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Day of Noise

About:

All things strange and beautiful. Twenty-four hours straight of live experimentation and improvisation, featuring experimental/noise/drone bands and artists from the Bay Area and beyond. A KZSU tradition since the '90s. This is the 11th Day of Noise. Listen in on 90.1 FM in the Bay Area and kzsulive.stanford.edu around the world.

As the founder of DoN, KZSU DJ Voice of Doom puts it:
Noise is the liberation of sound from the narrow rules of conventional music, calling a project "noise" frees you up to include any kind of sound in the artwork. The "Day of Noise" event has always been about the freedom of non-commercial radio to deviate from the standardized conceptions of what the audience wants or needs. It exploits the immediacy of the radio format with live performance (which really includes live DJing), there are always actual human beings in the loop making off-the-cuff decisions about what sounds should come next. The listener has the feeling that at any moment, anything might happen, because anything can. The point is to embrace all kinds of creative sounds, not to rule out some types of music for "not being noisy enough".

Schedule:

  • 24:00 - 01:00 - ShitTorrent
  • 01:00 - 02:00 - Daniel Hintz
  • 02:00 - 03:00 - Julia Mazawa
  • 03:00 - 04:00 - M22
  • 04:00 - 05:00 - King Micha & the Destroyers
  • 05:00 - 06:00 - Li Xi
  • 06:00 - 07:00 - Ivan Naranjo
  • 07:00 - 08:00 - Voice of Doom
  • 08:00 - 09:00 - Clarke Robinson & Jim Whittemore
  • 09:00 - 10:00 - Sun Hammer
  • 10:00 - 11:00 - Marcus Fischer
  • 11:00 - 11:30 - Ethernet
  • 11:30 - 12:00 - Black Thread
  • 12:00 - 13:00 - zBug
  • 13:00 - 13:30 - (on KZSU streaming only) - Andrew Weathers
  • 13:30 - 14:00 - (on KZSU streaming only) - Shanna Sordahl
  • 14:00 - 15:00 - (on KZSU streaming only) - Tiberius
  • 15:00 - 15:30 - Jared Smith
  • 15:30 - 16:00 - Chen Santa Maria
  • 16:00 - 17:00 - Dan Burke and Thomas Dimuzio
  • 17:00 - 18:00 - Antimatter
  • 18:00 - 18:30 - En
  • 18:30 - 19:00 - Danny Paul Grody
  • 19:00 - 19:30 - Brandon Nickell
  • 19:30 - 20:00 - Ghost Hand
  • 20:00 - 21:00 - Thee Annoying
  • 21:00 - 22:00 - Karl Evangelita and Michael Coleman
  • 22:00 - 23:00 - 3 Leafs
  • 23:00 - 24:00 - White Pee

Artists:

