Tag: Quintron

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Eclectic Ecliptic: The Music of Hot Springs’ Festival

The Sun Ra Arkestra at the 2024 Ecliptic Festival in Hot Springs (Credit: Chris McCoy).

“Hopefully all the generators will be turned off,” Quintron opined some weeks before the Ecliptic Festival in Hot Springs, held in the days before and during this week’s total solar eclipse. “And any lighting will be turned off, and all the unnecessary industrial ambient noise that goes along with providing the needs of a festival with thousands of people will be shut down for that period of [totality] so people can really go back a couple thousand years and connect to what we really are, how small we really are.”

And, as it turned out, that was the case once the sun went dark this past Monday. Yet dwelling on the lack of human noise might obscure the fact that this was one ringer of a music festival, co-organized by Hot Springs’ Low Key Arts nonprofit, who for two decades have staged the Valley of the Vapors festival this time every year, and Atlas Obscura, an online magazine and travel company specializing in unusual and obscure destinations.

Hailu Mergia at the Ecliptic Festival (Credit: Alex Greene)

While this reporter arrived well after the fest’s start date of April 5th, by two days later, on Sunday, there was still an expectant buzz in the air as attendees anticipated the next day’s events. The open meadow atop Cedar Glades Park afforded plenty of room for those stretched out in the blazing sun, or huddled together in the shade of the sound guy’s mixer. And that buzz was well complemented by the first live music of the day, a trio led by Hailu Mergia of Ethiopia. Though his name is unfamiliar to some, his playing brightens many tracks by jazz composer Mulatu Astatke, featured on the popular 2007 compilation, The Very Best of Éthiopiques . As heard in this exclusive video on The Memphis Flyer‘s YouTube channel, the lightly rolling organ and Fender Rhodes piano arpeggios so prevalent in Ethiopian music, backed by a tight rhythm section, helped set the day’s easy-going vibe right out of the gate.

Just before that, I had checked in on Quintron, whose Weather Warlock was set up far from the main stage, in a tent down the hill. Throughout the festival, his sound-generating invention was responding to the everyday shifts in the weather and light, and in the bright blue sky of Sunday it was percolating merrily. Passersby on their way up or down the hill would stop in to hear how the machine was responding to its sensors, most of which (including two spinning in the breeze) sat on a stand capped with a weather vane a few feet away. Other inputs included Quintron’s Wildlife Organ, which used sensors in more distant wild areas. In the video, the inventor explains how one transducer was picking up the creaking of an aged tree limb.

After the funky-yet-calming music of Mergia, and checking out some thought-provoking ideas from speaker Michael Jones McKean, I heard the thumps of a new band getting ready back up the hill. It was ESG, the Bronx’s finest minimalist funk/post-punk pioneers since 1978. Though many years older than when the group was in its heyday, and somewhat infirm, firebrand frontwoman Renee Scroggins could spit chants and rhymes with considerable power and sass, even while seated.

The band’s enthusiasm was part of the show, as Scroggins’ daughter Nicole Nicholas held down those all-important bass lines and son Nicholas Nicholas went from one frenzied percussion part to another, both singing along. Nicole proudly exclaimed that “I’m up here with my mother, my brother, and my aunt [Marie Scroggins, also on percussion and vocals]!” And the camaraderie was palpable. Meanwhile, drummer Mark Giordano was an absolute machine, playing with the precision of an 808 beat and the power of John Bonham. As they played their “U.F.O.,” one of the most sampled tracks in the history of hip hop, brother Nicholas and Aunt Marie donned extraterrestrial masks. “If you see an alien come down,” quipped Nicole, “it’s not an abduction, it’s a rescue mission!”

After ESG’s masterful “Erase You” and a brief encore, Shannon and the Clams were up next. As fans of their 2022 Gonerfest appearance know, their dramatic, soulful harmonies and driving songs of passion, chock full of cinematic guitar hooks and sci-fi organ, were perfect for the Golden Hour.

Shannon Shaw, Nate Mahan, and Cody Blanchard of Shannon & the Clams in the Golden Hour (Credit: Alex Greene).

And then this reporter, having baked in the sun for some hours, valiantly surrendered to exhaustion, though the festival raged on into the pre-eclipse night. No less than the Allah-Las and Fred Armisen presided over the party.

Arriving the next day, just as the moon’s limb was edging into the sun’s brilliant disc, the day began on a dream-like note and stayed there. That was amplified by the ethereal harp music of Mary Lattimore, who runs her ancient instrument through various pedals. The spaciness of those sounds, especially paired with the more sustained notes of accordionist Walt McClements, only added to the mystery of the dimming, silvery light. Meanwhile, a phalanx of small boxes sporting solar panels on one side and a speaker on the other created enigmatic tones as the light shifted and people milled around them.

There were more environmentally interactive tones down the hill, where Quintron continued minding his machine. It was sounding markedly different when I approached just after 1:30. And, with the sun dimming over the next 20-odd minutes, the tones only grew more captivating and rhythmic, complemented by the birds and bugs of Cedar Glades Park.

