JUNK KITCHEN #8

BURT BACHARACH BACHELOR PAD

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2012
@8PM
OUTPOST 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St.
Cambridge, MA

Composer Alfred Bachelorach seems to have it all: hit songs to make hearts melt, upscale gigs where top-shelf whiskey flows freely, and a new chick every night of the week. His bachelor pad is furnished with inviting fauteuils and a fully stocked bar, and the air sways with the lush arrangements and luring melodies of his songs. Many a girl has gambled all to gain entry to this palace, only to be banished again by daybreak.

Edith, an aspiring singer, proves equally unable to resist the pull of Alfred's talent and charm. However, unlike others before her, she turns the tables of the chase, and in pursuing Alfred she discovers a secret neither his loyal bandmates nor his trusted lyricist, Hal, have ever learned.

As the mystery deepens, it becomes clear that Edith's friend Faith knows more than she initially lets on. And Alfred's drummer, Max, may have developed a smoother, truer technique in playing his hand in the game of seduction. Ultimately, Alfred Bachelorach will be forced to face the fact that while a chair may still be a chair, a bachelor pad penthouse is most certainly not a home. And if he is ever to get what he really wants, he may have to relinquish his womanizing ways. The question is not how he can make this change, but who will inspire him to do so?

***STARRING***

William Kenlon as Alfred Bachelorach

Esther Viola as Edith

Evelyn Hurley as Faith

Paul Jacobs as Sully, piano

Al Marra as Mugsy, vibes

Scot Fitzsimmons as Scott, bass

Ben Dicke as Max, drums

and special guest appearance by...

Will Dicke as Hal, lyricist

Photos from Brasil

Obrigada Brena for the beautiful photos of our last show, Postcards from Brasil!

To see more of Brena's fabulous photography, visit her blog, Treasure Chest.

JUNK KITCHEN #7

POSTCARDS FROM BRASIL

FRIDAY 27 JULY, 2012 @8PM

Outpost 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St.
Cambridge, MA





postmarked: Rio de Janeiro, 13 July 2012

Hey!

Hope you're having a great summer! We've been traveling all over Brazil for the past few months, and it is incredible! The food is amazing, the people are so warm and friendly—we're already talking about coming back next year. But what is really blowing us away is the MUSIC!

Everywhere we go—from Bahia in the northeast, where we heard the berimbau and saw capoeira on the streets, to here in Rio, where we saw Guinga live in concert (!) and met musicians who play with Hermeto Pascoal, and went to choro rodas—everywhere there is music playing. We're trying to record all this music with our ears, because we can't wait to play everything for you!

In fact, our flight gets back into Boston on Friday, July 27th, and we're heading straight to Outpost 186 to play all this music for you! We've had all kinds of ideas, and we've been talking about things like authenticity—can we as Americans just pick up and play Brazilian music?—as well as the definition of a “classic.” As always at the Junk Kitchen, we want to play music that's got a slightly different take on the common interpretation. So we've found some great classics here in Brazil, a few even from the late 19th century! While they're quite well-known here, we think back in Cambridge they will sound fresh and new, like instant life-long friends.

We've also heard so much music that doesn't sound at all like the standard Brazilian bossa export, and yet we've also heard some “bossas” which are so fresh and infectious—we've just got to bring it all back for you! So we're going to do our best, fully acknowledging that this music is pretty new for us, we're just going to dive in and do it—just like a gringa jumping into the samba de roda and shaking her hips like she didn't know any better! Why not? Life's too short not to groove, dance, sweat and swing!

So we hope you'll join us July 27th at 8pm! And don't forget to bring some limes for the caipirinhas!

Beijos,
Esther & Ben

JUNK KITCHEN #6

NEW MUSIC NIGHT

SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 2012


8PM @ Outpost 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St.
Inman Square
Cambridge, MA

If you were to go to your favorite diner and order lunch, you would expect (or at least hope for) your sandwich to be made fresh, just for you. Made minutes before your first bite, without the evidence of someone else’s, right?

If you were on the market for a new jacket, you wouldn’t expect to have some previous owner's loose change and half pack of cigarettes in the left pocket. Not if it was sold to you as new, am I wrong?