3 Leafs is a music collective based largely in spontaneous composition. They have been playing around the bay area and west coast since 2005 and have 8 releases available. They have a new full length vinyl release in winter/spring 2013 and their interests include playing music and healthy snacks.
is the work of Xopher Davidson who began his experiments in electronic sound from a basis in painting, film, and installation art, mixed with a long-time interest in electronics. Davidson received a BFA degree in painting and sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1991. In 1992, Davidson rode the train to Oakland, California, where he founded the seminal Exhibit < > space. In this storefront location (situated adjacent to a freeway onramp), he presented an ongoing installation of signs and diagrams which his paintings had evolved into. Listening here to the rumblings of the overhead freeway, it became obvious that the issue of sound needed to be (re)addressed. A year later, Davidson began work at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College in Oakland, California. Here he performed and recorded sound in many forms, presenting three concerts of electronic music while working on his MFA. As a member of the live electronic groups Citizen Band and Circular Firing Squad, he performed extensively in and around the San Francisco Bay Area and the Pacific Northwest. Davidson continues to collaborate with David Kwan performing their audio visual presentations, a mixture of order and decay, and are currently working on a series of DVD translations.
Black thread is cassettes as repurposed organic looping decomposition systems. a monophonic synthesizer voice undergoes crippling tape artifaction, from which unpredictable rhythmic and harmonic abnormalities emerge, repeat, and decay. resultant music/noise patterns constitute collapsing dialog with disembodied spirits of animals and/or plants.
Dan Burke and Thomas Dimuzio are like magnetic poles: they lock tightly on one side, yet pull apart as polar opposites on the other. Equally inspired by sound, noise, static, interference, transcendence, and song, but each artist with their wholly unique approach. Live on stage this dynamic duo will commonly summon the demons of hell while simultaneously ascending to ethereal realms. Ripe with juxtaposition, or unfolding into long and intense suspensions, and even verging on melodicism as documented on their live recordings Hz (Sonoris) and Upcoming Events (No Fun Productions). "Quiet can be the loud, and loud can be the quiet - if someone can proof that point then it's Thomas Dimuzio and Dan Burke." -Vital Weekly
consists of Bay Area polymaths George Chen on guitar & electronics, and Steven Santa Maria on electronics & guitar. They create improvised drones with guitars and a plethora of effects. What will their set sound like? SF Gate got Chen's answer: "We find out when you do." Chen started playing in Megaweapon, eventually becoming their sole member, and later joined up with Steven, who was playing solo as Fun Santa Maria. Chen also plays in Common Eider King Eider.

En:

is the local ambient duo of James Devane and Maxwell Croy; they combine electronic and acoustic instruments, including a Japanese koto, to make gorgeous soundscapes. Their latest record "Already Gone" was the #1 most played album of 2012 on KZSU. Foxy Digitalis describes it as "pretty enough that people who aren’t normally into this sort of music will find it agreeable." Accessible but not mainstream, abstract but also soothing- don't miss out on their set!
Tim Gray is an MFA graduate of Mills College in California where his master thesis concerned the use of sound for control, healing and empowerment. He currently researches the applications of sound for meditation and healing. He lives in Portland, OR and records for kranky under the moniker, Ethernet.
Filipino-American guitarist/composer Karl Evangelista (b.1986) ranks among a new wave of creative musicians grounded in jazz, 20th century experimentalism, and popular song, exploring the place of multiculturalism and ethnic co-exzistence in an increasingly post-cultural, trans-idiomatic cultural space. As the creative force behind boundary breaking group Grex, Evangelista has been called "essential current-and-future listening, his music "a near-seamless blend of modern jazz, contemporary structuralist composition, indie rock, and blues rock" (Tiny Mix Tapes). This complex, powerful aesthetic fosters an "otherworldly experience" that is "completely original" (Eugene Weekly).
is a musician & multimedia artist currently based in Portland, Oregon. With early beginnings in the LA independent music scene, Fischer moved from there to Olympia, Washington where in addition to drumming in various bands he found new opportunities to further experiment with sound, using tape loops and electronics. The journey led next to Portland, Oregon, where he continues to refine his experimentations. Field recordings, chance, and DIY instruments, coupled with acoustic instrumentation and visual art, define what has become Marcus's minimal signature.
A crucial contributor to local outfits The Drift and Tarentel, Danny Paul Grody is a veteran of the San Francisco experimental music scene. Grody wields guitars and keyboards to create music as diverse as improvised synthesizer pieces (Moholy Nagy), noise/drone/ambient works (Tarentel), to dubby experimental rock compositions (The Drift). On recordings under his own name, Grody gently balances guitar and synthesizer, offering solitary but delicate drone. Danny Paul Grody has solo releases on Root Strata, Students of Decay, and XRA. And here is a link to a KZSU Danny Paul Grody interview conducted by KZSU DJ Adam on the program "Ghost Trees" on January 23rd, 2012.
Sun Hammer is an American sound artist who loves eating sweets but restricts his intake with a weekends-only limit, adores mainstream rap, utilizes bass for its healing properties, and identifies as an Enneagram Type Five. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Since 2007, Ghost Hand has been the solo musical project of interdisciplinary artist Peter Pendergrass. Ghost Hand incorporates elements of ambient, drone, psychedelic, folk, noise, and electronic music into edited recordings as well as structured live improvisations. Each recording and performance is an exploration. Something is always at stake.
Daniel Hintz is a sound artist from Oakland, working primarily with untreated field recordings. Hintz, aka Cactus, is perhaps best known as an electric guitarist in the bands Nuclear Death Wish and Leavenworth.
Let's have a band to start a riot. Let's turn on King Micha & the Destroyers. They live in the forest and play the drums. Climbing the spire our thoughts shape themselves with the tunes. Let's listen to them again and again and again and again each time louder.
Li Xi use dream-pop vocal melodies and combine 60's psychedelia with contemporary electronics and vintage synthesizers. Vocalist Maryann Tran captures a similar innocence and beauty as that from Margo Guryan. Maryann and James usually collaborate on the lyrics together. A common theme used on the record is time and looking back.

