Where were you on this evening in 1980? I was writing a play (which never got performed) about the ghosts of aspiring musicians and performers, when the news came through that John Lennon had been shot. At the time, I thought that was kind of ironic. Strange to think that was 23 years ago.
Every now and again I'll check the guestbook to see if someone's added something to it. (It's rare, so I don't check it often and have even considered taking it down.) To my surprise, Alaskan DJ Mike Sirofchuck signed it with this to say:
"Hello Greg- Just wanted to let you know that I featured Cold Sky 'Live at Be-Bop Records' on show tonight on KMXT-FM in Kodiak, Alaska. I also played a few cuts from 'Asleep or Somewhere Else' tonight as well. A couple of weeks ago I played the 'Interior' cut from 'intext'. I plugged your web site as well. Thanks for the music - I always enjoy it and I appreciate your wide range of styles."
Thanks Mike!
The other night I was reading a modern art theory book at dinner and came across a quote from Edvard Munch that I'd marked off many (again, probably 23) years ago. It seemed very relevant to the "Sound Quality vs. Musical Quality" piece (as well as to things I believe about many aspects of "perfection" in the arts), so it is now posted there right under the title.
Work continues on next year's crop (most recently on the January CD, which has 23 tracks!)- stay tuned for further details.
Just a couple of quick things:
tracks from "Always" have gone back into rotation on the excellent prog internet radio show, Remember The Future;
And I wanted to thank Aural Innovations, ProgressoR, and Progressiveworld for covering the news about all the upcoming releases.
Oh yeah, I added a few new links too.
Hello again! Some of you may have been wondering why there have been no updates since July. Lots happening, that's why!
For a start: some of you may know Chrissy Barr from her work with me on "Intext". The next time you see her name listed with mine, it will be the same- no, not Greg! That would be silly. Segal! We got married on Halloween at the Oregon coast. Anyone offended by not receiving an invite should be aware that no family or friends were present- just someone to marry us, two witnesses (a very nice couple staying at a neighboring cottage) and a photographer.
Second, as mentioned here previously, I spent January-May recording a lot of new material. Sorting through this took a long time, and when I finally got it all seperated out into CDs, there were 12 of them! What the hell was I thinking? Anyway, this number naturally suggested the number of months, so the plan is to release a CD a month in 2004. Don't worry, I don't intend to make a habit of it.
And as if that isn't bad enough...
Hyam Sosnow and I recorded about 8 hours of new Jugalbandi music, which we have whittled down to a paltry 4 CDs. We are currently considering staggering their release, one every 3 months, once they're ready.
And as if that isn't bad enough...
The Paper Bag crew- M., George, and Kenny- yes, that's right, Kenny- are at work on cleaning up some archival PB material. I put my 2 cents in on choosing tracks, mixing details, etc. There will probably be at least 2 releases next year.
Since there is still a lot to do, especially in regard to the 12 solo releases- don't be surprised if there isn't another update before the first of the year.
Meanwhile, here are some things that have happened since the end of July:
There's a killer review of "Asleep Or Somewhere Else" by Dave Aftandillian at Ink19.
Despite not being listed on their site, I can only think that "Exterior" from Intext was actually played 8/10 on Australia's "Difficult Listening" show- I got an email from someone who heard it on the show.
Speaking of "Intext", there's a great review of it in Expose' # 27.
Improvijazzation Nation #64 features a review of "Always Look On The Dark Side Of Life".
Don Campau played "Nothing In The Dark That's Not There In The Light" from "Cold Sky Live at Be Bop Records 2/8/89" on his 9/14 No Pigeonholes show.
Jugalbandi's "Dreaming In The 9th" was played on Christopher Curry's "Nature Abhors A Vacuum" show, 9/28. As was "Wednesday, 10 PM" from "In Search Of The Fantastic" on the 10/5 show.
"Chopper" from "Bret Hart/Greg Segal Duets Vol. 2" appears on show #28 of "The Ear-Relevant Music Hoedown".
Can anyone out there read Italian? If so, maybe you would translate this retrospective piece about Jugalbandi by Peppe DiSpirito at "The Rotter's Club". This much is clear- he likes us.
The latest Aural Innovations has a review of the "Building" CD I was on with Bret Hart, Eric Wallack, Ernesto Diaz-Infante and Ethan Sklar. (By the way, check out Eric's new website!)
Finally, early in 2004 I will be accepting payment through PayPal.
So there you have it. The coming year should bring a lot of good music, new and renewed.
