Blog Post
Everything’s All Right: Jonathan Crayne Finds the Way Forward on “Oknow” EP
by strattonl
Blog Post
John Gutoskey’s vibrant “Cake & Flowers for My People” exhibit preserves ephemeral arrangements denied to LGBTQ+ marriages and events
by strattonl
John Gutoskey’s vibrant, kaleidoscopic Cake & Flowers for My People exhibit honors LGBTQ+ community members who have been denied these celebratory arrangements due to bakers and florists citing religious objections to same-sex marriages and queer events.
Blog Post
Myths and Legends: Guild Showcases Local Artists Through Folklore Exhibit at Ann Arbor’s Gutman Gallery
by strattonl
Ann Arbor artist-photographer Marilynn Thomas interprets a migratory Baltimore oriole's transitory world in her layered watercolor painting called Oriole Unraveling the Universe.
Blog Post
The Purple Rose Theatre's "Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Fallen Soufflé" rises to the occasion
by christopherporter
Local Baker Street Irregulars who enjoyed David MacGregor’s 2018 world premiere production of Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Elusive Ear at Chelsea’s Purple Rose Theatre may now revisit the world’s most famous detective in his London flat for yet another all-new case.
Blog Post
Milestones: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Celebrates its 50th Anniversary at Rackham
by christopherporter
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) is celebrating its 50th anniversary, a milestone. So, co-artistic director and cellist David Finckel says it was fitting that CMS begins this season with milestones in the art of chamber music. “We identified pieces of music that have somehow influenced the way chamber music evolved,” he says.
Blog Post
March 2018 Author and Book Events
by christopherporter
What does having an amazing university, a plethora of fantastic local independent bookstores, and a pretty slam-bang public library system (if we do say so ourselves) bring to a town?
Authors. Lots and lots of authors.
Blog Post
Nairobi Nyatiti: Kamba Nane at Ziggy's in Ypsilanti
by christopherporter
Ziggy's is a cafe, performance space, and arcade in downtown Ypsilanti that has hosted an appealing wide range of concerts ever since it opened in August 2017, from experimental jazz to hip-hop and indie rock. Most of the performers have been local, but on Friday, Feb. 2, Ziggy's goes international with Kenyan musician Kamba Nane.
Nane plays an eight-string nyatiti, a plucked lyre associated with the Luo people of Kenya. Traditionally the nyatiti is played alone, accompanied only by the player's singing and percussion items attached to his feet. But the Nairobi-raised Nane takes a modern approach to the instrument, playing in groups of all sorts, from jazz to electronica. At Ziggy's, Nane will be accompanied by the RAKA Ensemble, featuring Dave Sharp on bass and percussionists Abbas Camara and Lamine Souma.
Blog Post
Woven Together: Threads All Arts Festival returns for 2018
by christopherporter
The Threads All Arts Festival has finally been rescheduled. The second edition was originally set for August 2017 at the Ann Arbor Distilling Company, but when the city put a temporary kibosh on live events at the artisanal spirits space due to parking issues, Threads was called off. It took the U-M student-run festival a while to reorganize, but it has now found a home in Ypsilanti’s Historic Freighthouse and will present its rangy mix of live music, dance, film, poetry, and art on March 10-11.
The idea for Threads began in 2015 when Nicole Patrick (U-M 2016, percussion and jazz and contemporary improvisation) and her friends "wanted to find a way to share, with many people, all the amazing art they saw coming out of their friends and neighbors," they told Pulp contributor Anna Prushinskaya for piece meant to preview the 2017 edition.
Blog Post
Tools Crew Live: Stef Chura
by christopherporter
Downloads:
➥ MP3 for "Slow Motion"
➥ 720p video
Tools Crew Live is an ongoing video series where we invite artists to perform with gear borrowed from the Ann Arbor District Library's Music Tools collection: aadl.org/musictools.
When not on tour, indie-rocker Stef Chura runs several karaoke nights in Detroit, the city where she lives. It's common for karaoke hosts to sing a few songs to set the stage and encourage the crowd, and Chura told MTV.com in a January 2017 interview that The Cranberries are one of her go-to bands to croon.
Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan comes up a lot in articles about Chura. Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks comes up, too. So does Liz Phair and The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde. Bettie Serveert's Carol van Dijk has also been mentioned, and so have Destroyer's Dan Bejar and Television's Tom Verlaine. There are hints of Billie Holiday, too.
Basically, Chura inhabits the same artistic ground as singers who are atypical, stretch syllables and time to fit their needs, and float easily from vibrato yelps to nasal coos -- and there are some great ones in that idiosyncratic camp.
All of Chura's wonderful vocal tricks are on display in the stripped-down June 9, 2017, session she did in the basement of the downtown branch of the Ann Arbor District Library. Alone with her own guitar, plus a bundle of guitar pedals and two amps from AADL's Music Tools collection -- none of which she had used before -- Chura delivered "Slow Motion" and "Human Being," two powerful renditions of songs from her debut album, Messes. (You can also hear these tunes performed with her full band in an August 2017 Audiotree session: MP3 or videos.)
Since returning from a late summer/early fall five-week jaunt that took her to Poland, Germany, Canada, and through much of the U.S., Chura has been hard at work recording her new album, and she's already cut two singles with Will Toledo from Car Seat Headrest. The next area show for Chura is Dec. 14 at the El Club in Detroit.
Below, we did a short interview with Chura that focuses on the gear she used in this session. For a more in-depth interview, check out our long chat with Chura in March that covers her background and the origins of many songs on Messes.
Downloads:
➥ MP3 for "Human Being"
➥ 720p video
Q: What is your usual pedal setup on stage?
A: I use:
➥ Korg tuner
➥ Xotic EP Booster pedal: I've used this for solos but it also gives a nice gain-ey sound to "Slow Motion"
➥ Fulltone OCD Obsessive Compulsive Drive pedal: This is used on the song "Messes" and a solo in a newer song. Crunchy ;)
➥ Boss CH-1 Stereo Super Chorus pedal: A classic. I tried to boutique upgrade it, but I still really like this one. I use it for "Faded Heart."
➥ Moog Chorus pedal: I use this for "On and Off for You" on the vibrato setting.
➥ Strymon Flint pedal: I splurged for this bad boy but it was TOTALLY worth it! I play out of a Super Reverb but this is a great substitute for any Fender-style reverb/tremolo amp when I have to use backline or my practice amp. I was really surprised: I got it for the reverb but I REALLY like the tremolo! On a regular basis, I use both settings for "Human Being."
Q: Why did you pick these songs and pedals for the session?
A: They were both songs that I thought would go over well solo.
Q: Did the gear change the way you performed the songs?
A: Honestly, no! But if I had to do it again I might have played different songs.
Q: You didn't have a chance to borrow any of these before you came to the session. Did any of the pedals end up giving you problems, or do you remember really liking one?
A: No problems that I remember. I liked the RAT pedal a lot.
Q: When you lived in Washtenaw County, did you ever check music tools out of the library? If so, do you recall what you borrowed?
A: They did not have the program yet. Or maybe they had just created it? I left in 2012.
Music Tools on "Human Being" + "Slow Motion":
➥ Line 6 DL4 delay pedal
➥ MF Ring Minifooger ring modulator pedal
➥ MF Trem Minifooger tremolo pedal
➥ MXR M324 analog chorus pedal
➥ Rat-2 distortion pedal
➥ BigSky reverb pedal (not circulating yet)
➥ Shure SM58 microphone
➥ Roland Micro Cube GX amplifier
➥ Critter & Guitari Terz amplifier
Other Tools in these the videos:
➥ Giant Chess set
➥ Spinning Wheel
➥ Topographic Moon Globe from Sky and Telescope (not circulating yet)
➥ Hadrosaur Skull cast (not circulating yet)
Christopher Porter is a library technician and the editor of Pulp.
For more information on Stef Chura, visit her website, Facebook, Twitter, and Bandcamp.
Blog Post
Tools Crew Live: Mark Kirschenmann & Adam Shead
by christopherporter
Downloads:
➥ MP3 for "Behind the Sky"
➥ 720p video
Tools Crew Live is an ongoing video series where we invite artists to perform with gear borrowed from the Ann Arbor District Library's Music Tools collection: aadl.org/musictools.
The most common use for effects pedals in AADL's collection is to change the sound of electric instruments, such as guitars and keyboards -- not acoustic gear, such as trumpets and drums. But there's nothing common about the music of Mark Kirschenmann, PhD. He's been experimenting with changing the tone of his trumpet through electronics since the '70s after he heard Miles Davis' electro-jazz-funk classic On the Corner.
Kirschenmann is a U-M lecturer of jazz and contemporary improvisation, and he also leads the music school's Creative Arts Orchestra, which includes drummer Adam Shead, a grad student at U-M studying "cultural memory, tradition, and narrative in improvised music communities." Shead augments his standard drum setup with electronics and straight-up knick-knacks, such as a dishtowel or his wallet, so he can explore different tonalities on his kit.
Together, Kirschenmann and Shead combine their extended techniques -- such as playing the trumpet without a mouthpiece or putting a leg on the snare drum -- to create an improvised universe of sound.
We talked to the duo about why they began applying electronic effects to their acoustic instruments, Kirschenmann's use of AADL music tools in his classes, and the stories behind the two songs they recorded for us in the library's Secret Lab on April 20, 2017.
Downloads:
➥ MP3 for "Food Coma"
➥ Sheet music for "Food Coma"
➥ 720p video
Q: Tell us about how you guys started incorporating electronics into your setups?
MK: After hearing Miles Davis' On the Corner, I started using a wah pedal on my trumpet in high school during the '70s. And I got to see him live with his Agharta band. At that time I was also headlong into Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland and Morton Subotnick's Silver Apples of the Moon, etc. So, I started with a wah pedal and kept adding on: a pedal-based setup using distortion, flanging, uni-vibe, delay, reverb, harmonizing, etc. Jon Hassell's use of a harmonizer has been a big influence for me as well. Now I also have a laptop setup for playing into plug-ins and MIDI.
