Here's something you might be interested in.
A couple of years ago, my former roommate Eli took me to a party on a fire road in the hills of Descanso, where a handful of UCSD kids had built a small stage and projector screen to showcase a night of experimental, atemporal, noisey, and just plain unusual music.
I had a vague idea of what to expect knowing that Eli, a circuit tinkerer and dedicated sonic insurgent, would be performing under his noise alias ’60s Residue.
But my mind was blown anyways by spazztic bass and drum duo Penis Hickey and, later, circuit burning group Digital Sound Lab Orchestra, who melted a rare Casio Symphonytron 8000 keyboard with blowtorches while playing it, just to see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvHaRzyu1Aw
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/apr/03/43108/
Starting on Thursday, April 11, some familiar faces from the Unusual Encounter noisefest in Descanso will be putting on Springfest 2013: a week of experimental music at UCSD venues including the Birch Aquarium, Che Café, and the Conrad Prebys Music Center.
Half of Penis Hickey (and tuba/vox dragcore duo Aquapuke), Clint McCallum will present his final composition as a UCSD student on SpringFest’s last day - Thursday, April 18.
“It's a major work incorporating classical and rock instruments,” says SpringFest organizer Adam Tinkle, “and features many of Clint's trademarks: punishingly physical sounds, performance art aesthetics, and generally creepy weirdness, this time in the context of an evening length ritualistic cabaret.”
Tinkle notes that other out-of-the-concert-hall weirdcore events include an immersive walk-through concert/installation at Birch Aquarium in La Jolla, which will feature live performers spread throughout the aquarium responding to the sea life inside the tanks, and ambient music collaboratively realized between electronic musicians and Scripps Institute of Oceanography researchers.
The aquarium event will be followed by a showcase of exotica, smooth jazz, and noise projects at the Che Cafe (both on 4/14).
Also, don’t miss the sock puppet show about a bee with a leather daddy, in which all the voices will be electronically processed (4/11).
Admission to all SpringFest events are FREE, except the Aquarium concert ($10).
Thursday April 11
Songs in Ulterior Time
7 p.m.
Concert Hall
A program of new and recent vocal chamber music composed and performed by UCSD graduate students and friends. Texts from Chaucer, Laxness, and sundials.This concert, with reception to follow, inaugurates the Department of Music’s annual Springfest, a showcase for the innovative work of its graduate composers, performers and interdisciplinary artists.
Light refreshments will be provided between the shows.
Pop Suckets
9 p.m.
Experimental Theatre
Cute and unpredictable animal puppets, portrayed by musicians pushing at the extremes of vocal expression, try (and mostly fail) to stay out of a series of recursively nested Hells. The show will function as a series of episodes for children's television, investigating themes such as: how flowers mimic the shapes of sexually desirable insects to fool the insects into pollinating them through attempted mating; how the development of telecommunications electronics is the result of aliens programming us to extract and collect rare earth metals; the alienation and disempowerment of the information age.
Friday April 12
Posing Nothing
8 p.m.
Concert Hall
Posing Nothing is a recital featuring pianist, Todd Moellenberg, in collaboration with Matt Savitsky, a visual artist in the UCSD Visual Arts MFA program. According to a script of stage commands, Moellenberg will perform calculated movements between pieces within built stage elements created by Savitsky. The collaboration explores the semantics of symbolic gesture, and the role it serves in communicating the self and its absence in a musical and theatrical context. The recital includes the music of composers Chris Dench, Jonathan Harvey, George Benjamin, and Harrison Birtwistle.
Sunday April 14
Springfest @ Birch Aquarium
6:00 p.m.
2300 Expedition Way, La Jolla, CA 92037 (To get to the Birch Aquarium, Take I-5 to La Jolla Village Drive. Go west one mile. Turn left on Expedition Way. ) An evening of electronic, ambient, and live music in the varied environments of the Birch Aquarium. Wander through the galleries and enjoy the dreamlike atmosphere created by musicians responding to the varied sea life. $10 cover includes aquarium admission ($8 members and UCSD Students)
Springfest @ Che Café
8 p.m.
Che Cafe, Scholars Drive, just downhill from La Jolla Playhouse Complex UCSD’s music department is known for producing contemporary music with cutting edge aesthetics and technologies. But many of its students moonlight as DJs, noise and punk musicians. Free vegan food, handbills, graphic scores, and twisted beats for you to writhe to!
Tuesay, April 16
Lightness and Darkness
7 p.m.
Concert Hall
9 settings of Lorine Niedecker and the 9 settings of Celan, by Harrison Birtwistle, paired with a world premiere by graduate composer Ryan Welsh.
Light refreshments will be provided between the shows.
Maiden Voyage
9 p.m.
Concert Hall
Pianist/composer Kyle Adam Blair presents a night of world premieres: his own 12-movement "Microscope" suite, and other solo piano works by his collaborators and friends
Thursday, April 18
Language, as a music / six marginal pretexts for composition
7 p.m.
Concert Hall
Benjamin Boretz's seminal 1978 text/music work invokes relationships between the written word, the language(s) of music, and the music of language. Composed in six sections, this 90-minute multi-media work features original piano music by Boretz, alongside his spoken text and Irving Berlin's 1925 song "Remember".
Light refreshments will be provided between the shows.
Devotion of Union, Collapse of Pleasure
9 p.m.
Experimental Theatre
Part cabaret, part sound installation, part religious ceremony, this new concert length piece explores ecstatic experience in the context of contemporary social and political identifications.
