Thomas Dimuzio presents a solo performance of electronic sounds.
Moe! Staiano guides an ensemble of musicians in a composition written specially to be performed at Mosswood Chapel. Musicians will be distributed among its hallways and rooms surrounding the main performance space. The seated audience will experience the work acoustically "mixed and mastered" in real-time as the instrumentalists roam throughout the building. This will be the second performance of this composition.
MOE STAIANO GUIDED ENSEMBLE
Robin Walsh - Guitar
Melne Murphy - Guitar
Drew Wheeler - Guitar
Jeff Hobbs - Cello
Tim Duff - Upright Bass
Naomi Johnson - Piano
Jordan Glenn - Xylophone
Moe! Staiano - Percussion
Thomas Dimuzio is a musician, composer, improviser, sound designer, mastering engineer, label proprietor, and music technologist residing in San Francisco, California. Dimuzio's music is like a sonic excursion transporting the listener to other worldly aural realms. “His work has a narrative, filmic tug that will draw you into its dark corners, ears alert… brilliant and rarely less than entertaining.” (Peter Marsh, BBC).
His recordings have been released internationally by ReR Megacorp, Asphodel, RRRecords, No Fun Productions, Sonoris, Drone Records, Record Label Records, Odd Size, Seeland, and other independent labels. Among his collaborators are Chris Cutler, Dan Burke, Joseph Hammer, Alan Courtis, Nick Didkovsky, Due Process, Voice of Eye, Fred Frith, David Lee Myers, Alaric, ISIS, 5uu's, Scot Jenerik, Matmos, Wobbly and Negativland. Prepandemic performances include AngelicA Festival Internazionale di Musica, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, CCRMA at Stanford, Recombinant Media Labs Buchla Memorial, and Ende Tymes Festival of Experimental Art and Liberation. Dimuzio hosted and produced Frequency Modulation Radio featuring live on-air performances of sonic practitioners exploring the fringes of music and broadcast on KPFA-FM Berkeley.
Moe! Staiano is a musician and composer of new music works and angular rock music. Since 1995, he has been at the forefront of the Bay Area improvisation scene, playing drums and percussion through innovative solo shows that can feature prepared drum kit, found objects, audio looping and the inventive use of a "percussion guitar." All this is woven in with a performance art aspect that gets the audience involved and wondering what might happen next. He will play (or smash into pieces) just about anything he can get his hands on, and somehow make a compelling musical statement out of it. Moe's compositional work has included music for large ensembles, a piece for two bass clarinets, and a work for percussion quartet. He has also conducted aleatoric improvisatory ensembles, using a glossary of handcues as well as composed sections cued in the moment. As conductor and composer for the Moe Staiano Ensemble, (formerly Moekestra!), he has composed pieces that can include over 30 musicians playing instruments ranging from violins, clarinets and cellos to drum kits, wine glasses, sirens, oscillators and electric guitars. Moe Staiano Ensemble performances are high-energy, electrifying experiences that create unique and intriguing soundscapes.
Moe is currently the leader and frontman for Surplus 1980, a post-punk band that continually evolves its percussive, no-wave progressive musical exploration. Surplus 1980 features Moe's bracing guitar and wry wordplay and a wide palette of timbres from the multi-instrumentalist members of the group. They have released three albums, 2011's "Relapse In Response," 2014's mini-album "Arterial Ends Here," and 2019's "Pigeon Obstacle Course." Additionally, Surplus 1980 appears on one side of the shared 7" record, "International Static Split," with Dutch band King Champion Sounds. They have a forthcoming album in the works for 2022 and a single with G.W. Sok. In 2018, a collaboration with vocalist G.W. Sok (Formerly with The Ex) led to the creation of a 14-piece expanded version of the band--the Surplus 1980 Collectiv Ensembl. This unique group recorded "Forget All This," an album featuring Sok's poetry set to Moe's music, which was released in 2019. Later that year, the group, including Sok, brought this album to the stage in full for a pair of shows in the San Francisco Bay Area. From 1999-2004, Moe was a percussionist for metal progsters Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (and appeared occasionally for live guest performances afterward). He appears on their albums "Grand Opening And Closing," and "Of Natural History," as well as the "Live" album. He played and recorded with San Jose collective Vacuum Tree Head (also doing percussion first, then as drummer) from 1996 to the early 2000's. In 2006 he formed Mute Socialite, an angular no-wavish punk band, in which Moe played drums (and occasional guitar), along with second drummer Shayna Dunkelman, and guitarist Ava Mendoza. They released one album, "More Popular Than Presidents And Generals."
Over the years, Moe has worked with a veritable who's-who of the Bay Area creative music scene, including Gabby Fluke-Mogul, Fred Frith, Ron Anderson (the Molecules, RonRuins, PAK), Tom Nunn, Vacuum Tree Head, Thollem McDonas, Z'ev, Amy X Neuburg, Ava Mendoza, Nurse With Wound, David Slusser, Karen Stackpole, Ches Smith, Michael Evans (God Is My Co-Pilot), Caroline Kraabel & John Edwards (Shock Exchange), Gino Robair, William Hooker, Tom Dimuzio and has performed with all these plus Henry Kaiser, Mark Growden's Electric Pinata, Amy Denio,
Jordan Glenn, Telepathic Birds, Feona Lee Jones, Jon Raskin (ROVA), Cheer-Accident and has performed in the sfSoundGroup, Rova::Orkestrova, Terrie Hessels (the Ex), Rhys Chatham (A Secret Rose for 100 guitars) among others.
Cost: $10-$25 sliding scale