Two new bits of airplay, which for a change I'm trying to post while they're currrent and available online:
Aural Innovations Radio #191 includes, among much other boss and keen music, "Mutation Night", from "Adventures Of Forever And Nowhere" (and also from the "Phase Two" compilation);
Drug Music 's 12/19 show features "Baghdaddy-O", fresh off the newly released "Jugalbandi Classic" CD.
No munchkin yet. She may be on bass-player time. Look for info of her arrival before the new year. We'll keep you posted.
Announcing the release of "Jugalbandi Classic", a collection of recordings from our early days, in '93. You can hear sound clips/downloads here. Ordering info can be found by clicking here, or following the links on the CD's page.
Airplay news:
"Mutation Night", from "Adventures Of Forever And Nowhere", was played on the 9/25 Glasshuset show.
AI Radio show #187 (posted 10/27) included Cold Sky 's "Energetic", from "In Process".
Drool Trough #69 (posted 11/10) included "Punch Line" from the David McIntire/Greg Segal CD "Wonder, Doubt And Curiosity".
On 11/14, Don Campau posted an archival episode of his "No Pigeonholes" show from 12/15/85, which included music by Paper Bag.
And Drug Music 's 12/5 show included "When Every Day Is Yesterday", from "Tales Of Today Will Be Tales Of Long Ago".
Announcing the release of two CDs by the trio version of Cold Sky: "In Process" and "The King Of Illusion Variations". These are taken from rehearsal tapes recorded 7/88 through 2/89.
Airplay news:
8/21: Don Campau's "No Pigeonholes", Radio Marabu edition (European simulcast) included "The Knowing Eye Part 4", from the recently remastered "An Awareness Of Frameworks".
9/23: More airplay from Don and "No Pigeonholes": "Moist Earth", also from AAOF.
9/28: "A Conversation Of Energies" , from "The Old Familiar Place", was part of that date's Drug Music show.
It's rare that I have to report bad news here, but "In Search Of The Fantastic" will be unavailable for purchase until further notice. It seems quite a few CD-R manufacturers think they can get by without making CDs that actually can store as much as 78 minutes. I realize that's near the limit, but I have been able to make these for nearly 6 years without a problem, until now. A recent attempt at making copies for backstock produced 10- count 'em!- TEN coasters. The ten came from different makes of CD, tried on 2 different burners. The amount of time actually available on these ranged from 72 min and a few seconds up to just around 78 min (though that was rare; and ISOTF is about 78:30). The most common time for a disc to crap out was around the old limit of 74, pushing up to about 75. This actually could render a few other CDs unavailable, but thankfully I have a way to check on the disc area now before I actually burn. One plan to counteract this problem involves releasing MP3 discs, but there's a lot to look over before I make my mind up on that.
Production may also slow down here as the new year approaches, since the next member of the Segal family is due to arrive around then. Needless to say we will be pretty busy once that happens, and I will likely use the time between diaper changes to catch up on my reading. Or my sleep. The one CD agreed upon so far for the labor process is, naturally enough, "intext": one Greg/Chrissy product welcoming another into the world.
Happy July 3rd, everyone.
I've just uploaded 8 more full songs for free download:
From "Asleep Or Somewhere Else": "Valleyheart Bridge"
From "Rivers": "From The Tree" and "Someday They'll Talk About This"
From "A Play Of Light And Shadow": "A Play Of Light And Shadow"
From "The Old Familiar Place": "The Clockmaker"
From "Tales Of Today Will Be Tales Of Long Ago": "Tales Of Today Will Be Tales Of Long Ago" and "Independence"
From "Doubt, Wonder And Curiosity": "And Alive"
For more full downloads and clips, go to the sound page.
The always terrific forum site, Melo's Prog Bazaar, has a thread going this month featuring me and my music. It's sort of like an all-month call in show, except it's on a forum site. If you're interested in following this thread or communicating with me through it, go here. Many thanks go out to everyone there for making this possible. Of course I will also strongly suggest checking out the rest of the site, which is both informative and fun.
Airplay has slowed down a bit, what with so many Internet shows wondering whether they'll even exist soon or not. However, Drug Music did play "Everything Is Everything" from "Wonder, Doubt And Curiosity" on 5/21.
