Words of Inspiration #2

Some Words of Inspiration from Xapchyk members Kyle Stant and Jerry Soga. When asked to define improvisation, they said:

"To me, improvisation, in a general sense, appears to have a lot to do with the moment at hand as the medium, with a lack of conscious preparation. It often reveals the creative processes behind an artist and the soul. For me, improvisation has become a matter of embodying sound, and making audible certain states of being. I also find it has become a duet between myself and all the sound coming into my ears, bridging the gap between myself and all else. This is like a sort of prayer for me, to lay my microcosmic self down and melt into Everything. Success with this brings me great peace, awareness, and liberation - along with the oomph to continue on with this life."

- Kyle Stant

"Unplanned, unstructured, WTF's for dinner?"

- Jerry Soga

 

 

Recommended Radio

We'd like to share with you some of our favorite radio programs originating from Oregon and Washington. Each of these shows takes its own unique approach to broadcasting interesting and unusual music, often including live performances, interviews, and information about local upcoming events. The radio stations and disc jockeys who present these programs are true angels of the avant-garde community for gathering us together each week and keeping our focus on current artistic output, as well as providing historical perspective on what has come before. Not to mention they are fun and entertaining!

All of these shows are available worldwide as live internet streams, and some are also FM radio broadcasts. Also the history of each of these shows can be explored, because some are available as podcasts after they have been broadcast, while others publish their playlist on Spinitron. To find the live streams, visit the station websites and follow their links and instructions.

Here is our list of Recommended Radio shows:

• KPSU : What's This Called?
• KWVA : Music You Need to Hear Before You Die
• KMUZ : Mid-Valley Mutations
• KAOS : Free Jazz with Fred
• RadioNope : The TopDollar Hour w/ Tunacan Jones

TopDollar Hour w/ Tunacan Jones
Fridays 10 pm - 12 am PT
Tunacan Jones
Spokane, WA
RadioNope
radionope.com

Sometimes it's the normal things that are actually the weirdest of all. Without even trying to be experimental or offbeat, Mr. Jones selects soundbites from our suburban subconscious and ever-so-innocently makes us listen to what we have done to ourselves. It's unsettling, yet somehow alluring.

Program info:
https://www.firmhandshakenetwork.org/thetopdollarhour
http://www.radionope.com/podcasts/TheTopDollarHour/
https://www.facebook.com/thetopdollarhour/

Station info:
http://www.radionope.com/
https://www.facebook.com/RadioNOPE/

Free Jazz with Fred
Fred Kellogg
Mondays 8 pm - 10 pm PT
KAOS
Olympia, WA
89.3 FM

An eclectic look at the loosely categorized genre of free jazz, hosted by the erudite Fred Kellogg. New releases as well as vintage recordings, by both regional and international musicians, are showcased. Themes that highlight special musicians or events are often featured. It's always an education to listen to Free Jazz with Fred, and always a pleasure.

 

Program info:
http://spinitron.com/radio/playlist.php…

Station info:
https://www.kaosradio.org/
https://www.facebook.com/kaoscommunityradio/

Mid-Valley Mutations
Austin Rich
Fridays 10 pm - 12 am PT
KMUZ
Salem, OR
88.1 FM & 100.7 FM

 
With an emphasis on live in-studio performances and interviews with local and regional experimental bands and artists, Mid-Valley Mutations represents the cutting edge of current events - because the audience partakes in ongoing experiments in real time. Yet somehow host Austin Rich is also able to fold field recordings, antique radio dramas, and robotic weather reports into the recipe.

Program info:
https://www.facebook.com/MidValleyMutations/
https://midvalleymutations.com/

Station info:
http://kmuz.org/
https://www.facebook.com/kmuz.885.fm/

Music You Need to Hear Before You Die
DJ Zilf
Saturdays 6 pm - 8 pm PT
KWVA
Eugene, OR
88.1 FM

This show could double as a college course on the multi-faceted history of avant-garde music. It's a thorough examination of the topic, from early pioneers to modern mavericks. DJ ZILF always spins a nice variety each week, to keep his students awake and taking notes.

