Queering Sound 09 - Saturday June 6, 2009

Two nights of music, experimental sound + visuals, and spoken word, with a curatorial focus on GLBT, queer, supportive and post-gender identified artisans.

NITE ONE _ Saturday 06 June _ 7:00 PM

BLK w/ BEAR is a full-band effort of JS Adams (prepared vinyl + turntables + loops), Doug Poplin (cello + effects) and PD Sexton (bass + source electronics + effects), whose recordings of warm drones and broadcast interference have accompanied film/video projects in NYC and London, as well as BBC television programming. Selections from the internationally-acclaimed Wish for a World without Hurt collaboration with London's Rothko were used in the Discovery's Channel's Emmy-nominated The Flight that Fought Back production; broadcast in the USA, UK, Russia, Japan and Germany. BLK w/ BEAR's newest recordings include the LDWR.net free download planned for the 2009 Long Division with Remainders' 14 versions of the same EP box set collection; Ultra-red's What is the sound of the war on the poor? advocacy project; and Trace Recordings' TEN compilation. BLK w/ BEAR for this performance will be Adams and Poplin.

VJ POPPINS aka Renee Shaw is an installation and performance artist who embraces the phenomenon of synaesthesia. Drawing from archival footage, VJ Poppins manipulates video output through live, spontaneous editing. Like a DJ, she scratches through multiple layers of moving images searching for that perfect mix to create visual juxtapositions and non-linear narratives. VJ Poppins believes identity is a mix of visuals, narratives, genders, complex codes, data and race, commercial and institutional information. VJ Poppins is interested in the intersections of cultural synchronism between personal and communal narratives, identity, and experiences; performance is an attempt to synthesize a community of diverse interests and enthusiasms in this canonical and hierarchical world in which cultures are meshed. She borrows from everywhere trying to form new adjacencies, claiming new mixes, and forging new identities that are not fixed.

DEAD VIOLETS is a noise behemoth, a drone core juggernaut, an ominous transatlantic storm cloud, a black as bile, three headed beast. Dead Violets is Jeffrey Surak, Bethany Moore and Sweden's Thomas Ekelund (Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words). For Queering Sound, Dead Violets will be a duo of Surak (noises) and Moore (voice + sound poetry). Surak (aka Violet) is a veteran experimenter from Washington, D.C. Since the early 1980s, he has explored the netherworld between improvisation and composition to create something between the two auditory realms of experimental music. He has also contributed to the soundtrack for Bruce La Bruce's queer zombie film, Otto: Or, Up With Dead People. Bethany Moore has been writing poetry, stories, and songs since early childhood. A practicing Wiccan for many years, she enjoys using her voice and words to convey her observations and experiences. Much of her work explores issues of human despair, spiritual journeying and emotional analysis.

GRAPEFRUIT EXPERIMENT is a semi-open music project with Carey Sargent and Wendy Hsu as core members (2/3 of Pinko Communoids and founding members of HzCollective). Wendy works with electric guitar and accordion, preparing them with found objects such as alligator clips,paper clips, and clothespins, and playing them with effect pedals, bows, brushes, mallets, and other percussive objects. Carey is a percussive noise maker, encouraging tones to rise and sing from wood, metal, skin and plastics that are more used to being struck.

ELITE BARBARIAN is the work of Benjamin Page. Selections from his album, It's only when you get to the end that it all makes sense (Front and Follow), are set to video for Queering Sound. Moving between static moods and beat-waves, from reflective abstraction to moments of searing intensity, this record is the result of improvisations using hardware synths and samplers. Ben is also half of Rocketumbernine with his brother Tom, whom are both part of innovative London instrumentalists, Rothko.

NICK LOPATA lives in lovely Takoma Park, Maryland. He has been creating and editing video for Blowoff, the popular deejay event thrown by Bob Mould and Richard Morel at Washington DC's 9:30 club, and now hosted in NYC, San Francisco, Provincetown, Atlanta and Chicago. Nick has created video set to 'Lets Go Back to Morse Code' by Elite Barbarian for this year's Queering Sound. In addition to his video work, Nick's other projects include photography, lighting design, and a local independent film, "The Saferoom."

Official Website: http://members.iglou.com/artbear/queeringsound09.html