I have made some good progress on digitizing video, although there is a fair amount remaining. The following have been posted since the last newsletter to my YouTube Channel at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCprJy4kMIRs51FIFQF12dw/videos
Some are also posted on Kevin Reilly’s channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcmHsWs7HsYoS57UvNPvlcQ
We’ll continue to upload about one concert a week on Kevin’s channel to space them out a bit…
Equilibrium Session – Mass Art 9/29/1999
The album by Equilibrium - Fitness Landscapes was originally intended to be a Leap of Faith show. Glynis and I had seen Tatsuya Nakatani and James Coleman play a percussion / theremin duet and we invited them to do a performance with us as Mass College of Art. The other group was a Charlie Kolhase / Matt Langley sax duet. At the last second, Glynis couldn’t make the show and we did it without her. The three sets posted are the Charlie and Matt duet, a trio with myself Tatsuya and James, and a quintet with all of us.
Set I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_OtmSWlZu4 - Untitled
Set II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKD1GPr8qug – Fitness Landscapes
Set III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKdWo7ifp2s – Phase Space
http://www.giantevilclown.com/equalibrium.html
https://equalibrium.bandcamp.com/album/fitness-landscapes
Splines Sessions - Boston Dance Company, Cambridge MA ‐ 2 May 1998
This show was a collaboration with dancer Adreinne T Hawkins, who performed three sets with different ensembles. The first set of this performance was Leap of Faith in the PEK/Glynis Lomon/Craig Schildhauer configuration and was released on Evil Clown as Splines. The second set was the Eric Zinman Trio with Eric, Craig Schildhauer and Curt Newton on drums. The last set a quartet with Eric, Curt, PEK and Glynis.
Set I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0MeJ-kYuDk - Splines
Set II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzuLjVafJ_k - Untitled
Set III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE6288GB7C4 - Untitled
http://www.giantevilclown.com/lof-splines.html
https://leapoffaith1.bandcamp.com/album/splines
Spatio-Temporal Symmetries - Twisted Village, Cambridge MA ‐ 3/22/1997
This show was at Twisted Village, the tiny basement new music specialty store in Harvard Square, Cambridge MA. Three somewhat shorter than usual sets from the PEK/Glynis Lomon/Craig Schildhauer trio version of Leap of Faith.
Set I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4it_D63HngU - Poincaré Transformations
Set II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AWEYCKikaI - Projective Transformations
Set III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AWEYCKikaI - Inversion Transformations
http://www.giantevilclown.com/lof-spatio-temporal-symmetires.html
https://leapoffaith1.bandcamp.com/album/spatio-temporal-symmetires
Skysaw – Vortices
Somerville Community Access Television
Dead Air Live – Vortices – 9/30/2003
Skysaw was an electroacoustic duet between Yuri on drums and Core Redonnett on electric zither and electronics. Core was at that time a member of the Blue Man group in Boston. I played 3 or 4 shows with them in the early 00s. This performance was on a local TV program and involved dancers, video projection, real time effects on the video and was supported by a fairly large camera and technical crew. Full credits are included on the GiantEvilClown link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyQaI1lHqqE
http://www.giantevilclown.com/recordings-skysaw.html
https://skysaw3.bandcamp.com/releases
Sparkles Out
7) New Video posted to YouTube
6) New Releases – 2 MCE albums with new electronics equipment, deep catalog issue of Skysaw at Somerville Community Access Television from 2003
Metal Chaos Ensemble - Circuits
http://www.giantevilclown.com/mce-circuits.html
https://metalchaosensemble.bandcamp.com/album/circuits
Metal Chaos Ensemble - Forgings
http://www.giantevilclown.com/mce-forgings.html
https://metalchaosensemble.bandcamp.com/album/forgings
Skysaw – Vortices
http://www.giantevilclown.com/recordings-skysaw.html
https://skysaw3.bandcamp.com/releases
YouTube video of full TV broadcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyQaI1lHqqE
Multi-instrumentalist Dave Peck aka PEK hails from the Boston, MA area and hosts an extensive discography, spanning the 90s to present on his Evil Clown Records label. His Leap of Faith band is a long-running collaboration with alternating personnel. A former student of legendary saxophonist George Garzone, PEK is a man who stretches his imagination to the max via several disparate ensembles and ongoing relationships with numerous artists such as notable improvisers, saxophonist Bhob Rainey and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani. Each album, while largely rooted in avant-garde expressionism, poses numerous propositions for the listener amid the art of anarchic sound-sculpting processes with unimagined detours and trajectories, or when his band-mates intersperse a horde of faintly melodic and fleeting mini-motifs. At times, notions of the classic British free-improvisation movement on an adrenaline-fueled discourse come to mind.
War Tuba is a free improv world music spree unlike most anything I've heard. With the respective musicians' use of the aquasonic waterphone percussion instrument, jangling chains, metal objects, game calls, piccolo copper clarinet and other off the beaten path implements, the trio abides by a euphorically executed campaign. Think of ancient rituals with some degree of bombast, coinciding with PEK's various reeds and horns dialogues, enamored by the pristine audio characteristics. And his plaintive cries on the tarogoto and clarinets with electric guitarist Catherine Axemunkee's unorthodox phrasings and hammering chord structures are enveloped by percussionist Yuri Zbitnov's color-coded maneuvers. It's one continuous piece, also featuring the guitarist's droning rock lines and other bizarre soundscapes that always catch you off guard, but the band also settles into an ambient, electro-acoustic vibe, contrasting the spirited free-form romps. Without a doubt, the group's ultra-surreal musical space defies rigid classifications, as widespread interpretations will most assuredly vary on an individual basis, which for the most part, is a good thing.