Program info:
http://spinitron.com/radio/playlist.php…

Station info:
http://kwva.uoregon.edu/
https://www.facebook.com/KWVA88.1/

What's This Called?
Ricardo Wang
Saturdays 12 pm - 1 pm PT
KPSU
Portland, OR
kpsu.org

The home of everything that is strange and good in this world, WTC melds regional experimental musicians with the wider world of weird. A typical week's program might include selections by abstract serialist composers, Saturday morning cartoon themes, a heavy metal dirge, three different accordion polkas played simultaneously, and some improvised electronica recorded by a local yokel the day before yesterday. Host Ricardo Wang lends the entire proceedings his considerable gravitas from doing this show for 20+ years, plus his street cred as founder of the venerable Olympia Experimental Music Festival.

Program info:
https://whatsthiscalled.net/
https://www.facebook.com/WhatsThisCalledRadio/

Station info:
http://www.kpsu.org/
https://www.facebook.com/kpsuportland/
(Note that KPSU is no longer broadcast over the airwaves, and is available only in streaming format at kpsu.org.)

Performer Spotlight - Xapchyk

Xapchyk

Xapchyk is a multi-instrumental experimental improvisation trio from Portland, Oregon. Trio members David Morgan, Kyle Stant & Jerry Soga formed Xapchyk in 2016 after several informal sessions at each others' homes, developing a common bond within the realm of free improvisation. Unstructured, unplanned conversations by way of the use of traditional western and ethnic instruments, as well as unconventional found objects and hand-made instruments.

Pronounced "harchuk," the name is derived from a Tuvan rattle made of dried bull scrotum and sheep knuckle bones.



The Facebook page for Xapchyk is located here:
https://www.facebook.com/xapchyk/ 

There is more Xapchyk to be heard on their Bandcamp page at:
https://xapchyk.bandcamp.com/

Performer Spotlight - Vortex Remover

Vortex Remover

Vortex Remover is a quirky rock duo from Salem, Oregon. Peter DeGroot (former singer of Anbot Rodroid) plays a toy guitar with 3 strings, and Rob Groves (former drummer of Strawberries) plays a homemade stumpf fiddle as well as a variety of instruments he invented himself. They have performed at various events in the Salem area, including the 2015 Ted Talks, Make Music Day, and the Rejected Art Faire. They have appeared on CCTV and KMUZ radio. They released an album called Rawkward Phase in 2017.


The Vortex Remover Facebook page can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/vortexremover/

And the rest of their genius album, Rawkward Phase, can be heard on their Bandcamp page, here:
https://vortexremover.bandcamp.com/

Performer Spotlight - The Giant Worm

The Giant Worm

The house band for NODAMS is The Giant Worm, as they are hosting the event. They evoke fugitive soundscapes and musical journeys to elsewhere. Rock, jazz, spoken word, electronica and the avant-garde blend together, as The Giant Worm strives to continuously re-invent music. For over 35 years, this ensemble has improvised a path through the wilderness of sonic possibilities, and emerged with a vast catalog of brain-twisting, toe-tapping, experimental music. Eugene is the band's home town, but its members live in Portland, Eugene, and Olympia, Washington.



 The Facebook page for The Giant Worm can be found at:
https://www.facebook.com/giantwormimprov/

Performer Spotlight - A Pack of Majors

A Pack of Majors

A Pack of Majors is an avant-garde music ensemble from Eugene, featuring elements of psychedelic rock, free jazz improvisation, and traditional ceremonial rhythms.



See the Facebook page for A Pack of Majors at:
https://www.facebook.com/apackofmajors/ 

Performer Spotlight - Don Haugen

Don Haugen

Don Haugen is a composer, sonic experimenter, and visual designer based in Eugene, Oregon. Since the late 1980s Haugen started exploring sound with tapes, oscillators, mixer feedback, contact mics and found objects. His current work merges home built electronics and re-purposed test instruments to create sonic texture-scapes. He has composed for performance artists, sound installations, film and ensembles. Haugen is curator and founder of the Eugene Noise Festival, which started in 2005.


