Event: Tsigoti Thollem McDonas and Jack Wright Duo Matinee
Date: 16 May 2010 - 12:00 pm
Description:
Next show is a SUNDAY NOON- MATINEE—MAY 16-TSIGOTI (Thollem McDonas) and JACK WRIGHT DUO
TSIGOTI
ESP-Disk is proud to announce its newest artist, Tsigoti, an international band combining revolutionary politics and intelligent semi-acoustic avant-punk fervor. ‘Private Poverty Speaks To The People Of The Party’ was recorded with a group of players that have run the gauntlet of life experience and musical explorations and you can hear it in the vitality and urgency of the music. ‘Private Poverty Speaks To The People Of The Party’ still holds the same raw improvisational qualities of their debut recording, ‘The Brutal Reality of Modern Brutality’ (Edgetone Records). Straying from the typical notion of political commentary, Tsigoti delivers a clever, experimental, driving, AND fun accessible work of art that is true to the ESP mission: forward thinking and forever changing.
Personnel
Thollem McDonas – Beat-up Piano, Vocals
Andy Cap – Drums, Backing Vocals
Ben Itchy– Electric Bass, Backing Vocals
Jack Andrews – Electric Guitar, Backing Vocals
TSIGOTI’s “The Sickofwar Train” was included in The Wire’s 2010 comilation The Wire Tapper 23.
“The customary digital riddles characterizing the genius of this master pianist are all but forgotten here, for this sounds more as a semi-acoustic punk album. Beaten-up instruments, muttered vocals, rhythms and keys often disrespected; the exclusive wish is crying out loud that ‘we can’t do this to ourselves anymore’, as per one of the tracks titles. When we compare the fusion of these sensations to a sort of feverish pagan ritual and listen to this set with the same attitude of, say, looking at a shaman dressed like a young Joe Strummer, the honesty of intentions begins to clash (pun definitely intended) with our previous ideas pretty hard. Bizarrely frank stuff. – Massimo Ricci, TouchingExtremes, Italy
“Thollem Sickofwar revs up his beatup piano and throws down on war. The results are edgy, uneven and sometimes disquieting. All in all, a rollicking success.” – J. Worley, Aiding & Abetting
JACK WRIGHT DUO
JACK WRIGHT taught at various universites beginning in the 1960s, and left academia soon thereafter to engage in radical politics. By the late 1970s he was directing his energies into playing the saxophone, and is today one of the few musicians that h
as played improvised music exclusively since that time. Through years of touring in Europe and North America, often performing for audiences in towns where improvised music had never been heard, he came to be regarded as an underground legend, the “Johnny Appleseed of Improvised Music”, inspiring countless other players. He has deliberately avoided conventional aesthetics and the limitations of musical careerism to pursue his own vision. Although his de-professionalized approach sets him apart from most musicians at his level of accomplishment, his art has always grown, expanded, and synthesized new information. He is unquestionably an original and virtuosic saxophonist, a master improviser who is deeply lyrical, with humor never far away. www.springgardenmusic.com
Ben Wright plays acoustic bass, brass, and saw. He lives in Taos, New Mexico, and is currently immersed in the study of local biodiversity interactions. The experience of creating music with people drives him frequently to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and periodically to the coasts and the nether regions of the U.S. to perform and to seek concurrent communities of musicians. He persistently experiments with various forms of music, but is inevitably drawn back to experimental music. I believe that experiential free improvisation is the musical form from which all others radiate. I play music for the bliss of that instant when I lose consciousness of my surroundings, my instrument, and myself… there is only music. The attraction to improvising is an attraction to the mutability of the moment. That is the crux where spontaneous creation between performers and audience is conceived. In improvised music, it is a mystery how the next moment will occur, so it becomes charged with the excitement of finding out.
Location: High Mayhem Studio, 2811 Siler Ln, Santa Fe,