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Saturday, March 01, 2008

Bleak Jam 2008!

Last weekend in the Bit Cave I hosted the most spectacular garage jam in BitWorks Music history, a gathering of 6 area musical innovators to perform at Bleak Jam 2008. True, it was the first garage jam in BWM history, but still a momentous occasion. "Bleak Jam" is a tribute to the "Bleak Strategies - rock ideas for the desperate" card deck developed by most of the musicians present, and we wandered the unknown improvisational universe for several hours. I have barely had a chance to review the recordings, but in the next week or two I will be posting a featured recording as our free download at BitWorks HQ. .. but what is this "Bleak Strategies" you ask? "Bleak Strategies" is our own 50 card tribute to Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies card deck first published in 1975. It is a collection of ideas to inspire and/or amuse musicians in the creative process. We did use the cards during our session, of course, and only time will tell whether we reached new heights, and/or depths. One thing is for sure: everyone had a good time and relatively few animals were harmed during the recording process. PLUS, I managed to clean out the garage!

I have also received the first installment of work from our newest artist, whom I will announce in a few weeks. Hank (oops, I blew the secret already) is going to take BitWorks Music in a new direction and play a critical role in saving the tuniverse from mediocrity, but that is an announcement for another day!

1 comment:

uncle jim said...

Bit Cave - I love it! You should really, really try to do a jam say ...four times a year. Make each one bring subs and chips and the like. Oh, and record it. Yeah. BitWorks could release a series of recordings with a theme...see, I always start thinking about making more music. Should we be waiting to hear some lyrics on top of the '08 tracks? Hmmm?