Chris Black

ChamberLab 1-Year Anniversary Concert

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 18:52:04 -0700

ChamberLab is turning one year old! Help us celebrate at our concert on May 25th, which will be recorded for a live release!

ChamberLab in May

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:26:00 -0700

The upcoming ChamberLab concert is the most ambitious one yet, and it’s our one-year anniversary of the series. We’ll have two sets of music for you, featuring all of our favorite pieces from the previous year, played by an ensemble of two to twelve musicians!

We’ll be back at Cafe Desta for this one, in that big, beautiful-sounding room, and the concert will be recorded for a live release by the great Craig Schumacher of Wavelab Studio!

We will, I believe, be featured on local public radio and television in advance of the concert!

We may even serve beer from our favorite local microbrewery, but I’m still struggling with the permit issue on that one!

More to come, but please like our Facebook page, and follow our Tumblr for more details as they arise. I’m not done getting gray hairs over this one yet …

My piece for the February ChamberLab concert, called...

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:22:27 -0700

My piece for the February ChamberLab concert, called “Around the Neighborhood in Socks.”

SXSW 2013!

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 12:52:00 -0700

I’ll be coming to Austin as violinist with Gabriel Sullivan’s Taraf de Tucson. Here’s where and when:

Thursday:

3:00pm - Snack bar Party - http://www.snackbaraustin.com/

w/ Texas Trash & The Trainwrecks

Friday:

2:00pm - Lucy’s Retired Surf Bar - http://www.lucysretiredsurfers.com/ (acoustic show)

w/ Naim Amor, Andrew Collberg + more

6:00pm - Brooklyn Country Cantina - http://brooklyncountrycantina.com/

w/ Hacienda + more

Saturday:

11:00pm - Speakeasy - http://www.speakeasyaustin.com/

w/ Giant Giant Sand, Y la Orkesta, Chicha Dust, Andrew Collberg, Tesoro

This was the ChamberLab concert from Sunday, February 14th!

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 15:21:18 -0700

This was the ChamberLab concert from Sunday, February 14th!

Last month at Cafe Passe, an all-acoustic show for guitar,...

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 17:24:21 -0700

Last month at Cafe Passe, an all-acoustic show for guitar, voice, double bass, and trombone. “Never let yourself be a singer-songwriter without a trombone,” is my new motto. That’s Tony Rosano on the left, and Gabriel Sullivan in the middle. Ivonne A Gaitan Romero took the photo and shared it via Facebook.

Friday night in Tucson, Arizona.

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 12:04:44 -0700

Friday night in Tucson, Arizona.

Brian Lopez and I play a straight-up acoustic show at Cafe...

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:07:00 -0700

Brian Lopez and I play a straight-up acoustic show at Cafe Passe.

The Red Room, this morning. I feel like a loved one’s...

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 18:41:31 -0700

The Red Room, this morning. I feel like a loved one’s grave burned down during the night.

Here’s an excerpt from a rehearsal recording of...

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 19:59:20 -0700

Here’s an excerpt from a rehearsal recording of “Love’s Little Satan” for violin and double bass, to be performed at the ChamberLab concert on November 29th at the Hotel Congress. That’s me on the bass, and Nick Coventry on violin!

Trip Report: Austin, Texas!

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 12:43:18 -0700

4:30 on a Friday afternoon, and I touch down! Austin! Trees! Grass! Rivers! Barbecue sauce! A live band in the airport, because why not! It’s good to be home! Buzz Moran picked me up, and we took the scenic route back to Graham Reynolds’s house, and it’s always a funny sensation to drive through neighborhoods I once knew like the back of my hand, but now seem only dimly familiar.

Graham and I caught up over some Kim Phong (still delicious, still the same, $2 pricier, but more of it) and he dropped my at the Lobel estate, where David and Cassandra greeted me with open beers. David and I adjourned to the Parlor for more of the same, and the smell of pizza mingled with beer physically transported me to the old Monday nights with Gadjo Bango.

