Yesterday I played a solo set out in Winchester at Willow Grove that was part of a brand new music festival that we will hopefully see grow and happen again for many years to come. The setting was gorgeous with a picturesque lake and willow trees as the backdrop to the stages, and the weather was just about as lovely as anyone could hope for on a summer's day in Virginia. I got to see a lot of great RVA friends perform as well as some different bands from elsewhere around Virginia whom I hadn't seen live before. All in all it was great day out of town.  

My set was one of the last of the day, after sunset, and myself along with two other more experimental acts performed within the confines of an old stone barn foundation. It was pretty magical and for me it was nice as it had the intimacy of playing a house show or small venue... while still being outside and having the stars and clouds visible overhead. As is often the case when I perform, I really let the surroundings inform the music, so between the stone and the dirt and all the new faces it made for a pretty epic set. Huge thanks to all the festival organizers, all the bands and everyone who came out for making it it such a wonderful day!

So last year I recorded the album Is This Chocolate? for my good friends Dumb Waiter. This year, they got together with some other friends and made this video. I can't take any credit for it, but oh my goodness it's ridiculously brilliant, so i figured I'd pass the word on. Enjoy!

I recently finished some mastering work for my friends the New Turks for their new self titled EP which will be available on Cassette.  Normally I'm fairly reserved when it comes to mastering and don't partake in the "loud wars" as it were but with this one I wanted the recording to sound as brutal as these guys sound live, So I pushed it as far as I could and it sounds ridiculously intense. They straight up killed it on these songs. enjoy:

At the end of April I met up with my good friends Lobo Marino at Satchidananda Ashram-Yogaville to record a collection of live kirtan music. We set up in a former schoolhouse and tracked these songs with members of the community filling in on group vocals and percussion, and the one and only Jessika Blanks joined up with us to lay down some violin tracks as well. We managed to get everything tracked within a day and then later incorporated some field recordings that Jameson and Laney had captured while in India. It was a pretty moving experience for me, and the songs ended up sounding lovely. Please give it a listen, and if you can manage, please pay whatever you want for the download as 100% of the online proceeds go to Vagdevi Children's Art School in India. Buying music only helps make more music. Thank you for listening.

well it's about time i make my usual sporadic blog post to let the few folks that happen upon this page know that all is well and there's a pretty ridiculous que of projects i'm working on. lot's of instruments, amps  and stompboxes to be built and modified, new recording projects on the way, new experiments in video, a fundraiser, and of course a ton of great shows are filling up the calendar. it's time i make my passions my priority. 

Earlier this year my friends in the band Dumb Waiter asked me to record an album for them. i had seen them a live a few times in the months previous and i knew a bunch of the guys from the other bands that they had played in, so i pretty much jumped at the opportunity since, for one they had been writing totally insane music (and i love insane music) and two that ideally their level of musicianship should make for a really solid and fun session, The other great thing about it was that we decided to record it in the upstairs space at Gallery 5, which i knew fairly well from recording Lobo Marino's Kite Festival last year. It's a large untreated room with ridiculous natural reverb, which lent itself well to Kite Festival with all of it's spaciousness, audience participation, and folky vibe, but i wondered if there would be too much reverb doing a full on loud experimental rock band. but within the first hour of moving mics around and getting drums sounds my slight fears were lifted because everything sounded brilliant, totally huge and with the kind of character you can't even get in a lot of "real" studios.  Sure it's noisier, and you might catch a stray siren going by out on the street in the middle of a take, but i've always found the pros of recording in non-traditional spaces out weigh the cons. The space can leave a unique sonic imprint on the music, almost as if it's another member of the ensemble.

