Author Archives: Ann O'Rourke

About Ear Spray

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“Classification”: Electro Acoustic Noise

Synthesizing electronics, acoustic percussion, voice, electric cello and videos into dynamic and strange aural landscapes and improvisations. Live processed video and vocals. Layering lots of different sounds. Occasional very short periods of melody and playing in Western time.

Band members – playing together since 2010!!
Carlos Jennings – Electronics, Conduction, and Composer
Ann O’Rourke – Processed Vocals, Strange processed Video, Electric Cello and Weird Ideas
Mark Pino – Entertainer and Intense Percussionist

1-26-14 Ann, Mark and Carlos

 

 

 

 

See videos of all our gigs at https://www.youtube.com/user/annorourke12  , starting with the first one in August, 2010!!

Bandcamp page:  https://earspray.bandcamp.com/

2019 Ear Spray Gigs

September 15 at Godwaffle Noise Pancakes, Noon to 2pm

Ann O’Rourke playing solo Electric Cello and Vocals Roland KP 12 Effects Box. Percussion Implements: chains, threaded rod , plumbing pipe, toilet brush and comb. Plus percussive cello, of course!!

The other two members of Ear Spray, Carlos Jennings and Mark Pino were not able to make it, so Ann did her Very First Solo!! But, she really missed them after playing together since 8/28/2010 in Ear Spray!! Many thanks to my cello teacher, Michael Graham in Oakland CA. Without his support I could have never done this!!

2018 Ear Spray Gigs

December 8 at Godwaffle Noise Pancakes, Noon to 2pm

Noisebridge Hackerspace 2169 Mission St
btwn 17/18th st
SF, CA 9411
Close to BART.

Good crowd. Lotsa fun!

Sept. 14 at Luggage Store Gallery San Francisco
With the Big Screen for videos!!

August 4  at Brutal SFX #83 at the Lab in San Francisco
Return to the Lab!!
Our first noise gig was at the Lab in 2010, a regular place for experimental music

Unfortunately, there was a change in management a few years ago and there
were no more big noise events until August 4, 2018. 8 bands played. A wide variety
of experimental and noise bands.  To see videos of other bands who played, go to https://www.youtube.com/BRUTALSFX and scroll down to Uploads Brutal SFX #83

Saturday, February 10th Stanford Day of Noise at 10-10:30AM 
24 hours of continuous live noize on the radio!! Our first time with electric cello!
Our second time playing at this event. Ann will be recording video so everyone can see how she is making her strange cello sounds using styrofoam, threaded rods, thimbles, etc.

Link to 2017 info http://kzsu.stanford.edu/dayofnoise/2017/

2017 Ear Spray gigs

10-8-17 Ear Spray with Electric Cello at Norcal Noise Fest in Sacramento CA

Ann O’Rourke – vocals and electric cello Mark Pino – cymbal The first time we played as a duo. Our electronic musician, Carlos Jennings, was on vacation. Our third time playing at the 21st Annual Norcal Noisefest. The video does not show Mark, our Entertainer, rolling on the floor with his cymbal but you can hear him. Darn!!

7-20-17 Ear Spray at Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco CA

3-3-17 Finnish Hall Berkeley CA All Tomorrow’s After Parties Benefit

We had a great time at the Finnish Hall.! Large room with domed ceiling and excellent acoustics.1 projector on the rear wall. and 2 on the ceiling. Two rear projectors had my videos. Other ceiling projector had 3 beefheart videos plus artwork images (Partial view). 3 evenings (Friday, Sat. Sun.) from 7 to 10 pm at the Finnish Kaleva Hall in Berkeley – 1970 Chestnut St. 6 Bands each evening. I did big projections on 2 ipads, each with different videos, for the first time!! Event info, including band lists, at: http://nextnow.edgebuzz.tv/

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10-10:30 AM on Saturday, February 4th 2017 at KZSU (live radio) 24-hour Day of Noise (Sorry, no videos at this event, live on the radio)

KZSU has an annual Day of Noise – 24 hours of straight of live improvised experimental / noise music.  They host the event in our studios on Saturday, February 4th 2017, 0000-1159.
This used to be an annual tradition at KZSU in the 90s.  We’ve had a successful revival run the last couple of years and we’re going for the 15th annual event this year.  Take a look at last year’s website and our archive of last year’s performances to get an idea.

