Monthly Archive for May, 2006

Josh Frank author of Fool the World
(an oral history of a band called the pixies)Tuesday, May 16th, 7:00 PMFREE
 
During their initial seven-year career, Pixies would play some of Europe\’s most gigantic festivals, keep the press guessing, and cultivate a fervid international fan base hungry for more and more of their unique surf punk. The band worked fast, cranking out four albums at a breakneck pace, but ultimately the pressures of the road and personality clashes took their toll: Pixies broke up just as bands like Nirvana were singing their praises as the rock\’n\’roll innovators. For twelve years a Pixies reunion seemed impossible, but a sudden announcement in 2004 proclaimed the unthinkable – Pixies were getting back together. Their extremely successful reunion tour finally gave the group something they\’d always lacked in their homeland: proof that their bone-rattling music had left an indelible impact.
 
Fool the World tells Pixies\’ story in the words of those who lived it, from the band members to studio owners, from A&R executives, producers, and visual artists who worked with them to admirers of their music, such as Bono, PJ Harvey, Beck, and Perry Farrell. With new cartoons by Trompe Le Monde illustrator Steve Appleby and prints by Simon Larbalestier (photographer of all Pixies covers) Fool the World is a complete journey through the life, death, and rebirth of one of the most influential bands of all time.
 
Fool The World was written in dialogue from the band own words and the words of those who knew them best. Since Josh Frank came from a theatrical background instead of just reading segments on his own, he will bring together a number of talented actors to each read different characters from the book at this event.
 
Josh Frank is a pop culture dramatist. A director, producer and writer of plays, films, and books, he currently has a number of projects in development and is spending much of his time waiting for his dog to tell him who and what his next book should be about. He is thirty years old and lives in a state of mind somewhere between Austin, Texas and New York City.

Handmade Electronic Music Workshop and lecture with author Nicolas CollinsSaturday, May 13th, 7:00 PMFREE
 
Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking provides a long-needed, practical, and engaging introduction for students of electronic music, installation and sound-art to the craft of making ? as well as creatively cannibalizing ? electronic circuits for artistic purposes. Designed for practioners and students of electronic art, it provides a guided tour through the world of electronics, encouraging artists to get to know the inner workings of basic electronic devices so they can creatively use them for their own ends. Handmade Electronic Music introduces the basic of practical circuitry while along the way instructing the student in basic electronic principles from the practical point of view of an artist. It teaches a style of intuitive and sensual experimentation that has been lost in this day of prefabricated electronic musical instruments whose inner workings are not open to experimentation. It encourages artists to transcend their fear of electronic technology to launch themselves into the pleasure of working creatively with all kinds of analog circuitry.
 
Nicolas Collins, an active composer and performer of electronic music, is a Professor of Sound at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has led Hacking workshops around the world, from Beijing to Brussels, and has worked with John Cage, Alvin Lucier, David Tudor, and many other masters of modern music.
 
Additional information can be found at www.nicolascollins.com