Next up. . .
TU and KTU in Russia
Nov 11:
TU in Valdivostock
Nov 16:
TU in Ekaterinburg
Nov 18:
TU in Moscow
Nov 21:
KTU in Perm . Perm Philharmonie
Some upcoming gigs:
Jul 8 Plains of Abraham w/CG3+3 open for Primus Quebec City
Jul 12 Scène Bell des Plaines d’Abraham CG3+2/open for Yes Quebec City
Jul 25 FMM Festival w/KTU Sines, Portugal
Aug 2 Belcourt Theater w/King Crimson Nashville, Tennessee
Aug 3 Belcourt Theater w/King Crimson Nashville, Tennessee
Aug 6 PARK WEST/King Crimson Chicago, Illinois
Aug 7 PARK WEST w/King Crimson Chicago, Illinois
Aug 8 PARK WEST w/King Crimson Chicago, Illinois
Aug 11 KESWICK THEATER w/King Crimson PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania
Aug 12 KESWICK THEATER w/King Crimson PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania
Aug 14 NOKIA THEATER w/King Crimson NYC, New York
Aug 15 NOKIA THEATER w/King Crimson NYC, New York
Aug 16 NOKIA THEATER w/King Crimson NYC, New York
Aug 17 NOKIA THEATER w/King Crimson NYC, NY, New York
Aug 30 Town Square w/KTU Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia
Sep 2 TBA w/KTU Moscow, Russia
Sep 4 Tavastia, W/KTU Helsinki,Finland
Oct 10 TBC w/Tony Levin Stickmen Piekary, Poland
Oct 11 Academy of Music Katowice w/Stickmen Katowice, Poland
Oct 12 Opole Philharmonic w/Stickmen Opole, Poland
Nov 17'ish TU Puebla, Mexico
Nov 19'ish Tu Mexico City, Mexico
Nov 25 B.M.L. in Nagoya Japan . . .
Nov 29 B.M.L. in Tokyo (last Japan show).
Nov 31 B.M.L. . . . .
KC Summer Kits:
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Just back from Russia -spending almost two weeks, sharing apartments with Russians and traveling deeper into the north I got to experience a very different side of Russia, I plan to write a more detailed blog over at the myspace site but in the meantime check this link for pictures and a story from my (not a master) drum class - once again the russian to English computer translation give some very funny interpretations.
While home the next few weeks I am working on tracks for one of Austin's more eclectic and outside young musicians John Pointercheck out John's 'make a CD with me' offer. Also doing more sonic work for the new Microsoft Vista OS, and even starting some Cock Robin rehearsals here in Austin later this week.
My next live show coming up will be the KTU North American debut May, 19 2006 at FIMAV Festival near Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada .
Followed by a May 27th warm up date for Cock Robin at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano California (more CR gigs start mid June in Europe).
Pamelia Kurstin was in town for SXSW and once again I snatched her from the Barbez bus for another all-nighter recording more for our Tunisia project. In another strange case of synchronicity "A Night In Tunisia" was playing at the club we were at so we recorded a version of that: SXSW Night in Tunisia. Drums by Art Blakey RIP.
For more info on the amazing Pamelia check her new myspace page here:
www.myspace.com/pameliakurstin
Leaving for KTU gigs:
March 23, 2006
Planet Music, Vienna, Austria
Mar 24 2006
DOM, Ljubljana, Slovenia
More upcoming gigs:
TUNER with special guest SiRenée
Apr 6 2006
Platforma Club, St. Petersburg, Russia
Apr 7 2006
Golden Mask Festival, Moscow, Russia
And then Zeegrass gigs:
April 9 2006
Club Ogi, Moscow Russia
April 10
Club Ikra, Moscow Russia
April 12, 2006
Masterclass at LearnMusic in Moscow
(www.learnmusic.ru)
April 14 & 15th 2006
Mamakabo Festival, Vologda, Russia
and filling in April 11 & 12th with Goeffrey Oryema in Moscow.
Happy Holidays!
Been much too busy to type so a little catch up is in order.
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Pink
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For starters check this link: Story of KTU gig
I became aware of this blog a few days ago. It is an online diary (with pics) from BIG, one of the stage hands in Moscow telling his story of the KTU gig. The Russian to English translation is a hoot . One pal commented it sounds like I was making a porn movie as he read about my 'hot rod shooting fire'.
