Poliziotteschi

Many exciting things are happening in the Glowing Realm these days, one of which is the start of our next recording project. My love of genre movies has led me to start researching and writing tunes inspired by the Italian Poliziotteschi movies of the late 60′s through the 70′s. These are tough crime films, usually involving the mafia and a cop pushed over the edge, and vengeance always figures in there somewhere. All of these movies that I’ve seen so far have been a lot of fun, but also inspiring in a weird way. They are little seen, and not championed that much. In fact the only outspoken champion of the genre that I know of is Quentin Tarantino. Hell, he even remade re-imagined a movie by one of this genre’s masters Enzo G. Castellari. In an effort to spread the wealth, I will be writing about some of these films, and of course writing tunes as well. My goal is to get this project done quickly, in keeping with the spirit of the genre, and get this record to you people in due time.

To give you an idea for how sweet this genre is, and how big of an effect it’s had on Tarantino, here’s the opening to Sergio Sollima‘s 1973 classic Revolver featuring a song from Inglourious Basterds over a scene from Reservoir Dogs!

Revolver Intro on YouTube!

Stuff that Lives

This is a response to the recent debate started earlier this month by Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal. Patrick Jarenwattananon at NPR’s A Blog Supreme has a great link list of reactions. This debate has angered me, but I realize what a waste of time it is for a musician to respond, so I had to limit myself to the Twitters!

Tour Success!

We just got back from a 5 day, 4 show tour that went amazingly well. This was our first time out, and while the money was not overflowing, we had a lot of fun playing and learning. I’ll go through a brief description of each shows for the true believers.

June 10-Live Set for WFMU’s Long Rally, NJ

We were in terrible traffic all day, but somehow managed to arrive at New Jersey’s WFMU with plenty of time to set up and play before our live set. We were a little stressed from the long drive, but Long Rally’s host Scott McDowell immediately put our minds at ease, and we were able to unwind and relax in the studio. We played Through a Glass Darkly, a John Carpenter mashup, and The Silence, and everything was captured crystal clear by Sean Austin, who engineered the session. A short interview and some beers made for a great first show. Hopefully we will be back sooner than later!

The whole set can be downloaded at the Free Music Archive here:

Glows Set at WFMU

and you can stream the whole show from the Long Rally Archive

June 11 Pianos in NY

We were scheduled to play at midnight, and at the last minute were bumped up to 11pm. This show was the only one that I was unsure of, because I kept getting the run around from everyone I talked to at the club. We weren’t listed on their schedule until the day of the show, and we were to play a set right after Ninjasonik-a hip hop dance group. We arrived to see a packed house of 60+ with the band pumping loud tunes in the box that is the downstairs stage at Pianos. The music was great, but we could tell that it would be tough to keep the crowd around with our music. The extremely jerky sound guy rushed us on stage, and kept giving us shit for not having a singer. He literally couldn’t believe that a band could exist without a singer on ANY songs. We proceeded to play our asses off, and scare all but 10-15 people away. The people that stuck around really enjoyed it, and I had some great conversations after, but that was not the right lineup for us. Maybe next time? Some recordings from our engineer/roadie Reggie Chapman should be up soon.

June 13 Uncertainty Music Series, New Haven, CT

This show went great, and was definitely the highlight of the tour. The Uncertainty Music Series, run by composer/bassist Carl Testa highlights improvisers from the area and gives them a great space to play in (at Never Ending Books). We played two short sets that felt strong to an appreciative crowd of locals. Chapman also got some great recordings that we will be mixing up for a possible release! Check out the Uncertainty Music website for more info, and interviews with the performers (including us). Also check out Carl’s music. He gave me a CD and it’s great!

June 14 RVA Band Day at Artomatic, Washington DC

Once again, traffic stressed us out, but we managed to make it to the show in time for our bassist Cameron to play with the first band of the day: Magrelos. Artomatic was a 9 story industrial building featuring much much art. On the first floor, there was a warehouse space for the music and the sound was rough. We worked our way through it and ended up having a pretty solid set. Met Patrick from NPR’s “A Blog Supreme” and our friend Dean from RVAJazz was there to cover the whole thing (including pictures). Go to his article for a more detailed account of the evening.

