TWISTED APPLE RECORDS

In prep for our return to live duty in support of our pal Iggy Friday, The ALB are sharing three songs we recorded in rehearsal for radio promotion. They are free! If you feel the need to pay something, please donate for Iggy at https://gofund.me/187f1e11

Learned recently of the passing of someone who played a very significant role in my teen years, Stanley West.

I had a semi-regular, almost ritual circuit I would take on my bike as a kid through downtown Glendora (the little California town and smog bowl I grew up in):

home->library->bookshop->home.

As I got a little older, I would substitute a record shop for the bookshop visit but it was pretty consistent. Then, a couple things happened simultaneously in my teenage years: I got an electric guitar and Stan opened his guitar shop. Stan’s shop was a regular stop, even if I didn’t need anything (and usually couldn’t afford anything anyways) but it was good to just check in and see what was up and if there was anything new to drool over. I bought my first stompbox there (the all-plastic Arion Stereo Chorus) which of course started my lifetime struggle with Gear Acquisition Syndrome. He also sold me my first E-Bow, fanning the flames of my experimental quest for sounds I wasn’t used to hearing from a guitar. The shop lasted longer in Glendora than I did and I lost touch. Hearing of his passing was sad but did bring back a lot of happy memories. Thanks, Stan.

We’re back!

Springtime is here and the ALB is coming back to the courtyard at Halvorson’s in support of our pal Iggy and his family! We are kicking off our run of 2022 shows with this very special event on Wednesday, May 11th at Halvorson’s on Church Street (in Burlington). Start time is 6:30 but get there early if you want to get a table. There will be new songs, old favorites and more than a couple covers of a certain pioneering San Francisco band . Thanks for supporting local music and the people and families who make it happen!

It feels like Spring is… well, springing. I’m back after a host/ISP attributable hiatus (I did not start a band called “Error Establishing a Database Connection”).

With the onward march of Time, some personal shifts and the alignment of constellations, it feels like the cusp of a new surge of creativity. I am finishing overdubs on my own solo project, and true to form, I am getting distractedly inspired to start collecting ideas for the next one. Whereas the former is an overview of the last 35 years of my musical pursuits, the next one will be more representative of what I have been doing more recently. The two albums will almost be like a math problem, the sum of the parts of album 1 will equal what album 2 turns out to be. In other words, I am overthinking everything.

Also in the general chaos of creativity is a forthcoming updated/remastered version of the collection of my theatre/film scores from over the years, and the hopeful possibilty of collaborations with some (if not most, if not ALL) of my compadres from Ghost Ghost and Regional Science Fair. Of course, Dennis and I continue to conspire to do something as well.

Also, gears are starting to turn in the Arty LaVigne Band machinery. The new songs are getting fine-tuned and we are prepping for a very special show on May 11th (that will get it’s own post shortly). Oh, and we had a Radio Underground reunion jam recently that maybe sparked something…

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Well, it’s February and my second post of the year. Big round of applause for consistency! Yay!

Not much to report. Projects all moving forward. S-l-o-w-w-w-w-w-l-l-l-y-y-y.

Oh yeah, I did get to work with Zoe Keating at my day job. Long time dream come true. It was both a blast and very educational (as interactions with her usually are). Bonus points because her sound guy, Alex Nahas is an amazing Stick player.

Making an effort to stay on top of social media presence so watch this space for some archival scraps in addition to the usual (hah!) updates.

Buh-bye 2021. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

2021 was arguably one of the worst years of my life, for reasons I won’t go into as they don’t really apply here. Suffice it to say, while I am not holding my breath (unless around the unmasked), and having abandoned what most people call “hope”, I am starting the year off with cautiously reserved optimism.

So, what is on the horizon? Well, since booking isn’t really happening right now, The Arty LaVigne Band is pivoting into recording pre-production mode. Currently I am reviewing hours of multitrack rehearsal recordings (a very useful tool) and working out arrangements, hooks, sounds, etc.

I am also continuing to spelunk through the archives* and organizing and digitizing multitracks from long ago. Amongst these are a wealth of Regional Science Fair recordings (several I don’t even remember doing) as well as all the demos/experiments from my teenage years when I was just learning how to do this stuff. Some of this stuff might actually make it to your eardrums one of these days.

What else? Well, I have my Stick rig rebuilt and I am trying to get back into a practice routine. My plan is to finish my own album soon-ish. All the members of Ghost Ghost are working on their own stuff but cross-pollination/collaboration is a definite possibility. Also, while Stone Document is in mothballs, Dennis and I continue to plot and conspire our next steps as a team. No idea of a direction but it will doubtless be eclectic.

• Please take a moment to imagine Tiny Tim singing “Spelunk Through the Archives”

Well, its the first post of 2021 and it only took me until mid-October to get around to it. Haven’t been as productive as hoped what with COVID avoidance, working from home, battling depression, digging through personal and professional archives and dealing with losing family and friends…

So, here we are in October. Summer is behind us. A Summer that saw the renaming of one band (from Winooski Falls to the more accurate/descriptive Arty LaVigne Band), and we did manage to play a handful of outdoor shows. It was so good to be playing for people again! Now that gigs are moving indoors, we have temporarily stopped booking and have shifted into album pre-production mode. Oh and the guitar maintenance and pedalboard reconfiguration goes on ad infinitum.

Selected Solo Improvisations, vol. 1 is the first in a series of archival recordings taken mostly from live performances. Quite often the pieces employ real-time looping to create a complex soundscape. This collection also includes some Chapman Stick practice experiments that attempted to synchronize a drum machine with the loops as they were being created.

Here are some details about the tracks:

1. Raga Ndbone – A fretless guitar improvisation (with some odd delays writhing in the background. The title is a play on the terms “raga” and the English slang “rag and bone” (a rag and bone man is an old term for a peddler who collected discarded items for resale).
2. Post-normal – A guitar/guitar-synthesiszer/looper piece taken from my solo spot in one of the shows I did with compadre Kevin Peckham. My main moment of unrestrained weirdness in each show.
3. Stick Practice Improvisation – Forgive the following descent into techno-geekery. The Chapman Stick is a multi-stringed instrument with the range of a bass and a guitar that is played by tapping the strings with both hands; essentially using piano-like technique on astringed instrument. In this instance (and the ones that follow in this collection) the treble register of the Stick was looped using an Electro Harmonix 2880 multitrack looper and the bass register was looped using a Lexicon JamMan, both of which were synchronized to a Roger Linn Adrenalinn III drum machine/processor. These are the only pieces that weren’t created in front of an audience.
4. Like for Part 2 – Ambient guitar/looper exploration of type I am typically “known for”.
5. Return of Stick Practice Improvisation – More basement experimentation with synchronization.
6. Any Questions? – Probably too many if you’ve made it this far.
7. Son of Return of Stick Practice Improvisation – Yeah. You guessed it. Might make a good bumper for radio if any of my friends in broadcasting are reading this. Wink wink.
8. Part 2 – Another ambient guitar noodle dish. Pairs well with a Pinot Noir and/or Strawberry Cush.
9. Son of Return of Stick Practice Improvisation (Slight Return) – Just some playing around with the loops from Track 7 that was at the end of that recording.

Available exclusively at BandCamp