Quintron didn’t even touch his machine. Instead, we listened to it respond to the dimming of light with a low sinking tone reminiscent of “the Mothership” powering down. A cheer went up as the eclipse reached totality, and I gasped at the sheer breadth of the sun’s corona. Venus and Jupiter flanked the muted orb and its crown like an honor guard, heralds of the day’s second dawn. The world seemed to hold its breath for three and a half minutes. Then, as light returned, the Weather Warlock’s deep bass tone began to rise again, even as the other layers of sound changed in more subtle ways.

It was a powerful moment. Witnessing the incredible coincidence of the moon’s apparent diameter exactly matching that of the sun made me feel lucky to be living in this epoch. After all, the moon is moving away from the earth by an inch every year, and won’t ever completely block the sun’s disc in eons to come.

As the light slowly returned, I wandered back to the performance area, where the Sun Ra Arkestra took the stage. Having played as a group since 1951, they still carry on long after their founder’s death in 1993, led by Marshall Allen, who was there from almost the beginning.

The Sun Ra Arkestra at the Ecliptic Festival (Credit: Chris McCoy).

Allen didn’t make the festival, as bassist Tyler Mitchell later explained. About to turn 100 this year, he is in good health, but is picky about his traveling. Knoel Scott, on baritone & alto saxophones, voice, percussion & space dancing, filled in as the musical director, cueing solos and breakdowns with aplomb and launching each incantation.

One standout member of the Arkestra was keyboardist Farid Barron. Doubling on piano and Moog synthesizer as Ra once did, he had some big shoes to fill, but did so with aplomb, elegance, mischief, and humor. Equally capable of erratic chord clusters, synth noise blasts, stride piano, and bluesy ivory-tickling, he was a stylistic tour de force. (As a high schooler, he was discovered by Wynton Marsalis before joining the Arkestra in 2008). Then again, the Arkestra operating semi-collectively, guided by a single aesthetic, it was the group chemistry that was the real tour de force.

“When the world was in darkness, and darkness was ignorance, ALONG CAME RA!!” they chanted. The music was a perfect balance of out-there free jazz and big band swing, complete with punchy horn arrangements. The band was decked in all manner of glittering outfits, and at one point Scott did somersaults and spins at the front of the stage. Meanwhile, the moon slowly moved away from its moment in the spotlight. At one point as we listened, an elated Quintron borrowed my solar glasses, looked up, and exclaimed “Pac Man!” And, with the moon by then just carving a small divot out of the solar disc, that’s exactly what the face of the sun looked like.

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In the Shadow of the Moon

Photo: jrossphoto | Adobe Stock

Throughout the day on Monday, April 8th, the moon’s vast shadow, 100 miles across, will pass over the face of the Earth like some great mother ship, blocking light in a creeping path from the Pacific Ocean’s Cook Islands to a point in the Atlantic Ocean some 200 leagues west of France. Those under the hundred-mile-wide band of the shadow will experience a total eclipse of the sun, wherein the apparent size of the lunar disc will exactly match and obscure the sun’s disc, in one of the great coincidences of orbs and orbits in our cosmos, dimming the day as it swings into place and finally blocking all direct sunlight for a few minutes. Then the moon will move away and the day will enjoy a second dawn.

“It’s like a fast-forward sunset and sunrise,” says Quintron, the New Orleans-based musician and inventor who created Weather Warlock, an analog synthesizer and audio processor triggered by signals from an array of wind, humidity, sound, and light sensors. The eclipse, with its stark contrasts, is a time for his creation to shine. He’s noted the Weather Warlock’s sensitivity to the changing light of dusk or dawn before, but the eclipse, he says, is “approximately 10 times as fast.”

Quintron and the Weather Warlock, with control panel schematic (Photo: Panacea Theriac)

The Ecliptic Festival

Like thousands of others, Quintron will be in Hot Springs, Arkansas, when it all goes down. The classic resort town lies directly in the path of totality, as does much of the Natural State. In Hot Springs, the eclipse’s timing corresponds to a time-honored tradition, the Valley of the Vapors music festival, now in its 20th year. This year’s version will be unique, as it’s being co-produced by Atlas Obscura, a company specializing in unorthodox travel packages. Together, they’re calling this hybrid celebration the Ecliptic Festival, and it’s huge.

From April 5th to April 8th, up to 4,000 attendees will gather at Hot Springs’ Cedar Glades Park for musical performances and events with artists, philosophers, astronomers, and other speakers — along with ringside seats to the spectacle of a full solar eclipse. These astronomical pilgrims will be staying in glamping tents, camping on their own, or booking other accommodations (quickly filling up) in Hot Springs or nearby Little Rock.

The startlingly eclectic lineup includes performers like Allah-Las, Blonde Redhead, Deerhoof, and Shannon and the Clams; mythologist and storyteller John Bucher; theoretical physicist Kelly Reidy; and author and astronomer Rebecca Boyle, who will conduct a guided stargazing session. Of course, the first three days of the bash will be much like any other festival, albeit with more telescopes, as the moon and sun won’t yet be engaged in their cosmic pas de deux. Then on Monday, the music will take a left turn.

When the moon begins its creep across the face of the sun, experimental harpist Mary Lattimore will help usher in the darkness. Though faster than a sunset, the dimming of the day occurs over more than an hour and 20 minutes. Halfway through it, music on the main stage will stop and the headlining “artist” leading up to and through the total occultation of the sun will be a robot, tuned in to the sounds of nature.

