Author Archives: othersideoflife

R.I.P. Byard Lancaster and Tom Bruno

Inexplicably, the music world lost two great jazz musicians yesterday. Byard Lancaster, a multi-reedist — who would be revered if the only cool thing he did was appear on Sunny Murray‘s self-titled ESP-Disk album, but managed to also lead and collaborate on some great titles including his own It’s Not Up to Us — died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 70.

Additionally, Tom Bruno, a drummer best known for his work in the quartet Test with Matthew Heyner, Sabir Mateen, and Daniel Carter, died yesterday.


(Photograph of Test by Michael Galinsky — from left to right: Daniel Carter, Tom Bruno, Matthew Heyner, Sabir Mateen.)

They will both be missed.

Jason Noble, R.I.P.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/jasonnoble

The Louisville musician, artist, collaborator, and all-around fantastic human being Jason Noble died today. Our thoughts go out to his friends and family.

UPDATE, 8/5/2012: A number of tributes and obituaries for Jason have been appearing across Facebook and in other parts of the internet. One of the most moving ones we’ve read is by Louisvillian Syd Bishop, over at the Never Nervous blog. Thanks, Syd.

Official obituaries have been published by Billboard and Pitchfork. A number of YouTube clips from Jason’s various musical projects over the years are available at each.

Also, the web site actualblood.com compiles a number of Jason’s works. And a few of Jason’s columns for LEO Weekly are available at http://publicnoise.blogspot.com.

CROPPED OUT 2012 ANNOUNCED!

Hey people! Most everybody’s favorite completely-DIY, underground-ish music festival for Louisville’s weirdos is back and… hey… wait a minute… DOES THAT SAY JANDEK IS PLAYING IN LOUISVILLE?!? HOLY SHIT!!!

SEPTEMBER 28-30, 2012 IN LOUISVILLE, KY, USA.

You read it right, folks! The time is yet again upon us. Cropped Out’s annual extravaganza is back for 2012. This Fall (September 28th-29th), we will be taking over the American Turners Club — our home for year one, as a few (literally, a few) of you might remember. Last year at the Crummy Den was not only a blast but also a milestone for us as an organization. However, as fun as it was watching Scratch Acid play in a crowded warehouse shortly after cops accosted them at gunpoint, having mistaken them as armed robbers, we decided it was time to take our festival back to more…”welcoming” grounds of operation.

As always, we’ve carefully chosen a solid stash of local, national, and international performing artists to spotlight in our hometown of Louisville, KY. There will also be a familiar face or two from festivals past, along with the usual “tricks up our sleeve.”FRIDAY + SATURDAY: Our third year kicks off at over 30 bands spread across 3 days (two main days with an unforgettable closing party on Sunday, 9/30). A short list of attractions lined up for Friday (9/28) and Saturday (9/29) include the proto-doo-wop sass of Chain & The Gang led by DC legend Ian Svenonius (The Make-Up/Nation of Ulysses), a very rare performance from elusive Texan blues/folk outsider Jandek, the silky lo-fi New Wave croon of Tampa, Florida’s Merchandise (ft. members of the late great Cult Ritual), the bitingly sour, self-deprecrating social stabs of “World’s Funnyman” Neil Hamburger, live music by David Liebe Hart of Adult Swim’s “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job,” and as always, plenty of organically grown, freshly picked, fairly traded locals like Twin Sister Radio, Gangly Youth, and Kark, just to name a few…
FEATURING PERFORMANCES BY:
Ashcan Orchestra (Brooklyn, NY)
Binary Marketing Show (Little Rock, AR)
Buck Gooter (Harrisonburg, VA)
Black Kaspar (Louisville, KY)
Cave Bears (Providence, RI)
Chain & The Gang (Washington, DC)
Cool Memories (Chicago, IL)
Crys (Indianapolis, IN)
Dahm of Phantom Family Halo (Brooklyn, NY)
David Liebe Hart Band (Los Angeles, CA)
Disco Doom (Zurich, Switzerland)
Eugene Chadbourne (Greensboro, NC)
Gangly Youth (Louisville, KY)
Globsters (Hazard, KY)
Guerilla Toss (Boston, MA)
Jandek (Houston, TX)
Kark (Louisville, KY)
Lantern (Philadelphia, PA)
Merchandise (Tampa, FL)
Michael Zerang/Darin Gray Duo (Chicago, IL/St. Louis, MO)
Microwaves (Pittsburgh, PA)
Neil Hamburger (Los Angeles, CA)
PC Worship (Brooklyn, NY)
R. Stevie Moore (Nashville, TN)
The Ritchie White Orchestra (Louisville, KY)
The Sediment Club (Brooklyn, NY)
Shaved Women (St. Louis, MO)
Slug Guts (Brisbane, Australia)
Street Gnar (Lexington, KY)
TV Ghost (Lafayette, IN)
White Walls (Cincinnati, OH)
& others to be announced!
FIND OUT MORE: Stay tuned for all sorts of exciting updates to come at http://croppedoutmusic.com/.