More of Don Haugen's work can be heard here:
 Don Haugen on Bandcamp
and here:
 Don Haugen on Soundcloud

Performer Spotlight - No-Method

No-Method

No-Method is a drone/noise act from Corvallis that uses acoustic instrumentation such as stand-up bass, drums, various world music instrumentation, as well as electronics. Sets usually start out ambient, and build to noise.



Members of No-Method are also involved in organizing a monthly concert series at Interzone Inc in Corvallis, called Corvallis Experiments in Noise. See their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/corvallisnoise/

Words of Inspiration #1

Some words of inspiration from NODAMS co-founder Gary Dye:

"Our experiences at the Olympia Experimental Music Festival have been so overwhelmingly positive that it has coalesced in us, a determination to make it happen in Eugene.

The people who appreciate the more abstract elements of artistic and musical endeavors are a somewhat cloistered community in every town and city. They don't put themselves and their tastes out there too often, though Eugene has plenty of them wishing they had more opportunities to do so.

We know of many parts of that community, young and old, who yearn to push those boundaries as often as possible and this event is designed to light that fuse, pour some fuel on that fire and give it the momentum it needs to make it an annual event at multiple locations over three days, just like Oly.

This first year is hoping for enough exposure that we will have the kind of interest from musical artists, visual artists, performance artists, venues and sponsors that NODAMS will sustain itself for years to come and spread the word far and wide and become the kind of destination event that Eugene can proudly tout as yet another example of our love for the wide open mindset we crave."

-Gary Dye

Meet Your Hosts - Gary

Gary Dye

My name is Gary Dye and as an ardent admirer of all artistic endeavors that have at least some elements of improvisational risk, I cannot think of a better showcase than what we are proposing at NODAMS 2017. I consider it my solemn duty as co-host of this event to create an environment that asks of the performer to take risks, and invites the audience to join the journey in an act of spontaneous creation.

I am thrilled to be putting this event together along with my co-host Robert "Xeres" Shepard. After nearly 40 years of being involved in deeply immersive improvisational music, I know that it is time for this region to have its own annual celebration of the weird and wacky art and sounds that are nurtured throughout the Pacific Northwest.

As a drummer, I have cut an unusual path. As much as I love beats and rhythm, I always try to break them up and explore the nooks, crannies and angles of the unknown when music starts to deconstruct. When you put melodic musicians into an asymmetrical place, they respond in unique ways that lead to some magical discoveries.

Meet Your Hosts - Xeres

Robert "Xeres" Shepard

Art and music may reflect and reinforce culture. But innovations in art and music shape and create culture anew. Hey, all you fans of new and weird creations, I'm Robert Shepard, known to my friends and audience as Xeres - that's pronounced "Zeer-eez." As co-host of the Northwest Oregon Different Arts and Music Showcase this year, I am honored to gather together some of the most interesting artistic pioneers for our stage - including both newcomer and legacy iconoclasts alike.

I started playing alto saxophone in sixth grade, and was properly trained in music theory and performance by the public school system. Then I promptly forgot it. Lured into multiple impromptu jam sessions during my college years, I soon learned that electric guitarists tend to change key without warning. So I had to toss out the rule book and scramble to keep up. This prepared me to work next with musicians who scoffed at the very idea of declaring a key, or even a specific tempo. From out of this chaos would occasionally emerge truth and beauty such as none had known before. I have devoted myself ever since to extracting such moments from spontaneous noise making.

I have visited many parts of America and the world, and I've lived in Oregon most of my life. It seems to me that our corner of Oregon attracts, breeds, and encourages a high percentage of unique individuals with a penchant for unconventional creation. This can be seen everywhere around here, from whimsical lawn ornaments, to dashboard dioramas. I am proud to live among the misfits. And I'm delighted now to tap into this creative flow and share some of my favorite NW Oregon oddities with you.

