Yesterday's activities included, in this order: breakfast at a favorite cafe, enjoying a private tour through the bowels of the Field Museum which ended with the RoboSue exhibit (made me feel like a 12 year old boy), biking the lakeshore path while watching the air and water show while also dodging pedestrians, Thai food for lunch, Dairy Queen for dessert, a NAP(?), drinks at the Hopleaf, photo adventure with Aldric at the Agora sculpture/installation in Grant Park, dinner at El Taco Veloz accompanied by terrible karaoke, further drinks at the California Clipper. All in the company of wonderful friends I'll miss terribly. Then, sleep. Almost 30 city miles logged on the bike. I love Chicago.
Today holds in store a gig with Chicago Afrobeat Project in Kankakee IL and writing, listening, organizing in the van to-and-from the gig. Seven more gigs in town in 14 days remaining before I split. Recording ALDRIC next Friday. And lots of dancing to do. I re-iterate. I LOVE Chicago.
seems i'll be heading to New York in April to begin work at NYU's Draper Interdisciplinary Master's Program. i'm terribly excited to be challenged in a formal academic program studying anthropological methodology, philosophy, and aesthetics, etc., with a world-class faculty. not to mention living and working in NYC and having access to (and hopefully becoming part of) that legendary music/arts scene. and to make things even better, i'll be spending the winter playing music on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean. five months at sea playing music, going to amazing ports, getting a tan - certainly beats chicago winter. so that forces everything i want to do in chicago into these next two months. got a few shows with ALDRIC yet before recording in august and splitting town. that and a bunch of work with l'orchestre super vitesse, various jobbing gigs, and so much beer to consume, this is shaping up to be a summer to remember. so, that said, let's hang!
a new best friend has entered my life. he's about five feet tall, gracious, chivalrous, handsome, and made entirely of sheet metal. meet my new Knight - i think his name is Aldric - the Aldric.
looks like he's the new band's mascot. now i just need to figure out how i'm going to transport him back and forth to shows as he has a hard time fitting in my car - but we're problem solvers, aren't we? yes. we'll make this work.
been an eventful week as per usual. checked out The Books monday night at the city's free concert series at millenium park. much more psychedelic than expected but also inspiring. wonderful compositions with found sounds, synthetic sounds, organic sounds.
also featured this week: double rainbow, fried fish, beach dance party, rooftop party, bourbon, late night tacos, guitar, MUSTAFA F#*@ING KANDIRALI, and night time bike rides. oh, and i'm putting together a new electronics set-up for my horn in ALDRIC. terribly excited for all of the sonic implications as [...]
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i'm terribly happy to report that ALDRIC's first outing was a fantastic success! we were thrilled to be so well received by a capacity crowd at The Whistler of about 80 folks. couldn't have asked for a better set, really. unfortunately any video taken of the set was un-usable due to the low light but happily that didn't effect the audio. i'll soon post a few tunes for your listening pleasure. i can't say enough how pleased i am by the showing, and to see so many friends out! more shows on the way, keep an eye out for dates.
i'm having a silly good time with the addition of a contact mic to my life. it's currently taped to my melodica and running through my DL4 to make the most amazing crunchy loops. the whole melodica is basically turned into a percussion instrument with every bump and rub being amplified. it's glorious - excited about how it'll sound in a band setting.
checked out Blink., a project of Jeff Greene (
http://jeffgreenemusic.com/) last night at the whistler. it's jeff on bass, greg ward on alto, dave miller on guitar, and quin kirchner on drums. loops/samples, pedals (push-button type and harmonic type) and a ton of musicianship made a killer set. i've been hearing more and more creative music in chicago exploring this sort of music. incorporating elements of noise, electronics, unconventional beats, and different instruments is seeming more and more relevant as more tools become available and the world keeps shrinking via the internet. the access we all have to the music being made [...]
