'Dig It Signal' and Nosferatu

Since early October a new ensemble project I've been pleased to be part of has been evolving from it's initial core duo that began from a friendship with saxophonist/fretless guitarist/nykleharpist Peter Thorn of Sweden, became a trio with another friend and fellow musician of several years, electronic drummer Ray Istorico of Florida and recently arrived to what appears to be it's full evolution now as quartet with another friend and fellow artist, member of the eclectic experimental music community Loopers-Delight, guitarist/electonicist Jeff Duke also of Florida, and is now officially dubbed, 'Dig It Signal'.

This virtual 'band' now with 4 web based live performances to it's name connects from individual locales thousands of miles apart and interacts like we were in the same room through a miraculous piece of audio streaming software NinJam. Our combined audio output then fed to the broadcast streaming channels, uStream.tv and more recently livestream.com, combined with video imagery ranging from the photo/video manipulations of Emile Tobenfeld to the recent cast where 'Dig It Signal' performed to the footage of the 1922 silent Brian Stoker adaptation of Dracula, Nosferatu. This cast our strongest yet can be experienced at http://vimeo.com/8186752.

Recent online collaborations...

The discovery of the online software NinJam about 3 years ago introduced to me by friend and Chinapainting collaborator Daryl [Shawn] has led to some of the most fertile and adventurous musical growth in all my time.

Two recent happenings grown from a new online 'band'/collective still being dubbed but running vote is 'Dig It Signal' I've posted for listening (watching as they include the fine imagery of Emile Tobenfeld as well as band member Peter Thorn).

The most recent from last night began as a test offline session between 'Dig It Signal' member Jeff Duke and myself, turned into some great spontaneous 'noise' energy that we hit the Start Broadcast button and went live at @10:30pm EST for over an hour. It was a marvelous set - Jim Goodin & Jeff Duke - Music for a Saturday.

Last Sunday as part of my semi-biweekley live uStream series Sunday Morning at 11, we broadcast the first official show of the new collaboration 'Dig It Signal' encompassing 4 musicians from 3 different national locales (FL/NY) and 1 abroad (Sweden). Band members/textures are Peter Thorn (Sweden) saxophones/nyckelharpa/effects, Ray Istorico (Florida) electronic drums, Jeff Duke (Florida) guitar/oud/electronics and myself (NY) violin/oud/electronics. It was wonderful engaging inspired new beginning show that came frankly from 3 reincarnations, an initial collaboration between Peter and myself (soon to be documented in a CD release Sharps), friend Ray was added as part of the first official Virtual Sound & Vision festival that we took part on October 3rd and friend Jeff joined us for this first official show of 'Dig It Signal - Goodin/Thorn/Istorico/Duke.

My ongoing collaboration with friend/bandmate/mentor in a sense, Daryl Shawn, that began this whole wonderful NinJam experience that has even known 6 national tours traditionally live, Chinapainting, performed our 2nd live webcast on November 15th - Chinapainting Live on Sunday Morning at 11.

Stay tuned for more...

A solo oud improv for an evening and a day

The day was a tad long and the last bit meaning work kind of intense. I came home and sat down with my son and watched 30 Rock, something I rarely do when I get home but it was kind of nice. With last night's salon gathering and somewhat of a performance fresh on my mind as well as on the verge of getting a new electric oud I picked up my present one, a lovely acoustic model and began improvising.

During September as part of celebrating my birth month I recorded each evening a live to webcam solo oud improv, posting for the most part after one take on YouTube. This evening I decided to do one just for today as the energy and muse was with me. You can see it here or in the right panel. Thanks for listening and good night.

A Salon Evening

I've just returned from a unique shared artists' gathering here in Brooklyn at a friend's loft painting studio. It was billed as a 'salon' event whereby different artists from different medium's come together to share and sound out work. I was surrounded by several writers sounding some really introspective 'works in progress' as well poetry. I performed two looping sequences and added some ambiance guitaristics to the words. Abstract painter/sculpturer Fred Bendheim was the curator and host for the evening. Some video coming soon...

Other recent happenings, Sunday Morning at 11 featured Chinapainting bandmate Daryl Shawn and myself in a live webcast. Chinapainting is an acoustic instrumental/cassette tape looping duo doing improvisational World inspired music.

