Ars Vivende by The Abstractions

Featuring musicians Ernesto Diaz-Infante, acoustic guitar/vocals/4-track; Rent Romus, reeds/electronics; Dina Emerson, vocals; Matt Davignon, turntable/sampler; Bob Marsh, vibes/cello/voice; Phillip Everett, drums/percussion; Lance Grabmiller, laptop/processing; C.J. Reaven Borosque, noise predals; Marjorie Sturm, flute/lyrics; Marina Lazzara, elec. guitar; Sandor Finta, vocals (Los Angeles); Alwyn Quebido, elec. guitar; Jesse Quattro, vocals; and Scott Looney, percussion.

Lyrics...

The Bitter Undiscovered Alienated (male) Genius Club

the bitter undiscovered

alienated (male)

genius club

meets tuesdays @ 5:00

finally, it's love and only love

met as the answer

to homicidal despots

who havn't learned to turn

voodoo

tricks in bed like

you do.

there isn't a hardcost realization

that doesn't drive us

to some forgotten memory

you don't pay for

cause the purpose is perpendicular

the liberation of sound & soul

cult of passion

parallel to the shared reality of

squares, diamonds, measurements

piecemeal preparations

undergone

after the infinite war of petty egos

calculating wins & losses

the ineffable treachery of

common law

sonic substitution

drunk

like the Last Great Love

inward idealism

of the perturbed & perverted

hugged & held

for it's consistent vitality

cast out & forward

the last remains of

what is not

corporately controlled.

©2003 Marjorie Sturm

Cultivate The Voices In The Wilderness

cultivate the voices in the wilderness

perceive a universal truth

feel feeble and corrupt

secrete the prospects of democracy

chisel tall green forests

cast rolling yellow hills

dispose of individual liberty

take care of worldly philosophers and anarchists

kneel to unorthodox

visions of the mind

bow to profound insights

crawl toward unraveling

arrange ideas shaped

silence freedom

stifle words and images

muzzle the inner light of

the human spirit

hush the sweetness of tone

cultivate the voices in the wilderness

©2003 Ernesto Diaz-Infante

The Thread

Through all of my living nightmares

and waking daydreams

there is a thread

that won't break

no matter how hard i pull it

the tension on the thread

is always changing

and i measure my day by it

daring to watch myself

awaken

i watch myself awaken

uplift a candle

that has fallen

was forgotten before sleep.

then as if searching for the door

in a pitch black room

i am lost

can not be located

how to get back to my body

when all i can hear

is my breathe

(breathe)

no salvation from the corporation

the supermarkets scare me

they are a signal

bags and boxes

tubes and testers

trial and error

what do they do without their want?

what do they do without their want?

streets filled with snakes

that all go to the theatres

but i have no tickets

to timely events

so i wander

and wonder

about my movie

each sequence is a seance

that seeks no other moment

waving my days into margins

where i'm no longer asked my opinion

but the conversations

that i have with myself

i am confident others can hear

the conversations that i have with myself

i am confident others can hear

making them awkward in my presence

so i get up & enter

the drama

that drifts me back to that place

i get up and enter

the drama

that drifts me back to that place

where no one is watching

no longer a solution

only fleeting states of satisfaction

where only the insane are smiling

and the ecstasy is slippery.

©2003 Marjorie Sturm

No More Loans

the banks are on fire

the basement has been flooded

barbed wire holds me back

the interiors everywhere

have vanished into envelopes

pushing angst

the money lenders loathe their positions

as the paranoid priests

of the society fastly falling

the stifling silence

slips into public discourse

on celebrities

some get suckered

that there is a way

to get off easy

now the witches are watching

the banks are on fire

along with the billboards

big banker watchdog

no longer pacing panting pathetically

sitting staring at six screens

of numbing numbers

that hide children's teeth and eyeglasses

the strewn artifacts of the afterwar debris

the avalanche is inevitable

which paradigm will proliferate

the forgotten place

of no plastics and compulsory posing

watch the banks burning.