Photo of Xeres by Joe Mabel

Free Jazz

Free Jazz is lacking a precise definition, but it can be characterized as music unconstrained by the strictures of music theory. Notions such as key signatures, steady tempos, chord structures, composition, and proper instrumental technique are summarily tossed out the window. In one sense Free Jazz is its own genre of jazz. And in another sense, it can be a component embedded within performances of other types of jazz music.

It's an anything goes type of sound, sometimes chaotic and abrasive, but just as often strange and beautiful. Notes may be bent and distorted, dissonant chord clusters are permitted, slowing or speeding up, stopping and starting, squeals and squawks - all are expressive, according to Free Jazz.

For the most part, Free Jazz emerged from Bebop, while also borrowing from other jazz traditions - including a half-forgotten aspect of Dixieland: group improvisation.

The origin of Free Jazz is generally credited to Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, who were each exploring the possibilities in the mid-50s, and had released landmark Free Jazz albums by 1958. Then in 1960, Coleman titled a record "Free Jazz" and thereby coined the term, much to his dismay.

Well known practitioners of Free Jazz include Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Pharaoh Sanders, Eric Dolphy, and Charles Mingus.

 

Wikipedia article: Free Jazz

Our Event

The first ever concert presented by Northwest Oregon Different Arts and Music Showcase will set the stage for what we hope will be an annual event in Eugene that celebrates unique innovations in music and the arts.

Friday, November 3 at 7 PM
Old Nick's Pub
211 Washington St, Eugene, Oregon 97401
Admission: $5

On August 15th we announced our list of performers for the 2017 NODAMS concert:

Don Haugen
The Giant Worm
A Pack of Majors
No-Method
Xapchyk
Vortex Remover

Here's a link to the Facebook event page for the NODAMS concert:
1st Annual NODAMS Concert
Please visit and indicate if you plan to attend! It will help us to organize the seating and swag.

Art:21

Art:21 - Art in the 21st Century is a tv series on PBS about contemporary visual artists and their work. It is also a nonprofit organization, founded in 1997, dedicated to documenting 21st century art, and making it accessible to the public. The featured art works are innovative, interesting, beautiful, strange and amazing! The interviews with artists at work provide deep insight into these creations. We highly recommend exploring this excellent and informative series, as well as the associated blog and website!

Website: https://art21.org/
Blog: http://magazine.art21.org/
PBS web page: http://www.pbs.org/program/art21/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/art21/



Wikipedia article: Art:21

Rock in Opposition

Rock in Opposition might be better described as a consortium of musicians, rather than as a genre of music. It began in London in 1978 as an organization of neglected artists - ignored by the record companies - who took it upon themselves to produce and promote their own concerts and recordings. Within a few years, after hosting concerts all over Europe, RiO had become an international phenomenon...for those in the know. The styles of music varied widely among the musicians involved in the RiO movement, from the quirky Zappa-like lectures of Henry Cow, to the abstract progressive adventures of Univers Zero. One thing that these artists all had in common was enough strangeness to be rejected by the conventional music business. A label was founded in 1978 by Chris Cutler, called Recommended Records, to publish and distribute the music. After the official RiO organization itself had disbanded, the term "Rock in Oppostion" continued to be applied to bands carried by Recommended Records, and any other acts that had appeared at RiO music festivals.


Wikipedia article: Rock in Opposition

No Wave

 No Wave was an art, cinema, and music movement of the late 70s and early 80s that intended to counter the excessive commercialism and popularity of the New Wave genre. Rather than big beats and big hair, No Wave rejected fashion model poseurs and slick production values in favor of do-it-yourself amateurism, dissonance, and quirky eclecticism. And despite sharing some of these values with Punk, No Wave distinguished itself from Punk Rock by avoiding tired old guitar hooks and rock and roll cliches. No Wave originated in New York City, and was meant to reflect the industrial desolation and hopelessness of those times. Its adherents included musical groups James Chance and the Contortions, DNA, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and Lydia Lunch. The most successful No Wave filmmaker is the inestimable Jim Jarmusch.

