June 24, 2010
Tony
Aileen
It’s always a mix between ‘sadness’ and ‘thanksgiving for what was’ when a place
closes down. On one hand you wanna sigh and say ‘oh no’ because in a small and tight
community like ours, every little foothold is so important. On the other hand it’s a great
time in our ‘nothing lasts forever’ universe to show some gratitude for the work put it.
Aileen and Tony Imperatrice have run Ashtree Studios for around 8 years. In that time,
not only has the place facillitated and displayed their own work, but it’s been a venue
for the showing of other artists’ work, and, on occassion, a spot for performing artists.
The Rogue Festival made use of Ashtree as a performance venue and as a headquarters
for years and years.
Ashtree is closing it’s doors for now. There’ll be a chance to say ‘farewell’ and ‘thank you’
Saturday night fromo 6-10. It’s free. It’s a party. It’s a potluck.
There’ll be music (I know I’ll do an acoustic set from 7:45-8:15). There’ll be food. There’ll
be good company.
The Underground Garden project will receive it’s second showing.
Come on by! Everyone is more than welcome.
June 21, 2010
Thanks to Dale Stewart! He’s been coaching me on video editing.
One of the things I’ve been trying to do with this Underground Garden
Project is to document some of the stuff that goes on around here.
For me, that includes the history and the current work being done in
the arts/music scene here in the Fresno area.
I’ve shot a lot of raw footage, but was having a hard time uploading it,
and then editiing it.
Dale set me on the right path. I’m still a newbie…but it looks like I might finally
dive into the part of the Underground Garden Project that had been lying fallow:
short movies for YouTube etc.
June 14, 2010
Today I had the rare-for-me opportunity of recording someone else’s project.
Not that I haven’t been asked, but often time (the rarity of it) has stopped me.
Here’s my best shot at describing this piece o’ work: it’s a Folk-Rock Oratorio. I think
that’s accurate. It has 11 songs joined together by theme and by short narration bits.
It’s written and performed by a local duo made up of David Spencer and Randy Morris that
works under the name: Spencer/Morris.
A folk-rock oratorio? You mean that doesn’t sound like something that’s been a ‘Top Download’ on I-Robot-Tunes Dot Com? Oh brothers and sisters….this thing is both very odd and (I think) very good.
It’s a work about the 70′s. Yes….rom Gerald Ford to Jimmy Carter. From Underground FM to MOR. From
the Energy Crisis to Farah Fawcett . I dare sare there’s a sparkle of brilliance here. I mean, you KNOW you’ve
been itching to sing along on a song about Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army!
So, after hearing the whole work two or three times at this years Rogue Festival, I told Mr.’s Spencer
and Morris. “I’d love to record this.” So we did.
We met this morning and ran through the whole thing. Each song live. Each song twice.
It’s now half-way finished. (Don’t ask about the second half….it hurts me to admit it. It was lost due to a hasty
button-pressing by me. Ouch. OK……we’ll finish it another day this week!
Watch for when it comes out. You’ll be glad you did.
June 6, 2010
The first few months of this year were a blizzard of activity, a long well-fought campaign, a big ol’
mess o’ gigs.
It’s time for cleaning up and organizing (literally, in the case of Whispermaphone Studios, figuritively in the case
of the collective mind of The Trike Shop) and then planning our next steps.
There are a lot of interesting opportunities floating our way, and we need to figure out which
ones to invest our time and energies into. The band is meeting Wednesday night.
In the meantime, look out for the second showing of the Underground Garden art piece at the farewell
party for Ashtree Studio near the end of this month.