Interview with Jean-Pierre Dessou about poverty and homelessness in
Togo, West Africa, and an interview with Brian Lindstrom, documentary
film maker working on Alien Boy, a film telling the story of
Jim Chasse, focusing on his last day, when Portland police stomped him.
They believed he was a drug dealer when he was a person dealing with
schizophrenia who in his earlier life had been a musician of local
note. Interesting juxtaposition of the lack of social stigma of
poverty in Togo and the police beating of Jim instigated in large part
by his appearance. Togo knows community. Portland's police don't.
Waterfront Blues Festival, 2008. This is an interview with old time blues player, Robert "Wofman" Belfour. Listen for his music bedded underneath the interview and following immediately after (hastily ended, the batteries died before I could wrap up the questions). Belfour goes in to growing up on a southern Mississippi Crop Share farm, his performance technique, and his first major success in the business.
Mitchell Brown AKA Professor Cantaloupe is a voice of Los Angeles' public radio, KXLU. He is also a veteran of the experimental and noise scene of the west coast from projects such as Points of Friction and the record label, Melon Expander. For more on Mitch, please go to melonexpander.com or visit myspace.com/magneticbrown.
OGO currently resides in Oakland, CA. He was ubiquitous to the noise scene of Portland, OR but his influence and his name carry outside that limited community. He has been on Night of the Living Tongue many times over the years and here is a recent example of his solo performance. For more on OGO visit http://www.myspace.com/iokaos and iokaos.net.
Here is a report about the Time Based Arts Festival, 2008. In 16 1/2 minutes I present audio from the Pica birthday party, Leftbank Project, and Interviews: Mark Russell, Mega Church, Fleshtone, Erin Boberg Doughton, Brian Costello, Ethan Rose, Luke Wyland of AU, Mike Barber of Ten Tiny Dances. For more information visit www.pica.org.
Here is a very young but advanced player of contemporary electric guitar music. Combining vocals and looping devices, he blends sounds with subtleties quite uncommon to young "noise" players who are so wont to blast walls of mish mashed overdrive to a reluctant audience. This fellow has no such issues and his music reflects the intellectual and humble character he brings to the neighborhood of St. Johns.
Currently, StepMother is sowing his wild oats travelling the world, but we eagerly await his return so that we can continue pushing him toward his destiny as a prosperous sonic artist.
By day, Ryan Stuewe and Alyssa Reed are public elementary school teachers here in Portland, and by night produce compelling contemporary concrete` music that can fly in to psychedelic worlds or supremely danceable pop and world beats, all the while using some of the most unlikely instrumentation for the sound manifested. Here is the band Eet, performing their brand of Concrete` music, involving live sampling of unlikely musical instruments, such as childrens toys.
Pregnant is a song writer from Sacramento, CA who composes on a laptop using the infamous software, Reason. Daniel Trudeau brings a tremendous flavor of his own to a common piece of software, both compositionally and with his sound as he hybrids electric guitar, voice, and live drums.