The sensor array triggering Weather Warlock (Photo: Panacea Theriac)

All Hail the Weather Warlock

Although Quintron sometimes assembles a band that’s billed as Weather Warlock, at the heart of it is the machine he designed some 10 years ago, a device that “uses sun, wind, rain, and temperature to control a monster analog synth designed by Quintronics,” as his website explains. Multiple sensors convert changes in wind speed, barometric pressure, rainfall, and light into voltage and thence synthesizer tones. When the weather or light is shifting, no band is necessary: The device creates fascinating tonal paintings entirely on its own, worth recording and releasing.

“During Hurricane Ida,” says Quintron, “we knew a weather event was coming and I knew it was going to get really nuts. So I tuned up all the sensors, dialed it in, and then just set it to record as long as the power stayed on. And it stayed on quite a while, pretty deep into extreme hurricane winds and rainfall. And that became the record, PEOPLE = ANTS.”

Well before Ida, of course, Quintron and his device were active during the 2017 total solar eclipse, perched on the roof of Third Man Records in Nashville, the audio of which was later released as the record, Occulting the Sun. But Quintron’s approach has evolved somewhat since then.

“I’m going to have mics set up in the area too,” says Quintron of his Hot Springs setup. “My whole microphone system and the electronic filtration of that source has now come to be called the Wildlife Organ, which is just a series of all-weather microphones at different elevations in the wilderness, capturing the critters. Because how the animals and insects and birds respond to an eclipse is kind of the most mind-blowing thing about it.”

As day turns to night, birds and bees stop their activity and the crickets come out to sing. While the Weather Warlock’s mics and sensors will in fact be running throughout the festival, “like a little weather station that people can visit, going on 24/7 during the entire fest,” he says, the approach to and immersion in totality will make for the most dramatic effects from Quintron’s device. “This is the Super Bowl Sunday for Weather Warlock, so during totality it’s only going to be Weather Warlock playing. I’m not going to mess with it too much. I just want to experience this machine that I built, reacting to the sky.”

Accordingly, he hopes the festival attendees will respect the moment. “I begged [the festival organizers] to please let me be the only sound-generating human during the actual eclipse,” he says, and his wish has come true, assuming festival partiers cooperate and simply listen. “I just want to let the lords of the skies and Mother Earth do their thing. I don’t want to comment or interact or join in because it’s such a rare weather event.”

During totality, from roughly 1:49 to 1:53 p.m. in Hot Springs, the sun’s disc will be blocked, but it won’t be entirely dark. Rather, an eerie twilight will set in, and stars will appear. As in 2017, Venus and Jupiter (and other less visible planets) will appear on either side of the occulted sun. For close to four minutes, observers will be able to remove their protective sun-viewing glasses (the only time it’s safe to do so) and marvel at how small we are. People = ants, indeed.

And then, gradually, Weather Warlock will surrender its command of the festival, giving way to what many, including Quintron, are most keenly anticipating: an appearance by the acolytes of Sun Ra himself.

The Sun Ra Arkestra, led by Marshall Allen (center) (Photo: Courtesy El Ra Records)

The Sun Ra Arkestra

Booking the Sun Ra Arkestra on the day of the eclipse was an inspired choice by Atlas Obscura and Valley of the Vapors, and not just because it’s arguably the longest-running, continuously operated jazz ensemble in the world today. Sun Ra, born Herman Blount in Birmingham, Alabama, transformed himself and his music by putting the transcendent possibilities of cosmic bodies — the moon, Saturn, the stars, the sun — at the heart of his creativity. Changing his name to honor the Egyptian god Ra in the mid-Fifties, he never looked back, assembling an ever-shifting big band that paired increasingly free jazz with more disciplined compositions and even the sounds of exotica, as they chanted, “We travel the spaceways/From planet to planet …”

Though its leader passed away in 1993, the Arkestra — pairing “orchestra” with an allusion to a wandering ark — sailed on, led today by its oldest surviving member, Marshall Allen, who joined the group in the late ’50s. And Allen, now 99, has kept the Arkestra’s guiding aesthetic in place, from the bold, colorful costumes to the eclectic mix of big band swing tunes (Fletcher Henderson is a favorite), chanted songs of space, and free improvisation.

Tyler Mitchell, who first played with Sun Ra in the ’80s before rejoining the Arkestra in 2010, still marvels at the saxophonist’s vigor. “Marshall’s amazing,” he says. “He still moves around and is in good shape, man! I admire him. He’s just such a great example to mankind, to people. Not just to musicians.”

Quintron, for his part, is especially excited that the Arkestra will immediately follow him. “I’ll be taking the baton between the harpist, Mary Lattimore, and Sun Ra. I’ve been given the go-ahead to overlap and kind of join those two artists.” And he couldn’t be more pleased. “Sun Ra,” says Quintron, “is on my personal Mount Rushmore of how to think about music and how to approach music.” Having said that, neither Quintron nor the Arkestra members themselves know exactly what to expect when they take the stage.

Recalling the Arkestra’s performance at Atlas Obscura’s 2017 eclipse event in Oregon, Mitchell explains, “The last time we did it, we just followed Marshall’s cues. Neither Sun Ra or Marshall tell you what they’re going to play. Sometimes Marshall is known to just get up and have us play a space chord, where everybody just blows a note, and he directs you with his hand. And just the different textures of the space chords would be the song.”

