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household ink newslets

Late inning HI action

First tentative but hope-fueled steps in the new decade... in the works is the long-awaited completion of the eighth Headless Household album, leading up to a CD release party/belated xmas concert (date tba, in March or April)... stay tuned, turn out, and drop in...

links:

"alt-Oktobefest" press release

post-Polka page

post-Polka on myspace: www.myspace.com/postpolkatheband

gigging

Santa Barbara Independent blurb on the "alt-Oktoberfest" wingding" http://www.independent.com/events/2009/oct/29/18252/

Old News...

2009 was a strange and slow year for Household Ink, for various reasons, but things heated up in the last quarter. The newly-launched band called post-Polka (a subsidiary of Headless Household, focusing on the avant-polka segment of the songbook) made its official debut at an "alt-Oktoberfest" show at the picturesque Mercury Lounge in Goleta, California, on October 29... also

Nate Birkey opens for Diana Krall at the Santa Barbara Bowl, August 23

Trumpeter-vocalist Nate Birkey, a longtime member of the Household Ink Records family, brought his quartet to open up for the Diana Krall concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl, on August 23, 2009, and had the crowd wowed. Birkey, who spent years in Santa Barbara and has been based in NYC for a few years now, has been venturing upward and outward into the jazz world. The latest albums in his Household Ink discography are Almost Home and Christmas--his first recordings with his east coast-based group. (press release)

The "Ink" on the Internet, a work-in-progress: in its slow but sure effort to investigate and penetrate cyberspace, Household Ink Records is venturing into new internet locales, such as...

Household Ink Records on Facebook, myspace, and linkedin...

Headless update: Headless Household postpones its planned concert/CD release party at Center Stage Theater

Eclectic new music combo Headless Household, which was working towards its 25^th anniversary concert and CD release party, postponed the event, in the aftermath of the tragic Tea Fire. Most likely and with luck, the album and concert will occur sometime in 2009.

Drummer Tom Lackner�s Mountain Drive home/studio�known as �The Tompound��miraculously survived the Tea Fire blaze, in the midst of some of the fire�s worst devastation. Due to clean-up, helping neighbors and other factors, the Headless Household project has been put on hold.

press release

The newest addition to the Household Ink family of fine artists is bassist-composer David Piltch, whose fascinating new EP, Minister of the Interior is now available on Household Ink. Piltch, the Toronto-born musician, has been an internationally-known and traveled figure, working with k.d. lang for years, as well as Holly Cole, Bill Frisell, Madeleine Peyroux, Joe Henry, Loudon Wainwright, Lizz Wright, and many others. A tasteful blend of instrumental and vocal fancies, Minister of the Interior features k.d. lang, Bill Frisell, Petra Haden, Holly Cole and Perla Batalla, among others, and heralds the beginning of Piltch's life as a leader... Piltch page... (available now, at products page)

On Monday, December 15, Piltch brings his music back home to the live stage, starting with his first official show in Santa Barbara, at SOhO on Monday, December 15. Joining David will regular allies Gaby Moreno, on vocals and guitar, and ace guitarist Mark (Jackson Browne) Goldenberg--who join him at his regular residency shows at Largo in Los Angeles--with assorted guests dropping by--including Joe Henry and Brandi Shearer... and... ? gigging

What: David Piltch (with Gaby Moreno, Mark Goldenberg, Joe Henry, Brandi Shearer)

When: Monday, December 15, 8 p.m.

Where: SOhO, 1221 State St. Santa Barbara CA

Cost: $10

Information: (805)-962-7776, www.sohosb.com

press release

RADIO DISPATCH: Piltch's song "Wonder Why" (featuring Petra Haden) was featured as the "song of the day" on KCRW, on Friday, September 12... live and in person, Piltch continues to bring his music to a more or less bi-weekly bresidency at the new Largo--with the Hitchcockian title "David Piltch presents...". So continues the new adventure. gigging

Largo: 432 N Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036, (323) 852-1073, www.largo-la.com press release

Ever-tasteful jazz trumpeter/vocalist Nate Birkey, formerly a Santa Barbra and now doing well in New York City, now has five albums out on Household Ink: the eagerly-awaited new album, Almost Home--Birkey's first recording with his NYC-based band--shortest day, Ballads, The Mennonite, and Indelibly You. Nate's off to Italy and other points and ports this summer, and playing regularly in NYC. He's going strong, and subtle... (download bio, word, pdf) to buy

this just in:

