Awesome Music

Well this is certainly heavy in the awesome. The fine folks over at NPR are now streaming Brian Eno's latest album Small Craft On A Milk Sea up until it's November 2nd release. It's never really easy to describe an Eno album, so let's hear it straight from the man's mouth.

''The work in this collection is a result of an occasional collaboration between myself, Leo Abrahams and Jon Hopkins. The two of them are gifted young player/composers whose work, like mine, is intimately connected to the possibilities and freedoms of electronic music. Over the last few years we've worked together several times, enjoying exploring the huge new sonic territories now available to musicians. Mostly the pieces on this album resulted not from 'composition' in the classical sense, but from improvisation. The improvisations are not attempts to end up with a song, but rather with a landscape, a feeling of a place and perhaps the suggestion of an event. In a sense they deliberately lack 'personality': there is no singer, no narrator, no guide as to what you ought to be feeling. If these pieces had been used in films, the film would complete the picture. As they stand, they are the mirror-image of silent movies - sound-only movies.''

There's like six pretty awesome album titles in that description but I guess someone was craving some dairy. The NPR article goes a little bit more in depth to how Eno met guitarist Leo Abrahams with the latter claiming Eno "was happy I wasn't playing 'Stairway to Heaven' with the amp turned up to 11.  (So) he invited me to play on his album." Wait a minute, I thought playing Stairway at 11 was standard protocol for meeting musical luminaries. So not playing Stairway works? Here I am like a fool honing up on my Stairway intro, getting ready to make a trip to Guitar Center. I guess I better freshen up my Aqualung.

Not to take anything away from the amazing work the Umphrey's McGee team has been doing in regards to fan and band interaction, but this is probably the coolest band/fan thingy I've ever heard of. For those of you that like to make the music and happen to be fans of any (or all) of the work Mike Gordon has done, you might just want to go and get yourselves a clean pair of shorts as this next bit of news is pretty darn fantabulous. Let's copy and paste so as not to lose any awesome in translation.

You're invited to "The Mossery," a free-form musical event on the eve of the release of Mike Gordon's new studio album Moss. The event will take place at a fully transformed Kenny's Castaway on Monday, October 18th in New York City. There's no cost to get in and you can come, explore and leave as you please. Guests will have the chance to pick up Mike's new album, Moss, which hits stores on Tuesday.

Attendees will have the opportunity to play along, with Mike on bass. We supply the instruments and mikes and you show up. We can't guarantee that everyone will get to (it's first come, first served), but we'll rotate as many willing participants through as possible, because a rolling stone gathers no moss.

The first half of the event will start at 7:30pm and continue through 9:00pm, at which point we'll rotate out all folks, making room for the next flock of people. The second half of the event, with all new participants, will begin at 9:30pm and continue through 11:00pm.

So yeah, you can jam with Cactus. For serious and for free. Not to mention you get to pick up his new album Moss a day early. And you get to jam with Cactus. Did I mention Mike will be on bass and you can play with him. If I somehow manage to hit the lottery tonight I'm moving to New York by Monday. One important question remains though, will the supplied instruments include a keytar? Everyone knows I only play with things I can strap around my neck. That's what she said.

For more information on The Mossery and all around awesomeness head on over to Mike's killer website. Also if anyone actually makes it out to this event and wants to share their experience or pictures please let us know. Can't wait to hear how it goes.