with Art Jarvinen and, if things go well, with Lisa Whistlecroft. By then we should have a schedule set up. K&D will not be on the air, which will give us more flexibility to conduct the interviews at our leisure and not be locked into time or geography. The show will be recorded on each end (or all three ends, if David “Damian” Gunn stays home) using a Skype connection, and the resulting recordings dropped atop one another. Fun a-comin!   ~ Dennis

K&D’s original New Music Bazaar was truly a new-music treasure — and still is, since virtually all of the shows are still being archived on the web for your listening pleasure. Dennis/Kalvos and David/Damian (for those not familiar, handily branded with scarlet letters for life by me in the above photo) have selflessly, and often absurdly, promoted a huge swath of new-music activity that often gets little notice or airplay. Chock-a-block full of interviews, music, and offbeat stories, the shows aren’t always (or even often) serious, but the underlying commitment and love for new, living music most definitely is. Stand by your internet dial, and we’ll let you know when links to the show are up.

Update: By the by, Dennis was recently interviewed by current Vermont composer-in-residence David Ludwig, and you can view the whole thing online.

by Steve Layton