The 13th Annual Outsound New Music Summit

One of the Bay area’s best music festivals, The 13th Annual Outsound New Music Summit, July 27–August 2, 2014, returns to the Community Music Center at 544 Capp Street in San Francisco. The New Music Summit is co-presented by KFJC 89.7 FM.


Featured during the annual festival will be poets collaborating with unique electro-acoustic settings; a night of experimental guitar solos and duos; a cue-led improvising orchestra, vocal and student workshops, the “Touch the Gear” Expo and acoustic/electric ensembles pushing the edge of sound.


Sixteen performances will take place throughout the week, and will include the first poet to experiment with jazz, Ruth Weiss. Dubbed by writer Herb Caen as “the goddess of the beat generation,” Ruth will collaborate with buchla synthesis pioneer Doug Lynner. The Summit will also feature world premieres by the Emergency String (X)tet, the Deconstruction Orchestra; Pitta of the Mind; the world-renowned Henry Kaiser; and the Teddy Rankin-Parker/Daniel Pearce Duo performing new works by Renee Baker.


“The New Music Summit is a beacon for some of the most creative of the San Francisco Bay Area music scene,” said Outsound Presents founder, Executive Director and curator, Rent Romus. “We feature rare and intriguing world premieres, amazing unknown young artists, and seasoned unsung masters deserving of more credit across the music and performance spectrum. The Summit is important on the West Coast because it supports the local community in a fun and engaging festival environment.”


The Festival begins on Sunday, July 27 at 2 pm with a music improvisation workshop for all levels led bypianist, composer, and educator, Thollem McDonas, followed in the early evening by the popular and free Touch the Gear Expo from 7-10 pm. A hands-on experience with sound-producing gear and instruments, Touch the Gear is an interactive, family-friendly event that allows the public to roam among 25-30 musicians and instrument inventors with their various different configurations of “gear”—everything from oscillators and electronics, to planks of wood with strings attached. An avant-garde “Maker’s Faire,” all attendees get to make sound and experience how the instruments work, in an environment that demystifies technology, while inspiring creativity. This event is free to the public.


Monday, July 28 at 8 pm, Thollem McDonas and participants from the Sunday improvisation workshop will perform a set of structured and free improvisation. This event is free to the public.


On Wednesday, July 30 beginning at 8:15 pm, the New Music Summit presents a night of spoken word and poetry with electro-acoustic music, dubbed PoetryFreqs, featuring Pitta of the Mind (Maw Shein Win and Amanda Chaudhary); one of the first American jazz beat poets ruth weiss with electronic pioneer Doug Lynner; the debut of Watkins/Trammel/McZeal (Zachary James Watkins, and Marshall Trammell) with award winning poet Amber McZeal which will run the gamut from bebop to soundscapes.


Thursday, July 31 at 8:15 pm will showcase six talented and provocative guitarists in a program simple entitled Guitars. The four sets, presented by Henry Kaiser, Amy Reed & Ross Hammond, Noah Phillips & John Finkbeiner, and Sandy Ewen & Jakob Pek, will stretch the limits of the instrument crossing the borders of electronics to found objects and everything in between. 

Friday, August 1 at 8:15 pm will bring two extremes together in a program entitled Constructions, with the Teddy Rankin-Parker/Daniel Pearce Duo, premiering new works by renowned composer Renee Baker, commissioned by RPPD specifically for the Outsound Summit. The Deconstruction Orchestra, a mass ensemble of 25 leading Bay Area improvising musicians led by tenor saxophonist and composer Joshua Allen, who will perform the debut of The Structure of Sound and Space, an original deconstructivist-inspired suite of cell structure game compositions, melding together post-modern, free jazz and non-idiomatic improvisation.


The final day of the Outsound New Music Summit, Saturday, August 2, will present an afternoon vocal workshop with bodywork/energywork master Jill Burton entitled Transformational Voiceat 1 pm. Later that evening, beginning at 8:15 pm will be the program Improvisations, featuring three different groups of improvisers exploring the language of the unknown—Obstreperous Doves (Karl Evangelista, Bill Noertker, Nava Dunkelman, Christina Stanley, and Jordan Glenn); Emergency String (X)tet (Mia Bella D’Augelli, Jeff Hobbs, Christina Stanley, David Michalak, Doug Carroll, Kanoko Nishi-Smith, and Bob Marsh), who will premiere a new work in celebration of Bob Marsh’s 70th birthday; and the Jill Burton Trio (Jill Burton, Tim Perkis, and Doug Carroll) who will be collaborating for the first time.


