clifford_thornton

I'm sure this is excellent and it is a must-buy, but the squeaky cog in me wonders why Feldman doesn't try to secure unheard music from Lacy's vast (and afaik, unplaced) tape archive for proper release.

Heard from some mutual friends/collaborators that the Minneapolis-based guitarist, improviser, songwriter, and left-field artist Michael Yonkers has died. I don't have a birthdate handy but he was born in 1947, making him 78-79. He performed and recorded with Michael & The Mumbles and the Michael Yonkers Band (garage rock, psych-rock), as a solo singer-songwriter/performer with 'experimental leanings,' and improvised music with Milo Fine/Blue Freedom's New Art Transformation. Many of his records and CDs were self-released starting in the early 1970s. I believe that his health kept him from public performance in recent years. Fascinating character; glad to have seen him perform solo a few times, though that was many years ago. RIP.

Damn, that's terrible news. He had not posted here in ages, and I am not on Facebook so was unaware of his health issues. Great guy, that's for sure. RIP!

Yeah, he did, but it might not be in the book. exactly.

I can ask Matt about it; he first popped up in New York around 1984. William played with some of those people but irregularly, and I think there was a divide between the places that Zorn and Chadbourne were setting up and the post-loft environment that Parker et al were occupying. Then again, Zorn, Chadbourne, and Polly Bradfield were playing with Frank Lowe and so was William Parker (there's also that trio record with Horvitz, WP, and Butch Morris). Cross-pollination did exist.

that looks great.

whoa

ah, forgot about that one, sheesh.

It would not surprise me if there are unissued recordings from the trio as well.

yeah, somebody should do one. No idea who owns the rights to Morgue but the ALM/Kojima material seems to be getting licensed around. Columbia/Denon I'm not sure about, but they presumably still own those masters. Excellent group of LPs.

yeah, it is too bad. I have his first LP, Nine Bells, and it's really wonderful.

love that early cover design...

yep. I think that is his goal...

yeah, I was thinking the Voice, and Johnson would make sense.

yes, Robert Wilson was called "Downtown Bob" (because of another Robert Wilson living, you guessed it, uptown), but I do not know if the term "Downtown" was ascribed to his art/theater scene in the late '60s or if the term as an aesthetic qualifier emerged later. https://whitney.org/exhibitions/rituals-of-rented-island

yeah, I guess the question that I'd have for myself is whether I need it as a physical item (box set) or if I can be fine with it digitally, for reference.

This might be a question for Will Hermes... https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374533540/lovegoestobuildingsonfire/

sweet!!

👍🏼👍🏼

Also: Slide Hampton (1932), Ian Carr (1933), and Peter Kowald (1944) all born April 21, sadly no longer with us.

ha, good to know...

yeah, I'm okay with owning the other Elemental/Resonance releases on CD.

Matt's been working on a new website, which at this point is hosting a number of articles and links as a sort of "recent index." My understanding is that he doesn't want it to be a discography (Discogs works well enough for that, for now). It'll be interesting to see how this resource grows. Anyway, for lack of a better place to put it, here goes: https://legacyofmatthewshipp.com/index/ the interview from The Ideas Letter ("A Pure Act in a Dirty World") serves as kind of a biographical primer until a true biography is written. Enjoy!

yeah, I'm in for a CD box although perhaps not 86 discs!

Greetings! I've been a little quiet the last couple of months; other projects have kept things a bit underground lately. Hopefully there will be more to share on a couple of those very soon. However, in gig-land, things are continuing apace and I wanted to let you know about the 31st installment of the "So, What Do You Think?" series landing at Tubby's in beautiful Midtown Kingston, NY on Sunday, June 7. Doors at 7pm, show starts at 8. $20 at the door or in advance. poster design by d.norsen after America 6111 Saxophonist Michael Foster will be returning with the latest variation on his trio The Ghost, featuring bassist Zach Rowden (Tongue Depressor) and drummer Joey Sullivan (Bark Culture, Florry). Last time around (2024) they were joined by Joe McPhee and that was an absolute blast. The core trio will be equally invigorating, as Foster and his collaborators have continued to develop their collective language. As he puts it, "The Ghost is Michael Foster’s long standing trio that excavates the queer feelings within free jazz and noise. Mixing compositional structures with extensive improvisation, and electro-acoustic elements, The Ghost approaches free jazz with a distinct yearning, melancholy, and rage." Opening will be the duo of percussionist Sarah Hennies and bassist Tristan Kasten-Krause; their LP The Quiet Sun was released last year on Dinzu Artifacts to great acclaim. Hennies is an internationally renowned composer whose work explores trans identity and slow temporal processes, areas in which Kasten-Krause, as an extremely deft and open-minded contrabassist, can gamely occupy. We look forward to seeing you there & if you can't make it, feel free to forward to a friend.