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Jupiter One pay a visit to Washington, DC next Wednesday (9/30) in support of their new release ‘Sunshower’ as openers for the wonderful Regina Spektor at Constitution Hall.
After speaking to Jupiter One’s Zac Colwell this week, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the band flipping through the bins of vinyl at any one of the shops advertised over there to the left while they're here...
"When I was growing up in South Austin, past the suburbs and before the pastures, my whole world was my parents' record collection. As soon as I could operate the turntable I was choosing my favorites: Fleetwood Mac "Heroes Are Hard to Find", Hugh Masakela "Is Alive And Well at the Whiskey", Cannonball Adderley "74 Miles Away", Stevie Wonder "Talking Book", The Uranium Savages, Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloe", etc. and on and on and on.
There were no categories or "genres", just "with words" or "without words". Many of these records have not been reissued on CD yet and so the only way I can hear this music that shaped my tastes is to visit home. When I see the covers, I remember the reverence I felt for these artifacts. They were important. Someone made these covers to look at, and so I stared at them for the length of the record. Every time.
As I got older I managed to get the record player to live in my room. I would fall asleep every night with the arm back so one side would repeat over and over and fill my dreams. I was tired in high school. A trip to the record store with friends was a ritual and we were sooooo cool for being into it.
Just now I played another Fleetwood Mac record and Grady Tate's "Windmills of My Mind" on the record player in the house. I loved that these thoughts were interrupted when I had to get up to flip the record. It demands the listener's attention. And never gives one more that can be digested."
The evening concludes at 9pm at the Velvet Lounge (915 U Street NW) with a program that ranges from insane noise to precision electronics and elegant compositions. $10 gets you in. Details:
Fern Knight is a quartet based in Philadelphia and DC led by cellist Margaret Ayre, and delivers a heady blend of progressive rock, pagan folk, 60's psych improv, and the new wave of British heavy metal. Imagine Pentangle with a flying V...
Swiss audio magician Luigi Archetti might be known to some as the guitarist behind latter-day krautrock pioneers Guru Guru. He's also done fantastic work as a sound installation designer and solo experimental musician. His recent release Transient Places is a wonderland of drones, textures, and deeply heavy minimalism.
Netherlands-based madman Odal cannot be described, it must be experienced. Peter Zincken's Odal project is a full-on assault of old-school noise with a physical presence that is uniquely.....Odal.
DC native Chester Hawkins (known to some blog readers as Intangible Arts) has been performing as Blue Sausage Infant since 1986. The sound of BSI can range from brutal noise to deep drones, heavy rhythms, and psychedelic walls of sound. The goal is to induce epic trance states and a vaguely paranoid kind of euphoria...
Twilight Memories of the Three Suns is a DC-based experimental collective that explores unique methods of sound creation, from amplified objects (bug zappers, building materials, heartbeats) to abused or altered instruments. Watching Twilight Memories in the act is as enlightening as hearing the resulting sounds.
The Sonic Circuits festival celebrates unexpected music in all its forms, and offers a unique chance to see some world-class examples here in DC. Check dc-soniccircuits.org for further details.
Most likely in a testament to some personal fortitude, I often find that I can look back on horrible experiences or times of duress...with some fondness.
I mean, it doesn’t happen right away, but the gamut of experience infuses me with an appreciation for a time of crisis, most often after some reasonable time has expired.
I can’t say why this is and I’m largely thinking (er, typing) out loud, but there you have it.
“A grace note is a kind of music notation used to denote several kinds of musical ornaments. When occurring by itself, a single grace note normally indicates the intention of either an appoggiatura or an acciaccatura. When they occur in groups, grace notes can be interpreted to indicate any of several different classes of ornamentation, depending on interpretation...
...The term grace note is sometimes colloquially used in a metaphorical sense to indicate concerns which are of secondary importance to that which is of primary concern. For example, in planning a banquet, one might consider the decision of the color of napkins to be used to be a 'grace note' in relation to deciding the courses that would be offered on the menu.”
Jupiter One pay a visit to Washington, DC next Wednesday (9/30) in support of their new release ‘Sunshower’ as openers for the wonderful Regina Spektor at Constitution Hall. 