But things could be more arranged. “We also have what we call stomps,” says Mitchell, “like the old Fletcher Henderson stuff. Marshall covers all the different styles in jazz when we do a concert. And if a song’s too nice and neat and clean, and all too perfect, he’ll come in and just mess it all up. You don’t want it to be too perfect. He likes to have that chaos.”

And so, as the sunlight gradually reemerges, expect the unexpected, but know that the Sun Ra Arkestra, having such songs in their repertoire as “When Sun Comes Out,” “Solar Differentials,” “Dancing Shadows,” and “Satellites Are Spinning” are well-prepared to capture the moment.

The path of totality across North America, moving from southwest to northeast (Photo: courtesy Atlas Obscura)

Lighting Out for the Graze Zone

For Memphians who want to experience totality, Hot Springs is arguably the most musical destination on April 8th, but there are other options, from low-key gatherings to camping on your own. The zone of complete occultation stretches from the southwest to the northeast of the state, with many planned events and over two dozen state parks in that area. The Crystal Garden in Mt. Ida, Arkansas, for example, will have camping and acoustic music amidst the largest quartz crystal deposit in the world, nestled in the Ouachita National Forest. The University of Arkansas in Little Rock will have a family-friendly event, and Arkansas State University in Jonesboro will participate in the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project, sponsored by NASA, releasing dozens of weather balloons laden with scientific instruments to record atmospheric changes during the eclipse. Meanwhile, the website ozarktotaleclipse.com lists several smaller-scale celebrations in the Ozark foothills, all in the path of totality.

As the site ar-eclipse.info notes, some prefer to be on the margins of that path, in what’s called “the graze zone.” In some ways, being on the borders of totality’s path can make the eclipse even more striking. As described by NASA, “An observer positioned here will witness a solar crescent which is fragmented into a series of bright beads and short segments. … These beading phenomena are caused by the appearance of photospheric rays which alternately pass through deep lunar valleys and hide behind high mountain peaks as the moon’s irregular limb grazes the edge of the sun’s disk.” Properly viewed with protective glasses, this near-total eclipse ringed with beams and flares of light can be spellbinding, especially for astrophotography buffs.

Closer to home, outside the path of totality, the eclipse will still be impressive. Indeed, the village of Wilson, less than an hour away, will be especially active. Their Crawfish Festival takes place through the day of April 6th, giving way to live music that evening and ultimately an eclipse-viewing gathering two days later, when the sun’s disc will be 99.38 percent blocked at its peak. (Protective glasses must be worn the entire time when observing the sun.)

Just down the road in Dyess, Arkansas State University’s KASU radio station will host the Arkansas Roots Music Festival in front of the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home on the 6th, with El Dorado-native Jason D. Williams headlining, plus a “lunch and learn” with NASA scientist Dr. Les Johnson on the 7th, and the option to park campers near the historic home for the following day’s astronomical event.

And finally, lest one forget the wide-ranging impact the eclipse will have on all of nature, one NASA initiative may persuade you to eschew the music and hoopla and simply listen. Known as the Eclipse Soundscapes Project, it puts the invisible at the center of the celestial experience, encouraging people from all walks of life to document the stark changes in animal behavior when all goes dark. As noted on the NASA website, the eclipse offers “the perfect opportunity for a large-scale citizen science project.” Volunteers will be asked to use a low-cost audio recording device to capture nature’s sounds during the eclipse, or to write down their multisensory observations for submission to the project website.

“I’m so glad that they’re doing that,” says Quintron of NASA’s Eclipse Soundscapes Project. “I’m very happy that I won’t be in a big city, but in a forest. And making recordings out in the field, where there is not a large amount of human influence, is really important. We need recordings of what the critters and the birds and the insects are doing during this event because it’s really remarkable. They’re not reading on the news that the eclipse is coming. They’re purely reacting to it. And in a similar way, I just really want to draw people’s attention to the physical world that they live in, in whatever way I can.”

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Gonerfest 16 Recap: Friday

Violet Archaea at Gonerfest Friday night.

It’s Saturday morning of Gonerfest, and I have a headache. And I’m not the only one. Folks from all over the world are cursing the bright, fall sun of Memphis the morning after an overstuffed night of punk, garage, no-wave, and the indescribable.

And too much beer. Did I mention the beer? Memphis Made brewed a special Gonerbrau cream ale, and it only comes in tall boys for your beer-spraying convenience.

After a full afternoon at Memphis Made with Static Static, Lenguas Largas, Fuck, Graham Winchester, Kelley Anderson, and Tyler Keith, Goners reconvened at Crosstown Arts auxiliary gallery at 430 Cleveland. Miss Pussycat, Quintron’s partner and celebrated artist and puppeteer who recently got a fellowship and retrospective at the Ogden Museum in her native New Orleans, performed her puppet show “The History of Egypt” to as packed a house as it is possible to have. After Antony was defeated at the Battle of Actium, and Cleopatra got fatally intimate with an asp, Miss Pussycat added a post script set in the holy Egyptian city of Memphis detailing the founding of Goner Records and the Mummies playing Gonerfest. Later, Goner co-owner Zac Ives confirmed that this was the first time he had ever been portrayed in puppet form.

