—1k Notes From The Road

 

Time continues to fly by…lots of amazing things still transpiring…trying to bring news up to date.

Most recently, a visit from Alon Ilsar, he the insanely gifted percussionist from Sydney, Austrailia. We had several days in the 1k studio improvising—yielding some amazing music. One piece, currently titled ’30’, will be released fairly soon on 1k as a digital download. It’s essentially a 30 minute live duo improvisation for guitars and percussion. Afterwards, i invited my friends Bart Miltenberger (trumpet) and Barry Meehan (bass) to add some select bits to the work. We are very happy with it, so be looking for that soon.

more on Alon here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alon_Ilsar

 

Global illage: In August 2010—during a 10 year reunion at the String Cheese Incident Festival in Oregon—we recorded 5 hours of music in Portland engineered by Prince Strickland III at his brand new studio.  Just this past January, we flew mix engineer Brian Boland in from Los Angeles to mix all the material. The outcome, listening back, thus far is staggering. Some amazing, amazing music featuring percussionist Jim Hamilton, Chris Cuzme, Dan Sears, and yours truly. Now we are sorting thru it all to properly frame up what could be 1 or several records. We are looking towards placing the music with some films as well. It’s quite cinematic stuff. Some of the pieces are 20-30 minutes long…so lot’s of different possibilities on how to release it. We are looking to collaborate with film makers, video artists, visualists, animators on some of this Global illage music. There’s many ways the music can go these days.

On a related note, Jim Hamilton and i, recently, had a reunion of our own in Chestnut Hill, PA at the magical Mermaid Inn where we played duet-percussion and guitar. It was a stellar night of music,and we are planning to continue with some more shows in the next few months.

 

Back in the end of January, I traveled with poet Ursula Rucker to California, where we played two dates—promoting her new album ‘She Said’—one at Kava Lounge in San Diego and one at Zanzibar in Santa Monica. They were very successful shows—also duos. We jammed also with a super dope beatboxer Josh Silverstein at the Zanzibar show. It was amazing. He sounded and felt like a drummer to me!  Mark de Clive Lowe and Sy Smith followed our set with an improv based soul-club set. Wonderful to be back in Cali. We had the extreme pleasure of staying in San Diego with wonderful hosts Kristie and crew in her lair in the hills. Much needed sun, palm trees, blue skies, ocean waves, wonderful people, music, and fish tacos! more US dates and a European tour are in the works! Grab the new album at iTunes or other digital outlet!  here’s a link to a recent performance at TedX Philly at the Kimmel Center late last year. http://tinyurl.com/4kzmy7c

The Sister Gertrude Morgan Experience played New Orleans two nights (following the UR_She Said California tour) at the CAC there. King Britt hosted/dj’d along with the stellar band of Chuck Treece (drums), Damon Benet (keys), Barry Meehan (bs), Tim Motzer (gtr), Ben Jaffe (tuba, night 1).  Two great nights there, although night two was the best sound-wise. The DJ mix was way too loud on the first evening we played, so lots of sound problems on stage as a result. Night two it was under control and we had a sublime night of Sister Gertrude music. We checked out Dumpstafunk there–Ivan Neville’s mighty funk band (not to be missed!)…and two late nights at DBA w/ Galactic musicians, night one, and night two w/ Stanton Moore on drums, Skerik/sax, Marco Benevento/keys…insane night there. It was an incredible week of music and playing.

 

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the 1k Sessions webcasts—produced by 1k Recordings and web.illish.us—continue to percolate with guest collaborators: in the last few months i’ve had the distinct pleasure to play/record with Markus Reuter (10/16/2011)—an excerpt from this performance is currently up at guitar player tv—Buchla synthesizer master Charles Cohen, and Swedish cellist wizardess Helena Espvall. These performances were all webcast live from 1k Studios and will be available sometime in the future for download or streaming. Sunday March 6, 2011 trumpeter Bart Miltenberger and Tim Motzer will have a 1k session of improvisations and soundscapes for trumpet and guitar. watch it here: http://1ksessions.com

 

 

 

The Tim Motzer & Markus Reuter-Descending record garnered wonderful reviews worldwide, was featured as top editor pick in guitar player magazine, radio performances, and interviews…and in this month’s Guitar Player magazine (April 2011) issue is an article by Barry Cleveland on the making of Descending. GP is also  presenting the video excerpt of Reuter & Motzer 1k Sessions webcast mentioned above! whew.

watch the Motzer-Reuter video excerpt here on Guitar Player TV: http://www.guitarplayer.com/video.aspx?bctid=791219450001&section=Artists

 

1k’s latest release, hot off the presses, is the new live album by BASE3_Live From Earth (1k017)

Buy it here: http://www.1krecordings.com/store/shopexd.asp?id=221

Be sure to grab this cd—absolutely essential Base3. Transmissions of spark and heat from the Doug Hirlinger, Tim Motzer,
and Barry Meehan trio formation. BASE3_Live From Earth cover concept/design and art by Dejha Ti. 

 

 

Meanwhile, recent 1k release Goldbug-the Seven Dreams made year end top 10 lists by innerviews Anil Prasad and UK Classic Rock Presents Prog! 

 

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On dance front, continuing daily improvs with dancers at uArts, ensembles, Group Motion’s Manfred Fischbeck, and upcoming score for Curt Haworth’s ‘Either/Or’ for late March 2011. Last week, I had the incredible fortune to improvise with Brazilian ballet dancers from Bahia. Also, rocked the nEW festival with Kathleen Hermsdorf for a week this past January.

 

On the cutting table:

Bandit 65, long awaited recording by Kurt Rosenwinkle, Tim Motzer, and Gintas Janusonus has been moving forward again with mixing happening in Brooklyn along with a chance meeting with David Torn possible to come on board to mix…more news soon. 

The new Nucultures moving along ‘Karma Guru’, featuring songs by Ellie Perez, Barry Meehan, and Tim Motzer.  Goldbug’s next record is well underway with 80 minutes of music recorded thus far. Tentatively titled ‘Zwei’ and once again featuring drummer Eric Slick, Barry Meehan, Theo Travis, and Tim Motzer.  This one turns up the heat quite a few notches. We may present some tracks-in-progress for those of you interested.  Also, mixing an album of soundscapes created with an old Roland GR-303 system on Christmas day and the day after. Snow and ice scapes perhaps.

the music madness continues…

be well!

until next time,

tim

 

even more news, show updates at these sites below and
on-going photo galleries. 

TWITTER: http://twitter.com/#!/timmotzer
FACEBOOK:  http://www.facebook.com/timmotzer
FLICKER: http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmotzer/ 

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recent records i played on:

 

David Sylvian-Sleepwalkers (Samadhisound)

Judy Dyble-Newborn Creatures

Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit-Secret Rhythms 4 (nonplace)

Bedouin Soundclash-Light The Horizon (Pirates Blend)

Ursula Rucker – She Said (Noizyboy)

Base3-Live From Earth (1k)

Goldbug – The Seven Dreams (1k)

Tim Motzer + Markus Reuter – Descending (1k)

True Blood Volume 2 – Music From The HBO Original Series (Elektra)