JULY 2012 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first artist to visit Calgary is Christopher Riggs, an improvisor/guitarist/ composer from the Detroit, MI area. He's known for his amazing (mostly) cassette label Holy Cheever Church, his extensive and totally innovative solo guitar pieces, his membership in Traum (along with Ben Hall and Hans Buetow of Graveyards), as well as collaborations with the likes of Gino Robair, Liz Allbee, Graveyards, Mike Khoury, Joe Morris, Andrew T. Royal, Tony Gordon (as Tuba), and others. Riggs will perform solo and in collaboration with the Bent Spoon Duo, comprised of Chris Dadge and Scott Munro. Order is: BSD, Riggs solo, BSD + Riggs. https://www.facebook.com/events/326148740800062/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, July 6 6:30-7:30pm 8:00-9:30pm How I Break With Major Occupationalism https://www.facebook.com/events/119825411491916/ For more information: bugincision at hotmail dot com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- related events: July 5 July 6 July 11
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OCTOBER 2012 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, October 6 Not The Wind, Not The Flag is the duo of Colin Fisher (Woodchopper's Orchestra, Isla Craig, Lampchop) and Brandon Valdivia (Picastro, Sandro Perri, Kyle Brenders) of Toronto. Together they are known for their work in the seminal trio I Have Eaten The City (with Nick Storring), a group who ably blended esoteric electro-acoustic sensibilities with an organic, tactile instrumental heft, using (among other things) cello, drums, and sax. In some ways, NTWNTF has continued on in this mode, but takes a much harder look at the organic end of things. Both players are extreme multi-instrumentalists, in the sense that anything seems to be game for these two, but they can also really rip on their chosen axes. Valdivia heads up the percussive side of things, largely (Fisher also gets on the skins occasionally, from what I've seen), utilizing the standard drumkit alongside an array of smaller percussive devices, such as thumb pianos and hand drums. Fisher handles the tenor saxophone and guitar, but has also been known to pluck on the ghuzeng, a Chinese variation of the morew well-known koto. They're as open-ended as it gets, which is always a big hit in the Bug Incision headquarters. They have a number of cassette releases on choice labels (Torontonian Ayal Senior's Medusa label, forthcoming spools on Inyrdisk, and more) and have a wealth of experience under their betls. notthewindnottheflag.blogspot.ca/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, October 5 Not The Wind, Not The Flag Workshop -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- related events: Not The Wind, Not The Flag Western Canadian Tour: Sept 27th - with Assertion @ El Barrio, 2270 East Hastings Street, Vancouver BC Sept 28th - with Aaron Leaney @ 1067, 9pm, 1115-B E. Hastings, Vancouver BC Sept 30th - with Aaron Leaney/Dylan Van Der Schyff, Family Studies & BOG @ Zoo Zhop, 8pm, 223 Main Street Vancouver BC Oct 2nd - with Aaron Leaney, TBA @ the royal, 9pm, 330 Baker St, Nelson BC Oct 4th - Not The Wind Not The Flag & Aaron Leaney/Chris Dadge duo. For more information: bugincision at hotmail dot com
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NOVEMBER 2012 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack Wright is one of the foremost and longest-active practioners of free improvisation in the United States. Since the late 1970s, he's honed a highly personalized form of playing the saxophone (the soprano, alto, and tenor varieties) and has displayed this approach on numerous tours around the US and Europe. In doing this, he's ammassed a tremendous list of playing partners, including William Parker, Axel Dorner, Michel Doneda, Bhob Rainey, Nate Wooley, Tatsuya Nakatani, and Phil Durrant, among many others. Wright takes on a decidely grassroots mentality with the integration of his music into his life. As he writes on his website (www.springgardenmusic.com), "He travels with music...rather than tours, plays rather than performs, finds and chooses partners among those who have their eyes not on the prize but on the music-for-itself." As Andrew Drury points out in his biography of Wright, "He is one of a very small group of musicians in North America that has played improvised music exclusively since the 1970s." His approach to the saxes displays a wide spectrum of unconventional techniques, which result in some sounds that might not normally be associated with a saxophone. Wright's style would fit into the category of "non-idiomatic free improvisation", a term/idea which was coined by Derek Bailey in the early 70s. In addition to his own work in performance and recording, he also has written extensively on the subject of improvisation and a variety of its implications in his life and society at large. These works are available on his blog and website. Ellwood Epps is a trumpeter based in Montreal, where is a fixture of the city's creative music scenes. His playing is wonderfully versatile, ranging from more (relatively) conventional jazz-ish settings to more idiosyncratic, electronically-enhanced scenarios to free jazz blow-outs to appearances with pop groups. In each of these settings he brings an exceptional level of technique and nuance to the instrument, fully exploring everything it has to offer. He leads a trio of his own direction (with Aaron Lumley and Ivan Bamford) and plays with Pink Saliva, an amazing trio (with a release on Bug Incision) with Alexandre St. Onge and Michel F. Cote. Land of Marigold is his duo with violinist Josh Zubot, and he has a number of solo performances and recordings under his belt. Recently, he's played with legendary