Clavius Productions presents:
Thursday, February 15
611 Florida Ave NW
http://www.claviusproductions.org
8pm, $5 suggested donation
202-360-9739 for info
BYOW!
Micah Blue Smaldone (ragtime fingerpicker from Maine, on Tequila Sunrise/North East Indie)
Christopher Teret (of Company, solo folk/psych from NYC)
Aidan Baker (of Nadja, Alien 8 Rec., solo ambient/drone guitar from Toronto)
Micah Blue Smaldone
http://www.northeastindie.com/micah/
Born Micah Blue Smaldone in the summer of 1978, in a rural New York town near the shores of Lake Champlain, his family moved to southern Maine in the early '80s, where he whiled his way through school, duly picking up the guitar in his early teens. A founding member of Maine's seminal political punk band the Pinkerton Thugs, Micah's involvement in a then-thriving Boston punk scene brought him into the lineup of several Boston-area bands, including garage-rockers the Shods, and the long-lived hardcore band Out Cold, with whom he toured the States, the UK, and Europe several times. A melancholy spell in the winter of 2002 found Micah withdrawing from the bands, and the public eye as well, immersing himself in prewar music and playing his guitar day in and day out. The previous winter he'd heard a radio tribute to Piedmont songster John Jackson, whose delicate finger-style guitar playing and singular voice illumed a whole new realm of expression to Micah. Through Jackson, he discovered all of the classic prewar blues-men -- Blind Blake, Lonnie Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Gary Davis, etc., and by the spring of 2003 Micah could often be found playing standards on the streets of Portland's Old Port District. Busking proved very formative to his playing and singing, demanding a loud, articulate finger-style and penetrating voice to be heard above the din of traffic and strolling shoppers. True to the songster tradition, he learned a huge repertoire of well over 100 songs, and began to write his own material in this style. That May, invited by a high school friend to a small music festival inland, Micah performed to a warm audience including Portland's Cerberus Shoal, who fast became dear friends and musical companions. Encouraged by them, he recorded his songs at home over the summer, and was introduced to their record label North East Indie, who released his debut album Some Sweet Day in early 2004. Charged with the excitement of fluency in a newly discovered idiom, this record speaks in a period-correct tongue without irony -- revealing, as written in the liner notes, a "passion for the material; a kind of dearness that breeds obsession that is generous (as opposed to implosive)." As Magnet wrote, "Micah Smaldone should, by the sound of it, be dead. Seemingly held over from the era of vaudeville and ragtime, Some Sweet Day does what most albums can't: It touches on the strength of a small, nasal voice and finely picked guitar. When he yodels his Dustbowl-beggar blues about outlaws, in-laws and old-fashioned hurtin', you can't help but wonder where all the good music has gone." 2004 found Micah performing often, mostly on small jaunts down the east coast and one-month-long tour with Cerberus Shoal in November. He has since shared the stage with many of his favorite performers -- the Big Huge, PG Six, Jolie Holland, and Bonnie "Prince" Billy, to name a few. In spring of 2005, Micah recorded his second solo record, Hither and Thither, to be released this November. Darkly internal and lurking in grim allegory, this album weaves with a longer thread of influence than its predecessor, subtly merging a common spirit from throughout the century of recorded music, from Skip James and Leadbelly to Bob Dylan to Will Oldham. In support of this new album, Micah will be embarking on a six-week tour this fall, with Cerberus Shoal.
Christopher Teret
http://www.abandcalledcompany.com/christopherteret.htm
The Brooklyn-based band Company consists of three songwriters, one of whom is Teret, and a dynamic drummer. They perform folk- and country-based songs with punk and psychedelic rock energy to create a sound that defies ready categories.
Company’s members met at Bard College, where they collaborated in a variety of punk groups and folk ensembles. After moving to Brooklyn, they formed the band in 2001 as a way of weaving together these distinct musical threads, reworking their acoustically conceived songs and adding improvisational elements and post-punk dynamics to the mix. The resulting songs range from punk-country ballads to intimate folkish mediations to psychedelic epics, but the lyric always remains the focus; the vocal commands the foreground while lush harmonies, psych-inflected guitars, and David Janik's powerful, often mesmerizing rhythms, drive it forward.