I have a special recording with saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist Peter Thorn in the making and coming soon, Sharps...

Virtual Sound & Vision festival - the story

Hello again. I wanted to tell you more about this weekend's Virtual Sound & Vision festival that I'm pleased to be part of and very excited about, as when you think about it, 14 musicians performing live back-to-back sets from thousands of miles apart, sounding like we are in the same room and stage, it's just amazing.

Live via the Internet Saturday afternoon (Oct. 3rd) at 17:00 UTC, this ground breaking event is the brainchild of the aforementioned in last night's email, Rainer Straschill (Germany). Having produced several live Internet based audio performances over the last few years and seeing the interest in live video performance, Straschill approached several of us in the web based music community Loopers-Delight who had begun doing live video webcasts over the last few months, with the idea of banding together and creating a 'virtual' live music festival.

As interest grew this past summer 'the event', it's time frame, participants and philosophy of performance content came together to be live improvised multi-location musical performances and video art, the first of it's kind and dubbed Virtual Sound & Vision festival.

One of the principle feelings about the video content of Virtual Sound & Vision was that it's acts become more than 'musicians performing in front of a webcam' which frankly many of us myself included were initially doing as we experimented with this new platform over the last few months. During the festival's planning several of us began exploring new technologies to add video content to the shows and during which time video artist/filmmaker Emile Tobenfeld stepped forward to produce an official festival video piece, making it available for those desiring to include his film as some or all of the 'picture' portion of their broadcast.

For my part in Saturday's amazing event I've put together a trio performance and the opening set of Virtual Sound & Vision. Starting at 1700 UTC/1pm EST (note - I erred in my previous email re the EST conversion time), joining me will be electronic drummer Ray Istorico (USA) and saxophonist/fretless guitarist/'folk' instruments Peter Thorn (Sweden).

For the Goodin/Istorico/Thorn performance visual content we are expanding on festival directive to make our video portion more like a 25 minute film complete with video work I am producing specific for this show, a portion of Tobenfeld's wonderful video and a series of additionally wonderful still images from bandmate Thorn's native Sweden. And to this visual score we'll be performing live improvised created on the spot music all together from 6000 miles apart, with Istorico in Florida, myself here in NY and Thorn in Sweden, all made possible by high speed Internet connectivity and wonderful software.

We'll be followed by VSV creator Straschill live from Germany at 17:30 UTC, from the UK, David Cooper Orton at 18:00, Steve Moyes & Agnes Hay at 18:30 also from England, Jeff Duke another Floridian (USA) at 19:00, from Spain the Flying Dream at 19:30, Jean-Paul De Roover from Canada at 20:00, across the Atlantic once more to Italy with Fabio Anile and Xavier Plagaro Mussard at 20:30, and over to England again for the two festival concluding sets of Matt Stevens at 21:00, the first among us who realized the potential of live webcasting, and doing the closing set Stephen Goodman at 21:30.

What a day, what a world, all connected live through the wire and to your computer screens, just as magical as the now common television was 40 years ago. Don't miss this amazing event fusing technology and performance art. To 'attend' Virtual Sound & Vision direct your Internet browser on Saturday to vsv.kybermusik.net.

Please note as the bulk of you in my email audience are in the States, for time conversion 17:00 UTC Goodin/Istorico/Thorn set is at 1pm EST and all the above mentioned sets continue every half hour thereafter running to conclusion at 22:00 UTC, 6pm EST. A time zone calculator is available by the way at http://www.timeanddate.com/Worldclock.

Have a great weekend and we hope to have you logon to vsv.kybermusik.net on Saturday and attend Virtual Sound & Vision.

Jim

Additionally this weekend is my family's participation in the annual Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation 'Walk for the Cure' on Sunday, Oct. 4th. We'll be doing a 10K walk raising awareness of diabetes and support for diabetes research. In this fall's campaign our family has raised just under $4,000 for JDRF. If you might like to donate in support of this event go to Callie's Crusade for the Cure. Thank you.

