Rejection Ritual: Year Seven Complete

It's that time of year again, when the Maryland State Arts Council's "Individual Artist Awards" are announced. The award comes with money, from $1,000 to $6,000. One of the few sources of unencumbered support for artists - there's no project that has to be done, no community outreach, nothing. Just an award in recognition of your previous work. It also happens to be the only source of funding for artists (as opposed to arts-organizations) from the state.

Every year I apply (since 2001) and every year I am rejected. This year's music category is "Solo Instrumental Performance." Next year will likely be composition - they alternate yearly. Every summer I submit my application and every January I get my rejection letter. I have quite a collection of rejection letters now. If only I could find some way of monetizing my collection ;-)

In other news, I'm in the process of mailing out copies of our new DCIC album, "Triangulation." We're working with a publicist who put together a list for us of around 150 freelancers and publications. Hopefully we get some nice things written about the new record... The official release date is April 1. We're doing a local release show on March 22nd (opening for Steve Lehman at Velvet Lounge).

Low End String Quartet article published

I was invited to write an article for "Bourgeon: Journal of Dance," a local publication covering the dance scene, for the most part. I'm not sure when the print version hits the streets, but it's online now. I wrote about the Low End String Quartet, specifically why I started the group.

More good news on the grants front

This month has been a good one for me... I just found out that the Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund has awarded a generous grant to the Low End String Quartet to commission new music (from me). The kind folks at Argosy also funded a proposal from the American Composers Forum (one of my day-jobs) to launch a new small-grants program for local composers. There's nothing else like that in the area, so it will make a big difference, I think. But wait, that's not all! They also funded a proposal from Step Afrika to continue working with me. Exciting stuff. Looks like I get to start 2008 as a nearly full-time composer. Woo hoo!

Two "yes"es

Finally some good news on the grants front. I've written quite a stack of proposals this year and I've been batting exactly zero -- until now.

Back in October, I submitted two proposals for the "Small Projects Program" of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. One for DCIC (to hire a publicist to help with the release of our new CD) and one for the Low End String Quartet (to help pay for studio time to make a nice recording). I just found out a few days ago that we got both.

I've still got one more proposal pending for the Low End Quartet, keep your fingers crossed and let's hope the Argosy Contemporary Music Fund finds our work irresistible.

Nxt/Step

For the last couple of weeks, I've been working pretty much full time for Step Afrika. We started collaborating over a year ago, on a multi-media piece called "Nxt/Step." Slowly things have evolved and we've got a version of the piece now that's fairly stable. Earlier performances were marred by technical problems (mostly with the interactive video cues), but we're getting a handle on it.

We worked intensely for about two weeks, culminating in three performances in an unfortunately named show, "Winter Heat." This was a mixed dance program featuring three african-american dance companies from DC: Step Afrika, Washington Reflections, and Coyoba Dance Theater; presented by WPAS and Dance Place, held at the Lansburgh Theater (a.k.a the Shakespeare Theatre, but now they have two venues so it has a different name).

After those performances wrapped up, we flew to New Orleans for the National Performance Network conference, where we have a showcase performance coming up on Saturday. We've been in New Orleans for two days now, and it's been kinda crazy. We had our tech time last night and it was, um, not so good. It seems to me like the showcase performances are beyond the means of the venue and it's production staff, but we'll see how things work out. I guess we're spoiled, having done the piece at two large theaters with union crew. This one's going to be a little rougher around the edges - which is too bad since the audience will be performing arts presenters from around the country. We'll just have to wow 'em even if the lights, sound, and video aren't implemented quite right.

First impressions of New Orleans: (second impression? I was here for a couple of days a few years ago) It's beautiful, and the "vibe" is quite unlike any other American city I've been to. It feels much more European, with people sitting at coffee shops, sidwalk cafes, and generally being more laid back than us East Coasters. I guess they don't call it the Big Easy for nothing. Also seems to be more interest in going out at night? Not just the tourist trap places in the French Quarter; it seems like there are restaurants and bars everywhere, so people must be out and about much more than in DC (which has plenty of restaurants and bars, but people seem much more focused on work than socializing).