Nate and his NYC crew have just released a fab, heart and ear-warming holiday CD, called simply, aptly Christmas ... bio

Headless Household went public, and went bust! the band's first show in the popular (and free!) "Courthouse Jazz Series," fizzled, due to a power problem and lack of sound. but a rematch is in the works--possibly on Halloween evening, 5-8 p.m. http://www.courthousejazz.com/schedule.html

Also joining the Household Ink fold is Zen Horse Repair (being primarily singer-songwriter-artist-poet-mystic-nut Neal Crosbie, with ally Tom Lackner, and rotational guests): their long-labored over new project is called Ghost Brain, a two-disc set of artful sound, poetry and desert delirium. see message... press release

On the terrestrial radio front, the Julie Christensen and Stone Cupid album Where the Fireworks Are has been racking up airplay on discerning stations around the country this spring... some kind of wave is underway. photos

...Household Ink Radio has been upgraded, streaming 25/8 at 96 kbps! now you can dip into the large and expanding Household Ink Records catalogue with our new streaming radio station. no commercials, no irritating DJs or other distractions from the shamelessly eclectic musical source... listen up ... press release

Julie Christensen and Stone Cupid recently nestled into the Long Beach public access studio to be part of the "Portable Universe," pianist David Witham's long-running and respected showcase for musical artists deserving a spot in the teleuniverse. They donned both "art pop" and "jazz" modes in two separate episodes, which can be seen here: http://homepage.mac.com/witham/iMovieTheater38.html OR THE snipped url:http://tinyurl.com/2xwu4n

Household Ink Records celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2007, having started out humbly and without any particular plans back in 1987 with the debut release by Headless Household. On the roster, so far, are the Household, Nate Birkey Quintet, Dudley, Julie Christensen, flapping, Flapping, Shelly Rudolph, Lean-To, Brad Dutz, Brad Rabuchin, Jeff Elliott... HI catalogue

Headless Household made its way to Santa Barbara's Center Stage Theater on Dec. 3 for the 18th annual xmas concert. guests this year included Julie Christensen, Tom Buckner, David Piltch, Glen Phillips, Sally Barr, Kenny Edwards, Bill Flores, and Tom Ball�

...Elizabeth Tashjian, founder of the Nut Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, passed away on January 28, 2007, at the age of 94. Hear/watch her sing her charming nut anthem here... check out the Lean-To song "The Beauty of Nuts," a tribute to Elizabeth and her vision, recorded on the 1989 album Malarchitecture.

..Julie Christensen, the dynamic and versatile singer who has gamely performed and recorded with Headless Household for years, has joined the Household Ink ranks, we're happy to report. Julie has just released her long-awaited "art-pop" oriented Where the Fireworks Are, a timely, poetic and generally moody, rocking and lovely thing. (hear Where the Fireworks Are, streamed in its entirety on HI Radio)...

Late in 2006, Julie put out her "standards" album Something Familiar--her first release on Household Ink. The album includes Jeff Ballard and Kenny Wolleson on drums, Greg Liesz on pedal steel and Jeff Elliott on trumpet, as well as her soul sister Karen Hammack on piano... On the big screen, she's also a featured singer in the acclaimed new fllm Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (having sung with Cohen for years, and been involved in Hal Willner-produced Cohen tributes, including recent shows in Dublin, singing duets with Lou Reed... photos

visit Julie's web page(s): www.myspace.com/juliechristensenandstonecupid, www.stonecupid.com

...Household Ink Records is proud to introduce the latest member of the HI family of fine artists--unique "world soul" singer-songwriter Shelly Rudolph. Shelly's new album, Water in My Hand, made with time and care up at the Tompound studio in Santa Barbara, is now available on Household Ink Records. Shelly and band played CD release gigs in Southern California in early 2006... press release... photos, bio

also check her website: www.shellyrudolph.com...

...Headless Household has joined the expanding universe of myspace: go to www.myspace.com/headlesshousehold. be our friend.

...old news...

