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A new year's solo piece (from Gino) td Tue May 26 11:49:38 2009
A solo piece for you to realize;

Sun Drums
Keep the drums in a very cool environment until mid day. Place them in
direct, hot sunlight with contact mics on. As they warm up and change,
record the sounds.
[an ersatz banjo will do]
[Send me the results...]
Talk to you soon,
g
One for the fortune file td Tue Mar 4 15:58:02 2008
Unit automatically becomes portable when carried.
Rock Lotto td Fri Dec 14 15:06:05 2007
Moe Staiano's Rock Lotto is back for the fourth or fifth time. Moe put the names of 29 volunteers (incl. me) in a hat and picked names to make up 5 bands. We had a month to put together a 20 minute set of (mostly) original music. And we're all performing on Sat. Dec. 15 at the Fishtank (3405 Piedmont Ave, Oakland) starting 8:00 PM. Details here. It's a benefit for 21 Grand, which really needs the money right now as they run the Oakland zoning and permitting gauntlet.

Our band, officially BAND 2, but really the Flesh Eating Beatles includes

  • Bob Marsh, vocals
  • Ron Lettuce, keyboards and sax
  • Micaela Peterson, drums
  • Matt Davignon, drum machine
  • Errol Stewart, guitar
  • Tom Duff, electric bass
Our tunes are half psychedelic, half punk.

Here's the lineups for the other bands:

  • BAND 1:
  • Steve Dekrone, Drums
  • Dave Bartels, Guitar
  • Tim Walters, Bass
  • Mark Stickman, Voice, flute
  • Salane Schultz, Keyboards, Accordion
  • Chris Broderick, Reeds

  • BAND 3:
  • Thomas Scandura, Drums
  • Bill Wolter, Guitar
  • Jeremy Kearney - Bass
  • JoJo Razor, Voice
  • Moe! Staiano - Mini Paia keyboard, Roto-toms
  • Alicia Byer - Clarinet

  • BAND 4:
  • Aaron Wagner, Drums
  • Groovy Judy, Guitar
  • Craig Demel, Guitar
  • Wilson King, Bass
  • Allen Whittman, Voice
  • James Goode, Electric trumpet, etc.

  • BAND 5:
  • Steve Weems - Drums
  • Mark Briggs, Guitar
  • Sebastian Krawczuk, Bass
  • Dominique Leone, Voice
  • Parisa Muller, Flute
Fungus fair td Thu Nov 29 19:40:46 2007
Saturday Dec. 1, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 2, 12–5 p.m., the 38th Annual Bay Area Fungus Fair, presented by Natural Sciences Department, of the Oakland Museum of California.
Advice from Lou Harrison (as told to Virgil Thompson.) td Wed Nov 28 21:00:43 2007
Simply compose one short piece a day. It must be a complete composition each day. It is like 'kindling' - one day along will come a more important idea that will require extensive work - the flame is thus lit & away you go! It is important, he says to keep regular appointments with the muse - if she doesn't arrive then it's not your fault, at least You are there!
Cargo Cult Banjo td Sun May 20 09:01:45 2007
I went to the Maker Faire yesterday. Google had a booth where they were demoing Sketchup, their free 3D drawing package. They buttonholed me on my way by and asked if they could draw anything for me. I pulled a half-baked musical instrument design out of my notebook & talked them through making a drawing of it. Here's the result.

It's a Banjo adapted for experimental abuse. Experimental musicians are often interested in coaxing instruments to play unusual, unexpected sounds. Given a stringed instrument like a banjo, an experimentalist will eventually get to the point of setting it down on the table to better work on it with both hands. This instrument goes one better and builds the banjo into the table -- Fred Frith built some tabletop guitars like this in the 1970s. Just for hack value, I replaced the banjo head with a small snaredrum (that idea happened because snare drummer Sean Meehan is coming to play in the Matthew Sperry Festival in June), put a couple of extra sets of strings on it, and used the three-bridge idea to double the number of effective strings. It'd be great if I could get it built before Sean arrives.
David Attenborough on Lyrebird song. td Mon Jan 1 11:23:33 2007
In April 2006, to celebrate naturalist David Attenborough's 80th birthday, the public were asked to vote on their favourite of his television moments. This clip of the lyrebird was voted number one. A Lyrebird is either of two species of ground-dwelling Australian birds, most notable for their extraordinary ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds from their environment. video here. (Site says it requires Quicktime 6.)
Older Items td Sat Dec 23 19:14:46 2006
Old News has items that have fallen off the New list.