Happy Valley Band + Zachary James Watkins
Doors at 7pm | Show at 7:30pm
Don Quixote's International Music Hall
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$10
The Happy Valley Band deconstruct popular tunes, transcribed by custom software and re-performed by humans.
The Happy Valley Band plays covers of popular tunes, deconstructed and transcribed by custom software, and re-performed by humans. You’ll hear James Brown backed by a simmering Sun Ra Arkestra, Madonna with a jittery freak-out synth rhythm section, and Herb Alpert with a Tijuana Brass that must have been led by Charles Ives. They’re joined by Zachary James Watkins, a sound artist and composer based in Oakland, who creates harmonic series drones with an array of electronics and electric guitar.
Happy Valley Band
The Happy Valley Band is a cover band like you’ve never heard before. They play machine deconstructions of popular tunes, filtered through the brain of a computer, and re-performed by humans with intense energy. The project is led by bandleader and composer David Kant, who created custom software to analyze and transcribe the work of James Brown, Patsy Cline, Elvis, Phil Collins, and others. It is the product of a fascination with artificial intelligence, an unrequited affection for popular music, and a sense of humor able to find beauty and insight in digital artifacts. Their debut album ORGANVM PERCEPTVS, five years in the making, will be out on Indexical in 2016.
Zachary James Watkins
Zachary James Watkins builds clouds of dense harmonic tones and cuts through them with transcendent electric guitar melodies. The deep vibrations he creates through layering and expanding harmonies leave the room resonating with energy. He is an Oakland-based sound artist with degrees in composition from Cornish College of the Arts and Mills College, and is one-half of the ecstatic duo Black Spirituals. He has shared bills with Earth, the Sun Ra Arkestra, and many others, and releases music on the labels Important Records, Cassauna, Touch, The Tapeworm, Confront, Land & Sea and Sige.
David Kant:
The Great American Songbook
Zachary James Watkins:
[live]
In 2008, Zachary premiered a new multi-media work entitled Country Western as part of the Meridian Gallery's Composers in Performance Series that received grants from the The American Music Center and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts. An excerpt of this piece is published on a compilation album entitled "The Harmonic Series" along side Pauline Oliveros, Ellen Fullman, Theresa Wong Charles Curtis and Duane Pitre among others. Zachary designed the sound and composed music for the plays "I have loved Strangers" produced by Just Theatre, which listed "top ten of 2007" in the East Bay Express and the 8th Annual ReOrient Theatre Festival. His sound art work entitled Third Floor::Designed Obsolescence, "spoke as a metaphor for the breakdown of the dream of technology and the myth of our society's permanence," review by Susan Noyes Platt in the Summer 05 issue of ARTLIES. Zachary releases music on the labels Sige, Cassauna, Confront (UK), The Tapeworm and Touch (UK). Novembre Magazine (DE), ITCH (ZA), Walrus Press and the New York Miniature Ensemble have published his writings and scores. Zachary has been an artist in resident at the Espy Foundation, Djerassi and the Headlands Center for The Arts.
Happy Valley Band + Zachary James Watkins
Doors at 7pm | Show at 7:30pm
Don Quixote's International Music Hall
Add to Calendar
$10