Smith ( Ches )

Moe! Staiano’s Moe!Kestra! | An Inescapable Siren Within Earshot Distance Therein And Other Whereabouts

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Moe! Staiano’s Moelkestra!: Two Compositions for Large Orchestra. Produced and mastered by Dan Rathbun, November,2004 at Polymorph Studios, Oakland, California, USA Co-produced/policed by Gino Robair, Jonathan Segal, Moe! Staiano and Michael Zelner. Piece No.7 recorded live in performance by Michael Zelner, June 3,2003 at the Oakland Theater Box, Oakland,California. Piece No.5 recorded by Cuco Daglio and Guy Brenner, November 7,1998,attheYerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California for the OPUS415 Marathon *4. Note:The pieces are two large (and yet,separate) compositions as a whole.The indexes are provided for convenience only. All compositions, conductions and arrangements by Moe! Staiano. Design by Dan Kletter. Photos by Peter Conheim (Piece No.5 image) and Dave Grossman (everything else) © & © 2006 Moe! Staiano, © 2006 Rastascan Records, © 2006 Amanita Records. Continue reading →

Moe! Staiano’s Moe!Kestra! | Two Rooms Of Uranium Inside 83 Markers: Conducted Improvisations Vol. II

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Moe! Staiano founded the Moe!kestra! project back in the beginning of 1997. The idea came from a show he did in 1996 in Berkeley at a place called Beanbenders where he gathered some dozen or so musicians to do a simple instruction, playing a one sustained note from soft, quite, crescendoing into a loud frenzy before playing free and all totally out while Moe! destroys several television sets and lighting off Whistling Pete’s fireworks (a frantic and future Moe!kestra! player Bill Horvitz had to momentarily stop Moe! to save his guitar amp that was in harms way). At the end of the show o all the excitement and cheering, Brian Hall (from Ubzub) was shouting “Moechestra! Moechestra!” This gave Moe! the idea of working in a large orchestra format and started writing text instructional scores (Moe! has no music theory, so he needed to describe how the musicians play his scores though there are some notated parts, both traditional and graphically) and wrote Piece No.1: Death of A Piano, which was loosely based on the 1996 performance and literally requires the actual destruction of a piano, which has been performed in about six times total. Continue reading →

Eddie the Rat | Insomnia Sound Bible | Edgetone Records

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Insomnia Sound Bible is the songbook to a sleepwalker’s guide through oblivion. Its soundscape is made of violins and cellos, trumpets and clarinets, lots of percussion and homemade instruments, and telepathic harmonizing and other voices. As with all Eddie the Rat recordings, the intention is for the CD to be listened to as a whole, however, these are songs which can also be taken in their own context. Continue reading →

Darren Johnston | Fred Frith | Devin Hoff | Larry Ochs | Ches Smith | Reasons for Moving | Not Two Records

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Although this is an improvised session it has that wonderful magic glue that these serious and seasoned musicians are so successful at. « Passing Fields » starts with spacious guitar and sax sounds, but soon the rhythm team kicks into a powerful groove. As Frith locks into the rhythm with some bold noise guitar, both horns spin furiously above. Frith sounds a bit like Sonny Sharrock jamming on an electric Miles session. Each piece explores different combinations of players. While « Dawn and the Flat Irons » begins with haunting trumpet and contrabass, soon the rest of the quintet is simmering along. One of the great things about this disc is that Darren’s trumpet and Larry’s saxes work so well together, in similar tonal areas. Fred Frith is the perfect middle man, balancing between the horns and rhythm team perfectly, whether dealing in dark colors and shades or occasionally soloing underneath or with the spinning horns. On a few on these pieces, Frith gets a chance to lead and stretch out and turn the quintet inside-out into a strange twisted (prog ?) rock unit. These pieces fall somewhere between Massacre and Material, yet they are still unique in their own way. Great things, fellows ! — BLG, Downtown Music Gallery Continue reading →