Virtual Sound & Vision festival

This Saturday October 3rd beginning at 17:00 UTC hours running till 21:00 UTC, will be the first ever live web based World experimental improvised music and video festival. The live event showcases 14 artists in 9 acts from around the globe in back to back 25 minute music sets with largely overlayed visuals. To hear and see the live event on Saturday go to URL, vsv.kybermusik.net and for more information go to www.myspace.com/vsvfestival

VIRTUAL SOUND AND VISION festival schedule

VSV Virtual Venue: vsv.kybermusik.net


17:00 - Jim Goodin/Ray Istorico - USA/Peter Thörn - Sweden
Ustream: Sunday-Morning-at-11

17:30 - Rainer Straschill "plus" (Moinsound) - Germany
Ustream: The-MoinSound-Studio-Sessions

18:00 - David Cooper Orton - United Kingdom
Ustream: dco-live

18:30 - Steve Moyes/Agnes Hay - England *
Ustream: Soundings-From-Behind-The-Net-Curtain

19:00 - Jeff Duke - USA
Ustream: loopydroneyglitchywacky-presents

19:30 - Flying Dream - Spain *
Ustream: flying-dream

20:00 - Jean-Paul De Roover - Canada
Ustream: jean-paul-de-roover-live

20:30 - Fabio Anile/Xavier Plagaro Mussard - Italy *
Ustream: eterogeneo

21:00 - Matt Stevens - United Kingdom
Ustream: Matt-Stevens-From-The-Box-Room

(acts marked with an asterisk are those including a dedicated video artist).

Special video contribution by Emile Tobenfeld aka Dr T
www.foryourhead.com


All times are UTC, please check UTC conversion Or VSV Myspace for local times.
Festival date is Saturday, October 3rd

Catching up

Though I maintain updates on Twitter and Facebook I"m behind at posting to my home blog so trying to catch up with this post. Several thoughts beginning with a couple of September projects.

September is my birth month and as part of I'm doing a solo improvisational oud piece for each day, capturing a spontaneous 2 to 3 minutes live to Internet webcam posting to YouTube. The series is on my YouTube channel at JimGoodinMusic.

Also this month in support of my daughter (13) a Type 1 diabetic since age 8, we are taking part as we do each year in one of the New York area Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Walk for the Cure walks. You can support our family's involvement in this great need by going to Callie's Crusade for the Cure to donate online.

As part of the JDRF campaign I am doing a special collaborative music recording with a fellow musician living in Sweden named Peter Thorne. Peter is also a diabetic and as I am the father of a diabetic child, I felt I wanted to record a body of work with diabetes as the thread of the muse. Peter and I collaborate through Internet technology which allows to interact musically live to each other's 'voice' capturing the results to our computer hard drive. The results will be lightly edited and released as 8 to 10 individual pieces and released near month's end under the title, Sharps. We're going to make the project purchaseable as a digital download through Bandcamp.com. A physical CD will also be made. Proceeds from this effort will be donated to JDRF as part of this year's Walk for the Cure.

I do a bi-weekly webcast on uStream.tv on Sunday mornings as schedule permits featuring myself in an hour of my improvisational World experimental solo instrumentals and textured loops. The live series is called Sunday Morning at 11 and originates at 11am EST from my home in New York.

Several members of a web music community known as Loopers-Delight are doing similiar webcasts each month. We have all banded together to put on the very first Web based live music festival called the Virtual Vision and Sound Festival and it will take place for a great portion of the day, October 3rd, 2009. The actual artist roster and set times are still in finalization however beginning mid-day there will be live performances viewable through the Internet using Adobe Flash streaming technology that is now being supported through sites like uStream and Justin. For schedule updates and festival news please visit Virtual Vision and Sound over the next few weeks.

Daryl Shawn and I will be hitting the west coast road again next month with our Chinapainting duo, an acoustic guitar based/cassette tape looping duo, that we founded in fall of 2006. We'll be playing 3 shows as the duo and 1 show solo/duo in northern and southern California, October 15-18. Visit our Chinapainting on My Space for the our official calendar.

That's it for this post, peace out.

My collaborative acoustic guitar/tape looping duo with guitarist/looper/improvisational artist Daryl Shawn, Chinapainting has been together for a short group of performances this July. We were honored to be invited to perform recently in Cleveland at the cities Ingenuity Fest, an arts festival celebrating musical performance, theatrical performance, visual and aural art. We did two shows, these our first playing together in many months and as always now after working with Daryl it's like each time we just pick up where we left off in terms of our interaction. We get together live 2 to 3 times a year and do mini tours generally in the NY area and the west coast as well. In between we sometimes play live via a software called NinJam that allows us to send/receive real time audio over the Net. Here's a clip from the second Ingenuity set.

