Join ‘Sisters Three’ for our farewell performance on Saturday with Tatsuya Nakatani & Spiral Joy Band. This will mark our final show for the next 1.5(+) years as we say goodbye to our dear guitarist/wordsmith/weird-sister, Huckleberry Grimm, who is heading on to new adventures in Japan!! Let us send him off together with good spirits!
We are absolutely thrilled to share the bill with Tatsuya Nakatani, one of our favorite performers. With kindred respect towards the exploration of deep-meditations in sound, we prepare to journey inward into unexplored lands during his set this Saturday. If you think you’ve experienced the entire energy potential of overtones and harmonics stored within a cymbal or gong… think again! Come, be transported as Tatsuya calls those vibrations forth with his finely hand crafted bows, releasing the gong’s elemental powers!
“ Join us for our reinvented concert series, Surrounded By Reality! This time, we welcome Thollem McDonas and The Sisters Three. Doors open at 7:00 pm for this 7:30 pm performance. Tickets are $10. Stream the concert live.“
Thollem’s solo piano work is a constant flow full of nuances and collisions of his studies of 350 years of keyboard musics and those found in the ever-changing environments along his perpetual travels. “Thollem McDonas does what few can: He combines extreme imagination with terrific post-classical chops and an ability to communicate through melody. A fresh, disciplined avant-pianist with an attractively extreme viewpoint.” (Greg Burk – LA Weekly)
“An intense and virtuosic keyboard improviser” (TimeOut, NY), Thollem ”inhabits a world uniquely his own, rhythmically, harmonically and formally. A true original.” (Terry Riley)
“The Sisters Three are: my brothers, my sisters, my challengers, my keepers, my fellow mossy stones, my companions in chaos.” – Huckleberry Grimm
The Sisters Three (Brothers Grimm + db pedersen), ‘so wither’d and so wild in their attire, that look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth,’ – on this autumnal equinox performance – invite you to both celebrate Summer’s end and to encourage the return of Fall. Bring elements of Autumn, memoirs of Fall. By time The Sisters Three convene this September 22nd, the current embers of Madison’s cicada choir will be totally absent as will all the anxious energy spun by Summer’s zeal. Provided silent sanctuary, The Sisters Three will pay special homage to those courageous leaves which cast off chlorophyll pretensions and reveal the wide spectrum of their honest selves.
For three years The Brothers Grimm have been heading the experimental music series “Tea & Improv” at Dobra Tea. Sadly, Dobra will close it’s doors this January, 2014. We’ll have one last show on Thursday 1/9 as a way to say thanks to all who have worked/come out to enjoy these events since 2011. DB, BC, & Eric will all perform short solo sets, as well as improvise together.
It can be difficult to find a welcoming platform for experimental & improvised music. Dobra has been our enthusiastic home base for much of this Madison experience. It has not simply been “a venue”, but a meeting place of disciplined philosophies, where music & tearoom perfectly alight in purpose – to have conversation. In a vibrant, hue-struck room with no internet or to-go options, the result is meaningful discussion with close friends. It was never the intent of our music to overpower the space (& people in it) to a hush, but rather to be another conversation & accept all happening sounds as music/inspiration. 3..2..1.. Now! ~ All conversation is improvisation. We fuel off the energy you give us and channel it back, vibrating the air. No sound is excluded from this Cageian discourse ~ kettle boils, clayware scrapes, somewhere a laugh, all is music.
Perhaps the most important element of performance in Dobra has been a public space for unknowing teagoers to encounter “avant-garde”//”difficult-edgy-freaky-‘nonmusic’music-skronky-improvised-noise…stuff”. We’re thankful for situations where people may come/go at any moment, have lively chit-chats, not feel they have to be classically-stuffy/know-the-rules, & happen upon experimental music over the flowing cup. Hearing such racketous free-for-all (beautiful to some…) on a record, coming at you through the speakers can be challenging for unpracticed ears – but having that be a live experience and seeing that the musician performing extended techniques is another breathing, sweating, emoting, human being that is trying to communicate something to you – is when this music becomes immediate & relateable. The more you as an audience give of your energy/vibes – the better the conversation is.
We’ve released a couple of albums at Dobra, including: Moonish Lodestar (2013) by Watercourse Quartet & Redolent Spires (2012) by The Borthers Grimm. Had wonderful performers such as: Watercourse Quartet w/ Ben Willis, Pat Reinholz (aka Weather Duo + Brothers Grimm); Lovely Socialite, db pedersen, Eric Miller, Thollem McDonas (aka Thollem Electric), Brian Tairaku Ritchie, Sult w/ Jacob Felix Heule, Guro Skumsnes Moe, Håvard Skaset; Timbre, Samuel Lockridge, Brother Stripes w/ Timothy Russell & Nick Zoulek; Prom Night Records w/ Brad Henkel, Nathaniel Morgan, & David Grollman; Dale Kaminski, Joey Molinaro, Zane Merritt, TJ Borden, Wrest Trio w/ Benjamin Bennett, Jack Wright, Evan Lipson; Stray Passage w/ Geoff Brady, Brennan Connors & more! – The tearoom has also played host to local Hindustani & Carnatic Indian Music group Saaz, Baroque & early western period instruments, & Yuri on the Russian domra.
Thanks to Qi Hong for fostering communitea.
Thank to the close friends who have come out over the years to support &/or participate in these happenings.
Thanks to all of the great Devoteas who have worked at Dobra & become a part of our lives.
