[Moshe]

http://www.prairie.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/dir_events.event_detail/object_id/a7522cc9-62e9-4717-ad67-703d312cec93/TravelingtheSpacewaysTheAstroBlackandOtherSolarMyt hs.cfm

The Sun Ra Diaspora: Art After Ra:
The influence of Sun Ra's aesthetics and philosophy can be seen throughout American visual culture since the 1950s. In the realms of fashion, the media, and art, new technologies and experimentation has brought the ideas of identity exploration, re-invention and therefore cultural empowerment to new forms. Speakers include: Thurston Moore, John Corbett, Mike Kelley, and Malik Gaines.

[Moshe]

http://www.ticketweb.com/user/?region=xxx&query=search&category=misc&search=thur ston+moore&searchregion=xxx&genre=none&beginmonth= 10&beginday=16&beginyear=2006&endmonth=10&endday=1 6&endyear=2007&sortorder=0


Friday, November 10 at 9:00 PM
Music for Tomorrow's World: A Dedication to Sun Starring Thurston Moore / Jim Baker / Rollo Radford / Avreeyal Ra Quartet and My Barbarian with Intergalactic Myth-Science DJ sets
at Hideout, Illinois

Thurston Moore will join Jim Baker (ARP synthesizer), Rollo Radford (electric bass) and Avreeyal Ra (drums) for a special concert held in conjunction with the exhibitions and symposium.
$20.00

[Tokolosh]

There was coincidentally a documentary on the BBC 2 days ago, about Sun Ra and musicians that he inspired over the years, including Thurston. Interesting stuff.

[Moshe]

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/

Thurston Moore To Headline Sun Ra Dedication Concert In Chicago; Whitey Wins Yet Again

Now that the gigantic metal bean in Millennium Park has been fully polished, most Chicagoans have no need for secondary entertainment. Day after day they flock there, gazing into the bean's smooth surface for hours at a time, cramming their pockmarked and broken faces in front of the reflected cityscape. Traffic on Michigan Avenue comes to a standstill each morning, as those possessed by its enchanting curves pour out of buildings and alleyways, a swelling mass that can only be satisfied by the unholy grandeur of twisting metal. Mothers clutching infants stand in the park, paralyzed with fear as the crowd approaches, and are trampled without pause. The frontrunner of the mob raises his pike in the bean's direction and offers the freshly-sacrificed head of a plump sow as offering to the bean. It is only then that the true voice of the Beangod can be heard, and she sings a pure reverie of erotic destruction, a song no mortal can ever hope to silence, and when i erase my corporeal form to fully ordain the fenestration of souls.

...Wh ...where am I? Shit, sorry guys. I had a nice little opener about Chicago set up, but then I got on the phone with my landlord and got kind of distracted from writing. What I was meaning to say was that the new Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago is going to be holding a two-day symposium on whack-jazz-afro-futurist-extraterrestrial musician Sun Ra. "Traveling The Spaceways" is its name and will include musical performances, readings, and even panel discussions, with titles like "The Sun Ra Diaspora: Art After Ra."

The symposium kicks off at 10 A.M. on Saturday, November 11, but a special concert will also be held the night before, billed as "Music For Tomorrow's World: A Dedication To Sun Ra" and featuring Thurston Moore as its headliner. I guess Thurston has some extra time in between curating festivals with ridiculous line-ups that are in far-off places that I don't have enough money for, and even if I did, they're in faraway places that I could never get to unless of course I invoked the abiding spirit of Frau Beangod who neither sleeps nor rests but enters my soiled bed at night using pliers and a thin raspy whisper.

Heliocentric world:

11.10.06 - Chicago, IL - The Hideout

[Moshe]

http://breaphene.blogspot.com/2006/1...mber-rain.html

A Tribute to Sun Ra, or November Rain


Wednesday we had gorgeous weather. Sunny, almost 70. And then Friday, when I left my office around 4:00 to get something to drink, I was quite startled to see that snow was whipping past the windows in thick clumps, and everything outside was covered. This was particularly great, because I was supposed to drive down to the Hideout for Thurston Moore's Sun Ra tribute that night. It took me about an hour an a half to get from work to I-90, and I almost didn't do it ... but the weather forecast for Chicago promised only rain, at least until after midnight. And a little past Janesville, as advertised, the annoying snow turned to less annoying rain. Whew. So...

The Sun Ra tribute at the Hideout was really cool. It was the kickoff to a weekend symposium on Sun Ra, and featured a couple of performances. First up was My Barbarian, a ... band ... from L.A. that was hilarious and pretty entertaining. They're heavy on the performance art. I looked them up just now and found the following: "If Gwar was a children's show", and (from the L.A. Times) "retarded/brilliant". That about sums it up!

After some between-set Sun Ra tunes, the main event took the stage. Thurston Moore on guitar, Jim Baker on keys, and the awesome Avreeyal Ra on drums. My background and knowledge of music-making can't do it justice with a good description, but I enjoyed it very much. They ended with a dreamier, slower piece after a frenzied beginning. And I'm hoping Kris has some good pictures.

