Watch Earth is a Paradise

Earth is a Paradise is finally available to watch online, premiered by the nice folks over at No Budge. This is a wonderfully weird film, co-directed and co-written by two fantastically talented women, Jessica Garrison & Fabianne Gstöttenmayr. It stars Fabianne & Jeremy Radin as a pair of unlikely drinking buddies that grapple for control and connection over the course of one very strange night. This was my second collaboration with Jess (first being Moontown) and first with Fabi, and it was a joy. I got to go to some odd places with the score, bordering on a sort of metaphor-heavy sound design (whatever that means) and really stretch my composer muscles in new ways. Enjoy the film!

Watch Poison

Poison, the delightfully dark short film that I scored about the more extreme side of online dating, is available on ze interwebs for your viewing pleasure! I made it real easy for ya, just watch below.

A Tinder date goes from awkward to frightening when the conversation turns to poison. Starring Nicholas Tucci & Layla Khosh Written & Directed by Brandt Shandera Produced by Erika Clarke Director of Photography Chris Wairegi Edited by Shannon Baker Davis

Loyal Lobos "The Fall" EP

I first saw Andrea Silva (aka Loyal Lobos) perform at a house concert we were both playing at. It was just her and a guitar, singing like a fucking angel, playing songs that slice through your heart like a high school breakup. We started talking about working together that night. Cut to 2 years later, and voila—”The Fall” is finally born to the world.

Andrea played guitar, sang and wrote the songs. I produced, played guitar and keys, and did a bit of co-writing. Kyle Crane played drums and percussion. Sam Wilkes played bass. Sam Valdez sang some harmonies. Theo Karon did the mix. Jason Soda engineered for us as his lovely studio Palomino Sound where we did basic tracks.

Read some nice things people have said about it here and here and here and here or just skip all that and give it a listen below.

 

Loyal Lobos Loyal Lobos is the moniker for LA-based singer and songwriter Andrea Silva. Drawing on influences as diverse as the hazy melancholy of Mazzy Star and Nick Drake, the melodrama of Colombian telenovelas and her memories of a childhood during which her parents considered music an unwelcome distraction, Silva writes raw, alt-folk songs that break convention.

 

Nook Magazine

 
 

A trio of wonderful artists are starting an art magazine, and one of my photographs is being included in the inaugural issue! The magazine looks to be quite lovely, and it’s humbling for my work to be selected by artists whose work I so admire.

The theme of the first issue is “Home.”

If you’d like to get a copy, go here.

Huge thanks to Edie, Sarah & Eden.

Loyal Lobos - Wrong

Loyal Lobos just released another single that I produced & played on. She rules.
Read about it here or here or just listen to it below.

 

Wrong by Loyal Lobos, released 24 October 2018 More than five hundred miles Since I started walking north More than five hundred times I've asked myself Am I doing wrong? Wrong by staying here for you Wrong by thinking it's forever Fear cuts harder than an iron blade So tell me dear, Am I wrong?

 

Wrong Turn & The Tape Orchestra

I was part of another great Public Assembly show this month—our 8th! The monthly theme of the show was “Wrong Turn.” I was involved with two interstitial pieces this time around.

The first piece pictured a heated interaction between two meth addicts that leads down a path of escalating mania and panic. I accompanied them with a live-improvised score performed on an Arp Odyssey synthesizer. Getting in sync with these actors and trying to match their rhythms and dynamics with music, all in realtime, was thrilling and unlike anything I’d done before.

The second piece I was involved was an unsettling monologue by a “mother” with some serious boundary issues. For this piece, I designed a “tape orchestra” to be played by the audience, another endeavor that was very different from anything I’ve done. Prior to the show, I recorded 10 cassette tapes with 10 interacting layers of music and sound design. Then, on the night of the show, I placed tape players with those cassettes in them on seats throughout the theater. The audience was cued when to start the tape players by a red light on the side of the stage. Erica Dasher gave an incredible performance as the mother while eerie, lo-fi layers of sound wafted through the theater.

Public Assembly always manages to get me out of my creative comfort zone in really rewarding ways and it’s such a privilege to have such a talented group of creators to explore with. Check out @thepublicassembly on instagram to catch a show.

Heat Wave

I recently wrote and recorded the music for 3 short modern dance pieces that were performed as interludes to the latest Public Assembly show, “Heat Wave.” I had a lot of fun with this one, trying to make the pieces feel like heat. The buzzing of summer cicadas that starts each piece; synths and samples processed through sun-warped tape effects; woozy slide licks running through layers of vibrato and chorus pedals as though even the guitars had been sapped of energy and could barely stand upright in the heat.

I also took inspiration from 2 quite disparate musical sources, classical composer Edvard Grieg and koto innovator Michio Miyagi. Listen closely for samples of Michio’s old RCA recordings from the turn of the 20th century that I took and chopped up against heavy breakbeats. Used even more abstractly, I took Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor and reversed, time-streched, pitch-shifted, distorted, delayed and just generally mangled it into the undulating ambient waves that make up much of ACT II, first mellow and inviting, eventually growing to the doomy sludge that overwhelms the piece.

Even more rewarding than recording the piece itself though, was watching it danced to. I’ve never had the pleasure of having a piece of mine choreographed, and seeing the dancers bring it to life on the night of the performance was surreal and thrilling. Definitely something I hope to do again.

I put a playlist of the dance score below along with a few photos of the dance being performed so you can get a taste of the event. Big, huge fuckin ups to my collaborators on this: writer/director Clara Aranovich, choreographer/lead dancer Marlon Pelayo and dancers Bridget Scheiner & Jakob Olivier Scott. Thanks as well to Shawheen Keyani for the wonderful photos of the night.

 
 

Watch Spring Affair

Remember that short “Spring Affair” I told you about a bit ago? The one that I scored? The one that played the SF Indiefest? The one that is very funny and dry and absurd?? Well now you can watch it online! In fact, right below all these dumb words I’m currently writing is the video. So I’m going to stop writing and just let you get on with the watching. Thanks again to the talented and delightful Oberon Augarde for bringing me on board for this one!

Two young women on a hunting trip discuss what it means to be a wet noodle. 2017 San Francisco Independent Film Festival Selection 6 min USA color super16mm ©2017 dir. Oberon Augarde starring Amanda Viola, Jasmine Dubauskas, James Berardo.

Treehouse x Pavemint Fine Art Show

I’m showing some photos as part a group art show sponsored by Treehouse LA & Pavemint. Lots of great artists showing, plus live music on the rooftop and free drinks. Show is this Saturday — RSVP to attend. It’s a first for me, and I’m a bit nervous (read as: VERY NERVOUS), so come out and say hi to ya boi (that’s me, Josh, I am “ya boi”) and buy a photo! Sneak preview of the 9 prints I’m showing below…

Public Assembly!!!

 
 

I'm legitimately using THREE exclamation marks up top there, because I am beyond excited about a new theater collective I am a member of. If you saw my post a few months back about Vista at Mount Wilson Toll Road then you know I've been getting my feet wet in Los Angeles theater recently, both musically and otherwise.  

This new group is called Public Assembly. Goes like this--each month we ask our audience for a theme. Based on that theme the collective writes, directs, and produces a series of original one-acts/performances, all in the span of four weeks. We then perform the show at a venue around town, one night only, complimentary beer/wine, and the cost of the whole thing? Free.

The talent in this group is incredibly high, and I feel lucky to be a part of it. Our inaugural show is one week, so go RSVP your tickets over at this link here. 

The Marías

Wrote a tune last year with my friend María Zardoya called "I Don't Know You," and the video of the song (performed with her band "The Marías") is blowing up on youtube. Check it out and help push that puppy over the million mark. Her band is great and is playing lots of shows around LA these days, so go catch them live if you can.

Upcoming shows: Thurs, 3/8 - Scottsdale, AZ - http://smarturl.it/themariaspubrock Mon, 3/12 - Dallas, TX - http://smarturl.it/themariastavern Wed, 3/14 - San Antonio, TX - http://smarturl.it/themariastiger Sat, 3/17 - McAllen, TX - Yerberia Cultura Mon, 3/19 - El Paso, TX - http://smarturl.it/themariaslowbrow Tues, 3/20 - Tucson, AZ - http://smarturl.it/themariastucson Fri, 4/13 - Coachella Music & Arts Festival Fri, 4/20 - Coachella Music & Arts Festival Directed by Ian Lipton Listen to debut EP, Superclean Vol.