M22:

M22 is Kent Cates and Cactus Daniel Hintz, an electric guitar duo from Oakland. M22 carves feedback and drone figurines, in real time, at cataclysmic volume. Cates and Hintz also both play electric guitar in the Oakland experimental black metal band Nuclear Death Wish.
When Julia Mazawa of Oakland, CA, presses a special key, it plays a little melody
is a Mexican composer currently living in the US. His recent work is focused in the development of structural devices and procedures which create friction or tensions between rigorously conceived material and real time decision making during performance. A manifold of micro-spaces for individual expression are to be found by the performer inside highly specified notation. One or more parallel sonic spaces, perforated or eroded algorithmic processes, interventions, interferences, custom made tools which defy linearity, and intuition are equally important in his music.
is a local synth artist who has recorded under the name Aemae, declining live gigs to focus on creating deep, dark, layered noise soundscapes. Since 2009 he has been performing locally under his own name. He also operates the prolific Isounderscore label.
Clarke Robinson is a visual artist, instrument designer, musician and improvisor who explores sound and silence with challenging, direct, and visceral electronic music performed on modern hybrid analogue/digital modular synthesizers. Recently, he has been exploring the guerilla-like invasion of large acoustic spaces using battery-powered electronics in abandonded parking garages. Recorded shortly after dawn during a season of Sundays, a recording of these sessions will be available soon via www.clarkerobinson.com.
Clarke will be accompanied by Jim Whittemore, using semi-patchable analogue synthesizers from the 1970s to complement and contrast with the modern hybrid modular. Vintage instruments include an ARP 2600 synthesizer, ARP sequencer, two EMS Synthi A suitcases, and in a nod to the modern, a Flight of Harmony Infernal Noise Machine. Combining improvisational rivers with structured compositions and interludes, the duo hope to demonstrate the immediacy and accessibility of organized sound. No computers will be injured during the performance.
Jim describes himself as "an aging, failed electronic musician". Co-founder of the seminal agit-pop/punk/electro/post-punk/dub band The Scientific Americans (ROiR, Tekno Tunes, Objekt, Op Magazine), and an early member of what became the legendary synth/guitar duo WKGB (Fetish), he has also recorded and performed with Elliot Sharp, Chris Vine, Papillion, and Michael Gregory Jackson. This will be his first live performance in over 30 years, so please be kind but don't encourage him.
ShitTorrent began a response to the boredumbs of modern day un-danceable, irrational, wallflower-promotin, shoegaze-supportin, can't have no fun cuz we don't know how, don't wanna groove cuz ya don't know how to move, bubble gum rock-n-dull. The group is a splinter--shards from other projects such as Lairdander, Notion People, and Sound Test, resulting in high-energy, contradictory, tautological shithrash. The output can be described as--like you went to a dance club but got shocked they were playing punk, or went to a punk house and instead you got dance. Except not like that at all, being that it is a blend and more like you got smashed in the face with melting pot. A dadaist confrontation of the human mental condition blended with schizophrenic visuals and anti-mob mentality. Add sandpaper on your teeth for all you noiseheads out there.
Since receiving his first drum set at the age of two, Jared Smith has been enamored with sound and music. Able to find melody in the mundane, Jared Smith sets his music apart from run-of-the-mill ambient sound in his newest album, Fjall.
