When I was in the progress of creating my first Underground Chambers series of podcasts, I felt as though it would not be complete until I had performed the music I created from my recordings of street musicians, on the street, thus returning the music they gave me, subjected to my alteration , back to the city.

So in March or April sometime I was contacted by the Make Music New York festival to perform on the street, and I felt this was my perfect opportunity to give my Underground Chambers recordings their proper bookend. It was around this time that my wife, Suzanne had received her acceptance and fellowship to the University of Texas at Austin, therefore we would be moving to Austin, Texas before the fall.

I had a difficult time figuring out where to play, my first idea was one of the few locations musicians could not play. Finally as it got down to the wire a friend suggested the Brooklyn Bridge and it was a go. Until the day before, when MMNY called me and said the NYPD told them that if anyone performed on the bridge the'd shut the whole thing down, in spite of not seeming to have a problem with it before. I decided that I'd perform right by the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge on the Manhattan side.

Now, the night of the show, around 6:30 pm, as the time approached, the clouds gathered and suddenly grayed, and I am not about to do a laptop performance in the rain. It poured. But almost as quickly the rain stopped and the sun came out. I got down there, parked, set up, moved a couple times until I found the right spot, and got ready to play. I begin my set, people are turning there heads, I get some pretty encouraging shouts, the kid in the picture above thought there were fireworks somewhere, things are rolling. However around ten minutes into my planned thirty minute set, I see a drop of rain on the screen of the laptop. A few minutes later, Sue and I are under a tree as it poured again.

On our drive home, completely soaked I told Sue that I started thinking of playing this street performance as my way of saying good bye to the city, (I know it's corny but, cut me some slack, I am rarely sentimental) and the experience I had was just like my entire eight years in New York in a nutshell, it took a long time to get there, there was confusion involved, it took forever to find a parking spot, I had to fight to find an outlet for my creativity, got some encouragement, got stuck in the rain and it was all over way too quickly. So this week's podcast
The Bronx Is Boogie and The Battery Is Down is the full set I planned, recorded the next day at my apartment.

El Plan De Aguavodka continues his run of psyched out tours odd spaces with Apocalypse At Lord and Taylor's and what's more odd than a Lord and Taylor's. Another in a series of bad trips.

The podcasts are going to take a break until August 6th, while I am in the progress of moving to Texas. I'll still be updating the blog with info on the looming release of Marco Oppedisano's CD.

Now available Little Ricky's House of Chankletas' 27 New York Anti-Sonnets. The OKSRNA debut of this exciting band of ridiculously creative individuals blazes with a quick wit, musical intensity, melting improvised jazz, operatic vocals, base room electronics experiments, processed vocals, and hardcore punk outbursts. It calls to mind the experiments of the Los Angeles Free Music Society if of course all of those bands were playing at the same time.

Download "The Lobster Waltz"

Order your copy from CD Baby now



Take care and stay tuned for release updates, podcasts will return in August.

Hello everyone, thanks again for coming back.

This week don't miss The Painful Leg Injuries free public performance on the Brooklyn Bridge, Thursday, June 21st at 7:30 pm. As part of the Make Music New York festival I will be performing the final episode of my latest podcast series Living Freely In The Underground Chambers which will be a live improvisation of samples from all three Underground Chambers series. Of course what better way to take part in this festival than to perform my collage of warped field recordings of other NYC street musicians. This week the fifth part of this podcast series Es El Zombie is now posted, enjoy.

El Plan De Aguavodka's latest podcast An Uncertain Warmth is now posted. It's an awesome fire made of noise, you'll love it.

Marco Oppedisano's Electroacoustic Compositions for Electric Guitar will go on sale at CD Baby this week or next, stay tuned to this blog we'll post something as soon as it's available.

I posted two recent Painful Leg Injuries live sets in our downloads section this week. Our set from the Monkey on 2/17/07 called While Attempting Shakespeare the Primates Waited
and our set from Monkeytown on 5/20/07 called Play That Monkey Noise Caucasian Boy!

There's only 50 copies of the Painful Leg Injuries' 3" CD- R The Quicker Are The Encumbered on Lona Records, click here to order your copy.

Next will be the final podcasts before take a break in July, since I'll be going through the process of moving to Austin, Texas. We will return on August 6th, with new podcasts and much more.

Given that we definitely have overlapping areas of interests, I am still surprised by the occasionally coincidental subject matter in mine and John from El Plan De Aguavodka's podcast subject matter choices.

Like this week, John gave us a microscopic whirl of tones, an awesome noise jam from the Inside A Cup On A Train In A Tunnel. John's recent podcasts remind me so much of the classic work of one of my favorite electronic music composers Tod Dockstader. This one takes Dockstader and drives his comically absurd sound sources into Merzbow territory. Absolutely awesome.

Now, apparently I was on the subject of train tunnels this week too, with my fourth part of my latest series, Livin' Freely In The Underground Chambers, called Looking Down The Tunnel Towards My First Heart Attack. This piece takes folk song where the chorus about "...how much can one heart take" had me thinking about how long my heart has before life catches up with it. Lost voices layer until the end comes.

Don't miss the live performance of the final episode of The Painful Leg Injuries latest podcast series on Thursday, June 21st on the Brooklyn Bridge. Check this blog for updates.

Until next week, take care.

Hey there, all welcome back.

Lots of news to report. The new OKSRNA releases by Marco Oppedisano and Little Ricky's House of Chankletas are going to be available any day now, stay tuned to this site for updates, I'll post an annoucement as soon as they are available.

In the meantime there are sample tracks available on our radio player for down load, or click below to check them out.

Little Ricky's House of Chankletas - The Lobster Waltz
Marco Oppedisano - Frozen Tears

Also, be sure to check out The Painful Leg Injuries' The Quicker Are The Encumbered, 3" CD-R on Lona Records is now available! There's only 50 copies being printed, click here to order it ($5 US).

This weeks podcasts - El Plan De Aguavodka's Urban Sprawl which is a walk down a city street or a journey to the inside of your DVD player. The Painful Leg Injuries take a stroll down memory lane, not really, with Soon Baby, I Remember Jumpin' Rope, Baby. Until next week.