#i'm gurdis but call me garden

[evi-ula]

MORE D&D CONTENT LESGOOO

so somehow my dad got hold of a (secondhand?? i think???) d&d campaign thingy whatever and was like Hey Wouldn't It Be Fun If We Did This As A Family

so you guys don't know my family we have:

no imagination 1

no imagination 2

gets bored every 2 seconds

me

my dad (the dm)

i'm the only one who's played D&D

so we get out our pre-made characters fresh from the factory (though i change a few details on mine to make them less boring) and we go through the campaign and it's the most dull thing ever

this is not least because i am the only one who knows how this game works AND ONE OF MY CHARACTER'S TRAITS IS "DOESN'T LIKE TAKING AUTHORITY IN SITUATIONS"

in the end to make things interesting i cast thaumaturgy to try to convince some guys that i am the voice of god and to release some wolves in their base and then sacred flame on the one who disagrees to make it look like they have just been struck down by god (i love a good cantrip)

AND NO IMAGINATION BUDDIES WERE LIKE WHY DID YOU DO THAT. NOW WE WILL BE EATEN BY WOLVES

as if i would not rather be eaten by wolves.

we were not by the way. I LITERALLY FED THEM EARLIER THEY LIKED ME.

[trevorbarre]

Sheffield Notes and Sounds: Part Two

A shout-out now to the musicians who played on Monday night at the University Arms in Sheffield, a pleasantly old-fashioned pub, with screamingly vivid and gaudy carpeting and a large garden to boot. The upstairs room is a good size and ideal for this sort of music, although the lighting is rather harsh.

The first trio was intriguingly called 'The Gathering...The Chewing" (shades of Maggie Nichols?), and played two 'sets', separated by a change of instrumentation, and all three players used their voices effectively to embellish the overall sound. Gillian Whiteley started off with a hurdy gurdy (I haven't seen this instrument in such a setting since Keiji Haino) before picking up the accordion (Gillian clearly doesn't run with the pack) and a viola (channelling John Cale at times, I thought). Geoff Bright excelled himself on the bass saxophone in the first half, playing with a fleetness I didn't think possible on such a huge reed instrument, which I reckon that I last seen in action many years ago, in an Anthony Braxton performance. For the second half, he switched to soprano, at the diametric opposite end of the saxophone family; the whole set being interspersed throughout by Geoff's most effective chanting and vocal dynamics in general. Double bassist Max Munday is, in a separate reality, a member of Sheffield rock group Reverend and the Makers, and is considerable younger than the others. He stuck to the bass for the whole performance, and was certainly the most kinetic musician of the night, regularly 'dancing' with his instrument, giving the great John Edwards a run for his money in the process. He also bought some younger members of the audience along for the ride.

The second trio, revelling in the rather punkish name Gorse, featured Sheffield veteran John Jasnoch, who I have previously known for his guitar work, but on this night, the strings he played were attached to a tamboura, a bass banjo and a mandolin, an eclectic and exotic mix which he embellished with pre-recorded tapes (thereby creating an ambience which reminded me at times of the work of AMM's guitarist Keith Rowe), and even a harmonica interlude for good measure. Adam Woolf, sitting in the middle of things literally and figuratively, started with a clarinet passage, proceeding on to bass recorder (these musicians certainly gave us a dose of Whitney Balliet's "Sound of Surprise"), tin whistle (last seen played by Spider Stacey of The Pogues) and a mini-tambourine. Pete White was similarly playful in his approach, combining his violin with an accordion (again!), some vocalese and various percussion.

This description fails to do justice to the sheer eclecticism on display on the night, and I do hope that Notes and Sounds continues to offer the same level of originality and fun that was displayed on Monday night. (I'm sure that I haven't fully itemised all of the 'little instruments' that were on display and that would even have given the great Alterations a run for their money.) Sheffield definitely deserves to receive more recognition for it's contribution to UK free improvisation.