Happy Holidays

From Jon, Cameron and Wickett

Another Year-End List

Everyone's publishing them nowadays so why not put my two cents in?

My list of best albums of 2008
(in no particular order):

• Juana Molina - Una Dia
• The Breeders - Mountain Battles
• Jolie Holland - The Living and the Dead
• Lucinda Williams - Little Honey
• Paul Westerberg - 49:00
• Russian Circles - Station
• Silver Mt. Zion - 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons
• Cat Power - Jukebox
• Evangelista - Hello, Voyager

New to me, and noteworthy, in 2008:

• Vic Chesnutt - North Star Deserter

What I've actually been listening to the most:
(Most played artists over the last 12 months, from my Last.fm data)

1. Jolie Holland
2. M. Ward
3. Lyle Lovett
4. Lucinda Williams
5. The Breeders
6. Talking Heads
7. Elvis Costello
8. Glenn Gould
9. Kristin Hersh
10. The Blind Boys of Alabama
11. Vic Chesnutt
12. Gillian Welch
13. Juliana Hatfield
14. Joe Lally
15. Little Feat
16. Brian Eno and David Byrne
17. Cat Power
18. David Byrne
19. Fugazi
20. Death Cab for Cutie

November happened.

The Low End String Quartet had an unexpected set-back. Our major funder for our 2009 season, which was going to be a joint effort with Washington Musica Viva, sent us a letter informing us that, "due to the current financial crisis, our funding is no longer available." We got our first un-grant. Wacky. I thought about reorganizing Improv Arts as a bank holding company and popping downtown to try and get some of that bailout money, but I don't think that would work...

I'm late getting my year-end solicitation letter together. I think it's a strange time to be sending out a mass mailing asking for money. Seems like most nonprofits are feeling the same way. Nearly every letter I've received at home so far starts with some kind of acknowledgment of the economy (then follows a predictable formula, laying out why their services are so wonderful and why they are worthy of my support and why I am wonderful for supporting them). Strange that I still get so many letters. I've been kinda broke for the last few years and didn't do much giving myself. That doesn't stop them from asking.

It feels stranger and stranger to me lately that the arts (or some portion of the arts sector) operates in the nonprofit world. This results in a conflation of the ideas of "the arts" and "charity." I'm not sure yet how to tease apart the tangled strains of this knot that are weirding me out lately, but I think this conflation thing is a problem. Arts groups really are a square peg in a round hole when it comes to charitable giving.

With things looking bad on the fundraising front for the foreseeable future, I'm thinking of re-orienting my business plan. So far my big idea is quite blurry: make awesome music. Figure out the money later. How to implement this poses some challenges... I need to work with other people and probably won't be able to raise the money to hire them. We'll see how things unfold. I'm thinking about taking guitar lessons again. Not sure who I should study with. Any ideas?

We had a nice thanksgiving. Cameron baked an awesome carrot cake. We spent "black Friday" lounging at home. No shopping. I spent a few hours learning to play a song by Jolie Holland, "You Painted Yourself In." It's really very simple, but it's taking me a long time to get it right. She does some fancy right hand picking that is giving me some trouble.

A few weeks ago, I performed with Daniel's dance company at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. That's always a nice gig. There's a built-in audience, good stage crew, and nice sound system. I also had a chance to catch up with a college classmate, Garth, who works at the Kennedy Center. I hadn't spoken with him in a few years, so that was cool. He's a remarkable guy and he's working on some exciting stuff. Interestingly, he's moving full-on into administration and management, away from writing and performing - and he seems really passionate about what he's doing. (What we didn't talk about was my plan to write a million dollar Christmas song and I need him to sing the demo... but I've gotta write the song first)

I started writing a song during November. I have some bits recorded, but it's still in a messy stage. I think I got lazy, and instead of composing out more of it, I just dropped in a free-improv noisy guitar "interlude." I justified that to myself but I'll spare you the excuses... we'll see what of this winds up in the trash and what might continue being tweaked and/or developed. Have a listen and let me know what you think:

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

One of my accounting-related projects that took lots of time during November should be wrapping up soon, so I'm hoping to get some more practice time - although I just took on another freelance job, this one is a data collection project having to do with jazz radio. It doesn't pay as well as the project that's ending, but it should be waaay more interesting.