Holy CRAP! I could not possibly be any more excited! Never in my life did I think I’d get to see THE REPRESENTATIVE FROM CORWOOD in my hometown, on my birthday weekend to boot! The rest of the artists and bands booked, at least the ones we know, are pretty awesome in their own right, too. And with lots of names I haven’t heard of, it’ll be another great opportunity to hear some new sounds as well.

Last-Minute Show TONIGHT: JASON AJEMIAN and the HIGH LIFE at the Nach Bar, 10 PM, FREE!

JASON AJEMIAN and THE HIGH LIFE play at the Nach Bar in Germantown tonight. What are they like? Well, check out their site for some free tunes, and this description:

Formed at the Harold Arts Residency in Ohio, Jason Ajemian pulls all of his previous conceptual musics together under a solid roof with the HighLife.
Ajemian creates scores for the band in the architectural drafting program AutoCAD.  Titled Motion Maps, these scores guide the musicians through spaces and hallways of musical structures. His blueprints dictate the flow and motion of a musical set, opening the performers up to visual and descriptive influences, while leading them through a diverse musical landscape consisting of Ajemian’s orchestrated poems, American folk forms, Native American chants, Canadian sea shanties, Orbison, jazz expressive motion and balladry — all filtered through the creative/improvised process in a unique communication of the moment.

There’s a Facebook invite here, too: http://www.facebook.com/events/366962806710107/. Did I mention it’s FREE?

A BENEFIT FOR TOM CARTER with SAPAT, TROPICAL TRASH, SHEDDING, and KEENAN LAWLER at Zanzabar, Thursday, August 16th

Cropped Out and The Other Side of Life are proud to present:

A BENEFIT FOR TOM CARTER


(photo of Tom Carter by Stephan Laackman)

with

SAPAT (on Siltbreeze; from Louisville, KY)
TROPICAL TRASH (Louisville, KY; on Loin Seepage/Sophomore Lounge)
SHEDDING (from Louisville, Kentucky)
R. KEENAN LAWLER (from Louisville, Kentucky)

Thursday, August 16th
at ZANZABAR
2100 S. Preston
9 PM, 21-and-over
$5 entry fee; additional donations encouraged
100% of all proceeds will be donated to The Robert Thomas Carter Irrevocable Trust.

ABOUT TOM CARTER:

While on a tour of Europe this spring with his band Charalambides, the Brooklyn based guitarist Tom Carter was hospitalized in Berlin, Germany for serious complications of pneumonia. In mid-July, Tom was transferred to a medical rehabilitation facility in Germany, near the Baltic Sea. Tom will receive medical care, monitoring and physical rehabilitation at the facility until the end of July. His doctors are also recommending that Tom not return to employment and normal levels of pre-illness activity until January 2013. This recommendation will be periodically reevaluated, but it seems to fall in line with common recovery projections for people who have experienced pneumonia at this level of seriousness. It is still unknown whether Tom will be able to return to New York immediately after the rehabilitation, or if it will be necessary for him to, instead, reside elsewhere with his family for a time. Although his condition continues to improve, Tom is still weak and his condition must come closer to what his normal baseline health will be, in order for doctors to assess what type of further treatment he will need in the US. It does seem to be certain that Tom will require follow up care once back in the States.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE:

Tom Carter is a tremendous musician, and a caring, compassionate individual who will need long-term help to recover from his illness. Cropped Out, The Other Side of Life, and the musicians playing the benefit are joining forces with a number of promoters, musicians, and concerned friends of Tom all across the South to curate benefit shows during the middle of August. This unique situation of multiple forces across an entire region presents a rare opportunity to help a friend who has given us so much over the years — his music, friendship, and encouragement.


