David Linton, drums and Zeena Parkins, electric harp duo and the band Blind Idiot God in a double bill presented by Roulette in collaboration with and at The Kitchen.
New York based electro-acoustic composer / improviser Zeena Parkins is a pioneer of contemporary harp practices. Using expanded techniques, object preparations, and electronic processing she has re-defined the instrument’s capacities. Concurrently, Parkins self-designed a series of one-of-a kind electric instruments. 2019 update: Parkins’ awards include John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for Composition, Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, DAAD Artist Residency and Fellowship and many more. While scoring many compositions for concert, dance, and film, her band associations include Skeleton Crew with Fred Frith, Bjork, Phantom Orchard with Ikue Mori, and Butch Morris, among many.
David Linton is a Temporal Media Artist traveling the vectors of sound, light, subculture, media ontology, and signal flow. Since his arrival on the downtown NYC experimental arts scene at the end of the 1970’s Linton has consistently sustained a multi-faceted reputation as an innovative and influential collaborator and curator as well as a driven solo performer. A drummer for years with Lee Ranaldo, Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca, Elliott Sharp projects, around 1990 he had for the most part withdrawn from performing in the live percussion vein to concentrate on the vocabulary of entirely electronic music and media and the resultant paradigm shift in performance priorities (bicamRL AV).
Blind Idiot God is an instrumental rock trio formed in 1982 in St. Louis, Missouri by guitarist Andy Hawkins, bassist Gabriel Katz, and drummer Ted Epstein. The phrase “blind idiot god” comes from horror writer H. P. Lovecraft’s description of the god Azathoth. Their often improvisational musical style combines influences from punk rock, noise music, 20th-century classical music, heavy metal, dub, free jazz, and funk. After hearing their self-produced cassette demo, Greg Ginn of Black Flag signed them to SST Records, and the band moved to Brooklyn in 1986.