I'm on twitter now. And so is Wickett.

New Low End Quartet recordings

In September, the Low End String Quartet had a recording session at Inner Ear with TJ Lipple. I just got the mastered versions back from TJ. You can hear 'em on the myspace, and there's three free downloads on our website. Woo hoo!

• http://www.myspace.com/lesq
• http://lesq.alkem.org/music.html

October wrap-up

October was a busy one... started the month with a few shows with Step Afrika, as part of the Ellington Jazz Festival. We reinvented "Nxt/Step" to incorporate The WES Group, a jazz quartet led by saxophonist Will E. Smith. They were great, and scheduling problems notwithstanding, the project was fun. We did three shows in the big theater at Atlas Performing Arts Center. One daytime show for kids, and two evenings. Turnout for the first evening show was light, it was the same night as the VP debate.

Cameron and I took a quick trip with my folks to Florida to visit my grandmother. We got to spend an hour or so on the beach, which was nice. I haven't been in the ocean since I don't know when. I saw a picture of my great-great-grandfather. I think I'm going to get a copy on the computer someday... but I'm not holding my breath on account of the older people using the internets and everything... When I do get it, I'll be sure to share. He was a grocer in Brooklyn, and it's a great picture of him in his shop.

On a Saturday afternoon, we rode our bikes the entire length of the Sligo Creek Trail (plus the mile or so from our house to the trail). Turns out it's slightly uphill the whole way up to Wheaton... but at least that made the return trip easy (and fast).

This past weekend we carved our pumpkins. The next day, I found out about yeswecarve.com. Oh well. I still like ours, it's simple. Nothing wrong with simple.

I did an informal show with the PlayGround at Joe's Movement Emporium last Thursday. Looks like they've raised some money to build out the theater there. I have mixed feelings. Joe's is a great community resource - but I'm not sure about the potential for quality performances. Oh well. The Meyer Foundation people love to put their names on buildings, so now they'll have a little community based theater space. This show was not our best, but audience was small and supportive. We're doing Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center on November 17th.

This morning I went down to NPR for an interview with Neda Ullaby. She's doing a story about the "DC experimental music scene." Marc Masters' piece that ran in the last issue of Signal to Noise magazine made a good impression, I guess? I got a quick studio tour after the interview, and being an NPR junkie myself, I thought it was really cool. I saw cubicles with the names of familiar reporters on them, and I saw where the Morning Edition and All Things Considered people work. I think I caught a glimpse of Corey Flintoff? He's my favorite. The little production studio where we did the interview had three Neumann U87's. Nice. When I find out when the piece is going to air, I'll post something...

Other news from October was the big grant proposal blitz. There were loads of deadlines around Oct. 15 and Nov. 1 so I spent all my "artist" time this month writing proposals.

• One for-hire on behalf of Washington Musica Viva sent to the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (they love to reject my projects, hopefully this one will fly)
• One for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities' "Small Projects Program;" on behalf of Low End String Quartet (LESQ), to hire an educational consultant and develop an in-school interactive concert program.
• One for the Sparkplug Foundation, for the same LESQ project.
• and finally one for the Maryland State Arts Council, also for LESQ - but this one is for our upcoming collaborative concert series with Washington Musica Viva. The rules for what the state arts council will and will not fund seem very strange to me. I couldn't ask them for money towards the in-school program, which I'm hoping will be like crack to arts donors

Hmm, that doesn't seem like so many in retrospect. Too bad it took so much time to do the work.

November is shaping up to be heavy on the bookkeeping. I've got a sweet project from Cameron's employer, but I've got to get it done by the end of November so I'm selling more of my time for dayjob stuff than I'd prefer. I figure I should take the work while I can get it... and I want to stash some money for our Costa Rica trip coming up in February. There's something to look forward to!