Wikipedia article: No Wave

Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) was an iconoclast of the art of dance. Her first few jobs in theater companies had her doing lackluster dance routines which left her uninspired. And her brief lessons in ballet left her disappointed at the rigidity of the form. Instead, drawing inspiration from ancient Greek art, she created her own dance format based on natural movement. Performing barefoot, dressed in her signature Greek tunics, Isadora began her career dancing in the salons and drawing rooms of the European and American elite. Despite the controversy over her unconventional style, by 1904 her popularity enabled her to open her first school of dance in Berlin. Her philosophy of dance emphasized natural flow, allowing each body movement to lead freely to the next, thus restoring a sacred aspect to the ancient art. Leaping, running and skipping were often involved in her performances. Her techniques and choreography were passed along by her pupils, to become the foundation of what is now called Modern Dance.


Wikipedia article: Isadora Duncan

Dada

Dada emerged around 1917 as a contrarian impulse against conventional attitudes and practices in the European art market at the outbreak of World War I. Traditional niceties such as symmetry and appealing subject matter became absurd against the horrifying backdrop of trench warfare and mustard gas. So founding members of the Dada movement - such as Marcel Duchamp, Tristan Tzara, Max Ernst and Man Ray - vowed to turn the tables on society and on art itself, by deploying irreverent and destructive new forms of theater, poetry, painting, music and sculpture. Initially convening at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, this group of anti-artists espoused nonsense, random cut-ups and collage, found art, and anti-bourgeois tirades against capitalism as means to undermine the stuffy, stilted, ineffectual world of fine arts. But rather than destroying art, they expanded its purview and led directly to surrealism, abstract art, musique concrète, pop art, and the theatre of the absurd - to name just a few of Dada's progeny.

Wikipedia article: Dada

Morton Subotnick

Morton Subotnick (b. 1933) is an electronic music composer from Los Angeles. While not among the earliest pioneers of the genre, he expanded the range of its generally atonal and arrhythmic abstractions to allow sections with regular rhythms and tone patterns. This was made possible by one of the first synthesizers with a sequencer, built by Don Buchla to Subotnick's specifications. In 1962, Subotnick co-founded the non-profit educational electronic music studio, the San Francisco Tape Music Center. In 1967, Nonesuch Records commissioned this work from him, Silver Apples of the Moon. If you have 31 minutes to listen to bleeps and bloops, this is the one to hear!



Wikipedia article: Morton Subotnick

Art Ensemble of Chicago

In the realm of jazz, The Art Ensemble of Chicago is known for taking the improvisational idiom a step or three beyond its usual parameters. Members included Roscoe Mitchell on saxophone, Lester Bowie on trumpet, and Malachi Favors on bass. All were multi-instrumentalists, switching axes during their performances, including bicycle horns and novelty noise makers. There was also a visual element to their shows, involving costumes and face paint. They were active from the mid-1960s to the early 2000s. Here is one of our favorite pieces by the AEC, called Odwalla:


Wikipedia article: Art Ensemble of Chicago

Our Plan

The ultimate purpose of our little conspiracy here is to provide an annual event to our local community which will celebrate innovation in the arts. Along with presenting the newest, up and coming ideas and creations, innovations from the past will also be revisited, for some historical context and education.

This will be accomplished by means of a concert series accompanied by art installations.
Performers and artists are welcome to apply. Further instructions will be posted here each year around April or May, including some guidelines about what we are looking for. Funds are limited this first year, but we promise to pay our artists at least their gas money.

At present we have practically no budget. So we will start small and let it grow organically for the first year. In subsequent years we will pursue sponsors and grant money. (And thereby pay our valued artists what they are worth!)

