6.27.2011

A Brief Look Forward - EDITED

(someone who proofreads a lot better than I do mentioned that it looked from the previous post as though Dr. Caterwaul's was breaking up. this is definitely not the case.)

As July has basically snuck up on me, here is a brief rundown of the gigs I’ve got coming up in the next week weeks.

July 1st – this Friday the month begins with a proper Dr. Caterwaul’s quartet show at the Acoustic CafĂ© in Bridgeport. We’re sharing the bill with Dada Mr. and the Diana Wayburn Ensemble. – things get going at 9 PM.

July 2nd is a Dr. Caterwaul’s trio gig at the Outer Space – Mike won’t be joining us as his reggae band, I Anbassa, will be opening for Steel Pulse at Toad’s Place in New Haven. Not to put too many thoughts into your heads, but you can totally make both sets without incurring a reckless endangerment charge. Due to various reasons this will be the last official Dr. Caterwaul’s show until mid August, although look to your local farmer's markets and street corners for a bit of busking between now and then. Some of us for certain will be around July 9th at the Wooster Square Farmer's Market, and more of us will be around July 17th at the Edgewood Farmer's Market. Should be grand.

July 3rd will be a new thing entirely for me. I am sitting in for this date with the Afro Semitic Experience, the group co-led by David Chevan and Warren Byrd that culls from spiritual music of both Jewish and African American Gospel traditions, throwing in a healthy bit of jazz. This will be a somewhat rare gig for me playing straight ahead jazz, but filling in for a pianist in this context is going to be fun and challenging. The other date is July 27th, in Hadley, MA, with details forthcoming.

July 9th – I’m pleased to be playing in a small ensemble put together by guitarist Ben Shirley for his Uncertainty Series date for the month of July. The ensemble comprises, at various points, myself on accordion, Carl Testa on Bass, Anne Rhodes on voice, and Nathan Bontrager on Cello as well as Ben on Guitar – Ben will also be performing duets with each of us as part of his presentation. Ben is a person I have enjoyed playing with immensely in every context thus far and his pieces make the most of the guitarist-perspective that I find can very nicely inform harmonic language, and can make harmonic progressions that are idiomatic to approach on other instruments.

July 14th is looking to be a solo An Historic gig at the New Haven Free Store – all proceeds raised will go to benefit the New Haven Bike Collective, which has had a strange history in the city but now is finally at a point where its existence will enable low-income folks to build and repair bicycles, which I am always in support of.

The rest of the month is forthcoming, and in many cases, not even fully pinned down yet. More to come!

6.16.2011

Buzz Generator

I'm getting strangely excited for this new An Historic Album, even though several details about it still remain undetermined. The grand plan remains to utilize Kickstarter to fund the recording and release of the album, and things are slowly falling into place - with every opportunity, I try and entice the rest of Dr. Caterwaul's into playing some of my tunes to try and align my vision for a final arrangement with the very alluring musicality of this group, and to that end, here are a few rough demonstrations - two tracks from the upcoming album as realized live at Lyric Hall during the last Dr. Caterwaul's concert.
Ice All Melting:
An Historic - Ice All Melting by gzarapanecko

Coffee Mouse:
An Historic - Coffee Mouse by gzarapanecko

The turnout of these, with minimal rehearsal and direction, is still quite satisfying and I'm very excited to get to work on the rest of the material. Part of the kickstarter rewards will include handmade CD copies of a Bonus EP (that I have literally JUST NOW finished recording) with an exclusive track not to be found anywhere else, and a live recording of some of my earlier songs being fleshed out and re-done with the help of various members of Dr. Caterwaul's, sometimes all at once. Stay tuned for all details, previews, etc.