Miss Pussycat presenting her ‘History of Egypt’ puppet show, featuring Guitar Wolf as it segued into a ‘History of Gonerfest’.

(I was unable to confirm with Eric Friedl if he had ever been represented via puppetry before that evening.)

Miss Pussycat’s art on display at Crosstown Arts 430 Gallery

In years past, the golden passes have consistently sold out, but individual tickets could still be had if you got to the venue early. This year, Friday and Saturday sold out weeks ago.

“It’s like Mecca, almost. Everyone comes together,” says Megs from Louisville, who is here with her friends Yoko and Aaron.

This is Megs’ second Gonerfest, Yoko’s third, and Aaron’s fifth. They say they’re here primarily to see the Oblivians reunite with Quintron to play their watershed 1997 album Oblivians Play 9 songs with Mr. Quintron. The descriptively titled album is the best Memphis rock record since Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers. Its reputation has grown in the 22 years since the January 1997 afternoon when Quintron rode the bus up from New Orleans and recorded the album with Greg, Eric, and Jack in one eight-hour session. It sits in an unlikely pocket of lo-fi, punk, and gospel, and the songs have been rarely performed by the full band. “It’s my favorite album,” says Megs.

“I’m ready to go to church tonight,” says Yoko.

Sarah Danger of Mallwalker

At 9 p.m. sharp, Mallwalker from Baltimore, Maryland, gave the evening a swift kick in the ass. Singer Sarah Danger, who would act as the MC for the evening, reserved some special vitriol for the anonymous person who accidentally broke her foot during the band’s 4 a.m. after-show last year. Afterwards, I talk to her as she’s rehydrating at the bar about the band’s big stage debut. “It was fucking amazing while I was up there, but it was horrible beforehand because it was so nerve-wracking!.”

This is Danger’s eighth Gonerfest. “One of my favorite ones was when Guitar Wolf played the opening ceremony. I had never seen that kind of energy. It was so sick.”

The second set of the evening was Richard Papiercuts et Les Inspecteurs. The New Yorker crooned like a hyped-up Brian Ferry. It was an ’80s-infused dance party, with the evening’s only saxophone, and an example of how the sounds at Gonerfest have expanded and diversified over the years.

At 10:30 p.m. was the legendary M.O.T.O. Paul Caporino’s low-fi, pop-rock machine mesmerized the crowd. The peak of the set came with “Tastes Just Like A Milkshake,” a Memphis favorite covered by Secret Service.

Innez Tulloch and Matthew Ford of Brisbane, Australia’s Thigh Master with Memphis singer Jesse James Davis. Blurriness courtesy Gonerbrau Vision (TM).

Brisbane, Australia’s Thigh Master had the distinction of throwing their record release party at Gonerfest. Now For Example is out on the label as of yesterday, and they celebrated in style, joined at one point by Memphis’ Jesse James Davis on vocals.
At the stroke of Midnight came NOTS, a Gonerfest staple, sounding as fierce as ever. Now playing as a three piece after the exit of keyboardist Alexandra Eastburn, Natalie Hoffman did double duty on guitar and synth, while Charlotte Watson and Meredith Lones pounded out titanic rhythm behind her.

NOTS

People on the floor jockeyed for position as the back stage curtains parted to reveal Quintron’s massive vintage Leslie speaker. Violet Archaea was wearing a “Kill A Punk For Rock and Roll” shirt, famously featured on the cover of the Oblivians album Popular Favorites. “This is my first one, but I’ve been wanting to come since I was of age,” she says. “It’s everything I want.”

Her band The Archeas would be playing the super-late night after-party, but she was in no hurry. “2 a.m., 3 a.m. It will be an a.m.”

The Oblivians playing nine songs with Quintron

When Greg Oblivian began the circular riff of “Feel All Right,” the packed Hi-Tone surged forward. Seconds later, the first thrown beer of the night nailed him right in the face. It couldn’t have been more accurately aimed if it was actually aimed. This served to piss him off, and for a glorious hour or so, the snarling, rock-hard Oblivians of old were back. The gospel songs played by punks with a lot more miles on ‘em than in 1997 revealed new depth as they rattled down the road like an old truck about to shake apart. “Before this time another year/I may be gone/In some lonesome graveyard/Oh Lord, how long?”

They encored with the New Orleans zydeco stomper “Call the Police” from their Desperation album, and then Greg decided to teach the band a new song right there on stage at the Hi Tone in front of a packed house at 2 a.m., just to make sure the crowd got that vintage Oblivians experience.

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Quintron Brings Weather Warlock to Bar DKDC

Weather Warlock at St. Maurice Church in New Orleans

This Friday, a slight chance of thunderstorms will give way to clear skies in the evening, with temps hovering around 70 degrees. While that’s not always relevant to club goers, studying the forecast before heading over to Bar DKDC this weekend will give you an inkling of what to expect from Weather Warlock. 

