Sonny Romeri of local beat soundscape outfit Illuminauts played an experimental guitar set dedicated to his brother (who recently took up the instrument) at Park Gallery on Saturday evening.
His setup included a hollow body guitar, a sampler, effects pedals, and a microphone to capture beats woven from the sounds of a water bottle crinkling, a length of chain, and cigarette cellophane.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZISXe4FvxI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aayTfX4sjMI
I arrived at Soda Bar’s third annual San Diego Experimental Guitar Show just as Bill Wesley strummed the first chords from his Array guitar, a nine-string instrument that sits flat like a lap steel and is tuned in ascending fourths like a bass. The arrangement allows Wesley to play polyrhythmic patterns hitting bass lines with his thumbs. Fellow Vaginals band mate Maria la Cochina projected live kaleidoscope art thusly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfYNHwubrjc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AayGaJBk28
A barefoot Bill Orcutt of '90s Miami noise band Harry Pussy played stream-of-consciousness anti-riffs on a beat up Telecaster strung with only the low E and top three strings.
“A major turning point for the show was having the legendary Bill Orcutt sign on to the event,” curator Sam Lopez told the Reader last month.
“Any noise-head worth his spit will tell you that Bill Orcutt transcends minds with his playing. He dropped out of music for a while but then relocated to San Francisco. I'm actually flying him in strictly for the performance.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am74KCHJ-lw
Pinback/Heavy Vegetable/Thingy/et al. front man Rob Crow made use of effects pedals and an iPhone to coax this weirdness out of his guitar. Yep, there's an app for that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZETulF47lU
This year’s incarnation of the League of Assholes featured Marcelo Radulovich (Nicey Nice World), Randy Chiurazzi, Frank Melendez (Riververb), and Bobby Bray (Innerds, the Locust).
Chiurazzi added an X-wing pilot type helmet covered in kitchen utensils to his trademark Sound Suit, leading to some serious Bobby/Randy chemistry by the end of the twenty minute set.
“Frank, Marcello, and Bobby are like a three headed sonic super genius that I get to work with,” says Chiurazzi, a former member of King Crimson virtuoso guitarist Robert Fripp's League of Crafty Guitarists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aSyf7G0Xos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYmuz-Ilnl0
Melendez' set list
Here are some clips of earlier performers.
Aaron Legrow (California Bleeding, Dead Animal Mod)
“Everyone wants to be a guitarist,” says Aaron Legrow. “The problem is, when most people learn, they learn the rules of music ‘theory,’ and I put that in quotations because that's exactly what it is: theory. You can’t play certain notes because they don't sound right over certain chords and whatnot. So music becomes stagnant and fucking boring. Then the punks pick up guitars and drums again and come up with new shit, because to them these sounds are more a feeling with energy than some note with a name on a scale. Experimental music is important in general because it brings the art form away from advertisements, cliques, endorsements, and the record industry, and makes it exactly what it is: art. It’s more like listening to a painting or a sculpture than listening to regular music.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ek6-tUlrR8
Jon Calzo aka DJ Tenshun of experimental beat duo Skrapez
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M_-qc3-KrM
Experimental Guitar Show curator Sam Lopez aka Zsa Zsa Gabor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfGnu--LgME
Sonny Romeri of local beat soundscape outfit Illuminauts played an experimental guitar set dedicated to his brother (who recently took up the instrument) at Park Gallery on Saturday evening.
His setup included a hollow body guitar, a sampler, effects pedals, and a microphone to capture beats woven from the sounds of a water bottle crinkling, a length of chain, and cigarette cellophane.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZISXe4FvxI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aayTfX4sjMI
I arrived at Soda Bar’s third annual San Diego Experimental Guitar Show just as Bill Wesley strummed the first chords from his Array guitar, a nine-string instrument that sits flat like a lap steel and is tuned in ascending fourths like a bass. The arrangement allows Wesley to play polyrhythmic patterns hitting bass lines with his thumbs. Fellow Vaginals band mate Maria la Cochina projected live kaleidoscope art thusly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfYNHwubrjc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AayGaJBk28
A barefoot Bill Orcutt of '90s Miami noise band Harry Pussy played stream-of-consciousness anti-riffs on a beat up Telecaster strung with only the low E and top three strings.
“A major turning point for the show was having the legendary Bill Orcutt sign on to the event,” curator Sam Lopez told the Reader last month.
“Any noise-head worth his spit will tell you that Bill Orcutt transcends minds with his playing. He dropped out of music for a while but then relocated to San Francisco. I'm actually flying him in strictly for the performance.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am74KCHJ-lw
Pinback/Heavy Vegetable/Thingy/et al. front man Rob Crow made use of effects pedals and an iPhone to coax this weirdness out of his guitar. Yep, there's an app for that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZETulF47lU
This year’s incarnation of the League of Assholes featured Marcelo Radulovich (Nicey Nice World), Randy Chiurazzi, Frank Melendez (Riververb), and Bobby Bray (Innerds, the Locust).
Chiurazzi added an X-wing pilot type helmet covered in kitchen utensils to his trademark Sound Suit, leading to some serious Bobby/Randy chemistry by the end of the twenty minute set.
“Frank, Marcello, and Bobby are like a three headed sonic super genius that I get to work with,” says Chiurazzi, a former member of King Crimson virtuoso guitarist Robert Fripp's League of Crafty Guitarists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aSyf7G0Xos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYmuz-Ilnl0
Melendez' set list
Here are some clips of earlier performers.
Aaron Legrow (California Bleeding, Dead Animal Mod)
“Everyone wants to be a guitarist,” says Aaron Legrow. “The problem is, when most people learn, they learn the rules of music ‘theory,’ and I put that in quotations because that's exactly what it is: theory. You can’t play certain notes because they don't sound right over certain chords and whatnot. So music becomes stagnant and fucking boring. Then the punks pick up guitars and drums again and come up with new shit, because to them these sounds are more a feeling with energy than some note with a name on a scale. Experimental music is important in general because it brings the art form away from advertisements, cliques, endorsements, and the record industry, and makes it exactly what it is: art. It’s more like listening to a painting or a sculpture than listening to regular music.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ek6-tUlrR8
Jon Calzo aka DJ Tenshun of experimental beat duo Skrapez
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M_-qc3-KrM
Experimental Guitar Show curator Sam Lopez aka Zsa Zsa Gabor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfGnu--LgME