If you were to buy a new car, you would expect it to be brand new, wouldn't you? I mean we’re talking new-car-smell, reeking of well-fitted suede-barracuda-sport-coat new (no need to turn it inside out, unless you bought a convertible, of course.) It wouldn’t be right to pay full price for a “new” car that’s been owned and driven by other people, with a few thousand miles racked on the odometer and a few treads missing on the tires.

When it comes to new music, though, countless times don’t we settle for music that is, well . . . only sorta new?

I mean is John Cage really new anymore? Would you drink a 20 to 60-year-old cup of coffee? No! You'd expect it to be fresh, hot and tasty. So shouldn’t new music be the same way?

This Junk Kitchen show is dedicated to defining our standard for new music. All the pieces here are written especially for this night. And just as the FDA qualifies that food is only considered fresh within 72 hours of preparation, we are requiring that our composers create their pieces no more than 72 hours before the first performance – and I mean the very first, no rehearsals, no run-throughs – just as is, when served up steaming and aromatic, by our Junk Kitchen Players. The strike of the notes will be the first time ears ever hear it. (One might also call this a “sight reading” night but we figured that it would make it sound even more like a nerd event... Oops.)


Featuring NEW compositions by:
Ian Dicke, Todd Brunel, Eric Biondo, Brian Abbott, Rob Manthey, Pam Marshall and others

Played by:
Matt Samolis - flute
Deirdre Viau - flute
Esther Viola - oboe
Honjo Tsuyoshi - saxes
Ryan Fessinger - bassoon
McMillan Gaither - trombone
Marion Campos - guitars
Brigham Hall - piano
Paul Jacobs - piano
Ben Dicke - drums
...and others

JUNK KITCHEN #5

RAYMOND SCOTT REVIEW

FRIDAY, MAY 25, 2012

8PM @ Outpost 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St.
Inman Square
Cambridge, MA

Click here to listen to the show!!!

This night is dedicated to an unsung hero of modern American music: composer, bandleader, pianist, engineer, and electronic instrument pioneer Raymond Scott.

The show will feature two sections, one highlighting his major contributions to Jazz (also recognizable from adaptations used in classic cartoon soundtracks) and the other "unplugging" his electronic music for TV and radio. We're arranging tunes, snippets, and jingles from his experimentations under the Manhattan Research Inc. project, some of his earliest and most distinctive electronic works.

Collaborating musicians:

Jerry Sabatini—trumpet

Andy Volker—tenor sax

Kyle Moffat—alto sax

Esther Viola—oboe

Brigham Hall—piano

Paul Jacobs—piano

Al Marra—vibraphone

Eric Hofbauer—guitar

Scott Fitzpatrick—bass

Sven Larson—bass

Ben Dicke—drums

JUNK KITCHEN #4

DO YOU DO DUO, TWO?

FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 2012
8PM @ Outpost 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St.
Inman Square
Cambridge, MA

Junk Kitchen turns armchair psychologist with this one, as its patients will be coming tonight to get things off their chests! Couples tired from the daily grind, frustrated by a flirting affair or just sick of no one paying attention to them will have a chance to vent out in stream-of conscious improvs.

Pairs who “just want to make it work” will display their communication skills by hashing out old emotional scars, coming to amends and forging new bonds which will help send them off onto the sunset.

And perhaps new partnerships will be sparked, as the series also sets up some worthy singles on blind-date improvisations or gently nudges newly-met duos to keep on playing.

In the process JK is going to keep its big mouth shut and take the Freudian approach. It will dim the lights, place fake plants around the room, put up generic pictures of beaches on the walls as patients lying down on a big cold leather couch will have the Doc saddle up next to them with a legal pad and an expensive pen. I can’t guarantee you that its notes won’t be full of doodles though . . . (Co-pay required)

Duos:

In-it-for-the-long-haul:

Garrison Fewell and Eric Hofbauer (guitars)

Skinny Vinny (drums and sax)

second-date:

Esther and Shelly (oboe and bassoon)

blind-date:

Brian Abbott and Joshua DeScherer (guitar and contra-bass)

JUNK KITCHEN #3

SOUND OF THE FOUND
Music of Found Objects and Homemade Instruments

Click here to listen to the show!!!

FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 2012 @ 8PM
Outpost 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St.
Cambridge, MA

featuring special guests:
Matt Samolis and Dovina -- bottles, buckets, glass, and more
and
Gary Fieldman--home-made percussion-kit

with
Geni Skendo
Al Marra
Ben Dicke
Esther Viola
and others!
-- on bottles, pans, jars, tins, wheels, balloons, plastic bags, tin foil, boxes, and more!!!
There is a real problem with Music these days: its ego is way out of control!

