Sunday, Apr 27 2003 8:15 PM

   YET ANOTHER
microFestival of Live Electronic Music!


with

Patrice Scanlon [solo laptop]
Bill Hsu [solo laptop]
Scott R. Looney [solo laptop]
Jeff Lubow [solo laptop]
Kristin Miltner [processing James Livingston]
Tim Perkis [solo laptop]

Join us for a sampling of some of the best and up-and-coming Bay Area live computer music performers.

Friday, May 9 2003 8:15 PM

Scott Rosenberg's Skronktet West
Almost Transparent Blue from Vancouver


Scott Rosenberg's Skronktet West
Scott Rosenberg - Saxophones and Contrabass Clarinet
Morgan Guberman - Bass
Matt Ingalls - Clarinets
Gino Robair - Percussion
John Shiurba - Guitar

Almost Transparent Blue
Kelly Churko - Guitar and electronics
Skye Brooks - Drums and Percussion
Masa Anzai - Sax and electronics

Ex-bayarea saxophonist Scott Rosenberg returns to play with locals Gino Robair, john
shiurba , Morgan Guberman, and Matt Ingalls. With a new record on spool's "post rock" series [# 001!] and just back from a tour in france where they were billed as "Reunissant la creme de la nouvelle musique de la West Coast
americaine," this band combines insect-improv with mathy braxton-like
compositions by rosenberg, often with a rock flavor.

Vancouver's Almost Transparent Blue played a killer set on our series last
year to a near empty hall. They sound a bit like Splatter Trio - Gino
himself says the drummer is REALLY good - so you better not miss them this
time!

Sunday, Jun 15 2003 8:15 PM

John Shiurba solo guitar
Good for Cows
John Shiurba's 5x5

See local guitar master John Shiurba in a rare solo performance!

Good For Cows is Ches Smith-drums & Devin Hoff-contrabass

John Shiurba's 5x5 is free improvisation interrupted by 5 short compositions.

Liz Allbee, trumpet
Dan Plonsey, reeds
Gino Robair, percussion
John Shiurba, guitar
Matthew Sperry, bass

Sunday, Jun 22 2003 8:15 PM

Joseph Zitt - compositions for instrumental ensemble

Aaron Bennett's Electro-Magnetic Trans-Personal Orchestra



Joseph Zitt presents Calculating Codes and Naive Melodies
a night of compositions for sextet, including "Haftarah", "For Tom Johnson", "Ghost Dervish Beach", and others.
Pefromed by: Bob Marsh (vibes), Tom Bickley (recorder), Michael Cooke (winds), Joseph Zitt (bass guitar), Scott Hill (soprano sax), Caroline Smith (violin/viola),
and Ian Yeager (guitar)

Sunday, Jul 20 2003 8:15 PM

The John Ingle / Dan Joseph Duo

and from San Diego

Christopher Williams contrabass with
Travis Sullivan saxophone

Sunday, Aug 10 2003 12:00 PM

THE 3rd ANNUAL TRANSBAY SKRONKATHON BBQ


Last year's summer music-BBQ was as big a success as the year before,
so ACME Observatory and the Transbay Calendar are conspiring to
present another all-day creative music marathon at The Jazz House,
Sunday, August 10, 2003.

Featuring these Bay Area musicians

Arielle | Aurora | Myles Boisen | Jon Brumit
Dan Cantrell | Matt Davignon
Michael de la Cuesta | Tom Djll | Tim Duff
Ernesto Diaz-Infante | Lisle Ellis
Marco Eneidi | Tanja Feichtmair
John Finkbiener | Philip Gelb | Vicky Grossi
Morgan Guberman | Brian H | Ron Heglin
Cactus Daniel Hintz | Adam Hurst
David Hurtt | Matt Ingalls | Daron Key
Jacob Lindsay | Scott Looney
Gabriella Marks | Bob Marsh
David Michalak | Nova | Tom Nunn
Tim Perkis | Rent Romus
John Shiurba | David Slusser
Damon Smith | Mark Sottilaro
Moe! Staiano | Daniel St. Andre
Randy Sutherland | Ron Thompson
Marshall Trammell | Peter Valsamis
VO [Lori Bravo] | Andrew Voigt | Matt Volla
Wataru | Hanuman Zhang | & others!

Schedule
vist this web site for more information.