The brainchild of Mr. Quintron, trailblazing auteur of the Hammond organ based in New Orleans, whose one-man shows are built around manic keyboard grooves and the rhythms of his hand-built Drum Buddy™, Weather Warlock is a custom-built synthesizer connected to multiple weather sensors. Its tones and filters are directly altered by signals from the sensors, translating the wind, rain, and sun into tonal impressions. It’s innovative enough to have earned a feature in Popular Science. But Weather Warlock is also the name of the band of improvisers Quintron has recruited to enhance the synth’s sonic responses with live human interaction. No two shows are alike, as each begins with the eerie, sensor-driven tones generated by Quintron’s machine, then takes flight into parts unknown. It’s a slightly unhinged drone-rock adventure that must be seen and heard to be believed.

Curious about the tour and this week’s stop in Memphis, I talked to Quintron about making music that’s wired to the sky.

Memphis Flyer: I fondly recall seeing Weather Warlock at the Brooks Museum of Art in 2016. It was a heavy, heavy sound.

Mr. Quintron: That was with a 100 percent pickup band. That was all Memphians.

It seemed very successful. You managed to draw a little thundercloud over the show. Any other experiences of affecting the weather while playing?

Last night we had a really successful rehearsal. When we opened the door to walk up to the corner store and get a beer, the sky was totally green. The sun sensors were going nuts, the wind started blowing, and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees in two seconds.

That Brooks performance was, like many Weather Warlock shows, at dusk, but this Friday you’re playing at night.

As opposed to sunset, yeah. I wanted to try it. I like boundaries and rules, but I also didn’t want to be ridiculous and basically ensure that this band never goes on tour. That parameter [playing at sunset] makes it incredibly difficult to get into the van and have a logical string of shows with the musicians I want to play with. These weather sensors are definitely very exciting during sunrise and sunset and electrical storms in the evening. But they’re still taking weather information all night long. So it will be receiving weather info and pumping it into the concert, just not with those sunset sounds. Basically it made the tour be able to work, doing it this way. It was my choice. I wanted to do it. And if in the end I felt like it was a total cop out, well then, back to sunset-only shows.

All the Weather Warlock purists might be up in arms.

I’m fully expecting to get some shit for that.

No!

You don’t even know how catty and mean electronics nerds can get! You know, I got a bunch of shit the first time I toured Europe without my real actual thousand-pound Hammond organ. One German man in particular was extremely upset and demanded his money back. He said, “Quintron, I think you’re being too convenient.”

And this was one of the first shows, so it was after a super hellish flight and all the stuff that you have to go through to get to Europe. You’re just totally exhausted and beaten up by life, and there’s this guy complaining and demanding his money back because I didn’t ship a thousand-pound Hammond Model D or whatever.

Looking at the video of Singing House, the prototype of what became the Weather Warlock, it seems like the kinds of parameters and the way they affect the synth have really changed over time.

Absolutely, yeah. That was prototype #1, and now I think this one I’m taking on tour is about up to Mark 5, and it’s still developing. Yeah, it’s been really refined. And my understanding of how best to tune the sensors and tune the circuit, so that they get the most variable sounds out of the sensors, has really developed over the years of building this. But that’s what this kind of thing is all about. Especially with this weather-controlled thing, it’s like you really don’t know until you stick it out there and live with it, how it’s gonna behave and what works best, and what you like best and what becomes annoying.

When you get a bunch of musicians up there jamming with the Warlock, is it a challenge to just let the Warlock speak? It seems like it would be easy to overpower.

Yeah, that’s the point. We just make it go away for a while. We take it as a jumping off point, as a kind of spiritual center, to be cheesy about it. And then we just wipe it out with volume for a while. But it’s always there. And then it has its moments in the set, where it’s back to just featuring those sounds again. And then it will kind of inform the tempo of the next thing we go into. ‘Cos it’s a musical instrument inside as well. Outside, it’s picking up all this weather, but I built it so you can really jam on it and play it, and change the phasing speed and move the delay around and mix the different sounds. So it’s a really playable synth as well as taking info from the weather. And I’ve done plenty of concerts where it’s just me and the synth. The new record that Third Man just put out (I just got ’em in the mail today) is a recording of just me manipulating the Weather Warlock synthesizer in Nashville during the total solar eclipse.

Yeah, what effect did that have?

NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

The total solar eclipse of 2017

It was really great. I didn’t know… It was like, “Is this gonna be kind of nothing?” It was a very boring day. It was hot and there was no wind. Nothing was really active, it wasn’t raining. Thank goodness it wasn’t raining, ‘cos it would have been cloudy and you wouldn’t have seen the eclipse. But it behaved exactly as I thought it would in response to the eclipse. It was like a sunset in fast motion. It was like a time-lapse sunset, sonically. It was really really nuts.

Does the pitch vary according to the light?

Yeah, the pitch drops. It’s calibrated so that it’s beyond human hearing all day long, and then when the UV gets just reduced enough, a high tone will pop in to audibility, and then it will descend in pitch until darkness, when it goes away. And during a regular sunset, that takes about 40 minutes. During the solar eclipse it took about ten minutes. And then it rose back up, so it was like hearing a full day. Like hearing a very quick sunset and then a very quick sunrise paired up next to each other. But the power went off at Third Man before we could get the reemergence of the sun. 

And the B side of this record is another solo synth recording of the Weather Warlock responding to a hail storm in Las Vegas, New Mexico. And I mixed in an audio recording of the actual hail. It was called a microburst hail storm. Have you ever seen one of those? I don’t know what makes a microburst storm different from a regular storm, but they’re very, very intense and really focused in a small geographic area. I didn’t realize until later that that’s what we had been experiencing. Hail big as golf balls. You had to get in the car or you’d get hurt, for about a half an hour. And rain and wind. Crazy.

