Happy Year of the Wood Snake

Ummm, hello! So, the last four years huh? 

A few weeks ago we had the annual David Berman January 4th birthday tribute show at Bowery Ballroom; always great to see old friends and play those songs. As Gate says it's a sad reason but a good feeling to celebrate David and his works.

Now it's the Year of the Wood Snake, which I understand to be about moving forward in a thoughtful and efficient way towards the future you want, from a place of calm stability. While calm stability might be a tall order these days, at least focusing on practical matters towards playing more music feels achievable, and something that is at least a net positive in the world.

Anyway, given the desirability of decentralizing social media as a way to communicate about music things, and given that there are music things coming up to communicate about, I thought I'd revive this, and add an email list function so you don't have to remember to religiously check www.johnlindaman.com each morning with your coffee. Sound good? 

We've got some stuff coming up: TLA show in Brooklyn on 3/1 with me and Matt and Clara Salyer on bass, and then I'm glomming on to a tour of Japan in May with Gary Olson, organized by great friend Kenji Sekioka; for that I'll be playing TLA and bossa nova stuff on nylon string and Clara will back me up on organ. So that's about 1000% more activity than last year and the goal is to keep the ball moving! Let's stay in touch about it!

ENSORCELLED, more stuff

So I'm not that great at updating this page, we can all agree on that. But there are a few things to point out since the last time I posted here!

Hampus and I, as Center For Whatever, have a new cassettte called ENSORCELLED (here is the bandcamp: https://centerforwhatever.bandcamp.com/album/ensorcelled), and our pal Rob Sheffield did a very generous blurb about it for his employer, a scrappy little zine called Rolling Stone. I'll reprint an excerpt here for those of you who can't get behind the paywall:

[...] Lindaman hits a new zenith with Center for Whatever, his collaboration with electro whiz Hampus Öhman-Frölund. Center for Whatever debuted with the superb Boogie Spiderland, featuring gems like “Receiving Transmission From Beyond Van Halen Belt.” Ensorcelled is an amazing peak of shamanic guitar brilliance, “dark improvisational magic” infused with 1970s metal: Frippertronics meets Cultösaurus Erectus. Best song title: “How Soon Is This It?” As always, the cassette is the way to go. R.S."

In fact, I see that our debut release Boogie Spiderland *also* came out since the last time I updated this, so how about just picking up both of those? As Rob says, get the cassettes. Sorry! As he mentions, I also released a solo joint called Majoring in the Minors, which has no cassette edition, but that shouldn't stop you from buying it and copying it onto the cassette of your choice.

More soon--more CFW, more shows, more people being inside a room listening to music this fall.

Together: amazing new comp on Oxtail Recordings to benefit SURJ Charlottesville

Proud to be a part of this amazing compilation. Mike Nigro over at Oxtail Recordings has made Together, a 2-cassette comp to benefit Showing Up for Racial Justice Charlottesville, as a response to all the racist garbage that has decided to roost in my old town. 

You can pick one up here, and enjoy 28 tracks that will be a rosetta stone of weird music for future generations, as well as donate to a really good organization. My track, Peripheral Heart Activity, is one of my favorites in my recent series of improvisations using randomly generated note names, and I'm honored to be among these other greats.

Let The Power Fall Again: New Album, New Year, New You

Looks like I've been remiss in updating this thing, but it's a whole new year! Okay it was a month ago, part of the problem here. But since last we spoke, I put out a cassette on the amazing Oxtail Recordings with the astounding Luciernaga, did a bunch of shows with those guys and my main man Hampus Öhman-Frölund, and saw a bunch of other people play some amazing shows. 

Now I've got a new one for you: Let The Power Fall Again, which is my cover of the album "Let The Power Fall" by Robert Fripp. It's the first cassette in my new Next Guest series, and my first self-released cassette in like 25 years, so why don't you go pick up a copy? The cassette part is a limited edition of 25 , with unique hand-made paper packaging for each one. (You can also just buy the digital version if you are one of those people who doesn't even have a cassette player anymore, but I personally find it more enjoyable to have a physical object connected with a release, so I would probably buy it even if I didn't have a cassette player.)

The original album is one of my all-time favorites, and in recent years I've really felt a push to engage with it in a more direct way; hopefully it speaks to you the way it speaks to me.

Up next in the Next Guest series: a cassette split with Nightgown, coming in early March.

Show tomorrow, new album in a few days!

Hi everyone, just a quick note to say happy new year, happy lunar new year, happy Valentine's Day, and that I'm playing tomorrow with my main man Hampus Öhman-Frölund at ABC No Rio at 7pm. Que romantico! Also the new TLA record is out on February 19th--you can pre-order it here: http://teenbeat.net/items/559.html

(And I suggest that you do pre-order, because it will certainly sell out in seconds.) We're working on getting some spring TLA shows together--more soon!

2015: finish strong!

"Finish strong!" was what my tae kwon do teacher told me right before I tore all the tendons in my shoulder. But that's what I'm gonna do now! 

Three shows in December, in three cities, in three different musical contexts!
2015-12-5 | JL solo guitar at Grand Banks cassette release party, Hensley's in the Ix Art Park, Charlottesville VA

2015-12-7 | JL and Hampus instrumental duo at Troost in Greenpoint, NYC

2015-12-28 | True Love Always (duo version with JL and MD) at Teen-Beat Holiday Extravaganza with Jonny Cohen's Love Machine and Cotton Candy, at the Galaxy Hut in Arlington VA.

(Also note that this will be a kind of pre-release show for the new TLA EP "Return of the Wild Style Fashionists", coming out on February 19; come down and grab a copy before it hits the streets.)

Fall into Winter Sale

Okay, so there's not actually a sale or anything, other than that I have a new solo guitar album up on the Bandcamp. It's called Black Gold , and it was recorded when I played exactly one year ago today at Black Gold Records with The Hands Free. Jascha Narveson, who is a genius in his own right, was a complete gentleman and recorded my set, so I'm just gonna pay it forward here. Which is to say I will allow you to pay a small amount of money to own it.

Also coming up--an amazing show December 5th in Charlottesville Virginia. It's the cassette release for Grand Banks' new opus on Oxtail Recordings, and there's gonna be some real heavy hitters, so I highly advise quitting your job and going to Charlottesville for this one. 

More shows in the works as well, both TLA and solo guitar-style. See you in the pit!