This just in from Ferrara Brain Pan of Forms of Things Unknown and Everything But The Gargoyle…

I usually don’t perform live onstage more than twice in a YEAR, and now I am appearing in two separate concerts in one WEEK. Not my FOTU solo project this time, but group collaborations. Read on…

On MONDAY night I will be part of a large ensemble of musicians in a performance of the Terry Riley composition “In C” at the Café du Nord in San Francisco - that’s Monday, November 16, at 8:00 pm. Also appearing that night will be Julianna Barwick and The Lickets. The Café du Nord is located at 2170 Market St. Tickets are $10, either in advance or at the door.

Then on THURSDAY, I’ll be one of twenty-five scheduled participants in the upcoming “DroneShift” concert, organized by Matt Davignon. The DroneShift is an unscored live sound event with a duration of two hours, in which participating musicians will each contribute long sustained tones to the collectively improvised performance at various points during the concert, resulting in an organically shifting sound mass whose emphasis is on texture, harmonics, and gradual change and musical development. The scheduled performers are CJ Borosque, Beau Casey, Amar Chaudhary, Matt Davignon, Adam Fong, Jeff Hobbs, Sebastian Krawczuk, Kadet Kuhne, Brendan Landis, David Leikham, Cheryl Leonard, Melissa Margolis, Lucio Menegon, David Michalak, Suki O’Kane, Ferrara Brain Pan, Rent Romus, Lx Rudis, Edward Schocker, Sarah Stiles, Errol Stewart, Lena Strayhorn, Tim Walters, Bill Wolter and Michael Zelner. The concert will take place at the Luggage Store Gallery on November 19, 2009, between 8:00 and 10:00 pm. The Luggage Store Gallery is located at 1007 Market Street in downtown San Francisco (close to 6th & Market). Admission is $6-$10 sliding scale. Please visit the Luggage Store New Music Series page at for more info.

Hope to see one or two of you at one of these gigs!

Ferrara

“Let the great constellation of flickering ashes be heard…”

http://www.formsofthingsunknown.com

http://www.myspace.com/formsofthingsunknown

http://www.myspace.com/everythingbutthegargoyle

Multi-instrumentalist and mastermind behind Forms of Things Unknown Ferrara Brain Pan collaborated live with Ninah and Das of Big City Orchestra on ubRadio. You can download or stream a recording of it, in two parts.  Part one is here and part two is here.

For the month of November, listen to Moolah Temple $tringband and other wonderful obscurities to be featured on the John Peel inspired Dandelion Radio.  That link is right here, my friend.

This month’s issue of Scars magazine features a four-page story on Tonight of the Living Dead (with some amusing graphics and a ridiculously in-depth interview).  Read it here. Click the cover image, and a scan of the print edition will open full-screen. Our story is on page 42.

November looks like a busy month for Ferrara Brain Pan of Forms of Things Unknown and Everything But The Gargoyle, with two radio appearances and one live gig.

To start the month, Ferrara Brain Pan will be joining host Dean Suzuki on his long-running Discreet Music program on KPFA-FM for an hour or so of music and conversation. Ferrara will discuss past musical activities, current recording projects, and upcoming live performances on this first appearance on the program, which airs live on Sunday, November 1, at 10:00 pm Pacific Standard Time (note that November 1 is the day that the clocks are turned back in the Pacific time zone). KPFA Berkeley can be heard in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California at 94.1 on the FM dial, and worldwide on the internet at www.kpfa.org (the program will also be available for listening at the KPFA online program archives for one week from the air date).

Then on November 11, Ferrara joins Das & Ninah for a live musical improvisation on their weekly ubRadio program, which airs each Wednesday from 4:00 to 6:00 pm PST over the internet at http://dfm.nu/ DFM RTV INT. UbRadio programs can be heard anytime at a later date by visiting the ubRadio Salon Archive page.

Ferrara will then be part of a large ensemble of musicians in a performance of the Terry Riley composition In C at the Café du Nord in San Francisco on Monday, November 16, at 8:00 pm. Also appearing that night will be Julianna Barwick and The Lickets. The Café du Nord is located at 2170 Market St. Tickets are $10, either in advance or at the door.

Craig Varian of 400 Lonely Things was interviewed by Matt Gamble from Where The Long Tail Ends just moments before the premier of their video at the Flyway Film Festival.  The video is for the song Tonight from the 400 Lonely Things album Tonight of the Living Dead, and was an opening feature for the film Pontypool. Listen to it and interviews with the other artists in attendance here.

Larry Marotta’s second collection of Avant-Garde and Experimental Cinema Silent Film Soundtracks for Pimalia has been released.  Volume Two features more of Larry’s thoughtful, unpretentious, expressive - and sometimes even controversial - guitar excursions, this time based around the following films commissioned for the Kino DVD series.