12:00 John Shiurba's 5x5 Ragtag team of misfits does things in fives
12:30 Ron Thompson guitar+computer
12:45 0crossing Cyclotronica ambi-groovic guitar
1:35 recant ambient, noise, industrial.
2:05 RAPED. metal? FAST, LOUD, SOULFUL AND PASSIONATE
2:35 stereo muthat fucuz spazz out rock duo
3:25 Nauplii Lo-fi sound collage.
3:55 "Jon, woj! Jon, wajon!, ehweh, and Matt, twem! Att" improvised turntable duo
4:15 thrust reverser murky, droning, ambient noise guitar twosome
4:55 sacrificefly tpt/cb/perc trio (improv, not jazz!)
5:25 Hanuman Zhang solo perc & homebrew instruments
5:55 CHE GUEVARRA MEMORIAL MARCHING (AND STATIONARY) ACCORDION BAND accordions
6:45 Tim Duff string bass, Joelle Leandre's Taxi
6:55 Interminacy trumpet + laptop
7:10 Matt Ingalls solo clarinet
7:40 Philip Gelb solo shakuhachi
8:15 REEL CHANGE soundtracks for experimental films
8:45 Feetlebaum Moe!'s Quintet
9:35 triple d + tanja feichtmair + scott looney improv quintet
10:05 Sound on Survival Free Jazz with electronics


Every year the BBQ gets better and better -- let's take it through
the roof this time!

Sunday, Sep 7 2003 8:15 PM

Ernst Karel and Cornelius Cardew's Treatise

Ernst Karel plays trumpet and/or analog modular electronics and is based in Chicago, though currently in temporary residence in the Bay Area. He began playing free music while living in Seattle in the early 1990s, where he recorded with Blowhole, Key Ransone of Small Cruel Party, Aiko Shimada, and Negativland. Since moving to Chicago in 1995 he has refined his trumpet technique and his approach to electronics, and has worked with a wide variety of musicians, including Fred Lonberg-Holm, David Grubbs, Olivia Block, Kevin Drumm, Bobby Conn, Liz Payne, Boris Hauf, Helen Mirra, Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop, Otomo Yoshihide, and members of Polwechsel, nmperign, and TV Pow. Current musical projects include EKG with Kyle Bruckmann (EKG’s CD Object 2 was released earlier this year on Locust Music) and the electroacoustic quintet Unclocked. He has also composed sound installations, including Fern Room at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Conservatory (later released on CDR by BOXmedia), commissioned by Experimental Sound Studio (2001), and Errors in Measurement at the City of San Antonio International Center in Texas (2002). Sound installations made in collaboration with Helen Mirra have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum in New York, the Palo Alto Arts Center, and Art Basel, Switzerland.

Tonight he plays a quartet set with local greats Gino Robair, John Shiurba, and Matt Ingalls.


For the second set, we bring back by popular demand a performance of Cornelius Cardew's classic graphic work, Treatise. For this performance, the first set's quartet will be augmented with members from the sfSoundGroup

Twenty years after his death, Cornelius Cardew is still a figure to be reckoned with in the British avant-garde. His intense political engagement caused him to question everything about the hierarchical, often authoritarian nature of musical society and about the composer's role in it. (In the 1970's he became a Maoist and repudiated most of his own best work as decadent and elitist!) His Treatise (1963-1967) is a mammoth, intricate 193-page graphical score that undermines the composer's authority by, rather than indicating what and how to play, guiding and focusing performers' creative impulses. The performers are given no instructions on how to interpret the beautiful but often enigmatic score, but rather must arrive at their own conclusions about the notations, much as we normally use works of art, letting the marks of the page speak to us and making our own interpretations and readings through observation and conversation with our peers. On some level this reverses the usual relation of performer to score: normally the player pulls the music from the score, in Treatise the score draws the music from the player.

Sunday, Sep 21 2003 8:15 PM

An all-Shoko evening, with the Natto Quartet (Shoko Hikage, koto; Philip Gelb, Shakuhachi; Tim Perkis, Electronics; Chris Brown, Keyboard) and the Hikage-Segel duo (Shoko on Koto and Jonathan Segel on Electronics.) We can't get enough of Shoko's koto playing, so she's consented to play all night long in two of her best groupings. Trio Natto (Shoko, Philip & Tim) did a triumphant tour of Japan last year and released one of the year's best recordings. This year, they've stepped it up a notch, playing even better with Chris Brown on piano. Both quartet and duo have new CDs out, whose release we will be celebrating.

