DCIC in-store at Crooked Beat

On Friday night, the DC Improvisers Collective played a little show at Crooked Beat in Adams Morgan. It's a super-cool little record store - the kind of place that I'm especially grateful for these days with the music retail business in such turmoil. It's also the kind of place that I'm not allowed to browse in because I'll spend a small fortune in no time at all. On this occasion, I had my hands full with the guitar playing, so was able to keep my paws out of the record bins and kept a few dollars in my pocket for dinner and a beer afterwards (Asylum is just up the street and they have Shiner on tap, and several vegan treats on the menu).

We set this show up as a "release party" for our new quartet disc that's out on Sachimay Records' "interventions" series.

For this show, I left the laptop-guitar-rig at home (to save space, the "stage" at the store is quite small). So I had to do the whole show with no effects. No looping. No gadgets (except low-tech stuff like alligator clips, paintbrush, etc). Imagine that - I had to play the guitar. That is my job in this group after all. Hmmm. I think it worked out pretty well, and honestly, I think I should do it this way all the time. Cameron mentioned after the show that she thought there was better listening and interacting among the group - maybe because I had to focus on playing guitar and not think about what buttons to push. She's a smart one... I think I better keep her around ;-)

Photo by Alexandra Gardner

Low End String Quartet

I'm delighted to introduce my newest project / ensemble:
The Low End String Quartet.

We've got a myspace page thrown together. Be our friend, and you can hear some music there too. We'll be playing at Warehouse Next Door on March 18.

Professor Matis

Today I just did my first teaching at the college level. I taught a dance class at the University of Maryland. For real. (stop laughing)

I was subbing for Daniel's improv class. We talked about listening. We did some improvising. Jeepers college students look really really young.

DCIC in-store, Feb. 23

Save the date...



Come experience DCIC and celebrate the release of our new CD, MEME + VARIATIONS - Live recordings from 2005-2006 part of Sachimay Records' "Interventions" series.

It's a full length album of DCIC's quartet lineup, recorded in various places such as rehearsals, live shows, and a radio broadcast.

It's only $5. You can read more (and order a copy) from our site or from Sachimay Records. Seriously, it's only $5. How cool is that?


RSVP for the in-store and "share" this event with your friends via upcoming.org...

DCIC at Warehouse Next Door, Feb 1

I had a gig last night with the DC Improvisers Collective (DCIC). We shared a bill with Tim Feeney and Vic Rawlings (from Boston) and The Caution Curves. We played as a trio, the same "power trio" lineup we've been using for the last few months. We played last, and it was getting late so once again it was a short set. Here's the last short piece we did (headline on the blog post is a link to the mp3). We did two pieces before this one... but they ran together, so in practical terms it was one long piece (around 20 minutes). The "score" for the set was negotiated on stage a few seconds before we played. I think it was "a short free one, then a soft long one, then another short free one." And we pretty much stuck to that plan. Mike did some very cool bass clarinet work during the soft one, followed by some very cool soprano sax (actually saxello if you care about such things) work when the dynamic level started to rise.

The show is uploaded to "the vault" so if you really want the whole thing you can get it...

We've also released a new CD, part of Sachimay Records' "Interventions" series. It's a full length album of DCIC's quartet lineup, recorded in various places such as rehearsals, live shows, and a radio broadcast. It's only $5. You can read more (and order a copy) from our site or from Sachimay Records. Seriously, it's only $5. How cool is that?

We learned last week that Dischord Records will not be releasing our new studio album. That was not a surprise - since we're pretty far afield from the music that Dischord specializes in, so we're still trying to figure out the best arrangement for releasing the DCIC "power trio" album. Leave comments if you have any suggestions, thanks!!!

Can I Get Some More Vocals in my Monitor Please

Here's a rough draft of a new text-based piece. Most of the text comes from the web. I googled the phrase "the world is a noisy place" and found some great stuff. If you don't listen to the whole thing, please at least skip forward to the canon at the end (starts around 5:30). I found a way in AudioMulch to perform this little ditty live, and that's how I recorded this section. It's awfully simple musically but I'm proud of it nonetheless (intonation problems and all).

