Aural Lice

Art2Art: 1st Year Anniversary

2009-11-16T15:36:00.000-08:00

Sunday November 15 2009 Piano Factory Gallery

UPCOMING: Fall of the House of Entropy

2009-11-08T18:07:00.000-08:00

Sunday, November 15, 2009

GRIZZLER

8.00pm SHARP

The Piano Factory
791 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02118

(Entrance through Parking Lot @ Northampton Street)

Fall of the House of Entropy

2009-10-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

Sunday, October 25, 2009
The Piano Factory, 791 Tremont Street, Boston MA

Breakfast at Penderecki's:
Jules Vasylenko-Trombone, Reeds
Lauren Strobel-Drums, Trumpet
Nathan Ahlers-Guitar, Electronics

Undeveloped Piles:
Amy Mills-Horn, Electronics

Andrew Hock Trio:
Andrew Hock-Guitar
James Wylie-Alto Saxophone
Peter Negroponte-Drums

Toilet Phone:
Lauren Strobel-Drums, Vocals
Amy Mills-Guitar

LISTEN HERE: Andrew Hock Trio 17:01
LISTEN HERE: Undeveloped Piles 8:29
LISTEN HERE: Toilet Phone 9:50
LISTEN HERE: Breakfast at Penderecki's Track-1 17:04
LISTEN HERE: Breakfast at Penderecki's Track-2 27:47

New Podcast

2009-07-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

There is a new podcas feed. Re-subscribe at:

Aural Lice Podcast

...Jazz?

2009-05-16T16:06:00.000-07:00

mearth

2009-03-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

4:32. Garage somewhere on Rt 32 in New Paltz, New York - 1994

Lineup:
Vocals - Ryan Cronin
Guitar - James Rall
Guitar - Dawn Weiss
Bass - James DeGrassi
Drums - Nathan Pallace

A bad recording of a good time, or a good recording of a bad time. I don't remember.

Notes:
The 1/4" tape on hand was old, not wound tails out, and had extreme print through of some public radio program from Buffalo NY. Recorded on a Revox B77. One sm57 above the drums, one being screamed into, guitar and bass di to a shack 4 channel "mixer" static courtesy of dirty pots.

LISTEN HERE: mearth

CPII - David Gross

2009-02-04T02:05:00.000-08:00

15:07. extended outro.
Cross-Pollenization Music Festival II
October 13, 2007

Lineup:
David Gross - Saxophone

LISTEN HERE: CPII-David Gross

CPII - Tim Feeney

2009-02-04T01:53:00.000-08:00

22:46. extended outro.
Cross-Pollenization Music Festival II
October 13, 2007

Lineup:
Tim Feeney - Percussion

LISTEN HERE: CPII-Tim Feeney

CPII - Kevin Frenette Group

2009-02-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

Talk about tape delay! Patience is not the word.

28:10. extended intro and outro.
Cross-Pollenization Music Festival II
October 13, 2007

Lineup:
Kevin Frenette- Guitar

Jules Vasylenko - Saxophone
Andrew Ward - Percussion

Ryan McGuire - Bass

George Saenz - Trombone
Jo Onishi- Synthesizer

LISTEN HERE: CPII-Kevin Frenette Group

The "O" Files

2008-10-23T14:47:00.001-07:00

This happened on October 18, 2008, at 6:04 PM while driving South on I-93 in Massachusetts, at the Shawsheen River marsh.

A Signal to Sun Ra (In Five Parts)

2007-10-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

LISTEN HERE: Signal to Sun Ra (Part I)
LISTEN HERE: Signal to Sun Ra (Part II)
LISTEN HERE: Signal to Sun Ra (Part III)
LISTEN HERE: Signal to Sun Ra (Part IV)
LISTEN HERE: Signal to Sun Ra (Part V)

Lineup:
Thomas Peri - Guitar
Jules Vasylenko - Saxophone, Horns

To sleep, perchance.

2007-10-07T14:15:00.000-07:00

The ink-stained wretch and I talk pretty often. Because we both work crazy hours, the conversation will often start (and always touch on, however briefly) with some version of "so how'd you sleep?" He works 12 hour shifts in 3 or 7 day stretches purely, regularly, in fact inexorably at night, while I work 8, 10, 12 hour days all over the clock: at night, during the day, starting early, whatever the show I'm on dictates. In both cases, we have pretty much permanently fucked-up sleep patterns and really altered lives as a result of our schedules.