It didn’t damage the sensors?

No, this thing’s been through several hurricanes. The most interesting times are during an evening storm when the UV is rapidly fluctuating up and down. It’ll activate the sky sensor and sort of go “whooroarrrghhuuh.” It sounds like a ghost, constantly moving around in pitch, going up and down, and then lightning jumps in there and that affects something. You can hear it on this record with the hail storm.

But this tour is as much about a band and this different mode of playing and working with musicians, as it is about the weather.

So you play with different musicians in each town?

Yeah, I’m touring with Aaron Hill on drums, who plays in EyeHateGod from New Orleans, and Kunal Prakash, an Indian guitar player who’s worked with tons of people, most notably Jeff the Brotherhood. He was their second guitarist for a while. And then Gary Wrong is joining us on some shows. But in every city we’re gonna pick up two or three local improvisers to play with us. It’s largely improvised music, though there’s structure and riffs and stuff. So Alicja Trout and Seth Moody are gonna play with us in Memphis. Seth’s gonna play sax and Moog and Alicja’s gonna play some kinda synth.

One video featured a guy playing a mouth bow. Is he on this tour?

Cooper Moore? No. He’s best friends with William Parker, who’s one of the OG free jazz upright bassists. He was very active in the ’60s and ’70s and is still playing his ass off. Cooper Moore and him are partners and play a lot together in New York. I played with William down here in New Orleans, and that’s how I met Cooper Moore. He played his diddley bow and I was totally fascinated with that, and he played with us the last time we went to Brooklyn. But he’s not gonna join us this time. I’m trying to make it different than the last tour, and play with different musicians. We’re playing with a classical sitarist in New York this time. And an Egyptian keyboardist, and Paula Henderson, who plays sax and the EWI.

Quintron Brings Weather Warlock to Bar DKDC


Do you give the musicians any kind of parameters, like “don’t play scalar music” or what have you?

I kind of conduct people in and out. Almost without exception, most musicians, if they’re just jumping in and improvising, want some kind of guidance and structure so it’s not just a free for all. Nobody should feel intimidated by rules or have too much to worry about. Improvised music got really structured and gamey, like the Knitting Factory stuff in the ’80s and ’90s, and it was interesting. This is more jammy, I guess, though it is very structured, and there’s riffs and changes. The hardest thing to do is to not play. But other than that, there’s really no rules. There’s times when you need to come out, and I’ll have signals for that, and times when you need to come in. In general, fly like a bird.

Quintron and Weather Warlock play Bar DKDC Friday, May 18 at 10:30 pm.

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Music Music Blog

Bomb Shelter Radio at Amurica

CREDIT: Amurica.com

Amurica.com

Joshua Short and his Bomb Shelter Radio.

San Francisco artist Joshua Short will activate a pirate radio station in Memphis, Tennessee tonight at Amurica. Short built a make-shift van topper out of found materials and cardboard to house his “radio station,” and local bands that are set to perform include Small Fires, Grave Pioneer, ManControl, Quintron, Richard James, and Jessie Davis. “Bomb Shelter Radio: Memphis” is the third incarnation of an ongoing project for Short, and the station will be active until June 12th. Check out a video from one of Short’s other projects below, and be sure to stop by Amurica at least once over the next week. 

Bonagraph #1

Bomb Shelter Radio at Amurica

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Gonerfest 11: Blood, Sweat, and Beers

The 11th edition of Gonerfest roared into Midtown last weekend, with punk, garage, power pop, noise, and just plain weird bands from all over the world converged on the Bluff City in an annual gathering of the tribes that has gotten bigger and more exciting each year. Festivities kicked off in the Cooper-Young Gazebo with New York’s Paul Collins Beat. 

Gonerfest 11: Blood, Sweat, and Beers

I spent the weekend embedded with the Rocket Science Audio crew, who were live streaming the performances to people from as far away as Australia watching on the web. I’ve done this for several years, formerly with Live From Memphis, and this year we brought the full, multi-camera experience to the audience. It’s a lot of fun, in that I get to be up close and focused on the music, but also quite grueling. 

The Rocket Science Audio van outside Goner Records.

The highlights of Thursday night at the Hi Tone were Ross Johnson, Gail Clifton, Jeff Evans, Steve Selvidge, Alex Greene, and a host of others playing songs from Alex Chilton’s chaotically beautiful 1979 solo album Like Flies On Sherbert. The mixture of old school Memphis punks who had played on the album and the best of the current generation of Memphis music made for an incredible listening experience.

The Grifters’ Dave Shouse on the Rocket Science Audio livestream.

Thursday night’s headliners were 90s Memphis lo-fi masters The Grifters. Recently reunited after more than a decade of inactivity, Dave Shouse, Scott Taylor, Trip Lamkins, and Stan Galimore have their groove back. At the Hi Tone, they even sounded—dare I say it—rehearsed. 

I couldn’t make Friday night due to another commitment, but Friday afternoon at The Buccaneer hosted a great collection of bands, starting off with a blast from Memphis hardcore outfit Gimp Teeth. 