My Ocean is Never Blue, Rehearsals Begin

I'm working on a big new project with Daniel Burkholder / The Playground called "My Ocean is Never Blue." We're still early in the process of developing the work, but I thought I'd point it out since one aspect of this project involves documenting our creative process... There's a new website with excerpts from rehearsals and information about the piece, updated as things take shape.

My first rehearsal with the group was last Friday, and there's a short excerpt online already. Hi-tech, no?

This is a duet improvisation score where the dancers are imagining they are either on the bottom of the ocean or floating on top of the ocean - and their perspective changes throughout.... (more) I hadn't seen them do this section before we ran it, so the music is definitely all improvised...

Step Afrika

Nxt/Step
Peformed at Dance Place, November 11 & 12, 2006

One of my biggest and most difficult projects of the last year wrapped up recently -- I wrote music for a new multi-media piece by Step Afrika. The piece, titled "Nxt/Step," is their first attempt to push stepping in a new, modern direction. It's put together as a long-form piece (20 minutes) which is quite unusual in stepping, and it includes hi-tech video integration. These were all new challenges for them, which only amplified the challenges for me. Most stepping doesn't include additional music - the dancers make loads of sound with their feet, hands, and voices, so there generally isn't much need or space for additional music...

Going into the project, I made some naive assumptions about stepping. I thought the rhythms would be pretty straightforward - with steady tempos, even meters, and nice symmetrical phrases. Not so. It's much more like African drumming, where each rhythm has it's own length and tempo - very different from what I'm used to, so I had to get caught up fast. My first approach was to do some live processing and looping, manipulating the sounds of the dancers. After a few rehearsals, and disappointing results, we ditched that idea. Eventually we came up with some short riffs and phrases that I could build on, and we put something together.

The piece still feels to me like a work in progress. Elements of the choreography were still changing right up through the dress rehearsal, so I had to keep several sections open (by only using live guitar music that I played along with them). For a few transitions, I had recorded cues, and some of those had some live guitar added on top. There's a good chance we'll be revisiting the piece in spring of 2007, so I'm looking forward to continuing to develop it.

DCIC and Golden Arm Trio

at DC Arts Center, 10/15/2006

We had the priviledge of sharing the bill with the fantastic Golden Arm Trio from Austin, TX. We planned on doing three pieces, but they wound up segue-ing from one to the next very nicely, so it probably sounded like we only did one long piece. Oh well. I love that the group has the ability to improvise with some structure, and then let go of or modify the structure, all together, in the moment.

GA3's set was fabulous. And we all went next door for Ethiopian food afterwards. Yum.

Let's catch up - Fall 06 dance gigs

Fall was a busy season. During September and October I performed with two dance companies. First, Daniel and I revisited our duo, "Unmapped." We performed a 10 minute version as featured guest artists on the Choreographers Collaboration Project's fall concert at the Lee Center in Alexandria. A few weeks later, I performed with Cross Currents Dance Co. as part of the Joy of Motion 30th anniversary weekend. We also revisited "Unmapped" -- Daniel created a piece for them last spring called "Unmapped 4x4" which we re-staged for this mixed program. First night I played it pretty safe, second night I cut loose and rocked out. Much better that way.

Eigenvalues' first show

Last week, Cameron and I did our first show as "Eigenvalues." We haven't figured out exactly how to describe what it is we do... spoken word / text / sound pieces using electronic processing and a few instruments. The event was put on by the Alexandria Performing Arts Association as a sort of preview for "Yockadot,"an avant-garde poetry / theater festival coming up next spring.

We split the bill with a group called "Old Songs." They do original songs, in an old-fashioned Appalachian sort of style, using texts that are original translations of ancient Greek poetry.

We did five pieces, and they all seemed to go pretty well. Our performance was well received, and we got some good feedback, especially about our work-in-progress: a piece derived from Bach's Cello Suite No.1. So far we've only done the prelude, and I think it's safe to say we both are totally unsure of what people would make of it. So, it was really nice to get some reassurance that we're heading in the right direction.

Thanks so much to all of our friends who came out for the show - it was great to see all of you!

