brevity being the sole of spit

The impossibility of utterance forces us to sound off animalistically through our sundry music-making devices. The only avenue of meaning available to us. Like the birds in their territorial refrains. Nature’s greatest musicians, so Messiaen insists.

Of course if you read Derrida a certain way you realize that it’s not necessarily about the impossibility of meaning in language, it’s more about localized formations of meaning. Tangential truths that zigzag their way through the labyrinths of phonetic signs.
Or, in the jive of Foucault, the enunciation indicates a historical diagram of meaning specific to a certain power formation.
Or better yet, Deleuze — stylistic or idiomatic (minor) digression constitutes the creative movement of language, one that finds its ultimate expression in art: Kafka; Artaud; Bataille; Beckett. You know the drill.

Becomings-minor in your neighborhood:

Wednesday, May 25, Bickett Gallery, 9:30 pm showtime, donations requested: this will be quite the extravaganza:

1st set:
Katsuyuki Itakura - piano (Japan) http://www.j-music.com/itakura/
Michael Thomas Jackson - clarinet (Winston-Salem) http://www.microearth.com/jackson/
Bruce Eisenbeil - guitar (NYC) http://www.eisenbeil.com/
Brian Osborne - percussion (NYC) http://www.heatretentionrecords.com/HRR%20brian2.asp

2nd set: pulsoptional + crowmeat bob
You of course know pulsoptional as the Durham composers’ collective consisting primarily of Duke music grads. (http://www.pulsoptional.org/) We will be improvising together.
Jennifer Fitzgerald - piano
marc faris - electric guitar
John Mayrose - classical guitar, electric bass, possibly electronics
Tom Limbert - percussion
Todd Hershberger - bassoon, alto sax
Carrie Shull - oboe, english horn
myself - alto sax, bass clarinet, trombone

Thursday, May 26, Wetlands (above Hell), Chapel Hill, 10 pm or so: Kolyma with Phon, Cantwell, Gomez and Jordan and another early band whose name escapes me.
Not sure of the order. We’ll have to duke it out.
This will delight and enthrall all those willing to give themselves over to the pure soul sounds.
Stone drone zoners phon. Will slow boil you like a frog.
PlunkFlunk Schizzters CG&J. Will show you who’s your uncle.
Spleeno core trigonometers Kolyma. Described by one avid fan as sounding like a french car wreck.

Friday, May 27, Percolator (formerly Cup a Joe), North Raleigh, 7 to 9 pm: Razor Wire Safety Net
For this outing it’s looking like we’ll be Brian Donohoe on drums, Christopher Thurston on basses, Robert Pence on alto sax, bass clarinet, guitar and probably Peter Lamb on tenor sax. Possible other guest(s).
I think we’re going to play outside in the little mall entrance area next to the shop. Like emo-jazz strip mall city, cats and dolls.

Wednesday, June 1, Bickett Gallery, 10 pm: Mother Cock
Sussuratin with satan.
Jason Bivins on guitar. Bill McConaghy on trumpet. Robert Pence on horns/guit.

So until the end times,

The Ventriloquizer DL
Regional Prefabricator
Retroactive Dynamics, Inc. (an affiliate of the Thomas Carlyle Group)
“Manufacturing your needs so you don’t have to.”

ethical considerations

In this particular stretch of the abscissa of our musical emanations we must pause for a reflection on the moral ramifications of our endeavors.
Upon exhausting all the rational avenues at our disposal we cannot help but conclude that no artistic act can be of any palpable benefit to humanity, given the crises that are compounding throughout the world.
Therefore we beg, for the sake of your soul, ethical stature, moral identity or whatever other religious/secular/utilitarian/metatheistic/sympathetic values you purport to sustain, that you take no part whatsoever in the offerings listed below.
Having little choice in the matter ourselves, we hope you can reserve some millicurie of forgiveness for us in the inhuman, nay anti-human, acts we are about to perpetrate.

In Dei Nomine:

Wednesday, May 18, Bickett Gallery, 10 pm: Viroid Stew.
Or at least a variation thereof. We haven’t reached Dave Mueller or Joel Rhodes yet but we’ve got founding members Mike Isenberg on percussion, Phil Martelli on electric bass, Neil Vendrick on computer, John Randall Pelosi on soprano sax, Robert Pence on alto sax, bass clarinet, trombone, guitar.
This will be a quite reprehensible show.