MAY 22!!!!

We’ve been looking forward to this show for a while, and this Friday it’s finally happening! Fight the Big Bull, Glows with Matana Roberts sitting in, and Matana Roberts solo with video projection! I’ll put the poster below, and it will stay here until after the show. I hope to see everyone out at MUSE. It’s gonna be sweet!

Also, to find out more about the bands and the venue, head over to RVAJazz and check out the “Featured Gig” section.

Finally, this show would not be possible without some very generous local sponsors, which you can find by clicking on their links to the right. Richmond Jazz Society, Ipanema, RVAJazz, and RVANews rule hard!

John Carpenter: The Music The Cues

So in preparing this music, I wanted to make sure that I covered mostly early stuff by John Carpenter.  I like the music that he made all by himself in his den of electronic instruments the most.  I also had to have multiple cues from Halloween, because this is all based around said holiday, and I love that song.  At the same time, I wanted the music to not only be creepy, but to be able to function as material we would normally play.  Here are the movies and cues we are using from them:

Some cues have been combined.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Main Theme
Targets
The Windows

Halloween (1978)
Halloween Theme
Halloween 1963
Halloween 1978
The Shape Stalks Laurie

The Fog (1980)
Opening
Number 5

Escape from New York (1981)
Across the Roof
Main Title
The President is Gone
69th Street Bridge

Halloween 3 (1982)
Main Title

The best part about this music is the open ended quality of it, and that gave great flexibility for arranging, and putting together some form of a narrative.  I’m really excited about the shows and to see the reaction(s).

Carpenter fans might wonder why I didn’t include The Thing.  Besides being probably my favorite Carpenter movie, The Thing also has a soundtrack by probably my favorite film composer Ennio Morricone…not Carpenter.  That said, it is notable that Morricone uses a synth on the soundtrack (arguably the first time he did that), so it sounds Carpenter-ish in a way.

John Carpenter Project

I’ve started focusing on our material for shows at the end of Oct. and early Nov.  I stated back a piece that we would be covering songs written by Horror Director John Carpenter, and now I am in the process of figuring out how that will happen.  I’ve always liked the man’s music because, like his films, it is simple yet effective.  His soundtrack for Halloween still ranks as one of the greats, and pretty much makes your skin crawl even without the film to go with it.  In the brainstorming process, I’ve been thinking of ways to make the music work in a longer format–so that we’re not just playing 1 minute film cues–and I’ve decided to pick my favorite cues from a number of his films, and mix them up so that they may be played in any order and still tell a story.

I started on this line of thinking a few years ago in a group called Free Breaks Trio with Scott Clark and Tom Skjei.  In that group we had originals and breakbeats and the challenge was getting from one tune to the next with no stopping, and with much improv.  It worked great most of the time, going from originals through MF Doom and Madlib beats, and I’ve always wanted to bring that idea back in a larger group.

This was before I even started listening to Anthony Braxton.  He has been working with these open music systems for years now, and when I saw that live for the first time in ’06, it totally blew me away.  He was using visual cues, and total group participation to keep everyone on their toes.  While the notion of having a system for surprises is a little counter-intuitive, it can also be a lot of fun.  Seeing this performance really made me want to create that kind of vibe with my own band and music.  It’s a slow process, and really just takes working out within the band, but I’m excited by the possibilities.

The John Carpenter stuff works so well for this approach because so much of his music is written in small 2 or 4 bar chunks that are repeated.

Also, and this is great for guitar, almost everything’s in E or A!

After some thought on how to make this work, I compiled my five favorite scores of his, and took multiple cues from each one.  I then put them together in a tentative playlist (mix-tape style.)  I have ideas for combining many cues, but for the most part, I will be arranging them in a continuous format that jumps from film to film in a way that works musically.

Here are the films I’ll be drawing from:
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Halloween (1978)
The Fog (1980)
Escape from New York (1981)
Halloween 3 (1982)

In the next couple weeks, I’ll be posting about the films that the music comes from, and why I chose what I did.  The question of why I’m doing any of this in the first place is a different issue altogether.