Metro DC Dance Awards

Some interesting news from last night's Metro DC Dance Awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center... Big congratulations are in order to frequent collaborator and Improv Arts Co-Director Daniel Burkholder and his dance company, The PlayGround, who won the award for "Outstanding Group Performance" for their piece, "together/apart (we each go our way)."

I was also a finalist for an award, in the category of "Excellence in Sound Design/Original Composition." I was nominated for a project I worked on by Nejla Yatkin called "De/Reconstructing Mata Hari." It felt strange to be nominated for that one, since I didn't write any of the music. I was hired pretty much as an audio editor. Well, I did a fine job, I guess. Anyway, I didn't win that one - which is for the best. It would've been really strange to get an award for a little editing job but I suppose "finalist for 2006 Metro DC Dance Award" looks just fine on my resume, no?

DCIC mastering session

On Sunday, I went back to Silver Sonya for our mastering session. It went very smoothly, and as expected, working with TJ Lipple means it sounds great. Since he did such a bang-up job during the recording and mixing, there wasn't much fixing that had to happen - just some minor tweaks and edits. Now the new DCIC CD (working title is "Triangulation") is "in the can."

Honestly, we haven't a clue what to do with it now that it's done. Well, I mean we know we want to release it somehow, but beyond that, well, plans are a little fuzzy.

So now I have two CD's "in the can" and ready to be released... The new Fending/Matis disc, "Three Rocks" has been done for some time, and is going to be released in the next few months on Sockets CDR. Now we have to figure out who might want to help release a DCIC recording. Any thoughts?

Ka Himeni Hehena

Eigenvalues, my text/sound duo project with Cameron, is gearing up for our performance later this month (Sept. 29). This is one of the pieces we'll be performing. It's the only one we're doing that's not an original; this piece was written by Charles Amirkhanian. The text is all in Hawaiian, although it doesn't make sense. He's simply playing with the sounds of the words. The title means "The Mad Hymn." When we perform the piece, there will be two tracks of recorded voices, and then we do two voices live.

Sound Design project

cameron and wickett
Originally uploaded by J_matis.

I've had the good fortune of being hired for a unique sound design project. I'm developing recorded work for a choral piece by Don McCullough. The work is called "Let My People Go" and it's an arrangement of spirituals for choir and percussion, with two narrators. The narrators deliver text about the underground railroad and related stories. My recordings will provide a sound environment for the narrators.

Since most of the stories told by the narrators take place at night (since this is when travellers could be active on the underground railroad), I'm using sounds of crickets and nighttime bugs as a foundational element. Towards this end, Cameron and I were able to turn our weekend getaway to a cabin in West Virginia into that lovely thing known to us self-employed folks as a business expense. Our cabin turned out to be an ideal spot to record those little nocturnal forest dwellers in full swing - with little interference from traffic, and other people noises.

Making those field recordings only took about 30 minutes, so we also had time to enjoy the hot tub on our large screened porch (nice "cabin" eh?) and a day of hiking in various parks nearby. This photo is from our morning hike in New River Gorge National Park. Wickett came along for that one...

DCIC at Red and The Black

Last Sunday night (Aug. 20) we played again at The Red and The Black - a new venue on H Street, northeast. It's a nice room, small and warm sounding. I've played there three times now, and it has consistently been a welcoming environment for music. Hopefully the H street corridor will pick up some more traffic over time...

We played on a four-band bill featuring two touring groups from Tallahassee, Florida: Arch Trio and Dead Legs, plus another local artist: Meesh. DCIC played as a trio: Ben, Mike, and me.

We didn't have any rehearsal before the show, and since Mike got stuck in traffic on the way there, we didn't really have time to even discuss a "game plan" for our set. We just had to get on stage and bring it. Seems like the trio is working well enough that we can pull that off. Honestly, I don't think that discussing the set before we played would have made it any better or worse - the three of us have enough experience now playing together that I think we can communicate pretty well in the moment simply through the musical choices that we're making.

DCIC with Greg Osby

It seems I've gotten a bit behind in the blogging dept... so I'm going to try and catch up with a few impressions about recent goings on. Unfortunately, the blog is now messed up: it's not in strict reverse chronological order. I should embrace this new freedom and enjoy the flexibility of posting things not necessarily in the order in which they actually occurred - after all, who gives a crap? But it just feels so wrong. Ok, I will suppress my bean counter nature and move on - out of order.