This session ended up being insanely fun, and we knocked out all the basic tracks for the 7 song album within about 8 hours here and there across 2 days, and sporadically did a small amount of overdubs, layering into the already dense mix or drums, sax, electric bass and guitar and even had some guest spots with violin, upright bass and vocals as schedules allowed over that week before sorting out all the takes and taking things back to the cave for mixing/mastering. My ballet schedule was insane at the time, and it took me a while to finish up the mix, but that was good as it allowed me to have quite a bit of perspective on the mix, which is invaluable when you're doing everything yourself. They just released the final product not too long ago and i am quite proud of the way it turned out, and most importantly i still love the songs, these guys managed to write some killer material that's all at once a facemelting, spazzy, jazzy, mathy, funky, dubby, experimental but super listenable auditory experience. AND even though i've heard it a million times, i'm still not sick of it. CHECK IT OUT BELOW: 

tour has been really amazing so far, it has totally exceeded my expectations. having previously only done one off out of town shows in the last few years, this is the first time i've really been on a proper tour where i am playing to a new city and a new audience every night, bringing the music of the dulcitar to the unsuspecting masses. the funniest thing, especially considering my first tour blog is that i've had to strip things back equipment wise since playing in Shepherdstown. i haven't been upset about this at all, and it really has been nice to get back to the simplicity of dulcitar > loopstation > PA or guitar amp.

so it all happened when we rolled into Baltimore on Saturday. we arrived in the midst of the Artscape festival, and due to street closures and tons of people around the venue, we couldn't get anywhere near it to unload, and ended up just having to park quite a few blocks away in one the event parking garages. so after checking in at the wonderful Bohemian Coffee House, and finding that they had a couple PA powered speakers i just decided to keep my setup light, which was nice. it took me back to where i started with this whole solo music thing in the first place with no excess, forcing myself to play music where the most important part of it is the melodies and how well you play them, and not how many crazy effects you can layer on. Seeing as how no one in these cities had any expectations about what i was going to do, it still turned out to be thrilling for the audience, i was beyond floored by the amount of feedback i got from people, and have been lucky to sell quite a few copies of my album. plus you can't complain about only having to make one trip from your car to the venue with your instrument, merch, and your cables and whatnot.

In both Phily, and Worcester, i ended up doing the same thing, due to limited stage space and the need to do ultra quick changeovers, so the giant pedal board of death just stayed in the car. hopefully i'll be able to get it back out at some of the rest of the stops we have but if not, i'm glad to have a setup that i can adapt to wherever i am. it mirrors the music i get to play in a way. when i improvise i just try and make music that works for where i am, for whoever is there, and i can't be tied to a specific set of equipment to make it happen. being flexible is the key to killing it on tour.

hitting the road in a little bit, i'll update again soon.

take care,
dave

Well folks i'm finally out on tour, just for 9 days, but it's still going to be a hell of a time (and has been thus far). you can see all the places i'll be on my shows page. massive thanks to LOBO MARINO for having me out with them, it truly means the world to me. knowing this tour was coming up was a a great incentive to finally finish up my live rig, and after building pedals, pedal boards and an electric dulcitar i finally have a fairly portable and super versatile setup to play shows with. still getting used to it at this point but everything is intuitive enough that i can just go out and make music happen it's like a foot controlled recording studio.

The first out of town show in Shepherdstown, WV was killer last night. we played to a packed house and everyone was lovely, thanks to Blind Language and the Thirty 6 Prime for having us! we're off to Baltimore tonight to play at the bohemian coffee house! onward.

Blowing minds up the east coast for the next week, I can't tell you how stoked i am.  i hope to make some tour blog posts here and there when i have internet (still don't have a smart phone) so keep an eye out, and i'll be all over facebook a twitter. 

take care,
dave

I'm always slow to update this blog but i've got so much going on, as some of you are aware i have been building and rebulding and tweaking instruments and equipment for use with my live set.  back in January and February i built an electric dulcitar, and that has opened up a new world of possibilities! for now i'm going back into the shop and studio to finish things up and develop some speakers and so forth but i will be. returning to the stage in June, to start performing again with all this crazy equipment. get stoked. i hope to post some more insight behind the making of the new live rig soon, stay tuned.

here is a little something from me to you.  it's called Lonely Spaces / Lonely Sounds and it is a collection of field recordings i've made over the last couple years.  each one these pieces are one take improvisations made up mostly on the spot in the locations where i recorded them with no overdubs and just a bit of processing here and there. this is about as stripped down as i get.  you can listen to the whole thing as one long track right below, or you can download it from my bandcamp page. Enjoy!