"Blacklight Towers" from "Cold Sky Live at Be Bop Records, 2/8/89" was played on Drug Music 's 7/16 show.
"Unseen Labors" was played on the 7/20 installment of Dreams Wide Awake.
There are new reviews of AOSE and Cold Sky at Be Bop at ProgressoR.
The new Aural Innovations issue features reviews of Cold Sky, Intext, AOSE, and the full Jugalbandi: 1999 set.
The "Hey, It's Your Ass!" show for 7/03 includes Paper Bag's "Meat Wagons From Mars". This track is from an early independent cassette, pre-SST.
I added a quote to "A Note On Recordings". (The asterisk at the end of the paragraph links to the quote at the bottom of the page.)
Aural Innovations Radio # 81 features "Tape Before Dawn" from AOSE and "King of Illusion" from Cold Sky Live at Be Bop Records, 2/8/89.
On 5/4, "Tape Before Dawn" from AOSE was played on Joel Krutt's "Pushing The Envelope" show. ( The show airs Sunday afternoons from 2 to 4PM (EST) from WHUS / University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA. Listen to the program streamed live @ whus.org .)
More music from AOSE was heard on 5/6, during a spotlight feature on Belgium's Psyche van het Folk show. (The featured tracks were "The Circle And The Center", "Fall Away" (excerpt), "Into The Orange" (excerpt), and "Unseen Labors".)
On 5/11: Aural Innovations Radio # 76 featured "Under The Bridge" from "Cold Sky Live at Be-Bop Records 2/8/89" and "Elmer Season #2" from "Jugalbandi: 1999"; and Don Campau played "Zap'n the Cap'n" from AOSE on his No Pigeonholes show.
On 5/18, progressive Internet radio show Remember The Future added "Uncle Sun", "Elmer Season #1" and "Elmer Season #2" to the rotation.
On 5/24, "The Ear-Relevant Music Hoedown" #25 featured a 10 minute excerpt from "Interior" off the "Intext" CD.
On 6/6, "Water From The Moon" (the version off "Always") was played on Drug Music.
EER music gave lukewarm and somewhat confused reviews to Jugalbandi's "View", and my "Always" and "ISOTF". (I don't think this fellow is very familiar with unorthodox music of any kind.)
Improvijazzation Nation #63 (posted 6/15) has a good review of AOSE.
And I recently discovered an article on Bret Hart in Modern Dance Reviews that included reviews of BH/GS Duets #2 and "Building" (featuring Bret, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Ethan Sklar, Eric Wallack and myself).
Last, in order to get some new content on the site while I attend to other things, I've put together Some Random Thoughts On Music.
"The Ear-Relevant Music Hoedown" #23 features "The Foundation Gives" from the Eric Wallack/Greg Segal CD "Asleep or Somewhere Else", followed by "Chopper" from the Greg Segal/Bret Hart Duets Vol. 2 CD.
"In Search of The Fantastic"- the whole album- is back in rotation on Remember The Future, a first-rate prog Internet radio station.
There's a review of "Asleep or Somewhere Else", the first Wallack/Segal CD, at Psyche van het Folk, a Belgian radio show/review site that has covered both "Fantastic" and "Always" in the past.
There's a new review of Bret Hart/Greg Segal Duets vol. 2 up at I.N. #62, run by the energetic rotcod Zzaj. (Scroll about halfway down the page.)
Jugalbandi: 1999 gets its first (large) bit of public airing on Screamin' Streamin' Audio's latest show, which features "Uncle Sun" (all 21:13 of it) from disc one.
Last, news from 2002 is now on its own page.
Jugalbandi: 1999 is now available. It's 2 CDs: "Jugalbandi: 1999" and "Jugalbandi: 1999 Deep Cuts". For purchase info, go here; for general info on Jugalbandi, go here.
Cold Sky Live at Be Bop Records 2/8/89 is now available as part of the PAle series. Find out more about Cold Sky here.
The Eric Wallack /Greg Segal collaboration, "Asleep Or Somewhere Else", is now available as part of the PAle series.
There are new reviews of "Fantastic" and Jugalbandi's "Yellow Star Mailing List" at the Italian site Arlequins. According to their author, Peppe Di Spirito, they are good reviews. I have to take his word for it, they're in Italian!
Reviews of "Always" and "Fantastic" are in the new issue of Expose' (# 26).
The Gagliarchives show on 3/8 featured Jugalbandi's "My Yiddishe Boogie" and "Dreaming In The 9th", and "As The Sky Turns To Fire" from "Always" (and "Night Circus").
