Hello and welcome to the blog. This page will serve as a scrap book of music, recordings, pop culture, musings, essays, videos, reviews, shows, bands, etc. of any thing that I choose to post. I hope to gather contributions from my friends. I plan on running a small store from here where I'll sell merchandise related to my artistic projects. So stay posted!
My first blog entry is on a fine fellow I met on my trip to New York City about 3 weeks ago. I had just moved from Halifax to Montreal and had to rush off to NYC (via train, so a slow rush). I was choosing to perform in Rhys Chatham's Crimson Grail, a piece written for an orchestra of 200 electric guitars, 16 electric basses, and a high hat. The concert took place at the Lincoln Center, was supposed to happen a year ago, but lucky for me (unfortunate for every else last year) the concert got postponed until this year. So I got in touch with Rhys and applied and there I was! The concert was a blast, there was over 10000 people there, and so many photographers, I got my picture in the Village Voice blog. I met a ton of amazing people, including members of Akron/Family, and one fine fellow (the second person I met I might add) name Nick Kuepfer. It was quite the story of circumstance, he happened to be in my section, sitting right behind me, he was friendly and very approachable and when asked where he was from he said Montreal! What a coincidence! Anyways we ended up driving back to Montreal and he saved me the horrible job of having to cart around an amp from Williamsburgh to Penn Station at 7:30 on a Monday morning.
Nick is a very talented guy, he is an amazing screen printer and musician. Check out his myspace tracks, it is a really remarkable sound collage. There is plenty of interesting uses of field recordings, what sound like prepared guitars, minimalist loops, musique concrete techniques, extended techniques of a tea kettle, and lots of use of instruments from around the world. Nick will be debuting his solo work at Casa del Popolo on September 1oth. He has also kindly offered his talents to a new project of mine with Chris D'eon entitled, "Hassan-i Sabbāh X," which promises to be a heavy mix of heady extended modal jams, we are calling it raga rock. So be sure to check it out. We will be making out debut performance a week before at Lab Synthese on the 4th of September for our friends, "The Pop Winds," EP release show and then playing with Nick at Casa the week after.
I wanted to show some pictures of Nicks fine poster art, if you have spent anytime walking around Montreal, for sure, you will recognize his work, in fact I knew his posters before I knew him! His prints are a of maximalist approach, busy with prints of antiquity transposed in a psychedelic swirl of color. Your eyes will feast, perfect for any visual glutton.
Check his websites for more goodness!
http://www.gigposters.com/designer/29645_Nick_Kuepfer.html
http://www.myspace.com/nickkuepfer
-Z