Back on August 5th, DCIC had the opportunity to perform with a very special guest: saxophonist Greg Osby. The show was a benefit for Alkem, and was held on the main stage at Warehouse Theater. Joe Lally opened, playing a whole bunch of new songs from his forthcoming album. For this performance, we had the full group: Ben Azzara (drums), Dan Barbiero (bass), me (guitar), and Mike Sebastian (tenor sax, and saxello) - plus the incredible Mr. Osby (alto sax).

Overall, things went really really well - better than I expected. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect, so I'm not sure what that means.

What I mean is: Greg Osby is a brilliant musician. He really "led the way." Every time he put the sax to his lips, he gave us such clear and rich material - it was easy to improvise with him. His ideas were so well put together that it felt like the group was generally following his lead - although (and here's where he really was impressive) he didn't take the spotlight. His performance was very much as part of the ensemble -- not "Greg Osby accompanied by DCIC." It was really a collective effort - but he's just a damn fine player and incredible talent.

We made up a "set list" before the show with 5 pieces... various duos and trios, plus some full group playing. What actually happened was a bit different - we played three pieces - but still managed to hit most of those duos and trios. Dan was really "on" that night, he delivered several nice solos and kept things moving through the whole set. Mike also rose to the occasion - I'm sure it was a difficult spot - playing sax next to such a highly accomplished artist - but that was a total non-issue. Mike's playing was very different, stylistically, and made a great counterpoint to Osby's playing.

We recorded the show, and it's been added to "The Vault." Over on the DCIC website, we've set things up now so instead of an overwhelming catalog of mp3's available for free download, there's an archive with a player built into the page. So now you can stream random tracks from "The Vault" for free right from your browser. If you'd like access to everything we've ever recorded it can be had for the price of whatever price you think it's worth - just make a donation to Improv Arts, and you get a passcode to access "The Vault" and download anything and everything... including everything we haven't recorded yet. So, this show is in there (and the recording sounds pretty good if I do say so myself).

Black Stars

This is a song by Jolie Holland. She's a phenomenal songwriter and performer. I made this recording as part of an anniversary present for Cameron. If you listen, you will quickly discover that I'm not much of a singer. I'm very self conscious about it, but am posting the recording here as part of an effort to "get over it." Also wanted to share with everyone what a sap I am - and how totally smitten I am with Cameron.

Plus, I want to spread the word about this brilliant song (even though this performance may not be all that). Dave Maddox wrote a great essay about this song, and one other from the same album. Click-through to read it.

Fending/Matis tour: "Malibu Death March"

I just finished up a little mini-tour with Brian Fending. Last summer, we recorded an album in Minneapolis. It's being released on a local label called SocketsCDR. So, my thinking was, we'll get the album ready to go and then play a few shows to announce the cd release. Things didn't quite work out so smoothly. We started booking the tour about three months in advance. Two venues that were lined up right away were in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Two weeks before we hit the road, we learned that both of those shows fell through. Our friends in Philly scrambled to get us booked at another venue, and we removed Pittsburgh from our itinerary - and played a last minute show in DC instead. I opted out of our Buffalo show and Brian got a sub for that night, which made the logistics much simpler and cut our losses significantly. Oh yeah, and the CD isn't quite released. We made a small batch, but the packaging isn't quite as nice as I'd hoped. But at least we had something on-hand to take on the road.

Brian's Chevy Malibu had a few troubles. The check-engine light gave us a scare while we were in Manhattan, but it went out the next day for no apparent reason. Before heading to Philly, one of his tires went flat. Fortunately he just needed a new valve stem which took ten minutes and under twenty dollars. Otherwise, logistics went smoothly. Brian and Rachel are shopping for a new car.

