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A rainy Saturday morning, and we're at home watching videos. This terrific clip created for TV On The Radio by directors Daniel Garcia and Mixtape Club never gets old.

Chamber Music

Seattle's Frye Art Museum is unveiling a new and extremely local exhibit this Friday night. Titled "Chamber Music," The Frye has commissioned thirty-six Seattle artists to create new work based on James Joyce’s volume of poetry of the same name.

The list of artists involved is long and impressive and includes Byron Au Yong, Jaq Chartier, Klara Glosova, Greg Lundgren, NKO, DK Pan, Sierra Stinson and many many more.

In addition to the thirty-six new works, the exhibition includes a library archiving the artists' many works alone and as part of groups, with documents and ephemera from such watershed projects as and/or, 911 Media Arts Center, and CoCA, as well as more recent initiatives toward community-building like NEPO House, Free Sheep Foundation, and The New Mystics.

The opening ceremony, complete with music, drinks and lots to talk about is on this Friday, February 8th, from 6:30 to 9.

Matthew Shipp

Matthew Shipp is one of the most talented jazz piano players of this era. Nearly 50, he has released a string of dazzling recordings that range from solo acoustic performances to electronic collaborations with DJ's and the Antipop Consortium. He was part of the celebrated David S. Ware Quartet for 16 years, and has also mentored younger or less-known artists by releasing their albums through his Blue Series on Thirsty Ear records and provided a home for other established artists. Live, his music isn't so much an experience as it is an adventure. According to people who have seen him play live, he brings entire worlds when he takes the stage - delicate nuance, snatches of standards, floor-shaking cataclysm, and unexpected bits of dazzling classical technique.

Shipp comes to Seattle this Sunday with a trio, playing at the Seattle Art Museum as part of the Earshot Jazz Festival. Tickets available here. For music's sake, don't miss it.

The Big Dig

If you're looking for me tomorrow afternoon, I'll be at the Big Dig Record Show on Capitol Hill, 'cause you know I need more records. This is a well planned annual event with 20 music dealers from around the region converging on the Vermillion Gallery and Bar for a few hours. It's a well stocked one-day record store, open to all ages, with a full bar and DJ's all day. From 3-8 pm, and admission is just $3. See you there!

Afrika Bambaataa in the 206

206 Zulu is the local chapter of the Universal Zulu Nation, and the Northwest hip-hop organization ne plus ultra. The Zulu Nation was the brainstorm of hip-hip pioneer Afrika Bambaataa who traveled to Africa in 1973 on a quest to find an alternative lifestyle to the gang culture that was tearing apart his Bronx neighborhood. Bambaataa returned to New York preaching the five original elements of hip-hop - DJing, MCing, break dancing, graffiti writing, and knowledge of the past.

In 2004, local MC and graffiti writer King Khazm got the go ahead from Zulu originator Bambaataa to establish a local chapter. Since then, 206 Zulu has become one of the most active and progressive Zulu chapters in the country. They've been at the forefront of using hip-hop as a vehicle for social change, staging workshops in schools, community centers, and juvenile detention facilities — pretty much anyplace that will have them. This week, 206 Zulu celebrates their 8th Anniversary with plenty of live music, DJ battles, b-boy and b-girl competitions, a graffiti art showcase, lots of educational workshops, and much more.

The week of celebration is capped with an appearance by Afrika Bambaataa himself on Saturday the 18th. Bambaataa is performing and hosting a "Zulu Jam" with multiple Seattle hip-hop luminaries. The show is for all ages, and tickets are a super affordable $10.

All events take place at Washington Hall at 153 14th Ave. in Seattle's Central District. For more info and tickets, head over here.

Nobody Beats the Drum

Sasquatch, the annual music festival at the Gorge ampitheatre, has announced their line-up. Some of the bands listed are intriguing, and who knows? I may wind up there myself.

An appearance by Nobody Beats the Drum grabs my attention. This very creative claymation video from 2011 is totally hypnotic, but what in the world is their live show like?

Aono Jikken from the Gimli Hospital

Seattle’s Aono Jikken Ensemble has been in New York working with otherworldly film director Guy Maddin on a re-boot of his debut feature Tales From the Gimli Hospital. The film, originally released in 1988, tells the “true story" of Icelandic immigrants who arrive in a plague-stricken Canadian village. Already weird and imaginative beyond description, the film has been completely re-edited and dubbed with new narration and dialogue, and Aono Jikken Ensemble have spent months composing a new score featuring an all-star group of Icelandic string musicians and vocalists. AJE’s wonderful unique combination of traditional Asian, western and world instruments, combined with the Icelandic strings and voices, together with found objects, children’s toys and specially created sound devices should create a whole new sound world for Maddin’s epic film. The whole shebang appears at the Walter Reade Theater of Lincoln Center on November 18 & 19 as part of Performa 11 – New York City’s New Visual Art Performance Biennial. Who knows if this will ever tour, so for God's sake see it in New York if at all possible. If you're a supporter of AJE (and who isn't?) you get a discount if you buy online and use the discount code "member11." Full ticket details right here.