We both have been getting less sleep than usual these past few weeks, and I wrote about it in some more detail on my regular home, humblenailbanger.com the other day, so we've been talking about it maybe even a little more than usual. Maybe that's why it definitely struck me that, as much as I think some version of "they just don't get it" when considering the 9 to 5ing (925ing?) public at large, I never really thought about something he mentioned the other day. Basically we were talking about how we slept the previous night, because I was working a week of 5am calls and he was in the midst of 7 straight (!!!) 12 hour nights, and we started in on how most people don't have any idea what it's like to have your life so permanently altered by your work schedule. And they never really have to, or think to ask "how'd you sleep?"

Folks like us, though, are always asking each other. Like every day. Not only that, but it's a fairly regular topic of conversation....how did you sleep, where did you sleep, who kept you up, whether you lost sleep worrying about a project, just couldn't drift off, woke up too soon, whatever. But exhaustion, insomnia and the noisy assholes of the world are a regular thing, whereas "regular" people really only mention it when they've lost sleep to have fun (concert, out whoopin it up with friends, whatever), or in unusual short-lived (and by that I mean a few hours/days/weeks, or even months) circumstances like annoying neighbors or a pet or kid who wouldn't settle down. 925ers really don't ever have to trouble themselves, unless they're saying "poor bastard, I'd hate to work his shitty hours. Can you imagine being up this late to" do whatever it is they're watching someone do. Unless they're up til midnight because whatever local opiate-of-the-masses sporting management and logo choosing and boosting organization went into extra innings/periods/fractions/moments/sudden-deaths/allotments/whatever, that's the extent of it.

Now, I don't really fault them for it. What should I expect them to do, if they somehow knew that the catalog or magazine they're reading was proofed and corrected at 3am by someone who hasn't seen the sun in 4 days? Or that the crew responsible for pulling off the show they have on in the background while they drink their coffee has been awake since 2 or 3am and will do two shows that day, while consuming more caffeine in 12 hours than they'll consume in their entire happy little lives, utterly ignorant of our Gollumesque existence? That we regularly thank whatever we might worship that evolution is slow enough that we don't have to worry about developing translucent skin and blindness as a result of our work schedules?

Well, a little hero worship would be nice. A bit excessive on our part, yes. A nod, smile? Some acknowledgement? Howzabout a day in our honor, National Exhaustion Day, on which they have to fucking tiptoe around like we do, and during which we can all, finally, get some goddamned rest?

Work Antics - No Shit Shakespeare!

2007-10-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

This is the "radio" version of the "O"'s first robbery as a child.
NEXT WEEK: "O" teaches his younger brother to parachute!.

Break In

Differing on Sunday differentials

2007-10-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

What with the potential for strikes or lockouts in my very near future, I'm hearing a lot of blather and bluster, stories whipping all over the place. Basically what's happening is the stagehands might strike against some of the theatres on Broadway, while the owners are threatening to lock us out. The strike is what it is, there are many issues. From where I'm standing, in television-land, it looks to me like the owners are making some serious money these days....ticket prices are through the roof, there are big names everywhere, every show is sold out, yet still they're crying poverty. Interesting.

Now again, this is second-hand, and I really have been too exhausted to do a whole hell of a lot of research, but I've heard that one cost-cutting measure that was proposed was taking away the Sunday differential, which pays more for Sunday work. Sounds reasonable, right? These guys work crazy hours, 6 or 7 days a week, never see their kids (and I know, I'm the son of a stagehand, and my father left the house at 5am and got home well after 8pm for most of my childhood....), and they get paid a little extra for that on Sundays, which is what? The traditional day of rest? And now, I hear, that might be taken away.

So you've gotta wonder what the owner/executive/whoever was thinking in this story, which the person who told it to me swears is true:

During some of the recent talks, a head at one of the theatres asked the aforementioned owner/executive/whatever a question.

"So. Let me ask you a question. What do you do on a Sunday morning? Do you sleep in a little bit?"

"Yeah, I might get an hour or so extra."

"Sleep in, have a little breakfast with the kids?"

"Sure, eat with my children, hang out with them, you know. Spend time."

"And then what? Mow the lawn, have a couple drinks?"

"Maybe. Get in a few rounds of golf. You know, relax."

"You spend your Sunday just hanging out, relaxing, playing a little bit? Seeing your family?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, you know what I do with my Sundays? I get up at 5am, kiss my sleeping kids goodbye, and I come in here and run your fucking theatre. And you want to pay me less now?"

And from what I hear, there was no answer. The only thing that surprises me is that the guy ever answered any of those questions in the first place. He had to know something like that was coming....

Italian + English

2007-10-03T07:48:00.000-07:00

Great clip discussing the merits of traveling with glass ice-cream bowls received as a wedding favor. (Bronx, NY)

Itanglish

Work antics.

2007-10-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

Stagehands work long, often dull hours. In some studios, in can lead to this:

Tenant recording at 725 Harrison

2007-10-02T08:48:00.001-07:00

Elevator Noise