I've been a longtime fan of Peter Hammill, whether in brooding and introspective songwriter mode or going for more ambitious and/or grim topics with Van Der Graaf Generator. His career has been a real treat to explore at a relatively slow pace, and provided some key inspiration for some of my first songs. While I don't like all his material equally (and it encompasses such a wide range that it would be difficult for anyone to accomplish that), at his best he can create a pretty immediate mood through his choices in vocal delivery and general phrasing. Bucking the expected trend of someone who's been recording for 40 years, he's made some of the best albums of his solo career in the last decade, and this tune is from one of them, Incoherence. My version takes equal grounding from the original recording as it does on the recording from his live album with violinist Stuart Gordon, Veracious.

New Performance Video and Video Tag

Below is the video from a live performance last weekend in Hadley, MA. It is the first recording of this song which has existed in more or less the same form since September of last year. I'm posting this to bring attention to the "video" label which will allow me to get away with the idea of not updating the videos page for awhile. Click through to find any video I've posted just in the main blog.

An Historic Live on 2.3.12

Don't ask me how it is I decided on the date. It was an arbitrary choice that seemed pleasing to my eyes when written out.


On 2.3.12, An Historic Live, the first ever public document of the trio I've been working with, will be released for P.W.Y.C. download!

The trio features Brian Slattery on Violin and Carl Testa on Bass Viol, and is an ideal grouping to work with in terms of tweaking the initial arrangements I've come up with for some of these tunes. In other cases, they're providing me with the chance to hear some of the tunes aloud as I've heard them all along in my head. It helps a great deal to have worked with Brian and Carl in various contexts before beginning to work with them on An Historic material, so I feel as though we are able to talk about arrangement details without over-discussing them, and making the arrangements too clinical. I am very pleased with the result, which is a complete live set from December 10th, 2011. The 7 tunes on this release span the entire An Historic songbook, from the earliest tunes to some yet-to-be-recorded ones.

Save the date, clear up some bandwidth in advance, whatever you gotta do! I will post samples and album art as the date approaches.

New An Historic video!

The first ever An Historic music video. I shot and edited the thing myself (no one who actually knows anything about "film" or "filming" should have to take "credit" for this). The song is called "Is it Warm," and the release of the video is in anticipation of the upcoming cassette EP, "Seicremllams," out this Spring. The release will also be available digitally. Stay tuned here for more details!

Also, shows this Wednesday and Friday. Check out the sidebar for more info.

Happy New Year!

An Historic Releases this year

Just to be clear (because I've referenced a few planned releases in the last several months):

I'm hoping to put out three releases as An Historic this year.

One will be a digital-only live album. It is a recording of the live set performed with the aid of Brian Slattery and Carl Testa at the December installment of the Uncertainy music series. I'm hoping to work more with this trio in the future.

One will be an EP, tentatively titled Seicremllams. This release contains 6 tunes, based around live single takes of accordion and voice with slight overdubs (vocal harmonies, clarinet, recorders, bowed cymbal). This release will have four stripped down arrangements of tunes that also exist in expanded form (either with the trio or performed with Dr. Caterwauls), as well as two tunes not heard anywhere else from a similar period of time. Hoping to release this on tape as well as digitally.

The last, hopefully, will be a full length, titled Small Mercies. There are ten tunes lined up for this set, all completed and fully arranged. As mentioned these will be more definitive versions of some of the tunes from the EP, as well as several tunes I've been playing live in various capacities for the last two years, which have been tweaked and refined by those experiences. The recording will also feature two tunes from the "Cutoff" split, also refined to fit the band sound.

This is plenty ambitious and all, but I have these tunes and more in the cue and it will be nice to launch some of them, so to speak, and clear the air for more. I have been working on a new series of piano-focused tunes and several new covers, and the momentum doesn't appear to be slowing. This year will also most likely see a self-made/shot/directed music video for one of the tunes from Seicremllams, if all goes well.

First things in the New Year

Here is a solo An Historic cover of Scott Matthew's "Language," as seen in Shortbus. I have wanted to cover this song for awhile but only a few days ago discovered a satisfying way to approach it. enjoy!




An Historic plays next in Hadley, MA on January 6th at Emmett Island (8 Pine Hill Rd) w/ Wood Spider, The Suitcase Junket, Asher (of Bella's Bartok). I'll be releasing a live album soon of the performance at the December Uncertainty Series - the second ever An Historic trio set, recorded in full by Lou Guarino. This set features tunes current and past, and I'm very pleased with the way Brian (Slattery, fiddle) and Carl (Testa, bass) have helped to realize these finicky compositions.

Dr. Caterwaul's hosts Wood Spider in New Haven on the first day of their winter tour. The show also features Tyler Bussey and Black is the Color (ex-Feral Flowers). Come out on Wednesday, January 4th to the coziest venue in New Haven, Neverending Books (810 State St)

Dr. Caterwauls appears again on January 14th at the Euphoria Salon in New Haven, doing a cabaret set with the Cygnet Sisters. The event is an opening for the art of Erin Jenkins. The opening is between 5-8PM and our set time is TBA.

Finally, I'll be participating in a Large ensemble project featuring a new composition by Barry Seroff and one by Nate Trier. The date is the 29th of January, at the Outer Space.

Take a look at the (finally updated) performance bar for some upcoming appearances January and beyond.

Another month and change has gone by without an update. I don't think the idea of keeping each project isolated by updates is actually going to work.