So far it doesn't seem like New Orleans is a veg-friendly city. Since I'm here for a week and have to live on the cheap (but in a plush hotel, life is tough) I took a bus to Whole Foods and stocked up on all sorts of stuff. I asked the hotel for a fridge and they brought me one, so I think I'll be ok nutrition-wise. Last night I found a cool (and cheap) hybrid Thai / Vietnamese restaurant not too far from the hotel: Hipstix. They didn't have loads of veggie options, but easy to get tofu instead of chicken, beef, or seafood on the noodle dishes. The "Siam Street Noodles with Tofu" were delicious, so maybe I'll head over there again during the next few days. Dinner with the company tonight was at a touristy place in the French Quarter - only vegan option was a salad (iceberg lettuce and one slice of tomato) and french fries. My carnivorous companions didn't seem to fare so well either - everything in the place (other than red beans and rice or jambalya) was deep fried. The steppers must burn through a million calories a day, so I guess they can eat that stuff? Before I left home, Cameron helped me look up a yoga studio that does Bikram, so I'm going to try to squeeze in a class tomorrow. I just have to figure out the bus routes to get there...

Comissioning Club

Over the last two years, I've used the "commissioning club" concept to raise money for two projects: first was for writing a piece for the ensemble Fireworks - that was recorded during a reading at the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium in 2005. In the fall of 2006, the club matched a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for DCIC to make a studio recording. That turned into "Triangulation," our forthcoming CD. It's at Oasis CD Manufacturing now - we should get 500 copies delivered later this month.

The idea of the commissioning club is to aggregate gifts from a group of donors, at all levels, in order to commission new music, an opportunity that is typically only available to very wealthy individuals. Bang on a Can uses this model very effectively, they call theirs the "People's Commissioning Fund." My nonprofit, Improv Arts, hasn't come up with a catchy name yet.

For 2007, the Improv Arts Commissioning Club is collecting money to develop new music for The Low End String Quartet. In addition to this high-falutin' pan handling campaign, I wrote a bunch of grant proposals for the project. I already got rejected by Montgomery County, but haven't heard yet from the Argosy Foundation's Contemporary Music Fund or the DC Commission. Hopefully at least one of those will come through. My batting average for grants this year is pretty low. Zero, actually. So I'm due for a "yes" one of these days. It's discouraging to be rejected so many times, but that's the way it works.

For complete info about the commissioning club, click here.
For more about the Low End String Quartet, click here.

Pange Lingua

I started working on this song / recording a few weeks ago. Again, it's another project that I've started and I don't know where it's headed.

A few notable aspects of this one:

• It's a song. Like, with words and stuff.
• It's got a steady pulse and chords and other trappings of "song" in the common usage of the term. It's got loud guitars and even a short shred-y solo.
  
• Text is from a latin hymn. It's one that you encounter during music history class because the plain chant became the basis of various polyphonic pieces... so you run into it first as chant, then as organum, and eventually as the basis for a mass by Josquin. I didn't use any of that music, though. Just swiped the first three lines of the text:
  

Pange lingua gloriosi
Corporis mysterium
Sanguinisque pretiosi

in English:
Sing, my tongue
The mystery of the glorious body
And the precious blood.

I tried to take this religious text out of context and get at the strictly physical / sensual side of things. That's probably why I'm stuck and don't know where it's headed - I'm not sure what comes next. Maybe a related (musically) song with original or found text? Maybe something that has spirituality and sex and love all tangled up nicely. If it's going to be a found text, I need something public domain. Preferably really old. But then I don't want something that sounds stilted, since I want it to be visceral and sensual. Or maybe I get away from text altogether and just write some instrumental music?

Maybe I just leave it in the "incubator" for a while. Suggestions welcome.

Death Slug rears its Forgotten Head

I almost deleted an email yesterday, assuming it was spam, but luckily I read it first. Turns out it was an honest-to-goodness online order for five copies of "Death Slug 2000," a CD I made with Ty Braxton when we were both in school at Hartt.