Our first annual concert will be held at November 3rd, 2017, starting at 7 pm, at Old Nick's Pub, 211 Washington St,. Eugene, OR. It will feature performances by Don Haugen, No-Element, Xapchyk, A Pack of Majors, Vortex Remover, and The Giant Worm.

In future years we hope to expand the event to an entire weekend of music, and other performances, all around the Eugene/Springfield area.

Our History

Actually, NODAMS has no history yet. This will be our first year to stage our showcase of unique musical and artistic works to the general public in Eugene, Oregon.

However, we have been thinking about it and planning for at least the last five years now. We got the idea when our band, The Giant Worm, was invited to perform at the Olympia Experimental Music Festival. This wonderful and welcoming community of fringe artists and their enthusiastic fans has been gathering annually for 23 years now.

Similar in temperament to Eugene, Olympia Washington is a college town where many of its graduates have elected to stay, to enjoy its counterculture atmosphere and natural beauty. So we wondered why Eugene couldn't host an event similar to the OEMF, which we could enjoy without driving so far!

Since we have had some prior experience with putting together multi-media shows featuring avant-garde musicians, back in the early 90s, we decided it was up to us to make it happen. And now we are inviting you to join us - whether it be as an artist, an audience member, a supporter, or a sponsor - in creating the history of the Northwest Oregon Different Arts and Music Showcase.

John Cage

There was more to John Cage (1912-1992) than his famous silent piece, 4' 33". He brought an appreciation for ambient sound and randomness to the realm of music, and he pioneered the use of electronics and non-standard instruments in the modern classical milieu. For example, he liked to entangle various objects between the strings of a piano, to generate percussive clicks, odd buzzing or dampened tones. While some dismiss his compositions as inaccessible to the common ear, many of his pieces are actually quite pleasant for those with the patience to find them. We have dug up this little gem for you, from his Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano:


Wikipedia article: John Cage

Map

While we do not plan to limit ourselves to hosting only local artists, we are a regional event, with an emphasis on the culture of the northwestern corner of Oregon. We would define NW Oregon as an area with Astoria as its northwest corner, and say, Oakridge for its southeast corner, with Bend inclusive on the eastern edge, and bordered by the Columbia on the north. Here is a line on a map, enclosing the described area. However, we will not be fussy about this definition, and will sometimes include any interested artists from all over Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, or the entire world, for that matter.

Olympia Experimental Music Festival

The inspiration for our event grew from our experiences at the Olympia Experimental Music Festival, now in its 23rd year. This is the poster art for this year's OEMF. It's pretty awesome.

Improvised Arts Show (1992-93)

True confessions: We have done this before. In 1992 and 1993 we were responsible for hosting the Improvised Arts Show at John Henry's in Eugene.

Here is the poster for the first year's event, which took place on June 27, 1992:

 

June 27, 1992

Here is the poster for the second Improvised Arts Show, which we hosted at John Henry's in Eugene on March 7, 1993:

March 7, 1993

Impressionism

In 1872 Claude Monet painted his "Impression, Sunrise" which inspired the name for the art movement known as Impressionism. The Impressionists were regarded by their contemporary art critics and public as radical lunatics, and their paintings a subject of laughter and scorn. Yet today most people can appreciate and enjoy these paintings as perfectly acceptable, normal, perhaps even boring and old-fashioned. NODAMS will present the outsider refusés of today, despite the risk of turning them into the established old hat of tomorrow!

Wikipedia article: Impressionism

Harry Partch

One of our ambitions is to provide the cultural context for our showcase, by highlighting some historical forerunners who blazed the trails of the avant-garde. One of our favorites is Harry Partch, who composed music with 43 intervals per octave, and built his own strange instruments for the purpose.

Wikipedia article: Harry Partch

Eugene, Oregon

Eugene, Oregon and its surrounding communities are home to a vast array of creative talent. Northwest Oregon Different Arts and Music Showcase (NODAMS) intends to present new innovations, hidden gems, and experimental oddities from local and regional artists and musicians, within an informative historical and international context. We hope to release a flood of unexpected sounds and visions!