Diving Deep For Sea Shells

A very good friend of mine, Edgar Amaya ( EaViL), now living in Spain, has finished a book about a very obscure Miss Peggy Lee album, and an amazing harpist, still active today in California, named Stella Castellucci. I have watched his progress with this over the years, and read his sneak peak in the pages of Roctober Magazine .  Edgar interviewed me half a decade ago, as well as Lydia Lunch, in his chapbook "Greatest Improvement in Dance". 

 

Published by Balboa Press
Available in hardcover, paperback and ebook

Balboa Press:
http://bookstore.balboapress.com/Products/SKU-000640607/Diving-Deep-for-Sea-Shells.aspx

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Diving-Deep-Shells-Stella-Castellucci/dp/1452593752/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406632749&sr=1-1

Stella Castellucci tells the story of her remarkable life in music. Born in Los Angeles in 1930 to musician father Louis Castellucci, Stella would go on to continue and further his legacy. Stella joined Peggy Lee’s touring jazz group in 1953. They would form a close friendship that would endure past Peggy’s life. Stella witnessed and took part in a very creative time for Peggy Lee in the 1950’s. They would closely collaborate on the 1958 Decca release Sea Shells.

Stella would also appear on the albums: Songs in an Intimate Style (Decca, 1954), Black Coffee (Decca, 1956), Dream Street (Decca, 1957), The Man I Love (Capitol, 1957), Jump for Joy (Capitol, 1958), Pretty Eyes (Capitol, 1960) and Christmas Carousel (Capitol, 1960).

Learn the story behind the making of these and other classic recordings, including the Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong album Porgy & Bess. Stella remains a devoted friend to her “Big Sister” Peggy, even appearing for Lee’s 92nd birthday celebrations in North Dakota. This book was created through extensive email exchanges, phone conversations and visits between Stella and Edgar. We hope that the love and joy in writing it carries over to our readers. Fans of Jazz, Peggy Lee, harp music and the album Sea Shells are sure to enjoy the look back.

Voice of Reason

Here is the ARCHIVE of my appearance on the Voice of Reason radio show on WNUR, minus the "patchworks" segment, which I think I only contributed a track by Outer Space towards, can be found separately here. 
The online database at WNUR crashed, so below is the only surviving tracklist, which happened  during the latter  third of the show.   I remember us playing tracks by Robert Turman, Adel Souto, Matthew Herbert Big Band, Bjork, Poptastic, Gary Wilson, Glenn Branca, Stiu Ni Stiu, The Ronettes, The Spooks, and others, while people scurried around us to fix many broken things... 

Thanks again to Sound of Error!  For having me!  Again!  Pervious episodes/appearances can be found at www.deliriousinsomniac.com if you look hard. 

Wish Fullfillment - Handwriting Sample Kitchen Ensemble
Vertonen - HACE / 26,250 Side A excerpt
Dave Phillips - excerpt from track 3 of "?" CD
Bauhaus - Telegram Sam
T. Rex - Baby Strange
Adicts - My Baby Got Run Over By A Steamroller
Damned - Neat Neat Neat
Queers - We'd Have A Riot Doing Heroin
DOA - Communication Breakdown
Wendy O Williams - It's My Life
Jesse Pearson - One Last Kiss
Marc Bolan - All At Once Take 7
The Nashville Bluegrass Band - Could This Be Magic?
L7 - Three Days
Generation X - Wild Dub
999 - Subterfuge
Nick Drake - Horn / Miles Davis & Easy Mo Bee - High Speed Chase
Labi Siffre - I Got The...
Wendy Rene - Reap What You Sow
The Beautiful Schizophonic - Awake Eternal (talk over)
mu fa or - Peeking Hordes
Plastic Ono Band - WHY
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Moonlight in Vermont
Jimi Hendrix - Machine Gun *with* excerpts from two US Maple albums: Talker and Acre Thrills, plus a touch of Smegma - "Between Two Worlds"
Steve Hitlage - :Lunar Music Suite
I forgot to write down the rest....    

Art Prints

Arvo's Gallery

 

This "Velcro Bismol" series is now available in the form of art prints.  I finally got around to finding a legit place.  I've seen the prints in real life and they look good.  I haven't seen what they look like printed on sheet metal, but maybe I will soon enough.  

Blood Rhythms Brass Ensemble at Empty Bottle September 7th

Just a quick note to announce that Blood Rhythms Brass Ensemble will be headlining on September 7th at Empty Bottle.  This line up will be killer.

Also playing are-

Death Factory
Den
Graveform

Admission is free for patrons that RSVP at rsvp@emptybottle.com or manually at www.emptybottle.com.

If all goes well, it will be a Blood Rhythms LP release party with handmade LP covers by myself and Ron Lessard from RRRecords.  

Arvo exhibiting art (again) and on WNUR this week.

Today was the last chance to look at the exhibition at the Rubicon.  However, I was randomly walking around and met a nice man with an eye patch named Lowell.  He wanted to do a portrait of me as part of his series of paintings of residents of Uptown (Chicago). It came out well, I'm looking forward to seeing it along with other people in my neighborhood.  Our conversation led to him advising me to see about hanging my art at the art center they have going.  There is one more exhibition before the space changes shape, and it is part of historic tours and trolleys and a bunch of other stuff.  I will be there on Sunday July 20th, between 4 and 5pm.  I will have a few select pieces from this series hanging.  As it stands now, I don't intend to sell original work again, only prints.  It feels like the last time right now anyway, but I will keep creating.  More info here. 

Also, somewhere between 2:30 - 6:30pm July 17th, I will be a guest once again on Daniel Burke's / Sound of Error 's radio show on WNUR, which includes a "Patchworks" segment featuring synthesizer based compositions for an hour.  

Since I have ended the Delirious Insomniac Freeform Radio Show, I have also appeared on WZRD, by the way, and I know it won't be my last time.  You can hear about an hour of my set here. 

"Velcro Bismol" exhibition up until the 12th, highlights and details from the opening.

I took photos after the art was set up, but I forgot to photograph anything other than the storm during the exhibition opening.  Thanks to many of my friends for showing up!  It stormed before my performance, and there was a rainbow after my performance, which was one of the heavier versions of my "The Body Is A Prison" piece.  The collage pieces are available to be seen at the Rubicon gallery by appointment only through the 12th.  Their contact is therubiconchi@gmail.com, and they can send image files with a price list and eventual shipping possibilities/rates by request.  High quality prints can also be arranged.  Rik Garrett and Anthony A Dunn also exhibited, with a rhythmic dark ambient performance by the latter (under the name "Terran Wretch", and a performance with 4 or 5 turntables by a fella named KG Price.  

My press bits, with an erroneous data syntax error of some kind, juxtaposing my name as "parvo".