Mikael Jorgensen, Greg O'Keeffe & friends.
Posts tagged Greg O’Keeffe
Happy New Year from Pronto
Jan 1st
Happy 2011 to you people! Here’s our version of “Auld Lang Syne.” You can download it if you’d like too.
Wrapping up 2010
Dec 31st
With a bit of sadness, but mostly excited liberation, we packed up the ProntoLabs this week and placed it in storage for a few month hiatus. The chilly, crappy, sweaty, noisy, complainy confines of our facility on Prince Street in Brooklyn, finally became too much to bear. A new studio situation is developing and I’ll have more to say on that when there’s more to say. In the meantime, here are a pair of videos from the last couple of days.
Timelapse of packing up:
The End Of Prince Street 2010:
Happy New Year!
Pronto Daytrotter Session
Oct 26th
In the fall of 2009, Chris Girard, Tunde Oyewole, Greg O’Keeffe & I recorded some songs for the wonderful people at Daytrotter. You can take a listen here.
Next stop: Solid Sound Festival – August 13-15, 2010
Jul 13th
The Solid Sound Festival is a 3-day Wilco curated music, comedy and arts festival being held at Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA, August 13-15th. The lineup includes:
- Pronto
- Wilco
- Mavis Staples
- Nels Cline
- Autumn Defense
- On Fillmore
- Avi Buffalo
- The Books
- Brenda
- Vetiver
- Deep Blue Organ Trio
- Sir Richard Bishop
- Mountain Man
- Outrageous Cherry
- Jeff Tweedy solo
- Numero Group DJs
- A comedy cabaret including Todd Barry, Kristen Schaal, Hannibal Buress, and John Mulaney
- A Video installation by Cassandra C. Jones
- Plus a steaming piles of amazingness
Pronto LP02 Recording Update
Mar 16th
Greetings friends.
We’ve been extraordinarily busy in the studio for the past week. Tucked in between two substantial Wilco tours, we’ve managed to eek out about 16 basic tracks for what will be “The Next Pronto Record.”
This time around Greg and I are recording with the delightful and deft Adam Chilenski on electric and acoustic bass at The Bunker in Brooklyn with John Davis and Aaron Nevezie behind the controls. This session has exceeded all of my lofty expectations as far as sounds and performances go. Pick good people and trust in their skills and instincts and you can’t go wrong.
Yesterday we had our old friend, and Pronto alum Erik Paparazzi swing by and play some excellent guitar on two songs, “Stupid Angels” and “Biz Dev.” Nice.
It’s surprising to me how difficult it is to articulate just how excited and pleased I am with the goings-on of the past week. In six short days we’ve produced a considerable amount of material that requires further consideration and microscopic evaluation. I can’t wait to get it going and finish this thing by the Fall of 2010.
Thanks for stopping by.
Mikael
Blurt review of “All Is Golden”
Sep 11th
http://blurt-online.com/reviews/view/1452/
“Good songs shouldn’t be difficult to find, but they are. Instead, we focus on innovative recordings, cross-cultural meldings, grooves, and new technologies. More >
Pronto Fall 2009 – New Release, Videos, Tour & Merch
Sep 5th
Hi there.
We’ve been busy this summer and have some excellent things to tell you about.
Here goes…
NEW RELEASE: “THE CHEETAH”
Today, we of Pronto celebrate these glorious, wistful days with the release of a digital-only collection of instrumentals called “The Cheetah,” in three distinct downloadable flavors:
1 – “The Cheetah” music only version will be available through the Contraphonic web store & iTunes for only $8.99.
2 – “The Cheetah – Enhanced Version” includes five music videos created by Michael Lascarides available exclusively through the Contraphonic web store for $13.99.
3 – “All Is Golden + The Cheetah – Enhanced Version + Listen Lover video, (Live from The Mint in Los Angeles by Joe Grzeskowiak/Unitus Productions) – Deluxe Bundle” will also be exclusively available through the Contraphonic web store for $19.99.
“The Cheetah” has its origins in 2001 when Chris Girard and I were exploring the technological side of music at SOMA Electronic Music Studios, in Chicago, IL. Once we had a collection of songs, we decided to import Greg O’Keeffe from Brooklyn to play drums on it with Noel Kupersmith playing upright bass. We also asked Rob Mazurek to play cornet on a few of the songs, and from these sessions come the first eight tracks on “The Cheetah.”
The next song “Monster,” was an began with a simple chord pounding relentlessly into oblivion with a neanderthal drum beat thickly layered with synthesizers. This is one of the rare tracks that doesn’t feature any other musicians on it, and my drumming during the coda indicates why this may or may not have been the best of ideas. Michael Lascarides has made a companion video for this song:
“Marsella Rambla,” “Soybot” and “rRan” are three songs that were coaxed almost completely from the computer. Using heroic doses of Cycling 74′s MAX/MSP, M, a Yamaha TX-816, and a Nord MicroModular we crafted and coded our way through to gurgly warm vundersounds.
MIDWEST / EAST COAST TOUR
Also today, Chris Girard and I embark on a week long tour supporting The Fruit Bats, beginning in Nasvhille, TN at the esteemed Exit/In:
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- 09/08 – Nashville, TN – Exit/In
- 09/09 – Knoxville, TN – Square Room
- 09/10 – Chapel Hill, NC – Local 506
- 09/11 – Washington, DC – The Black Cat
- 09/12 – Philadelphia, PA – Kung Fu Necktie
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Upon our return from this first leg, the entire band – Chris, Greg O’Keeffe, Tunde Oyewole & myself, will make our way through the mid-west, concluding this round of touring with a show at Union Hall in Brooklyn, NY:
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- 09/15 – Pittsburgh, PA – Brillobox
- 09/16 – Louisville, KY – Zanzabar
- 09/17 – Memphis, TN – Levitt Shell
- 09/18 – Rock Island, IL – Rock Island Brewing Company
- 09/19 – Madison, WI – Forward Music Festival
- 09/20 – Chicago, IL – Rainbo Club [ free show ]
- 09/23 – Brooklyn, NY – Union Hall
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Please check our Shows page for more info.
MERCHANDISE
We’ll have the ever popular “Norwegian Sweater” t-shirts, All Is Golden CD’s and Posters, Movere Workshop 12″vinyl, and handsome download vouchers for “The Cheetah” available for purchase on the upcoming tour. Come say hello at the merch booth.
PRONTO ON INTERNETS
We are on Facebook, Twitter and myspace. Please join the fun and stay tuned for more suprises.
I’m looking forward to seeing some of your lovely faces out on tour this month.
-Mikael