Julius Eastman Memorial Dinner

A new radio play about composer Julius Eastman will premiere this Saturday, November 12, at the Performa Biennial in New York.

Eastman is a compelling though little-known figure in American composition. He was a gay African-American composer, hailed as an incredible vocalist and pianist. Eastman is probably best known for singing on the 1973 Grammy-nominated Nonesuch recording of Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King. Raised in Ithaca, New York, he started studying piano at fourteen and was playing Beethoven after only six months of lessons. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music as a piano major under Mieczyslaw Horzowski but soon switched to composition. In 1968 he moved to Buffalo where he was a member of the Creative Associates, under the leadership of Lukas Foss and later Morton Feldman.

While in Buffalo, he performed and toured music by many prominent contemporary composers, as well as had his own music performed. He eventually moved to New York City, where he was associated with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and worked with downtown composers like Meredith Monk, Peter Gordon, Arthur Russell and Evan Lurie. Once he left Buffalo, the titles of his pieces started to change, from poetic and evocative titles like "The Moon's Silent Modulation" to much more confrontational themes like "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich," and "Evil Nigger."

A 1980 piece for Eastman's voice and cello ensemble, The Holy Presence of Jeanne d'Arc, was performed to wide acclaim at The Kitchen in New York City, and in 1981 Eastman recorded with Meredith Monk's ensemble for her influential album Dolmen Music.

However, success was fleeting. Desperate for paid work and despondent about what he saw as a lack of professional opportunities, Eastman began using drugs heavily. At one point he was evicted from his apartment, his belongings confiscated by the sheriff, and he took up residence in Tompkins Square Park.

A job teaching music theory brought him back to SUNY Buffalo, but his music career never recovered. Eastman died alone at the age of 50 in Millard Fillmore Hospital in Buffalo. No public notice was given to his death until an obituary by Kyle Gann appeared in the Village Voice eight months after he died.

In 2005 New World Records released a 3-CD set of Eastman’s music.

The radio show, called "Julius Eastman Memorial Dinner, features several pianists and voice-actors, and will be broadcast live twice before being archived. It should be a fascinating event. Below is a recording of Eastman's piece “Evil Nigger” from 1979, here played on four pianos, including one played by Eastman himself.

DJ/Rupture

Browsing through the magazines up at Elliot Bay Book Company, I was delighted to see DJ/Rupture on the cover of The Wire. I discovered Rupture via “Mudd Up” the phenomenal radio show he hosts every Monday on WFMU. Mudd Up is must listening, either live or via podcast, for the remarkable way it creates beautiful and unexpected mixes with music that ranges from the danceable to the international to the experimental to the outlandish. In scope and attitude, the show really stands out.

Turns out he's also a hell of a writer and thinker. As his real world alter ego, Jace Clayton, he maintains a killer blog, also called Mudd Up, was part of a 2010 panel investigating the rise and fall of the contemporary hipster, has been anthologized by no less an editor than Greil Marcus, and has a book of contemporary music culture coming out from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Read. Watch. Listen.

Portable Sanctuary

At a one-time-only performance on September 18, percussionist, composer and percussionist Paul Kikuchi is will fill Seattle's Union Station with music composed specifically for the unique acoustics of that unusual colosseum. The performance is the culmination of the artist's residency in the Great Hall at the station, which included open rehearsals and a work-in-progress performance on April 5. Kikuchi's long gestating site-specific work has also included recording sessions and performances in abandoned train tunnels, underground cisterns, and nuclear cooling towers around Washington state. The concert on September 18 features Kikuchi and his ensemble Portable Sanctuary, and coincides with the release of their first album. The performance runs from 1pm to 3pm in Union Station, 401 South Jackson Street. Admission is based on a sliding scale - no more than $15 - and the first 30 guests receive a free copy of the new Portable Sanctuary album.

Nice profile of Paul on the Earshot Jazz website.

Cut Up Method

Cut Chemist arrived on this planet in 1993 as part of the Los Angeles-based hip hop crew Unity Committee, and was a key member of the terrific and under appreciated Jurassic 5, mixing tracks, contributing songs and co-producing the seminal early records. Since then he's explored the outer reaches of mixing with records from all corners of the globe, and become the DJ behind-the-scenes for L.A. superstars Ozomatli. Cut Chemist is making a short trip along the West Coast this month to kick off his first headline tour in nearly five years.

