Friday December 29th, 8pm $10 suggested donation
The Messthetics is a new instrumental trio with Brendan Canty (D), Joe Lally (B), and Anthony Pirog (G). Brendan Canty and Joe Lally were the rhythm section of the band Fugazi from it’s inception in 1987 to it’s period of hiatus in 2002. This is the first band they’ve had together since that time. Anthony Pirog continues to shape, tear down and reshape his unique conceptions of what guitar can be. The Messthetics is an unsupervised sonic playground that is driven primarily by Anthony’s imagination, and his not-so-latent desire to torture his rhythm section with odd time signatures. The three of them, Canty, Pirog, and Lally, are The Messthetics.”
Dan Joseph is a free-lance composer, curator and writer based in New York City. He began his career as a drummer in the vibrant punk scene of his native Washington, DC. During the late 1980s, he was active in the experimental tape music underground, producing ambient-industrial works for independent labels in the U.S. and abroad. He spent the ‘90s in California where he studied at CalArts and Mills College. His principal teachers include Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran and Mel Powell. Equally influential were his studies with Terry Riley during several workshops in California and Colorado.
A New York resident since 2001, Dan’s work has been presented at Merkin Concert Hall (NYC), Diapason Gallery for Sound (NYC), Roulette (NYC), Issue Project Room (NYC) The Kitchen (NYC) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (CA), New Langton Arts (CA), Headlands Center for the Arts (CA) and other venues. He has received commissions from several ensembles and performers, including Gamelan Son of Lion, the sfSoundGroup, baritone Thomas Buckner, and clarinetist Matt Ingalls. Dan has held residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center.
As an artist who embraces the musical multiplicity of our time, Dan works simultaneously in a variety of media and contexts, including instrumental chamber music, free improvisation, and various forms of electronica and sound art. Since the late 1990s, the hammer dulcimer has been the primary vehicle for his music. As a performer he is active with his own chamber ensemble, The Dan Joseph Ensemble, as well as in various improvisational collaborations and as an occasional soloist.