About the Artists:
Bob Bellerue / halfnormal is a noise artist, theater designer, audio engineer, writer, and jefe of sub-avant performance space the Il Corral. Bellerue’s work utilizes custom electronics and programming, incorporating feedback, prepared field recordings, de-musicalized instruments, and found oscillators. His work has been presented at the Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival, Centre de Cultura Contemporànea de Barcelona, Beyond Music Sound Festival, CEAIT Festival, Olympia Experimental Music Festival, PDX Noise Festival, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Stanford University, UCSD, and UCLA.
Bobb Bruno is a guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and producer, widely known as half of the alternative pop duo, Best Coast. He was also member of Polar Goldie Cats, The Uphill Gardeners, Goliath Bird Eater and The For Carnation. Bruno has a long-standing interest in experimental music, merging ambient tonal drones with clangy pop-riffs. He has participated in a number of SASSAS concerts, including Noisy Night (2007), and Mapping Sound SASSAS 10th Anniversary Concert (2009). This will be his first solo commission with SASSAS.
Ches Smith began playing drums just in time to join a third rate prog/punk/psych/metal band early in high school. He studied philosophy at the University of Oregon before relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1995. After a few years of playing with obscure punk rock bands and intensive study with drummer/educator Peter Magadini, he enrolled in the graduate program at Mills College in Oakland at the suggestion of percussionist William Winant. There he studied percussion, improvisation, and composition with Winant, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Curran. He currently performs and records with Good for Cows, Xiu Xiu, Carla Bozulich, Secret Chiefs 3, Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog, Ben Goldberg, Annie Gosfield, and 7 Year Rabit Cycle. He also leads two of his own projects, Congs for Brums and These Arches.
David Kendall is from Los Angeles. He currently makes music with other performers, computers, analog synthesizers and electronics, interfacing discrete components together to create systems that are to be perceived by the unique changes the system imposes on its elements. As an improviser, he has collaborated with Wade Matthews, Stephen Flinn, Johnny Chang, Douglas Russell, Noah Phillips, Jesse Kudler, Sharon Cheslow, David Rothbaum, Jessica Catron, Albert Ortega, Philip Greenlief, Bruce Tovsky, Carla Bozulich, Andrew Lafkas, and Bryan Eubanks, to name most from 2006. David Kendall has releases on the Alienation, Gameboy, P-Tapes, EMR, and Set-Project labels.
David Scott Stone (sometimes referred to as Sir DSS) is a musician who recorded and toured with artists like The Melvins, Unwound, Fantômas, Melvins Big Band, The Locust, Jello Biafra, Keiji Haino, Mike Patton, Adam Jones (Tool), Merzbow, Masonna, Big Business and others. He has also been a member of Slug (1993-1996) and a founding member of Get Hustle (1996-2000).
Gabe Serbian is a founding member of The Locust, who played guitar in the band’s first few years before switching to drums in 2001, developing a distinct drumming style which he also utilizies in Head Wound City. He also plays guitar in Holy Molar and Capital Decapitation.
Jessica Rylan is a sound artist and electronic musician who lives and performs in the Boston area, where she grew up. The main focus of her work to date has been the design and construction of modular synthesizers which use analog electronic circuits to create a diversity of sounds. She uses her synthesizers in installations at galleries and also in her high-energy, live musical performances.
Shannon Walter is a keyboardist and member of the five woman noise band 16 Bitch Pile-Up.
Troy Oftedal is a metal, hardcore, and grindcore musician from California. He plays bass for Cattle Decapitation.