His high-concept audio-visual performance uses two traditional turntables and two DVD turntables to create a full-blown atmosphere, with the help of multi-instrumentalist Edan and MC Mr. Lif. The tour comes to Seattle on Friday Aug. 19 for a performance at Showbox and has just three additional dates in San Diego and LA before it goes back to the workshop.

Tickets here. And while there's no shortage to choose from, this is a weird and great recent track that shows something of his wide range.

Peace Go With You, Brother

So long, Gil Scott Heron.

Billy Bang

Quite sad to learn that violinist Billy Bang died yesterday, April 11. Bang was a remarkable musician and a unique person. He studied violin as a child and was granted a scholarship to study music at a performing arts high school in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, but was drafted into the U.S. Army before receiving his high school diploma. Bang arrived at Vietnam during the onset of the Tet Offensive and did a tour of duty there.

Back at home, Bang struggled to find his place in society. He turned to drugs and got caught up in a group of militants, where he put his knowledge of weapons to work helping to buy guns. It was supposedly during a gun-buying trip, in a Baltimore pawnshop, that he heard a sound calling him to a back room. "I don't know if it was on the radio or in my head, but I heard it. I walked back there and there were these old, used violins hanging up on a rope." Bang bought a $25 violin and began playing seriously again. He studied with jazz violist Leroy Jenkins, joined Sun Ra’s Arkestra, and worked with avant garde luminaries Don Cherry, William Parker, David Murray, and many others. In 1977 he formed the remarkable String Trio of New York which he led until leaving the group in the late 1980's.

In the early 2000's, Bang decided that it was time to confront his personal demons head-on and recorded two astonishing albums about his experience in Vietnam, Vietnam: The Aftermath in 2001 and Vietnam: Reflections in 2004. These records are both absolutely beautiful - simultaneously melancholy and angry, melodic and dissonant, and are often considered the crowning achievements of his career. His final record was the haunting Prayer for Peace, release in July 2010.

Bang died of lung cancer at the age of 63.

Blödes Orchester

The Blödes Orchester (or "stupid orchestra) is comprised of more than 200 vacuum cleaners, blenders, washing machines and electric razors arranged like a symphony orchestra. You can't make this shit up. By the Hamburg-based composer and theater director Michael Petermann. You can see the full 35 minute-long performance every hour at the MKG Hamburg until April 30th.

The Taqwacores

In an unusual blast of historical synchronicity, the documentary The Taqwacores opens tonight at the Northwest Film Forum. The film, which documents the rising political and creative force of young Muslims, follows the unlikely birth of Muslim Punk Rock around the world.

The film took its inspiration from the influential novel of the same name by the Rochester, NY-born Islamic convert Michael Muhammad Knight. The riotous and revolutionary book invents a fictional Muslim punk scene in Rochester, and the story unexpectedly catalyzed the creation of a full fledged hardcore movement among the Muslim faithful in Islamic communities around the world. The film, which took more than 3 years to make, follows a band of Muslim misfits across three continents from the United States to Pakistan to track the uncompromisingly brave actions and attitudes of these rebellious musicians, and their impact on the young people who come to see them.

The film opens tonight, February 11, the day that a surprisingly strong youth movement forced Hosni Mubarak from power, and runs through the 17th.

Hurley, Pegaso, Manohara

The unusually experimental bike shop 20/20 Cycle is hosting an otherworldly musical event this week. On a single inspired bill the cult hero and folk music legend Michael Hurley joins Latin psychedelic duo El Pegaso, along with the Vashon Island-based Indonesian folk band Orkes Manohara. A true adventure in global weirdness within the confines of an over friendly neighborhood cycle store. Absolutely not to be missed. On Saturday February 5 at 8:30pm. 2020 Cycle is at 2020 E. Union St. in Seattle.

Sacred Music

"Every man prays in his own language." Duke Ellington

Today is Christmas Eve of course, and even those atheists among us have something to celebrate: the end of a long season of schmaltzy, repetitive "holiday" music. As a gift for enduring the torture of Christmas time radio, on December 26th Earshot Jazz presents their annual concert of Ellington's Sacred Music, which is neither schmaltzy nor repetitive.

Ellington's suite of sacred music was the culmination of the last phase of his life's work, inspired by the civil rights movement. In his program notes for the first concert in 1965 he wrote, "How can anyone expect to be understood unless he presents his thoughts with complete honesty? ... Every time God's children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty - trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened."