Thanks to Glenn for such a great review and to Kevin Reilly for the introduction.
5) Great new review on AllAboutJazz for Metal Chaos Ensemble – War Tuba by Glenn Astarita
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/war-tuba-metal-chaos-ensemble-evil-clown-review-by-glenn-astarita.php
3) Long term plans for Leap of Faith Orchestra
The LOFO will be an expanded Leap of Faith with the core ensemble of PEK, Glynis Lomon, Steve Norton and Yuri Zbitnov together with an expanded percussion section, an expanded string section and an expanded wind section. The percussion section is Metal Chaos Ensemble, the horn section is Turbulence, and the string section is String Theory. Each of these extended sections has a gig planed with LOF this year in the usual LOF format – 2 bands play 3 sets, on each and then one together. During the first half of next year we will again do these three shows. These sets will all use our pure improvisation format. After these shows, which will tighten us up in a variety of smaller versions of the orchestra, we’ll do our full first orchestra performance. For the orchestra, I will create a score utilizing frame notation to control who is playing at any given point in the performance with time code displayed to the ensemble. There will also be some written directions in the score defining pre-planned sonorities and perhaps even some notated lines or harmony. I used these techniques in Expansions, performed at Mobius in 1994, although that composition included far more notated material that I am likely to use for LOFO.
I plan to do two or three performances by the orchestra in 2016 / early 2017 preparing to perform at the Stone in Manhattan (assuming I can get us a gig there) – probably the premiere venue anywhere for new music performance. We will also try to do a core LOF gig roughly once per quarter in NYC to help build a New York City audience.
2) New Webpage content including new Sparkles painting by Raffi
Lots of progress has been made on the webpage. Following is a list of key new features:
July 2015 update to Leap of Faith Bio
Sparkles and Other Art page featuring new painting – Introducing… …Sunshine
Bios page with lots of new bios – bios now easier to find
Reviews page with new reviews – reviews now easier to find
New sets added to Historic Photos and Videos page featuring a bunch of newly scanned lost photos
A bunch of great lost photos from Linear Combinations and Transformations
recording session at Killian Hall MIT - 1996
New page for Concert Posters / performances
Fractal slideshows
Fractal Movies
Mental Notes catalog
1) Upcoming Performances
Continuum – A Night of Pure Improvisation in Four Dimensions
8/4/2015
Lily Pad – Cambridge MA
8 PM - $10
Leap of Faith core ensemble – PEK, Glynis Lomon, Steve Norton, Yuri Zbitnov
Special Guests Jim Hobbs and Daniel Levin
Set I - Jim Hobbs / Daniel Levin
Set II – Leap of Faith core ensemble
Set III – both bands together
facebook event
Factorizations – A Night of Pure Improvisation
8/15/20115
Revolutionary Arts - Brooklyn NY
8 PM - $15
Set I – Shoshke Rayzl (electric guitar with efx)
Set II –Leap of Faith core ensemble
Set III – both groups together
facebook event
8/16/2015 Downtown Music Gallery - Manhattan 5 pm
facebook event
Hyperbolic Spirals – A Night of Pure Improvisation
9/12/2015
Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church
Somerville MA
Set I – Metal Chaos Ensemble
Set II – Leap of Faith core ensemble
Set III – both groups together
Facebook event not yet created…
Flow Regimes – A Night of Pure Improvisation
10/27/2015
Lily Pad – Cambridge, MA
Set I – Turbulence (wind ensemble with PEK, Steve Norton, Bill Lowe, David Harris, Keith Hedger)
Set II – Leap of Faith core ensemble
Set III – both groups together
Facebook event not yet created…
Supersymmetries – A Night of Pure Improvisation
Probably 12/15/2015 (date not finalized yet)
Lily Pad – Cambridge MA
Set I – String Theory
(string ensemble with PEK, Glynis Lomon, Kit Demos, Brittany Karlson, Jane Wong -
ensemble may change a bit)
Set II – Leap of Faith core ensemble
Set III – both groups together
Facebook event not yet created…
Things have continued to be very busy recently at Evil Clown Headquarters…
Main links to web content:
Evil Clown webpage http://www.giantevilclown.com/
PEK YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCprJy4kMIRs51FIFQF12dw/videos
Bandcamp, for Streaming, Downloads and CD Orders https://evilclown.bandcamp.com/
In this newsletter…
1) Upcoming Performances
2) New Webpage content including new Sparkles painting by Raffi
3) Long term plans for Leap of Faith Orchestra
4) Evil Clown T-Shirts
5) MCE Reviewed in All About Jazz!
6) New releases - MCE using new electronics equipment, Skysaw disc from deep catalog
7) New YouTube videos uploaded
Evil Clown Newsletter 7/22/2015
Evil Clown
On Leap of Faith: "Alien yet familiar, bizarre yet completely fascinating. Expanding, contracting, erupting, settling down, always as one force..." - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
On Metal Chaos Ensemble: "... using unique strategies to yield densely active and eerily surreal music, an incredible excursion through experimental improvisation." - Squidco website staff