... Headless Household "came of age," 21 years on the planet, and, for the occasion, they released their new "hyper-remix" album Vertical Medleys, Vol. 1 (bio)

...Headless Household celebrated its 20th anniversary as an ongoing band/entity this year, 2003. They officially released their new album, post-Polka, at SOhO on Nov. 23, 2003... post-Polka is available now (products). All-important musical guests on the album include Julie Christensen, Glen Philips, Ellen Turner, Allegra Heidelinde, Tom Buckner, Nate Birkey, Tom Ball, Sally Barr, Bill Flores, Spencer Barnitz, Shelly Rudolph, Jim Connolly, David Piltch, Kenny Edwards, Bruce Winter...

...Household Ink is proud to announce the release of the debut solo album by the tasty virtuoso trumpeter Jeff Elliott. Elliott has been lending his bold, vibrant sound to the likes of Les McCann, Airto and Flora, and the legendary post-fusion band, The Eraserheads, for many years. Now comes Different Jungles, a diverse collections of ideas and sounds in and around jazz and groove music, showing off his trumpet chops, his melodic gifts, and also his unique ideas as a writer and arranger. Guests on the album include Airto Moreira, Mike Clark (Headhunters), Cougar Estrada (Los Lobos) and bassist Randy Tico...

...John Rapson, the marvelous and forward-leaning trombonist-composer-conceptualist, returned to Santa Barbara for a special concert at his old academic stomping grounds, Westmont College, in March Rapson now hails from Iowa City, where he teaches at the U. of Iowa, and has worked with Anthony Braxton, Billy Higgins, Vinnie Golia, Bobby Bradford and many others over the past 20 years. His "California Octet" features trumpeter John Fumo, saxists Kim Richmond and Ron McCarley, organist Wayne Peet, guitarist Joe Woodard, drummer Tom Lackner, and bassist Jim Connolly... rapson info page

...joe woodard finally released his solo album, between, a self-described "faux folk" song set, 17 tracks of originals between one thing and another...

...Household Ink is venturing, sideways, into the weird, warming world of musical theater, with the forthcoming release of a cast album for Turnip Family Secrets, an original "play with songs" written by Michael Smith, with music by Joe Woodard. The musical premiered at Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara, April 12-21, 2002. An original cast album will be available at the performances and through this site: the "pit band" consists of Woodard on guitar, Dick Dunlap on keyboards, Tom Lackner on percussives, and Jim Connolly on bass. the singers are Paula Re, Fred Lehto, Geren Piltz, and Geoffrey Bell...

...headless household, currently joining the global campaign to render capital letters obsolete, had its 12th annual xmas concert at center stage theater, on monday, dec. 3, 2001....they are presently at work on a new cd, post-Polka, to be released in late spring, th egood lord willin' (press release)

...Headless Household had another successful shindig, with their 11th annual Xmas concert at Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara. The gig, par usual, involved multiple guest musicians and assorted notions, new items and old favorites. Speaking of which: the gig was also the official release party for the CD reissue of Headless Household 1987 debut album, previously available only on collectible vinyl. Read Ted Mills' nice review of the album in the Santa Barbara Independent, all these years later...

... after a bit of a dry, energy-mobilizing spell, things are picking up in Household Ink land. The splendid, poetic singer-songwriter Cara Tower releases her debut CD, Living on Bread and Circus, on Rawdog Records in conjunction with Household Ink. Check out her page, mp3 bits, and other things of delight.

life in the extended family: Jennifer Terran, whose first album, Cruel, was a product of her own Grizelda label and Household Ink, has released her long-awaited third CD, The Musician, and it's quite a weird and lovely concoction, worthy of your ears and mind and heart and other organs...check out her e-hq.

several Household Ink projects have recently been covered in the respected on-line music site, All Music Guide... The Outpost page--designated for mostly-local artists of note, outside the Household Ink realm, proper--has seen the arrival of the debut CD of the Santa Barbara folk-rock-pop group Buckley V. Valeo, and the long-awaited second album from Wasted Tape, goSolar, on the Portland-based FILMguerrero label. It's a doozy.

...one new member of the Household Ink family is percussionist-composer-musicman Brad Dutz, via his fine new project, Heat the Grill Cook Loin, his first for the label and a doozy, at once cerebral and gutsy. Personnel includes venturesome players from the Los Angeles area--Kim Richmond, Jim Hershman, Clay Jenkins, Vinny Golia, John Fumo, Joel Harrison, Trey Henry, and Glen Garrett, plus Dutz on array of sound-producing objects...