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Friday, Saturday, Sunday –  March 4th, 5th, 6th 2017 from 7pm to 10pm 
Finn Hall (197 Chestnut street, Berkeley, Ca is the place) and
Mika Pontecorvo’s All Tomorrow’s After Parties. Semi-annual benefit. 1.5 days of bands. We used 3 projectors and two ipads with videos on the back walls and ceiling!! http://nextnow.edgebuzz.tv/

Ear Spray played at 7pm on Friday, March 4th



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2016 gigs.
See the videos all our gigs at https://www.youtube.com/user/annorourke12  , starting with the first one in August, 2010!!

 

November 13 2016, Saturday from noon to 2pm. Godwaffle Noise Pancakes at
Noisebridge Hackerspace 2169 Mission St
btwn 17/18th st
SF, CA 9411
Close to BART.

Good crowd. Lotsa fun!

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October 13, 2016. Thursday from 8pm to 10 pm. Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. Very close to BART. 1007 Market St., San Francisco. Come and see the changes on this part of Market Street. Plus hear some great music!!

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May 19, 2016, Thursday at 9pm at the Stork Club  in Oakland CA. Dive bar – lotsa fun. Mostly punk/rock/etc. They did’t throw tomatoes at us ;>  http://www.storkcluboakland.com/ We had a great time. Our first time at a dive bar!!!

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June 4; 2016, Friday at 9pm at Berkeley Arts Festival in Berkeley. 2 blocks from BART!! On University, very close to Cal campus. Mika Pontecorvo’s All Tomorrow’s After Parties. Semi-annual benefit. 2.5 days of bands. We did  3 projector videos on all the walls!! http://nextnow.edgebuzz.tv/

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1-9-16 OBAMA LOVES CAPTAIN BEEFHEART- NextNow’s Hardly Strictly Personal Benefit at Berkeley Arts, Berkeley, CA

SEE OBAMA AND TROUTMASTER REPLICA AT MINUTE 8:55!!
NextNow’s Hardly StrictlyPersonal 2016 benefit for Earthjustice and The Coalition On
Homelessness.One more evening of Post Beefheart weirdness!! Friday, January 15, at Berkeley Arts, starting at 7pm.

This annual event’s theme is “Post-Beefheart”. In the Captain Beefheart tradition of being “out there” we made some changes – Carlos played bass and harmonica, Ann used images of The Captain’s art work mixed with her videos, and didn’t do any percussion which was very hard for her. Soon after the beginning there is about a minute that shows what her ipad video software looks like. Touchviz was developed by the same person as Touchosc, a popular midi controller. The muffled male voice in the background is The Captain, modified by Carlos.
– Carlos Jennings – bass guitar, harmonica, electronics
– Mark Pino – percussion, electronics
– Ann O’Rourke – vocals, video

Videos of all performances, including the first one at Skronkathon in 2010, are at
www.youtube.com/annorourke12 !!

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2015 Ear spray gigs

Ear Spray – Ann O’Rourke percussion/vocals/live processed video samples, Mark Pino percussion and Carlos Jennings electronics

9-2-15 Studio Grand in Oakland, CA – 10PM With surround Video from 3  projectors!! www.studiograndoakland.org/

8-16-15  Godwaffle Noise Pancakes in Oakland, CA, Noon to 2PM – Noisebridge Hacker Space in San Francisco, C7-25-15  Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St #170, Oakland, CA https://oaklandoctopus.org/ music!!!

May 4, 2015 at 8 PM at the Spice Monkey Restaurant near downtown Oakland, CA www.spicemonkeyrestaurant.com  .
The series – Avant-Jazz & Experimental Noise Every Monday – Sponsored VAMP music art and consignment & Oakland Freedom Jazz Society Good parking, good food, good venue, and good food. There was a birthday party so we were quiet and they were loud. There were some kids there so I played science videos, which they loved!! Lotsa fun!! 

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Ann O’Rourke’s videos with other groups

Ann’s videos are live processing of video samples – 100% improvised with the live music being played!! 

Recent 2015 gigs: 

7-26-15 at the Lab in San Francisco at BrutalSFX. Videos for all the groups with Bill Thibeault alternating on videos.

May 23, 2015 Saturday, Ann O’Rourke is did processed video with Crows&Clouds at the festival.
NextNow presents ALL TOMORROWS AFTER-PARTIES 2015 – their third benefit festival :: this is to benefit The Homeless Action Center…MAY 22-23-24 at Berkeley Arts Festival http://www.berkeleyartsfestival.com in Berkeley CA.