(Photo of Sapat by Ginger Goss, from Loin Seepage.)

Spawned from the formidable Louisville, KY collective known as Black Velvet Fuckere, SAPAT resides as the centrifugal force in this Midwestern psychedelic madrigal set in the psychosexual backwaters of the mighty Ohio River. For the entirety of the ‘00 decade, members have kept busy collaborating with and/or massaging the egos of various and sundry avant-pontiffs such as Robert Fripp, Magik Markers, Dead Child and Eugene Chadbourne – when not honing the orgone energy of SAPAT.

TROPICAL TRASH have caused quite a stir with their new 7″, Fear of Suffering, on Sophomore Lounge. Still Single describes TROPICAL TRASH as an “Excellent combination of thrashing energy and solid ideas that break apart and recombine in novel, tuneful ways.” They’re just as thrilling live as on record, so don’t miss this opportunity to rock out with ’em!

SHEDDING has been a solo vehicle for Connor Bell since 2001, and has released several items over those years available at Ocio and Hometapes. SHEDDING‘s music is meditative and still, eerie and unsettling — yet with a spectacular sense of melody.

R. KEENAN LAWLER is a musician and sound artist based in Louisville Kentucky. For over 25 years his musical journey has taken him from early experiments with reverb tanks, noise and tape decks to all manner of avant-garde, “new” music, psychedelia, electro-acoustic, drone, ethnic and sampler-based work. LAWLER is best known for developing a highly personal and exploratory language for the metal bodied resonator guitar which Baltimore’s John Berdnt called “Cosmic, monolithic and deeply American.” Primarily a solo performer, he is also known for collaborative work. His guitar playing is also heard on releases by Paul K., Jack Wright, My Morning Jacket and on Matmos’ The Civil War. He has collaborated or performed with a wide range of forward-thinking musicians and mavericks including Rhys Chatham, John Butcher, Eliott Sharp, Charalambides, Ignaz Schick/Perlonex, Kaffe Matthews, Burning Star Core, Jason Kahn, Ut Gret, Thaniel Ion Lee, Ed Wilcox, Ramesh Srinivasan, Kevin Drumm, Arco Flute Foundation, Helena Espvall, Ian Nagoski, Connor Bell, Andy Willis, Alan Licht, Taksuya Nakatani, Tom Carter, Bhob Rainey, Aaron Rosenblum, Joe Dutkiewicz, Evergreen, Eric Carbonara and Joseph Suchy.

Check out helptomcarter.org to see other ways that you can help contribute to Tom’s recovery!

Find the Facebook invite here: http://www.facebook.com/events/428050753912799.

To join our email list, send an email to hstencil@gmail.com. You can also join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/232825523444477/.

UPDATE, 8/17/2012: Hey Louisville! We raised $475 last night to benefit Tom Carter and help with his recuperation from pneumonia. Thanks again to everyone who attended, played, or otherwise helped with the benefit, and thanks again to Zanzabar for hosting it.

R.I.P. İlhan Mimaroğlu

One of our favorite composers, İlhan Mimaroğlu, died yesterday at the age of 86. His Wikipedia page offers a short biography:

He was born in Istanbul, Turkey, the son of the famous architect Mimar Kemaleddin Bey depicted on the Turkish lira banknotes, denomination 20 lira, of the 2009 E-9 emission. He graduated from Galatasaray High School in 1945 and the Ankara Law School in 1949. He went to study in New York supported by a Rockefeller Scholarship. He studied musicology at Columbia University under Paul Henry Lang and composition under Douglas Moore.

During the 1960s he studied in the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Center under Vladimir Ussachevsky and on occasions worked with Edgard Varèse and Stefan Wolpe. He is an electronic music composer, and also was the producer for Charles MingusChanges One and Changes Two, as well as Federico Fellini‘s Satyricon. He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition in 1971.

He worked as a producer for Atlantic Records, and created his own record label there, Finnadar Records,and collaborated with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard on a moving anti-war statement, Sing Me a Song of Songmy in the same year.

His notable students included Ingram Marshall.

In tribute to him, we’re making a few of his albums available for download.