In this round of shows Chinapainting gets together two more times, both on Sunday, July 19th, the first with a live webcast as a special episode of my ustream show Sunday Morning at 11. Due to scheduling the Chinapaintinig ustream will occur at 3:30pm EST (12:30 PST, 1:30 MST, 2:30 CST, 8:30 UK, 9:30 western Europe, 4:30am Japan. Please tune in for this 'first ever' live Chinapainting web show.

Then that evening Chinapainting will take the stage at ABC NoRIo, a community arts and activism organization on the lower east side of Manhattan, at 8pm. Location is 156 Rivington and cost of admission is $5.

Come see us virtually and if in NYC at ABC NoRio.

Jim

New video work and Ingenuity Fest

I recently finished a short video titled Independence that was produced for a Vimeo project challenging members to produce their spin on 'independence' and the 4th. This piece combines footage I shot on a recent trip to Maine as well as footage from fireworks on the eve of the 4th of July. As I stated in the video description independence runs from traditional to the frames of my kids on the cusp of teen years. The symbolistic wind chimes in the soundtrack ring the Liberty Bell as well as a sense of a ringing bouy marker on the north Maine coast.

And from a recent uStream webcast I culled out this oud performance. The room was poorly lit so in my final I incorporated a film filter in Final Cut to achieve an antique look and feel. The performance as much of all my work is these days was an improvisation.

Additionally trying to get over a cold this week that really socked my voice. Fortunately I don't sing perse as I'm teaming up with bandmate Daryl Shawn this weekend in Cleveland, OH, for the beginning of a series of 3 shows with our duo Chinapainting. We're performing in Cleveland's Ingenuity Fest this weekend. Ingenuity Fest is an annual festival that fuses art and technology. We're very excited to have been invited to be part of this year's festival. Chinapainting appears Saturday July 11th at 6pm at Halle Alley and Sunday July 12th at 2pm in the E Cafe. See the site for more info. If you're near Cleveland please do come out.

Cheers

Jim

New photographs and music musings

During the recent trip to Maine I did a number of detail composite photographs as well as collected some shells and 'departed sea life' which I made a series of still lives from. I've posted the series on Flickr at Maine Still Life.

Additionally for a recent job pitch I created a portfolio of some of those images with a shell necklace added as well as added some past images. The collection is Jewelry and Still Life.

Also I recently put together a new demo reel for my video editing pursuits, it's at Jim Goodin Demo Reel.

While 'playing my horn' I want to mention that my duo with Daryl Shawn Chinapainting reunites for 3 shows in July beginning next weekend (July 11/12) in Cleveland, OH, with two performances at Ingenuity Fest. We perform a 3rd show in NYC on July 19th at ABC NoRio.

Lastly lastly on the music front I did a surprise impromptu live webcast last night on uStream.tv. Normally I have a bi-weekly series on uStream called Sunday Morning at 11. Due to travels and other things I had put it on hold for a bit but last night I just felt like playing to play. The playback is at Sunday Morning at 11 Friday Night at 10PM!

That's it for now...

Jim

Maine, yet

Last week my family and I returned to the downeast region of Maine, about midway up the Maine coast, to the island of Mount Desert, home of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. It was a place we almost moved several years ago and a place I hope I get the chance again. Though much more remote and rural certainly than the present world I'm in it's one of the most creatively stimulating places I've ever been. In the early 80's I was drawn there the first time when I went to nearby Rockport to study photography at the Maine Photographic Workshops. There was something so amazing about the light, the culture and texture of the land that just struck and inspired me. I went back two summers more to study further. When i moved to NY in the early 90's I got reconnected to the area.

During the recent trip I shot a ton of video and still images some posted here. In coming weeks I plan to produce a short film on the visit that will be posted on my Vimeo page.

With this visit once again I return to NY somewhat depressed, trying to separate the emotional content of being on vacation in a beautiful place and wait for the real feelings to surface. It is a special place and one I hope one day to call 'home'. Ciao for now.