Then back to Graham’s for some much-needed sleep on his delightful couch.

Saturday noon found us at sound check for the Golden Hornet Project String Quartet Smackdown where I got to hear many of my competitor’s pieces rehearsed by the Tosca String Quartet, at which point I said, “Well, it’s just nice to be here I guess,” because these pieces put the fear of God into me. They had received over a hundred submissions from all over the world for this show, and whittled them down to the best sixteen. Powerful, daunting stuff.

Fig. 1: Tosca String Quartet in sound check.

Then back to the couch for an uneasy nap, some dinner, and it was time for the Smackdown, which worked like this:

The Sweet Sixteen were arrayed in brackets of two, and the concert proceeded like an elimination-style tournament. Each pair of pieces were played for one minute, and then the audience voted via text message, and the results were displayed in real time on a screen, thus:

Fig. 2: The votes are counted!

The pieces with the fewest votes were eliminated, and the winners advanced to the next round, where eight quartets paired off for two-minute performances, followed by another round of voting. The winners advanced to the quarter-finals, where four quartets had three-minute performances, votes were cast, and then on to the finals, where two quartets squared off and were played in their entirety for the final vote!

At all times, the pieces were identified only by a number. No one in the audience knew which piece was whose. It was a really fun evening, what with the audience participating, and with the gong going off and scaring us all out of our minds every few minutes (Graham beat on a gong to signal when the time was up and stop the quartet … and he really enjoyed it).

I was sweating it, and had already identified my likely dream-crushers. Tosca played brilliantly, as always! In the first round, I advanced, but so did the three pieces I feared the most! In the ensuing rounds, my third-most-feared piece eliminated my first- and second-most-feared pieces (which shows you what I know). But I had made it to the finals!

My heart was pounding as both pieces got their first full performances of the night. Rough stuff! The other piece was a really nice tango, and Tosca cut their teeth on tango music, so I was uneasy. By then, my friends had (mostly) figured out which piece was mine (I had refused to tell them), so they were rooting for me (or for someone, who knows?). But those were only the four people I was sitting with, and it was a big house, so …

Anyway, long story short, I WON THE CONTEST!

And then we repaired to the Dive Bar where the drinks were on me, and daylight savings time kicked in at 2am, so the drinks continued for an extra hour. Hell yes.

Sunday morning found Graham and I at the Fun Fun Fun Fest, where he played piano accompaniment to a vegetarian hot-dog eating contest because THAT’S HOW HE ROLLS. The contest was a tie, broken by the two finalists each lunging a mouthful out of the judge’s hand, Lady and the Tramp-style, and then spitting the mouthfuls back into his hands so he could weigh the results. Someone was the winner, but I had fainted by then so I’m sorry I can’t be more thorough.

Then we said hello to my Tucson buddies Giant Giant Sand in the food tent, as they were in town for the festival. Small world.

The afternoon found us back at the house, where Graham OWNED me 3-0 in games of H-O-R-S-E, but I did make some spectacular hopping shots so I am not ashamed. That night I went out to dinner with my friend Ryan and decided to try something I’d never had before: Food poisoning.

I was up all night, shivering and exploding. Truly awful. (This prevented me from going out with Gabriel Sullivan to see our friend Jon Villa sit in with John Doe, so, lame.)

Monday, I didn’t do a whole lot. Luckily, Ryan is a doctor so he was able to talk me through it. I limped around on impulse power, like the ravaged starship Enterprise creeping away while Khan says, “No … no, you can’t get away!” In this metaphor, I guess Khan would be my bowels? (NOTE TO SELF: Go back and work on this before publishing this post — CB).

I survived a practice with Graham and Jeremy Bruch, and then napped until showtime at the Dive Bar, where the Golden Arm Trio (Graham, Jeremy, and Utah Hamrick) was in full effect for some fantastic music that I hadn’t heard before. It was a night of music and cocktails, organized by Graham and Hank Cathey. The cocktails were mixed by Adam Bryan, including one made with smoked Southern Comfort! Sadly, my precarious internal condition forbade my attempting any alcohol that night.

