tour recall part two

Tour Photos are here.

One day of rest and it's off to the airport at 3 a.m.
Many road blocks in my way, heard later someone threw a body onto I-57.
Meet Winters in Osaka at airport.
Early flight into Oakland, scoop up rental car.
First thing I see on the California highway, a car on it's side. welcome to Cali.

Spent the day in Berkeley. Bought the Young Marble Giants cd set @ Amoeba ,Andy (of maleficia) convinced the buyer (his boss) to purchase some of my records, this made me happy and able to afford some Curry, visited Moe's Books.
Drove to San Francisco for performance.

Very hard to recall all of the people we met and what they did for performances. I will give some simple descriptions of what I remember. Recordings exist of all of my sets and all of the winters in Osaka sets. So, I will let later releases of these shows tell these tales.

TUESDAY OCTOBER 9th
The 5lowershop San Francisco ,CA
with
AMIR COYLE ( I loved it, looped vocals and screams, other people thought it was lame.)
BULLSHIT DETECTOR ( showed up late, nice set of noise and tortured machine gear)
ACWAY ( interesting mix of broken gear, I really enjoyed this set,
NERFBAU (2 guys with laptops and doing noise)
TELEPATHIK FRIEND (psychedelic monsters stomping and groaning in costumes)
FILTHMILK (???)

It rained inside this warehouse space. Covered in graffiti, small labs (of what) all around, many people in many small “rooms” doing what? Very interesting to say the least. People were all very nice. They paid us, so all is well. spent a bit of time climbing hills and taking pics.


Off to drive to LA. Eric from WIO forgets his backpack of clothes.
We end up staying somewhere between SF and LA. Wake up early and hit the road.
Saw some mountains, cows and a few gas stations. Arrive in LA.

Wednesday October 10th
Vlagrant Los Angeles CA
with
Albert Ortega (Albert’s set was one of the best I saw on this tour, pure tone genius, 3d audio!)

We attempted to see record stores in LA. Got lost many times, ended up eating Mexican food and hanging out with our host Leticia Castaneda. She fed us sweet Armenian bread. Mitchell Brown did DJ duty and played lots of interesting organ tunes. Met a Russian named Gago, not sure what he does, but he was very funny. Everyone in LA treated us well. We had a place to sleep, shower and perform to a small crowd.
Overall very good night.


Woke up early and headed back north to Oakland.
Arrived early to the venue, ate some pizza. Set up gear.


Thursday October 11th
Brutal sound effects festivel #43
21 Grand Oakland, CA
with
Pink Canoes (interesting group of improvisers)
Kukie Matter (incredible video and sound artist)
Mr. Mercury Goes To Work (creepy metal masked man, making beautiful tinkering sounds)
Head Boggle Domo (rhythmic noise)

This was my favorite show of the tour. Many friends showed up. People at 21 Grand were very professional. Grux is a cool guy and picks great line-ups. Had time to talk to Lisa, Marcelo, and Andy.
sent the WIO kids to sleep at the home of a former circus performer. Thanks to Lisa and Marcelo for the place to sleep/shower.


Friday October 12th
Started the day off by picking up WIO. Getting a bagel and coffee. Chatted with Joe Colley and Noella at Issues.
http://www.myspace.com/issuesshop
Joe gave me some great cd's

Since we had the day off from performing, we drove to SF (to get erics backpack).
We managed to visit City lights bookstore and drive around in the freezing cold rain, looking for the other Amoeba. Getting lost was starting to become all too common so we headed back to Oakland.

Lisa took us to dinner at an Eretrian Restaurant. We were served our own bread to scoop up the chicken, lamb and beef. Incredible dinner. Then off to Sacramento to the Norcal Noisefest.

We arrived at The Luna café in time to catch Tarantula princess, Redglaer and Xome.
Crashed out on the hardwood floor at EMRL space.

Saturday, October 13th
Spent most of this day at the Norcal fest. Managed to do a bit of shopping. Saw lots of noise artists.
Some were great like Sixes and T/R. Some were lame as all hell.
At this point we are all “over” Sacramento. But, still have to perform the next day.
Crashed out on the hardwood floor at EMRL space.

