sympathetically swimming

Whirlwind week. Got back from the Thistle tour and immediately jumped into a bunch of performances. Played L'histoire du Soldat on Tuesday, followed that evening by a Lovely Socialite Mrs. Thomas W. Phipps performance for Honky Tonk Tuesday at Mickey's Tavern.

Here's an excerpt of us playing my tune, 'to float before sinking,' at that show:

The recording is a super low quality reference recording, but hopefully you get the sense from it that we had fun, because we did.

Next, I went on a mini tour this week with conspirators Anna Weisling, Jeff Herriott, and Eric Sheffield, as a project we're calling Sympathy Swimmers. We reworked Anna's, Eric's and my piece, exit crafting, to include Jeff, and the three of them had a piece called a scrape in the liquid, which we reworked to include me. We also conceived a new improvisation as the four of us to flesh out the set.

I feel super lucky to have these three  as friends/collaborators. A good deal of my most artistically satisfying adventures of the last year and a half have been with/through them. (Fyi, their band, bell monks, has just release a great song.)

We played in Minneapolis on Thursday at Bryant Lake Bowl, supporting We Can and We Must. BLB is a bowling alley, bar, and theater. When I first heard of the place, I admit I thought it sounded dubious, (I generally have an aversion to bowling alleys) but it's actually a really cool space to perform. It would have been nice to have had more of an audience, but we had fun. We took the show back to Madison on Friday with a show at the Project Lodge.

Jeff and Anna @ Project Lodge, Photo: Pat Reinholz

Eric and Ben @ Project Lodge, Photo: Pat Reinholz

We Can and We Must @ Project Lodge, Photo: Pat Reinholz

We Can and We Must is a really awesome improvising electronics duo from Chicago/Beijing. Composers/performers/improvisors Ryan Ingebritsen and Jason Wampler brought an impressive energy to the stage, using a variety of live electronics, samples, live samples, programmed beats, and live drums and keyboards. Anna Weisling jumped on board with great aplomb to do visuals for them both nights, which was very impressive.

And then tonight! Local innovators New Muse coordinated another splendid event, a Vaudevillesque variety show at local gay bar Plan B. They asked Weather Duo to open the night, and we obliged.

Weather Duo @ Plan B, Photo: Jonathan Kuuskoski

We play again on Sunday, with a May Day performance at Crossroads Coffeeshop in Cross Plains.

And amidst all this running about, I've been rehearsing this week with singer/songwriter Page Foster, because I'm playing with her on June 4th at the Just Coffee warehouse. I'll also be playing a set with Thistle and the Thorns. Page had to teach me her tunes this week, because she's all cool and going to play some shows in New York throughout May.

Here she is playing on Mars or somewhere: