ha ha ha. thanks for the review derek. "death jazz", certainly, even though we all know that idiom does not actually exist.

this was indeed a very frustrating year for me in certain regards. the conclusion was that i have to do shift my focus towards what is more reasonably attainable in terms of creative output.

next year i will be releasing a duo cd with guitarist mary halvorson that is very heavy on interplay and spontaneous structure. another release will feature various combinations of myself, henry kaiser, peter evans, greg kelley, forbes graham and fred lonberg-holm.

in 2008 i will be turning away from the hyper-composed futility of the flying luttenbachers and running towards more improvised music activity as well as writing and coordinating some really heavy large ensemble free jazz stuff. i also still play in the noisy and underappreciated rock bands xbxrx and burmese.

i will be doing a string of german/austrian dates with reedist mario rechtern (reform art unit alumni) between jan 16-22. please see http://www.myspace.com/weaselwalter for more info. we need a place to play and/or sleep at in berlin on jan 20 . . . living rooms, barns, outhouses, you name it. let me know if anybody can help.)

ww

http://nowave.pair.com/ugexplode

I look forward to hearing this!

Nice try Guardian, but i'm afraid Borbeto' beat ya to the puch some years ago with their LP "Snuff Jazz."

Derek - you make reference to some recent editorials by Weasel. Do you have links to 'em? I'm keen to read 'em as he usually has something compelling to say about a lot of things.

Thanks for the prospectus on your planned activities, W, and again for winging a disc this way for review. Apologies too, as it seems W’s comment above got lost in limbo for a spell. Bags has more gremlins than a Bush-co-piloted S-3B Viking.

R, I received those editorials via email & unfortunately don’t have links, but W runs it down above.

I just want to address a few things, I think you get it (and thanks again for the good review) but we obviously go for a single-minded approach here on purpose, like Richard Serra's cor-ten steel sculptures to my mind.
I think there are a few things that make it contemporary as opposed to "Old Testament", one is the lack of development more common to EAI - we know where we are going and go right there, the interest for me is the subtle grades within it.

For my part (and my bass teacher Lisle's) the use of electric upright (on part of the album, some is acoustic double bass) makes it possible to work with some of the densities Last Exit and Painkiller hinted at.
It is beyond me why more bassist did not try that sooner for this kind of music.

Also, while the free jazz projects under Weasel's name have a purposefully monochromatic concept, the shear variety of music Weasel I have played together in the last few years is mind-boggling.
From subtle near- EAI to complex improv to jazz and time to an actual chamber ensemble playing "In C" and a piece of Roscoe MItchell's to late Ayler tunes.

You can get a sense of some of it on this trio we made with Gianni Gebbia a few months ago:
http://www.emusic.com/album/Gianni-Gebbia-Damon-Smith-Weasel-Walter-Lichens-MP3-Download/11133190.html
We are low on physical copies but it can be heard here.

Thanks for the response, Damon. I’m not sure if I get it or not, but I did get the purposefulness of the project & can appreciate it. I hear you on the limited applicability of the ascription “Old Testament” too. Weasel’s thrash-influenced drumming, for instance, definitely doesn’t fit that bill. I was mainly referring to the frequently narrow focus on energy and force & the density of the interplay. These pieces are fun & in a weird way they remind me of Zorn’s “Spy vs. Spy” though there’s more variety here than there. Plus, it’s cool to hear Marshall Allen operate in the context. With Levin, it’s kind of expected, but at eighty-odd years young, Allen goes balls out right beside him.

my roots in terms of improvised music are in the music of cecil taylor, albert ayler '66-'67 bands, broetzmann "machine gun", "soon" by sonny sharrock, "three for a quarter, one for a dime" by archie shepp, FMP, ESP-Disk, BYG, etc.

i haven't heard much good full-bore freaking out in the last few decades and my concept with this particular project is simply to push that aesthetic further, primarily for my own listening enjoyment. i think people are ready for it, especially judging how well-received the masayuki takayanagi reissues have been. i offer people a blast of energy with this cd and i hope people can enjoy it.

ww

my roots in terms of improvised music are in the music of cecil taylor, albert ayler ’66-’67 bands, broetzmann “machine gun”, “soon” by sonny sharrock, “three for a quarter, one for a dime” by archie shepp, FMP, ESP-Disk, BYG, etc.

Old Testament, for sure! But those staccato punk/thrash patterns are also prominent. I found it interesting comparing your drumming style here versus that on the recent Ayler tribute on Cuneiform. Proof positive of percussive range on your part, IMO.

i haven't heard much good full-bore freaking out in the last few decades

Brötzmann’s still doing convincing work in this vein, IMO. I’m working up a piece on his recent One Night at Burmantofts on Bo Weavil where he & Alan Wilkinson blow their respective gaskets. And it certainly helps having Simon Fell and Willi Keller’s tearing up huge divots of turf at their flanks. Brötz is an exceptional case of age as indication of enduring quality.Another good one in the busted ribs and punctured lungs department is B.E.E.K: Live at the Spruce Street Forum from a few years back on Eneidi’s Boticelli imprint. Three out of the four cast members make appearances here.

Hey Derek and all,
Nice to read about this. I was at that Philly gig and I really liked it. I like hearing WW's brutal drumkit style in a free jazz context. Actually, I pretty much just like brutal music on acoustic instruments. I remember that Damon was especially brutal. Elliot Levin has been underrepresented on record, but he's one of the sickest hard-blowing saxophonists I've heard. He's a large man and when he plays his curved soprano it looks like a toy sax; you gotta have the visuals for him, red face, blood boiling, long dreadlocks, etc. He's been playing constantly in this area for the past 20-30 years. So anyway, neat stuff happens when people play that intensely. I don't think there's any less nuance in this music either; above a certain density of information, the listener always has the option of perceiving as much nuance as they desire.

