Tyrannosaurus Sex (and other truths) :: Ira Liss

20110603

Ira Liss is the director of communications for the ATLAS building, and a brilliant musician.  I have been close friends with him during my time at ATLAS and was very happy to find that he was given the opportunity to perform for all his friends and family.  Also, a number of my friends were heavily involved with the show.

I have always been a fan of Ira's music.  It is witty and rateable, and most importantly, entertaining.  It was also very nice to hear his normally solo piano playing accompanied by bass, guitar, drums, and saxophone/clarinet.  His show was comprised of his songs (including my favorite about an acorn... who wears a little hat) intermingled with short theatrical vignettes by Katie Cross and Graham Emmons (who has been involved with many of my previous productions), and very well choreographed segments by Katie Cross (the producer of UNA).

The story progresses through the concepts of a relationships, from childhood romances to teenage hormones to old age.  All the while, Cole Ingraham added Tyrannosaurus roars at amusingly appropriate times.  The flow was very smooth and the combination of dance, music, and images (taken by Ira himself) was very nice.

I was hoping to be more involved in this production, but my workload prevented me from being able to contribute :(  Regardless, I think that Ira did a fantastic job, and I was so happy to see and hear his vision come to fruition.  I'm very proud of him, Katie (choreography), and everyone involved in the production.  It was especially touching to hear Ira mention during the talk-back that this was, in fact, his dream come true.

Feburary Pendulum

20110223

Wow, what a week.  Pendulum followed by blOrk only two days later.  The Pendulum New Music Series showcases new works from composers at CU, and this month's performance had a very eclectic bill. This installation of Pendulum included these world premiers:
Kari Kraakevik  - Canyons Leading Home: Los Angeles to Lost Angel (2010)
Keane Southard - Two Symmetries for Disklavier (2010)
Cole Ingraham - Chaos Geometry (2010)
Leanna Kirchoff - The House Explodes
Hunter Ewen - Invasion of the Monkey Mind (2010)

Also featuring "Open Score," an audience-participation piece with Paul Miller and Jeff Nytch.

Poster

Mohr-Fire Studios... meet The Ira Liss Show

20110129

The Ira Liss Show

One of my favorite things to do is visit different recording studios and drool (not literally) over all of the channels, preamps, and routing options each studio puts together.  So when I found out my friend Ira Liss would be doing a live studio session, I was very excited to come hear the music and check out the space.  Located in Lafayette, CO, Mohr-Fire Studios was the perfect environment for this intimate concert with Ira, whose style is comedic and witty.

The Ira Liss Show is a combination of Ira's music and poetry slammed into a quirky piano-bar style that is both humorous and witty.  His songs are introspective and are centered around lyrics such as "If it weren't for Adam and Eve" or "...I'd rather be pissed".  His timing and writing are brilliantly intertwined, providing an entertaining show for everyone (mostly adult audiences however).  Ira seems to like to sing about sex a lot, including sex with dinosaurs...  just to give you a glimpse into his sense of humor.  His songs are designed to speak to all of humanity, touching on the topics of God and human existence.  At the same time, his lyrics are filled with puns and word play.  This unique combination creates an exciting, new type of musical entertainment that is rare to find in this day and age.

The Latchkey Kids lost album

Back in high school, me and my (still good) friends started a music project called the "Latchkey Kids".  We wrote a bunch of songs and played at a few venues, but we never did the serious recording we wanted to do.  We tried to organize sessions, but sometimes, its just hard to get it done.  Fortunately, our very first (acceptable) recordings turned out pretty good, if I say so myself.  They were tracked on a Boss BR-1180 before any of us knew what we were doing.  Anyways, have a listen... leave a comment (you can do it on the media player!)... Enjoy!



The songs we never finished... I think they still sound pretty good.

EJ Posselius - Guitar, Bass, Percussion, Piano
Mike Bedard - Guitar, Songwriting
Charlie Ballas - Guitar, Organ, Percussion
Jon Swihart - Guitar, Percussion
Carly Smith - Vocals (LnC)
Laura Stratton - Guitar/Vocals (LnC)

I also added a soundclip to Narcissus, a really interesting flute and electronics piece.

Scoring for Film

Instead of adding this back to the Long Neck Big Heart post, I decided to make a new post about scoring for film.  During the performance, there is a stop-motion video that required music.  As the sound-designer for the show, I decided to try my hand at it.  There are many challenges to scoring for film.  You really have to understand what the picture is saying, and putting that to music is difficult.  This short piece is a dream about a man and his relationship with his blue robe.




The Beast of Dreams from EJ Posselius.

reConstruction

This is a clip from Ryan Wurst's performance on prepared piano:

Prepared Piano - clips, screws,balloons...

For those of you who don't know, to 'prepare' an instrument means to attach objects to the strings on an instrument.  When you play it, interesting, somewhat random timbrel effects happen.

Piano Wizard at the Boulder Autism Society Picnic

Earlier this week I worked with Allegro Multimedia (Music Wizard Group), makers of Piano Wizard at the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Conference. We made some valuable contacts, and it was good to work with MWG again. I was also given the opportunity to work another event later that week.

I was asked to demo the product at the Boulder Autism Society picnic. This was an extremely rewarding event - I had a handful of children who were glued to the game. One particular student, Abby showed a tremendous amount of progress, despite the unexpectedly cold and cloudy morning, not to mention a number of other distractions. The company was friendly and I learned quickly that special needs parents are very sharp, and so are their children. This event was extremely rewarding, and I look forward to working with MWG again.

'The Interactive Piano' TAM Capstone Thesis Installation

The Technology, Arts & Media (TAM) certificate is [was] a 21 credit hour program that the ATL&S building offers. [It is now a minor known as MTAM] It consists of classes on digital/social theory, specific graphic/web/video/etc software programs, and a Capstone class. For my thesis installation, I chose to design an exhibit using the building's player piano. You can read about it and see videos and pictures HERE.

This was an extremely interesting project that involved an exciting new blend of technology, music, and networking. I sent hundreds of emails to jump through all the red tape for arranging the specifics of the project and getting various permissions. But, in the end it was worth it, as I was awarded the 'Best in Show' award for the best Capstone exhibit. Check out the vids and pics (at the link above and the video below), this was a very rewarding project to pull off.

Check out Paul Hembree, Anthony Green, Hunter Ewen, Nathan Wheeler, & Matthew Browne

ATL&S Spring 09 Shows

This Spring, I was fortunate enough to land a job working for the Center for Arts, Media, and Performance (CAMP) in the ATL&S building at CU Boulder. Here's a quick rundown of the some of the events I got to help set up and run:

I helped run sound for everything from the Italian Theatre's puppet-reality show, to the Conference on World Affairs, and the Multi-Dimensional Dance Performance Thesis 'Toeplitz'. The artistic and erotic interdisciplinary performance 'Sweeping' was a fresh experience -- we only had the performance day to set up... so when we saw the show, it was for the first time (instead of the usual 5th).

The three musical highlights included Michael Theodore's What I Saw at the Apocalypse, Paul Hembree's The Antikythera Mechanism, and the Boulder Laptop Orchestra's (bLOrk) performance:

Janet Feder in front of the Second Life performance