bassist William Parker's orchestra and with the creator of the "conductions" method of directed improvising (and fellow trumpeter), Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris. Aside from being an exceptional player of the trumpet, Epps is responsible for running two seminal spaces in the city, L'Envers (a loft space which has hosted tons of amazing music since its origin) and Mardi Spaghetti (along with Josh Zubot, in the backroom of Le Cagibi - the inspiration for the Bug Incision shows at Weeds Cafe). http://ellwoodepps.blogspot.com Chris Dadge and Scott "Monty" Munro are from Calgary. Both have multi-instrumentalist leanings, but on this evening will be focusing on their main instruments, percussion and bass, respectively. Together they've worked for over a decade as the Bent Spoon Duo, exploring different configurations of instruments to create maximal levels of confusion and blurred authorship. They have played with Christopher Riggs, Peter Evans, Eric Chenaux, Darren Williams, Gordon Allen, Nilan Perera, Allison Cameron, and others. Munro is also a member of Chad van Gaalen's touring ensemble, Lab Coast, RapX, Fleischhaker-Munro, and Lord Something (with Dadge, also). Dadge works with Lab Coast, Samantha Savage Smith, Gold, You Are Minez, and operates Bug Incision. http://www.bugincision.com/chrisdadge -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, November 14 6:30-7:30pm 8:00-9:30pm As part of his visit to Calgary, brought to you by Bug Incision and Calgary 2012, Jack Wright will host a workshop (more demonstrative, explaining his concepts and approaches) and a masterclass (an interactve, playing-oriented situation for any instruments or skill levels). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- related events: Jack Wright Meets Calgary @ Weeds Cafe: Friday, November 16 Jack Wright + guests in Edmonton: Saturday, November 17 For more information: bugincision at hotmail dot com JANAURY 2013 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bug Incision is proud to present this Montreal-based duo of trumpeter Ellwood Epps and violinist Josh Zubot. Neither of these players are stranger to Calgary: Epps released a Pink Saliva disc on Bug Incision a few years and played with Jack Wright this past November; Zubot (a onetime Calgary resident) blows through town with different projects has been a frequent collaborator with Calgary's own Nomoreshapes. Tuesday, January 22 6:30-7:30pm 8:00-9:30pm in their own words: Josh Zubot and I are very excited to be with you in Calgary and find out what we can find out together. We`d like to play a short performance for you and find out what you think of it—or what it makes you think of. Josh and I play together in a very intuitive way, so we’ll probably say more at this workshop than we’ve ever said to anyone about this music! We’ll be happy to answer queries about aesthetic, technique, working methods...we can also tell you about our experience(s) playing music in Montreal and around the country, presenting concerts (we’ve both been very active with the Mardi Spaghetti Series and L’envers for about five years in Montreal). We’ve been blessed to enjoy many perspectives on the music by playing together many times as a duet as well as part of groups led by people like Nicolas Caloia, Marshall Allen, Jean Derome, John Butcher, William Parker and Myra Melford, and whatever we’ve distilled from those experiences we’d be more than happy to share with you. This workshop is for anyone who is interested in music. If you play, bring your instrument! While this will be of particular interest to string and brass players, we look forward playing with any and all of you in the second part of the evening. A lot of talk only goes so far, and then we have to make some magic. Rather than try to teach you about some kind of solar-myth-post-triadic theory, we’re going to depend on what you bring, and make some music out together out of that. So bring your curiosity, interest, intellect, verve, and intuition. Musicians, we need your music! Listeners, we need your ears! Questioners, we need your questions! We hope this experience will open some doors for you about what we do and what we all can do in this moment in music. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- related events: Land of Marigold + guests in Edmonton: Wednesday, January 23 For more information: bugincision at hotmail dot com |
MARCH 2013 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bug Incision is very excited to presenting Fossils, aka David Payne, from Hamilton, Ontario. It's tough get too far into the world of noise/weirdo/improvised music in Canada without encountering the prolific efforts of this person. Fossils is sometimes solo, sometimes a trio or quartet. This amorphous unit experiments in a suitably vast variety of modes as well. Their recording style covers a spectrum bookended by handheld-cassette-recorder-under-a-chair-style lo-fi sonics and relatively slick (still cassette) 4-track sessions. The instrumentation varies wildly, possibly including reeds, guitars, amplified junk and percussion, and all manner of home-cooked electronic devices and setups. David Payne is also the central figure behind Middle James Co., an excellent, long-running, hundreds-of-releases deep label, dealing usually in cassettes and CDRs. The artwork is grainy, nth generation photocopy style, and usually quite mysterious. The label has put out tons of albums, documenting a huge cross-section of the noise & improv scene at large for the last decade-ish. Payne also co-operates another label called Cardinal, which deals in vinyl and lathe releases. Payne's music has a good showing on Bug Incision Records, as well, with releases from Fossils, Slut Mouth (an excellent guitar & drums duo), and a