Headless Household's 10th annual Xmas concert at the Center Stage Theater doubled as the CD release party for the fifth and latest feature-length Household album, mockhausen, a collection of "out"takes and mostly improvisatory debris that takes a very different trajectory than any previous Household item.

Keyboardist, mind man and charter Headless Household member Richard Dunlap has released a wonderful and evocative new CD, Ode to the Sistrum, conjured up virtually on his machinery, but with a great painterly, ambient flair. Created as part of a recent retrospective exhibition called "For Eyes and Ears," at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, it's a journey into a space with no name....

Violinist Gilles Apap, the virtuosic, genre-leaping and impish wit of a violinist who has appeared on a few Headless Household CD projects, now has his own web-site, label, and a grand classical CD out. Apap, who was signed to SONY for a spell before going indie and who traverses the world with his fiddle/violin, always makes a sound worth hearing...check it out, at www.gillesapap.com

Rob Taylor, a founding member of flapping, Flapping (formerly flapping, Flapping, FLAPPING), has been making good noise as the lead guitar hero of the band Lapdog, led by former Toad the Wet Sprocketers Todd Nichols and Dean Dinning, and with spanking good drummer Erik Herzog. Taylor is also slated to record the new album with flapping, Flapping... real soon. Also: check out Taylor's fine, raw-spirited solo album, Lumpy Bumpy... It's real good.

...Dudley, being singer-songwriter Ellen Turner, has just completed recording six new tunes in Austin, Texas, hosted by Interscope Records... on the Household Ink front, we have finally released Dudley's beloved debut album, Public Nudism, on CD, after a five-year life as a tape-only album. Pick one up on the products page. Dudley has now mutated into a more-or-less solo operation for singer-songwriter Ellen Turner, who performed, along with guitarist Joe Woodard, on the radio show "Morning Becomes Eclectic" on KCRW (89.9 FM), and recently played the Mint in L.A. She's also hunkered down in MP3 mania, was featured on a recent sampler of artists-deserving-wider-recognition. We're waiting to see what happens, alert and aloof...

Household Ink has joined in the surging number of indie labels encouraged by the potential of the MP3 format/web-site to create a conduit that slips right by the usual industry forces that be, to make a more direct, non-corporate sound-to-listener impact. Proceed HERE to check it out...

flapping, Flapping is finally getting off its duff and plunging into work on its third album, a double CD. The band now includes Todd Capps, Rob Taylor, Bruce Winter, Joe Woodard, and Tom Lackner, and will no doubt veer in several rock-ish directions at the same time. Look for a release in the winter of 1999...

...Headless Household, meanwhile, officially released its new album, Free Associations, at the annual Christmas concert at Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara (album number four, counting the 1987 vinyl debut). Recorded at Beagle Studios in Santa Barbara, with Dennis Dragon and Emmet Sargeant twiddling knobs and sliders, the album celebrates the band's 15th anniversary as a continuous group. Plenty of associates were willingly roped into the party, including Tom Buckner, Dave Binney, Jeff Kaiser, Ellen Turner, Jennifer Terran, Jeff Elliott, Gilles Apap, Theo Saunders, Julie Christensen, Glen Phillips, Marjorie Extract, Bill Flores. ...

...Household Ink had three reviews in recent issues of the respected music magazine Cadence--covering Headless Household's ITEMS, the Nate Birkey Quintet's Indelibly You, and Lean-To's Malarchitecture. check out the verbiage on the Press page...

...Household Ink Records is now duping for its supper, offering humbly-priced small-order CD duplication, that is. Check out the humble new web-page for more info: ...

...Brad Rabuchin has garnered the gig playing guitar in Ray Charles' band, and is touring the proverbial world, among other fretboard-related activities...

...the page called Outpost offers recordings by artists not "officially" on Household Ink, but who live close enough to our hearts to warrant inclusion in our extended family. Take, for example, Wasted Tape, a fine and smart and semi-legendary prog-pop unit, with a fine and smart album, Lando Calrissian, jazz singer Jerome Smith's Artist of the Year, and singer-songwriter-guitarmaniac Rob Taylor's classic Lumpy Bumpy...

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last modified: january 18, 2010