Wednesday, May 25, Bickett Gallery, 9:30 pm showtime, donations requested: very important folks from out of town (or, in one case, out of country).
Be there and nourish your capacity for enduring love in 2 sets of music:

1st set:
Katsuyuki Itakura - piano (Japan) http://www.j-music.com/itakura/
Michael Thomas Jackson - clarinet (Winston-Salem) http://www.microearth.com/jackson/
Bruce Eisenbeil - guitar (NYC) http://www.eisenbeil.com/
Brian Osborne - percussion (NYC) http://www.heatretentionrecords.com/HRR%20brian2.asp

2nd set: pulsoptional + crowmeat bob
You of course know pulsoptional as the Durham composers’ collective consisting primarily of Duke music grads. (http://www.pulsoptional.org/) We will be improvising together.
Jennifer Fitzgerald - piano
marc faris - electric guitar
John Mayrose - classical guitar, electric bass
Tom Limbert - percussion
Todd Hershberger - bassoon, alto sax
Carrie Shull - oboe, english horn
myself - alto sax, bass clarinet, trombone

Thursday, May 26, Wetlands (above Hell), Chapel Hill, 10 pm: Kolyma, Phon, Cantwell, Gomez and Jordan.
Do not fear Kolyma. Unless you aren’t up to the task of witnessing them.
Phon will stretch your spine.
Cantwell, Gomez and Jordan will set your spine a-twisting and light it up like a emergency vehicle.

Wednesday, June 1st, Bickett Gallery, 10 pm: Mother Cock.
With Bill McConaghy on trumpets, Jason Bivins on guitar and Robert Pence on alto sax, bass clarinet and guitar.
Skitterskat meta-skronk.

Wednesday, June 8, Bickett Gallery: The Feraliminal Lycanthropizers
Yes, the rumors are true. All of the original members, including sometime bassist Susan Humphries (who was unable to accompany us on our European sojourn).

See you in Hell.

After the Wetlands show.

–The Ventriloquizer DL

A slip of the solip can flip a lid.

aleatory increments

As our tribal elders have so often informed us, evolution is mutation. Those systems which seem more highly evolved are only baroque mutations, variants on the themes constituted by the microbiotic substrata. There is no higher or lower form, there is only differentiated vital essence.
To view a system in isolation is pure folly, contrary to the multiplicity of experience.

In some “savage” languages generic terms are irrelevant in respect to the naming of the things themselves. But the supposedly more highly evolved “civilized” languages make manifest categories that buttress the tyranny of reason in their dissective tendencies.

That having been said, be sure to attend the Company Retreat this week where we will engage in fun, trust-building exercises and map out strategies for future projects. There will be a guest lecturer to outline the twelve-point system of voluntary submission and the importance of prior restraint at social functions. Those not wearing the Company armband will be summarily docked. And then shot.

Tuesday, May 10, Wetlands Dancehall (formerly Treehouse), Chapel Hill, 8 pm: SoundScape Improv Dance Workshop Performance
Dancers. Noisemakers. Organized by Alexis Mastromichalis.

Wednesday, May 11, Bickett Gallery, 10 pm: The Blue Rose Case
Regular member Carrie Shull was appropriated by diabolical forces beyond the Company’s system of capture, so she will not attend. However, in the interest of sounding a desperate cry into the gaping emptiness of the collective Raleigh mind, the remaining three members will dutifully perform. In retrograde order of moral turpitude: Crowmeat Bob - alto sax, bass clarinet, guitar; Dan Hall - drums; Chris Eubank - cello, bass. Plus guest Peter Lamb - tenor sax.

Friday, May 13, Jayzz, Raleigh, 10 pm: Odd International
Dig it. I know it’s squaresville, but like these cats actually pay the musicians for playing the joint. Plus two free drinks. And we get to make the most godawful racket in the name of jazz.
Mike Isenberg - drums; Parrish Anderson - alto sax, keys; DJ Kraze - vinyl, samples; Christopher Thurston - basses; Q Jones - congas; Crowmat Bob - guitar, alto sax, bass clarinet.

Saturday, May 14, Nightlight, Chapel Hill, 8 pm-2 am: No Future Fest
After you finish checking out the Brotzmann Tentet at De La Luz (8 pm) spend the last night on earth filling your head with nothin but noise at the Nightflight. Myselves’ll be doin’ a caterwall-of-sound with Tom Whitelock at some point after 10 pm. Check out the Nightlight website for more info: http://nightlight.dyss.net/index.php
We’re not actually listed, but I’m reasonably sure it’s a go. As far as reason goes.

Wednesday, May 18, Bickett Gallery, 10 pm: answer uncertain. ask again later.
But it will possibly be some variation of Viroid Stew or Stone Cold, bands that have uglied up the Bickett stage previously.

Wednesday, May 25, Bickett Gallery, 9:30 (special time), recommended donation: Come one, come all. Bring the kids. Another must-see insanely special Wednesday event featuring touring musicians in two sets of music. Witness:

1st set:
Katsuyuki Itakura - piano (Japan) http://www.j-music.com/itakura/
Michael Thomas Jackson (Winston-Salem) http://www.microearth.com/jackson/
Bruce Eisenbeil - guitar (NYC) http://www.eisenbeil.com/
Brian Osborne - percussion (NYC) http://www.heatretentionrecords.com/HRR%20brian2.asp

2nd set: pulsoptional + crowmeat bob
You of course know puloptional as the Durham composers’ collective consisting primarily of Duke music grads. (http://www.pulsoptional.org/) We will be improvising together.
Jennifer Fitzgerald - piano
marc faris - electric guitar
John Mayrose - classical guitar, electric bass
Tom Limbert - percussion
Todd Hershberger - bassoon, alto sax
Carrie Shull - oboe, english horn
myself - alto sax, bass clarinet, trombone

Always within reason. Always within reason.