January 28 & 29 2015 – Ann did the videos on Day 1 and 2 and Bill Thibeault did the 3rd and 4th days. at Second Act in San Francisco http://www.secondactsf.com for the 4-day Fog Music Festival 

– Videos for all the groups at Godwaffle Noise Pancakes 3-14-15 noon- 2pm at Noisebridge Hackerspace in San Francisco for all the bands.No video recording.
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To see videos of Ear Spray’s performances, go to www.youtube.com/annorourke12 !! All the way back to our first gig in August, 2010 at Skronkathon in Oakland, CA !! A few of them of had severe technical difficulties so we did not save the videos ;> I really miss those all-acoustic performances I used to do before I started using stuff that had to be plugged in. Drums and voice never failed to work!!

2014 Gigs
– November 16, 2014 in Pacifica CA at Fog Music Festival
– October 23, 2014 in San Francisco, CA (right side of page)

– October 5, 2014 in Sacramento, CA Norcal Noisefest
– September 17, 2014 in San Francisco, CA
– July 18, 2014 in Berkeley CA
– May 31, 2014  in Berkeley CA (right side of first page)
– January 31, 2014 in Oakland CA (right side of first page)

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To see more Ear Spray videos, go to http://www.youtube.com/annorourke12
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Ann, Mark, and Carlos after a recent Noise Gig at Live Changing Minstry in Oakland, CA!!
We Love Noise!!!

1-26-14 Ann, Mark and Carlos

Ear Spray – synthesizing electronics, acoustic percussion, voice and videos into dynamic and strange aural landscapes and improvisations.

Type of music: “Electroacoustic Noise” seems to fit the best. Electronic and acoustic instruments plus vocals (with sound processing) and videos (with lots of processing). Occasional very short periods of melody and playing in Western time. Layering lots of different sounds at the same time. Science videos with strange processing. Galaxies and nebulas, molecules, plants, blood and cancer cells, etc. Plus lots of effects, of course!!

 

Ear Spray – the tinny sound that leaks out of someone else’s earphones.

Sounds like: No one else
Web site: http://www.earspraymusic.com
Contact info: ann@appraisaltoday.com (Ann O’Rourke)
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Band members
Carlos Jennings – Electronics, Conduction, and Composer
Ann O’Rourke – Strange Vocals, Effects/Mixer,Live processed video samples and “weird ideas” person
Mark Pino – Entertainer and Intense Percussionist

Ann O’Rourke and Mark Pino – electronicized cymbals and Nunnish large resonant metal plate, found objects, walls, furniture, etc.
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Band history

Ear Spray started 10 years ago when Carlos Jennings and Ann O’Rourke met at the Luggage Store Gallery’s (San Francisco, CA) weekly avant garde/experimental music series, run by Outsound Presents, happening every Thursday for over 20 years. Mark Pino joined the group in early 2013. The more percussionists the better!!

They all know how to play as a group. No solos, no “stars”, just improvised music that is different every time they play.

All three of them played many years in “rhythm sections” in rock and jazz groups. Carlos played bass and keyboards. Ann and Mark played drumset.

November 16, 2014 at Fog Music Concert Pacifica CA

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November 16, 2014 at Fog Music Concert
1-6 PM at Winters Tavern 1522 Francisco Blvd Pacifica, CA.

Home of Fog!! Located on the Pacific Ocean, west of San Francisco, with lotsa fog. It is part of a series of Fog Music events. We played in a bar with loud sounds from the bar patrons. I love the ambience!!

More info on the bands:
http://encyclotronic.com/calendar/event/151-fog-music-concert/

Videos of all 8 bands:
https://www.youtube.com/user/annorourke12 – scroll down to playlists

Audio for all 8 bands:
https://auralfilms.bandcamp.com/album/fog-music-live-2

 

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7-18-14 Ear Spray at Berkeley Arts

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Our next gig: 3 day NorCal Noisefest 2014 in Sacramento, CA
We are playing Sunday October 5 at 2:30 p.m.
See you there!!!

http://www.norcalnoisefest.com/

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3 groups – Very different Electronic Noise
– Aaron Oppenheim – laptop. Not the usual drone. Very creative!
– Rubber (() Cement – Very, very funny!! Upstaged all of us with his Big costume and leading the audience outside with him down University Ave.!!
– Ear Spray – electronics, weird vocals and videos, percussion