Ellington performed his evolving suite only four times - The first sacred concert took place in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in 1965, the second in 1968 at the Cathedral of St. John in New York and St. Mark's Cathedral in New Canaan, CT. The final concert was premiered on October 24, 1973 at London's Westminster Abbey. Exactly seven months later Duke Ellington passed away. In his lifetime, Ellington stated that this was the most important music he'd ever written, but because of the scale of the music and the sheer number of artists needed to perform it, Ellington's sacred concerts have rarely been performed since his death.

It's a great treat to see the work performed live, and Town Hall Seattle is a wonderfully intimate setting. This year the concert features the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, co-directed by Michael Brockman and Clarence Acox, with guest vocalists Everett Greene, Nichol Eskridge, and the NW Chamber Chorus, and a special appearance from tap-dancer Alex Dugdale. Tickets run from $15 to $34 and are available here.

Here is some excellent footage of the premier of Ellington's Sacred Music at Grace Cathedral, with a star-studded orchestra that includes such legends as Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson, and Paul Gonsalves.

Hidmo means Home

I just got the news that Hidmo - a most unusual restaurant, performance venue and cultural space in the heart of Seattle's Central District - is shutting down. The family and friends who ran Hidmo for more than 4 years put their hearts and souls into creating an uncommonly warm and welcoming space. On any given night you could find performances by young hip hop artists, presentations by filmmaking collectives, Iranian folk music, pan-African activists, family reunions, and the list goes on. PLUS you could get killer Eritrean food and a cold bottle of St. George beer.

Assuming you're reading this after Monday night, you've already missed the closing party (with Gabriel Teodros spinning) like I did. But you may be in time for the next party, when Hidmo reopens as a ground floor tenant in the newly renovated Washington Hall. Even so, Seattle will miss the special little Jackson Street space where you could always find the unlikely.

Keep an eye on the developments, if any, at the Hidmo website.

Farewell Captain

“If you want to be a different fish, you gotta jump out of the school.”

Captain Beefheart died yesterday, December 17 2010. Beefheart was simply one of the most singularly strange, goading, galvanizing musicians of the 20th century. He led the Magic Band, one of the tightest and most bizarre of all rock bands, with his remarkable vocal style covering four-and-one-half octaves and employing everything from grunts and groans to hoots, howls and ear piercing screams. He experimented with idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdist lyrics and an unholy alliance of free jazz, Delta blues, modern classical music and rock & roll to create a singular body of work virtually unrivaled in its daring and fluid creativity. While he never came even remotely close to mainstream success, Beefheart’s impact was incalculable, and his fingerprints were all over punk, new wave and whatever comes next. He was one of modern music’s true innovators. We were very lucky to have him.

Wild About Harry Smith

On the night after Thanksgiving, American Standard Time and Columbia City Theater present a night of history and song honoring hometown counter-cultural hero Harry Smith and his celebrated Anthology of American Folk Music.

Harry Smith was a film maker, painter, ethnomusicologist and collector born in Portland and raised in the Pacific Northwest. His parents were Theosophists, who encouraged his fascination with unorthodox spirituality and philosophy. By the age of 15, Harry had spent time recording songs and rituals of the Lummi and Samish peoples and had compiled a dictionary of several Puget Sound dialects. He studied anthropology at the University of Washington between 1943 and 1944, and moved to San Francisco in the late 1940's where he began to build a reputation as a leading experimental filmmaker. His work in Non-Objective Painting led to a Solomon Guggenheim grant in 1950, at which point he moved to New York where he lived for the rest of his life. In addition to his many other accomplishments, Smith donated the largest known paper airplane collection in the world to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, was a collector of Seminole textiles and Ukrainian Easter Eggs, and was the world's leading authority on string figures, having mastered hundreds of forms from around the world.

As for the Anthology of American Folk Music, Smith's six-album anthology featured songs recorded by unknown artists for obscure record labels in the 1920's and early 1930's. Smith collected the vinyl records as a personal obsession, but in 1952, in need of money, he offered to sell his extraordinary record collection to Folkways Records. Instead, Moses Asch, the label's president, challenged Smith to cull his collection into an anthology. The records went on to become a vital compendium of American music and a touchstone for the folk music revival on the 1960's.

Inspired by Harry Smith's pivotal release, many Seattle folk musicians - including Zoe Muth, Pufferfish and Shenandoah Davis - will perform selections from all three volumes of the Anthology at the Columbia City Theater on Friday November 26. The evening is hosted by Greg Vandy, the DJ behind "The Roadhouse" on KEXP and the visionary behind American Standard Time, a new enterprise which collects and presents contemporary and historical research on Americana and Roots music.

The show begins at 8:00 and costs just $8. Tickets available here.