This newsletter is already too long, as usual – so thanks for reading, and away we go!
love
Michael
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––––––––––––––––––––– New Words –––––––––––––––––––––
I just love sitting in on Third Eye Drops – one of my favorite podcasts (and I listen to a lot of them). Shane Mauss, you may already know, is a superb comedian, and host Michael Phillip does a great job of steering every conversation into splendidly bizarre directions. Click the image for a listen:
Also worth a mention that my Third Eye Drops appearance with Erik Davis is now up on YouTube, in case you want to see the funny faces we were making while we spoke. :)
––––––––––––––––– New Visual Artwork –––––––––––––––––
"Leviathan (or, Technocore in Love)"
oil and acrylic paint on masonite panel (48"x24")
(There are also plenty of pictures and videos of this piece in progress on my instagram profile.)
"Kaiju (or, This Time The Turtle Wins)"
oil and acrylic paint on canvas (36"x24")
This spring has been a total spree of small new canvases and other tiny pieces. Lots of new collaborations, sketchbook pages, custom painted items – most of which are still available and very inexpensive. This is the best way to grab original art from me right now, for less than a lot of you spend on your monthly internet bills:
- available, make an offer -
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- sold -
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- NFS -
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––––––––––––––––––––– New Music –––––––––––––––––––––
Please accept this windfall of ripe fruit, raw and full of juice. By no means are these polished studio recordings; these are artists who have not all played together like this, diving headlong into mystery, elaborating silence, weaving light and color into music.
This free recording of the highlights from our second Paint Jam features a rare Chapman Stick appearance by yours truly; Math Judson (drums); Andrew Noble (violin); Noah Peterson (saxophone); Shane Dooley (acoustic guitar); Matt Belluomini (electric guitar); and Caitlin Callas (viola).
(For fans of Cinematic Orchestra and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, because that’s what this reminds me of.)
And then there is this...
Sometimes I have a show on the other side of a security perimeter, no guests allowed. This bugs the hell out of me, so I'm glad that Facebook now allows you to stream video from anywhere. Although I've streamed a few live events on my YouTube channel (including my "historic first" Google Glass POV footage while performing at Gratifly Festival, as well as various podcast-format conversations), it was super fun to stream the second set from my recent solo acoustic gig at Waterloo Records in the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
If you like acoustic music, percussive guitar and fretboard tapping, songbird baritone-tenor warbling, and deep-as-space songs, you will enjoy this set.
But for those of you who like a more carefully curated package, not the raw live feeds with network latency disasters and potentially embarrassing stage banter, I've just added one more song (my favorite performance yet of "Let It All Get Out," with a slow-burning apocalyptic outro) to Live at Strange Brew Loungeside. Strange Brew is a fantastic listening room, and these recordings really sound "alive" – it gives these songs, for which I've usually spent years in composition and rehearsal, something special.
Also new this month: three new (and fantastic) free recordings in the Loopers' Night musical archive with yours truly alongside Jen Mulhern (cello); Shane Dooley (guitar); Sarah Jane Hargis (flute); Ana Barajas (voice); Jason McKenzie (percussion); Math Judson (drums); Andrew Noble (violin); Art Pinsof (iPad synth); and Todd Sloan (flute).
––––––––––––––––––– Upcoming Events –––––––––––––––––––
Full calendar here with many more events. Let me know if you'd like for me to visit your town and we can get started scheming it to life!
Giving two talks at this amazing event in just one week! Moogfest is "The Synthesis of Music, Art & Technology" and devotes a very awesome daytime program to the future of creativity and the human experience in an era of technological empowerment. Thanks to a referral from polymath-wizard Bruce Damer, I'll be speaking on the festival's "Technoshamanism" theme, getting into a bunch of the issues I discussed with Erik Davis in our last YouTube chat – as well as providing my first interactive live looping playshop. Read on for more info:
Presentation:
Workshop:
I'm back at Sonic Bloom Festival this year, on an incredible live painting lineup as well as presenting my new talk (tongue-in-cheek title: "How to Live in the Future") alongside some real wizards and witches. No live music this year on any stage, although I may plan some late-night psy-ambient sets in the SolPurpose Gallery...
Is anybody else attending Boom Festival this year? My first trip to Europe and I'm super honored that I get to play and speak amidst the international community of visionaries that converge there.
A dream come true! I'm teaching my first workshop – and playing my first concert – at Alex & Allyson Grey's Chapel of Sacred Mirrors this fall. I'll have more to say about this later. Details here.
And that is "all" for now. Thank you so much for reading, looking, listening, and all of your support!
“Polar flip-flops are the engines of conversions and suicides. Preferred is the witnessing of the infinite polarities without sinking into the conflict.”
– Alex Grey