solo acoustic guitar album. Although the music is often characterized as 'noise', it doesn't usually bring to mind the raging blow-outs normally associated with that genre. There's subtle interplay involved, often very textural and sometimes, in the investigation of a certain sound, quite playful. “David Payne began building his Fossils empire back in 2004. Since that time Fossils has colonized the underground circuit with a steady flow of ultra-limited tapes/cdrs, many of them through David's own Middle James Co imprint. The Fossils sound is always one of formless despair. Churning low-grade electronics, primitive tape manipulations, and an aura of stoned reverie are all genuine signatures.” (Graham Lambkin, 2010) Pertinent Links: Fossils These two have played together a number of times as a fairly raucous guitar & drums duo, but this outing will see a woolly-er, more trippy distilling of their talents. Percussion/junk-ist Chris Dadge is know for his work as Bug Incision mastermind and with projects such as Bent Spoon Duo, Lab Coast, Mama Safari, Lord Something, and many ad hoc meetings, and Whitney Ota is known for his moves as Burro (on guitar), Dada Centauri (with Andrew Hume), Dundas (textural play with Stew Elton) and solo as Yankee Yankee, playing whatever strikes his fancy. He also co-operates Unit Structure Sound Recordings, a great, multi-format label devoted to weird music of all stripes. Citadel The current solo vehicle from Josh Fraser, ex-Suicide Bomber. "Ethereal post-power electronics to facilitate emotional processing. Gone are the days of screaming at the void, now we ascend through it." I'll say. The intensity and focus of the performances as SB are still present, but now delivered with a patient, slowly-unraveling sense of pacing. One of the most interesting units from one of the most consistently worthy-of-attention acts in Calgary. https://www.facebook.com/events/422510447842578/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, January 19, 2013 6:30-7:30pm 8:00-9:30pm David Payne, the man behind Fossils, Slut Mouth, various solo and collaborative shows and recordings, and hundreds of releases on his Middle James Co. label (not to mention his newer Cardinal Records imprint), will be leading a talk and playing session in the basement of Hot Wax Records. He'll discuss the history of "noise music" and how it relates to his development as a musician, listener, and curator of fine sounds. The discussion will be followed by a group playing session. All ages, skill levels, instruments, and involvement levels are welcome. https://www.facebook.com/events/555852484446855/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- related events: Fossils + Chris Dadge + Bitter Fictions + in Edmonton: Wednesday, March 20 it's a house show, email below for info:
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MARCH 2013 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We're very pleased to be presenting Shane Krause for the final of the Bug Incision Calgary 2012 concerts. Krause was right there at the start of the Bug Incision days, being the core of a crew of players from Vancouver who were doing a lot of cross-pollinating with Calgary during 2006-2009 or so. He's now based in Victoria. Krause is part of the esteemed world of improvising baritone saxophonists. He's devoetd himself to wrestling this massive beast and in the process has carved out a personal, sensitive (although not without a violently explosive side), and highly musical sound on the horn. Bass clarinet and Bb clarinet have also factored heavily into Krause's arsenal, and his output is suitably diverse, moving from straight-up ad hoc free improvising, to regular groups exploring the worlds of extended technique and graphic notations, as well as more (free) jazz-oriented environs as well. His groups include past work with Calgary's Chris Dadge and Edmonton's Thom Golub in Hidden Fortress, a group that explored a) graphic notation, b) sketches free jazz tunes, used as platforms for long-form improvising, and c) platformless flights on unbridled open playing. They issued three albums (still available) and a 3". He has also kept up an ongoing duo with Dadge called Raw Kites. That group shared half a tour with insane NYC-based trumpeter Peter Evans, released a CDR on Bug Incision, and performed and recorded (and eventually released an LP on Krause's label Oscillations of Pressure) with Mats Gustafsson and Christian Munthe (aka Two Slices of Acoustic Car). His more recent endeavour falls under the name The Bletchley Bombes, who play under-rated jazz compositions by master composers like Thelonious Monk, Grachan Moncur III, Mal Waldron and Steve Lacy; and use them as points of departure for a music which is fluid and spontaneous, eschewing the focus on solos for one of collective improvisation on the harmonies. Additional Bio: Pertinent Links: http://shanekrause.wordpress.com/ Recommended viewing/listening: Opening up for Krause, and then joining him for a trio, is the Bent Spoon Duo, one of Calgary's longest-running improv units. Comprised of Chris Dadge and Scott Munro, they've spent years honing their approach to disorienting, multi-instrumentalist improvisation, using whatever pile of gear they are working with at the given moment. In a recent review in The Wire, Byron Coley describes them as "splendid, low-bore Improv racket in the classic pots-and-pans style." 3rd act TBA https://www.facebook.com/events/422510447842578/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, May 6, 2013 6:30-9:00pm Practicing for improvisation: Form, memory and objectivity All ages, skill levels, instruments, and involvement levels are welcome. https://www.facebook.com/events/555852484446855/
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