Fall is here

Fall is here, huh? We spent last weekend enjoying the nice weather. We went apple picking with Jen and Trav and Jen's dad, who was in town for a visit. Now we have lots of apples so it's time to learn how to bake pie.



We also took our bikes out for a nice long ride on Sunday. There are miles and miles of nice trails from our neighborhood up to College Park and vicinity.

Some good news (and also sad news): Oreo is adopted. Her new name is "Scout" and she's shown here with her new sibling, Darcy. She lives at Andrews Air Force Base now. It's so sad to give her up, but nice to know that she's got a great permanent home. We did an enormous amount of vacuuming this past weekend and now the house looks like the humans outnumber the dogs again.



I'm hard at work (actually not so much... I'm procrastinating right now) re-arranging the music for "Nxt/Step" - the piece I wrote for Step Afrika. We're doing a new version with a jazz quartet as part of the upcoming Ellington Jazz Festival. Shows are Oct. 2 and 3 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center.

Sour Grapes

For several years now I've subscribed to a magazine called Signal To Noise, a publication that bills itself as, “the quarterly journal of improvised, experimental, and unusual music.” They do a fine job covering this terrain, and as far as I know it's a labor of love run by lovely people and filled with the work of lovely people who surely aren't motivated by money. This is all to say, it's a great magazine, and whatever I have to say about it is not meant as a criticism. This essay, like most everything I do, is all about me.

When each issue arrives, I eagerly flip through it. Quickly, I start to get bitter and defensive. I undergo a Kafka-esque transformation and soon resemble a certain fox. It gets harder to flip the pages with furry paws and no thumb, but I'm stubborn and I stick it out until the very last page. Muttering and grumbling over each glossy photo, and every superlative-laden blurb about every unshaven hipster doofus that they gush over for one reason or another. Sour grapes.

At long last, this cycle has been broken! The fall issue arrived in my mailbox this week, and in it there are two lovely features about me. No sour grapes necessary. There's even a glossy photo of me. Me me me. Finally.

Seriously, though... Marc Masters wrote a nice feature story about the DC “experimental scene,” and I'm included as well as many of the other people who, honestly, have a lot more to do with the scene than I do. But I'll happily take some credit. I am a sucker for acknowledgment.

There's also a short review of the DCIC cd included as well... and it's a pretty good review, I think:

DCIC is a guitar/electronics-reeds-drums trio with links to underground rock – guitarist Jonathan Matis recently toured with Fugazi bassist Joe Lally, drummer Ben Azzara was in Delta '72 – as well as jazz – they have performed with Greg Osby. They play in a hybrid language, slipping in the occasional rock chord as easily as they slide through textural explorations. Mike Sebastian's horns, and especially his exotically pitched saxello, are what makes their music stand out. He's as adept at tying knots in his own lines like Roscoe Mitchell as he is at reeling out an imploring, klezmer-tinged lament. At close to an hour, their debut overstays its welcome a bit, but there's enough happening here that I'd be happy to check them out if they came to my town.

-- Bill Meyer

LESQ recording session almost complete

I've been in the studio for the last two and a half days with the Low End String Quartet. We're recording at Inner Ear with TJ Lipple. I like TJ, but it sure is expensive to hang out with him.

Our tracking day went more smoothly than I expected. We got through everything with a little time to spare. The air conditioning wasn't working, so things got a little swampy. The string players had some interesting troubles with that. It turns out that bass rosin gets extra sticky; and one of Jodi's tuning pegs got stuck at one point. My bandmates were really great about it. We got through the day with nary a complaint about the heat, and everyone really worked hard.

Mixing is going well too... although it can be a tedious process. In a few weeks, hopefully, we'll get the mastering done and then I'll have some hot stuff to share.

Love the art vs. Love the artist

I am embarrassed to admit that it is only recently that I've learned to make the distinction between these two concepts (as they apply to myself and my own work). In retrospect it is kind of hilarious that I was operating previously with these things conflated.