Sunday, Nov 16 2003 8:15 PM

Triaxium West, under the direction of John Shiurba, performs compositions by Anthony Braxton.

free, donations, which go to the artists, accepted

Sunday, Dec 7 2003 8:15 PM

Tonight is ACME Observatory's second annual FLUXUS night.
The program will include a broad spectrum of works by FLUXUS
artists and FLUXUS-influenced composers, including early Philip Glass and Steve Reich scores. Performers include Kattt Sammon, Tom Duff and internationally-known FLUXUS scholar Bibiana Padilla Maltos from Mexicali, MX.

Free, any donations go to the performers

Sunday, Dec 21 2003 8:15 PM

Sunday's ACME program presents two groupings featuring trumpet+electronics in ensembles with other instruments.

EKG is the duo of Kyle Bruckman, playing oboe and English horn, and Ernst Karel on trumpet and analog synthesizer. Their sounds contrast meditative rhythmic statis with complex, evolving textures and thick sonorities and sudden eruptive pulses and rumbling electrical sound signals. Their CD Object 2 (on the Locust label) is, to my mind, one of the best recordings of the year.

Kyle has just moved to the Bay Area, and Ernst is about to leave after an extended visit, so this is likely to be the last time to hear them together for a while. Don't miss this performance!

Matt Volla's eclectic work spans the media of drawing, painting, soundmusic, musicsound, video, language, cartography, photography and sculpture. The essence of his work is to take an intuitive action (riding a bicycle, tying a knot) and develop a rational system based on it.

At this concert Matt's wave function collapses into a trio with Sam Ospovat (percussion), Sean Garrison (guitar) and himself (trumpet and laptop.)

Sunday, Jan 18 2004 8:15 PM

Three Trapped Tigers is an ensemble of recorder players focused on
performance of new music. The core members are David Barnett and Tom
Bickley. Influences on them include trecento Italian music, the Ars
Subtilior, Asian musics, Oliveros, Cage, Stockhausen, and Coltrane. The
ACME performance features works by Hirose, Bickley, early music and
improvisations. Both David and Tom will be faculty at the "The Compleat
Recorder Player" 2004 San Francisco Early Music Society Recorder
Workshop, Dominican University, San Rafael, California July 18 -
Saturday, July 24 2004.

Vorticella is the improvising quartet of Brenda Hutchinson (acoustically processed vocals), Krystyna Bobrowski (natural and household phenomena), Karen Stackpole (gongs and excotic percussion) and Erin Espeland (cello). Their music starts with small percussive and supernatural vocal sounds from odd sources (kitchen equipment, kelp stalks, long tubes to be sung through) that combine into sparse but intricate polyrhythmic cells combined with evolving sustained tones that evoke the imagined songs of the strange, beautiful microzooids after which the quartet is named.

Sunday, Feb 15 2004 8:15 PM

Fred Frith, solo guitar and kitchen equipment.

and

KLiP (Elliot Kallen, John Laufenberger, Garth Powell)

Sunday, Feb 22 2004 8:15 PM

Paolo Angeli's guitar looks and sounds like nothing from this world. Starting with a fairly ordinary acoustic guitar, Angeli has added levers and clamps and extra strings and who knows what else to create a unique instrument. His playingdraws heavily from Fred Frith, but where Frith uses household objects to manipulate his guitar, Angeli incorporates them into its structure, transforming the instrument into a polytimbral orchestra.

At this concert Angeli will appear in two trios, one with saxophonist Phillip Greenlief and koto player Shoko Hikage, and the other with percussionist Gino Robair and laptop player Tim Perkis.

Saturday, Mar 13 2004 8:15 PM

English singer and composer Viv Corringham appears in various groupings with Bay Area improvisers including percussionist Gino Robair, laptop players Tim Perkis and Scott R. Looney and trombonist Toyoji Tomita.

Wednesday, Mar 24 2004 8:15 PM

EKG, the duo of Ernst Karel (electronics+trumpet) and Kyle Bruckmann (electronics+double reeds) performs two sets, the second with Matt Ingalls (clarinet) and Gino Robair (percussion, or maybe analog electronics.)

The left end of EKG's sonic spectrum evokes rhythmic statis and low volumes, sounds that are just barely sounds. The right end comprises complex, evolving textures and thick arrythmic sonorities. I liked their 2003 CD Object 2 a lot.

