Performing in "The Rootabaga Opera" at this year's Crucible Fire Arts Festival

This is that project I've been feverishly rehearsing for these days. Not to be missed:

The 2009 Fire Arts Festival will feature the world premiere of Dan Cantrell's Rootabaga Opera, a narrative musical presentation inspired by the children’s stories of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and treasured American folk music historian Carl Sandburg. This one-act musical journey weaves individual stories into a narrative arc staged in a theatrical format. The material will be informed by the diasporic culture of American immigrants during the dramatic turning of the 19th century as seen through Sandburg’s stories.

Through a unique blend of early American, Chinese, and Eastern European music, this opera will explore the roots of the Bay Area’s musical and cultural identity. Compositions will be complimented by an interdisciplinary collaboration of fire arts, puppetry, dance and theater. The piece will reflect the ideas, characters and text found in Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories and his collections of American folk music while venturing into new areas of collaboration and musical exploration based on the interaction of the diverse range of performers.

The musical ensemble, directed and conducted by Emmy award-winning composer Dan Cantrell, will feature some of the Bay Area’s finest talent in a dynamic and ethnically diverse folk orchestra. Featured artists will include women's vocal ensemble Kitka, renowned for their specialized vocal technique, described as exotic, elegant and eerie. Co-directors, Larry Reed and Christine Marie of ShadowLight Productions will add another layer to the production with giant projected shadows featuring metal shadow puppets created by Mark Bulwinkle.

The commissioning and production of this world premiere is made possible by The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Emerging Composers 2007 Initiative.

Summer Solstice show at Amensia this Sunday, June 21st

I'm very glad and grateful to be performing with two of my dearest friends --Dan Cantrell and Rachel Brice-- and some other phenomenally talented people this Sunday the 21st at a small, red club in San Francisco called Amnesia.

Danny and Bricey are bringing together percussionist Faisal Zedan, singer Lily Storm and myself for the first time to perform a little bit o' Greek, some Egyptian, a touch of French musette and some Hungarian and Roma-inspired original compositions.

We go on around 9pm. Bring your dancing shoes.

Season One of "The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack" Now Available on DVD

Young Flapjack embraces the carnage.

A while back, my talented chum Dan Cantrell landed a gig as the score composer for one of Cartoon Network's most popular new animated children's shows, and enlisted me to play violin. The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack is the cracked brainchild of Thurop Van Orman (previously a writer for Powerpuff Girls). I'm at a loss to describe Thurop's vision properly, but if you were to picture Ren & Stimpy and Spongebob Squarepants style shenanigans unfolding in a beautifully demented watercolor Treasure Island setting, you wouldn't be too far wrong.


Flapjack is an innocent young cuss with an unquenchable thirst for adventure on the high seas. He's being raised by a somewhat overprotective blue whale named Bubbie, and his best friend/partner in crime is a scraggly, no-pants-wearin' pirate with two peg legs who goes by Captain K'nuckles. Hilarity and high jinks ensue.

In addition to being gorgeously drawn and painted, Flapjack is rife with non sequitur, uncomfortable silence and gross-out humor, so I thought you perverts might appreciate a heads up. We've been working on --and giggling over-- this weirdness for months now. (Wish I could show you the Tentacular Lovecraftian Horror episode. So warped.)


Nothing says quality children's programming quite like a pair of hairy, floppy, tattooed man teats. Unless it's fart jokes. Flapjack has plenty of both.

The first season of Flapjack will become available on DVD on Sept 15th. Folks with children they'd like to irrevocably warp, as well as young-at-heart types with a hankering for "ADVENTURRRRE!!!" are highly encouraged to pick it up.

Playing "Bella Ciao" with HUMANWINE 3/09

Performing with beloved HUMANWINE at the Baxtalo Drom party in San Francisco, March 2009. These guys are old chums, but we only started playing together recently, in a decidedly seat-of-the-pants, fly-by-night kind of way. In fact, this is only the second time (in performance OR rehearsal) that I'd played "Bella Ciao" with them all the way through, and the very first time we EVER ran through "Intoxicated" with theremin!



For a classically trained monkey like me, it can be such a relief to just say "aw, fuggit" once in a while, and play things loose, raw and improvised without endless drilling and fuss. Especially with swashbucklers like Holly and M@. Thanks to Cindy Emch for capturing these.