Happily, I have come to realize that what I really want to accomplish musically has something to do with having people like the work, but has nothing to do with needing people to like me. Ah, what relief. Of course, I do still need people to like me, but that's an entirely separate matter. Understanding that this is an entirely separate matter is a wonderful thing!

At the same time, I am more and more clear about the fact that all people will not like the work. In fact, most people will probably not like it (or at least not care about it). However, there are some people who will actually like it and be enthusiastic about it. This is nice.

Having learned these simple things makes it much easier to swallow a lousy review (like the one that was published on Monday in the Post), because my self esteem isn't all tied up in whether or not people liked the music. People responded quite positively to the show - and I think that has a lot to do with the potential for the group and what we're trying to accomplish, even though I've got some work do to as far as getting the music where it needs to be. Carl told me today that he thought about 75% of the music didn't really work, but the other 25% was really exciting. For our first time out with this project, I'll take that. Ok, so we didn't knock one out of the park our first try, but we'll get there...

Ouch. A bad review.

The Low End String Quartet's concert on Saturday went quite well. I was really happy with how things went. We had a great audience, the "early show" experiment at Velvet Lounge worked out, and we made it through our set without any major troubles. Considering all of the technical things that could go wrong (especially with my poor old laptop running the show), I'm pretty psyched about how it went.

Of course there are technical / execution things that can be improved. This was our first time performing most of the music, and we can use some more rehearsal. I need to find a better system for dealing with Andrea's violin pickup - the sound we're getting now isn't so hot.

The Post sent a classical music critic, and she really didn't like it. Oh well. I had hoped we'd get a good review that we could attach with grant proposals and add to our press kit and whatnot, but this one ain't it. Oh well. Fortunately the other group members escaped unscathed. She only harshed on me - and particularly my compositions. I can understand that viewed through the lens of post-classical minimalism (Reich, Glass, John Adams, Terry Riley, etc) my work would come off as a bad imitation.

Anyway, we've got work to do. We have two rehearsal days this week before we head into the recording studio on Monday night. So that's two work days this week where I get to have super fun and call it work.

Express Night Out | Arts

Express Night Out | Arts & Events | Rock the Conservatory: The Low End String Quartet

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The greatest work day ever

I wanted to write this up two weeks ago, and then got behind... but I think it's going to repeat tomorrow, so I'm happy to revisit.

I've been complaining a great deal lately about my dayjob(s) and stress related to money, etc. That all took a backseat a few weeks ago when I had a daytime rehearsal for the Low End Quartet.

I started this project about a year and a half ago. I threw together a few pieces, found interested players who were willing to do a couple of rehearsals and one show for free, got us a spot opening for a friend of mine, and we did a little proof-of-concept. It worked quite well. The music was well received, we made some rehearsal recordings, and I was quite insipired to write more music for the group. Instead of writing said music immediately, I wrote grant proposals. And then some more proposals. Then I got really lucky and some of those were funded.

So here we are, I've got this thing going as a paid gig. I was able to take a few months at the start of the year to focus on composing, and I've got the budget to pay the performers (including myself) for a handful of rehearsals and a show or two. Plus we're going to spend three days in the recording studio in September. Exciting stuff...

Of course real life didn't unfold according to plan and some of the details in my proposals have been changed. I had to hire a new bass player, I didn't finish writing the pieces I needed in the time alotted, etc., etc... but we've got a show coming up this weekend, and the recording session is two weeks away. And here's the best part -- our rehearsal days are paid for. It's literally my job to rehearse with the group. Not as much as I'd like, but we're devoting a couple of days to it - six hour blocks of time, which is quite unheard of in my experience with other bands.

