ASM & HNIA: Come Out The Wilderness

WOW! Woo HOO! I can't WAIT!!!

From the HNIA site:

ASM & HNIA
"COME OUT THE WILDERNESS"

Four performances 19th-21 September in NYC

Anti-Social Music and His Name is Alive join forces for a three-day four-event residency in New York City called COME OUT THE WILDERNESS, starting with a peaceful prayer meditation in a park, ending with a midnight bell jam in the street and with shows at Mercury Lounge and Tonic in between.

Help celebrate INTERNATIONAL PEACE WEEK with punk-chamber music group Anti-Social Music (ASM), and Detroit based band His Name Is Alive (HNIA) who will provide everything from earth-toned outdoor folk music to mountains of extreme sunshine jams. COME OUT THE WILDERNESS is a performance based piece and a three day celebration of peace, nature, wolves, chamber music, and magical vibrations!!!

ARTIST STATEMENT by warn defever
"COME OUT THE WILDERNESS" is performance/event oriented piece that celebrates a child's earliest memories, a primal love/fear of nature, and hope for a peaceful world. It was originally conceived as a "peace conference."

In 1972, when I was three years old, my mother gave birth to twin boys. Several monthes later during a Labor Day vacation, my family was visiting relatives in the Upper Pennisula of Michigan, and one of the twins, Michael, was attacked and killed by a wolf, commonly found in the northern region of the state. His brother, Matthew, survived somehow. Upon arriving back in the Detroit area and shortly following the funeral, my parents changed my middle name to Michael, as a sort of memorial. This experience is one of my earliest memories.

In 2002, I attended a "peace walk" led by Thich Nhat Hanh, a gentle monk from Vietnam whose vaguely Buddhist writings teach that world peace can only be brought about through individual internal transformation. The deceptively simplistic nature of this act profoundly affected my life.

In 2005, I found a folk song, performed by Mississippi Fred MacDowell called Come Out Of The Wilderness, in which the Wilderness seems to be a metaphor for living without religion in your life. The Wilderness as depicted in the Bible is where Jesus is tested for 40 days and where the Israelites spend 40 years on their journey to the Promised Land. In my piece the Wilderness is not a metaphor but simply refers to nature, the woods, organic food, and drinking fermented "muddy water out of a hollow log."

NOTES
1. A peace walk is a form of non-violent protest in which protesters march a distance, often to raise money for a charity.
2. HIS NAME IS ALIVE are a difficult band to categorize. Their sound is constantly evolving. Their sound is consistently unique. They made their name with expressionistic experiments for the 4ad label. Later music is guided by more graceful concerns.
3. Wilderness is defined by the State of Michigan as "non-managed, roadless areas."
4. COME OUT THE WILDERNESS is not a "staged" event, it is participatory and requires very few materials.

19th PEACE WALK at noon
*introduction/ initiation + silent meditation in the park in the sunrays*
Empire-Fulton Ferry Park

19th EXTREME CONCERT
*HNIA / ASM live sets, come early, bring tambourines*
Mercury Lounge MANHATTAN

20th QUIET NIGHT
*ASM performs "After Devil's Night" by Warn Defever*
Tonic MANHATTAN
with The Naysayer and Nanang Tatang

21st MIDNIGHT BELL JAM
*conclusion celebration in the street at midnight*
Meet at the corner of Stanton and Ludlow in the street in MANHATTAN
Margaritas to go!!! Bring a bell!!!

COME OUT THE WILDERNESS is supported in part by Meet the Composer's Creative Connections Program, NYSCA, and the Meet the Composer JPMorganChase Fund for Small Ensembles.