2010 events:
- Jan 13 - Seizure Salad + Bent Spoon Duo w Chad VG
- WEEDS CAFE (1903 20th AVE NW), 8-10pm, PAY WHAT YOU CAN
TUESDAY APRIL 5, 2010
all ages, food & drink
ERIC NORMAND + BENT SPOON DUO
The Bent Spoon Duo (Chris Dadge and Scott Munro) has spent
the better part of the last decade refining their approach to
free improvisation. Taking that genre at face value, they play
a restless, vaguely psychedelic melange of instruments and
homemade sounds, but as one reviewer put it, "Regardless of
what is actually used to make these charmingly odd vignettes,
it’s fantastic music." Their recent string of releases, on Bug
Incision, Holy Cheever Church, and Middle James Co, have been
summed up as "superb psychic mindmeld." New recordings with
Eric Chenaux will see the light of day in 2010.
Éric Normand is a composer, improviser, bassist, instrument
designer, and record and concert producer, all in one. He
defines himself as an epidisci plinary musician, a free
electron driven by its yearning for meetings. In his book,
composition cannot exist without exchange, since composition
consists in setting up a territory that will facilitate
improvisation. The interlocutors who have taken part to his
numerous composition and production projects are sound
engineers, radio producers, musicians, and sound artists.
Living in a remote location (Rimouski), he ponders the concept
of distance. He builds portable instruments and involves
musicians in projects designed with very basic or high-tech
communication tools. When he wanders around, he likes to
improvises. His latest such meetings have featured Pierre-Yves
Martel, Danielle Palardy Roger, Magali Babin and
Anne-Françoise Jacques. His music has been programmed by or
performed in several festivals in Canada (Festival de Musiques
de Création, Jonquière — Reflux — Moncton, Productions
SuperMusique — Montréal, Mois Multi — Québec, etc.) and Europe
(Festival Rue du Nord — Switzerland, Festival des Musiques
Insolentes — France, Les Rencontres à l’Échelle — France,
etc). They have also been broadcasted by Radio-Canada,
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, Radio-Grenouille,
and several college radio stations.
- WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2010
(the acts are listed here last to first, schedule-wise)
Larry McDowell aka Protagonist/Antagonist:
Making music/noise under the alias Protagonist/Antagonist, Larry
McDowell experiments with rhythmic and melodic atonal call and
response to create a pitched psychedelia of droning horror and
doom drawing on the concepts of space, time, chaos and cosmos.
Using improvised jazz chords played on a moody electric guitar
or ambient feedback from patch cables hissing through digital
and analogue delay/echo effects, he produces subtle and eerie
harmonically layered soundscapes.
See also: http://soundcloud.com/larrymcdowell
Matthew Waddell:
MW is a musician from Montreal who is in Calgary for an extended
visit while working on some other projects. A staple of the
improvised/weirdo music scene in Montreal, Waddell plays in the
excellent group Corse, and will be performing a solo
laptop/field recordings/etc piece. More info:
myspace.com/vortvort | myspace.com/corsesound |
matthewwaddell.info
Talewinds:
Talewinds Trio culminates a string of chance encounters,
sympathetic musical directions and a rare star alignment. This
ensemble ignites the busy blues/ chromatic harmonicas and
treasure box items of Alan Briks, the extraordinary soulful
vocals and percussion of Jessie McMullan, in resonance with the
lush, penetrating sounds of flutist Joan Cobb-Beaumont.
Talewinds unwinds into soundscapes of improvisational
story-making.
JM: A student of Jazz Improvisation...engaging in the
intuitively thoughtful creative exploration of ideas and
emotions...Jatinder, (aka Jessy) is a singer who prefers to
vocalize sounds, rhythmic and melodic thoughts that paint
impressionistic soundscapes and images. Although this will be
her first walk into experimental music, she feels an excitement
of having traveled far only to finally come home. She has
performed in various local and international venues as a Jazz
singer, and looks forward to this debut with the
talented stylings of her band mates in Talewinds.
JCB: Having a passion for the flute that developed early in
life’s adventure, Joan, has explored it in various venues from
school ensembles, a youth orchestra & “pit” orchestras, to
pairings with piano, voice(spoken & sung), choir, organ,
strings, horns, percussion. ... She is currently part of a 5
piece band called, “The Rhythm Methods”, performing cover tunes
from a broad cross section of decades & genres.
AB: Spontaneity, the intuitive, an adoration for process are
common threads in Alan's endeavours as experimental musician,
visual artist and art therapist. Having a jazz/ blues
orientation on the harmonica Alan was thrust into experimental
music ten years ago, and has since performed in various venues
in Ontario and Alberta. ...“Throwing a variegated bunch of
sound-making artists together in a performance situation is an
experiment in trust and telepathy, with the promise of an
authentic creative process .. an exhilarating adventure”.
- MAY 12
- ERIC HAMELIN - solo perc & electronics - chad
vg/nomoreshapes' skinsman takes it on himself - nice!
- AARON LEANEY - our town's finest sax testifier -
solo horn on this night.
- CHRIS REIMER - one of the guitar fiends from
women, also NO HOMO, first seen here.