First stop was New York City. We haven't played there since 2001 (as part of Gray Code at the Knitting Factory) so we made up for lost time by playing two shows in one night. One very warm Sunday night. First show was 8pm at ABC No Rio, part of their COMA improvised music series. No a/c in that place, so it was warm. Our set was ok, not our best, but we hadn't played together in a year so we got reacquainted. Audience size was about 8 or 10. Loaded out and headed up the street to CBGB's Gallery for our 11pm show. Another audience of 8 - 10. Only two of them in the actual gallery, rest at the bar in back. Cameron says the people at the bar were listening and enjoyed it. This set was much more "rock." Louder, darker. Our only paid gig on the tour - we made $4.25. Seriously. Another load out, and off to Cameron's friend Amy's parents' home on the upper west side. Nice to have friends who have friends in New York whose parents summer in the Berkshires. Load the gear out, into the apartment. Park the cars.

Next morning (Monday), shuffled the cars and gear. Checked Brian's check-engine light. Quick breakfast and drive back to DC. Much less traffic on Monday. Made it back in time to cook some dinner before heading off to the show at The Red and The Black - a new venue in northeast DC. John Berndt generously agreed to come down and play a double bill with us, and brought his new band, "Death in the Maze." Two people in the audience for this show. Music was good, though.

Tuesday, off to Philadelphia. We stayed with a friend of Brian's from grad school, Elton, who lives in Suffolk, New Jersey - about 30 minutes outside of Philly. Elton was awfully nice and a generous host. We piled all the gear into his truck and the three of us headed into the city for dinner at Gianna's Grille (vegan steak and cheese. mmm.). Then off to the venue, The Avant Gentlemen's Lodge. The neighborhood made Elton very nervous about his truck (with good reason, I think). We opened the show, which was very well attended thanks to the rest of the bill: Satanized, Mary Halvorson and Jess Pavone, and The Flying Luttenbachers. The venue seems to be a group house with a large garage that's been turned into a venue. Audience was really listening. Such a nice change (to have people in the room - and then to have them listen). A real treat. Interesting scene up there in Philly. We didn't stay for the Luttenbachers so Elton could get his truck safely returned to the 'burbs.

Wednesday morning, Brian and I parted ways. I returned to DC (Hyattsville) and he drove back to Buffalo. Zero CD sales, and we lost a bunch of money. Looks like this kind of DIY touring may not be the best model for Fending/Matis… In any event, it was great fun to play with Brian every night for a few days. Hopefully we'll get the business side worked out a little better - and we'll be letting you all know when the CD is "officially" released. For now, you can hear a few tracks on our myspace page.

DCIC at Fort Reno

Last night, DCIC enjoyed the privilege of opening for The Evens at Fort Reno. Despite the extreme heat, it was loads of fun... and thanks to the big draw of The Evens, we played to our largest audience yet, probably a few hundred people. This was particularly exciting for me, having attended concerts at Fort Reno for years, it was a kick to get to play one. Ben Azzara (drums) plays there at least twice every summer, and has done so with his various bands for the last 12 years!?! Well, about time I started catching up to him...

We had planned to do three pieces, but things worked out a bit differently. The first one went by quickly, and led into the second without a full break (although opinions differed about whether we played the second piece, a structure we've named "Triangulation." Mike and I thought we were playing that one, and Ben didn't -- but it worked out ok, really). That was also fairly brief, and we found ourselves with 20 minutes left, so we played a few totally free improvisations and then closed with our "punk jazz" thing. The title is the score.

Mike and Ben were great, as always. We couldn't hear ourselves too well - Ben mentioned at the end that he couldn't really hear either of us. He did surprisingly well if that's true.
Mike seems to have a really inexhaustible supply of musical ideas, and as usual, he demonstrated some really great listening - following my sometimes unpredictable chord changes as well as covering up some of my less brilliant note choices.

Anyway, it was a blast playing at Fort Reno and opening for The Evens... either one of those facts would've been something else - but both combined, will that's too much fun. And now we get to do it again this Saturday at Warehouse Theater - playing with Greg Osby!! How cool is that?

The real star of the evening was our dog, Wickett, who finally got to come hear one of my shows, but more importantly kept all the kids entertained for hours (he's totally O.C.D. and will play ball until he can't stand up anymore... which he did).

Here's a shot of Wickett showing off for his many admirers as The Evens set up for their soundcheck in the background. This is, in fact, very close to the image that appears in my mind when I think about "DC in the summer:" Dog, park, Ian Mackaye, Fort Reno. Just as it should be.photos by Cameron McPhee.