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Aaron Oppenheim, an American-Canadian Canadian-American currently based in Oakland, who improvises sounds from his laptop. His music straddles the line between noise, drone, and glitch, always emphasizing liveness and in-the-momentishness.
http://www.aaronoppenheim.com

Rubber (() Cement – Realizes all tires as sentient animals covered in stamped hieroglyphs. The world is a reading surface-ribbon for any number of distributed microscopic eyes.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…

Ear Spray – Synthesizing electronics, acoustic percussion, voice and videos into dynamic and strange aural landscapes and improvisations. Science videos with strange processing. Galaxies and nebulas, sharks, molecules, plants, blood and cancer cells, etc. Plus lots of effects, of course!!
– Carlos Jennings — Electronics and Conduction
– Ann O’Rourke — Vocals, Videos, Effects/Mixer, Percussion and Instagator
– Mark Pino — Entertainer and Intense Percussionist
http://www.earspraymusic.com

Ear Spray 5-31-14 Berkeley Arts, Berkeley CA – Homeless Benefit

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Ann O’Rourke – Instigator, Vocals, Video, Percussion
Mark Pino – Intense Percussion
Carlos Jennings – Conduction and Electronics

We were one of the 17 groups at NextNow Festival – “All Tomorrows’ After-Parties – Jazz and Experimental Music Benefit for Homeless Action Center” (on Facebook) from noon to 11PM 5-31-14, put on by Impresario Mika Pontecorvo!! Facebook link:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1436968196545772/

This video was recorded by Charles Smith, who recorded all the groups!! If you see a white haired man holding a video camera on a tripod, that’s Charles. He records a lot of performances. Check out his other recordings at https://www.youtube.com/user/TheHermitThrush Ann first met him last year when he was recording at the 2013 Outsound New Music Summit.The 2014 Summit is July 22-27 in San Francisco. http://www.outsound.org/summit/summit

Godwaffle Noise Pancakes 1-26-14. Lotsa fun!!

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There were 5 bands, playing about 20 minutes each. I put all the videos on my blog (click below). I really liked the variety – Together (from NYC), the first group, had 4-5 players with dancers/movement, electronics, spoken word, sax, other instruments. DemonSleeper (Andrea Buschman) played various electronic devices. Slusser played a wind instrument that looked like a clarinet and electronics. Ear Spray played fourth. Liver Cancer (reunited), the last group, is a popular harsh noise group that had an encore.

After almost a year of working on videos, Ear Spray finally performed with my live videos!! It was part of a series called Godwaffle Noise Pancakes, which is usually from noon to 2pm in San Francisco, typically at a art exhibit space called the Lab in the Mission district. We had performed several times at the Lab at Godwaffle and other series.

This time Godwaffle was at Life Changing Ministry in Oakland, in a former church. It had not been held in Oakland for about 3 years. I really liked the Oakland location as it is close to Alameda, where I live. Reportedly, it had not been a church for many years but still had a church-like entrance and had been rented to tenants as a house. Over the past few years, experimental musicans, especially of the noise variety, have been scheduling events there. There is lots of equipment, including a pull down screen, which worked great for my videos.

List of perfomers
Together! (NYC)
DemonSleeper
SLUSSER
Ear Spray
Liver Cancer

More info on the groups, with links, is below.

All the acts except Together were recorded by Kevin Hobbs, an excellent videographer.

Links to videos for 1-26-14

Together (1 minute) recorded by brutalsfx

Demon Sleeper –

Slusser  –

Ear Spray –

Liver Cancer

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Liver Cancer
Bobby Almon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfVYZ6ZensQ
& Geordan White
White also runs Audible Disease, a popular effects pedal company in which they build and design diabolical effects pedals and synthesizers tailored to noise and experimental artists.
http://thenothing2.bandcamp.com/
http://www.reverbnation.com/livercancer
Facebook: Livercancer Harshnoise

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DemonSleeper

Heavy sedated distorted pulses and hypnotic vocals based on nightmares and lucid dreamscapes.
https://soundcloud.com/demonsleeper
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SLUSSER

David Slusser’s work history ranges from collaborations with John Zorn to music editing for Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, and co-composing with David Lynch. Delight… demonstrates why — Slusser has a sense of cinematic composition and sound collage that is simply amazing. “Kubrick” is a wide-screen tone-poem that (like all of Slusser’s work) goes beyond any sense of “experimentalism” into something concrete and fully realized, while “Dragon” accompanies the sound of the Chinese language with cymbals, bells, and bowed metallic objects to create sounds that capture the entire image and sense of the dragon in eastern mythology. Other tracks assemble resonances and decays of piano tones into concrete compositions that are as beautiful as they are simply fascinating. An excellent collection that makes your average “experimentalist” seem completely misguided.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/delight-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-mw0001009399
http://perkis.com/interviews/slusser-ivw.html
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Together! (NYC)

Two thirty-year-old schleps performing laughable 21st century clown music for and in response to a hypercritical post-human “white” western consciousness.
www.cdarecords.com
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Here’s the link to the facebook event page https://www.facebook.com/events/637085793016780/?ref_dashboard_filter=calendar

Videos from space station at our 10/20/13 gig!!

