The LSG New Music Series is the longest standing experimental music series in the Bay Area, with weekly Thursday night shows since 1991. Founded by LSG Gallery Directors Laurie Lazer and Darryl Smith, the series has been curated by several Bay Area musicians.
Since 2002 the New Music Series has been curated by Outsound Presents and local improvisers/sound artists Rent Romus and Matt Davignon. They present a wide cross section of sound artists from every experimental genre.
Thursdays 8-10pm Admission $6-10 sliding scale All ages welcome, no one refused for lack of funds.
The series is an artist-run, grass-roots DIY effort that relies on volunteers. Please join us in setting up chairs, curtain, lights, sound once a week, and contact Outsound Presents to get involved in marketing and project coordination.
The Luggage Store Gallery is a non-profit corporation funded by the City of San Francisco, grants, and your contributions. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, Noon to 5pm. For gallery information call 415-255-5971.
BOOKING Please read the policies here. Contact Rent Romus for booking and all other inquires.
Principle
Artist-run, volunteer, grass-roots DIY effort with little money and extraordinary results
Type of Music Presented
Experimental: new sonic, improvised, noise, electronic, lowercase, avant-jazz, outrock, 21st century composition, and sonic art. See artist list below.
Format
Weekly on Thursday Nights 8-10pm (Usually) two acts per night 7:00pm Setup 8:10pm Set One 9:10pm Set Two
Booking Lead Time
Two to three months in advance
Terms & Policy
70% of door equally split among artists 30% of door to gallery One comp admission per artist. No Power tools, or destructive devices of any type allowed. No fire or fume generating devices unless under a controlled environment and is 100% non-toxic. No smoking of any kind allowed in the space.
Facility and Equipment
Visual arts gallery with simple PA (mixer and speakers). A few tables, 35 folding chairs and 2 music stands are available. Capacity 100
Location
Second story storefront on Market near Sixth 1.5 blocks from Powell Street BART station, and several San Francisco buses stop right outside. If you are driving to our space, please email us for advice on where to unload and park.
Do Not Have
Piano, projector, microphones, instrument cables, power strips
Do Not Provide
Guaranteed payment, guest passes, hotel accomodations, transportation, rehearsal space/time, or a sound person.
To Book a Gig
Check calendar for date availability. Submit performance description with proposed dates, brief artist bios, website information and links to audio/video to Rent Romus
Past Curators/Volunteers
Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Sean Rooney, Steev Hise, Scott Looney, Matt Ingalls, Damon Smith, Bob Boster, Melissa Metrick, Jon Brumit (send us a note if you presented over the past 17 years, we'd love to hear from you).
Past Performers
Over the course of its Thursday night concerts, the series has presented hundreds of artists drawn from a vanguard roster, among them Cecil Taylor, Miya Masaoka, Alan Silva, Carl Stone, Biggi Vinkeloe, Joe McPhee, Janet Feder, Peter Kowald, Henry Kaiser, Fred Frith, Gino Robair, Koji Asano, Andrea Neumann, Axel Dorner, Kitundu, Pamela Z, Wolfgang Fuchs, Amy Denio, Jason Kahn, Eddie Prevost, Karen Stackpole, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Gianni Gebbia, Karen Borca, Oluyemi Thomas, Saadet Turkoz, Yasuhiro Otani, Eddie Gale, Jim Ryan, Dina Emerson, Burton Green, Jane Rigler, Jack Wright, Assif Tsahar, CJ Reaven Borosque, Glenn Spearman, Danielle DeGruttola, Bob Marsh, Shoko Hikage, Bob Ostertag, Xome, Randy Yau, Stimbox, Kaffe Matthews and countless others both local and international.
Directions : 1.5 blocks from the Powell Street BART station
Outsound Presents 8pm Ann O'Rourke solo drums/electronics/voice 8:20 THE ANCIENT GEEKS - Masters of Antique Sound Technology Sponsored by Archimedean Levers and Screws, Inc. 9:05pm Free Sax Aaron Saul- Alto Sax Andrew Ferren- Tenor Sax Brian Rodvien- Drums
THE ANCIENT GEEKS (Jim Ryan and Ann O’Rourke) combine acoustic, analog and digital sounds to create weird music. Ann O’Rourke plays drumset, found objects, iPhone, contact mics, and effects. She also provides strange vocals and fractured nursery rhymes. Her favorite instrument is a metal CD holder tower with a cross eyed cat on the top. Her favorite drum stick is a toilet bowl brush. She recently discovered improv music and gave up jazz drumming to pursue this path. She is a member of the Cornelius Cardew Choir, an avant garde vocal group. Jim Ryan plays flute, kalimba, sax, and electronic devices. He has been on the scene since the 20th Century and is very ancient.