This was pretty surprising, since the only place you can order a copy is this very outdated page at Metatron Press.

Ty has become something of a rock-star (deservedly so) now that his band, Battles, has become a favorite of critics and hipsters alike (deservedly so). Maybe it figures that as more people get to hear him, a few brave geeks venture far, far down the Google search results and find our sad, forgotten web page about dear old Death Slug. (Maybe it helps that I added it to Ty's Wikipedia entry a couple of years ago... come on - wouldn't you add yourself to the entry of an up-and-coming celebrity that you happened to make a CD with many years ago? Oh, you're too cool for that... Humbug! I'm sure you'd do the same. You're not fooling anyone, you smug imaginary reader of my blog that I am addressing in parentheses)

So last night I had to dig around for left-over copies of the DS2K packaging and I burned the discs, and now I'm on my way to the post office to mail them out.

Here's a link to a funny YouTube video of Ty's feet during a Battle's show. And here's a short snippet from their show last spring in DC. I had the good fortune of being there - it was a very good show. If you're curious, or just too cheap to buy their album, hype machine scours the blogosphere for you and finds free mp3's.

UPDATE (Aug. 11, 2009): Death Slug 2000 is now available online via our bandcamp page. You can listen to the whole thing, or download your own copy for only $3.

Romance of the Surveillance Machines

I made this recording a couple of weeks ago. It's been a while since I did any ambient guitar music, so I thought I'd revisit some familiar territory. I think this might be the opening section of a larger scale composition, although I'm not exactly sure what that's going to look like yet. For now, it's just a 7 1/2 minute piece of ambient-electronic-stoner-rock (maybe?).

It's all guitar, except for the electric piano and sampled french horns (horns enter around 5:30). I'd love to replace them with real horn tracks -- if you know a good horn player in the DC area please let me know...

bizness

Today was the deadline for a local grant program (the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities' "Small Projects" program). It's one of the few funding opportunities in our region that accepts applications from individual artists (as opposed to nonprofit organizations).

There's one catch: to be eligible, you have to be a D.C. resident. Fortunately, both projects I proposed involve residents, so the applications came from them (technically).

First, I wrote one asking for money for studio time to record a demo for the Low End String Quartet. Fortunately, our violinist lives in D.C. Unfortunately, she is out of the country at the moment, so getting her signature on the forms was a little tricky. Fortunately, she had access to email and a scanner, so we worked it out. I sure hope this one gets funded... I feel like this group has great potential, and if we can get some good recordings, we'll have good work samples to use for other grant programs and then we'll be well positioned for suckling at the teat of institutional arts funders. Oh right, as the economy tanks (which is imminent) arts funding will be the first slice of the nonprofit sector to dry up. Fantastic. Anyway, maybe the recordings will help us get some gigs... part of the idea behind this group is that we're designed to play in "alternative" venues (that's highbrow-speak for bars and clubs, you know, like the places I'm usually playing in).

Back in '06, DCIC put in a similar proposal, and that paid for 2/3 of our studio time used in making our forthcoming CD. Since we're self-releasing the album, I wrote a proposal this round for help with marketing. Our drummer lives in D.C., so this one is in his name. I sent out a barrage of emails last week searching for marketing help. I got several good referrals and lots of good ideas. Eventually, I was referred to Riot Act Media, and David really seemed to "get it" in terms of what we're doing and what would make sense given our limited resources. This doesn't seem like as much fun as a trip to the recording studio, but I've never had help with publicity before, so that actually is kind of exciting.

In other grantseeking news, I found out recently that my proposal to the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County was rejected. I don't live in Montgomery County, but Dan (bass player for the Low End Quartet and sometimes DCIC) does... I was able to "observe" the review panel as they discussed our proposal. That was surreal, and I get a little taste of vomit in the back of my throat every time I tell the story - so I'm not going to type it all up here, but anyway, it was frustrating - and also hilarious, in a dark-comedy kind of way. I wasn't surprised we got rejected having observed the proceedings, but that still sucks. We submitted a really solid proposal for that one (for Dan and I to collaborate on new material for the Low End Quartet, rehearse it, do two "in progress" performances at small venues in Montgomery County, and then do a recording session). I haven't seen the list of who got funded yet, but from what I saw of the panel, I'm pretty sure our local chapter of Sweet Adelines got the money they asked for.

