(le) poisson rouge

Guillermo Brown and his godfather, James, share more than a surname. A groove expert lauded by Billboard magazine for his “counterpoint poly-rhythms” and “funky breaks,” Guillermo E. Brown, the former Wesleyan University music student, swaggers to the beat of his own drum. As with James, this transcends music. Rather, it is a mode of thinking - one that combines cut-up imagery with booty-shaking soundscapes, diverse and familiar. It’s a mode that doubles as Guillermo’s latest album title, “Shuffle Mode.” After a decade’s work within the confounding paradigms of free jazz, experimental hip hop, new world music, art rock, and indie electronica, Brown bounds for transformation. Informed, in part, by his past partners/collaborators including David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Dave Burrell, Anti-Pop Consortium, El P, Spring Heel Jack, Carl Hancock Rux, George Lewis, Vernon Reid, & DJ Logic among others, Guillermo E. Brown has earned his stripes and omni-rhythmic identity at once. Off the drum throne, Brown remains a futuristic and theatrical force. Acting, writing, and singing in his one-man theatre piece, “Robeson In Space,” co-producing in Mike Ladd’s Negrophilia, vocalizing and handling electro-percussion duties in Vijay Iyer’s “Still Life with Commentator” at BAM, twiddling knobs with Matthew Shipp in Telephone Popcorn and designing twisted beatscapes for Grisha Coleman’s echo::system; these are some of the duties managed by Brown, the non-drummer. The multi-talented Brown has even moved with best of them in Marlies Yearby’s Movin Spirits Dance Theatre and Bill T. Jones’ The Fela Kuti Project. Brown’s phonographic breadth can be heard on over 30 recordings including his own albums Soul at the Hands of the Machine, The Beat Kids' “Open Rhythm System”, “Black Dreams 1.0,” “…Is Arturo Klauft,” and “Handeheld.” BiLLLL$ is an outstanding new musical project that sees Guillermo sharing duties with William Johnson (aka Gordon Voidwell) hence the 4 L's of the band name. As enticing as as a risk free trip to inner-outer-space, BiLLLL$ cast Brown and his cohorts Johnson and Cochemea Gastelum (aka Johnnny Arrow) in the director's chair. Here in the BiLLLL$ dimension expect absolute supreme dopeness. In addition to Shuffle Mode and BiLLLL$, Brown looks forward to releasing The Beat Kids' 2nd release “Sound Magazine”, continuing work on his ensemble performance piece Syrup, The Cut Up Quintet, and Breuklen Tek Orchestra. Brown’s version for a better tomorrow includes dealing dub to teens in the Chelsea neighborhood of NYC, better living through arts and literacy to little ones in the Lower East Side, workshopping with Italian drummers & beat-making with OH middle schoolers & think-tanking/critiquing students in the Clive Davis Dept. of Recorded Music and the Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

High Priest is known for "Evoking images of Sun Ra and Africa Bambatta at once (Jesse Sewer XLR8or). As the founding member of the critically acclaimed Antipop Consortium, Priest has consistently challenged the boundaries of traditional hip-hop, winning the praise of taste makers across the globe. In the course of his career, spanning nearly a decade, Priest has shared the stages with a wide array of artists ranging from The Roots to Radiohead ,Mos Def and others. As a composer his pieces have been installed in the Whitney Biennial (NYC) as well as the Mazzoli Gallery (ITALY)-

This is from a weird first person perspective. I have one written from 3rd but think this is better! Hope it works!:

Hi, I’m Neil! I’m writing all this! We started in the fall of 2007 as a sort of dance theater project. I wrote a dance opera based loosely on Shakespeare’s Othello. Jesse and I performed this twice to generally favorable reviews. While I enjoyed this I wanted to do something better, something more interactive. I realized that the concerts I was having the most fun at were the ones where I felt directly involved, concerts I went to not to watch but to dance and sing along to. Sadly this was something that I found to be really uncommon in New York; it was really rare that I went to concert and felt like it was okay to move around and be myself. So I decided that I wanted to make a band that was a band that people went to concerts of not just because they had good songs or Pitchfork liked them, but because they knew that they would have a fucking blast at their show! A love for costuming, lights, inflatables and other spectacle soon all made their way into the epic hurricane of love mayhem that is The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt! We’re less than two years old but we’ve grown in leaps and bounds. Our band has expanded to include members who operate huge lighting backpacks and chandeliers (think recreating the spectacle of Daft Punk with $16 at a flea market with some help from an oriental trading magazine and a lot of duck tape.) people in charge of leading sing alongs and choreographed dances, and Jesse, who does everything from strip to invite people to spar him in the corner of the venue.

I think the hardest aspect of the running this band is just trying to describe it to people. Basically we show up with a billion lights, bags and bags of costumes (enough for anyone who wants one), 60 or more light sabers and really good songs, grab some mics and say “look, this is your time; you chose to be here, you probably paid your hard earned money to be here: don’t you dare walk out that door without having the best night of your life! All these things are at your disposal, we’ll help! We’re going to throw an awesome dance party, run around and scream about how fucking cool it is to finally kiss that person you’ve been crushing on for months, how there is nothing better than partying until 5 in the morning when you have to be up for work at 7 and how your friends are so fucking great, and there’s no doubt that you’d be absolutely fucking dead if they weren’t in your life to clean you off when you get shit on. Tonight there is no such thing as uncool. If you really want to hug a wall that’s fine! But if you’ve got a dance in your feet and a song in your heart then you fucking go for it!”

And the best part is that it works. It happens. People come out of their shells and go nuts! We’ve had shows where we just hand the mics over to people in the crowd mid song cause the harmonies they’re singing are so beautiful. People bust out insane moves! People put together the most incredible outfits! And you have no idea how good sword fighters people are! At the end of it people always come up to me and ask me what the name of our band is and who’s in it, and every time I say “we’re the terror pigeon dance revolt! and every single person in this room is in it!”

Dave Sharma is an internationally-renowed percussionist and producer, and a member of NYC's Sub Swara crew. Dave's worked with an extremely diverse list of artists, including international tours with Moby, Sub Swara, Delhi 2 Dublin and DJ Rekha; recording sessions with Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Dayne, and jazz pioneer Guillermo Brown; and performances with Cheap Trick, Zila Khan (daughter of Ud. Vilayat Khan), Kailash Kher and many, many others. He was a lead percussionist in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Bombay Dreams," and also worked on Disney's Tarzan on Broadway.

As an award-winning producer and remixer, Dave has recorded with Universal artists the Rapture, and is a member of electronic group Sub Swara, whos 2008 debut LP Coup d’Yah garnered praise from the BBC, TimeOut NY, Metro UK, Rolling Stone, and XLR8R magazine. As an educator, Dave has taught with the Weill Institute at Carnegie Hall, the Mark Morris Dance Company, and through Midori and Friends, and has lectured at NYU, Columbia University, and Dartmouth University.