Years of modest but consistent shows in small venues like the now-defunct Nine-C Lounge in Manhattan's East Village and the intimate Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, earned Company a small but loyal following. In this early period, they recorded two studio albums, which remain unreleased, as well as a live album captured at an early Nine-C show. In 2004, they self-released their third record, Hills (recorded by former Oakley Hall drummer Will Dyar). Next, they recorded their fourth, Parallel Time, at the rural Kentucky studio of Paul Oldham, and Oneida's Brah Records picked it up for release in October of 2005. Often Company can be found sharing a billing with their labelmates Oakley Hall (another Nine-C alumnus), Oneida, Home, and Dirty Faces.
Aidan Baker
http://www.netrover.com/~amizen/home.htm
Aidan Baker is a musician and writer currently based in Toronto, Canada. Classically trained in flute, he is self-taught on guitar, drums, and various other instruments. A regular performer in and around Toronto, he has also performed in New York, Montreal, Chicago, San Francisco, and at such festivals as the Om Festival, Mutek,
SXSW, and the Distillery Jazz Festival. He has released numerous CDs on independent labels from around the world. He is the author of two books
of poetry, two poetry chapbooks, and has published poetry, fiction, and criticism in various international and scholarly journals.
As a solo artist, Baker explores the deconstructive sonic possibilities of the electric guitar as a primary sound source, creating music that ranges from experimental to post-rock to contemporary classical. He performs with the experimental collective ARC and the ambient/doom-metal project Nadja. He has also composed work for the the Penderecki String Quartet and the Uxbridge Chamber Choir.
"Aidan Baker's amount of releases reminds me of the '50s when is was very usual that Jazz musicians like John Coltrane had released about 10 records in only one year. Baker is hyper-creative, and the list of all his solo releases, poetries, collaborations and different musical projects like Nadja, ARC or Mnemosyne is nearly endless. And to make it just more confusing, all his works have been released by different labels. This solo album, released in 2004 by the French label Le Cri De La Harpe, contains five long songs which have been recorded live in Toronto in April 2003 and then re-worked and manipulated three months later. Aidan Baker only uses an electric guitar, but the number of tones he plays with his instrument are really amazing. Once again he is exploring and desconstructing the sonic possibilities of the electric guitar and the results are gorgeous ambient soundscapes that are flowing like molten lava through the speakers. I can hear a psychedelic approach in this songs, because the sounds are like a mandala or a multi-coloured kaleidoscope, where you don't know what the next turn reveals, without losing its hypnotic substance. Sometimes, the soundscapes are becoming a little bit darker, as if a cloud is moving before the sun, but it's more like the natural game of shadow and light instead of dragging the listener into a bleak and black hole. As so often when I'm listening to Aidan Baker's music, I can hear some sort of Eastern vibe in his music. Maybe it belongs only to my imagination, but good music should always inspire the listener. The strange-sounding song titles emphasizes my Eastern-influenced fantasies, but words like "Khiondhecwi (Animator)" or "Esken (Bone-dweller)" maybe have nothing in common with any Eastern culture or language. Anyway, listening to this album is like good and intense meditation and gives me a perfect relaxation. Aidan Baker still gives a shit about any commercial trends out there (what I totally appreciate!) and has a bigger interest in experimentation and thoughtful expression. It's been a long time since I've listened to such an ambitious work of ambient music.
Upcoming 611 events:
2/22: Eric Carbonara (flamenco/raga fingerpicker from Philly, Honeymoon Music)/Owl Xounds (NYC free jazz, mem. of La Otracina/Blizzards)/Ryan Jewell (solo experimental guitar from Ohio)/Layne Garrett (of Cutest Puppy in the World)
3/2: Carpark Records presents Ecstatic Sunshine (electric guitar duo)/Lexie Mountain Boys (all-femme vox and shenanigans)/Cache Cache