is a sound artist and composer currently pursuing an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media at Mills College where she focuses on digital and analog synthesis, installation work, cello playing and audio engineering. She holds a BA in music from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario where she studied both electroacoustic music and religious studies. She strives to relate her musical projects to her interests in alternative education, do-it-yourself crafts, and alternative and sustainable living practices. Many of her current projects emphasize small, often unnoticed sounds and focus on the relationship between the listener and the surrounding environment.
formed in early 2010 with Ten Ticklish Ants on noisy guitar walls and vocals, M. Mersereau on bass, vocals and samples and D.A. Leech on percussion. We seek bold, expressive sounds to push the envelope of what it means to play rock music in an age where information overload and chaos reigns supreme. A deep, intuitive musical bond exists because of the many projects we have done together in the past. Separately, you can hear us in such diverse sounding projects as the cinematic soundscapes of 15 Degrees Below Zero and the pop-punk group The Feldmans. To paraphrase Baudrillard: power in the future will be for those who know they have no nation, no home. We are currently finishing work on our second album that heads even further into the aural field of the strange. We will be debuting our newest track "Three Parts" at the 2013 KZSU Day of Noise.
Tiberius is primarily a spontaneously creative unit comprised of Dominic Cramp (Evangelista, Borful Tang, Lord Tang, Vulcanus 68) playing organ and electronics and Mike Guarino (Sir Richard Bishop, Oaxacan) playing drums, guitar, and electronics . Between them they have performed and recorded in multiple countries with such artists as Nels Cline, Shahzad Ismaily, Mike Watt, Carla Bozulich, Richard Bishop, Bill Gould, John Dietrich, Ches Smith and Damo Suzuki. Most recently, they have engaged in an ongoing series of performances with choreographer Leyya Mona Tawil of Dance Elixir, a company of up to 11 dancers and guitarist Ava Mendoza in a piece entitled Destroy!
Longtime KZSU DJ, the Voice of Doom started the Day of Noise tradition in the 1990s and organized the event for many years. Doom filled in the performance gaps with homemade noise machines, some of which are infamous at KZSU.
Andrew Weathers is a composer & improviser based in Oakland, CA where he attends Mills College. His current work is focused on fusing the American South with contemporary artistic practice. He tours often, plays in a variety of bands and runs Full Spectrum Records.
San Francisco's White Pee, previous guests on KZSU's Wednesday Night Live program, employ a shifting variety of instruments - from grand pianos to layered tape decks - to craft their arresting brand of drone music. The SF Chronicle tells listeners they can expect to be "hypnotized by the meditative quality of minimal, elongated synth whispers, and then startled by a jarring, resistant guitar growl." Sparse, lush, loud, and intricate, the group's spontaneous and evolving sound has earned them quick acclaim among Bay Area experimentalists.

zBug:

Brick, KZSU DJ, gushes: "Killer, structured psychedelic free noise jazz from a legend around these parts." Long-time KZSU disc jockey David Bug is David Leikam, who together with Sheila Bosco, form the core of zBug. David plays moog rogue/electric bass-cello and Sheila handles drumset/percussion. Heading into Europe and Asia in 2012, zBug performed concerts at The Wild Beast Pavilion, Meridian Gallery, The Luggage Store Gallery among others. zBug is continuing to perform with Kidd Jordan (New Orleans, USA) on saxophone, Craig Latta (Amsterdam, NL) on electric guitar/electronics, Fred Malouf (Palo Alto, USA) on electric guitar and Mark Spybey (Northumberland, UK) on electronics.