Sunday, October 14th
Norcal Noisefest
Sacramento, Ca
Wake early. Eat waffles. Get blown away by KAWAIIETLY PLEASE and Michelle Webb.
Chat for a bit with Klowd,Lob, das and Ninah from Big City Orchestra.
Play the fest , say our goodbyes and off to motel 6 Oakland for next days flight out.


Monday, October 15th
Painless return of the rental car and hangout at the airport before the flight home.
Seated next to a jazz musician. I strike up a conversation. We realize we know many of the same people. I am always amazed at how small the world really is.
Plane lands, drive home. Tour over. But the kennel cough I got in SF remains.

tour recall part one

greetings
Back from tour for over a week. trying to catch up, managed to bring home a cold from sunny California.
I have been working on photos from the tour. Here is a small recap.


Mykel Boyd + Winters In Osaka
October Tour

Sunday October 7th @ Enemy Chicago, IL
with Envenomist + Mark Solotroff

Started off the tour with a great show.
It was 3 million degrees inside Enemy. Chicago marathon even had to shut down early.
Solotroff worked feedback magic. Envenomist droned and hummed with several synths.
Winters in Osaka started the show with an incredible and short blast. I actually nodded out (a bit) during my set, only to be snatched back into reality by realizing there were people watching me.
Overall very nice way to start the tour.

photos from Enemy

Mykel Boyd by Eric



Winters in Osaka by MB



more pics from Enemy at the Bloodyminded Flickr site
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bloodlustchicago/sets/72157601922243519/

even more pics available from Kathleen Pingleton
http://www.flickr.com/photos/runegoddess93/sets/72157602316934369/show/

Somnimage Pre-Orders Start Today

Pre-orders start Tuesday, September 25th 2007

greetings............
These releases are all close to being complete. I recommend that you pre-order.
These will sell out fast. If you are interested in ordering more than one, please email me and I will give you a discounted rate and a total for combined shipping.
I will be on tour with Winters in Osaka from Oct. 7th until Oct. 15th. email replies may be slow for this week. Tour Dates and locations are listed on www.somnimage.com
Please come out and say hello if you are in California.
thanks as usual for your support.
be seeing you.
mykel boyd



Mykel Boyd + Winters in Osaka split 3" cdr
Special "tour" cdr. One track from each artist in white letterpress jacket with opaque insert.
limited to 100 copies.
$14.00 post paid in USA, $18 post paid the world



irr.app.(ext.) and Mykel Boyd split 7"
Matthew Waldron brews up another little slab of avant-goodness. Mykel Boyd drones and sputters like a cicada into Lake Michigan.

standard edition 7" on white vinyl in silver on black silk screened sleeve.
limited to 200 copies = $14.00 post paid in USA, $18 post paid the world

artist edition includes two 10"x10" letterpress prints, one from each artist
limited to 100 copies, signed and numbered. = $47.00 post paid in USA, $50 post paid the world



Painting Petals on Planet Ghost and Mykel Boyd split 7"
PPOPG is The Opalio Brothers from My Cat is an Alien with Ramona Ponzini, all from Italy.
They bring the mellow on their side with ambient noise and bells.
Mykel Boyd's side consists of processed field recordings creating a very nice ride for those with a ticket.


standard edition 7" on white vinyl in opaque wrap-over sleeve.
limited to 200 copies = $14.00 post paid in USA, $18 post paid the world

artist edition includes two unique Polaroid photos, one from each artist
limited to 50 copies, signed = $47.00 post paid in USA, $50 post paid the world




Rapoon and Mykel Boyd split 12"
Robin Storey was once a member of Zoviet France. Now he records under Rapoon. He creates beautiful ethno ambient sounds.
Mykel Boyd once saw Zoviet France perform. He makes recordings of things and then alters them to sound like planes taking off.

standard edition 12" on white vinyl in silver on black silk-screened sleeve.
limited to 200 copies = $22.00 post paid in USA, $26 post paid the world

artist edition includes two 10"x10" letterpress prints, one from each artist
limited to 100 copies, signed and numbered. = $65.00 post paid in USA, $70 post paid the world




Still fresh................


