A Little Tiny Festival, Big Talent in the OWE

MiniFest is a little tiny festival in a small venue that features some big, big talent in the noise scene.

It takes place Thursday, August 12 - Friday, August 13 at the Robinwood Concert House, located in Toledo's Historic Old West End.

Here's the info on the acts. For more information, visit www.toledobellows.wordpress.com.

 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 12
Jack Wright & Bob Marsh / Basshaters
9pm
Robinwood Concert House
 2564 Robinwood
Donations

JACK WRIGHT. After teaching at Temple University in the 1960s and leaving academia in the early 1970s to engage in radical politics and community organizing, by the late 1970s Wright directed his energies into music. He is one of a very small group of musicians in North America that has played improvised music exclusively since the 1970s. Through years of near constant touring, often performing for audiences in cities and towns where improvised music had never before been heard, he came to be regarded as something of an underground legend. He has deliberately eschewed the conventions and socio-aesthetic limitations of musical careerism to pursue his own vision. Although his de-professionalized approach sets him apart from most musicians at his level of accomplishment, his art has always grown, expanded, and synthesized new information. He is unquestionably an original and virtuosic saxophonist, a master improviser who is deeply lyrical, with humor never far away.

Today Wright tours frequently in Europe and North America (and in Japan in 2006), making new musical and human connections, bringing European musicians to the U.S. and bringing musicians everywhere together. His inspiration has provided crucial impetus to hundreds of musicians and has even motivated several people to establish music venues in order to present him and other improvisers (e.g. Baltimore’s High Zero festival). His vast list of collaborators includes some “name” luminaries (William Parker, Axel Dorner, Michel Doneda, Andrea Neumann, Denman Maroney, Bhob Rainey to name a few) but more significant are the many obscure greats he has played with. He has made over 40 recordings (many published on his own Spring Garden label), performed in over 20 countries, and written extensively and insightfully about music and society for journals such as Improjazz (France) and Signal to Noise (US), as well as his own website. http://www.springgardenmusic.com/


BOB MARSH is a well seasoned improviser whose work has involved shaping sounds words images ideas. Originally from Detroit, Marsh arrived in the Bay Area in 2000 after ten years in Chicago where he played with most of the avant improvisers in that rich and varied scene. Since his arrival on the west coast, multi-instrumentalist and composer Marsh has been busy with several projects. He currently leads or directs String Theory, a string ensemble focusing on textures and microtonics; the Che Guevarra Memorial Marching (and Stationary) Accordion Band, structured and free improv for six to fifteen accordions; Robot Martians, electronics and processed voice; the Out of the Blue Chamber Ensemble, a mixture of reeds and strings; Opera Viva, voiced physical theater; the Quintessentials, a quintet specializing in interpreting graphic compositions based on alterations to the Michelin Road Guide to France; and the Illuminated Orchestra, structured improves for large ensemble. Additionally Marsh is a member of Romus/Diaz-Infante’s Abstractions, Jim Ryan’s Left Coast Improv Group, Moe! Staiano’s Moe!chestra and Tom Bickley’s Cornelius Cardew Choir. Bob Marsh tours frequently with his long term partner saxophonist Jack Wright. Bob has recently been presenting a solo work involving violin, voice and tap shoes. Marsh’s educational background includes a BFA in sculpture and an MA in humanistic clinical psychology. He has studied classical piano, classical guitar and vibraphone and has taught himself various other instruments. He currently is active with cello, accordion, violin, voice, vibraphone and electronics.

BASSHATERS (tony dryer: double bass, electronics + jacob felix heule: drum set, electronics) is a duo using double bass, drum set, and electronics to integrate acoustic free improv and electronic noise. Striving to match the fluidity of their textural acoustic music, electronics expand the timbral and dynamic options to new extremes. The duo seeks directness and intensity in execution; subtleties emerge from the bold statement of simple ideas.

In addition to Basshaters, Dryer & Heule have released an album on Creative Sources with clarinetist Jacob Lindsay. They have a trio CD with saxophonist Jack Wright, and have performed live with diverse musicians such as Michel Doneda, C Spencer Yeh, Gino Robair, and Damon Smith. Dryer has toured with the Flying Luttenbachers and Usurp Synapse; Heule remains active with his brutal improv duo Ettrick.
http://www.heule.us/basshaters/


FRIDAY, AUGUST 13

Metal Rouge / Jane Austen and Sam Hamilton
9pm
Robinwood Concert House
2564 Robinwood
Donations

METAL ROUGE was formed in 2006 by Helga Fassonaki and Andrew Scott in Auckland, New Zealand with no aim but to open themselves to the spontaneous psych tonalism running through the underbelly of popular music like a vein of pure lightning. Birthed from the rich history of New Zealand underground they began to mold a sound comprised equally of the forward motion of ecstatic jazz and the drugged stasis of NYC loft minimalism circa ’66. Using electric guitar, vocals and amplified santur as their primary instruments, they forged a new vocabulary of unrefined free spiritual music. Relocating to Los Angeles, they toured the US, adding lap steel and pedal steel to their arsenal. Drummer/Trombonist Caitlin M. Mitchell joined in 2009, bringing with her a night/day spectrum ranging from pure brass drone through to aggressive free rock. Related projects include Yek Koo (Helga solo), Nest (Andrew & Nigel Wright), Un Ciego (Andrew solo), Huzun (Andrew & Tim Coster), Dogwiper (Caitlin, Ged Gengras & Seth Kasselman), and Low Light Situations (Caitlin, Ged Gengras, Jake White & Seth Kasselman). Métal Rouge have releases on Root Strata, Not Not Fun, Stunned, Digitalis, and Emerald Cocoon (previously Seymour Records).

“We’ve no choice but to rise higher than ever into the ultraviolet spectrum as Metal Rouge continue their liberated refinement, casting chunks of 6-string trance, extreme jazz vocals and black metal into a blistering, beautiful gas inferno…” – Stunned Records
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/metalrouge#ixzz0vlHlW2ej

SAM HAMILTON makes FREEWAVE music, or in the words of musical pals Peaking Lights “fucked modern pop”, a ecstatically vibrant and celebratory exploration of the future of music. rather than a genre, FREEWAVE is a 21st century musical perspective, a perspective soaked in boundariless hybridisation, ambiguously positioned between the inclusive familiar, intrinsically universal musical departure points and the and the exotic wonderings in the magic unknown. a music of ultra inclusivity, exploring the connected tangents that run the gamut of music from the first primal wailings of pre-humans to the mind melting nxt-lvl leaps in our ever expanding cultural orientation. Sam Hamilton live performances are a mixture of ecstatic spectral explosions of sparkling sound rays, throbbing voodoo pulsations and an energetic sonic friction between freak-out fun and magical transformation. http://www.myspace.com/samhamilton0#ixzz0vlJ5uRR2


http://toledobellows.wordpress.com/


Published: 08/11/2010 7:00 am

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