Free Sax is a unique sound of improvisations and liquid conversations. Completely spontaneous and unrehearsed, from the sweetest and softest, to the explosive and furious. Routed strongly in Jazz, the influences of Ornette Coleman and Coltrane seemlessly mixed with free improvisation.
duo pantoMorf plays electronic free improv on Nordmodular G2. That is, we perform improvised electronic music as musicians, NOT looking like we check our email on stage. Our main rule is: if we take our hands away, the instruments go quiet. We use no fancy sensors or esoteric gestural controllers, but very basic stuff that we know well how to play. But we develop new ways of playing them, and - most important - new ways of mapping them to sound, using carefully designed sound engines that allows fingertip control, while retaining a vast sonic potential. Every sound relates to and comes directly from a physical gesture by the player, which makes a huge difference for the audience. There are no ongoing pre-programmed processes, and all is free improvisation, mostly non-beat based. If there is a beat, it is played by us. The main question is: How can we explore and control complex electronic sound spaces in improvisation, retaining the millisecond interaction that is taken for granted in acoustic improvisation, but has somehow got lost in electronic music.
CREPUSCLE TRIO: "A solid working unit for many years but operating under the radar of the mainstream jazz world in the Southern California area, the Crepuscule Trio represents the most fundamental and vital aspects and values of what came to be termed �free jazz� music-making. Consisting of three outstanding musicians, saxophonist Ken Kawamura, bassist Anthony Shadduck, and drummer Alan Cook, the trio mines the tradition of the music they know intimately while blasting it open into the realm of spacious and multidirectional musical possibility. Loose, intense, subtle, and swinging, the Crepuscule Trio reminds one that free improvisation stemming from the jazz tradition is a fully relevant form of musical expression." - Alex Cline
Alan Cook brings a dynamic and multifaceted perspective to the creative exploration of the percussive arts. His 25 years of diverse musical experience includes performing and composing with a Nigerian talking drum ensemble, a Scottish pipe band, an organ trio, as well as solo accompaniment for modern dance and performance art. He has performed with musicians such as Dave Holland, Albert Mangelsdorf, Bobby Bradford, Fred Katz, Lee Konitz, Don Thompson, Ralph Alessi, Scott Colley, among many others.
Saxophone player and composer Ken Kawamura has a varied musical background that includes writing and performing with indie/punk bands, straight ahead jazz groups, avant-garde/free jazz ensembles, and 19 piece big bands. His work includes feature film soundtrack scoring and other solo experimental projects. He has performed and recorded with world-class musicians such as Paul Carman, Bobby Bradford, Joel Hamilton, Joey Sellers, Gary Fukushima, William Jeffrey, and Evan Stone in Los Angeles.
Anthony Shadduck is a contrabassist who has received his Masters of Music in Jazz Studies and Performance from California State University Long Beach. Working in both the standard and free improvised jazz idioms, he has performed and recorded with such Los Angeles-based musicians as Lynn Johnston, Chris Schlarb, The Create! Collective, Joe Biaza, Emily Hay, Ron Stout, Ches Smith, and Nels Cline.
8:00 PM - Joshua Churchill + Paul Clipson, solo guitar/electronics & Super 8 film
Joshua Churchill and Paul Clipson create collisions of sound, light, and image spanning the spectrums of light(ness) and dark(ness), ethereal and austere, using electronic and acoustic musical instrumentation and Super 8 film, respectively. The element of chance plays a major role in their continually evolving collaboration explores as each artist simultaneously presents densely layered and textured abstract collages within their respective media without premeditations.
9:00 PM - Peter Kolovos (Los Angeles), solo guitar
His performance will coincide with and channel the peak of the storm moon's energies.
PERFORMER BIOS:
Joshua Churchill is a San Francisco-based cross-disciplinary who works with sound in the context of immersive site-specific art installations and a number of solo and collaborative experimental music and noise performances including solo noise project T/R and doom/drone/noise trio Riqis.
Paul Clipson is a San Francisco-based filmmaker who often collaborates with sound artists and musicians on live performances, films and installations. His Super 8mm films are shot and largely edited "in-camera", in an improvised manner that brings to light subconscious preoccupations in the hope of allowing for un-thought, unexpected visual elements to reveal themselves.
Peter Kolovos has forged one of the most distinctive sound languages to emerge out of today's avante/out sound underground. Using and electric guitar he creates music that is constantly shifting and fiercely physical. Think volume, texture and immediacy rather than melody, structure or repetition. Swirling vortexes of sound. Every performance and recording is different and never repeated - each is innevitably tied to the unique qualities of every moment and circumstance.
Kolovos has performed throughout the U.S. and has released recordings under his own name as well as his group Open City. His solo LP 'New Bodies' was released in 2009 to strong reviews and received mention in writer's best of the year lists in the Wire and the Village Voice. He lives and records in Los Angeles.
