Euphonic Productions and Electric Arts Alliance of Atlanta present:
Chris Cutler - percussion & electronics plus special guests
Son of C.O.D.

9pm, Wed, March 5th
$8 at the door
Eyedrum 290 MLK Jr. Drive, SE, Suite 8 Atlanta, GA 30312
404-522-0655
http://www.eyedrum.org

Chris Cutler started messing about with banjo, guitar and trumpet at school, settling for drums and playing shadows and other instrumental covers in his first band in 1963. Subsequently he played in R'n'B and Soul Bands, winding up in 1967 playing in London's psychedelic clubs. At the start of the seventies, with Dave Stewart, he co-founded The Ottawa Music Co, a 22 piece Rock composer's orchestra, eventually joining British experimental group Henry Cow with whom he toured, recorded and worked in dance and theatre projects until it's demise in 1978. In 1997 Henry Cow, The Mike Westbrook Orchestra and Frankie Armstrong formed a big-band and toured around Europe. After Henry Cow, Cutler went on to co-found a series of mixed national groups Art Bears, News from Babel, Cassiber, The (ec) Nudes, P53 and The Science Group. He was a permanent member of American bands Pere Ubu, Hail and The Wooden Birds and now works sporadically with John Rose, Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins, Iancu Dumitrescu, Peter Blegvad and Stevan Tickmayer.

Other lasting collaborations have included Aqsak Maboul (Belgium), Lussier/Derome and Les Quatre Guitaristes (Canada), The Kalahari Surfers (Africa), Perfect Trouble (Germany), Between (Sweden), N.O.R.M.A., (Italy), Telectu (Portugal), Mieku Shimuzu (Japan),The Hyperion Ensemble (Romania), The Film Music Orchestra, 'Oh Moscow', Gong, The Work and Towering Inferno (UK), The Residents (USA), and stateless Tense Serenity and Mirror Man. There have also been countless improvisational groupings and solo performances. Recent projects include Radio pieces with Lutz Glandien and Shelly Hirsch, Live Soundtrack for Carl Dreher's Vampyr (with Italians Musci and Venosta), his Timescales project and work with David Thomas and Linda Thompson.

He also founded and runs the independent label and distribution service ReR/Recommended and, until 1991, the East European specialist label Points East. He is editor of the New Music magazine Unfiled and author of the theoretical book File Under Popular as well as of numerous articles and papers published in 14 languages. He lectures intermittently on theoretical and music related topics. He has appeared on more than 100 recordings.

For further info, please see: http://www.ccutler.com

Presented by Euphonic Productions and Electric Arts Alliance of Atlanta.

More:

One of the best-known improvisers and soundscape artists in Europe, UK drummer Chris Cutler will be touring the US (southeast & midwest) throughout the month of March, 2003. He will perform on electrified percussion, an electronic/acoustic hybrid that he has developed over the past 20 years. Cutler began doing solo electrified percussion concerts in the late 90s; his first, in Tokyo, was the subject of Aoyama Shinji's documentary *Edge of Chaos*. The ReR Megacorp label just released Cutler's first live solo electrified percussion CD, "Solo: A Descent Into the Maelstrom", which includes recordings made on his previous Atlanta stop back in April 2001.

Cutler began wiring his drum kit in the early 70s because he wanted "An instrument in fact like an electric guitar, in which many of the techniques and attributes associated with the acoustic version are preserved but massively extended." Besides solo concerts, he has used it with bands such as the Art Bears, Cassiber, Duck and Cover, The Science Group and countless improv ensembles.

Cutler has been a major figure on the international avant garde music scene since the 1970s, when he co-founded the Rock In Opposition (RIO) movement and played in Henry Cow, News from Babel, The (ec) Nudes, P53, Pere Ubu, Hail and The Wooden Birds. A prolific musician, Cutler has countless releases under his own name as well as with John Rose, Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins, Iancu Dumitrescu, Peter Blegvad and Stevan Tickmayer. Other lasting collaborations have included Aqsak Maboul (Belgium), Lussier/Derome and Les Quatre Guitaristes (Canada), The Kalahari Surfers (Africa), Perfect Trouble (Germany), Between (Sweden), N.O.R.M.A. (Italy), Telectu (Portugal), Mieku Shimuzu (Japan),The Hyperion Ensemble (Romania), The Film Music Orchestra, 'Oh Moscow', Gong, The Work and Towering Inferno (UK), The Residents (USA), and stateless Tense Serenity and Mirror Man. Recent projects include Radio pieces with Lutz Glandien and Shelly Hirsch, Live Soundtrack for Carl Dreher's Vampyr (with Italians Musci and Venosta), his Timescales project and work with David Thomas and Linda Thompson.

He is also well known as a music critic and theorist, with numerous writings on music and popular culture. In addition, Cutler is the founder and head of ReR Megacorp (www.megacorp.u-net.com), a record label specializing in avant garde music from around the world. Cutler's status in the UK is roughly equivalent to that of musician and improviser John Zorn and his label, Tzadik, in the US.

CUTLER ON SOLO PERFORMANCES AND LIVE RECORDING: "Why live recording? ...at a concert, the pressure, the public, the physical acoustics and the strict un-alterability of the event make improvisations...a meaningful and social act..."

"It still feels to me as if I am not so much trying to make the instrument do what I want it to do as to discover what it wants - and then argue with it in public. ... Like Dr. Johnson's prospect of being hung at dawn, a solo concert wonderfully focuses the mind. "

DESCRIPTION OF CUTLER'S ELECTRIFIED PERCUSSION KIT "It is a genuine hybrid, part 'pure electronic', part acoustic and part extended acoustic, with a range of aesthetics and techniques borrowed from all three domains."

"There are no samples, pads or triggers, just acoustic drums amplified and modified with standard electronic processors; there's a table with a few tambours, a frying pan and an egg slicer - also amplified -, a miscellaneous collection of sticks, brushes, screw-rods, beaters, violin bows, battery-operated cocktail mixers, some ping pong balls, a fire bell and a massager. All this is run into a small 16 channel mixer and out through various standard pedals and guitar effects."  

For further info, please see: http://www.ccutler.com

"Drum veteran Chris Cutler returns for another dose of percussion and electronics guaranteed to blow your mind. Local electronic ensemble Son of C.O.D. also performs."
- Omar Khalid, Creative Loafing

"Euphonic Productions and the Electric Arts Alliance of Atlanta are two local groups that deserve kudos for bringing an increasingly impressive roster of intriguing left-field music to town."
- Shane Harrison, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Upcoming...
March 22: Molr Drammaz. Eyedrum
March 26: Vandermark Five. The Earl
April 23: Antasten. First Existentialist Congregation

Chris Cutler will also be perform in Athens at The Flicker Theatre & Bar on Tuesday, March 4th. Guitarist Marshall Marrotte and Tony Evans (on alto sax & electronics) open at 8pm. Presented by Low Yo Yo Stuff Records, Clocked! Restaurant and mem proindustry. For further info, call 706-227-6199.