STRiNGS & THiNGS Show: “On our series called “First Axe” we ask members of #TiltedAxes to tell us their electric guitar origin stories. This time we’re talking to Howie Kenty, who’s a faculty member at Kaufman Music Center, where he teaches music tech, composition, and theory. But his early guitar days were marked by the sounds of grunge, cassette recordings and questionable taste in stage-wear.”
NEW SHOW — STRiNGS & THiNGS: “This time, on our series called “First Axe” – stories about first guitars – we’ll hear from the founder of Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars. That’s composer, performer and producer Patrick Grant. He’ll take us back to his teen years in Detroit for the brief but noisy life of his first department store axe.” https://www.stringsandthingsshow.com/
Listen HERE: https://www.stringsandthingsshow.com/?p=7323 or where anywhere you find quality podcasts.
We’re back to bring you some new stories from the Tilted Axes circle of musicians. If you don’t know, Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars is an orchestra of guitarists and percussionists led by composer/performer Patrick Grant. They perform original music with mini-amps strapped over their shoulders, moving through public spaces in museums, parks and city streets. Its roster of musicians can change from performance to performance, city to city. And you’re going to meet one of them right now in this series of episodes called “First Axe” – stories about first guitars.
Elisa Corona Aguilar is a writer, translator, composer and guitarist from Mexico City. As a kid, she felt left out when her brother got a guitar and she didn’t. In this episode, she tell us how she finally got her own instrument, and how it still influences the music she makes today.
Elisa has won several literary prizes and her most recent book is Doctor Vertigo and the Temptations of Imbalance and she’s translated Mingus & Mingus, the autobiography of Sue Graham Mingus and her life with Charles Mingus in Mexico. She’s been a member of Robert Fripp and the Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists, Music for Contemplation, the Contemporary Guitar Ensemble, Música y Letras at El Taller Latinoamericano de Nueva York, Tilted Axes: Music For Mobile Electric Guitars and the guitar duet Doble vida. She has a solo project called Sierpe and Other Stories, a series of compositions with electric guitar, loop, iPhone, music box, poetry and spoken word in different languages. She’s pursuing her PhD in music (NYU) and is a member of the prestigious National Endowment for Art Creators of Mexico (SNCA).
NEW PODCAST — Creative Confidential w/ Jude Kampfner — Episode 7: Patrick Grant – Exploring Music as Ritual and Spectacle.
ATTN: SPUDS!!! On this episode of “You, Me, and An Album” PG discusses Devo‘s 1978 Warner Bros. debut “Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!” with host Al Melchior. #ShrivelUp
LISTEN HERE: https://apple.co/3tSDxXI
“In the past this information has been suppressed, but now it can be told! Every man, woman and mutant on this planet shall know the truth about De-Evolution!”
A number of the new participants in our upcoming (and fully enrolled) Remote Recording Workshops said to me, “Thank you for doing this!” but I feel that these thanks are misplaced. The only thanks that should be given are to the supporters and producing partners of Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars that enable these courses to be given FREE of charge. The aim is to educate our artistic community so that more of us can create original audio of all kinds: music, spoken word, sound design, etc. and share it in new projects. It is for that that I am the one saying, “No, thank YOU for your support! None of this would be possible without the great community we foster together.” – Patrick Grant
To find out more go to: https://bit.ly/3qFNMx7
Composer/producer Patrick Grant / sTRANGE Music contributed distinctive musical mixes to this week’s episode of Studio 360 with tracks performed by ROOMFUL OF TEETH. This episode includes musical selections composed by Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw, Rinde Eckert, and more. Listen online, download as podcast, or find it on a public radio station near you.
Roomful of Teeth is a cutting-edge, eight-person vocal ensemble that commissions and performs music of all sorts of genres and techniques from all over the world. They’ve studied yodeling, Tuvan throat singing, Sardinian cantu a tenore, Korean pansori, etc.
“We study with masters from these other singing traditions and get some degree of comfort and flexibility from those interactions,” explains founder and director Brad Wells. “And then the commissioned composers observe that process, hear what the singers are capable of and then explore, ‘Given these possibilities what might I create?’”
Episode: https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-08-02/roomful-teeth-around-world-eight-voices
Studio360: https://www.pri.org/programs/studio-360
“The NYC-based composer and performer Patrick Grant has had a long and gleaming career that continues on with his newest release, A Sequence of Waves (Twelve Stories and a Dream). The album is a refined collection of genre-bending and experimental tracks that many critics struggle to pin down. Stumbling into post-minimalism, modern classical, prog rock, and post-rock territory, the album wears many masks. And for good reason, given Grant’s accomplished background.”
Read the interview in It’s Psychedelic Magazine Baby HERE
On this episode of Strings and Things, Angela Babin drops by to work on a Melody Maker that hasn’t been out and about in years, while our host Patrick Grant restrings his studio-weary Les Paul. They’ll swap stories about the weirdest gigs they’ve played in New York City, and talk about how numbers and math inspire Angela’s current compositions. Then they’ll amp up for a special Strings and Things duet.
Since picking up the electric guitar at 14 years old, over the years Angela’s performed in a wide range of venues, from Folk City and CBGBs, to BAM and the Berlin Jazz Festival. She entered the downtown New York music scene with the band Off Beach, and played guitar in the nine-piece experimental rock group The Ordinaires. The Ordinaires were compared to Philip Glass, Captain Beefheart, Henry Mancini, Husker Du and Stravinsky – all at the same time! You may remember their cover of “Kashmir” was all over MTV at the time:
Angela performed with Homer Erotic, founded by poets Maggie Dubris and Barbara Barg, as well as the groups Alpha Cat, Inviolate, The Raging Hormones, and The Blacklite Orchestra. She’s currently playing guitar with the blues-based Gotham Roots Orchestra, formed by composer/producer Cristian Amigo.
– photo by Marc Latrique
There’s a great blog post on the Prepared Guitar website where you can find out much more about Angela Babin and her work. Check it out!
On this episode of Strings and Things, we have the prolific composer/guitarist Nick Didkovsky, founder of the rock ensemble Doctor Nerve, and an agent of destruction in the grindcore outfit Vomit Fist.
While changing the strings on his B.C. Rich Stealth guitar, he tells our host, Patrick Grant, how he uses the programming language HMSL to compose music, and explains the virtues of his single humbucker pickup. Then Nick and Patrick plug into some Vox Amps for an electrifying duet.
Listen to an extended version of “Episode 4 Petromyzontiformes”, the piece featured at the end of the episode:
BONUS! Listen to Nick’s brief demo of the Stealth guitar:
Nick also plays with the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet and composed music for the Bang On A Can All-Stars, Meridian Arts Ensemble, ETHEL, and others. He’s a co-founder of the $100 Guitar Project with Chuck O’Meara. Find out more about Nick and his many musical projects at didkovsky.com.
The MMiXdown 