10.22.2009

Hey wow I'm busy...

Busy both in brain and body.

Had a great debut gig as An Historic, despite my nerves. The crowd was fun and willing to sing along. I'll be doing another one in early November at the Elm City Infoshop - details forthcoming. In the past week I've also written almost four complete songs (with certain details still nebulous), which is really fast for me. I've even made it through the stage where I hate them and then revise many of them extensively until they meet my satisfaction. Who knows how they'll sound when they turn out?

Also, yesterday morning was the first meeting of an acoustic sub-grouping of the New Haven Improvisers Collective. We had Nathan Bontrager playing cello, Gabriel Bolanos playing acoustic guitar, Anne Rhodes singing, Nate Trier playing accordion and Euphonium, and myself playing accordion and clarinet. Everybody responded well to the thought and we hope to do it again sometime - the lack of drums or electric guitars meant that we had to rely on different strengths than what work in the NHIC at large, and it's definitely going to be some interesting exploring.

Fiddler on the Roof approaches, and damned if I'm not a little nervous...

Finally, I've been thinking a bit about revisions...I like the whole Kerouac idea of "imagine it better and move on," in terms of a creative output, but I'm also a little too neurotic to just learn from my mistakes and not revisit the piece itself. Currently I've begun radically restructuring a lot of drafts of compositions that never made the light of day, like the septet version of "Devil Horn Man" as well as "Smiling, Laughing and Taking Pictures," among others. There are several more fragments and fallacies from my early years that I've been wanting to re-compose, in a sense, almost as though I'm my own arranger. But I realize that after a point that can make you stagnant, and can be an easy way out rather than challenging yourself for new ideas...if anybody has any thoughts about this, I'd love to hear them.

10.09.2009

An Historic Debut set and "My Czerny"

On October 16th at the Fucking Discovery Zone in New Haven, An Historic will play a debut solo set, alongside Bookslave, Wingnut Dishwashers Union, Todi Stronghands and Starla! Ubiquitous, in an all acoustic show. The doors open at 6:30 and there is a vegan potluck - bring cash for acts touring from as far away as Canada. If you need the address, the internet will tell you.

For the occasion, I hunkered down and finished up the oft-discussed demo "My Czerny." A limited run of handmade physical CDs will be available at the show, and the music will be up on my bandcamp page in the next few days:
http://gzarapanecko.bandcamp.com

After this performance I'll be disappearing into my hermit hole to practice the hell out of the Fiddler on the Roof score which is crazy hard, except to play with the Erasmus Quintet on November 7th at Firehouse 12. I'm also hoping to get together with some acoustic NHICers for somewhat different strain of improv, though details are quite nebulous at best.

Hooray!!!

Creative Commons License
My Czerny by An Historic is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at gzarapanecko.bandcamp.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://myspace.com/adammatlock.

10.01.2009

Two upcoming Gigs and Bandcamp!

On October 16th An Historic will be playing a solo set at a folk-punk show at the Fucking Discovery Zone in New Haven, CT. Other performers and time TBA.

On November 7th I'll be playing with The Erasmus Quintet as part of a back-to-back doubleheader showcasing two New Haven Improvisers Collective groups. I'll be playing the first set, which starts at 8:30 PM. The Mayhem Circus Electric, (which had a debut performance as an open jam during this year's Ideat Village festival) will be playing the second set, at 10 PM. Info and tickets at: http://firehouse12.com/events.asp?id=70911&seriesid=54271

(Earlier that week, look in the NY Times for an article about the NHIC, due to be published on November 1st.)

Additionally, I'll be playing Accordion in the pit orchestra of Sacred Heart Academy's (Hamden) production of Fiddler on the Roof on November 13th, 14th at 7:30 and November 15th at 2:00. It'll be a high-school production but this is a Catholic academy with a significant arts budget, so who knows?

Finally, you can listen to the entire debut album from G. Zarapanecko streaming (and pay to download) at my new Bandcamp page, here: http://gzarapanecko.bandcamp.com/
I didn't realize how this site was setup, so despite the focus suggested in the url, this will probably be the Bandcamp home for all of my projects, unless I get suddenly quite OCD about setting up multiple pages...