There is a review of "Always" up on the brand new Italian site MovimentiProg.net. Of course it's in Italian so I can't tell you much more about it! I do know the album got rated 7 out of 10.
This just in: there's a review of "In Search Of The Fantastic" up at the BBC, courtesy of Peter Marsh.
I also have received word from the Gagliarchives radio show that this Saturday night, 3/8, " in our 4th Hour Space Out", there will be "music from Greg Segal and Jugalbandi". No word on which tracks will be played, but the show's host and producer, Thomas Gagliardi, does have "In Search Of The Fantastic" and the entire Jugalbandi 2000 set, so who knows? Let's tune in and find out. Info for the show is as follows:
Vol. 2 of Greg Segal/Bret Hart Duets is finished. Look here! It's intense and strange (what else would you expect from us?), but with a definite sense of humor.
The CD with Eric Wallack is in the finishing stages. It's called "Asleep Or Somewhere Else" and you can see the cover and what we played on it if you look here! We are pretty sure it will be available this month- check back here for info.
The first recording of all new material for the PAle series has arrived: "intext", by Greg Segal and Chrissy Barr. This features manipulated environmental recordings, music from household objects, and more. As with all releases in the PAle series, it is made to order and available by request only. As with "The Fourth Of The Three", it is $8. This will be the case with all new material released as part of PAle. (Archival stuff like the upcoming Cold Sky releases will be $6.)
Source tracks for the upcoming "Greg Segal/Bret Hart Duets vol. 2" and the as yet unnamed Eric Wallack/GS collaboration have been completed, along with a lot of material for upcoming solo releases.
Soon to be tackled: tracks for Systems Theory , Marc Mylar , and more solo recording.
Yesterday's recording session included a piece inspired by the Columbia disaster. The working title is "Seven Will Not Return".
If I may make a brief aside here: let's hope this isn't the death of the space program as well. Not because, as one person said yesterday, it's the human race's hope of survival because we can spread out- I believe we'd only take our problems with us and start them someplace else; but because the search for knowledge is ultimately worthwhile.
Vitaly Menshikov finishes his current trilogy of reviews for ProgressoR with "Night Circus part two".
The first release of all new material for the PAle series is completed and will be available soon. I expect it to be accompanied by at least one more.
Work has finished on the upcoming collaborative CD featuring Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Ethan Sklar, Bret Hart, Eric Wallack and GS.
More reviews still pending from quite a few places.
Recording continues.
All for now!
Vitaly Menshikov of ProgressoR has reviewed "The Fourth Of The Three". I send out packages for review to places that often kill me in postage, only to get a lousy review or worse yet, not get reviewed at all, and sometimes in frustration I wonder why I bother. This is why I bother.
"In Search Of The Fantastic" made editor/writer Jerry Kranitz' "best of 2000" list in the new issue of Aural Innovations.
There will be reviews of "Fantastic" and "Always" in the upcoming issue of Expose'.
Argentine progressive site Nucleus just finished an interview with me, which should be up on their web site in February.
To the large list of current projects, add: laying down some guitar for the upcoming CD by Systems Theory.
Recording has commenced on said large list of projects, and is continuing.
Almost a month since the last update! But the holidaze (as Marc Mylar calls them) are over and it's time to report in.
Vitaly Menshikov has posted a review of Night Circus part one at ProgressoR. Reviews of NC part two and The Fourth Of The Three are pending. (Just a reminder: he's got extended reviews of the full Jugalbandi set, Fantastic, Always, and Experimental Guitar there too.)
"Snallygaster" was played on the 12/29/02 edition of Australia's Difficult Listening show.
I've finally added a page for the CD of my Duets with Bret Hart.
Work continues slowly on the Cold Sky project as I work my way through my tapes. Meanwhile, Hyam Sosnow is sending me 20 more to check out! My guess of two CDs (one each for the trio and quartet formations of the band) appears to have been an underestimation. As a sort of warm up for these upcoming PAle series releases, I've redesigned the site's Cold Sky page. There are better graphics and the text has been revised and added to.
Hyam Sosnow should soon have the capability of archiving the Dog Neutral DATs and cassettes to CD, which means that there could be a lot of that material released this year on Great Artiste 89's very own budget label. (The first release on this will be the two "Jugalbandi: 1999" discs, which we hope will be coming within the next few months- no ETA yet, but I'm now hoping by March.)
Meanwhile, plans are in the works for quite a few new projects, recording to commence soon.
Last, I've added a few links to the Links page.