AS: I became interested in the use of electronics when I moved to Chicago in 2011 and developed an infatuation with drummer Frank Rosaly's solo project MilkWork. Rosaly opened my mind to not only the possibilities of the acoustic trap kit but the possibilities and almost endless capabilities of electroacoustic drumming. It was Rosaly's influence along with the work of composers Alvin Lucier and Pauline Oliveros that brought about a love and pursuance of electroacoustic work. I am also very interested in resonance, sonority, hoping to develop a further understanding of the sonic qualities of percussion instruments that occur during the attack and decay of a single percussive stroke, electronics provide a way to elongate or freeze time, allowing me to observe these sonic phenomenon with much more clarity.
Q: Mark, you told me you check out Music Tools for your classroom. What are some of the things you've used?
MK: I have used many of the instruments in the AADL collection for my electronic music course at U-M. The Moog Theremin and Theremini are representative of one of the most important electronic instruments of all time. And you can play with it without touching it! The Korg Monotrons are a great resource for learning about what an oscillator can do. And the Pittsburgh Modular Cell 48 is very useful for learning how to use a patch bay to connect various filters and oscillators. These instruments use analog circuitry and are therefore not as well known to my current students of the digital age. It's important that they touch these instruments and learn to make sound with them. On the digital side, I've brought in the Korg Volca Beats, Bass and Keys and gotten them synced-up for some in-class jams. I've also brought in several pedals from the AADL collection to demonstrate distortion, overdrive, flanging, reverb, delay, and looping. And the Circuit Bent Omnichord is a joy!
Q: What led you to choose the gear you did for the videos?
MK: The pedals I choose from the AADL collection for the videos were all new to me, so I was curious to try them out. The Electro Harmonix Deluxe Big Muff Pi, OCD overdrive, and MXR Phase 90 sounded sweet together, and the Strymon Big Sky reverb is top shelf!
AS: The Line-6 DL-4 is a mainstay pedal and has been used by guitar and electronic visionaries for years; it's a testament to the pedal's craft. The remainder of my setup are includes low-grade, pawnshop pedals. A grad-student budget dictated my setup, I suppose.
Q: Tell us about "Food Coma."
MK: I went back and did the math for “Food Coma” and it's actually a 53 beat melody/riff notated in 16 bars. I wrote it about two years ago and have been looking for a good opportunity to try it out. I love the trumpet/drums duo format and playing with Adam is such a blast. For this performance, we agreed that I'd hold the melody down for at least two passes before letting it dissolve and that Adam could freely play with/without it. Then, I fade it back in one last time. There's no musical cryptogram in the melody, no serial or Fibonacci games going on. It came from my ear, I heard it. For this performance, I pitch-shifted the line down two octaves and distorted it a lot.
Q: What's the origin of “Behind the Sky”?
MK: “Behind the Sky” is a melody I've had around for awhile. I play it very freely out of time and in different octaves. It's in a symmetrical, octatonic scale that contains four dominant 7th and diminished 7th chords, which I use freely for improvising. The scale also enables the melody to be transposed or modulated onto four different scalar pitches while maintaining intervallic integrity. So, any of those four notes could be the root or tonic.
AS: While both compositions were written by Mark, I feel comfortable in saying that the composition acts as a foundation for improvisation, allowing us as performers to move as far away or as close to the written material as the music calls for. This type of melody-based foundation is reminiscent of the improvisational theory of harmolodics, coined by the late Ornette Coleman. Due to Mark and I's diverse musical backgrounds -- ranging from punk to jazz to contemporary classical -- we are able to take a melody that may be considered "jazz" in nature and transform it beyond stylistic differentiation.
Music Tools on "Food Coma" and "Behind the Sky":
➥ Line 6 DL4 delay pedal
➥ Electro Harmonix Deluxe Big Muff Pi distortion pedal (not circulating yet)
➥ MXR Bass Fuzz Deluxe distortion pedal (not circulating yet)
➥ Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster Hi-Def Boost & Line Driver (not circulating yet)
➥ MXR Phase 90 pedal
➥ Fulltone OCD overdrive pedal
➥ Dunlop Cry Baby Wah pedal
➥ Strymon Big Sky reverb pedal (not circulating yet)
➥ Additionally, Kirschenmann used his own Digitech Whammy pedal and an Ernie Ball volume pedal.
Other Tools used to create the videos:
➥ Chauvet DJ Intimidator Spot Led 150 lights
➥ Chauvet DJ Rotosphere Q3 lights
➥ Chauvet Abyss lights
➥ IKAN FLY-X3 PLUS Smartphone Gimbal Stabilizer
Christopher Porter is a library technician and the editor of Pulp.
Mark Kirschenmann's music can be found at CDBaby, iTunes, or Spotify. Adam Shead's work can be heard at adamsheadmusic.bandcamp.com. The Creative Arts Orchestra will perform a free concert on November 16 at 8 pm in Earl V. Moore Building's Hankinson Rehearsal Hall, 1100 Baits Dr., Ann Arbor.