And then the music from Drunk at the Funeral saw its first live performance with its original cast ever! Graham had produced the album, and both he and Jeremy had played drums on it. It felt good! I couldn’t ask for better, and the audience was with us all the way. It was good to have a lifetime’s worth of friends in the house, too: childhood, high school, college, post-college. It was a great night.

And then I went back to the van and shivered, because of the wrath of Khan.

Tuesday, time to pack it up. Graham and I got lunch at Ruby’s BBQ (black bean tacos so so good) and he dropped me at the airport. On the flight home I was seated next to a man who couldn’t stop touching things. He touched and felt and touched, with both hands, the seat in front of him, the wall next to him, the tray table, the seat belt, the wall again. Continuously. Intensely. IT WAS DISTURBING. Then, after an hour or so, he settled down and played Soduko. Whew. Seriously.

I got back to Tucson at 6:30 pm and hailed a cab. We went to my polling place and while the meter ran in the parking lot, I voted with five minutes to spare!

It was a good, long weekend. See you at SXSW, Austin!

Me too, brother. Me too.

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 15:38:28 -0700

Me too, brother. Me too.

This is the Tosca String Quartet soundchecking for the Smackdown...

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 12:45:53 -0700

This is the Tosca String Quartet soundchecking for the Smackdown tonight. Absolutey fierce.

So much music coming up! Saturday, November 3rd: String Quartet...

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 09:40:41 -0700

So much music coming up!

Saturday, November 3rd: String Quartet Smackdown in Austin, TX.

Monday, November 5th: Graham Reynolds Workshop at Dive Bar in Austin, TX. We’ll perform music from Drunk at the Funeral!

Friday, November 9th: The Ashes of Love, a Happy Hour for Them That Ain’t at La Cocina in Tucson, AZ.

Thursday, November 29th: ChamberLab at Club Congress in Tucson, AZ.

In an uncertain world full of obstacles, big and small, the...

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 09:41:50 -0700

In an uncertain world full of obstacles, big and small, the Post-It pads with the alternating top/bottom/top adhesive strips just seem mean. Just … just be a pad.

I’ve been in a Coen frenzy, rewatching Miller’s...

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:24:17 -0700

I’ve been in a Coen frenzy, rewatching Miller’s Crossing and No Country for Old Men, and also rereading Gates of Eden, which kills me every time. Also, for some reason, I’m teaching myself Java.

How all this is going to help me write three different trios (double bass plus clarinet, violin and contrabassoon) for the next ChamberLab, or a double duet for bassoon, contrabassoon, oboe, and english horn I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that.

I need a pillow for my head.

I’m happy to say that I’ve been accepted to the...

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 11:57:45 -0700

I’m happy to say that I’ve been accepted to the Golden Hornet Project’s String Quartet Smackdown! Sixteen will enter, one will survive!

I’ve been thinking about putting a band together, and...

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 12:47:47 -0700

I’ve been thinking about putting a band together, and thinking of the same sort of ensemble Weill used in Threepenny Opera. So I looked into it. What sort of group was that? Oh, not much. Just seven guys playing twenty-five instruments:

1. Alto Sax, Flute, Piccolo, Clarinet, Soprano Sax, Bari Sax

2. Tenor Sax, Clarinet, Bassoon, Soprano Sax

3. Trombone, Double Bass

4. Banjo, Bandoneon, Cello, Guitar, Hawaiian Guitar, Mandolin

5. Trumpet

6. Harmonium, Piano, Celesta, Conductor

7. Timpani, Percussion, 2nd Trumpet

ChamberLab Summer Concert 2012

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:32:45 -0700

Sometimes I think, “well, I’d like to make some...

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:02:07 -0700

Sometimes I think, “well, I’d like to make some music that sounds like thus and such,” and then turn around and find out that someone else already did it. Mostly, it’s depressing, but this time it is not depressing at all. This is awesome.