Vacation, August 2011…

Currently I’m in Cottage Grove, Oregon trying to write some new music for my Ockodektet concert in November and working on some Max/MSP/Jitter projects. On the way out of town, I participated in a concert at Alex Cline and Will Salmon’s wonderful Open Gate Theater at the Eagle Rock Center for the Arts. The first group was the (acoustic!) trio of myself, Michael Vlatkovich and Tom McNalley, second up was Andrew Pask’s rocking quartet with Wayne Peet, Steuart Liebig and Alex Cline. That night I began my drive up to Oregon, accompanied by a thermos of pu-erh and three of my dear friends: Arturo Fuente Hemingway, Oliva Serie V and La Gloria Cubana. (I also had a San Lotano, awful.)Upon arriving, I received some good news: the score for my Alchemical Mass was accepted into an art show on experimental music notation at the Royal Nonesuch Gallery in Oakland, CA and I received the newest addition to my electro-acoustic rig: the Softstep, from Keth McMillan Instruments. More on both of these in posts to come.

After a few days here, I was treated to a lovely show at the Jazz Station in Eugene, featuring the duos of Jeff Young and Paul Pinto, and Lucio Menegon and Sabrina Siegel. Ted Killian then joined me here for a few days and while discussing Max/Msp and Jitter we feasted on many of the vegan offerings in Eugene at Morning Glory Cafe, Pizza Research Institute, the Cornbread Cafe, while remaining caffeinated by The Wandering Goat, and also attended a noise concert at the New Zone Art Gallery featuring many of my friends here in town….