(BTW, "Danger Danger House" is literally a house, not a club. That set took place in the living room, although usually bands play in the basement. It was one of the leading grass-roots "venues" in town for the past few years; now it's shut-down because of neighbor complaints, but they have a new space a few blocks away.)

I'm happy that WW is playing in so many diverse situations including a lot of improv stuff, and the unique drumkit style is a valuable angle on relatively familiar aesthetics, but for the record I have to say that The Flying Luttenbachers is untouchable godhood genius music that needs to be heard by any fan of labyrinthine and/or high-velocity post-rock, or just brutality!!! If anyone reading this isn't familiar with it, find an online sample! It's very rare and surprising music.

Luttenbachers!!! [insert fist-pumping gestures]

Nice to see you back in action, MAP! Happy New Year!

Yeah, hopefully this signals a return of manic MAP!

It was nice meeting you in Philly, Mike.

Howdy Mike, hope you know you've always got a stall in this here stable, a place where word count ain't no issue either way ;-)

Thanks for the info on Danger Danger too. Living rooms are sorely underrated as performance spaces, just poll the proprietors of the Spirit Room.

MAP, it was really good to meet you that night. Live Bagatellen, we could have gone all night.
Maybe there needs to be a Bagatellen festival. Concerts and Live discussions.

In Minnesota?

in international waters surely.....

Damon’s got great ideas, but as to MN as a fest destination: no one in their right mind comes to tour here this time of year (on my walk across the Mississippi this morning I weathered minus 29 degree C temps & that’s w/o wind chill). The cruel irony is that the bitter cold is often coupled with bright sunshine & blue skies. We do have Sur Seine, but that’s not until the spring.

I like the international waters idea... the Bags submersible is currently in drydock, but could easily be outfitted with a flotational performance stage. However, Fijian sabotage is always a danger & vigilance against said malfeasance would be a necessity.

I've got the perfect venue. We have a cement boat out here near Santa Cruz! Just far enough offshore to be out of the reach of the feds. A haven for gamblers, hookers, free-jazzers and discussers -- and a seagull or two. ;)

Wow, what an eyesore! Could be a cool outdoor venue for sure though.

Not to get all non sequitur, but it reminds me a summer job I had in college as a “carpenter’s apprentice” with a construction company. Got teamed up with these two foul-mouthed journeymen remodeling the summer beach house of the company owner on Lummi Island (in the San Juans). I was psyched because I thought I’d be learning the trade for a few months with the added benefit of working outside. First day on the job the pair put me in charge of building bonfires on the beach to dispose of all the accumulating debris. Trouble is, they neglected to pull any nails from the discarded timber and balked when I started to do the job for them. So, by the end of the gig four weeks later, the beach with littered with literally thousands of nails slowly rusting in the surf. And I’d been suitably cowed over the course that I didn’t do anything about it. Did go back independently and cleaned things up, but still regret not telling the carpenters off in person. Adding to my chagrin, I learned next to nothing about carpentry that summer.

Is that Artship place still going Tom?

Dan,

no, the Artship I believe was cut up for scrap, only a year or so after the last sessions -- and Captain Hugh's interests have sailed on too, to uncharted waters. There's an online listing of Artship Recordings, but as far as I know it's all out of print. A little more online info is available here.

no, the Artship I believe was cut up for scrap, only a year or so after the last sessions -- and Captain Hugh's interests have sailed on too, to uncharted waters. There's an online listing of Artship Recordings, but as far as I know it's all out of print. A little more online info is available here

Sounds like y'all were smokin' more than a little bit of that Yerba Buena topside...

ah, michael anton parker . . . welcome back, buddy. i owe you a copy of firestorm for letting me borrow a photo you took that night of marshall allen for the booklet. write me an email sometime . . .

just played a series of volcanic duos with mario rechtern in germany. seriously, even after being in the game almost 40 years that guy is totally unknown right now, but if i can get him to record with me more, everybody is going to hear the true meaning of sonic annihilation! imagine the intensity of '70s broetzmann with a harder, less diatonic intervallic sensibility and a vastly wider, sharper, clearer array of timbres. this guy can just blow anybody off the stage with brute intensity and sheer ideas. it's really inspiring to play with him. it's fun to be in a position to push the envelope further . . .

ww

I wouldn't mind doing in MN, I went there once and it was just great, but the Walker was closed. I hear they have some funding for the arts there as well.
I was half joking but it is not a bad idea, and could be worth pursuing.

I played the Walker once. Very nice place.

man, in my experience it's insanely tough to get people to come see weird music in minneapolis. i've played there probably 6 or 7 times the flying luttenbachers throughout the years and every show was a dud. the last straw was when xbxrx played the end times 2 fest a few years ago and boredoms "headlined" to about 30 people. yikes. somebody lost some serious money that night.

my vote is a resounding "nay" for minneapolis.

ww

I lived there and also vote "nay."

For shame, Cliff. You sayin’ that Tejas is a better bet?

Walker’s a different place these days, much more hoity-toity given the fresh millions that have funneled into its foundation, but there are still plenty of little hole-in-the-walls that could come together to cobble a festival & occasionally do. Sur Seine does ‘decent’ numbers in terms of attendance and the U has been known to book free jazz royalty like Cecil and Ornette to respectable returns. Plenty of ‘weird’ shit if you know where to look. My chief concern would be the weather. We’re in the middle of a warm snap right now (mid-30s), but it’s set to plummet back into the single digits tomorrow or Wednesday. Spring (3 weeks) and fall (twice that) are the windows where weather isn’t a problem.

Not heard of that Rechtern dude, Weasel, but I’m gonna keep an eye out.