"Radio interference from unknown orgasm".
This c.d. features new tracks from Merzbow, Wyrm, The Sword Volcano Complex , Mykel Boyd,
Black Sun Productions and Val Denham (who also did the wonderful art for this release).

Standard edition
Price $17.00 USA, $19.00 world


Artists edition limited to 100 copies includes cd + signed, numbered letterpress print by Val Denham
Price $42.00 USA, $45.00 world




Mykel Boyd
3" cdr titled "October,1952" limited to 50 signed copies
Hand assembled sleeve with photo. 2 long sound pieces recorded for performances.
Price $14.00 USA, $18 world



ALLAN ZANE
The Sperm of Metals--10th Anniversary Edition
Limited to 50 copies.
3" CD-R housed in a metal box w/obi strip and containing 2 inserts.
It will contain Parts 5-8 (Parts 1-4 were private editions limited to 8 copies on cassette and CD-R) .
$16.00 USA, $20 world

what I've been preparing for

little show review

greetings
last night I performed for the second time at Enemy in Chicago,IL.
As usual it was a pleasure to be invited. The show started with Terence Hannum creating a nice drone piece using his voice and a little wind blown piano (which I'm sure has a proper name).
I really enjoyed his piece and now I am very interested in hearing his other project Locrian.
You can hear what they do here.
http://www.myspace.com/thelocrian
I was next on the line-up and ended up be very happy with my set. I used recent manipulated field recordings of fire and water, mixed with resonant tones from my old synth. The people who came all seemed to enjoy it, so consider this one a success.
Mora was next. Since this was the first time these lads had played together for many years, I think it went well. Brent Gutzeit hammered (with a bow) away on a many stringed beast, made of piano wires. Jason Soliday added the pain to this set with hard edged synth blasts. Philip Von Zweck tried his best to keep it all together, although I'm not sure which sounds he was adding.
Overall a nice night, fun to see so many friends.

This week will begin several pre-orders and an announcment of many new limited edition cdr's.
until mid-week
be seeing you
mykel

chicago show

sat. 08/25/2007
9pm | $5
@ enemy
1550 N. Milwaukee
Chicago, IL


--Mora (Chicago, IL)
laptops, nonlaptops, electronics, and acoustics from this trio of Jason Soliday, Philip Von Zweck, and Brent Gutzeit

--Mykel Boyd (Chicago, IL)
sweeping brain trepanation in slow motion; music for closed eyes and vivisectioned ears...
http://www.myspace.com/mykelboyd


--Terence Hannum (Chicago, IL)
looping dub drones expanding in space and time using harmonicas, melodica, bass and voice in Terence's (locrian/unlucky atlas) first solo outing (http://www.myspace.com/thelocrian)

Chicago July 6th

greetings.
July 6th, damn tired, gear still in the van from the night before, I headed back to Chicago.
This time with a bottle of Crown Royal for Bryan. It was a birthday gift.
I arrived at Elastic Arts (my favorite venue to play at so far) and loaded in.
This show was a more casual one than the last few. A bunch of people who are into sound, playing for one another.
I had dinner with Francisco Lopez, Dana, Olivia Block, Alex, Eric Leonardson, Neil Jendon and his wife (sorry forget your name, and you were on the other end of the table) and Bryan.
I love the Chinese place under Elastic arts (probably why it's my favorite venue, I guess).
The show was fun, I took some photos below. I will leave you with Blake's review of the night, since he does it so much better than I do.
until later
mykel

IS BIRTHDAY PARTY REVIEW by Blake
Shattered Hymen kicked off the night kicking and screaming, like an army of radios on the fritz on a bad date with high tone desperation. Vadim toyed with the audience with some incredibly jagged high-tone stabs that yo-yo’d in and out of the mix, usually overrun by extremely abrasive digital screaming. Not one to just hold down 4 pedals and let them slowly twist your intestinal tract into a ribbon, though, there also were some nice moments that 1) sounded more like unprocessed field recordings swaying port and bow across the space and 2) were extremely crisp, so that although the sound was sparser the sound quality was still intense. That said, although Vadim probably could have stood to be even a bit louder (he noted some weirdness with the mixer levels), Shattered Hymen still satisfied, like a half dozen cheese graters dragged across your stomach.