Cole Wheeler fronts Gimp Teeth at the Buccaneer.

Next was one of the highlights of the festival: The return of Red Sneakers. Back at Gonerfest 5, the duo from Nara, Japan showed up unnannounced wanting to play the big show. When Jay Reatard cancelled, they got their chance and blew the roof off of Murphy’s in front of an unsuspecting crowd. This year, they did it again, only they were invited, and they substituted a soulful “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” cover for the smoking “Cold Turkey” they did five years ago. 

Yosei of Red Sneakers about to take the stage.

Afterwards, returning to the Rocket Science Audio van, we found that one of Red Sneakers’ drum sticks had flown over the fence and embedded itself into the earth. No one dared touch it. 

 

Red Sneakers drum stick, fully erect.

Buldgerz

Hardcore Memphis vets Buldgerz played a sweaty and confrontational set of hard and fast punk nuggets, followed by Mississippi’s Wild Emotions. 

The weather cooperated again the next day for a memorable afternoon show at Murphy’s. Two stages, one inside and one outside, alternated throughout the afternoon. 

Roy from Auckland, New Zealand’s Cool Runnings plays the indoor stage at Murphy’s under the old Antenna sign.

Goner Records co-owner Zach Ives sings with Sons Of Vom, as seen from the Rocket Science Audio webcast monitor.

There were many great performances on Saturday afternoon, but the most incredible was Weather Warlock, an experimental heavy noise act centered around a light-controlled synthesizer custom built by New Orleans’ mad genius Quintron. The cacuphony rose and fell as the light changed with the sunset, and Quintron and co-conspirator Gary Wong swirled around it with guitars and theremin, while a plume of smoke rose over the stage. 

Photographer Don Perry, AKA Bully Rook, dressed for Gonerfest.

Gonerfesters stumbled into the Hi Tone Saturday night, a little bleary from three days of rock, but with a lot of amazing music ahead of them. 

DJ Useless Eater keeps the crowd hopping at the Hi Tone.

Obnox

The highlight of the show for me was Nots. Fronted by steely-eyed, ex-Ex-Cult bassist Natalie Hoffman, the four piece arrived with something to prove. And prove it they did, with punishing, athletic songs delivered amid a shower of balloons and waves of reverb. 

The Nots, Charlotte Watson, Natalie Hoffman, Allie Eastburn, and Madison Farmer, backstage at the Hi Tone.

Austin, Texas No Wavers Spray Paint on the monitor Saturday night.

Detroit, Michigan’s Protomartyr on the Hi Tone stage.

English guitarist, songwriter, and ranter The Rebel delivers a solo set to a packed house.

Ken Highland and Rich Coffee of The Gizmos get bunny ears from their drummer after a celebratory closing set at Gonerfest 11.

The crowd, the largest I’ve ever seen at the Hi Tone, never flagged throughout the night, which ended with a reunion of The Gizmos, a seminal American band that developed something like punk in 1977 in the isolation of Bloomington, Indiana. The playing was loose, the mood buoyant, and the band vowed to not stay away for so long. And after a Gonerfest as great as this one, next year can’t come soon enough. 

[Ed Note: The first edition of this story incorrectly identified The Nerves “Hanging On The Telephone” as being written by Blondie.]

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Music Music Features

Quintron and Miss Pussycat at the Hi-Tone Café

CREDIT: Quintron by Jayme Kalal

Dancing puppets, homemade instruments, and plenty of Southern rock-and-roll should make for a lively party this Sunday night as New Orleans natives Quintron and Miss Pussycat return to the Hi-Tone Café.

Using instruments like the Drum Buddy (a light-activated analog synthesizer that creates murky, low-fidelity rhythmic patterns), Quintron crafts a whirlwind of off-kilter rock-and-roll, often sounding like the physical embodiment of a Pee Wee’s Playhouse soundtrack. Quintron’s longtime collaborator, Miss Pussycat, is more than just a hype woman for the group, incorporating dance moves, percussion instruments, and even puppet shows into the chaotic carnival that is their live show. Before performing on Sunday night, Miss Pussycat will premiere her new film Mystery in Old Bath. Playing both Friday and Saturday night at Studio on the Square, Mystery in Old Bath features Miss Pussycat’s handmade puppets but also comes with a PG-13 rating.

Also on the bill is John Wesley Coleman, who’s released a handful of solo albums in addition to his work with the Texas band the Golden Boys. Wearing his love for whiskey and Warren Zevon on his sleeve, Coleman’s albums capture a songwriter equal parts goofy and heartbroken, all while being consistently wasted. And while any of the Golden Boys’ past Memphis performances can attest to the levels of inebriation musicians can reach while performing live, Coleman usually puts on a rousing show, blasting through one honest but damaged song after another.

Starting the evening off is local punk act Sharp Balloons, whose “Evening News” single from last year received a lot of critical acclaim despite the band only playing outside of Memphis a few times. Featuring members of Final Solutions and True Sons of Thunder, Sharp Balloons sound a lot like the strange post-punk bands coming out of England in the late ’70s, before bands like Siouxsie & the Banshees and PiL made that genre a household name. With only three songs from their catalog pressed onto vinyl, it seems like Sharp Balloons are due for another single soon. Doors for Sunday’s show are at 9 p.m. Admission is $12.