This would not be possible without the internet, or bittorrent.

The Future of Music

For all interested parties, the future of music is currently being exhibited in the form of Kidz Eight Track over at RVANews. Kids writing great original and highly unpredictable music that is as challenging as it is rewarding. That sounds like a bold statement…until you hear Caleb the BitCrusher!

The logical progression from the Eight Track, which is an on-going competition between local bands, Kidz edition deals with younger students of music and the results of learning by creating.  It’s amazing how great this stuff is, and it’s even better when you compare it to the music of today (all genres.)  While these songs might not have the polish needed for the Disney Channel, they can arguably compete with some of experimental and pitchfork music’s finest.  Based on pure sound, some of the tracks would not be out of place on a Wire Magazine CD, yet they were created by kids under the age of 13.  I don’t say that as any kind of an insult, but as a compliment to the kids and to their brave curiosity.

Watch out for more great composers like Alec Tubbs and AJ Illustre in the next couple weeks!

Lost and Found

Several things are going on in Glows World these days. We LOST Jason Arce (rumor has it he is in NY teaching teachers) and we FOUND John Lilley (rumor has it that its true that he rules).  Jason and John are both great players with very different styles, so we’re excited to see the direction John’s approach will take us (it better be sweet or his ass is fired…jk).

Also FOUND:

On Myspace-A couple new songs from some recent recording we’ve been doing.
On YouTube-New Clips from our performance at B.S. Mitrick’s The Fest Oh 8.
On iTunes-Jason Arce’s debut album Simplicity.  You can find the album on iTunes with good ol’ search!

In other news:

I’m working on some music for director Lawrance Lee’s new short film The Lost Ones.  The film is about a man who loses his brother in a car crash and gets stuck on it, unable to deal with the loss and move forward.  For the project, I’ve assembled a non-lossy band that includes Glows’ Cameron Ralston, and Fight the Big Bull’s Pinson Chanselle and Matt White.  Engineering will be Andy Jenkins of The Great White Jenkins.

Epic Show on Tuesday

Just wanted to do something I’ve never really done on the front page before. I’d like to actually give you some information about our next show. That’s right, I’d like to actually tell you guys when and where you can see us in real life! We are really excited about a show coming up this Tuesday at The Camel.  These guys are from out-of-town and will have a lot of great merch, so come prepared to support!  Here is the official press information for this one:

Who: Aram Shelton’s Arrive with Glows in the Dark
When: Tuesday,  7/29 show starts at 8:30pm
Where: The Camel, 1621 W Broad St. (804) 353-4901
Cost: $5
Ages: ALL AGES!!!

Straight from Chicago’s fervent creative jazz scene comes saxophonist Aram Shelton’s group Arrive.  Brought to you by the one and only Glows in the Dark, who will be supporting them in this joint venture to the outer regions!  These guys don’t come around often, so catch them while they’re here.  The walls at The Camel are still shaking from the last time Tim Daisy was here with Ken Vandermark!

Also, for anyone interested in my random film thoughts, I should have some soon on the new wave of French Horror we’ve been seeing lately.

New Blog Feature: Ten Questions

In an effort to promote the cross-pollination of ideas among creative musicians (assuming that all musicians are bees), we will be bringing you good readers short ten question interviews with some of the best and brightest in the new music scene.  They will all be asked the same ten questions (with a few tweaks here and there), and the answers they give will most definitely inspire both humans and bees a like.  We’ve got some great musicians lined up and starting next week we’ll roll these things out to our loyal readers to enjoy in the privacy of their own browsers.  I can think of no better musician to start with than the great NY/Chicago composer/saxophonist Matana Roberts!  Hope you’ll join us…

Also, we just added a show on July 13 at Rumors (404 N. Harrison) where we will be dealing with some new material for a top-secret project involving our good friends the Venoms.  Hope to see Richmonders out there for us and Coald Toast with the great James Wallets.  Check the Shows page for more info.