Layne Garrett
Layne Garrett works with found objects, found sounds, guitars, and self-built instruments. Recorded output ranges from assemblage-drenched Americana to a new CD of improvisations on guitar and prepared guitar; a disc of improvised duos (with Scott Allison, Christian Brady, Ryan Jewell, Janel Leppin, Sam Lohman, Anthony Pirog, and Jenny Tucker) is on the way shortly on Sockets Records. Solo performances have lately hovered in the heady realm of improvised explorations on buzzed-out prepared resonator guitar and homemade light-sensitive electronics. Other recent activities include: organizing a large-scale tape-loop intervention in Rock Creek Park (Washington DC), hosting shows at the Lighthouse in DC, and completing several construction projects, including a version of Glenn Branca's harmonics guitar, a set of hanging car-metal gongs in the shape of a map of the USA, and a large freestanding playable structure about which a collaborator said: "man i would really love to play that big baby for 12 hours straight it is obviously a meditation key."
Scott Allison
Scott Allison is a member of Philly/DC improv psych-noise unit Kohoutek, and an independent sound artist in his own right. He works with field recordings, tapes, junk electronics, toy electronics, your mother's keyboard, and all of it with great taste.
Moral Crayfish
Moral Crayfish is Dan Cohoon and who ever he can sucker in playing with. Moral Crayfish was the name of his sister’s imaginary rock band when she was in college. Brothers Dan & John Cohoon stole the name from her when they entered the battle of the bands in high school. They had discovered that by duct-taping a headphone to the body of their younger sister’s viola and plugging it into the mic jack of a boom box they could get distortion and feedback. They also discovered how to “multi-track” by connecting various boom boxes and audio devices together. The brothers started taping over their parents’ collection of Sermons from their former church, the Alliance Bible Church, in San Antonio to make noise tapes. At this time the brothers had little or no knowledge of avant-garde or underground music. It was with joy and a little disappointment when they first heard the works of such artists as Sonic Youth, Dead C, and Richard Youngs on college radio shows from WVUD & WPRB. It was exciting because these artists were pursuing similar sonic explorations; disappointing because they were not doing anything all that new. In college a friend gave Dan Cohoon a Sears’s electric guitar that survived a house fire, complete with plastic flowers & 90210 stickers on it. One of the conditions of keeping the guitar was that he was not allowed to remove the stickers. By that time in college he had become interested in the work of John Cage, especially his work with prepared piano. Dan Cohoon started applying the techniques Cage used for his prepared piano on his guitar. He would shove metal and wooden objects into the guitar strings. Using the feedback of the guitar to move the objects would cause a loop. The feedback would cause the objects to move, and the movement would make a sound which would cause the objects to move again. When Dan Cohoon saw Dean Roberts play with his band White Winged Moth his style of guitar playing changed again. Dean Roberts would use a screw driver to twirl against the strings and the body of the guitar. When he adopted his style of playing he learned that you could have a great deal of control with a wider variety of sound possibilities.
Hex Nine
Hex Nine is a collaborative project between DJX-5000, a keyboard(ist), Maybeth Chew, a bassist, and Justin Duerr, a guitarist and singer. The band came together in the winter of 2007 after Maybeth's band Bad News Bats stopped playing. Justin and Marybeth experimented with several approaches, before settling on DJX-5000 as their keyboard(ist), and began (de)composing quasi-songs. Hex Nine currently have one outdated demo CD-R titled 'Dial HEX-9, as well as more recent CD-R titled 'in Mystic Emerald Sea'. Justin is a part of other musical projects such as Northern Liberties, Geb The Great Cackler, Vivian Girls Experience, and others. Both Marybeth and Justin also make visual art. This will be the ninth Hex Nine show.
Jesse Kudler
Jesse Kudler, born 1979, improvises on cheap consumer devices: a no-name electric guitar, hand-held cassette recorders, radios and transmitters, various small junk, and pedals/electronics. He uses a computer to assemble his recorded music. Kudler's work often operates on the extremes of volume, demonstrating an interest in the subtleties that can arise from intense softness or loudness, and it is marked by special attention to the stereo field. Recent interest has focused on both internal (electronic/radio) and external (microphone/speaker) feedback. Beyond simply exploring non-pitched sounds, Kudler investigates their use in creating improvised structure. Kudler attended public school until Wesleyan University, where he studied music with Ron Kuivila, Alvin Lucier, and a little bit with Anthony Braxton, among others. In his various travels, Kudler has performed with Matt Bauder, Kyle Bruckmann, Chris Cogburn, James Coleman, Tim Feeney, Marcos Fernandes, Margarida Garcia, Brent Gutzeit, Horse Sinister, Bonnie Jones, Newton, Pauline Oliveros, Bhob Rainey, Vic Rawlings, Christine Sehnaoui, Mike Shiflet, Jason Soliday, Howard Stelzer, Christian Weber, Barry Weisblat, Ellen Weller, Matt Weston, Jack Wright, Jason Zeh, and many others. He has toured the United States several times. Jesse Kudler lives in Philadelphia. Current and recent projects include: HZL, an environmental electronics duo with Tim Albro; a duo with Ian Fraser; Tweeter, a treble-intensive noise trio with Alex Nagle and Eli Litwin; Benito Cereno (with Dustin Hurt, Chandan Narayan, Tim Albro, and Ian Fraser); duos with Chris Cogburn and Christian Weber; solo performance and recording; and various ad hoc groupings.
Ian Fraser
Ian M Fraser (b.1980) is an artist working both visually and aurally. In high school, he focused on the alto saxophone at the School For Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio, studying jazz, improvisation and music theory. Now, he plays bass for Philadelphia-based rock group Arc in Round. He has also taken to improvise with various ad hoc groups using computer and electronics. A few of these projects include Common Sense, a duo with Tim Albro (12-string guitar/electronics) as well as Benito Cereno, a quintet with Mr. Albro, Dustin Hurt (cornet), Chandan Narayan (extended autoharp), and Jesse Kudler (tabletop guitar/electronics). Other hobbies include photography, collage, and bird watching.
*All sets will be solos or duos, and will be 15-20 minutes each.
The Crooked Shoe
4500 Kingsessing Ave., Philadelphia PA
$5 / All ages/BYOB
