MSP/piano: 11th (and 12th) Annual Transbay Skronkathon BBQ @Berkeley Arts Festival (Sat 25 Aug, 2:30pm)

The Pied Piper of Tom's Place (Dan Plonsey performs in costume)

This year’s Skronkathon, curated by the inimitable Tom Duff, re-ignites the Bay Area’s most unique adventurous, improvised, free new music potluck BBQ at Berkeley Arts Festival (2133 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA), perpetrated in collaboration with Toms’ Place.

We’ll have plenty of charcoal on hand, so bring a slab of tofu, seitan, or tempeh for yourself or others to consume, and come fly with us!

At 2:30pm I’ll be doing a mixed set of laptop + piano, with sound sources ranging from Jupiter & Saturn space probe signals, the Cheung Chau Bun Festival (長洲包山節, further description here), a specially developed library of extended vocal samples drawing from overtone singing, formant manipulation, and “trombooba tones”, + some good old FM synthesis, all intertwingled with live piano.

Scenes from some previous Skronkathons:

Kattt Atchley and Ron Heglin @ 2010 Skronkathon (photo by Michael Zelner)

Respectable Citizen @ 2010 Skronkathon (photo by Michael Zelner)

Sophisticuffs @ 2007 Skronkathon

This is only one of many ear-opening segments from 20+ of the Bay Area’s best crazy musicians and sound artists, who will delight you from 12 noon – 10pm:

noon tdtd

12:30 Black Thread

1:00 Lucio K

1:30 Henry Kaiser

2:00 Respectable Citizen

2:30 Joe Lasqo

3:00 Ann O’Rourke / Marianne McDonald Duo + Special Guests

3:30 Scott Goff + Angela Roberts

4:00 sfSound

4:30 Amanda Chaudhary (अमांडा चौधरी) + Maw Shein Win

5:00 Cloud Shepherd

5:30 Dapplegray [warning: links to Facebook] (Jeanie Aprille Tang – electronics & Nava Dunkelman – percussion)