When the show was finished, Tim gave one last TimSpeech. I said hello to Señor Cline on my way to the bar, and upon my return to the music room I noticed that two cops were making their way in. But no worries - they were just Thurston fans. Ha. I love the Hideout. Anyway, I drove back to K-town in the rain (no snow!) and that was Friday.

[Moshe]

http://larrysawyer.blogspot.com/2006...th-sun-ra.html

[blue sunlover]

no doubt sun ra was on of the geniuses in the last century.he's some kind of space-papa.

[blue sunlover]

one

[Moshe]

http://www.medicinefilms.com/digs/187693/

[Moshe]

Live Review: Thurston Moore/Avreeyal Ra/Jim Baker and My Barbarian @ Hideout 11/10/06

 

I need to thank Dan over at Future Perfect Radio for enlightening me to the existence of this show in a discussion a few weeks ago at the Bottle after the Viva Voce show. I am not sure how Thurston Moore playing Sun Ra songs with Avreeyal Ra and Jim Baker at the Hideout flew under my radar. Luckily, I was able to get ticket before the show sold out.

After a quick stop off at the MCA (free members night, can't pass up free food) and a continual battle with Chicago-style wind and rain, we pull up to the Hideout. We are equally excited to be in from the rain and to be one step closer to the event. I won’t lie, Thurston could play a show that consisted of one note of pure feedback and I would be there front row (I have records that are just that and they are GREAT!).

 

As an aside, I should also mention that I owe Sonic Youth a lot for enlightening me to free jazz. It was the summer between senior year of high school and freshman year of college. My first time in NYC, visiting a friend, and we went to see SY at Irving Plaza. The opening act was Milford Graves who came out dressed in a suit adorned with all manner of cymbals and bells. He proceeded to make the greatest racket while slowly progressing toward an equally tricked out drum kit. Once behind the kit, two sax players come out and for the next 40 minutes it is the craziest thing I had ever heard, non-stop chaotic noise. I think my friend had to pick my jaw up from the floor. Simply put, it was life changing. For the next few years, my friend would send me Village Voice clippings of various members of SY doing one-off shows with other jazz greats in small NYC clubs. I was so jealous. Where I was going to school the only jazz was of the smooth variety.
Ten years later, even with all the great jazz that happens here in Chicago (at places like the Velvet Lounge, Elastic, Hotti Biscotti, Hungry Brain, and probably many other smaller places I don’t even know about), I am still jealous of NYC in some small way. So this show was a nice fulfillment of all those clippings my friend would send.
I shouldn’t be jealous of NYC though because there were people that flew in from France and the West Coast for this show. Tim Tuten mentioned in his intro something to the effect, “people think that it all starts in NYC, but we know that it starts here in Chicago and goes out to the rest of the world”.
The first band on was called My Barbarian, dressed all in white handmade apparel with eyes painted on their foreheads. True to the spirit of the evening they were “out there”, playing a style of music that was everywhere as much as it was here. They opened with a short vocal chant making way for the glammy and bombastic “Gomorrah” with its talk of various ancient societies. This set the tone of their set, with the next songs “Osiris”, “Fantasy”, and “Mars” dealing with topics of the mythic past or scary future. They refused to be locked into any one style, varying between Beefheart-ish zaniness to straight up indie-pop. The band was tight and extremely entertaining. My initial worry was that this gimmick of weirdness (the costumes, make-up) would be something they would hide bad songs behind. That was simply not the case, they were great song writers and entertainers, closing the set with a skit about bringing the gay troops home from Iraq and then lastly a song about Canada.
The highlight of the in-between set music was hearing the original Sun Ra version “Nuclear War." Having only heard the Yo La Tengo version, coupled with the fact that I have been looking for this track for a while, it was nice treat.
Let’s travel back in time, and place our selves at the scene of the event. Tim and a person from the Hyde Park Art Center give their introductions and walk off stage. Thurston starts with some pick scrapes and slowly Avreeyal Ra begins to fill in some percussion while Jim Baker finds a few choice notes on the keys. The beast builds to heavenly proportions and we watch with mouths agape. Ten minutes pass and we still have no real sense where we are, the piece slims up a bit for what we think is the end of one piece but what is probably just a brief regrouping. This must be a new piece now as Jim Baker is over to his Arp synth creating these wavy drones that Thurston is floating some beautiful harmonics on and Ra is filling with plucks on a thumb piano kalimba. There is electricity in the air. It appears that Thurston has grabbed a large metal file and is running it across his strings of his guitar. Baker is back at the keys, playing them as if possessed. As quickly as it has started it ended. The set was a good hour plus, with all three musicians communicating on a mythic-solar plane. By the end of the set we had all transcended this earthly existence. A great kick off for the weekend long festivities that went down at Hyde Park Art Center. If you missed the lectures and shows this weekend there is still time to catch the exhibition of Sun Ra stuff, on display until January 14th.
Pics by Kirstie, click here for the complete photoset