©2003 Marjorie Sturm

BIOS:

Born in Salinas, California, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, is of Mexican and Native American ancestry. He received his BA from the College of Creative Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara and his MFA in Music Composition from California Institute of the Arts. His musical compositions span a broad perspective: transcendental piano, noise, avant-garde guitar, field recordings, lo-fi four-track manipulations, and experimental song. ED-I has performed throughout Europe and the United States, and his music has been broadcasted internationally. He has recorded more than 15 CDs of music and collaborated with numerous musicans. In 2000, his composition, I/O (for chamber ensemble), was performed by the California EAR Unit. He has been awarded residencies at the Centre International de Recherche Musicale (CIRM) in Nice, France, The Millay Colony for the Arts, Villa Montalvo, The Ucross Foundation, among others. In 1997, he began Pax Recordings record label which is dedicated to the documentation, preservation, and contagion of music from the margins of our culture and psyches. ED-I curated The Luggage Store Gallery's Creative Music Series (2000-2002) night of improvised and experimental music. He also co-founded the Big Sur Experimental Festival (1999-2004) and San Francisco Alternative Music Festival (2000-2003). He presently lives with his girlfriend, filmmaker Marjorie Sturm, and his baby, Ezra Octavio, in San Francisco. He and Marjorie recently formed the Neshama Alma Band, a four-track project recorded in their living room. They co-conspire and run Pax Recordings. Their most recent release is a compilation CD of twenty-six artists titled "Voices in the Wilderness: Dissenting Soundscapes and Songs of G.W.'s America." As well, ED-I is presently exploring and focusing on mantra-esque acoustic guitar strumming.

Rent Romus is a force spanning over seventeen years of creative improvised music. The current director and producer of Edgetone Records, the SIMM Music Series at the Studio 6 Musicians Union Hall, co-producer for the Luggage Store Series in San Francisco, Romus has introduced countless musicians from the world over and multimedia events to the San Francisco Bay Area culture and throughout parts of the world. During the mid 80's, Romus enhanced his studies at the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University, where he was blessed with the wisdom and guidance from Stan Getz, guitarist Bruce Forman, Dizzy Gillespie, Mel Martin, and drummer Eddie Moore. In 1984 at the age of 16, Romus re-organized directed NAYJE (the North Area Youth Jazz Ensemble), a seventeen piece big band featuring some of the best young high school and college bay area musicians at the time. In the fall of 1986, while attending the University of California at Santa Cruz, he formed the group Jazz On The Line which became the focus for his compositions and productions. JOTL was an acoustic jazz sextet that fused jazz, blues, gospel, and hip-hop into original compositions. Romus produced three albums for this group including his critically acclaimed CD Jazz On the Line with Chico Freeman, In The Moment on Edgetone Records soon to be reissued. Mid span the group changed it's name to 2AM, and was considered one of the founding bands of the acid jazz scene popular in the early nineties parallel to Charlie Hunter and the like. In 1993 seeking a more expanded format to explore, Romus formed the modern music group RKZtet, which featured ex-ESP recording artist and drum master James Zitro and former Sun Ra Arkestra cellist Kash Killion, both noted for their contribution to the development of thenew jazz of the sixties. Later in 1994 Romus renamed the group, The Lords of Outland, and brought in soon to be film music composer Vytas Nagisetty (Brock Lee) on bass, Andrew Borger (currently drummer for Tom Waits) and Jason Olaine (Jay O), (currenlty AR director for Verve RecordsUniversal) on trumpet. The Lords of Outland recorded their first album You'll Never Be The Same, Jazzheads Records JH9493 in 1995, and were featured on the then fledgeling BET Channel National Network Show, Jazz Central as part of the Jazz Discovery program. That same year Romus self-produced his first overseas national tour of Denmark which featured many of Copenhagen's young improvisers discovering such musicians as pianist/trumpet player Jonas Muuller who has recently moved the S.F. Bay Area, and drummer Stefan Pasborg. In 1996 Romus returned to Denmark for his second tour with Jonas as the Rent Romus Sound Cirkus. The group also inlcuded San Francisco basists George Cremanchi and saxophonist Alex Weiss. After returning to the U.S. they continued on to the Bay Area to finish the tour. During that year he also assisted bluesman Paris Slim produce his first major American release with guitarist Joe Lewis Walker and Sonny Rhodes. In 1997 Romus had the honor of recording with tenor sax master John Tchicai. Tchicai is best known for his work with the NY Art Quartet, NY Ear and Eye Control, and his recordings with John Coltrane and Albert Ayler. The CD of this recording, Adapt...or DIE! was released at the end of 1997. In 1998 Romus released Blood Motions featuring his young Danish proteacute;geacute;s Stefan Pasborg and bassist Jonas Westergaard. In 2001 Romus re-opened his avant, free music lable Edgetone Records, where his current release can be found, interweaving science fiction, horror literature, improvisation, Finno-Ugric music traditions, and the inspiration of Albert Ayler.

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