Station ID's for your MP3 Player

I made a few little snippets, in the style of radio station ID messages - only but for your iPod (or mp3 player of your choice). Here's the idea:

1. Download this zip file.
2. Unzip and load the mp3's into your player.
3. Add them to a playlist or two, or perhaps just leave them to be found while you're shuffling everything in your collection.
4. As your player shuffles through things, once in a while one of these little messages gets played.
   
5. You may be amused.

There are seven of 'em in the zip file. Here are a few as individual mp3's, in case you're too lazy to deal with unzipping....

• iPod Station ID no. 1
• iPod Station ID no. 2
• iPod Station ID no. 6
• iPod Station ID no. 7
  

Soda Can Mambo

I just recorded the number one jam of the summer. A bit late, so let's call it the number one jam of late September 2007. It's a dada-esque pop song. That may sound like an oxymoron at first, but have a listen to "Soda Can Mambo" and try to tell me it's not stuck in your head for days.

The number one jam of late September 2007 is missing one thing: Dance Craze.

That's where you come in:

1. Invent the "Soda Can Mambo" dance
2. Make a video of yourself doing the dance
3. We all become internet superstars for a few minutes

The headline of this post is a link to the mp3 file. The blue play button plays it in your browser. If you're curious, download the lyrics (pdf)

Shoot me an email when your video is done. And don't be mad at me when having this song stuck in your head for days and days drives you crazy. Trust me, I've had it worse. Now let's get cracking on that dance craze...

Quarry House wrap-up

DCIC played last night, opening up for Chris Black. It was the first show I put together at the Quarry House Tavern in Silver Spring, MD. It was a unique evening in many ways. In no particular order:

1. Quarry House is a neat little venue. It's a nice bar with great atmosphere. The ceiling is almost high enough for an upright bass. The staff that I've met so far have all be super nice and laid back. And how can you go wrong at a joint where they serve tater tots with Old Bay on them?

2. Cameron and Jen invited many friends, so we had a nice audience. Not huge, but nice. Which is much better than huge.

3. Mike, our sax player, called in sick. I made a few calls to try and get a sub, but it was short notice and that didn't pan out. So we played the show as a duo - guitar and drums. Chris joined us on bass for our last number. Lately, I've been playing without effects and gizmos - just my new guitar and amp (with distortion pedal and volume pedal, but that's it). The thought of doing a set of improvised music with just guitar and drums (and none of the looping and gizmonics that I used to use) was actually kind of terrifying. I think it worked out ok, actually. The music was quite different from what DCIC typically sounds like, but I think it was ok. We didn't record it though, so I only know how it sounded at the time, and while I'm in the midst of it, it's hard to judge.

On the sixth anniversary of 9-11

I should have been doing other work today, but instead I made this recording. I've been in a bit of a funk lately. Maybe it was the Dance Awards last night (tedious) (and I didn't win... which may have more to do with it than I'd like to admit), or maybe it was listening to the news this morning. Anyway, I couldn't concentrate on my work this morning so I made this.

Don't forget - DCIC and Chris Black coming up on Sunday at the Quarry House. Mmmm tater tots.

More vocals in my monitor (revised)

A while back, we were at a show and the opening act, a solo singer/songwriter, was being particularly fussy about the stage monitors. It seemed like between almost every song he was asking for something to be fixed in his monitor. I jokingly said to Cameron, "Some day I'm gonna write a song called 'Can I get some more vocals in my monitor?'" A few months later, I did.

I posted a rough sketch of this piece back then... Recently, Cameron and I (aka Eigenvalues) have made some tweaks and here's the new & improved version.

(little blue play button by the headline will play it in your browser; headline is a link to the mp3)

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)
------------------------------

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.