Alabaster Museum Presents:
Tom Carter (New York City):
Tom Carter's solo electric guitar work sculpts a rich landscape of immensely-stacked grit and beauty, weaving interlocking strands of melody into towering long-form (and often high-volume) drones. Born barely south of the Mason-Dixon line, and just in time for the Summer of Love, Tom Carter led a decidedly non-hippy existence being shuffled around various farm and mining towns in Maryland and Ohio by his newspaperman father, before finally making his way to Texas in 1985, just in time to watch all the good hardcore bands die. Already obsessed with American pre-punk and British post-punk, Carter dove into the lysergicly spiked musical waters of Texas with both feet, augmenting his guitar skills with unreliable instruments, cranky analog electronics, and disintegrating practice amps. Over the ensuing decades, he refined his evolving ideas of complete tonal immersion (and the quest for the perfect fuzz tone) into a layered sonic toolkit of rough beauty. He now lives in New York City.
Although best known for his work with iconoclasts Charalambides, which he co-founded with Christina Carter in 1991, Carter has recently focused on his eponymous duo with No Neck Blues Band co-founder Pat Murano; Sarin Smoke, his duo with Pete Swanson; and his solo performances and recordings, which have increasingly featured visual components - including collaborations with filmmakers Martha Colburn and Margarida Garcia. Carter is well-known for collaborations with other musicians. Major projects include free-rock improvisers Eleven Twenty-Nine (Carter, Marc Orleans, and Michael Evans), Spiderwebs (with Houston improviser Sandy Ewen), Badgerlore (with Rob Fisk, Ben Chasny, Liz Harris, and Peter Swanson), and various collaborative ensembles with Bay Area sound artist Robert Horton. Other fellow travelers have included Marcia Bassett, Christian Kiefer, Paul Flaherty, Tetuzi Akiyama, Shawn David McMillen, Thurston Moore, Dredd Foole, Loren Connors, Pip Proud, Inca Ore, Jandek, Bardo Pond, Starving Weirdos, Ensemble Economique, Steve Gunn, Robert Millis, and Matt Valentine, among many others. Carter has released dozens of recordings in every available format for many different labels, including kranky, Digitalis, Eclipse, Important, Root Strata, and 3-Lobed. His most recent solo release is available on his own Wholly Other imprint, which he has operated since 1995.
Curanderos (Philadelphia):
Psychedelic improvisational blowout with members of Bardo Pond and Kohoutek. Kosmische raga drone, heavy on the electronics and alien percussion, traversing the same hypnodelic territory both bands are known for. RIYL: Ash Ra Tempel, Agitation Free, Guru Guru, Trad Gras Och Stenar, Taj Mahal Travellers, etc.- bio
Blood Like Mine (Philadelphia):
"Blood Like Mine is comprised of musicians Rosali Middleman & Geoff Bucknam. Rosali has a voice that could raise the dead, but they would be zombies of love and entirely under her command. Geoff is a prolific musician being an essential member to at least three bands, I know of, Free Energy, Niagara Falls and Blood Like Mine. In Geoff’s living room he has a painted portrait of a man in a white suit surrounded by music styled in a Futuristic vein. I cannot remember who he told me made this awesome portrait, but I recall asking who is that and he said, “That’s me.” - Little Berlin
links at http://www.museumfire.com/events2