Saturday, Mar 27 2004 8:15 PM

Percussionist Toshi Makihara plays with with Jon Raskin (baritone, alto, sopranino saxophones), Steve Adams (alto & sopranino saxophones), John Shiurba (guitar), George Cremaschi (contrabass) and Tom Djll (trumpet).

Flutist Wade Matthews in a duo with dancer Valérie Métivier of Toulouse, France and in a trio with clarinettist David Rothbaum of Los Angeles and percussionist Karen Stackpole.

Sunday, Apr 18 2004 8:15 PM

Jacob Lindsay, clarinets, Scott R. Looney, electronics & Gino Robair, percussion.

and opening on the JazzHouse's NEW Grand Piano:

Matthew Goodheart, solo piano

Sunday, Apr 25 2004 8:15 PM

This concert is a double-barreled CD release party, celebrating the first two releases on the UNLimited Sedition label -- the archival, large edition offshoot of John Shiurba's limited-edition CDR label Limited Sedition.

John Shiurba's 5x5 is a project with too many fives in it. This huge opus, unfolding over a period of years, comprises five groups of five short pieces written for five players, whose composed sections are nuggets dropped into an improvised matrix. The first CD from the project, featuring Shiurba on guitar, ma++ ingalls on clarinet and violin, Dan Plonsey on reeds, the late Matthew Sperry on contrabass and Gino Robair on percussion and violin, is titled "5x5 1.1=M" (The M is for Matthew.)

For this performance the quintet will comprise Shurba, Robair, Kyle Bruckmann on double reeds, Scott Rosenberg on single reeds and Morgan Guberman on bass.

Daniel Popsicle will present selections of "Music for Occasions of State," a set of a dozen or so miniature (mostly around 1 minute) fully composed pieces, which are embedded within a set of rhythm section and horn "vamps," featuring onsets of improvisation here and there. The ensemble is made entirely of composer/improvisers of all kinds of strange and prickly stuff: Liz Allbee, Kyle Bruckmann, Jenya Chernoff, Matt Ingalls, Matt Lebofsky, Plonsey, Scott Rosenberg, Shiurba, Ward Spangler, Lynn Wold, and Tom Yoder.

"Moving about, Humming, Still Our Flowers Are Blooming, Under the Old Portcullis" has something to do with the relationship between the Kingdom of Plants and the Kingdom of Animals. This hour-long piece attempts to trace consciousness (and its relationship with that which consciousness is conscious of) through its billion-year history (more poetically than scientifically), using as tools: 1) an hour-long melody which runs straight through the piece, and 2) imagery reflected in the title: a metaphoric storming of Kafka's impenitrable castle by plants, through the process of blooming in under the old portcullis. This CD can be purchased at the concert, or directly from Plonsey, or from UNlimited sedition.

Sunday, May 2 2004 8:15 PM

Tom Nunn has designed, built and performed with original musical instruments since 1975. His instruments typically utilize commonly available materials, are sculptural in appearance, utilize contact microphones for amplification, and are designed specifically for improvisation with elements of ambiguity, unpredictability and nonlinearity.

While the rightful place of the drinking straw was never in doubt, Aaron Bennett and John Finkbeiner's Drinking Straw Music CD on Limited Sedition (still available at the Limited Sedition web site) was a defining moment for the instrument. From straw solos to multitracked straw blowouts, and even a straw led "jazz" quartet, playing standards, the CD was as stunning as it was ridiculous. Opportunities to hear this music live have been rare, so we're proud to have them on the program.

Monday, May 31 2004 8:15 PM

Ignaz Schick, electronics and turntables, solo and in a trio with Tom Djll, trumpet and Matt Ingalls, clarinet.

Sunday, Jun 20 2004 8:15 PM

Tonight he will be leading an orchestra of West Coast improvising luminaries, including Matt Ingalls (clarinet and bass clarinet), John Shiurba (electric guitar), Gino Robair (percussion), Dan Plonsey (reeds), Scott Rosenberg (sopranino, tenor & baritone sax, contrabass clarinet), George Cremaschi (contrabass), Ron Heglin (tuba), Toyoji Tomita (trombone) and Tom Dill (trumpet).

The Concert will open with John Shiurba and Adam Bohman in the first of the In Absentia series duo performances, curated by Gino Robair. In Absentia performances couple two improvisers, one live (Shiurba) and the other prerecorded (Bohman). The live performer will be hearing the recording for the first time during the performance.