Coming up soon is two shows back to back with Dr. Caterwauls, first opening for the excellent David Wax Museum from the Boston area on November 30th. This show is free and at BAR in New Haven, a fine venue with homemade pizza and house-brewed beer selections. The following day, we return to the Outer Space (a favorite venue in New Haven) to open for touring songwriters Andru Bemis and Elizabeth Pixley-Fink. See the sidebar for more details.

The day after THAT I'm doing a solo set as An Historic at a house show, details for which will be forthcoming.

The day after THAT I'll be performing with Atlas, a subgrouping of the New Haven Improvisers Collective, at Firehouse 12, at 8:30. NHIC does an annual concert at Firehouse 12 which is a fantastic venue both for listening and performing, and this year will also include the debut of NHIC Electric. Again, more details on the sidebar.

December will slow down a bit after that opening burst. I'll be performing with the Yale Klezmer band on December 7th, and again with Dr. Caterwauls at the Acoustic Cafe in Bridgeport on the 22nd. Most of this month is devoted to working on a short opera that I've mentioned here before, as well as a pretty crucial grad school application.

More details as I get em.

An Historic - upcoming events

The first two tracks of the long-awaited "Cutoff" Split with Cud Eastbound are up for streaming HERE. I am very excited to see this get off my harddrive and out into the cyber-aether. The full release (including Cud's tracks) will be available for PWYC download by this weekend.

This release coincides with a minitour I'm conducting next week with Mountain Wasp (mountainwasp.tumblr.com). There are only three dates, due to various unfortunate and last minute circumstances:
-10/11 in New Haven, at The Outer Space. (10PM, Free show but donations for gas and whatnot greatly accepted.)
-10/13 in Northampton, MA, on top of the parking garage downtown. With Nicholas Francis and maybe +1 TBA? Email me for more details.
-10/15 in Portland, ME. This will be with musical sibling Jakob Battick, in what will be the last ever show of his Jakob Battick and Friends project, for which he's put together the "Bloodworm Orchestra" for something really epic and special. (8PM, Poland St, Portland, ME.)

Two other shows in New Haven to mention, post tour:

10/27, at Bru Cafe. I'll be doing a set in support of Nicholas Francis and Homebody, two awesome acts (and friends) on a tour from Northampton, MA. 7:00 PM

11/7, at Neverending Books, in support of Mal Blum and Zoe Boekbinder. Circle Circle and an acoustic version of Proud Flesh will be playing. I am especially excited for this date as I will be joined by Brian Slattery on fiddle and Carl Testa on upright bass, which will be the first time I've performed a full set of An Historic material with something resembling a band. 7:30. This'll be a barn burner.

The possibility of scheduling a recording has ended up being a hassle, and thus will be postponed until early next year. I am still hoping to draw in the rest of Dr. Caterwaul's after some woodshedding, and there will still be a kickstarter campaign to fund its recording and release, although probably not on vinyl as originally expected. Details for that are still stewing, and I hope to release them soon.

New An Historic Videos

Birthquake Records head honcho Max was at the last two An Historic shows and got some nice video. You can check them all out HERE but here are a few of my favorites:

Stitched Together/Duke Barbatos


Hindsight


Briefest Eye



Thanks Max!

Upcoming Events

First off, two exciting bits of news:

I had a proposal for a short opera accepted by the Baltimore based company Rhymes With Opera, to be performed in the summer of 2012. I'm excited to announce that the libretto will be written by Brian Slattery, who seems to get himself stuck on the same narrative questions I do, which has made for some intriguing conversations about the plot and structure of the piece. More details on that as they emerge.

I will also, next February, be working on a trio composed by Terran Olsen of the bands Kayo Dot and Autumn Tears. I have frequently enjoyed the chance to work with composers (as in my own composition) the possibility of integrating the accordion into an ensemble, and this will allow me to continue that to some degree. Terran will also be playing clarinet for the piece and Toby Driver, Terran's bandmate and the composer for Kayo Dot will play bass guitar.

Then, some upcoming shows -

I'm very excited to play with Dr. Caterwaul's twice before our mini-tour begins - once tonight, on the New Haven Register's "Register Sessions" at 6:00PM tonight (http://www.newhavenregister.com), and once tomorrow at Cafe Nine in New Haven, opening for the Fishtank Ensemble at 9:00 PM. Our mini-tour begins either in Philly on Thursday or New York on Friday, depending on a few factors. Look here or the facebook page for updates.

This weekend is the Uncertainty Series mini-festival. Many great folks are involved including on Friday locals Nathan Bontrager and Ben Shirley in a string quartet with Al Margolis and James Ilgenfritz, and Bird Fly Yellow with Joe Moffett, Dan Blacksberg and Dave Flaherty. That night I'll be doing a duo with Carl Testa, and we're both quite pleased with how we're helping to realize each other's compositions. On Saturday I'll be performing a short solo set alongside a set by Nathan Bontrager and a duo set between Anne Rhodes and Kyoko Kitamura.
Finally at the end of the month, An Historic plays with World History and Real Live Tigers, both intriguing songwriters playing in a scaled back fashion. The date for that is August 26th.

ACK! SHOW TONIGHT!

Totally neglected to update this in the 4 days since I was added to this bill, but:

An Historic is making a debut performance in NYC TONIGHT! The show will be at The Delancy in Manhattan, (168 Delancy St), and I go first at 8PM. The bill, which is awesome, also includes Mal Blum (playing as part of a 4-piece band), Wood Spider and L.E. Rubin. I am incredibly stoked to be playing my first NY show as An Historic among such great company. Please come out! The venue is naming a drink special after one of Wood Spider's songs, "Oh Eloise!" (a proper ditty about getting shitfaced and writing a regrettable letter). $5-10 sliding scale, and $3 PBRs all night!

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.

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.