İlhan Mimaroğlu & Freddie Hubbard, Sing Me a Song of Songmy, a Fantasy for Electromagnetic Tape (Atlantic, 1971)


Outstanding Warrants
(Southport, 2001)

Missing Pieces (Earlabs, 2003)

SAPAT, BLUES CONTROL, PARLOUR, and WET at the CATHOUSE, Thursday, July 26th


(Flier by Ryan Davis.)

Black Velvet Fuckere, Cropped Out, and The Other Side of Life are proud to present:

SAPAT (on Siltbreeze; from Louisville, KY)
BLUES CONTROL (on Drag City; from Coopersburg, PA)
PARLOUR (on Temporary Residence; from Louisville, KY)
WET (from Louisville, KY)

Thursday, July 26th 2012
at The Cathouse
747 S. Preston
All Ages! Doors at 8 PM, $5


(Photo of Sapat by Ginger Goss, from Loin Seepage.)

Spawned from the formidable Louisville, KY collective known as Black Velvet Fuckere, SAPAT resides as the centrifugal force in this Midwestern psychedelic madrigal set in the psychosexual backwaters of the mighty Ohio River. For the entirety of the ‘00 decade, members have kept busy collaborating with and/or massaging the egos of various and sundry avant-pontiffs such as Robert Fripp, Magik Markers, Dead Child and Eugene Chadbourne – when not honing the orgone energy of SAPAT.

Don’t lose control — dig BLUES CONTROL! Following a circular path in order to access the unknown, Russ and Lea nab chaos in a plastic cup and crush rock into diamonds, or something that looks like them anyway. Valley ho! Their new record, Valley Tangents, “is like drugs for your ears.”

Watch the video for BLUES CONTROL‘s “Love’s a Rondo” here: http://youtu.be/BlUyUvSaZKo.

PARLOUR originally began as a solo project from Tim Furnish following the mid-90s dissolution of CRAIN – the seminal Louisville rock group he co-founded in the late ’80s. Currently playing with new drummer (Greg Morris) and synth player (Brian Sweeney), Furnish’s PARLOUR evokes “A unique combination of interweaving guitar shards… driven by a dark, relentless rhythm section.” Their most recent album, Simulacrenfield (released on Temporary Residence), was one of our favorites of 2010.

WET is an electronic outfit comprised of three Louisville high schoolers (Hank Paradis, Evan Booker, and Jeff Bryant) who began playing in 2010. Together the group uses an array of electronic, acoustic, and self-made instruments to find humor in their common fears as young people — fears of excessiveness, ignorance, and estrangement that perhaps cannot be destroyed, but absorbed and released again in a series of musical elations. WET’s full-length debut Wetter Than Wet is now available for free download at: http://thewet.bandcamp.com/album/wetter-than-wet.

Find the Facebook invite here: http://www.facebook.com/events/121230094685490.

To join our email list, send an email to hstencil@gmail.com. You can also join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/232825523444477/.

UPDATE, 7/25/12: Read this great interview with BLUES CONTROL in today’s LEO Weekly:http://leoweekly.com/music/spiritual-station-blues-control.

PUJOL, ANIMAL CITY, and MOTE at ZANZABAR, Friday, June 29th

Cropped Out and The Other Side of Life are proud to present:

PUJOL (from Nashville, on Saddle Creek/Infinity Cat/Third Man, etc.)
ANIMAL CITY (from Chicago, on Sophomore Lounge)
MOTE (from Louisville)

Friday, June 29th
at ZANZABAR
2100 S. Preston
9 PM doors, $5, 21-and-over

PUJOL’s new album United States of Being was released on June 5th.  PUJOL formed in 2009 as a last ditch effort to appease the Sarlacc Pit of Life with adeptly crafted songs based firmly in meaningful lyrical content. It’s these motives and songs that have taken PUJOL from the basements of Middle Tennessee to stages across the country and have garnered notice from more than just those with their ear to the ground. Following a plethora of singles and cassettes, PUJOL finally has an official debut full-length ready for unveiling. United States of Being continues on with PUJOL’s doctrine of trying hard everyday and ventures lyrically to a place that most contemporaries fail to reach. Addressing the current status of twenty-somethings in America’s present and capturing their shared dispositions, the album throws the brakes on “catharsis,” and begs the listener to decide for themselves how to answer the robot’s last question, “What is love?” With riff-oriented guitar playing reminiscent of greats like The Replacements and Beetlejuice-esque earworms, PUJOL now sits atop the fringes of the rock and roll and DIY vernacular.