Listening and new video, Canyon

Several catching up's. Of late I've been listening to a couple of recordings that have been really inspiring, the recently mentioned Ralph Towner solo concert on the ECM label and a fellow I had the pleasure of meeting at the 2008 NYC Fretless Guitar Festival, Neil Haverstick (a.k.a. Stickman). I've had his tunes from his CD Mysterious Female on my ipod of late and this is just an insane inspired collection of music from a guy who has od'd on fretless guitar - really moving material.

Also from the recent episode of my live webcast on uStream, Sunday Morning at 11, I pulled a piece on fretted 12 string from the set and edited the video Canyon shown below. I've been way behind on my editing and when I had the idea to do something more with this beyond the performance aspect I went back to some images made on a 2007 family trip to New Mexico on a hike through the Tent Rocks National Monument slot canyon, a very moving place.

Canyon from Jim Goodin on Vimeo.

Off to Maine this week. Long time since visiting and looking forward.

A nice surprise this evening

I just received an email from Vassar College radio station WVKR-FM host Scott Raymond announcing his latest Top 20 playlist for his show, Secret Music. My recently released solo CD Vertical was included I'm pleased to say. It was a nice surprise from a long day.

I've known Scott and his show for a few years now and he's been great to play my music from time to time. Additionally in the summer of 2007 when Daryl [Shawn] and I were touring our duo Chinapainting in the northeast, Scott invited us to come on his Sunday morning broadcast for an interview and performance. Here's a video clip from that show.

Scott is celebrating 22 years hosting Secret Music at WVKR this year. Congratulations on orchestrating and hosting a great show Scott!

WVKR-FM "Secret Music" Top 20 Playlist
May, 2009

1. Louis Landon - Solo Piano for Peace - Landon Creative, Inc
2. Ideation - Adrift - Ricochet Dream
3. Steve Roach - Dynamic Stillness - Projekt
4. Nunc Stans - Meridian - Dataobscura
5. Between Interval - The Edge of a Fairytale - Spotted Peccary Music
6. Mark Dwane - Other Worlds - Trondant
7. Jim Goodin - Vertical - Wood And Wire
8. Whitetree - Cloudland - Ponderosa Music & Art
9. John Duval - Cassiopeia's Playground - Earth Mantra
10. Steve Rose - Twin Earth - Steve Rose
11. Sonoprint - Planetary Motion - Sonoprint
12. Forastiere - Forastiere Live - Candy Rat
13. Dan Pound - Esoterica - Poundsounds
14. Philip Wilkerson - Early Works - Wilkerson
15. The Ideal Setback - How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives - The Ideal Setback
16. William Basinski - 92982 - 2062
17. Aaron Marshall - Magnificent Accident - Aaron Marshall
18. Max Goldston - Emancipation - Max Goldston
19. Erdem Helvacioglu - Wounded Breath - Aucourant
20. Bob Prince - Above The Surface - Bob Prince

For more information on Secret Music visit WVKR.

Jim

Lose thoughts and other promotion

It's gearing up to be a busy week with many thoughts and feelings continuing. Musically as indicated in the past entry I've been listening a lot to past influences which is refreshing in a sense as for the last several years I've kind of just listened to myself and other projects that I'm involved in with other artists. In this return of a blend from Michael's [Hedges] last work perse, i mean other packaging has been released since his death but the alluded Torched the artist was working on up to his tragic death. So returning to Michael's music even his last has been inspiring and a friend recently sent me a wonderful documentary centered around interview/performance on Michael titled Michael Hedges the Artist's Profile. I was forwarded a download of this that I can't publish but did find this excerpt on YouTube, chances are the remainder is now there somewhere. Great piece and includes some of Michael's work with Michael Manring as well as stunning performance of JitterBoogie and a nice ending of Ragamuffin.

Additionally Ralph Towner I've been rediscovering and finding new inspiration from through a live solo concert captured several years ago and released on ECM, Towner's label then but not sure now. I found myself listening over and over again this past weekend to Ralph's interpretation of the John Abercrombie classic Timeless, a piece I covered a few years ago. Listening to Timeless has re-entergized me to either find this piece or influence my improvisations this week.

Catch where I go on that by tuning in this weekend to my live webcast on uStream, Sunday Morning at 11. My bi-weekly series is an @40 minute live performance featuring improvisations and compositions on guitar, fretless guitar and oud. Tune in at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sunday-morning-at-11. Show times are 11am EST, 8am PST, 4pm UK, 5pm Europe, Midnight Japan.

