Thollem McDonas
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Thollem McDonas
Thollem McDonas is an American pianist, improviser, composer, singer-songwriter, touring performer, musical educator, and social critic. His musical compositions and performances have ranged from classical, and free jazz, to experimental and punk rock. He has toured North America and Europe since 2006, performing solo works and collaborating with an array of musicians, dancers, dance companies and filmmakers. Origins and Musical Developments McDonas began studying piano at the age of 5. His mother was a piano teacher and this led him to study the instrument. At the age of 14, he began teaching and authoring his own compositions. Shortly after McDonas graduated with degrees in piano performance and composition from San Jose State University, the Gulf War began. He abandoned the academy in his 20s to pursue direct political action. Eventually he merged these concerns, using music and performance at protests to draw attention to pertinent issues. Eventually he resumed his professi ...
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Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was established in 1894 by the American industrialist Leland Stanford when he founded Stanford University in memory of his son, Leland Stanford Jr. Palo Alto includes portions of Stanford University and borders East Palo Alto, California, East Palo Alto, Mountain View, California, Mountain View, Los Altos, California, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, California, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, California, Stanford, Portola Valley, California, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park, California, Menlo Park. At the 2010 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 68,572. Palo Alto is one of the most expensive cities in the United States in which to live, and its residents are among the most educated in the country. Howeve ...
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Vinny Golia
Vinny Golia (born March 1, 1946) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist specializing in woodwind instruments. He performs in the genres of contemporary music, jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation. Career As a composer, Golia fuses the rich heritage of jazz, contemporary classical music and world music. Also a bandleader, he has presented his music to concert audiences in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the United States in ensembles varying dramatically in size and instrumentation. Golia has won numerous awards as a composer, including grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Lila Wallace Commissioning Program, the California Arts Council, Meet the Composer, Clausen Foundation of the Arts, Funds for U.S. Artists and the American Composers Forum. In 1982, he created the ongoing 50-piece Vinny Golia Large Ensemble to perform his compositions for chamber orchestra and jazz ensembles. A multi-woodwind performer, Golia's recordings ...
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The Gowanus Session
''The Gowanus Session'' is an album by pianist Thollem McDonas, guitarist Nels Cline, and bassist William Parker recorded in 2012 for the Porter label.William Parker sessionography
accessed September 19, 2014


Reception

The All About Jazz review by Glenn Astarita awarded the album 4½ stars stating "Glaring expressionism coupled with rip-roaring layers of acoustic-electric sound-sculpting maneuvers yield the bountiful fruit on this manifold studio date".Astarita, G.
All Ab ...
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Thick Syrup Records
Thick Syrup Records is an independent record label from Little Rock, Arkansas. Founded by Travis McElroy in 2006, it specializes in indie rock and underground music. It has released the work of known acts such as Matt Cameron, Jad Fair from Half Japanese, Bob Bert of Sonic Youth, Penn Jillette, Don Fleming and Velvet Monkeys. The label also releases compilation albums with multiple artists. History Thick Syrup Records (TSR) was founded by Travis McElroy in 2005, but the first year was spent on finances and promoting the imprint. The label's first release was 2005’s ''Gotta Get It Outta Here'' by Nathan Brown under the moniker Browningham. McElroy's friend Brian Lovell helped with the label early on, and the name was chosen in honor of Lovell swallowing ipecac on a dare from McElroy. Kevin Rogers later began working with the label in Lovell's place. As of 2013, Thick Syrup has released about 60 albums that include genres as diverse as art punk, low-fi indie rock, experimental ex ...
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Brian Chase
Brian Chase (born February 12, 1978) is an American drummer and drone musician who plays in the New York rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. He was ranked at #50 in Gigwise's list of ''The Greatest Drummers of All Time''. He plays drums with traditional grip. Career Chase met Karen O at Ohio's Oberlin College, and he joined the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in 2000 after the original drummer left the trio. Starting at college, Chase played for the rock band The Seconds. Chase has been described by the ''New York Times'' as "a consummate music nerd, a conservatory-trained jazz drummer who still plays in the city’s experimental scene." Outside of his rock work with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Chase has performed in a number of experimental duos with other musicians such as Stefan Tcherepnin and Seth Misterka, with whom he released a CD ''Duo'' on the Australian Heathen Skulls label in 2007. Other musicians he has played with include Jessica Pavone, Mary Halvorson, Yonatan Gat, Moppa Elliott, and group ...
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Jad Fair
Jad Fair (born June 9, 1954) is an American singer, guitarist, graphic artist, and founding member of lo-fi alternative rock group Half Japanese. Biography Fair was born in Coldwater, Michigan. In 1974, he and his brother David formed the lo-fi group Half Japanese. Since then, Half Japanese has released nearly 30 records. Besides Half Japanese, Fair performs and records as a solo artist, and collaborates with artists such as Terry Adams (musician), Terry Adams, Kramer (musician), Kramer, Norman Blake (Scottish musician), Norman Blake, Kevin Blechdom, Isobel Campbell, Eugene Chadbourne, DQE (band), DQE, Steve Fisk, Fred Frith, God Is My Co-Pilot (band), God Is My Co-Pilot, Richard Hell, Daniel Johnston, J. Mascis, Jason Willett, Monster Party, Weird Paul Petroskey, R. Stevie Moore, Thurston Moore, The Pastels, Phono-Comb, Steve Shelley, Strobe Talbot, Teenage Fanclub, The Tinklers, Moe Tucker, Bill Wells, Jason Willett, Adult Rodeo, Lumberob, Yo La Tengo, and John Zorn. In 1982 F ...
