Thomas Peake Farewell Concert and Peakecast

Tomorrow Sunday December 20th 2009 will be the “Thomas Peake Farewell Celebratory Concert” at the Eyedrum – 290 MLK Jr Drive SE in Atlanta. Doors open at 3 pm, music starts at 4 PM and will go until the wee hours. A variety of bands will perform, from ones that Thomas helped in their careers, was friends with the members, and even a band that is debuting as a live act at the event. It will be a great time for lovers of music and lovers of Thomas alike. A salient point of the whole deal is that all the money raised by the concert will be given to the East Atlanta Kids Club, a charity that Thomas was intimately involved with in his life.

I wish I could be there to hear the music, help send off a friend, and spend a little more time with all our mutual friends. At the memorial in September I saw many people that I hadn’t seen in 20 years. If there is one thing I need in this life, it is more ways to get these groups of people together that don’t require someone dying first.

We’ve had a self-imposed deadline of getting the next episode of the Peakecast out before this show and I made it today by about 22 hours. Peakecast Episode Three is out in the world now and captures Thomas and Arthur Davis spinning tunes as guest hosts of Personality Crisis. Their set list is unique and weird and not at all like anything Jon Kincaid would have played, or anyone else for that matter. Check it out. This is just the beginning of what there is to be published. That is literally the first tape out of a big box, and we’ve been informed by Dena Peake that there are more boxes where this came from. It’s not as good as having the big man around to spin us some tunes but we’re now taking what we can on that front. If you care, tune in, subscribe, listen, comment and share your memories. Every memory gets more precious every day.

25th Anniversary Destroy All Music Festival

For you Atlanta GA area lovers of the industrial noise, this Saturday Oct 24th is the 25th Anniversary Destroy All Music Festival being held at the Eyedrum. I was sent the press release by Tony Gordon, longtime co-host of the Destroy All Music radio program on WREK FM. I saw him and his co-host Ellen McGrail at the memorial for Thomas Peake. I hadn’t seen Ellen or Tony since I left the ATL in 2003. In the 2001-2002 time period when I was doing a lot of work for the station, I’d go in on Sunday mornings to work on things and hang out a little with Tony while he did his shift. I really like the guy and was glad to see him and Ellen again, even under the somber circumstances. When I was at WREK in the 1980’s, the original series of Destroy All Music festivals were going on. It’s great to see them return with ear splitting vigor.

The festival will be this Saturday, Oct 24th with doors opening at 6 PM, music starting at 7 PM and as the press release says “continuing on until all music has been destroyed!” The lineup will be:

Andrew Coltrane

Wasteland Jazz Unit
Sean Meehan
Tamio Shiraishi

Traum
Mr. Natural
Graham Moore

Fenton

If you are in driving distance of Atlanta and dig the avant noise scene, this is the place to be. Check it out.

Around the Podosphere

Here’s some random things I’ve been listening to.

My close personal acquaintance Mary Robinette Kowal put up a reading on her site of her short story “Evil Robot Monkey.” I both liked the story and liked her reading of it. I’d love to one day have a chance to spend a little more time with her.

I’ll admit that I’m on the verge of becoming something like an Amory Lovins fanboy. I call him “Amory McLovin” just for fun. This morning I listened to his presentation about how businesses can save energy and turn a profit on doing it. I heard his previous series talking about changing house designs so that they use less energy in ways that are cheaper to build. His story involved guys repeatedly asking him what the payback time was and not hearing him say “Dude, this design is cheaper than the standard!” I’ll listen to any presentation of his that goes online.

Cyberpunk Radio continues to be the consistently weirdest thing in my podcast listening queue. That’s why it stays in there. I have no idea how many people listen to this show, but he’s been plugging at it for years and years. It’s highly creative and in its own way the truest show I listen to. This show sounds like living in 2008 feels. I recommend you check it out.