Shoulda mentioned this last time: there's a great group review of "Play Of Light And Shadow", "The Old Familiar Place" and "Tales Of Today Will Be Tales Of Long Ago" in the latest issue of Expose' (#34). Peter Thelen first describes the Phantom Airship/ Pale series method & concept, then examines the albums. Good stuff.
July 15th approaches: the impending near-obliteration of Internet radio by everyone's pals the RIAA will isolate Phantom Airship in many ways. It's going to drastically reduce the number of places for exposure for genuinely independent artists. Get ready to dig further underground, me hardies. Word of mouth will be more important than ever. If you like the work of people operating outside the mainstream industry, don't be shy, tell people about us and play our stuff for anyone who will listen. It's mostly up to you now. I'd like to say a special thank you to all those hobbyist (but no less serious) DJs and devotees of outside music who have been so supportive of us over the years. DISCLAIMER: If I'm being unnecessarily doomy and alarmist about the situation here....well, it wouldn't be the first time, and I'll be very happy to be wrong. Meanwhile here are some links of interest and importance:
www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/051107/index.shtml
http://www.petitiononline.com/SIR2007r/petition.html
Announcing: the release of a remastered edition of "An Awareness Of Frameworks". The album now runs the way I'd originally wanted it to- with the pieces overlapping. This doesn't sound like that big of a change; but imagine if every edit in a movie had to have a four second pause between segments. You might notice. Also, the EQ has been enhanced for greater sharpness and depth. For full notes on this edition (which replaces the earlier version), click here.
The airplay report: "Bound", from "Wonder, Doubt And Curiosity", seems to be the favorite, being picked up by three shows in a row ( Drug Music 3/7, Drool Trough #59 3/18, No Pigeonholes 4/8); and Don Campau did a follow-up by playing "Come In And Burn" from the same CD on the 4/22 No Pigeonholes.
Last, news from 2006 has been archived here.
"Wonder, Doubt And Curiosity", a CD featuring poetry by David McIntire and music by GS, is now available. McIntire's name should be familiar to Paper Bag fans: he wrote the liner notes inside "Music To Trash". David was at most PB shows from '86 on, and at most of the recordings from then on; he performed with us as a guest poet numerous times, before finally joining the band for several incarnations, including gigs in the early '90s and the still unreleased live recordings from 2000. He and I also did duet shows together during that period, featuring poetry and guitar. This release finally makes his work available for anyone to hear, and I'm very proud to present it.
Next in the recent release category: "Cassette Culture Two", a 2 CD compilation of recent work by home recording musicians. It's packed full of great stuff. I'm represented on there with "A Coin For Charon" from "Rivers". This compilation was put out by Chris Phinney, who's been releasing great experimental music for a couple of decades now, and you should really check out the rest of his site- here's a link to his main page.
Now for review/airplay news:
There's been some nice action involving the Exodust project: first, over at Aural Innovations, there's a review, and also some airplay for the title track on AI Radio show #169. Then, Don Campau's 2/11 No Pigeonholes show featured the track "My Pet Whales".
There's been some nice GS & Jugalbandi related activity on Joe Mallon's "Shadows And Light" show, hosted by Delicious Agony. On the 1/30 show, Joe played "Returns" from "In Search Of The Fantastic", and had a GS CD giveaway, with free CDs to everyone who put a comment on the show's page. Joe sent out both solo CDs and Jugalbandi CDs to the winners. Then, on the 2/13 show, he played "Pleasure Circle" from Jugalbandi's "Night Crazy" CD. Thanks, Joe.
On 2/12, Amsterdam-based podcast Popart had a full show of GS music, called "The Greg Segal Mystery Show". Here's the playlist:
1. Mutation Night.
2. Speed Drifting.
3. An Older Way.
4. First Camp.
5. When Every Day Is Yesterday.
6. Tributaries.
7. Rapids.
8. Recover, Move On.
9. From The Tree.
10. Fast Water.
11. Reminiscing Into The Unknown.
12. A Play Of Light And Shadow.
13. Some Day They’ll Talk About This.
14. A Hasty Advance.
15. Preservation Landing.
16. Ayung.
17. Potamoi.
18. Valleyheart Bridge.
19. A Coin For Charon.
20. The Endless River.
21. A Man Who Was Here.
Unless I'm mistaken, you can still use the link supplied above to go there and listen to this.
Last, "A Play Of Light And Shadow" has a review (in Italian) by Donato Zoppo at Movimenti Prog. Judging by the predictably sketchy autotranslation I got from Google, it's a very good review.