For event details including the list of performers, biographies and information about the 2014 Outsound New Music Summit, visit www.outsound.org/summit. Artists and schedule subject to change.


Who: Outsound Presents, a nonprofit arts organization

What: 13th Annual Outsound New Music Summit, Presented by Outsound Presents and KFJC 89.7FM

When: July 27–August 2, 2014

Where: Community Music Center, 544 Capp Street, San Francisco, CA, 94110. All Ages, Wheelchair Accessible

Prices: All tickets are available for sale in advance on brownpapertickets.com

Four-Night Festival Pass: $50; $45 in advance

July 27: Thollem McDonas Improvisation Workshop: $15

July 27: Touch the Gear Expo: FREE

July 28: Improvisation Workshop Performance: FREE

July 30: PoetryFreqs: $15 general, and $12 students/seniors.

July 31: Guitars: $15 general, and $12 students/seniors.

August 1: Constructions$15 general, and $12 students/seniors.

August 2: Jill Burton Transformational Voice Workshop $15

August 2: Improvisations: $15 general, and $12 students/seniors.

The Paul & John's "Inner Sunset"

The new album by The Paul & John has been dubbed “an exciting new collaboration between two of the Bay area’s best musicians; guitarist/vocalist songwriters Paul Myers and John Moremen”, and they wouldn’t be far wrong. Inner Sunset proudly carries the Mystery Lawn Music imprint and is released on three formats, including 180-gram vinyl, on July 15, 2014. Myers & Moremen both sing and play all the guitars on the recording, while John plays the drums and Paul plays the bass and wrote all the lyrics.


The two wrote all the songs together over three years at John’s studio in the Inner Sunset district of San Francisco, and then recorded and mixed the best of their collaborations with co-producer Allen Clapp (leader of The Orange Peels) at his Mystery Lawn studio in Sunnyvale, California. Once in the studio, Clapp proved to be a vital third ear in the arranging and presentation of the songs. Upon completion, Grammy nominated mastering engineer Myles Boisen gave the project its final sheen for record, at Headless Buddha, in Oakland. Myers & Moremen find that their shared experiences and eclectic tastes blend perfectly in The Paul & John, resulting in a set of original songs that both are equally proud of.


John Moremen is best known as the lead guitarist in The Orange Peels, and has released several solid solo albums, and recently has operated as the leader of Flotation Device. Moremen was a member of D.C. band The Neighbors and the late, great Jimmy Silva’s Goat 5, and plays guitar with Half Japanese, and on drums with ex-Flamin’ Groovies frontman Roy Loney and the improvisational rock trio High Vulture (with MX- 80′s Bruce Anderson).


Paul Myers was the founder and songwriter for the Toronto-based 1990s power pop group The Gravelberrys, and composes electronic music as Flam! Additionally, he is a working journalist and the author of notable music biographies including A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren In The Studio (Jawbone Press), and It Ain’t Easy: Long John Baldry And The Birth Of The British Blues (Greystone Books).


Positive reviews of the duo’s eponymous debut are already hitting the web, including this one from Absolute Powerpop; “While an obvious Beatles reference, The Paul and John are also the first names of Paul Myers and John Moremen who have teamed up to give us a fine debut EP that, yes, owes a bit to the more famous Paul and John but has other influences as well. Many of you may know Moremen from his solo records and his time as guitarist for The Orange Peels, and Myers was the man behind the Toronto power pop group The Gravelberrys as well as an author of biographies of Todd Rundgren and Long John Baldry.


Thankfully the record lives up to their respective CVs. After the 20-second McCartney-esque “Inner Sunrise”, they segue into the wonderful “Everything Comes Together”, a glorious acoustic guitar-based track that reminds me of The Autumn Defense at their poppiest with some Byrdsian jangle throw in. “Long Way Back” rocks a bit harder and makes good use of the principals’ harmonies, and the title track with its stacatto beat and British Invasion melody sounds like the soundtrack to a parade down Carnaby Street….”


The Mystery Lawn label continues to release some great albums with marvelous tunes and fabulous production under Clapp’s watchful eye; the Orange Peels, Moremen’s Flotation Device, Alison Faith Levy, the Corner Laughers, and William Clere & the Marvelous Fellas, to name but a few; and with tunes like the aforementioned “Everything Comes Together”, (my personal favorite), Myers and Moremen’s Inner Sunset is truly a welcome addition to those ranks.