Music’s strong arm on the public has slapped the artists to the waysides for years while tricking the neighborhood kids to grab a guitar, grab a microphone and play by the rules. Believe in the hype and fame and fortune will follow. A few tired blues licks later these pop stars are mistaken for visionaries of creative sounds. The Junk Kitchen Concert Series is going to give it a reality check!

Music of Found Objects and Homemade Instruments is a full-on intervention at the Outpost, cornering Music to the front of the room and having it fess up to its faults, its wrong doings and to hopefully show Music what it can be and not what it has been for years on end.

The performers of this show will act like surgeons spending the evening undressing Music to its frail and skinny core, putting it under the knife with the scalpels of bare hands on the back of cold metal chairs. Old spoons on empty paint buckets will play ugly rhythms underneath disjointed melodies made out of twine. Old rusty nails will poke through in attacks of dissonance as a climax of hubcaps will loudly crash together scaring Music out the door and back into the streets, delirious and humbled.

In the end there is something to be discovered while performing music on anything that is not an instrument. It will showcase the fact the music is made by people and not the instruments that they play. Torn away are the rich textures, controlled range, and harmonic potential that we are all used to.

This night Music is in its purest form. Whether it’s drumming on the back of a stop sign or blowing into empty beer bottles, the music here will exist simultaneously on either end of the spectrum by exploring the fringes of acoustic sound art while throwing us back into our primal urges to create.

Audience members are encouraged to bring there own homemade “instruments” to play in a group performance at the end of the evening. For those less savvy, the requirement is that you only bring in what you have found on the way to the Outpost!

JUNK KITCHEN #2

GET OUT YOUR MINI

Friday, February 24, 2012 @8PM
Outpost 186
186 1/2 Hampshire St.
Inman Square, Cambridge, MA

While mini skirts are more than welcome, and may even get you a surprise at the door, this night is about an altogether other kind of mini: the miniature piece of music.

The miniatures featured in this Junk Kitchen installment are very, very short pieces of music, ranging from a matter of seconds to a minute, maybe two. But anything over two minutes isn't very mini anymore, now is it?

So this program will feature dozens of pieces—composed, improvised, covered or stolen—performed on oboe, piano, vibraphone, guitar, voice, and more!

Featuring:

Special guests!! duo Cotton Candy

& compositions/performances by:
John McDonald, piano
William Kenlon, voice/percussion
Brigham Hall, piano

First Worst Thirst:
Ben Dicke, drums
Esther Viola, oboe
Eric Hofbauer, guitar 

 

JUNK KITCHEN #1

Join us FRIDAY JANUARY 27, 2012 at 8PM

MUSIC FOR TOYS

Click here to listen to the show!!!

Have you ever graced through the aisles of a toy store, spotting various musical instruments on display? Has the temptation of creativity hit you enough that you’ve banged out a few chords at the toy piano, broken into a beat on “My First Drum Kit,” or tried to come up with something... anything interesting on a one-octave xylophone in the key of C?

Well, the folks at the Junk Kitchen Concert Series have concocted a remedy for those of you with such childish urges: a musical pursuance that will relieve you of being seen in a toy store and getting kicked out by security. This first installment will feature music written for and improvised on toy instruments and will feature many area performers and special guest Jaggery.


Our mission here is not only to give these instruments their due, but also to pose a challenge to those performing on them. We‘re keeping the Jazz Box in its case, and the Mark 7 at home, 'cause this is a night for musicians to get in the zone with the most interesting sounds this side of Christmas.

JUNK KITCHEN #0

Join us TUESDAY DECEMBER 13 @ Outpost 186 for Junk Kitchen's pre-launch party!

The official start of the series will be in January, but we couldn't wait to get started! So we decided to throw a warm-up concert, featuring performances by First Worst Thirst in diverse formations.

We'll be playing original tunes, improvisations, as well as samples of some of the themes of the up-coming season, like Raymond Scott Night, Burt Bacharach Bash and Get into the Mini, a program of miniatures, compositions and improvs.

In line with the festivities of the season, this will be a thoroughly entertaining affair. So dress up or dress down, whatever you need to do, and come ready to move, have a drink, play along or just sit back and enjoy!