- JUNE 16:
CHRIS DADGE/ERIC HAMELIN DUO
Eric Hamelin and Chris Dadge are two of Calgary's more prominent
improvising percussionists, known largely for their work with
Nomoreshapes and Bent Spoon Duo, respectively. They also share a
secret fascination with guitars, and they will indulge
themselves together on this night.
myspace.com/nomoreshapeserichamelin
bugincision.com/chrisdadge
A V A
A tornado wrestles a trailer park, a ship sinks beneath the
silver mirror of the sea-top, temple gongs ring through an empty
valley, industrial machinery sputters, heaves, lurches forward,
stops, falls apart… These sound events may be the most acute
musical referents of A V A, the solo project of R. Smith (Von
Bingen, Shasta Cults, BCVCO). Using analog modular synthesizers,
A V A pursues the true sound of the instrument, freed from the
tyranny of emulation, no strings/woodwinds/piano presets. A V A
‘s compositions seek out unchartered territories where sustained
drones may swell, build, or evaporate; where timbres collide,
amplitudes fluctuate, sounds emerge, raw, primeval, new hybrids
form from the collisions of electricity and frequency. There may
be stretches of silence punctuated by bell-ish tones from
futures unheard; a sequence of notes may verge upon melody
before mutating into ugly moans, the sonic equivalent of
funhouse mirrors. But the end result is far more than chance
operation, sporadic sound fields, or indeterminate academic
exercise. Instead, A V A brings us back to nature, back to the
possibilities inherent in nature, to the truth of evolution,
stitching both musical tones, and the sounds of 21st century
living into a form which is as real, as imponderable, and as
ungovernable as our own memories.
BENT SPOON DUO @ JAZZ FEST
BLANKET @ SLED ISLAND
- JULY 28:
- Protagonist/Antagonist is Larry
McDowell's solo project, always smart and thoughtful.
- Mark Fleischhaker is a vocalist and
drummer, whose intense, short bursts of work have peppered
Calgary's improv and metal scenes for the last decade or so.
His vocal/electronic improvisations & will be paired
with Chris Dadge's kitchen sink
percussion. There will be... copies of their new trio CDR
with Scott Munro, titled Daikons, for sale at the show.
- AUGUST 11:
- RAPHAEL ARSENAULT
- SIMEON ABBOTT/CHRIS DADGE
- AUGUST 28:
- Beneath These Idle Tides
- Chris Reimer
- Blanket
- separately and together
- September 22:
- Eric Hamelin solo
- Chris Dadge solo
- October 20:
- Ferdinand Right (aka Ben Comeau and Bronson Wright)
- Lowebrau
- November 17:
- Whitney Ota + Chris Dadge
Another first duo performance, this one saxophone+ &
drumset+. Ota & Dadge met relatively recently. Ota got
his start in improvising while living in Vancouver, where he
started various groups, including Wild & Majestic,
Natural, and his solo work Yankee Yankee. He also runs the
Calgary-based record label Unit Structure Sound Recordings,
which features a bunch of his and collaborator's projects,
on a variety of formats, all lookin' real good. Dadge has
maintained a consistent presence on Calgary's improvised
music scene since the early '00s, with acts such Bent Spoon
Trio/Duo, Musk Cup, Midnighties, Raw Kites, and many
one-offs. Since 2005, he has operated Bug Incision, a record
label and concert series. While both musicians are
multi-insrumentalists, they have restricted their palettes
to sax and drums, both using various forms of electronic
enhancement.
www.myspace.com/yankeeyank
eeyankee
www.bugincision.com/chrisd
adge
- Barr/Over
This is the debut performance for the guitar duo of Sandy
Barron and Mark Overland. Barron's been on the scene for
years, filling the mid-'00s with his pop ensemble Remote
Kid, and a side project by the name of Disposable Cars.
Since then he's released an album with new pop band Thighs,
and maintains a steady stream of output as (new solo
moniker) Sandy Cassels, and Japanese Steel. Overland's
presence in Calgary's scene stretches back even further,
largely through his work as Lucid 44. Often a solo venture,
but occasinally abetted by friends, this project explores a
Jandek-like style of free folk/blues, with a distinctly
wooly, hazy sound. Gutterawl is a more band-oriented project
that has also appeared in more recent years. Their duo
playing is a stream of consciousness, really slow game of
tag, with both players contributing fresh, un-cliched
melodic improvising, not unlike the Jim O'Rourke/Loren
Mazzacane Connors duos from the 90s.
www.myspace.com/lucid44gut
terawl
http://www.myspace.com/san
dycassels
- Monroewille Music Center
The self-desribed "music concrete for beginners" is the
project of Craig Storm, also a member of various rock combos
(The Gooeys, the Wet Pinky Swear) around town. Weird
instrumental electronic music, a mixture of backing
reel-to-reel tracks, and live keyboard playing.
www.myspace.com/monroevill
emusiccenter
- DECEMBER 15:
- AARON LEANEY + CHRIS DADGE
This duo has been active since 2006, and they released their
debut album that year during the early stages of Bug
Incision Records. They've worked sporadically since then,
and also in the Aaron Leaney Three, along with Thom Golub.
Their new album, to be released on this night, widens the
margins of their usual approach, incorporating more
instruments and playing styles, often confusing their roles
entirely.
- RUBY
I can't seem to log in my crappy hotmail account right now,
where the name of this band is stored. It's a reconfigured
version of Seizure Salad, with Britt on drums and Andrew on
keys and vocals. If it's anything like SS, it means that
trying to describe it would be fruitless. The most
confounding duo working in town.
- TERRIBLE CRAYON
This is the solo outlet for Mark Fleischhaker, drummer and
vocalist for such acts as Lord Something and
Flesichhaker-Munro, to name a few recent examples. Mark's
been making bizarre music for decades, both in Calgary and
Regina, his hometown. Some may have witnessed him
terrorizing audiences at Broken City's karaoke nights. This
is this project's debut Bug Incision performance.
- December 22: Close-to-Xmas Special Edition
- Protagonist/Antagonist
- Bent Spoon Duo Xmas-Style
- Chris Dadge, Jay Crocker, Eric Hamelin, Matt Doherty,
Rebecca Bruton, Jean-Sebastian Audet, Michael Halls, Scott
Munro, Aaron Leaney, Simeon Abbott, and Brad Hawkins
- 7-11pm - special xmas hours!
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