…life under hylaster

 

Simultaneous Worldwide Event in Support of Gaza
Oakland, California (usa)

http://giss.tv/wiki/index.php/20th_of_January_:_They%27ve_got_a_bomb

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Monday, Jan 19th, 2009 | 8PM | $10-and up donation
no one turned away for lack of funds
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Porest -debut of porest group
Liz Allbee -solo
Johnson, Phillips & Glenn -trio in concert
Mark Gergis (Sublime Frequencies) DJ setting
-spinning uncommon musics from the Middle East
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LIVE at the Totally Intense Fractal Mindgaze Hut
671 24th Street, Apt B, Oakland, CA 94612 www.myspace.com/totallyintense
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www.porest.com | myspace.com/myspaceporest
lizallbee.net

This is part of “They’ve got a Bomb”, a coordinated simultaneous concert/event taking place in several cities around the world : Beirut, Paris, Lisbon, Chicago, Lund, Gävle, Barcelona, Stockholm, Nazareth, Valparaiso (Chile), Chicago, Oakland and Los Angeles.

This is a benefit for the people of Gaza, Palestine –currently under brutal siege by Israel.
All money will be donated to Gaza via the Red Cross.

Here’s the brief story about how and why this is happening.

Dirar Kalash is a young Palestinian musician and artist living in Haifa.
He operates autonomously and is pretty much the only Palestinian guy doing music of this variety over there. Porest met Dirar Kalash through the internet a while back. He is mutual friends with Lebanese musicians and Porest / Liz Allbee
cohorts Mazen Kerbaj, Raed Yassin and Sharif Sehnoui.

Dirar and Sharif contacted Porest last week about their idea to hold this worldwide event on Jan 20. We know that our music won’t really rake in the bucks, but ultimately, this is also a symbolic event.

Upon searching for a venue to host the event on such short notice, (many thanks to Ben Bracken for helping make this happen at the Mindgaze Hut) we discovered that holding it on Jan 20th would be problematic, as there is much musical competition in the Bay Area that night- and also much anticipated revelry as many Americans celebrate their new president.

In the end, it made more sense to host it on the 19th. After all, it will be January 20th
in Palestine while the event is in progress.

‘They’ve Got A Bomb’ is an occasion for showing our support to victims of massive and blind bombing on Gaza, and also against the experimentation of new american weapons over disarmed populations. The new nickname of the bomb is DIME : [DIME] ( see the following site for info): http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=5648

For information regarding the Gaza situation, please visit
livestation.com (download their player and watch Al Jazeera English or Press TV for decent news)
and
http://electronicintifada.net/

A great article by Robert Fisk on the current crisis is here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-do-they-hate-the-west-so-much-we-will-ask-1230046.html

also
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6604775898578139565
to watch the film: “Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the
Israel-Palestine Conflict”

Filed by chuck j at 2:02 pm under events
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My friend and former Mills colleague Philip White has just released a slew of works recorded during his last few weeks at Mills in the spring of 2008. I am lucky enough to be on one of the releases, as one half of the project we call with chuck johnson with philip white. Philip and I share a fondness for sounds created by chaotic analog systems. Here is Philip’s description:

with chuck johnson with philip white is the collaborative effort of two
electronic musicians performing on homemade or otherwise hacked
electronics. After co-founding Charleston’s New Music Collective, White
met Johnson, a fellow native southerner, in Oakland, California. The two
soon developed a common interest in building and performing on erratic
electronic equipment. With a sound owing as much to John Cage as it does
Merzbow, with chuck johnson with philip white straddle experimental and
noise musics with forceful and visceral performances.

There are several options for buying the music here.

Philip’s solo work and recordings with the duo project he has with Suzanne Thorpe called thenumber46 are also highly recommended and can be purchased here.

Speaking of Suzanne…. She and I have an electroacoustic drone duo we call D2 Affinity and we are opening for My Bloody Valentine (!!) at the Concourse in San Francisco on Sept 30. Spectrum is on the bill as well. I think there are still tickets available via Ticketmaster or some such godawful thing.

Filed by chuck j at 12:55 am under events, self-promotion
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TONIGHT Saturday Dec 29 - Mahasamatman (me, Chris Eubank, Shannon Morrow) have been added last-minute to the Nightlight benefit show lineup. Des Ark and Max Indian are playing too.

NEXT SATURDAY Jan 5 - Pykrete (plus Robert Biggers ) along with Phil Blank, Dom Flemons and lots more:

And while I’m self-promoting, I should mention a couple of upcoming shows in New York:

January 7 - Suzanne Thorpe, Betsey Biggs, Ayako Kataoka, Chuck Johnson (flute, steel guitar, electronics, video) - ParisLondonWestNile at 285 Kent Ave, in Williamsburg.

January 11 - Pauline Oliveros and Miya Masaoka with CC Three (Oliveros, Suzanne Thorpe, Chuck Johnson) - Renee Weiler Concert Hall at 46 Barrow St in Manhattan.

Filed by chuck j at 12:32 pm under events, self-promotion
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Filed by chuck j at 2:45 pm under events, self-promotion
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At 8:04PM tonight I had just sat down with dinner when I heard what sounded like a large truck speeding by outside and then everything started shaking. My first thought was that wind caused by the “truck” was blowing the building around, but I quickly realized that it was, in fact, my first earthquake. Twenty minutes later I am still feeling a little shaky. Apparently this one was centered near Alum Rock between the East and South Bay areas on the Calaveras fault.

According to local news 5.6 magnitude is one of the bigger ones experienced around here in a few years, but it is still considered to be on the high end of the “moderate” range. Nothing fell or broke in my apartment, but everything was definitely wobbling and the floor seemed to turn to mush for a few seconds. It was an eerie feeling and made me realize that I have no idea what to do in a quake. As I type this the local news is pointing out that a moderate Alum Rock quake was a lead-up to the “Big One” in 1989. Great….

This weekend I have two concerts with Pauline Oliveros. Friday night I’m playing at the Sacramento State Festival of New American music. Pauline is the featured composer at the festival this year and Friday night is a program of her music. I’m playing on a piece called “Red Shifts,” for trombone solo (Monique Buzzarté) and four analog oscillators (me and some fellow Mills grad students.) Then on Saturday I’m playing a short improvised set with Pauline and fellow Mills student Suzanne Thorpe at Oakland’s Chapel of the Chimes.

Filed by chuck j at 10:52 pm under events, self-promotion
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