Adam Bohman, a member of Morphogenesis and the London Improvisers Orchestra, plays a violin mounted to a tabletop, surrounded and manipulated by an array of improbable junk that puts even Keith Rowe to shame. There are lots of contact microphones involved.

John Shuirba doesn't attach his guitar to a table, and occasionally even plays it in the standard way (you know, right hand picking, left hand on neck), but the striking feature of his performance is the elevation to high art of an array of attacks on the instrument with unconventional implements (springs, plastic forks, kitchen implements), with the guitar's strings attacking back and reacting as resonators and elastic energy reservoirs.

Sunday, Jul 18 2004 8:15 PM

An evening of Solo Saxophone (and Clarinet) Performances in memory of Steve Lacy, featuring Tanja Feichtmair (Austria), David Slusser, Dan Plonsey, Andrew Voigt, Steve Adams, Allan Chase (Boston) and Ben Goldberg.

Sunday, Aug 1 2004 8:15 PM

THE ART OF ONE

A continuing series of virtuoso solo performances.


Chris Brown - solo piano+electronics

Tom Djll - solo trumpet

Bob Marsh - solo violin+voice+tap dance

Sunday, Aug 8 2004 12:30 PM

The fourth Annual Transbay Skronkathon BBQ features continuous creative music all day served up on a bed of grillin' and chillin'. Bring something to slap on the grill (we'll bring the grill!), hang out and enjoy a day of the finest skronking the Bay Area has to offer.

SCHEDULE
12:00	cypod	rhythmic electronica
12:20	Thea Farhadian/Nina Egert	samples+extended vocals+percussion
1:00	Lx Rudis	videogame synthpunk detritus
1:30	Phillip Greenlief	solo saxophone
2:00	Ernesto Diaz-Infante	solo acoustic guitar
2:30	RYAN AND WILSHUSEN'S TAKLIMBA	electronified kalimba+tabla
3:00	Moe! Staiano/Vicky Grossi	percussion+guitar/bass+viola
3:25	thollem	piano
4:00	Out of the blue Quartet Chicago	quartet relocates to Bay Area
4:25	Raskin/Cremaschi/Allbee	sax/bass/trumpet free jazz
5:00	Josh Allen/Damon Smith	sax/bass free jazz
5:25	Davignon/Djll	trumpet/drum machine, uc/lc noise
6:00	Joe Zitt/Katherine Setar	folk songs w. improvised accompaniment
6:25	Grey Otter / Will Grant	art songs, sort of
7:00	People	Middle-eastern "jazz"
7:25	Scot Gresham-Lancaster	electronics/guitar
8:00	Ghost In The House	Oboe/Percussion/Lap Steel/Gongs
8:25	Amar Chaudhary	laptop/acoustic+toy instruments
9:00	Alexander Kort & Olivier Hamant	electric cello/bass clarinet
9:30	Skronktet West	Electric with Live Dancers

Sunday, Sep 19 2004 8:15 PM

Sunday, Oct 10 2004 8:15 PM

Germany's Boris Baltschun (electronics) and Serge Baghdassarians (Guitar, electronics) were stunning at the sfAlt festival last year, and have happily decided to make a return visit to the Bay Area. Tonight they'll be playing in a large ensemble with Tom Djll, Matt Ingalls, Gino Robair, Tim Perkis and players to be named later.

The program will open with the second in a series of In Absentia performances, featuring oboist Kyle Bruckmann, improvising with a recording of Hans Tannen that Kyle will be hearing for the first time as he performs. The In Absentia ensemble is curated by Gino Robair.

Saturday, Oct 23 2004 8:15 PM

German improvising violinist Christoph Irmer will be playing in a quartet with Matthew Goodheart (piano), Dina Emerson (voice) and Shoko Hikage (koto). Scott R. Looney, solo piano.

Sunday, Oct 24 2004 8:15 PM

ACME Observatory's last show at the current Jazz House (which is moving at the end of the month) features the duo of Shelley Burgon (harp) and Trevor Dunn (bass), and I, Norton, excerpts from an opera in real time by Gino Robair.

Friday, Jan 22 2010 9:00 PM

Wobbly > Ear Nose & Throat (MC Schmidt of Matmos / Jason Willett ex-Half-Japanese / Max Elibacher) w/ visuals by Nate Boyce