William Winant Percussion Ensemble
DARKSMITH
Granny Zebra
Jorge Bachmann
Sheila Bosco

Sunday, April 10, 2011
Noon. Doors at 11:30 a.m.
$5 - $10 sliding scale or FREE with membership 

The Lab's notorious April noise showcase features Lab Alumni William Winant and the William Winant Percussion Ensemble for an afternoon of savage and transcendent performance unlike any other. Vegan pancakes included.

Image: William Winant

William Winant is "one of the best avant-garde percussionists working today" according to music critic Mark Swed (Los Angeles Times), he has performed with some of the most innovative and creative musicians of our time, including John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, Frank Zappa, Keith Jarrett, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith, James Tenney, Terry Riley, Cecil Taylor, Gerry Hemingway, Mark Dresser, Barry Guy, Marylin Crispell, George Lewis, Steve Reich and Musicians, Nexus, Charles Wuorinen, Jean-Philippe Collard, Frederic Rzewski, Ursula Oppens, Joan LaBarbara, Danny Elfman/Oingo Boingo, Sonic Youth, Marc Ribot, Keith Rowe, Joey Barron, Bill Frisell, Yo-Yo Ma, ROVA, and the Kronos String Quartet. His own groups include ROOM (w/Chris Brown / Larry Ochs / William Winant), CHALLENGE (w/Anthony Braxton / David Rosenboom / William Winant), WAKE (w/Frank Gratkowski / Chris Brown / William Winant), and the WILLIAM WINANT PERCUSSION GROUP.

He is principal percussionist with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, he has been closely associated with NYC composer John Zorn, and has made numerous recordings, and performed in many projects throughout the world with the composer. Starting in 1995 he has been the percussionist with the avant-rock band Mr. Bungle, has made two recordings ("Disco Volante" and "California" on Warner Brothers), and has toured throughout the world with this group. For many years he had worked with composer Lou Harrison, recording and premiering many of his works, and in March of 1997 he participated in the world premiere of Lou Harrison's quintet "Rhymes with Silver" featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Mark Morris Dance Group, and has toured the piece throughout the United States and Great Britain.

In the fall of 2003, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Mr. Winant, along with composers Takehisa Kosugi and Christian Wolff, created music for a series of eight special "Events" staged by Merce Cunningham and Dancers at London's Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. Since then he has continued to tour throughout Europe and the United States with the company.

He has made over 200 recordings, covering a wide variety of genres, including music by Earle Brown, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, John Zorn, Butch Morris, James Newton, Frank Gratkowski, Pauline Oliveros, Luc Ferrari, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Danny Elfman ("Batman Returns"), Siouxse and the Banshees, Secret Chiefs 3, ICP, Han Bennik, The Ex, White Out with Jim O’Rourke, Lou Reed, Thurston Moore, and Mike Patton. His recording of Lou Harrison's "La Koro Sutro" (which he produced for New Albion Records) was the New York Times Critic's Choice for best contemporary recording of 1988. In 1999 he produced a recording of music by 20th-century avant-garde composers with the influential rock band Sonic Youth; "Goodbye 20th-Century" (SYR4) was hailed by both The Los Angeles Times and New York's Village Voice as one of the best compendiums of this type of music ever recorded. Most recently his recording with cellist Joan Jeanrenaud of her CD "Strange Toys" was nominated for a grammy in 2009. Also he along with guitarists Henry Kaiser and David Lindley, created special music for Werner Herzog's 2009 Oscar nominated documentary "Encounters at the End of the World"

Granny Zebra is another version of Lana Voronina - she had a death party five months ago, but she continues to be a vision of a noise/future/roaming/sculptural/post-apocalyptic/street-performer/gypsy grandmother. . . who also has a band for improvisational/noisy/atonal/synthy/sample-based/dance-oriented electronica called WRONGDISCO, who also plays the piano, works in visual art, curates shows, runs a venue for all kinds of performance based art, is about to graduate from Mills College with an MFA in improvisational music, and collaborates with lots of different artists around the Bay Area.  w w w dot lana has a website dot com

In puddles of tape lays a bleeding Tom Darksmith. following a long nite in the back of the van, wasted, smashing his skull into a variety of cassette machines & six packs, obliterated but trying his damndest to channel what it's like to be a family man. a depressing nite to say the least, he is left last man standing armed solely with vile claws and a mound of magnetic filth. a single, damaged dictating machine remains. at this point, as attempting to sift for a message of solace, everything went black. here are the results. a modern master of tape manipulation, w/ releases across HANSON RECORDS, CHONDRITIC SOUND, HERMITAGE TAPES, and his own niche hallmark, MOM COSTUME, not only is DARKSMITH a genius, but also one of the most-interesting experimental/improvisational musicians of our time with several releases including his much sought after recent lp.

Jorge Bachmann is a multi-disciplinary, mixed-media and sound artist. Since the early eighties,he has been exploring the strange, unique and microcosmic sounds of everyday life, collecting field recordings. The sound atmospheres created are meant
for deep listening and are composed in symbiosis with the sculptural installations.
He creates equally sensual and detailed oriented photo-based work.
His art explores social and sensual constructs and experiences.

When Sheila Bosco isn't playing the drums, she is working on composing soundscapes made from sampled percussion and found-sounds and editing them into compositions.  Her sound compositions have been used in theater, video and dance and she has performed in venues all over the world. For this show, she will be making a live soundscape with keyboard, percussion and samples combined with a video montage made for the show.

Sheila has made music with inkBoat Butoh dance troupe where she has been nominated for a Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Music/Sound/Text as well as drumming with Faun Fables, Autobody, Flaming Fire and Drumhead, where her record was featured in Modern Drummer magazine. Currently, she plays percussion/drums in zbug, Poor Sweet Creatures and Christine Shields.

Read about Noise Pancakes in The Bold Italic: Sound Off by Sam Harnett