Thursday, Apr 1 2010 8:00 PM
Outsound Presents 1st: Mike Crain solo 2nd: Rick Walker Solo 3rd: Crain/Walker duo
Mike Crain is an award winning composer and percussionist living in Northern California. He has written for strings, percussion, piano, brass, chamber ensembles, and full orchestra. Tonight he'll be performing on Vibraphone, electronics and percussion. www.mikecrain.com
Rick Walker has been a performing percussionist for over 25 years, and a central figure in the international "Looping". Using multiple real-time sampling devices and an extensive array of junk, world instruments and inventions, he can create improvised, multi-layered "songs" before your eyes. Lately he's been exploring glitch electronics and noise music techniques. www.looppool.info"
Thursday, Apr 8 2010 8:00 PM
Outsound Presents SoundSpeak a series presenting pairings of sound and voice artists 8pm Spoet Polly Moller w/TBA 9pm Poet Robert Anbian w/Rent Romus saxes/accordian/objects
Outsound Presents 8:00 Noah Phillips & Jason Hoopes Duo 8:45 Lucio Menegon's Sonic Demons (CD release set) 9:15 Lawson Jacob Zimmerman, Drew Cecatto, Matt Nelson, Cory Wright (saxes), Michael Coleman and Dan VanHassel (keyboards), Dan Good (electronics and trumpet)
A large ensemble run by Jacob Zimmerman partially focused around sustained sounds with improvised counterpoint that utilizes a very specific type of pitch system
Sonic Demons is a dark sonic tale for dark times with a story that follows the plight of a broken down Lucifer, an over-eager Alchemist, a Faustian bargain, a fantastical steam-punk miracle machine, a deadly molecule, a scheming Vulcan and the very heavy Saturn. Sonic Demons features Lucio's signature guitar and electronic sounds in solo and collaborative compositions and improvisations
Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion) is originally from Osaka, Japan. In 2006 he performed in 80 cities in 7 countries and collaborated with 163 artists worldwide. In the past 10 years he has released nearly 50 recordings on CD.
He has created his own instrumentation, effectively inventing many instruments and extended techniques. He utilizes drumset, bowed gongs, cymbals, singing bowls, metal objects, bells, and various sticks and bows to create an intense, organic music that defies category or genre. His music is based in improvised/ experimental music, jazz, free jazz, rock, and noise, yet retains the sense of space and beauty found in traditional Japanese folk music.
In addition to live solo and ensemble performances he works as a sound designer for film and television. He also teaches Masterclasses and Workshops at the University level. He also heads H&H Production, an independent record label and recording studio based in Easton, Pennsylvania. He was selected as a performing artist for the Pennsylvania Performing Artist on Tour (PennPat) roster as well as a Bronx Arts Council Individual Artist grant.
Thursday, May 13 2010 8:00 PM
Outsound Presents 8pm Holiday Heart (Ellery Royston and Alexandra Buchanan) 9pm bLakcPullet Grimoire w/ video projection performing a release set for his newest CD "Eating whole villages he threw up from the bitter taste of concrete"
Ellery Royston (b. 1986) is a composer currently residing in Oakland, CA. She has a BA in Electronic Music Composition and an M.A in Interdisciplinary Computer Science from Mills College, where she studied with James Fei, Maggi Payne, John Bischoff, and Fred Frith, among others. She is a member of the signal processing duo Laces (with Sara Elena Palmer), and the drone-metal band The Earth Will Take Its Own (with Dominique Leone and Curtis McKinney).
Mokele Mbembe "one that stops the flow of rivers" and spreads sonic flow down the street and into the alley of your ears.
z_Bug is an industrial jazz unit based in San Francisco with their roots in Miles Davis, Sun Ra, and Throbbing Gristle with an ambient elements akin to Robert Rich. They are a two drummer group with Moog synthesizer, electric bass, piano, two laptops, modular synthesizer, and electric guitar. http://www.leikam.com/david/z_bug/index.html
Thursday, Jun 17 2010 8:00 PM
Guest Curation with Pete Martin Artists TBA
Thursday, Jun 24 2010 8:00 PM
Outsound Presents Full Moon Concerts - Strong Moon artists TBA
Here's how it works: Musicians can sign up to be the orchestra by contacting Matt Davignon (at gmail.com - no punctuation). Prospective conductors will sign up at the performance. (Most likely, if you want to conduct, you will have a chance to.) Each conductor gets up to 10 minutes to work with the ensemble. Different conduction techniques can be used, including but not limited to hand gestures, verbal directions, cue cards and graphical scores. A basic set of cue cards as well as blank paper and black magic marker will be supplied.
Thursday, Jul 29 2010 8:00 PM
Outsound Presents Full Moon Concerts - Blessing Moon artists TBA
Thursday, Aug 12 2010 8:00 PM
8:00pm TBA 9:00pm Richard Bonnet (France) solo guitar
Thursday, Aug 26 2010 8:00 PM
Outsound Presents Full Moon Concerts - Corn Moon Waving fields of corn, prairie heat evaporating into the night.