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Michael Snow
Michael Snow (born December 10, 1928) is a Canadian artist working in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are ''Wavelength'' (1967) and '' La Région Centrale'' (1971), with the former regarded as a milestone in avant-garde cinema. Life Michael Snow was born in Toronto and studied at Upper Canada College and the Ontario College of Art. He had his first solo exhibition in 1957. In the early 1960s Snow moved to New York with his wife, artist Joyce Wieland, where they remained for nearly a decade. For Snow this move resulted in a proliferation of creative ideas and connections and his work increasingly gained recognition. He returned to Canada in the early 1970s "an established figure, multiply defined as a visual artist, a filmmaker, and a musician." His work has appeared at exhibitions across Europe, North America and South America. Snows' works were included in the shows marking the reopening of both the Centre ...
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Relative Pitch Records
Relative Pitch Records is an American independent record label specializing in free jazz and avant-garde jazz, free improvisation, and experimental music. Run by Kevin Reilly, Relative Pitch has been ranked among the top jazz record labels in ''The New York City Jazz Record'' and '' DownBeat'' year-end lists, and praised by publications and organizations including ''The Guardian'', NPR Music, ''The Brooklyn Rail'', and in ''Bandcamp Daily'''s label profile, "Relative Pitch is Built on Enthusiasm for Experimental Music". History Co-founders Kevin Reilly and Mike Panico first met waiting in line at a show and later spent time together as volunteers at The Stone, an experimental music space then located in the East Village. They eventually decided to start a record label, and co-founded Relative Pitch in 2011. Both Reilly and Panico attended a large number of avant-jazz performances, as noted by many of the label's artists. In a 2013 feature, Mary Halvorson asserted that â ...
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Other Minds (organization)
Other Minds is an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco. It was founded In 1992 by Charles Amirkhanian and Jim Newman (Dilexi Gallery, Other Minds), Jim Newman. According to their mission statement, the organization is dedicated to the "encouragement and propagation of contemporary music." The name "Other Minds" has been attributed by Jim Newman to an anonymous obituary that ran in ''The New Yorker'' in 1992 which stated that John Cage "...composed music in other people's minds." Other Minds has achieved wide recognition and acclaim including the ASCAP award in 2009 for adventurous programming, the American Music Center's 2005 letter of distinction for service to American composers, and the American Composers Forum 2017 Champion of New Music award for Other Minds Executive and Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian. Concerts Since 1993, Other Minds has presented an annual festival featuring a wide range of international composers. These concerts were previously ...
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Matthew Barney
Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well as themes of conflict and failure. His early pieces were sculptural installations combined with performance and video. Between 1994 and 2002, he created ''The Cremaster Cycle'', a series of five films described by Jonathan Jones in ''The Guardian'' as "one of the most imaginative and brilliant achievements in the history of avant-garde cinema." He is also known for his projects ''Drawing Restraint 9'' (2005), '' River of Fundament'' (2014) and ''Redoubt'' (2018). Life and career Matthew Barney was born March 25, 1967, as the younger of two children in San Francisco, California, where he lived until he was 7.Kristine McKenna (November 20, 1994)This Boise Life, or Hut Hut Houdini''Los Angeles Times''. He lived in Boise, Idaho from 1973 to ...
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River Of Fundament
''River of Fundament'' is a 2014 operatic experimental film written and directed by American contemporary artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney, and co-directed by longtime collaborator Jonathan Bepler. It was produced by Barney and the Laurenz Foundation, and is loosely based on American author Norman Mailer's 1983 novel '' Ancient Evenings''. The film features Barney, Dave Bald Eagle, Milford Graves, John Buffalo Mailer, Ellen Burstyn, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Madyn Greer Coakley, Paul Giamatti, Shara Nova, Joan La Barbara, Elaine Stritch, Debbie Harry and Aimee Mullins. Background ''River of Fundament'' was produced over 2007 to 2012, being the final product of a series of performances that accumulated into becoming the film's narrative. The film follows Norman Mailer (played by three actors over the course of the film) as he travels through three reincarnations, enduring the seven mythological states of his soul, loosely based on his own novel, ''Ancient Evenings'' (1983). Along wi ...
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First American Art Magazine
The ''First American Art Magazine'' is a quarterly art magazine covering living, historical, and ancestral art of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Background ''First American Art Magazine'' was established in 2013 "to provide a common platform for Native and non-Native academics, art professionals, artists, collectors, and other interested readers to seriously investigate and celebrate Indigenous American art—from ancestral to 21st century artwork." The publishing editor is America Meredith ( Cherokee Nation); literary editor is Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD; publicity director is Barbara Harjo; and circulation manager is Melissa Dominguez. Content The magazine includes profiles of living Native artists, features articles, and several departments: Recent Developments (news); an "Exploring Native Graphic Design" column; Seven Directions (a top seven list); "Spotlight" (focusing on an individual artwork); Advice; Art + Literature; memorials; classified advertising; and reviews of a ...
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