So a few weeks ago, I set up the basement for us and sure enough we spent the better part of the day playing new music in my basement. We didn't cover as much material as I'd hoped, but I'm always putting too many things on my to-do list for any given day. This was no exception. We took a short break for lunch, and played some more. A photographer for the Express came by because they're running a feature about our upcoming show. We got to get acquainted a bit more with one another during lunch, and we got to get acquainted a bit more simply by playing together. (The cat's out of the bag, as far as my skills as a performer... the other members of the group are pros and I'm not quite up to speed when it comes to playing chamber music ;-)

At the end of the day, I was awfully content. I put my coffee down at 9am and forgot to drink it, I was so absorbed in what we were doing all day. When I found it again after the rehearsal was over and everyone had left, I realized that I'd just had the best work day ever. We'd worked hard, but it was seriously fun the whole time. Maddening at some points, given that my music is repetitive and we have to count bars carefully, but fun!

I can't wait for rehearsal tomorrow.. and the show on Saturday should be a blast. Check out the Express on Thursday (I think that's when the feature will run), and I think the Post is covering the show so a review should be in Monday's paper...

Tomorrow - we open for Richard Lloyd

don't take my word for it, the Washington Post's "Going Out Gurus" picked our show as a hot one... tomorrow night at Velvet Lounge.

Not qute viral marketing but...

I haven't really done much publicity for our upcoming Low End String Quartet show at the Velvet Lounge (Aug. 23rd at 8pm, it's gonna be awesome and you should totally come), but the wheels seem to be turning nonetheless.

I got an email from the arts editor at Washington Post Express - I don't think I sent her anything about the show, but honestly I can't remember... and they sent a photographer over to my house to take some pictures during our rehearsal yesterday.

Also, we got a mention in the Post yesterday, at the end of a review of the Section Quartet's show at Iota (they were doing an evening of Radiohead covers).

Does this mean that there is some buzz building and I don't have to push so hard to generate it myself? That would be sweet.

Money vs. Time vs. Misanthropy

I spent most of July working for the man, and now I feel a little less anxious about money. Getting my total net worth above zero makes a difference. Imagine that.

Now my anxious-ness has shifted focus from money to the other side of the same coin: time. Now that I'm committing the majority of my time to earning money, I'm running up against some real obstacles when it comes to accomplishing the things I think I'm supposed to actually do with my life. For whatever reason(s), one of those things is to write string quartet music that rocks. And I've got a deadline, since we start rehearsing again next week... but when do I finish the piece I'm working on, and how will I ever get the score and parts done before Thursday morning? And, oh crap – shouldn't I be doing publicity stuff for our show, now that it's less than four weeks away?! And on top of that, my list of grant proposal deadlines is pretty long for September and October, so I have to get started on some of that work during August, or I'll really be in trouble...

So here I am in anxious-land, nervous about how I can make time to do the things I “need” to do even though I “need” to pay the bills and I also “need” (and importantly, want) to spend time doing some leisure things – spending time with Cameron, and the dogs, and fixing up the yard and the house, etc.

I heard this sermon a few years ago, about looking at our calendar through a spiritual lens... not surprisingly, the big conclusion is to find a purpose in life and do things with that purpose in mind. Then the frenzied activity goes away, or at least feels rewarding rather than frenzied since it's all in service of the grand purpose.

Ok, but I still want to write this string quartet music that rocks. Is that my grand purpose? I don't think so, but maybe writing and playing music is... in as much as it serves a grand purpose like inspiring others or somehow expressing the inexpressible, you know, like music can do sometimes... or maybe it's more about allowing music to create the opportunity for people to come together and simply have a shared experience – one that may occasionally be a moving experience? I think I learned a little bit about that playing with Joe last May. He seems really clear about his purpose - which I interpreted as being all about bringing people together. And that meets the Henry Moore test as mentioned in that sermon I linked to, about having a purpose that is totally impossible. It is definitely getting harder and harder to bring a group of people together for any kind of shared experience. (And I'm part of the problem here... I'd much rather stay home and watch TV with Cameron and the puppies than go out and do something with people – hey wait a second, I hate people. I've been using the “so so so fun test” to say no to all kinds of activities; if it's not going to be so so so fun, then I'd rather just stay home. I haven't found much that passes the “so so so fun test.”)