Dr. Caterwaul's will be performing next week in New Haven, Thursday, June 23rd, as part of the Cirque du Papier, the New Haven Advocate's carnival/burlesque themed event as part of this year's Ideat Village festival. So far we know we're performing one set at 7:15, and possibly another later in the evening. Those coming out to bask in the stern visage of Brian Slattery should note that he'll be absent this performance, leaving me, Nathan and Mike to try and work a few new tunes in with our existing repertoire. (We'll be trying the above-posted An Historic Tunes on as a trio as well).
Later in the summer we're cooking up a Mini-tour with Spiff Wiegand's One Man Band, a multitasker's dream come true in which Spiff sings, plays rhythm, percussion and an occasional lead instrument without breaking a sweat. We're thrilled to be planning this - dates include Philly, NYC, New Haven, CT and Western Mass, with details TBA. Stay tuned, indeed.

Finally, Broadcloth has one more show before a summer vacation of sorts. We play June 24th at Cafe Orwell as part of a cello-themed night of experimental music, and we're super stoked for this. Our show with Prehistoric Horse was quite lovely in New Haven, and we're glad to be sharing a bill with them again - other performers include Hughs Vincent and Silver Process. We'll pretty much only be coming together as a group over the summer to try and finish up our impending debut release. In the mean time, check out http://music.broadclothtrio.com for the full audio of our Big Room show.

That's it for now.

6.13.2011

Recent An Historic stuff:

Since I haven't been doing a great job of juggling all the different outlets, facebook pages, blogs, etc too well, here is all of the most recent video and audio I've produced.

first, two of the most recent solo songs.

Soft as Snow:


Ice all Melting:


and finally a rough mix from the upcoming companion EP to the full length album that I will be trying to Kickstart soon:
An Historic - 2012 (unmixed) by gzarapanecko

Coming soon will be two renditions of An Historic songs by Dr. Caterwaul's (at our recent set with Tyler Bussey at Lyric Hall), and a proper update.

6.05.2011

a heaping plate

It has been awhile since I updated this blog but the time has been well spent. Broadcloth has played 4 shows in the last 2 weeks and we have two more on the horizon – highlights of this recent string of shows included playing amplified for the first time and collaborating and improvising with folks none of us have ever played with, including Jim Hobbs and Junko Fujiwara Simons in Cambridge at Outpost 186, the duo Architeuthis Walks on Land at IBeam and Edward Schneider and Constance Cooper at The Home Of… in Gowanus. These experiences were challenging and quite rewarding, as to my ears it helps us both expand our identity as a group as well as helps to define it more clearly when interacting with other players, instruments and approaches to improvisation. Expect assorted audio as well as the free/donation basis Big Room show at http://broadclothtrio.com in the next few weeks.

I played a few An Historic shows recently, finally got a handle for the new songs that I wrote over the course of the winter, and it seems as though the new album, Small Mercies, will be shaping up soon. There is a Kickstarter campaign that I am in the process of putting together, which will feature some handmade editions of upcoming promotional material I’m recording – a promo EP featuring alternate arrangements of songs that will be on the album as well as some other unreleased items. And at a recent Dr. Caterwaul’s gig we tried out a few of my more recent tunes in what were pretty invigorating arrangements, which makes me quite excited to pin them down and record them hopefully before the year is out. Dr. Caterwaul’s will be briefly on hiatus until July, although expect some of us to be out busking and trying to keep the spirit alive as we can during the rest of June. Stay tuned for info on that once I have done some more of the groundwork.

G. Zarapanecko is still experiencing some active splintering. I’ve been experimenting on utilizing black metal texture and tonality on synths toward some future recording goals, and in the meantime have been utilizing these works as the basis for some new small and large group compositions, trying to see in those pieces a potential for extreme fluidity that I think could really be beneficial. To that end I’ll be working in some capacity with Carl Testa, reviving our duo from last summer with some new motivations and goals in mind. Other permutations to be announced.

Finally, I’m working toward some manner of solo set for the Uncertainty Music series in August. Details to come but I am trying to make something cohesive out of the past 2+ years of miscellaneous composition and sketches. Expect details on everything soon!