Steve Ball

Night Wall - 01

Morning Work: Night Wall - page 1 (3.5M mp3).

"Julie and her young cousin Sarah left their city homes of towering glass and steel and traveled north. Julie was hoping to escape for a while from what she called her busy cartoon life. Sarah was looking forward to their stay in a small cabin in the woods.

After a long journey they finally came to where the roads ended and the walking paths in the great forests began."

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From Night Wall, copyright 2005, Duncan Weller. Buy the book now!

Vocals: SB
Guitars: Travis Metcalf and SB
Bass: Paul O'Rear
Lyrics, Story, Paintings: Duncan Weller

Hmmm... What is this new huge and challenging jigsaw puzzle have I now initiated? One page down. Seventeen to go.

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Night Wall Project

Beginning tomorrow: a new three-month recording project begins, building on almost a year of work on daily music sketches:

It may or may not be clear, but this project is somewhat inspired by an almost 30 year old Olias of Sunhillow also in the key of A. Perhaps this new 'long form story song' may also inspire an Olias II project later this year with a kindred spirit?

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Roadshow Returning

More from the stage last Saturday night:

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Many (as yet unanswered) personal mails have been pouring in over the past few weeks including multiple correspondences from Dave Willis (college friend and Crimson fan,) Travis Hartnett (continuing to make me laugh out loud with observations about nutty musicians in a nutty industry,) Bill Campbell (w kind words and wishing for an east coast tour,) Pat Rodden (checking in post-Ireland trip), David LaVallee (sad that we missed the recent Mike Keneally show at the Triple Door,) not to mention ongoing kindnesses and connections from Duncan Weller, Tom Killorin, Jeff Heiman, Stuart Wagonfeld, Derek DiFilippo, Bill Barrett, Craig Chesler, Fernando Kabusacki, Bootsy Holler, Andrea Wittgens, Carrie Clark, Pete Wilson, Joel Palmer, Lee Silberkleit, Guy Whitmore, Ken Kato, and many others.

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A brief glimpse at the week ahead:

Tonight: evening out w/ Intel audio team
Tomorrow: evening out at Seattle Art Museum w/ MS giving campaign
Friday: SBRS music school DVD evening featuring Bring on the Night

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Roadshow Returns: Loft Concert

Last Evening: a new Roadshow line-up made a smashing debut at a going away concert for Cathair Concerts promoter, Shaun Darragh. The event took place in Sidney Genett's always-reliable and well-lit loft in Pionneer Square. Great to see Sidney again after a number of years. In 1996, Sid and I celebrated his 40th birthday at Bad Animals participating in a BB King recording session (for Rifff, for those who remember what interactive music aspired to be as part of early MSN 2.5 also known as 'Hartford'.) Seems like yesterday. Or 100 years ago.

The stage last night:

The new Roadshow line-up now includes: Travis Metcalf (electric guitars, vocals), Paul O'Rear (bass and vocals), Dan Moore (drums and vocals) and SB (acoustic guitars and vocals.)

Some may recall that Dan and I played together for about a year in the Seattle version of Prometheus in the mid-nineties. Somewhere I have some photos and even a videotape of one of the shows we did at "Chicago's" circa 1995. I first met Dan when he was playing with early-nineties Seattle horn-grunge-fusion staple, Kilgore Trout, and I've been a fan of his playing ever since. Dan has a natural sense for both the melodically pop and quirky mathrock side of my songs and odd covers.

Consensus is from both the party-attendees and the musicians that something exciting happened last night. I don't remember much dancing at previous Roadshow performances, but our second set inspired some contageous foot-tapping. My own quick take on this new incarnation: melodically rocking!

Setlist included:

Fireplace
Lay My Love
Kneeling Down
I am (not?) in Love
Solisbury Hill
Walking in Your Footsteps
Dark
Naïve Melody
She's Not Coming Back
Just What I Needed
Gravity
Back in NYC

as well as a number of improvisations. And, ah yes, PaulO reminds us that we also did a wildly ffffffast version of Baba O'Riley (by multiple requests) in the second part of the show as well... It was a fun evening, and I hope to launch some more shows with this configuration in the near future.

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Backdown and Night Wall

My lower back is out again, partially as a result of some overly-enthusiastic exercise yesterday, and perhaps because my body is asking, or rather telling, me to slow down. So, I am flat on my back in bed -- bedtop computing -- so, what a great time to catch up on some overdue reporting here?

For those paying attention, you already know that after six years of keeping a diary here, most of my 'writing' over this past year has been music-centric, that is, focused on sharing actual music I've been working on rather than simply writing about the music work I'm doing. At last count, there were more than eighty-five MP3 files posted in these pages since last September's 'daily improvision' project began. Okay, this has not recently been very 'daily' --- but it's been a pretty decent outpouring during what has also been an typically busy year -- and this does not include the thirty or so pieces that I chose not to post.

And most recently, I've been putting my energy into both private personal and work projects that can't really be discussed at length here. Yet.

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A few weeks ago, my friend, Duncan Weller, sent me a copy of his new book, Night Wall.

Duncan and I are mutual fans of each others work. This book, the story, and illustrations are incredible. I hope to write some pieces to complement some of these images. Check out his work, better yet, buy his books. Wonderful stuff.

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Independence Day

Quick evening Work: Independence Day (0.9M mp3).

This songtile image is from a photo taken near Denny Creek a couple of weeks ago just before I took a brief dive into the super-cold water of said creek. Also, just back from a trip east to an immediate family reunion. We were offline and generally unplugged the entire time: refreshing and rather disorienting. This mini-vacation was completed with work on the Airport Exercise in the Atlanta airport on my Steinberger. And what a treat to read Freakonomics on the flight home. Tempting to quote many passages here, but best to simply recommend buying and reading the whole book.

Tomorrow the weight of my inbox again slowly descends. For now, catching up on only essential personal communications this evening and letting east to west jetlag kick-in early in the evening.

Next few days: much homework to do in preparation for an upcoming, fairly high-profile SBRS show. Also, I may back-fill a bit here to augment this documentation in preparation for the wave of publicity that will be ramping up over the next year.

Although these pages have been hyper-quiet, my full-throttle pelota-lifestyle continues joyfully at its normal 120MPH pace.

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Also while 'off' for the past week, I had a chance to catch up reading the last few issues of my favorite newsletter, Stategic News Service. In addition to the insightful, completely relevant, and often alarming human-based technology writing, I also greatly appreciate the SNS T-shirt: "Making a profit is nature's way of saying you're a necessary part of the ecosystem."

This is essentially a longer, more specific, business-oriented way of paraphrasing an aphorismm from one of my older favorite, now seldom seen, T-shirts from the late eighties.

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Surprise Prometheus Fanmail

How nice to have a couple of unsolicited, but energetic, enthusiastic email exchanges with Bill Campbell who wrote saying he had recently re-listened to Prometheus CD. Bill also recalls seeing the American version of Los Gauchos open for Soundscapes in Allentown in 1995, including our acoustic version of Vrooom that was, at the time, our standard, in-audience, encore.

Bill now works with Gongzilla, which rose from the ashes of the fusion band Pierre Moerlen's Gong.

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