Happy Halloween

Sarah Palin Jazz Piano Duet

A Look At A Real Economic Crisis

And another way to put things into perspective is here.

Enceladus up close

One way to put things into perspective is here.

Wassup 2008

Remember the Wassup Bud commercial of 2000? Original cast, eight years later.

Sitcoms For Obama

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

My Escape (Doing My Best)

source: MTV's SoundTrack

My friend Giles Reaves is one of the best electronic musicians in the world. But many folks do not know that he is a fabulous drummer and percussionist, too. Here is his current drum spot, the band Junior Giant, from Salt Lake City, who just won a spot on the Oct 17 MTV’s Choose or Lose Presents: Locksley Tour with JUNIOR GIANT @ The Avalon Theater.

Freezepop @ Masquerade Oct 14, 2008

A cellphone photo of the Freezepop show at Masquerade last night. I had never heard them before and was there to support my friend Raquel's band Indigovox. But I walked away impressed with all three bands (including Boy In Static). Freezepop's encore songs were "Final Destination" and then "Don't Stop Believin'". Awesome.

City Skies 08 Electronic Music Event on Nov. 8, 2008

City Skies 08 Electronic Music Event Nov 8, 2008

The next City Skies 08 event will be held on Saturday, November 8, 2008, with an afternoon Master class workshop with Richard Lainhart (Multi-Dimensional Control for Realtime Analog Synthesis Performance using Buchla 200e and Haken Continuum Fingerboard controller) from 2pm-4pm and performances starting at 8pm. We showcase the region's best electronic musicians at our favorite venue, Kavarna.

Confirmed performers on November 8 include Richard Lainhart (from New York), Collaboration with Sounds (from South Carolina), and Bribing The Buddha (from Atlanta). Shows kick off at 8pm.

The Richard Lainhart workshop for the November show promises to be quite amazing. Please tell your friends about it. Attendance will be limited:

Multi-Dimensional Control for Realtime Analog Synthesis Performance

The promise of electronic music has been, from the beginning, to provide the composer with the means to create his or her own unique sounds and musics without the need for intermediaries like performers and technicians. And the problem with electronic music has been, from the beginning, to endow synthesized sound with the same organic expressivity found in acoustic instruments and natural sound while making synthesizers viable performance instruments in their own right.

The first electronic instruments intended for performance, such as the Theremin and the Ondes Martenot, while providing the performer with highly nuanced pitch control, had limited sound-shaping control and could only play one note at a time. The first modular analog synthesizers, while offering polyphony - the ability to play multiple notes simultaneously - and unlimited sonic control, had limited expressive performance control and were completely impractical for live use.

There have been many attempts since then to integrate the unlimited potential of modular analog synthesis with practical performance capabilities, and to provide the electronic music composer/performer with the kind of expressive musical control available in advanced acoustic instruments. Among of the most successful and creative of these efforts are the Buchla 200e analog modular synthesizer and the Haken Continuum Fingerboard.

Buchla's 200e is the first modular analog synth with patch memory and the ability to re-route patchcords on the fly, making it an ideal instrument for performance, capable of both the highest and lowest levels of control. The Continuum is a unique multidimensional controller keyboard that senses direct finger movement in three dimensions (X, Y, and pressure) for each of up to 16 fingers, making it one of the most advanced performance controllers available today. Together, the 200e and the Continuum make for an electronic music performance system of unparalleled expressivity and sensitivity.

In his workshop, Richard will demonstrate the synthesis and control functions of the Buchla 200e with an emphasis on patch programming for maximum expressivity under Continuum control. The workshop will include a live performance focusing on the Continuum/Buchla 200e system's expressive control capabilities. Time permitting, workshop attendees will also have the opportunity to play the system themselves.

WORKSHOP BIO

Richard Lainhart is a composer, performer, and filmmaker based in New York. He studied composition and electronic music techniques with Joel Chadabe, a pioneer of electronic music and the designer of the Coordinated Electronic Music System (http://emfinstitute.emf.org/exhibits/cems.html and http://www.otownmedia.com/chadabe.jpg), at one time the largest integrated Moog synthesizer system in the world. From 1987-1990, Lainhart was the Technical Director for Intelligent Music, developers of innovative computer music software like M, Jam Factory, and UpBeat.

