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Last Updated: 8/21/2007

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Gender: Female
Status: Swinger
Age: 89
Sign: Capricorn

City: Kutztown
State: Pennsylvania
Country: US
Signup Date: 8/8/2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 

Category: Music
On Sunday, September 9th at 7pm, with our first Musik event at Eckhaus we are please to bring you:

Jack Wright, sax player living in Easton, and Michael Johnsen, electronicist from Pittsburgh, have been bouncing sounds back and forth for the past ten years. Last year they toured in Europe and the East Coast as a duo and with French trumpet player Sebastian Cirotteau. Their duo recording has been released as Truant Runts, on the Sprout label.

MICHAEL JOHNSEN was born in 1968 to two German immigrants in Pittsburgh, where he continues to live. Over the past several years he has wired together an melange of analog electronic devices for live performance, whose highly idiosyncratic behaviors are revealed through their complex interactions. As an antidote to all that wire, he is equally devoted to the saw, a simple folk instrument. He is especially fond of putting himself in difficult, confusing situations. Most of what he might have learned has come from the so-called natural world, like watching robins run. "My favorite sound is the one that's over."

He has played widely in the eastern US in improvising, electronics, and "noise" contexts, including three Hi Zero Festivals in Baltimore, two No Net weekends in Philadelphia, Avant-tronics (Ohio), and Sonic Transmutations (Rhode Island, 2004). Recent and important partners have included Michel Doneda, Margaret Cox, Michael Zerang, Joe McPhee, Jack Wright, Tom Djll, and Greg Pierce.

Michael has released a cd on Recorded, drawn from his Hi Zero performances in 2003: Patience Tryouts. One review has this to say:

"Pittsburgh's Michael Johnsen has never been an easy man to capture. His public performances, even in his hometown, are spotty, at best, and Johnsen eschews computers and internet communication, thereby avoiding what's become a vital lifeline for millions of musicians worldwide. Johnsen has appeared on compilations, and played on releases by other artists, but, until now, he's resisted releasing an album under his own name...."
---adam strohm
2005 jan 17 http://www.fakejazz.com/reviews/2005/johnsen.shtml

"Michael thinks near or beyond the edge of the routine organization of cognition - a true outsider. His work with original electronics, acoustic instruments, unusual film methods, language, and other media, reveals a brilliant mind that confronts phenomena with relatively little of the inherited world view but with a tremendous clarity and poetry. The entrance to Michael's work is a withdrawal from "meaning" and a focus on aspects of perception and communication that are usually excluded - the rich universe of thoughts we habitually ignore but which are ultimately as palpable as our delusions of meaning."
---John Berndt, Hi Zero Festival


Jack Wright

has been a full-time saxophonist of strange music since the late 70's, and even began playing alto saxophone as a ten-year-old in 1952. He is known by a few people and wants to keep the low profile, which is why those few people tend to be other musicians of his ilk. He used to rage and stomp around when he played, now as an old man he sits quietly, makes soft cuddly sounds, interrupted by occasional lion roars and dog barkings that scare people unnecessarily. His appearance is non-descript--no big beard, no tattoos, always a hat, not for fashion but to protect his almost-bald head from cold, mosquitoes, and stage lighting. He crouches when he plays, with the bell of his horn pressed against his bare thigh and muted at times into near-silence. He is known to play with everyone, but he only performs with people who interest him musically. And since he plays a lot of different ways, from free jazz to no-recognizable-sax-sound, that's a lot of people--here (state-side) and abroad. He may be obscure but he comes close to doing exactly what he wants, and that is no simple matter for any of us.

There is much more information available at www.springgardenmusic.com and even a stack of mp3's on the Sounds page. That is no substitute for hearing him play in a concert hall, living room, bookstore or laundrymat. Improvisation is really only a live experience, played once for you and then gone for good.

Opening will be:

kyle page- percussion
adam malantonio- electronics

'quiet sounds from the lehigh valley'
10:19 PM
 
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