Even with that aside, so let's say we're close to my grand purpose – to use my creativity to create something that brings people together for some kind of special experience (let's pretend I find a way to get over the fact that, in general, I hate people). Or something like that. Now what about the money? Am I just too chicken to really take the leap and live my purpose because I don't know how the money can possibly work out? I tried it for the first five months of this year – I wasn't doing very much in the way of unrelated day-jobs, and I wound up broke without much in the way of future earnings on the horizon, so I headed for the temp agency. So now what?

I think I remember music...

July has pretty much come and gone. Most of my time went to day-jobs. Accounting is fun! (That's what I'll keep telling myself anyway). There have been some rewarding little things... like:

• The convenience of direct deposit. I don't get paid much, but it sure feels nice when the money just appears magically in my bank account.
• The convenience of not having to collect from my clients. The temp agency pays me every week, wrestling money from the client is their problem.
• Bored-at-work time online. Like the time I'm spending right now writing this blog post (oh wait, I shouldn't publish that, huh?)
  

The Source Festival came and went, and I spent a whole bunch of that bored-at-work online time yesterday and today fussing with the festival producers about my payment. I won't type up all the stupid details, but basically we had a misunderstanding about how much I was going to get paid. The real problem is that most of the festival performers were not paid at all and did it "for the love of it." No surprise that the results were amateur vanity projects that got bad reviews. Unfortunately, that's not how the festival was presented to me in the beginning, when I was invited to participate. At first, I was asked if I'd be interested - and there would be a stipend. I said I might be interested, and when the invitation arrived, the stipend idea was gone, but there was a split of the box office. This amounted to very small amounts of money for the artists, but I said yes anyway and did it. That was my big mistake. I had no burning desire to collaborate with other dance artists (I've done plenty of that over the last few years), and I don't need a venue for my work, so I wasn't so interested in participating in the festival - as an opportunity to show my work. I wanted a paying gig. Seems like I got on the wrong bus with that one...

I have had some clarity recently, regarding my motivation for making music. My own ego / vanity was a big part of it previously. Not as much now. Which is surprising to learn, actually. It turns out I'm quite happy to play good music in Ben's basement (with DCIC), or in my basement (with the Low End String Quartet), or in Trav's basement (with my as-yet-unnamed instrumental rock band). I don't actually care so much about having a public venue and an audience.

Ok, that's not entirely true... I do want people to hear my music - and enjoy it. I do. But that's just part of the process - not an end in itself. DCIC needs to have gigs on the calendar in order to give us the incentive to get together regularly and practice (and to give media outlets some reason to write a review of our album, which I'm quite proud of, and I do want people to hear it).
(and reviews are coming in the fall issues of Signal To Noise, and Cadence magazines) (and the Signal to Noise issue may or may not include this unfortunate photograph)

Similar situation with the string quartet. On one hand, that project is a grand experiment to see if we can find an audience for contemporary chamber music by playing in bars. At the same time, we have to be out in the world performing in order to raise the money to keep the group running (and to make some recordings). Maybe I'll write more about my ideas for the business side of the string quartet later... this week I want to focus on the artistic side. Tomorrow is actually one of the few days on my calendar this month that I'm able to set aside for composing and I need to finish one more piece for the quartet. We need to be out playing in order to be able to leverage the resources we need so I can hire the players (myself included) so we can play good music in my basement. (And then hopefully play it as well in the recording studio)

And we'll see about the rock band. That's moving forward, slowly. I'm honestly in no hurry to play out with them. I'm enjoying having a regular outlet for rocking out. We practice almost every week, one evening after work (they all have day-jobs, too). I'm also feeling like it's a good idea, in terms of process, to let the music evolve slowly and to take our time figuring out what we want to sound like. I was joking last night after rehearsal when I said we'd be ready to play out this time next year - but actually, that's more realistic than I first thought.

In general, I think the lesson I'm learning lately is to say "no." Say "no" to unpaid (or poorly paid) gigs (except local shows for DCIC... since we're doing that for free anyway?). I still need to learn to say "no" to other music-related tasks that I don't need to do myself... like blogging, making a website, sending out promo emails, updates on myspace, etc etc. Now that I'm not as concerned with cultivating an audience (except where that's part of the business model for the string quartet), I'm hoping I can cut down on a great deal of the music-related admin work that I do on a regular basis. (Know anyone who wants to be my intern?)

So what does that mean for Improv Arts? I started this nonprofit that also houses Daniel's dance company. He benefits greatly from having the nonprofit infrastructure (and free bookkeeping), but I'm not sure that I actually need it for much. This is something I need to think about in more detail.

July has also brought some non-musical things to my attention. Like peaches. And zucchini that we grew in the backyard (although our plant seems to be dying now, after producing quite a bit of zucchini for us). And we went to Fort Reno last week with the dogs. That was fun. And Cameron and I have been beating the heat by staying inside and playing scrabble. She beat me so bad I shouldda called the cops last week in an online game (see bored-at-work bit above) but I redeemed myself when we faced off last weekend in real life. And I think I've got my work schedule and yoga schedule worked out so I'll be back on practicing 3 days per week, which should make a big difference in moderating my grumpiness (and maybe my weight gain).

And why not put in another picture of our foster puppy Oreo, because she is soooo cute, she de-zerves to be no.1

So here's looking forward to August. I have (miraculously) hired a new bass player AND scheduled rehearsals with the Low End Quartet; DCIC is playing at Velvet Lounge with Circles and Richard Lloyd (of Television); Low End Quartet is playing at Velvet Lounge the following weekend; and then the quartet gets to go to the studio on Sept. 1st. Lots of fun stuff to look forward to!

Oreo!

Meet Oreo! She's our new foster puppy and she is ridiculously adorable. Like our previous foster puppy, she arrived with a ripe odor and kennel cough. Over the weekend she got a bath, and her cough is improving steadily.

Honestly, I'm a little worried about how crazy she's going to be once she gets healthy. We're so spoiled by Wickett who is totally mellow and super well behaved. But who cares? It's a super cute puppy! What's not to love about a super cute puppy?!

Independence Day Weekend: I'm all over town

I've got a handful of performances coming up this weekend. Saturday and Sunday, I have a piece in the Source Festival (more on that later). And on Sunday night, DCIC is performing at Electric Possible with a handful of other bands.

Electric Possible is monthly concert held at George Washington University. The focus is on experimental music of different kinds. This month's lineup includes some good stuff. We're performing along with PRV Trio (Anthony Pirog, Ed Ricart, and Scott Verrastro), Seventh Ring of Saturn (from Atlanta), Cash $lave Clique, and maybe others.

DCIC will have a rehearsal before this show, which is something I'm looking forward to. We haven't played together since our in-store at Crooked Beat back in early May. So this will be fun, we get to play together on Thursday night in Ben's basement and then again on Sunday at GWU. Twice in one week! Woo Hoo!

The details:
Phillips Hall,
801 22nd St, NW,
Rm B120 (in the basement)
(22nd and H Streets/GW Metro)
George Washington University
8pm, $5

And now about this Source Festival thing... I was assigned collaborators as part of the festival's "Interdisciplinary Mash-Ups" initiative:

Mash-ups are the pairing together of artists from at least two different disciplines each with the goal of creating, in under three month’s time, a new interdisciplinary performance piece 15 to 30 minutes long.

I got paired with two dancers. This gig doesn't pay very well, so we had to address the conflicting issues of making a substantial (15 minutes long is substantial as far as I'm concerned) new work when we aren't being compensated for our time, while simultaneously we don't want to present something that's totally weak. Laura and Stephen were also keenly aware of this conundrum so we looked around for material that we already have on hand, that would be available to use as a starting point.

I brought them a piece of ambient guitar music that I recorded a while back and haven't used for anything, and Laura remembered a short 8mm film that her dad made in 1970 called "Paint it Blue," that she'd been wanting to use for something. Turns out there was a hint of a theme between them. My piece, "Romance of the Surveillance Machines," is up on myspace if you want to hear it. The film documents an episode where the Schandelmeiers were painting the outside of their downtown bar/restaurant one afternoon (with a small crowd of volunteers) and the cops showed up and starting arresting people for no good reason.