His compositions have been performed in the US, England, Sweden, Germany, Australia, and Japan. Recordings of his music have appeared on the Periodic Music, Vacant Lot, XI Records, ExOvo and Airglow Music labels and are distributed online via MusicZeit. As an active performer, Lainhart has appeared in public approximately 2000 times. Besides performing his own work, he has worked and performed with John Cage, David Tudor, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Phill Niblock, David Berhman, and Jordan Rudess, among many others. He has composed over 100 electronic and acoustic works, and has been making music for forty years.

Lainhart's animations and short films have been shown in festivals in the US, Canada, Germany, and Korea, and online at ResFest, The New Venue, The Bitscreen, and Streaming Cinema 2.0. His film "A Haiku Setting" won awards in several categories at the 2002 International Festival of Cinema and Technology in Toronto. In 2008, he was awarded a Film & Media grant by the New York State Council on the Arts for "No Other Time", full-length intermedia performance designed for a large reverberant space, combining live analog electronics with four-channel playback, and high-definition computer-animated film projection.

Richard Lainhart
http://www.otownmedia.com
http://www.downloadplatform.com/richard_lainhart
http://www.vimeo.com/rlainhart
http://www.airglowmusic.com

City Skies
http://www.cityskies.com
http://www.myspace.com/cityskiesfestival

Workshop tickets: $15
Performance tickets: $10

Rick Wakeman At Lincoln Cathedral

Hocus Pocus by Focus

City Skies 2008 Electronic Music Event On October 4th, 2008

The second City Skies Electronic Music event of 2008 will occur on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 from noon until midnight at Kavarna in the Oakhurst section of Decatur. Eight sets of fantastic electronic music performers from around the U.S. will grace the stage throughout the day. All styles of electronic music will be represented. Admission is a $10 donation. Come out and enjoy the show.Confirmed performers on Oct. 4 include Broken Symmetry, citizenGreen, Duet for Theremin & Lap Steel, Indigovox, Kurt Michaels (from Illinois), One Cut Kill (from Alabama), Andrew Weathers (the artist formerly known as Pacific Before Tiger from North Carolina), and Sensitive Chaos.

The Good Graces CD Release Party

I'll be performing in The Good Graces for their CD release party on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at Kavarna in the Oakhurst section of Decatur, GA. We go on at 10pm. Blake Rainey will open the evening at 9pm and The Georgia Fireflies headline at 11pm. Come out and see Kim Ware, John McNicholas, and myself rip it up!

Sick AND Tired

Another ASCAPlus Award For My Music

For the second year in a row, ASCAP gives Jim Combs a ASCAPLUS popular music award for his recorded and live Sensitive Chaos work (ASCAPLUS awards writers of works not necessarily covered under commercial venue licenses).

Bush 41 Train Engine

I was in the middle of Iowa this week, just outside of Boone, at the Farm Progress Show, the largest farm trade show in the US. As we were waiting in a long line of cars to get into the show on Thursday, a train passed by with this engine at the end. As the Democratic Convention was going on, thought this being the train engine across the street from this event was synchronistic.

Different Skies 2008 Starts September 14, 2008

Different Skies 2008 starts in a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to a week of total music-making and catching up with friends. More info here.

The Good Graces At The Earl August 26, 2008

I play my third performance with The Good Graces tonight at The Earl in support of The Dutchess and The Duke, and headliner James Jackson Toth. This will be my first performance using both my Kurzweil SP76 and my Roland JD-800. Freak folk, indeed!

Giant Pink Donuts

The family went to Helen, GA this weekend. At the end of the day, they pulled all the tubes down river.

The Negative Campaign Goes Prime Time

There has been much discussion of the campaign turning negative this week. First, the McCain campaign releases it's Britney/Paris TV ad (good job lambasting one of your big campaign donor's daughters) and then the McCain camp plays the race card from the bottom of the deck by using the phrase "playing the race card from the bottom of the deck".

Let's be clear. My parents like to forward emails. Many of those emails come from staunch Republicans. The negative campaign started in 2004 after W. was elected to his second term and it has run continuously through present. Literally the day after the November election in 2004, I started getting negative email about Hillary Clinton. My inbox is consistently full of negative emails vindictive toward Democrats in general, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama specifically. Here's one from today:

So as I noted in an earlier blog, the McCain camp is having a hard time going toe-to-toe with Sen. Obama. They've got to do something to start landing punches. I'm sure they've been chomping at the bit to find some half-assed way to inject fear and negativity into the campaign. So it is ironic that Obama's comments of what the Republicans would do to discredit him becomes that launching off point for the Republicans.

From my standpoint, Obama is simply describing my email inbox for the past four years. It's truly a Casablanca moment where McCain's crew is shocked, shocked to find negative campaigning going on.