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I saw Gravity this weekend, the new movie about astronauts in space. I’m a big science fiction fan. It was one  of the best movies I have ever seen. I have been working on video projections for the past 3 months for Ear Spray gigs. I will be using two videos with views of earth from the space station for my first time doing videos at our performance 10/20/13 at Berkeley Arts at 8pm. I didn’t know about Gravity when I first started using the space station videos. What a coincidence!!

In my college years I studied science and worked in labs for 7 years after graduating. I still really like science. Almost all the videos I am using are science-oriented – sea urchin eggs, cloud formations, water patterns, weather patterns, molecules, DNA, etc. With effects, of course ;>

I’m doing my first videos with Ear Spray on 10/20/13. Finally got set up with a projector and ipad software. I studied video production and did video documentaries back in the 80s, after doing still black and white photography for quite a while. The quality of the videos was way inferior to film and the equipment was very expensive to rent, so I quit after a few years. I really liked editing but it was way too slow and clunky. Fast forward to today. For the past three years I have been recording my performances (and a few other groups) on my iphone and posting to youtube. I use imovie for editing. Don’t need anything fancy for youtube!!

I have been practicing doing videos and vocals at the Tuesday evening free jazz/improv jam at Berkeley Arts for about 6 weeks. If I can do videos with the wide variety of instruments and playing styles on Tuesday nights, I can do them most anywhere. Fortunately, the vocals are very easy for me and I don’t have to think about them much.

I will be doing videos, percussion, and vocals at the same time. I hope my head does not explode ;>

If you’re on Facebook, here’s a link to more info.
https://www.facebook.com/events/614458851939175/

1975 vintage analog syth-Doug Lynner at Luggage Store Gallery 8-1-13

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lsg 8-1-13 - 10Lynner’s Mystery Serge looked almost new, even though it was originally built in 1975. It had been renovated and upgraded. Even the patch cords looked new. The sounds were pristine and melodic and were simple and easy to follow, which I like.
Usually when I see an old analog synth, it looks pretty beat up.

He had another “box” with knobs but I did not write down the name of it.

He also played slide guitar and synth keyboard at the same time. Interesting and unusual.

Doug is definitely an “old timer” in the synth world!!

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Here’s the bio from Outsound event page on Facebook
Doug Lynner performs, composes and records using vintage and contemporary analog modular synthesizers, digital and virtual synthesizers and traditional instruments. Of special note is Doug’s Mystery Serge, an amazingly versatile analog modular synthesizer designed by West Coast synthesizer pioneer, Serge Tcherepnin.

Created in 1975, the Mystery Serge has been painstakingly conserved and upgraded and stands more than well in comparison to contemporary analog modular synthesizers. Its unique design gave rise to “patch programmability,” the ability to reconfigure a single module for many different uses by patching it differently.
Doug Lynner’s music is based upon the notion of “sound for sound’s sake”

He explores the intrinsic value of sound through mixtures of ambient, avant garde, rhythmic and soundscape genres.
In addition to his avant garde, experimental composition and music journalism, Doug is a pioneer in live rock performance with synthesizers and a founding member of the synth pop recording acts LEM, Mobius and Invisible Zoo.

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From his Web site:
Doug received a BFA in Music Composition from the California Institute of the Arts where his mentors were Morton Subotnick, Harold Budd, James Tenney, Leonid Hambro and Nicholas England. There he was deeply immersed in music technology and compositional processes as well as being instructed in world music genres such as south Indian flute, Gamelan Orchestra and Pigmy and Bushmen rhythmic singing and playing.

Link: http://neatnetnoise.com/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/doug-4

He sometimes performs in the Santa Cruz area.
Disclaimer: I am not an electronic musician but love the sound of those vintage analog synths!! My band partner in Ear Spray, Carlos Jennings, plays one regularly.