Talibam performs with Uncle Woody Sullender on avant banjo blues and special guests guitarist Chris Forsyth (peeesseye), drummer Mike Pride (Dynamite Club, Fushitsusha, etc), and Michael Evans (one man percussion wonder).
Talibam: Think Media Dream-vintage Sun Ra organ blow-outs locking in with saxophone feedback and a single Plunderphonic-ed Keith Moon drum fill for 40 minutes. Or, imagine Andy Kaufman sitting in on keyboards with Borbetomagus at next year’s ABC No Rio benefit.
Whoa.
Talibam is three people. Matt Mottel’s visage should be familiar to anyone who’s been going to shows in NYC in the past 8 years. He’s been hanging around NYC clubs since he was like 16, and dropping electric mind bombs with his synthesizer in those clubs nearly as long. Kevin Shea’s drumming and stage gymnastics have been gazed at with wide wonder through his membership in bands like Storm & Stress (Touch & Go), Coptic Light (No Quarter), and People (I and Ear). And Ed Bear plays the baritone saxophone like ron Asheton, and lives in his girlfriend’s dorm room at Bard College.
Under the not-so-clever moniker of Uncle Woody Sullender, Woody Wullender performs improvised banjo music, playing with and against the cultural symbol of his chosen instrument. While alluding to the “traditional” musics of his home states of Virginia and North Carolina, he explores a diverse plane of plucked string music from around the world as well as incorporating punk, noise, free jazz, etc. In 2004, he collaborated with sound artist Maryanne Amacher, incorporating his banjo recordings into “TEO! A sonic sculpture” which won the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica. Although heavily involved in Chicago’s free improvisation community, this is Sullender’s first solo performance in New York since recently relocating to Brooklyn.