Laura's parents came over for dinner one night, and I brought my recording gear. They told us the story of the restaurant and how they wound up being harassed by police (and eventually the Airline Pilots Association as well) and lost everything: the business and the building. I went home with around 90 minutes of audio, and took a stab at editing it down. My first batch of edits got us down to 18 minutes. I gave that to Laura and Stephen, and they built a video around the interview clips, using the original film and some other footage. Last night, I made a final version of the audio track with the interviews, and background music (derived from the pre-existing piece mentioned above) and now I think we're done. Laura and Stephen have generated some new movement/dance material that will happen on stage along with the film.

Performances are this coming Saturday, 2pm and 8pm, and again on Sunday at 2pm. Some genius set us up for two matinees and only one evening show... and we get paid via a tiny slice of the door. I'm such a sucker. No, I mean, here's the link to buy tickets - enjoy the show! It's gonna be great! (We're in the show titled, "Group E.")

Assistant to the Pastry Chef

This past weekend, I was hired to help out with a big baking project. Cameron got a gig baking a wedding cake (and cupcakes and cookies) for her boss' daughter's wedding. I did lots of dishes. We made an enormous amount of icing. We also learned how to stack cakes. Turns out that the secret is dowels. Looks good, huh? It's a vegan red velvet cake with butter cream icing. It's crazy delicious.

The cake was accompanied by five dozen coconut cupcakes and one zillion Mexican wedding cookies.

We borrowed my parents' kitchen to do most of the work, which was crucial to our success. Having two ovens, two mixers, and all that counter space really paid off. I don't think we could've done it in our little kitchen.

The opposite of "no more data entry."

I would very much like to develop a new relationship to money. Perhaps this would be easier if I had a little bit more of it. Towards this end, I am back to work selling my accounting skills. Temp-ing. My current assignment is at the Lincoln Theater. I got the gig through Accountemps. I do not think highly of Accountemps, so I met with another recruiter last week. We'll see if I get a better offer.

This morning, I got to work about 45 minutes early (Cameron needed to get to her office early, and I had to take Wickett to doggie day-care and then metro down to my new job site, wasn't sure how long all that would take). So I took a walk around the neighborhood (14th and U street). It's really crazy how much 14th street has changed - even in the last year or so. Lots of construction is now completed and the street is lined with upscale retail that makes me laugh. They got all of these ridiculously expensive stores open just in time for the economy to take a nose-dive. The absurdity of human activity is spilled out onto the sidewalk and I couldn't help tripping all over it. I've been thinking about the absurdity of human activity because temp-ing brings out the absurdity very efficiently.

I will say this: it's awfully nice having very little accountability. I promise to actually show up and do some work each day. I will not leave my client in worse condition that when I got there. Happily, I also will take on no stress related to the state of their financial management. It is not my problem. If it becomes my problem, I can, quite literally, walk away. Additionally, I have now re-joined the ranks of so many other white-collar workers: those sitting at a desk, bored at work. Gee, now I have time to make a blog post. Perhaps you too are bored at work. Why else would you be reading this?

Yesterday, Cameron and I performed with Daniel Burkholder/The PlayGround at Bladensburg Waterfront Park. It was nice doing the show outside, along the water. The weather cooperated, the rain that was in the forecast didn't arrive until after we got home and unloaded the gear. The show went fine, I guess. I think my interest in modern dance is waning. Maybe "has waned completely" would be more accurate. I will probably feel better about the project after I get paid.

We got our notification from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County. Once again, the Low End String Quartet has been rejected for a "Creative Projects" grant. At least this year I had the good sense not to observe the panel as they discussed the proposal. Unfortunately, they were no more enlightened this year than last year... I will no longer waste my time applying to AHCMC for funding. Too bad, though, I could've really used the money. Oh yeah, better get back to the bookkeeping...