Going backwards:
Nov 29 Markus arrived (but his luggage did not) and we quickly began recording the following day. First we converted my newly acquired Baby Grand Piano (it is so wonderful to have a piano in the house, thank you Ed and Ilane) into a prepared Piano with small cyms and gongs, clips and papers, etc. and attacked it with mallets, brushes, sticks, kitchen cutlery and even some small old european irons. We recorded aprox 1 hr of this mayham and also some improvised duets (I play low end ostinatos that Markus adds chordal accompaniment to). Then we chopped these performances into a folder of raw footage to extract samples from. I'll get more info and pics about the recording of this new TUNER music soon as we announce the new TUNER page on MySpace.com (mmm should that be our space?).
The next day Dec 1st we did the first Black Tent gig at Pink. Despite the sound man (me) forgetting the mixing desk, the gig went fantastic. The audience grew larger every show and the musicians came and went... and played freely. I have a recording but have yet to have a moment to stop and review it. Some highlights (from comments I overheard): Surround sound with Markus in the back stereo and me in the front, Gumby with strapped on battery powered pignose amp walking through the audience playing electric guitar, melodica duos in the back of the room, Monkey saxing around in the dark, Roberto playing violin from the four corners, Laura's abstract vibraphone and Gamelan playing. Me dropping a pile of cyms at someone's feet and scare the poop out of them... My throwing a doggie squeeze toy across the room as the squeal exhaled, and . . .a Santa's drum circle that appeared.
The next day Markus and I resumed recording. The usual modus operandi (M.O.) was extracting prepared piano chunks, and building a bed - for instance on song#1: 3 bars of 7/4 and a bar of 6/4 that go together well and looping that 27 beat pattern 4 times as a 'verse' and then jumping to a loop of 3 x 4/4 and a 5/4 tag. Then jamming over this until we had a few motifs that more clearly defined the piece, blocking out chords with mellotrons or vintage rhodes sounds, then live drums, warr guitars - somewhere along the way the form would start to organicaly evolve and we would continue cutting until our arrangement felt satsifying.Our general hrs of operation were noon till 3 am but somedays we started even earlier - we both got rather exhausted but the music was too inticing to stop. By song 4 we were ready for a change in M.O. so we resorted to the several acoustic guitars I acquired for Markus to employ (again thank you to Ed Reynolds for the classical and 6 string, and Gina for the 12 string) while i played cajon or log drums. After a few days of that I woke Markus to the sound of drummer drumming, throwing down some beat ideas I have harboured for a few years and applying them to plug-ins like Reso and Bruno (sort of like vocoders that allow the drums to act a trigger source while the notes and chords are input to the Reso). Markus had no shortage of chord progressions as he continues to use a serial type algorithm to generate starting harmonic structures...
Markus was planning to leave Sunday the 11th, but rebooked for the 14th to give us more time - a few hrs after i dropped him at the airport a text arrived 'can you come pick me up?' - yep he was stranded at the Austin airport for 4 hrs because of bad weather in Chicago. Rebooked for Friday 16, yesterday, the flights once again ran later and later. He was eventualy able to finally leave yesterday but got stuck in DC for 5 hrs and then in Frankfurt for 9 hrs more, arriving home several hours later (once again without his luggage). The upside to his staying was we got to continue doing more TUNER tracking -we have 8 pieces about 80% done, and several more slabs in progress- and also that Markus could work with me on a few tracks for Laura Scarborough and then Heather Sullivan. Heather is a singer/songwriter that I had booked to arrive for collaboration on Tuesday after Markus was originally planning to depart. The end result was fantastic as it allowed Markus and I to wear our 'Kruder and Dorfmeister hats' and prepare funky Europe jazz chill room elevator music for Heather. We had been censoring any programmed or beat box use for the new TUNER recording but all those rules went out the window for Heather's tracks - we even faded one song! That's right! Have you ever noticed that basic rule of projects that involve 'Pat Productions'? NO FADES
My thinking is if you have to fade it means you couldn't think of an ending, but if you played live you would have to find an ending, so might as well find it sooner than later.