I love poker – playing poker, listening to shows about poker and watching poker on TV. I listen to Poker Road Radio, which I like but spends a lot of time on the cults of personality and the “poker lifestyle” kind of stuff. I really don’t give a damn about which players have the nicest Rolexes or Bentleys. I care about the game, how to play and how to improve my play. That makes the new show in the Poker Road family – All Strategy – perfect for me. It really is what the title says. Daniel Negreanu and Justin Bonomo discuss the strategy of playing poker without all the nonsense. I’ve heard the first two episodes, another was published today and it has already climbed high up my list of favorite podcasts.

Tonight I listened to the Eyedrum Show podcast, hosted by my friend Chris. At the beginning he mentioned that this episode was the second to last one. He said he’d talk more about that later but unless I missed it he never came back to that story. I don’t know what is precipitating this, but if forced to guess it would be burnout. Chris has been hosting this WREK Sunday Special about Eyedrum every month for the last 4, 5 maybe more years. I enjoy listening to it but I can understand why it would make sense to stop.

Around the Podosphere

Here’s some stuff I have recently heard and liked in the podcast world.

I cite Gerry Spence frequently, and mention his book How to Argue & Win Every Time in the podcast a lot. Recently I heard him talk about his new book Bloodthirsty Bitches and Pious Pimps of Power: The Rise and Risks of the New Conservative Hate Culture on the Authors on Tour podcast. It was a very good talk, and he said a lot of the things I wish I was hearing from progressive politicians about how the concentration of broadcasting media power in a few hands undermines democracy. He mentioned how he can’t get on TV for this book and is worried his message won’t get out, but sir I heard you without any intervention of major media. If I start feeling my oats, I might even see if I can get him for an interview. I do recommend this episode.

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Irrational Public Radio is downright hilarious. I’m a little surprised it has been going on for so long without me ever hearing about it. It rings so true with me because it completely reinforces the things that have been bugging me about NPR lately. I’ve been meaning to write a post about it but I haven’t gotten around to it. If you listen to these shows, a lot of what I meant to say is captured in this pitch perfect parody.

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My friend Chris mentioned in comments to a post here that the April episode of WREK’s Eyedrum Sunday Special was especially good. I listened to it today and agree with him. There is a chunk in there of live Peter Brötzmann that sounded fantastic to me. It put me in mind of Bitches Brew/Agharta era Miles Davis, with that African influenced screaming jazz with a funky underlayer. It did indeed rock.

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William Shunn is about to wrap up his serialized podcast of his memoir The Accidental Terrorist. I’ve been waiting for the book for 10 years, since he mentioned it on GEnie long ago. I highly recommend that people go back, grab all 40 or so episodes of the show and listen to the whole thing. It took me (and him!) a year to get through it, but you can do it in a week now. I guarantee it will be worth your time or triple your money back.

Robert Rich at the Eyedrum

EGC friends Damon Young and Diana Obscura will be opening for Robert Rich at the Eyedrum in Atlanta this Sunday night. If you are in the area and want to experience some fine ambio-tribal-gotho-indo-arabic music of the highest order, check it out. Here is the press release:

Sunday, April 9, 2006

Changelings members Paul Mercer (violin) & Damon Young (tanpura)
will join Diana Obscura (cello, voice) and Carol Statella (viola)
in opening for ambient & tribal music pioneer Robert Rich at Eyedrum

290 MLK Jr. Drive, Suite 8, Atlanta, GA 404-522-0655
Music starts at 8:15pm, $9, All Ages

Please see here for more info:

Bonus link, WREK does a monthly show on Eyedrum which even has its own podcast RSS feed. The last two episodes have even had a little Rich and Obscura music in them.

Eyedrum Podcast

My friend and WREK cohort Chris emailed me about his new project. He has been a volunteer at the Atlanta art gallery/ performance space Eyedrum for a while. Once a month on WREK he hosts a Sunday Special that features songs from performances at the joint. Now he has set up a podcast for those shows. Cool, no? This is yet another semi-official podcast feed for WREK, on top of the ones I set up. It’s not exactly “if you build it they will come” but more like “if you build it, they will build it too.”