E. Doctor Smith's Blog

One of the Bay area’s best music festivals, The 13th Annual Outsound New Music Summit, July 27–August 2, 2014, returns to the Community Music Center at 544 Capp Street in San Francisco. The New Music Summit is co-presented by KFJC 89.7 FM. Featured during the annual festival will be poets collaborating with unique electro-acoustic settings; a night of experimental guitar solos and duos; a cue-led improvising orchestra, vocal and student workshops, the “Touch the Gear” Expo and acoustic/electric ensembles pushing the edge of sound. Sixteen performances will take place throughout the week, and will include the first poet to experiment with jazz, Ruth Weiss. Dubbed by writer Herb Caen as “the goddess of the beat generation,” Ruth will collaborate with buchla synthesis pioneer Doug Lynner. The Summit will also feature world premieres by the Emergency String (X)tet, the Deconstruction Orchestra; Pitta of the Mind; the world-renowned Henry Kaiser; and the Teddy Rankin-Parker/Daniel Pearce Du...

The new album by The Paul & John has been dubbed “an exciting new collaboration between two of the Bay area’s best musicians; guitarist/vocalist songwriters Paul Myers and John Moremen”, and they wouldn’t be far wrong. Inner Sunset proudly carries the Mystery Lawn Music imprint and is released on three formats, including 180-gram vinyl, on July 15, 2014. Myers & Moremen both sing and play all the guitars on the recording, while John plays the drums and Paul plays the bass and wrote all the lyrics. The two wrote all the songs together over three years at John’s studio in the Inner Sunset district of San Francisco, and then recorded and mixed the best of their collaborations with co-producer Allen Clapp (leader of The Orange Peels) at his Mystery Lawn studio in Sunnyvale, California. Once in the studio, Clapp proved to be a vital third ear in the arranging and presentation of the songs. Upon completion, Grammy nominated mastering engineer Myles Boisen gave the project its final s...