I began the live performances on uStream a few weeks ago and this Sunday June 7th will mark my 4th one. Though this virtual venue is not a complete substitute for traditional music venues it is an amazing opportunity that has 'arrived' now thanks to broadband and the ability to stream live video, so I see this as a wonderful opportunity added to my performance palette to perform for friends and new fans at places in the world I may not have the chance to go to. So please surf over/tune in to my show page URL, http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sunday-morning-at-11, this Sunday morning June 7th at 11am EST. To calculate the time in your exact location visit http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html.

Coming up this summer I'll have several shows with my music partner Daryl Shawn in our improvisational acoustic guitar based/cassette tape looping duo Chinapainting. We founded Chinapainting electronically in late 2006 when we met by chance through email via the looping experimental music community Loopers-Delight. After defining our music through Internet technology for 8 months we took Chinapainting live in the summer of 2007 with a series of shows in the northeast. We have continued since doing 2 shows nationally a year. This summer we're performing at the Ingenuity Festival in Cleveland, OH, on July 11/12, ABC Norio in NYC, July 19 and a tenative scheduled show in Philadelphia on July 24th.

I'm a member of the experimental music community CT-Collective and recently produced a CD for the community representing 16 int'l artists doing pieces of music created entirely from things commonly thrown away or retired after one use. The CD titled ReUse is amazing. Check it out at http://jimgoodin.bandcamp.com as well as on My Space at http://www.myspace.com/CtReUse. I'm participating as a composer/performer/interpretator in another CT-Collective CD inspired by minimalist composer Terry Riley's work In C, to be called In D.

Total blog sidebar, saw Star Trek this past weekend with my daughter, amazing! Both captured memories of the original series that I grew up with as well as took us on a wonderful story that was as captivating as the by gone series.

More to come... good week. Jim

Why Ask Why

The death of famed Windham Hill records artist Michael Hedges in late November 1997 was brought to mind this evening while I was updating a link in my bio on this blog page. One of the main repositories still out there documenting Michael's life is Matt Guthrie's Nomad Land which I linked to. I was perusing Michael's bio when I went to the newspaper accounts of his car accident. This was such bizarre strange unbelievable news that I actually got nearly a month after the fact in late 1997. I was stunned as so many were who felt this guitar pioneer's influence during the 80's and 90's, it was so unreal that this really creative guy almost a mystic that we all followed was no more.

Though not the first, Michael did bring such a strong fresh spin on instrumental acoustic guitar technique when he burst on to the scene as a Will Ackerman discovery for his [Ackerman's] then upstart cottage industry record label in the late 70's that it was unlike anything many interested in the guitar in a compositional way had ever heard. Not to take anything away from Leo Kottke or John Fahey but Michael brought a mix of eloquent detail and precise percussive and rhythmic technique and sense of focus that it was much akin to falling under the spell of Shira Kahn in the Jungle Book.

The paradox in this 'fame' that he gained was almost accident to what accounts say he really wanted, that to be recognized as a singer-songwriter or somewhat of a rock star.

This entry is just several lose thoughts for now. If the name is new to you get a hold of Michael's first recording Breakfast in the Field and his last he was recording just before his death, called Torched. In a sense I've moved on to a different chapter in my music though I still think about him and really owe a lot to him. A couple months after his death I wrote a piece simply called For Michael. I recorded two different versions on my first and second CD's, Celtic Journey to The Path and Through the Door. On one of my first trips to California in 2001 friend and television producer Jeff Watts shot this performance video for me,

Sunday Morning at 11

A few weeks ago after encouragement from fellow artist Matt Stevens I followed suite and started doing a live 30+ minute webcast on uStream.tv that I launched as a bi-weekly event. I just did my 3rd show on May 24th.

This series is giving me the opportunity to perform for people through virtual connections in places I may never physically get to travel. In the performance I do largely improvised music with an occasional semi-composed piece from my "Michael Hedgesesque" repertoire of recent years, on fretted, fretless guitars, oud and some loops via an Electro Harmonix 2880 4-track looper which is great.

So far I've had people connect from the States, UK, Germany and Sweden. My next broadcast is Sunday, June 7th at 11am EST. The show URL is www.ustream.tv/channel/sunday-morning-at-11.

