Chris Black and DCIC - coming soon

Rusty's adopted

UPDATE: 9/1/07
Actually, that didn't work out and now he's back with us (and we couldn't be happier)
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Our lovable furry foster dog was adopted two weeks ago. I was waiting to make sure the arrangements "stuck" before writing about it.

He was adopted by a nice young couple from Philadelphia. They have one aussie already, a grumpy old codger named Rocky, who is also red; he and Rusty look like a matched set. We got word today that Rocky has come to terms with the new arrival and things are going well. We knew they would get attached to Rusty immediately - he's the sweetest puppy and just loves to snuggle. It sure was hard to let him go, but it's great to know that he's doing well and has found a good permanent home.

DCIC with Glorytellers at the Black Cat

Last night DCIC performed our first trio show of the season. All of our concerts since April or May were with Joe Lally, playing his songs. It was nice to get back to our regular thing; I think that spending some time learning songs and playing more structured music was a good exercise for us.

Playing at the Black Cat is fun. They treat the performers nicely there and since Ben knows the staff people so well, it's almost like we're playing at his house. Well, his house is a lot cleaner, but the sound system at the club is much better. They've made some upgrades to the system on the backstage and it sounds pretty good in there.

The Glorytellers drew a good crowd (especially for a Sunday night in August) so we had a substantial audience. Quite a change from our last few shows at Warehouse Next Door where it was just Ted and the sound guy. Ted was at this show too... so we didn't have any worries.

I've seriously down-sized my guitar rig for DCIC shows so I have no gadgets and gizmos. No fancy laptop guitar effects and I didn't even use any prepared guitar tricks. No alligator clips, no dulcimer hammers, no vibrator. I just played the guitar with my fingers and a pick. Ok, I brought a distortion pedal and a volume pedal, but that was it. I do love my new guitar. It just sounds so nice no matter what I do with it.... Ben was rocking a new translucent red drum kit. It sounds nice - and looks cool too. The guy's got it going on. And with Mike always looking the bad-ass, that means I've got some styling to do, huh? Cameron is really trying her best, but I'm a difficult case.

For this show we had our first composed material. One of the pieces was built around some patterns I actually notated. Another was built around a short melodic theme that Mike composed. That still left plenty of time for complete improvisations as well. I think we rocked. I'll know better after I hear the recording.

Eigenvalues with The PlayGround at Carter Barron

A little over a week ago, Cameron and I (aka Eigenvalues) had our first performance at the lovely & historic Carter Barron Amphitheater in Rock Creek Park. We were performing a condensed version of "My ocean is never blue" - a dance piece by Daniel Burkholder / the PlayGround. We provide the music. And we did.

The program was a mixed bag of dance companies - all of whom won awards in last year's Metro DC Dance Awards. Fortunately, there was one company with lots of kids - a youth tap company - so there was a decent crowd of relatives and well-wishers. The venue is large - it could have really felt empty but the turnout was ok. These mixed dance programs are always trouble, I think. They are typically not curated, per se, but thrown together for some logistical reason or another. There was no relationship between any of the work on the program. Daniel and I have done a lot of these kinds of shows over the last few years and we're always the weirdos.

In any event, our piece went very smoothly. No glitches or computer crashes (like we had in rehearsal) and I got to play my new guitar through the venue's massive sound system. That was nice. Also, the weather was perfect. Not your typical summer night in DC - it was actually really nice out - a perfect night for a free outdoor concert. I sure got lucky with the weather this summer - this one and the Joe Lally - DCIC show at Fort Reno had perfect weather.

Duodenum

I just made this little ditty for no particular reason. The 80's are cool again, so I used cheesy canned drums and a synth horn section. The horn stabs really crack me up. The voices are from online pronunciation guides for medical terms.

The headline is a link to the mp3 file, or press the play button next to the headline to hear it in your browser.

August's upcoming shows

I'm performing in two shows I'd like y'all to know about:

1. Eigenvalues will be appearing with The PlayGround again for a shortened version of "My ocean is never blue," a dance piece that we performed in last spring. The show is at the lovely Carter Barron Amphitheater in Rock Creek Park, and it's free. The evening will also feature performances by other dance companies that picked up awards in last year's Metro DC Dance Awards.

The details:
Saturday August 11th, 7:30 pm, FREE >>Link

2. DC Improvisers Collective will be at the Black Cat opening for Glorytellers. It's been quite some time since we did our thing... over the last few months we were busy being Joe Lally's back-up band (which was great fun). I've written a few things that we'll play around with at our next rehearsals. It's likely that we'll have some different material for this show. Well, actually, we always have different material because it's all improvised; what I mean is that this new material has some (gasp!) composed elements.

The details:
Sunday August 19th, 9:00pm, $7.00 >>Link

Rusty update

It's been about three weeks since Rusty arrived from the shelter. At the time he was in sad shape. His fur was matted badly, he had just been fixed, and he was severely under weight - he was 33 pounds, and should probably be around 60. And he stank, too. Now it's been a few weeks of a steady diet, two baths, and he's doing much better. We're just fostering him for an Aussie rescue. He's ready to adopt now. How could you not want a sweet dog like this?

Last weekend, we were in Atlanta visiting the un-laws, and another Aussie rescue volunteer took care of Rusty for us. While he was there, she snapped this glamour shot: