Witchbeam

Last year we were asked by Dan Smith to play his Neon Marshmallow fest in Chicago. It seemed a bit far fetched, but hey, we need to get out to Chicago to visit some friends anyways, can stop on the way to visit other friends, so yeah, we were stoked. Then we found out that Matt Kimmel of Acid Marshmallow fame was involved and it sealed the deal. He has been a major supporter of Telecult since our earliest NYC gigs, so yeah…

Really amazing New York bands such as Grasshopper, Excepter, EID, Rust Worship, Girly Temple, Slasher Risk, Family Treasures are going, so that will be hot. Cleveland has a good showing with Emeralds & Skin Graft, looking forward to that. Surprised no Fragments, and where is Sam Goldberg? Expect to hear terms like “electro-accoustic” thrown around, yawn.

I grabbed this schedule from Impose but according to Kimmel they switched the orders around to reflect their personal tastes a bit, so I tweaked Saturday
night’s back to the original from what Matt told me, sure the real one will unveil itself soon enough tho.

Please note that we are playing twice, first a Telecult Powers set on Saturday night, then a Hex Breaker Quintet set on Sunday afternoon.

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Check out some Hex Breaker Quintet Jams @ the Free Music Archive –

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Hex_Breaker_Quintet/

“Anthony’s Grandma Said We Jammmmed”

“You Need to Learn to Live in Three Dimensions, Before You Think About Living in Ten”

Pendu presents: NY EYE & EAR FEST.

Check Hexbreaker Quintet Telecult’s super group with Grasshopper at the NY Eye & Ear, most likely the only NYC performance for most of the summer. Will be playing the Champagne of Fests IV in Cleveland in July.

Just as exciting, make sure you check Hex Breaker Quintet on Wm. Berger’s My Castle of Quiet April 28th @ 8 pm. Live on air!

http://my-castle-of-quiet.blogspot.com/2010/04/hex-breaker-muthafuckin-quintet.html

Check it out, just finished. Thanks Brian for giving me the opportunity to make something beautiful.

Hey, Excepter are on the cover of the new issue of The Wire, and because we are raging capitalists we shoved cigars in Dan, Jon, Jeff, Lala, Nathan & Clare’s collective face, had them sign a contract and rushed to put out their new tape Equinox to cash in.

You can sample a side (though super compressed) here, Mr. Wm. Berger of My Castle of Quiet was kind enough to play some of it on his radio show on WFMU.

Find out how to order your copy over at the Temple of Pei website.

Speaking of, this Saturday April 17th Telecult Powers will be jamming as sort of a bigger Virginal Volcanoes (this time with wives involved) with Excepter offshoot act Seth at 929 Broadway/Party Expo/Outerspace ways, Inc. Should be weird and fun. Early show, from 7-10. Expect a long set. Or should that be Except?

New illustration for Justin Farrar’s radio show Kill The Head, on Fridays, 5 to 7 p.m. (eastern), you can check it out at www.ashevillefm.org

We went out with Mark & Sam for a few days last week, played Brooklyn’s Death By Audio (as Hex Breaker Quintet), Wesleyan College, Hampshire College and Bard. Someone was kind enough to film our sets -

Telecult Powers

Radio People (Sam Goldberg)

Mark McGuire

New Batch NOW ON SALE! These cassettes

Excepter – Equinox C40 – TOP 12 – ER 21

1. In my head I have written a description of Excepter using all sorts of flowery prose saying that they are dark bishops in a contemporary age of enlightenment and carry a torch passed from Roman mystery religions to the Gnostics to their hermetic brethren to the Ifá cults. Instead of a rant like that I think it would be more appropriate to say that Matthew and I are proud to release their latest tape entitled Equinox. 40 minutes of mindzap electronique, many more moments of beauty than grotesque, fluid, meaningful. No jokes, no pranks. No trappings of any genre. – Witchbeam, in a fever dream hovering over Crow Hill, March 20th 2010.

Side A: “EQUINOX” recorded at Glasslands Gallery NYC
Side B: “PROJECT ROOM” recorded at Issue Project Room NYC
All music by Excepter: Ryan, Corbin, Amory, Hougland, Nicholson, Ryan

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2. Technicians of the Divine Vol. 2 C30 TOP 13
Virginal Volcanoes – Whiskey on the Rocks
On Tuesday, August 24th, 2009 an obscure fraternity was born between Telecult Powers & John Fell Ryan of Excepter. Transplutonian communication was attempted via liquid instead of the vacuum of space. JFR took the role as the houngan, Mr. Matthews as the host. Witchbeam most likely lost his mind. This recording is the result.

Clouds Without Water – Lord of Unbalanced Force
Clouds WIthout Water is Brian Butler, a musician, magician, writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He performs in a duo with the legendary Kenneth Anger called Technicolor Skull. He recently premiered “Night of Pan”, a film starring Vincent Gallo in a dark ritual that “symbolizes the stage of ego death in the process of spiritual attainment.” I first came across his work when I read the excellent Marjory Cameron article in the Disinfo Book of Lies.

http://www.brianbutler.org

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3. Fluxmonkey – The Man in the Yellow Hat Serves Imperialism C40 TOP 14
Some know him as Fluxmonkey, Flar calls him Luigi Bob & his email says Bbob Drake, all point to Cleveland’s synth building wizard king. I have a great memory of looking across the camping field during the Voice of the Valley last summer and seeing all the great Cleveland freaks of past/present/future sitting in his dojo – Bee Mask – Emeralds – Sam Goldberg – Fragments – Thursday Club – Mr. Matthews – J. Guy – all were at the feet of the master and enjoying his coffee.

This is his first solo release, he had been biding his time, making something beautiful. We couldn’t be happier to release it in our temple.

Check him out online – http://www.fluxmonkey.com – Check out that wall.

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4. Lil John to Chew Root TOP 15
Just Judgment – Increase Wealth – Break Hexes (Keep in pocket to curse go back) – Sold as a Curio Only
Just as important to the Temple of Pei’s music is its theories and practice of Hooodootronix, our special blend of noise, hoodoo rootwork, mysteries, candle magic, & espiritismo. We are thrilled to unveil our first root, the Lil John to Chew. It has been alleged to be a swayer of jurys and a bringer of good luck; you can’t go wrong with one in your pocket. Telecult Powers swear by this lucky little root to help open cosmic gateways and you should too. Each package is anointed with Little John’s older brother, High John the Conqueroo oil.

1 Tape 8 US/ 10 Rest of the World
2 Tapes 15 US/19 Rest of the World
3 Tapes 22 US/27 Rest of the World
3 Tapes + Root – 23 US

Root – $4 US Not available Europe

Paypal – telecult.powers@gmail.com Between 11 PM EST & 10 AM EST please email first to check availability. If available I will put reserve it for you until the morning.

Temple of Pei has a new batch of tapes coming out on Saturday, including one from Excepter, a split between Virginal Volcanoes and Brian Butler, and an amazing new one by Fluxmonkey. That’s right kids, the first official solo release by one of Cleveland’s greatest noise artists, and if you know anything about the scene in CLE you know that is a ridiculously bold statement.

Which leads me to…

So I met Genesis P-Orridge the other day. I was stumbling around trying to find this abandoned ballroom that I keep hearing about and bumped right into her. We chatted a bit, but almost immediately after I saw this place and laughed and laughed and laughed:

So yeah, if you know why this image is related to my little story, send me an email with your postal address to witchbeam@gmail.com and tell me why.

Whoa, Jason & Jack got in on this action, early. They should expect some extras too! Whoo hoo.

Fine print – first two people. US only, I’m super broke, sorry Europe, etc! Oh, and if you have won any other contests, you’re not eligible.

Every time we play Philadelphia the cops are involved. The first time at Pifas they came out because an alleged prostitute escaped from a violent “john” in front of the venue, the second time the cops were looking for  a goth nazi and now on January 15th a police officer got shot next door to the venue we were playing at. WTF Philly? I’ve lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for the last 3 years and have played countless shows in this city and have dealt with police a total of zero times.

Anyways, Broad Channel Bill rolled down via Chinatown bus and took some rad video.

We were lucky enough to share the stage with Bee Mask & God Willing doing a cool collaboration, hope there are more soon, and Outer Space, which were John Elliot & Jeff Hatfield from Fragments for this sesher.