Silvum stepped up with a nice quieter counterbalance; dirty oscillations and the delayed, echoic, shimmery moans of a cymbal being scraped. It was an extremely simple setup, but in a big way that helped make the set more of a “dedicated listening” piece; the audience was pretty much invited to be really quiet (which we were) so as to enjoy the subtle and slowly shifting changes in the oscillation tone (and its eq-ing) as well as the natural variance from the cymbal being rubbed in different patterns and with what I’m suspecting were variables with the processing. Although my initial thoughts on the set were a little more on the fence (i.e., I liked the idea of a quieter counterbalance to Vadim and forcing the audience to listen [as opposed to cover ears]), after letting it sink in and chatting with Nick later, I came to the conclusion outlined above. Of course, I still wonder how it would have played out had it been alarmingly loud, just a sheet of sound dragged over your face and blinding you...

I started out with an intentionally spectacularly cheesy synth version of “happy birthday”, made even more ridiculous by 1) emerson lake and palmer-esque fills and sweep / clip tweakage and 2) the fact that even though I ~marked~ the damn keys I still managed to mis-hit a few of the what, 8 notes in the song? Pure class, I tell ya.
Anyway, the frivolity slid away as I locked the last note of happy birthday, added some hard sweep and gristle and then brought in two no input distortion pedals pushing some really unpleasant high tone swarms and shifts. The high tones continued to sway and get under the skin for maybe 5 minutes and then I steered in a simple but heavy bass lurching from the synth that clipped in pretty nicely with the high tones, eventually building to such a level that they almost drowned them out. Other scraggly synth elements began swarming and overran the high tones and then shortwave confusion added another layer of high end pitch tweaking and ugly distortion blocks, depending on where the dial went. The set closed out with an ugly, dirty drone tone from the synth (that I didn’t exactly expect but really liked) that took about two minutes to completely decay.

Apparently, I was not to be the sole performer who threw folks with an unexpected intro; Mykel Boyd, who most folks know from the way he has beautifully mastered several flavors of drone (static sweepings to elaine radigue brightness) and the ability to weave and tweak said drones, started his set with a CD by Crooked, a south side rapper, for about 3 minutes. Nobody expected it and everybody got into it, so already out of the gate Mykel was off to a solid start. What followed Crooked was perhaps even better; as mentioned, he’s solid with incredibly complex drones—so instead he dug in with this abrasive, somewhat high-tone, loud chugging, like being stabbed with a dirty pitchfork made of serrated ice; it was a cold tone crunch that just split your head. Mykel proceeded into what for me was completely new live territory for him, delivering perhaps the noisiest and loudest set I’ve even heard him do. At times it was like we were trapped in an industrial recycling center with machines destroying machines in every corner of the space; other times I felt like I was in a spanish galleon made of steel with 45 people stabbing morse code into the side. Although we were treated to some grand bass tone sweeping, Mykel always kept a clip of chunked gristle to fire as necessary.

Birthday Boy Tholl also threw me for a loop, delivering a set sidestepping a lot of hallmarks of what I’ve seen before; the turntable didn’t have a prominent presence, there were no dramatic moment when he just punched everything and threw a kettle of distortion noise fireballs at us. Instead, he really pulled out long, invasive high tones—some dusted with shards of broken glass and some just blisteringly ear piercing, but a surprising amount of massaging the sound to keep it from being just high tone terror for the sake of it. Don’t get me wrong, there were some moments of unleashed distortion attacks, but for the most part the set seemed focused on really wrestling something from a smaller palette so as to explore (exploit?) that palette to it’s fullest. He also threw in a “cover” of sorts that may have been the high point of the set. I had mocked him earlier (for no real good reason) for having an ipod tucked among his gear, but he ended up playing the ditty from Silence of the Lambs (Goodbye Horses from Buffalo Bill’s mangina scene) and Bryan, although he didn’t dance mangina-style, did add his own noise contributions and it worked really, really well—reminded me of the Merzbow CD “Balance” which is Merzbow in one channel and this German pop woman (Ladybird) in the other and it’s absolutely magnificent, as was, really, Bryan’s “collaboration.”


IS


Mykel Boyd



Shattered Hymen



Silvum



Vertonen