A couple of years ago, my former roommate Eli took me to a party on a fire road in the hills of Descanso, where a handful of UCSD kids had built a small stage and projector screen to showcase a night of experimental, atemporal, noisey, and just plain unusual music.
I had a vague idea of what to expect knowing that Eli, a circuit tinkerer and dedicated sonic insurgent, would be performing under his noise alias ’60s Residue.
But my mind was blown anyways by spazztic bass and drum duo Penis Hickey and, later, circuit burning group Digital Sound Lab Orchestra, who melted a rare Casio Symphonytron 8000 keyboard with blowtorches while playing it, just to see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvHaRzyu1Aw
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/apr/03/43108/
Starting on Thursday, April 11, some familiar faces from the Unusual Encounter noisefest in Descanso will be putting on Springfest 2013: a week of experimental music at UCSD venues including the Birch Aquarium, Che Café, and the Conrad Prebys Music Center.
Half of Penis Hickey (and tuba/vox dragcore duo Aquapuke), Clint McCallum will present his final composition as a UCSD student on SpringFest’s last day - Thursday, April 18.
“It's a major work incorporating classical and rock instruments,” says SpringFest organizer Adam Tinkle, “and features many of Clint's trademarks: punishingly physical sounds, performance art aesthetics, and generally creepy weirdness, this time in the context of an evening length ritualistic cabaret.”
Tinkle notes that other out-of-the-concert-hall weirdcore events include an immersive walk-through concert/installation at Birch Aquarium in La Jolla, which will feature live performers spread throughout the aquarium responding to the sea life inside the tanks, and ambient music collaboratively realized between electronic musicians and Scripps Institute of Oceanography researchers.
The aquarium event will be followed by a showcase of exotica, smooth jazz, and noise projects at the Che Cafe (both on 4/14).
Also, don’t miss the sock puppet show about a bee with a leather daddy, in which all the voices will be electronically processed (4/11).
Admission to all SpringFest events are FREE, except the Aquarium concert ($10).
Thursday April 11
Songs in Ulterior Time
7 p.m.
Concert Hall
A program of new and recent vocal chamber music composed and performed by UCSD graduate students and friends. Texts from Chaucer, Laxness, and sundials.This concert, with reception to follow, inaugurates the Department of Music’s annual Springfest, a showcase for the innovative work of its graduate composers, performers and interdisciplinary artists.
Light refreshments will be provided between the shows.
Pop Suckets
9 p.m.
Experimental Theatre
Cute and unpredictable animal puppets, portrayed by musicians pushing at the extremes of vocal expression, try (and mostly fail) to stay out of a series of recursively nested Hells. The show will function as a series of episodes for children's television, investigating themes such as: how flowers mimic the shapes of sexually desirable insects to fool the insects into pollinating them through attempted mating; how the development of telecommunications electronics is the result of aliens programming us to extract and collect rare earth metals; the alienation and disempowerment of the information age.
Friday April 12
Posing Nothing
8 p.m.
Concert Hall
Posing Nothing is a recital featuring pianist, Todd Moellenberg, in collaboration with Matt Savitsky, a visual artist in the UCSD Visual Arts MFA program. According to a script of stage commands, Moellenberg will perform calculated movements between pieces within built stage elements created by Savitsky. The collaboration explores the semantics of symbolic gesture, and the role it serves in communicating the self and its absence in a musical and theatrical context. The recital includes the music of composers Chris Dench, Jonathan Harvey, George Benjamin, and Harrison Birtwistle.
Sunday April 14
Springfest @ Birch Aquarium
6:00 p.m.
2300 Expedition Way, La Jolla, CA 92037 (To get to the Birch Aquarium, Take I-5 to La Jolla Village Drive. Go west one mile. Turn left on Expedition Way. ) An evening of electronic, ambient, and live music in the varied environments of the Birch Aquarium. Wander through the galleries and enjoy the dreamlike atmosphere created by musicians responding to the varied sea life. $10 cover includes aquarium admission ($8 members and UCSD Students)
Springfest @ Che Café
8 p.m.
Che Cafe, Scholars Drive, just downhill from La Jolla Playhouse Complex UCSD’s music department is known for producing contemporary music with cutting edge aesthetics and technologies. But many of its students moonlight as DJs, noise and punk musicians. Free vegan food, handbills, graphic scores, and twisted beats for you to writhe to!
Tuesay, April 16
Lightness and Darkness
7 p.m.
Concert Hall
9 settings of Lorine Niedecker and the 9 settings of Celan, by Harrison Birtwistle, paired with a world premiere by graduate composer Ryan Welsh.
Light refreshments will be provided between the shows.
Maiden Voyage
9 p.m.
Concert Hall
Pianist/composer Kyle Adam Blair presents a night of world premieres: his own 12-movement "Microscope" suite, and other solo piano works by his collaborators and friends
Thursday, April 18
Language, as a music / six marginal pretexts for composition
7 p.m.
Concert Hall
Benjamin Boretz's seminal 1978 text/music work invokes relationships between the written word, the language(s) of music, and the music of language. Composed in six sections, this 90-minute multi-media work features original piano music by Boretz, alongside his spoken text and Irving Berlin's 1925 song "Remember".
Light refreshments will be provided between the shows.
Devotion of Union, Collapse of Pleasure
9 p.m.
Experimental Theatre
Part cabaret, part sound installation, part religious ceremony, this new concert length piece explores ecstatic experience in the context of contemporary social and political identifications.