Select times are 4pm UK, 5pm continental Europe, 8am PST, 9am CST and Asia 12midnight. Please tune in on the 7th of June.

An idea, a germ, a seed, a double-neck

As I posted on a Facebook blurb a bit ago I was thinking today about a guitar instrument that would be a double-neck with one neck fretted and the other fretless. This of course is not completely new in guitar making the idea of double neck and I'm almost certain someone has manufactured a fretted-fretless creation but this was floating around my head today. I have an upcoming travel gig that will require flying and it's the energy that spurned this interest/need as I play both with fretwire and without. When I do shows these days I often take at least two instruments and sometimes three. With the airlines now scrambling to make up for lost income by charging for any checked baggage this adds a potentially annoying stipend to my travel budget.

So what I saw in my mind was sort of more of an electric body but still some hollowness to have some natural sound amplification but the idea would be more portable with pickups for the main sound generation. Then six string scale fretted and fretless necks.

And to continue to dream a bit as custom guitars always tip the price tag 4-7000, it would be nice if this could be made of possibly recycled materials and not so much rare tone woods and selling for a musicians affordable price.

My friend Eddie Powell, a fine fretless player, has built a double or triple fretless necked instrument. Eddie has had influence on my fretless interest though as this need/desire sounds out, I'm still got a foot in both fretted and fretless worlds. There are really neat things about both textures in my music creation these days. My more percussive and earlier work when I was more composed really makes better use of the wire and the newer improvisational work is more linear and lyrical and has me leaning towards fretless guitar.

A sidebar, my newest CD Vertical is completely fretless and includes me on oud and violin in addition to the fretless guitar.

An introduction...

I am Jim Goodin a composer, musician and improvisational artist living in New York. I am also a photographer, videographer and freelance video editor.

As a musician my foundation for 25 plus years has been the acoustic guitar. For many of those years I played in a style influenced by artists such as Michael Hedges, Will Ackerman and John Fahey and performed largely as a solo artist. Around 2000 I began to collaborate with other musicians initially two percussionists one that I still work with today in the collective East of Where.

Though the idea of improvisation was not new to me during the summer of 2005 my music and interest began to lean towards more experimental and improvisational partly through the East of Where collaboration. A year later through chance email meeting after doing some research on 'looping' I struck up e-dialog with guitarist/analog tape loopist Daryl Shawn. The dialog led to electronically working together live through the amazing open source technology NinJam.

The Shawn/Goodin NinJam sessions became regular weekend gatherings that led to the formation of a duo we dubbed Chinapainting. By the winter of 2006 we had enough improvised content that we released two CD's and by the summer of 2007 we decided to formerly meet, take Chinapainting to the live stage and record our first 'in person' CD, Night Blooming Cereus.

Chinapainting is an on-going story and continues to do mini-tours nationally each year.

The work of these collaborations has had great influence on my solo work which has evolved to be largely improvised. Additionally I've delved into other instruments including fretless guitar, oud and violin as well as looping technology to often weave the different instrument textures together.

Professionally I have endorsements from GHS Strings and Seagull Guitars. I am published by Mel Bay Publications, Inc. with a book/CD on the popular DADGAD guitar tuning, titled DADGAD Encyclopedia.

In addition to my traditional performances in the spring of 2009 I started a 'live' webcast series on uStream.tv titled Sunday Morning at 11. In the series I perform a 30-40 minute improvisational set of music bi-weekly. I am very excited about this series as it's giving me the opportunity to perform for people in places I may never have the opportunity to actually go to.

I am an active member of three musician web communities, Loopers-Delight, CT-Collective which I recently produced an usual experimental CD for titled ReUse, and the RPM (record a CD in 28 days) Challenge of which I've released 3 solo CD's and 1 duo CD. As an independent artist I have released 7 solo CD's, 2 duo CD's and been a part of several compilations. I have appeared at Y2K International Live Looping Festival with Chinapainting and will be appearing this summer at the Ingenuity Festival also with Chinapainting in Cleveland.

In addition to my music, imagery both still and video which I've always been involved in, have become more and more involved in the last few years including launching myself as a freelance video editor in the last year.

Though I have several homes on the web my plans are for this blog to become my main portal. More to come.

Jim