Hark!
While the “Golden Age of Gunnelpumpers” phrase has been heard before, this is truly an exciting time for us. I’ve been working like the dickens to totally redesign our web site, and it’s really coming together, IMHO. If you’re old enough to remember, it’s like the “New Marie”, but prettier.
There is a preview of our new CD, Montana Fix, that can be heard here. I’m absolutely thrilled about the album and would love for y’all to give it a listen. The release date is July 24, 2013, with a release party at Martyrs’ in Chicago. Please join us!
I’m also putting up as many live recordings of our shows as possible, sortable by the performers. As they say, “Every Gunnelpumpers show is like a snowflake: unique, impermanent, and beautiful, unless it’s a less-beautiful mutant snowflake.”
Please stop on by gunnelpumpers.com and click around and give things a listen. There’s always more to do, but that’s just an existential reality.
Cheers,
Douglas Johnson
“Well. hello there.” From Peter Schickele Presents an Evening with P. D. Q. Bach (1807–1742?)
Just a quick dang doodle email about an upcoming show this Saturday night, April 27, at Gallery Cabaret at 2020 N. Oakley, the best possible address in hindsight. Four bands, no cover, a plethora of musical goodness.
Hannah Frank & Co. will open the evening around 10pm, followed by The Red Apples, followed by whitewolfsonicprincess (with whom I will get to play their great tunes!), followed by Gunnelpumpers. At 12:30 or 1:00 am! Yes, burning the midnight oil. Some serious night owlage ‘Twill be mucho Spaß!
The fair and balanced Gunnelpumpers lineup will feature John Meyer (and possibly Steve Roberts) on guitar(s), Michael Hovnanian, Tom Mendel and myself on basses, and Randy Farr and Sir Robert Garrett on skins. And the neighbors thought we were too loud last time…
I will have on hand our new CD “Montana Fix”, which you can only get from me until it becomes widely available the day of our CD release party at Martyrs on July 24. In fact, if you see me anywhere between now and July 24, just ask me how far away the nearest copy of Montana Fix is, and I will probably try to get you to trade $10 for it. It’s a fair deal. Oh, yes. Indubitably.
A couple of final thingalings pertaining to Access Contemporary Music (ACM), with whom I get to make wonderful music from time to time. I’ll be performing May 21 at Architectural Artifacts with them, the 1,001 Afternoons in Chicago program in collaboration with the Strawdog Theater Company. Check it out at http://www.acmusic.org/attend/concerts/1001-afternoons-chicago.
Finally, ACM is taking the highlights from the last eight year of The Sound of Silent Film to NYC on June 7 and 8. The SOSF features modern silent films paired with music composed by living composers for these films, thereupon said films are shown with a live performance of the film score in front of a live theatre audience. I’m sure there’s a better way to say that. No matter, one of my few written-out compositions, “Die Wunderkammer”, was composed as part of the 2010 SOSF for the Quay Brothers’ “The Cabinet of Svankmajer”, a fascinating 14-minute stop-motion animation picture, scored for flute, b-flat clarinet, violin, ‘cello, piano and percussion. Anyway, I just put the finishing touches on this version of the piece, and if you’re in NYC June 7 or 8, you can see the performances at the Anthology Film Archives at 32 Second Avenue in Manhattan.
Anyway, that’s enough for now. Be well.
Douglas Johnson
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