–The Ventriloquizer DL-Strauss
Minister of People’s Enlightenment and Public Relations
Retroactive Dynamics, Inc. (an affiliate of the Thomas Carlyle Group)
“Logic is hiding something behind a bush and then losing the bush in an arbor.”

p.s. Isn’t “that having been said” one of the most repulsive rhetorical maneuvers ever invented? Makes me wanna PUKE. Seems to be a favorite of listserv soundbite sophists.

Memo Mori

Inter-Departmental Memo to Regional Bureaucratic Coordinators, Extra-Regional Division Heads, Intra-Regional Multiplicity Heads, General Detainee Labor Force, Members of the Board, et al.:

Purpose:
To properly circumscribe the rights, requirements, general spatio-temporal designation and appurtenances thereof of all Departmental Detainees (i.e. Labor Force Personnel, Surplus Labor Pool, Social Work Flow Engineers, Soluble Degradees, Solvent Biodegradables and Voluble Superfluosities). Specifically as regards conspicuous, potentially morally reprehensible or otherwise anomalous behavior patterns, both in and out of the Free Zone extra-national production facility.

Modus operandi:
Measures to be enacted through the post-panoptical de-individuated social paranoia exchange circuit. The Company controls those who control themselves. Programming licensed from Individual Private Citizens, Inc. (TM).

Basic tenets:
-Detainees will never do anything in front of the television camera that they would not also do in their private lives. Detainees will never do anything in their private lives that they would not also do in front of a television camera. Thus relinquishing all fealty to the anachronistic notions of “public” and “private”.
-Detainees will self-monitor work-flow. Hyperconscious post-industrial superego will ensure break/flow standards are surpassed and projected earnings for the Company achieve asymptotic growth (approaching Absolute Solvency).
-Detainees will attend “re-adaptation exercises” to aid in proper brainpan function capacity. Frontal lobes and reproductive organs to be appropriated as deemed necessary by the Eugenicist General at quarterly review.

Re-adaptation Exercises to occur at the following dates and locations. Attendance is mandatory:

Wednesday, May 4, Bickett Gallery, 10 pm: Quisp
Featuring the tenor saxophoning, celloing and guitaring of John Randall Pelosi, the drumming of Nathan Logan and the bass clarinetting, alto saxophoning and guitaring of Crowmeat Bob.

Saturday, May 7, Kings Barcade, 10 pm: The Nein (CD release) with Audubon Park and Proof.
The Nein to include guest horn section on a couple of songs: Amy Wilkinson (clarinet), Carrie Shull (oboe) and myselv (bass clarinet, alto sax).

Tuesday, May 10, Wetlands Dancehall (formerly The Treehouse), Chapel Hill, 8 pm: SoundScape Dance Workshop
Improv dance workshop performance overseen by Alexis Mastromichalis and featuring a whole pile of musicians in different sections. Among them will be Chuck Johnson, Robert Biggers, Ethan Clauset, Boner Machine, Jay Murray and myselves.

Wednesday, May 11, Bickett Gallery, 10 pm: The Blue Rose Case
With compositions and arrangements by Chris Eubank (cello, bass) and Crowmeat Bob (g, bcl, as), Carrie Shull (oboe, english horn) and Dan Hall (d).

Friday, May 13, Jayzz, Raleigh, 10:00: Odd International
Parrish Anderson (keys, as); Mike Isenberg (d); Christopher Thurston (basses); DJ Kraze (vinyl, sample); myselves (g, as, bcl).
And last time we did this Jayzz thing this insanely ass-whuppin guy from out of town joined us on tenor sax for a few numbers. He was travelling with some lame-ass musical and looking for the real action. We broke the joint wide open. You missed it.

Wednesday, May 25, Bickett Gallery, 9:30 (special time): Another insanely special Wednesday event featuring touring musicians in two sets of music.
1st set:
Katsuyuki Itakura - piano (Japan) http://www.j-music.com/itakura/
Michael Thomas Jackson (Winston-Salem) http://www.microearth.com/jackson/
Bruce Eisenbeil - guitar (NYC) http://www.eisenbeil.com/
Brian Osborne - percussion (NYC) http://www.heatretentionrecords.com/HRR%20brian2.asp

2nd set: pulsoptional + crowmeat bob
You of course know pulsoptional as the Durham composers’ collective consisting primarily of Duke music grads. We will be improvising together.
Jennifer Fitzgerald - piano
marc faris - electric guitar
John Mayrose - classical guitar, electric bass
Tom Limbert - percussion
Todd Hershberger - bassoon, alto sax
Carrie Shull - oboe, english horn
myself - alto sax, bass clarinet, trombone

Special thanks due to all those detained at His Chief Executive Officer’s Pleasure.

The Ventriloquizer DL
Minister of People’s Enlightenment and Perception Management
Retroactive Dynamics, Inc. (an affiliate of the Thomas Carlyle Group)
“Free to work, work to free.”

apologies to Firesign Theater and Terry Southern.