ANIMAL CITY is finally a full band. After adding two of the funniest Jewish cousins that the music world has had to deal with, the longtime two-piece is an upbeat and funky version of itself, without ever abandoning its long-loved, lo-fi aesthetic. New adaptations of older songs make the old songs seem new and the new songs sound newer (because they are newer, duh). Transcending film, music, and social-chameleonism, the prolific four-piece is starting a creative parade on the streets of ANIMAL CITY. Won’t you join them?

MOTE are a rather mysterious, relatively new, totally rockin’ new band from Louisville. What more do you need to know?

CHECK IT OUT: Our friends at Backseat Sandbar are giving away tickets + merch for the show, but ya gotta get in by tomorrow, June 27th! Click here for details: http://backseatsandbar.com/2012/06/25/win-tix-media-bundle-pujol-animal-city-mote-zanzabar-629/.

And of course, here’s the Facebook invite: http://www.facebook.com/events/212685365519622.

To join our email list, send an email to hstencil@gmail.com. You can also join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/232825523444477/.

Some Good Shows This Week

Tonight Vice-subsidized living legends PIERCED ARROWS play Headliners, with OLD BABY and DON’T (who have some sort of WIPERS connection). PIERCED ARROWS consist, of course, of Fred and Toody Cole from the amazing DEAD MOON, who we never got to see because they never played Louisville back in the day. Let’s hope tonight makes up for that. 8 PM doors, 18+, $10.

On Saturday, SONIC YOUTH‘s LEE RANALDO plays Zanzabar with his new band, which also features SY‘s drummer Steve Shelley as well as guitar slinger Alan Licht (one of our favorites). Opening is another favorite of ours, the ever-quotable WOODEN WAND. James Toth is a certifiable genius, or at least he’s married to one. Some other band called SEA HERO plays too. 9 PM, 21-and-over, $16 advance tickets (here), or $18 day of show.

PILLARS AND TONGUES, MAN FOREVER, and NEW MOTHER NATURE at ZANZABAR, Wednesday, May 30th

Cropped Out and The Other Side of Life are proud to present:

PILLARS AND TONGUES (Chicago, Illinois)
MAN FOREVER (Brooklyn, New York; on Thrill Jockey)
NEW MOTHER NATURE (Louisville, Kentucky)

Wednesday, May 30th
at ZANZABAR
2100 S. Preston
9 PM doors, $6, 21-and-over

PILLARS AND TONGUES is a trio based in Chicago, Illinois whose musical pursuits seem to defy genre categorization. The ongoing result of these pursuits has been called, variously, “holy” and “sexy” and it may well be the tension between these two concepts which lights the fire under (over?) PILLARS AND TONGUES. Think on those things which are so beautiful they become obscene. Speaking literally, the trio makes extended use of the human voice, violin, double bass, drums, bells and organs. The music is perhaps distinctly American in both its affair with American forms and its refusal to adhere to them at all.

Listen to a track by PILLARS AND TONGUES here: “Oaky (Doting, in Late Summer)”

John Colpitts (aka Kid Millions) is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and writer who is perhaps best known as the drummer for Oneida. MAN FOREVER, his vehicle for exploring the outer limits of drum performance, was created to overwhelm, to investigate the nuances that bloom in the midst of repetitive music, and to act as a pure sound experience. Thrill Jockey will release MAN FOREVER‘s first album, Pansophical Cataract, on May 15th.

(Photo of New Mother Nature by Tim Furnish.)

NEW MOTHER NATURE is a relatively new band on the Louisville scene, but filled with familiar faces. Members of NEW MOTHER NATURE are current or former members of Old Baby, The Phantom Family Halo, Natural Geographic, and many more. They’re quickly becoming one of our favorite new bands, and we think you’ll like ’em as well.

Check out the Facebook invite here: http://www.facebook.com/events/125737587562676.

To join our email list, send an email to hstencil@gmail.com. You can also join our Facebook group, with lots more info, at http://www.facebook.com/groups/232825523444477/.