The Cage
(Sidney Peterson, U.S., 1947, 28 Min.)
KINO DVD TITLE: Avant-Garde 2: Experimental Cinema from 1928-1954

The Hearts of Age
(Orson Welles, William Vance, U.S., 1934, 8 min.)
KINO DVD TITLE: Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and 30s

La Coquille et le Clergyman (The Seashell and the Clergyman)
(Germaine Dulac, France, 1926, 31.5 min.)
KINO DVD TITLE: Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and 30s

Both volumes are available now at Amazon, iTunes. and wherever fine downloads are sold.

400 Lonely Things will be debuting a world premiere video at the Flyway Film Festival in Pepin, WI (October 22-25).

The video is part of an all-day event entitled the International Zombie Summit at the Historic Opera Hall in nearby Stockholm, WI and will be shown alongside the most talked about independent zombie-themed horror cinema of the year, including underground Cannes hit Colin, and the hotly anticipated Norwegian Nazi-zombie grind-house flick and Sundance entry Dead Snow.

The video for the 400 Lonely Things song Tonight is from their fourth album, Tonight of the Living Dead. Like the album’s music and packaging, all elements for the video are taken from George A. Romero’s 1968 horror classic, Night of the Living Dead and retooled into a dark ambient, poetic collage that is both madly compelling and quietly creepy. The video is a collaboration with film-maker Phil Harrell, who is currently working with the editor of Rusty Nails’ forthcoming documentary Dead-On: The Life and Cinema of George A. Romero.

Specifically, 400 Lonely Things’ video will serve as an appropriate lead-in to the 7pm screening of the moody and cerebral Canadian viral thriller Pontypool, adapted by Tony Burgess from his own novel, which has drawn favorable comparisons to Night of the Living Dead.  The film stars Stephen McHattie and is considered by many to be a game-changing intellectual zombie film, expanding the potential of this increasingly important and popular sub-genre of horror culture. Pontypool was just named as “One of the 25 Greatest Zombie Films of All Time” by Entertainment Weekly.

400 Lonely Things helmsman Craig Varian will be in attendance as a panelist with other artists whose films are being screened, participating in a discussion about the role of the zombie in pop culture.

International Zombie Summit
Schedule of Events:
Saturday, Oct. 24
1pm - Redneck Zombies - Director in attendance
3pm - Zombie Girl - Director in attendance
5pm - Colin - Director in attendance
7pm - Music video Tonight by 400 Lonely Things - Artist in attendance
and Pontypool - Producer in attendance
9pm - Dead Snow

TBD: Round-Table Panel Discussion, Poster and Merchandise Signing

Click here for information on the International Zombie Summit.
Click here for information on the Flyway Film Festival.

Click here for a video from our pal, Diarmuid MacDiarmada, who’s been hosting Earthquack! at The Shed in Dublin, Ireland, with an intriguing new take on Ewan MacColl’s “Song of the Iron Road”.  Wish we could have been there….

Mookoid’s first full-length LP is “FiSHY”.
The venture begins in a dank, subterranean sepulchre, populated by broken, dying machinery and proceeds via aquatic exploration through bleak deep-sea soundscapes - finally crawling ashore and panting exhaustedly by the fire under a starry, African night sky.

The album is a mix of improvisational pieces and more traditional studio works, painstakingly built layer by layer. The tracks were created from a variety of sound sources: including treated field recordings and samplings of voice and various traditional and ethnic instruments which happened to be close to hand. The soundscape is not bound by one particular genre, but varies from noisy and harsh to gentle and ambient, and includes a claustrophobic detour into dub.

The core of the album was inspired by Mick’s experiences night diving in the Red Sea and growing up in Africa. The marine-themed tracks were specifically influenced by a set of deep night dives on a wreck. Mick’s dive buddy ended up getting a case of ‘the bends’ and ended up in a decompression chamber - a truly bizarre experience. The mix reflects this and is sometimes as dense as treacle - there is very little air in there! African influences can be heard in “Lowveldt”, the albums closing track; the pulse of the night insects creating it’s own backbeat to the modal melody of the guitar.

The album’s stunning packaging is an homage to Mick’s lifelong fascination with the extraordinary and grotesque creatures that inhabit the darkest corners of our oceans.

Track listing:
01 Machine Component
02 Hex River Valley
03 Into the Drink
04 Impersonal Trainer
05 Nitrogen Narcosis
06 Slithis Dub
07 Decompression Chamber
08 Osteichthyes
09 Lowveldt

TRT: appx 45 minutes.

FULLY PACKAGED COMPACT DISC EDITION WITH UNCOMPRESSED AUDIO AND STUNNING ARTWORK IN 8 PAGE BOOKLET AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY FOR AUS $25.00 INCLUDING POSTAGE WORLDWIDE. CONTACT - mookoid@myspace.com

DIGITAL DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE NOW FROM Amazon, iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody and Napster.